Re: Babylon 5 Wars Fleet Action review

----- Original Message -----
From: Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com>
To: <gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: Babylon 5 Wars Fleet Action review

> >--- "Tom.McCarthy" <Tom.McCarthy@cbu.xwavesolutions.com> wrote:
> >> So, I was a little quick to pick on Mike Llaneza and Matt Seidl. 
They
both
> >> happen to be mentioned as playtesters, and they're both players who
I've
> >> seen as active on this group and others for many years.  Of course
they're
> >> not responsible for the problems I identified, but I thought they
might
have
> >> seen some of the material that the author was obviously thinking
about
and
> >> obviously didn't write down.
> >
> >
> >Mentioned as playtesters.... in the rulebook ?
> >
>
> Yep! You, Matt and Roger Gerrish (with his name spelt wrong!) were the
> names in the B5FA playtest credits that I recognised.

I know this is a late comment to this thread, I'm in the midst of a move
from Nottingham to Portsmouth.
I'm incredibly surprised I recieved a playtest mention, I arrived on the
scene late and duly downloaded the playtest rules.
My only contribution was I think  two unanswered requests for rules
clarification.
At that point some testers where questioning fundemental games mechanics
issues, yet the game was being advertised and pushed into production.
(No
doubt AOG were under some pressure to deliver so I sympathise with
them),
but in no way could I visualise FA to be in any form to publish.

I have to say when I first read the draft (I have not seen the final
version...probably won't bother after reading the 'rave' reviews)
I couldn't believe how clunky the system was. I sat down with some
friends
to try and play through a simple scenario,
What seemed like 100s of die rolls later I realized I might just as well
have been playing B5Ws convoluted mechanics. No thanks thought I, it
seems
that  Full Thrust/EFSB will remain the only 'playable' game representing
the
B5 Universe.

Like other testers I have also been involved in other projects, FB1 and
more
recently Battlefleet Gothic and in both cases (despite oppinions on the
Evil
Empire) the playtesting was thorough and involved and there was
confidence
that the games/updates worked and would produce a playable game.
However after my brief experience with FA I am not surprised that the
final
product may have problems.

Its a shame really, I loved the B5 universe and did like some of the
Background things AOG produced to support B5W. I genuinly hoped that the
new
ruleset would be a game to do justice to the TV series.  I hope they
learn
some lessons from this. Maybe its the curse of owning the licence.

Regards.....................And hello to Indy