SVC: I was trying to point out that this is very effective even if someone was to try extra hard misuse it.
It's a good thing you made... seems to me.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 03:00 am: Edit

Yes, I was very worried about the spreadsheet-style views as described by Paul S. But I am probably satisfied with the new style. We should define a few ships (unimportant ones, or ones that aren't in the client currently, so we don't lose the existing SSDs if there's a problem) in the new style and play some games with them to see if anything needs to be updated. Some things, like figuring out if your ship meets the definition of crippled, will be a lot easier with the new format. And I can definitely write the code to update the SSDs to the new format (as long as the existing graphic outline is still usable); I only need documentation on the formats (or the SSD read/write code) from Paul. The only hard part is squishing the new boxes into odd corners they might not easily fit in. Of course, it would be great if Paul just did this (since he has all the code and the SSDs already) but I'm happy to do it.

There are a couple of kinks. First, we need a way to indicate hastily repaired boxes. I would settle for highlighting the whole quantity box in yellow with a tooltip that describes the actual status. Second, the number of boxes should be indicated as, for instance, "Left Warp: 8/15" to indicate the number of boxes remaining and also the original number. Otherwise it will be hard to tell how much damage you've taken.

Sensor, scanner, damcon probably still need the full tracks because it's not just important how many boxes you have, but what the individual numbers are in each box (especially damcon, for EDR). Kind of like how there need to be multiple groups of phasers since they all have different firing arcs.

The premium fee thing, product code stickers or whatever, can all be integrated into a system that will eliminate the need for delays adding ships to SFBOL and also bring in more money for ADB. It also eliminates the problem with "we want to see half the SFBOL subscribers buy the product before we allow access to it" since there is no (current) way to see who has the product and even if there was, people who have bought the product can't do anything for the other subscribers who didn't buy it; nobody will want to buy products simply hoping that enough other people buy them that they'll eventually get to use them. Instead, you do what MMO and other online-only games do for their add-on content (and these systems have essentially no piracy).

It works something like this:
Make print versions available as normal; nothing changes there.
Make the rules section (only) for new products available on E23. Including the R-sections.
Make the SSDs available in print, or in the new SFBOL format. They would be on SFBOL right away (or as soon as they get made).

Then you grant access to the ships on SFBOL as follows:
* Everyone has a set of flags on their account indicating which products they have access to. Every ship knows what product it belongs to. Everyone (has to) be granted access to the "legacy" products (anything that has already been sold). Future products, however, get the flag. If you don't have the flag, you can't control a ship from that product. (I think you should be able to play AGAINST a player who is using a ship you don't own).
* If you're an online-only player, you can simply buy access to the product. In exchange for paying some money, you get the flag set on your account that allows you to use those ships. You can combine this with the E23 version of the rules. This costs ADB $0 in printing, inventory, and taxes, so the prices could be lower (probably should be, since products purchased this way can't be used to play tabletop - no SSDs). However, it's all profit, so ADB still makes more money.
* Otherwise, there's a sticker on the front of the SSD book of each printed product with a code on it (but it's not a Windows-style "activation code" that can be cracked). When you enter this code along with your SFBOL username and password, it sets the flag on your account that you have access to that product. Each code can only be used once, and the server knows what the codes are.
* You could even do this with higher resolution, like activating each ship individually for a $0.50 (or whatever) fee. This looks more like a Facebook game. Could even make people buy credits that they could then spend, XBox Live style (call them "dilithium crystals" - that Fed CA costs 50 dilithium crystals, but today only the D6 is on sale for 30!). This is sort of a ha-ha-only-serious proposal - but maybe not worth doing with the player volume SFBOL has. Would work great if there were ten thousand players though.
* If the number of people buying the product greatly exceeds the number of SFBOL subscribers, then Jean's previous concern about a trade in bootleg codes might crop up (since the codes have no value to the owner, they can afford to give them away). Each code is single use, so this would be limited to the case of someone who only plays tabletop buying the product and giving the online code to their friend who does play online. On the other hand, the fact that there are now these codes that give "SFBOL SSD access valued at $10" it might increase the perceived value of SFBOL and bring in new online players.

I'm not sure if this problem is even worth worrying about, but if it is, you could simply do away with the stickers and codes and just set the flag only on people who buy the product through the SFBOL online store. This is somewhat worse for everyone, though: Players who come to SFBOL only after already buying products might not be able to use them, and SFBOL subscribers will be discouraged from buying through stores. So this variation has customer service pain. Better to just put a sticker on every print version, IMO.

This proposal also has the advantage of giving ADB more accurate information about how much SFBOL contributes to their sales. Like, the royalties paid to ADB on account of my SFBOL subscription are probably not that much - I've been a subscriber for about eight years, so I've paid probably $320 in SFBOL fees (worth every penny), and if ADB gets... wild guess, half? Then that's $160. But I've also bought at least $500 worth of other SFU stuff I wouldn't have bought if not for SFBOL. So ADB has made probably twice as much money from my SFBOL account as they think they have (the exact amount depending on what their royalty and profit margin is, but the point is, it's significant).

Added: This is a great opportunity to fix the current horribleness with fighter SSDs (just try to load the rails on an F-111 and you'll see what I mean).

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 11:07 am: Edit

I like Sheap's ideas, except for that xbox stuff.

It really is a straightforward technological solution.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 12:40 pm: Edit

I like the new format SSD's but this XBox live pricing scheme I dont like at all.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 02:10 pm: Edit

I'm liking the idea that you cannot use a new product on SFBOL unless you bought a copy. Leanna says she can confirm the sales but there is no practicable way to confirm a sale not made in our web store, so you may just have to buy the products there. We don't put stuff on e23 for months so that's not really part of a solution at this time.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 02:18 pm: Edit

If the activation code sticker was inside on the front cover of a shrink wrapped product you could sell them in retail stores. You might contact Ken Burnside at Ad Astra and ask him about the sticker and codes that go on Ad Astra games products.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Suggested much earlier, but...just include a product code in the intro blurb of each copy of a release put out. If doing print-on-demand printing for the SSD books, I know a lot of POD options have a form field capability where you could put generated codes in the books so make each book effectively a unique key to get the license to those ships.

(Or if your particular POD cannot do that, or it's not something your technical folks cannot implement, could just go down the road of using a simple envelope sticker with the code on it. Those are *trivial* to form field populate in a Word or Pagemaker doc and roll out sheets of - just put a sticker in each book, then. Customer buys it, sees the code and enters it in SFBOL and gets access to the ships, done! As each code would be unique and could only be 'activated' in one SFBOL account, there would be fairly minimal risk of someone coping it from their book to a website or something like that...and if they did, they wouldn't be able to use it, themselves, so the net result would still be that there are no more users with access to the ships in SFBOL than there are books sold...)

EDIT: Ninja'd by Shawn! But the topic has been brought up before, so...

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 02:43 pm: Edit

It would be great for new products to have a code like that and if it gives us access to the ships online I know ill be more willing to spend money on the product since it will unlock the new ships for me.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 03:33 pm: Edit

DEAD HORSE WARNING: Activation codes on stickers or printed in the product are NOT really a practical way of doing things. I am NOT creating a market for codes. We are NOT going that way. Our pod system does not have a "code field". The current system of "Paul, I bought E3. Leanna, Josh says he bought E3, did he? Yes, Paul he did. Ok, Josh, I set your file so that you can now use the E3 ships." works just fine, and is more secure.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 03:36 pm: Edit

Steve. how's that gonna work with Grandfathering in previous purchases?

GOOD QUESTION, BUT we thought it obvious that we're talking about new products here.

how will that work with Game-store purchases?

ALREADY ANSWERED BEFORE YOU ASKED IT: Leanna says she can confirm the sales but there is no practicable way to confirm a sale not made in our web store, so you may just have to buy the products there.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 04:00 pm: Edit

I think its for the new modules.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 04:04 pm: Edit

The XBox style purchasing was only a half-serious idea proposed mostly to show what could be done.

The problem with asking Leanna who bought what is that she doesn't know if people bought the product in a store. Which is going to cause major problems.

I guess you could have people send you a photo of their copy of the SSD book sitting next to their driver's license or something to prove they own it. (Note: This is actually less secure than codes, but can potentially be used with existing products; it's less work for some people, more work for others.)

ALREADY ANSWERED BEFORE YOU ASKED IT: Leanna says she can confirm the sales but there is no practicable way to confirm a sale not made in our web store, so you may just have to buy the products there.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 05:21 pm: Edit

I said above that there is no way to deal with store purchases, so you'll have to buy them on the cart if you want to use them on SFBOL. I don't have a practicable alternative.

Why are you asking what I already answered?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 05:31 pm: Edit

How about a YouTube video of me purchasing the product?




Ducks and runs like heck!!

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 06:16 pm: Edit

So ive purchased hundreds of dollars of stuff that will now be completly useless to me because of this change.

Im expected to pay for the very same modules again all the way back to basic set and AM.

Thats not in my budget im afraid, and will probably cause me to stop playing this game. Which is so unfortunate because I enjoy it.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 06:43 pm: Edit

I'm not asking anything, I'm suggesting an alternate method of verifying ownership which works with every product back to basic set and also with game store purchases. Obviously it is not 100% perfect (nothing is). But buying only from the online store has problems too, which have already been covered.

To be clear, the proposal is: To get access to a ship module on SFBOL, you send in a photo of your ID sitting next to the SSD book you want access to (you can further increase security by requiring other stuff in the photo, which I'm happy to explain if requested). Paul can handle this entirely on his own without involving Leanna at all, and it doesn't matter whether you bought it online or not. There is no reason this couldn't be combined with the "ask Leanna" method in case you did happen to buy something online, but "ask Leanna" becomes more or less a convenience.

This is reasonably decent security. It doesn't prevent people from taking a picture of their ID with their friend's SSD book, but people can use their friends' SSD books on tabletop too. And certainly, the bad guys are not going to participate in this (can you imagine a pirate sending in a picture of his driver's license? Pretty brave pirate. And all he'd get are the new online format SSDs anyway.) There is no possible secondary market because there are no anonymous codes to trade. It is certainly much better than what exists now. Nobody is going to be going around gloating that they can play online without owning any of the stuff.

It also means that products published before there even WAS an online store can be used with the system. It's not necessary to grandfather in every existing product. Which means some people might buy entire products, or at least SSD books, that they didn't already have. Which means more sales.

Keep in mind that I don't know what percentage of sales go through game stores vs. the online store. But previous comments make me think that game stores still constitute a significant quantity of sales volume. Anti-piracy measures that exclude legitimate owners from using the product - not only by accident but actually by design - are obviously bad. I can't say how many players would be harmed. I wouldn't be - I always buy new products from the online store and have for several years - but I doubt that every SFBOL player can say that.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 07:01 pm: Edit

Klunky, but I suppose people that have hard-copy SSD modules could scan / photo the front over with something like a phone bill laying on top (to prove the owner's ID), and e-mail / snail-mail that to Leanna. I'm sure there's still a way to cheat the system, but I don't think it'd be easy.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 07:56 pm: Edit

Josh: We're talking about future modules, not old ones. Sheesh, nobody ever said anything about old ones. We've been talking about NEW products for as long as we've been talking.

William: Not workable, grossly easy to fake. One guy, one copy, pass the book around, dozens of people use it to take a photo. Hell, email a PDF of one page around. Other companies have already found this method is flagrantly cheated and don't use it.

Garth: It would be incredibly easy to cheat the system.

Guys, remember, this is not a new conversation. We've been having it for almost a year. Here at ADB, we've spent hours trying to find a way to support store sales because we've always supported retailers. (Not onlline discounters; if you buy from those slime devils you deserve what you get.) We've talked to other companies who have had similar issues. They all report that the stickers/code numbers are a joke as they're passed around, bought, sold, all over the place. The whole "photograph of your ID and the product" is another joke that had two other publishers laughing outrageously as they reported some of the really funny fake "documentation" they've been given. One even reported a hostile game store owner who asked why so many people asked if they could borrow a copy of a game for a minute while they cell phone photographed it. You've spent the last hour trying to think of stuff that I've thought of and rejected months ago.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 07:58 pm: Edit

Guys, remember that I said that we wanted to keep the rest of the horses in the barn? What is out is out, so we are talking about only the modules not already on SFBOL. That's not many. Please don't get worried that you have to prove ownership back to the dark ages when the SSDs were carved in granite.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 08:15 pm: Edit

I misunderstood what products you were going to require proof of ownership of, my apologies I dont want to not be able to play SFB so I am very happy to hear that it will be only the newer modules.

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 09:44 pm: Edit

Alright. So to get this straight:

1) The conversation originally opened up with people wanting to have the new/more stuff in SFBOL.
2) It was passed around that new stuff was not getting put on SFBOL because Steve didn't want to feed the pirates.

NOTES BY SVC: THE FREELOADERS ARE 100 TIMES AS COSTLY AS THE PIRATES, BUT YEAH, PIRATES WERE BAD TOO.

3) We then beat the horse named "How to stop feeding the pirates".

NOTE BY SVC: SAID PROBLEM BEING SOLVED LAST NOVEMBER WHEN I WAS SHOWN (AND APPROVED) THE THIRD GENERATION SSD.

4) Steve's ahead of us, been thinking about it, and has told us to cool it.
5) Now we wonder how to get new/more stuff in SFBOL

And the cycle repeats.

So. *Are* we going to see new/more stuff on SFBOL? If I try to help with the SSD-on-SFBOL project, am I wasting my time?

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 10:20 pm: Edit

Matthew, did you not see the message from SVC at 5:21? Folks would have to buy the module from ADB's storefront so that Leanna could tell Paul to turn on the module's SSDs. That's how new stuff would work. Old stuff is grandfathered in.

SVC has contacted Paul Franz to see how we can get the process of changing the SSDs moving faster. While we aren't doing this by snail mail, email takes time and businesses (such as Paul's and SVC's) tend to like things in writing. This takes time.

Therefore, you won't get your answer tonight. It may take several days to work this out. One thing you can be sure of -- you will be kept in the loop.

By Josh Driscol (Gfb) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 10:22 pm: Edit

It doesnt sound like its going to be a waste of time since we will eventually get enough SSD's converted to make new products possible.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 10:27 pm: Edit

Jean, I thought they used clay tables back then. Or was it cave paintings?


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 11:33 pm: Edit

Clay tablets, Garth. Cave paintings were Jagdpanther.

What's going to happen, I would assume, is that the process of making new third-generation SSDs will get rolling.

As it moves forward, some effort will include new products being added, but the new products will only be allowed in third-gen and must be "manually enabled" so you have to have the high-sign from Leanna to use them. That' covers products new to SFBOL, not just products new to the product line starting today. If you bought one of those in a brick and mortar store, we may try to come up with something (but no promises we can). If you bought it on line from a non-ADB source, you're going to be out of luck. You know very well how ADB feels about that online discount pond scum.

The situation is a little more complex than the steps noted above, as it involves two separate issues, both of which involve people getting SFU products for free on SFBOL (some new, lots and lots of old) which have (along with pirate re-uploads, a much smaller issue) collectively cost the company over $50,000 and probably over $100,000 since the "second generation" SSDs appeared (which, again, ADB never authorized or even knew about.. [Funny that absolutely nobody pointed this situation out to ADB, until somebody did tell us (when was that, two or three years ago) and it took a four-hour argument to stop Leanna from permanently shutting down SFBOL on the spot). I seriously did NOT like having to spend the night on the sofa because she was so frakking pissed at you guys over that one. But otherwise, you would not have had SFBOL for years now. If SFBOL starts (again) ruining my marriage, kiss it good bye. That may sound harsh, but the reality is, I'd very likely have more money in the bank if there had never been an SFBOL. We need to make sure that it never damages the company again. (We make VERY little from SFBOL. It exists as a service for our beloved customers, not as a money-making enterprise. Assuming that there is no further damage, it will take SFBOL another 12-25 years to balance the losses it has caused.)