I would love to run an SFW event at conventions, like Origins.

This would easy enough to do for the most part. Get signups. Create a game with the signups. Setup a time table (like every 2 hours) to submit turns. Execute turns and print them out. Handout the printouts and have people do their diplomacy and other things in person and have them submit turns and type on the orders and run it for a set number of turns and the person with the most sites/sectors (use the Die Hard algorithm to calculate) and declare a winner.

But I would like to have it more of a public thing. So that it would give the game more attention. Like having a big map that gets colored in as people take control of each sector. Maybe have contested sectors with the color of the players that are contesting the sector.

I understand that part of the game is the discovery and not knowing where your enemy is or how strong they are. But at the same time things like the above could draw more players and improve the game for everybody.

By Kirk Petty (Zugzwang) on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 - 10:17 pm: Edit

might get me to a convention, after all imagine the thrill (????) of seeing each other face to face,

By Bryan Seminara (Bseminar) on Wednesday, January 09, 2008 - 01:17 am: Edit

The is the same thing that Reality Simulations Inc. (www.reality.com) does to drum up business and excitement. And to affirm what Kirk said, it does bring players face to face which is much more important than digital memories.

My son (of 8 years) will go to his first gaming convention. Unfortunately I have yet to be at a convention outside of AZ. I was saving that for a later year.

By James E. Jarema (Nuke) on Wednesday, January 09, 2008 - 02:55 pm: Edit

Might get me to one also. Especially if it's in the Northeast (NY/NJ/PA) area.

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 02:20 pm: Edit

So you guys would agree to play a version of SFW where people know what sectors different corporations are in?

The obvious thing to do is run at least a test run online and see how people like it. See if rules would need to be adjusted.

By James E. Jarema (Nuke) on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 03:01 pm: Edit

Sounds like a plan.

As a table top demo, the game could be played like "Battleship" with cubicle-like barriers between the players until a scan reveals the new sector information. At this point, the player gets to add the new map to his "cubicle" collection of maps.

Observers could view the action from behind the players. Also, color-coded "mark up" maps from each player each turn could be posted to a strategic operations display of all sectors for the public to view the action in the "big picture". Arrows to show ship movement plots through each hex of each sector. Maybe a really neat multimedia display?

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 12:47 pm: Edit

James,
Don't get me started. What it sounds like is the best approach is to be accomplished by having each player given a laptop and use a projector to show the sectors take and the coloration.

By Bryan Seminara (Bseminar) on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 01:15 pm: Edit

Team games work best at conventions. The player interaction and learning is what will draw in the players.

How about a visible chart of maps that are updated based on ship scans that are made from crew 5 scouts or battlestations. Arrows (war fronts) can be placed on the map based on the quantity of ships that are scanned.

By James E. Jarema (Nuke) on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 04:05 pm: Edit

Sounds like this could be the beginnings of the next generation SFW!

By William Stec (Billstec2) on Monday, March 07, 2011 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Was there ever any progress towards this?