Les_the_Sarge_9_1
Posts: 4392
Joined: 12/29/2000
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Gyblin ya must have accidentally snipped the word "where" off the front of that sentence. No big deal of course.
Not sure where Avalon Hill would be today. It is speculated that computer software was a Bridge to Far for them though. Hard to say what did them in (because I was not the owner).
They died off about the same time that their venerable gaming comrade TSR went toast though.
TSR died because they were obliged to produce books by a ****head press that then would stick them with unsold merchandise. Good way to go under basically. This of course was not the thing that killed AH, they jus died about the same time cooincidentally.
Now the letters AH and TSR are just logos owned by people that often don't really care about the history of those letters.
The advent of computer games was both a boon and a bane to a lot of wargaming companies. But evolution is rarely kind fair or generous.
We have today, the ability to purchase games online. My major beef was once originally "you could never find a store that sold wargames". It was always a major drag. Today the net makes it so you can always find what you are looking for if you reeeeally want to.
But the computer has also made traditional wargaming into a eye candy experience.
A game like Panzerblitz was called a classic. Designs that were essentially anything but eye candy.
Today we have people that are convinced Combat Mission is the greatest (I think it is just a little to "cute"). And for no reason beyond that it has pretty graphics. Graphics is no way to judge a wargame in my opinion (I don't rate women on their measurements either).
If the computer had not arrived, we would still be playing games with counters that had details like those found on Advanced Third Reich (very plain) or those found in Advanced Squad Leader (impressive top down line art).
I have seen a number of titles released over the last 10 years. Wargaming in the traditional way is anything but dead. But it is not an eye candy experience.
For me, the most revolutionary wargaming design (since the arrival of computers) in the non cpomputer gaming field is definitely the games put out by Columbia Games (out of Vancouver area for those that don't know the company well).
Their games employ larger than commonly encountered hexes, and wooden blocks such that the opponent is not always aware of the current status of the units he is facing. It's a simple trick but a very effective one.
They have it all, from Civil War and Napoloenic, to a full scale Modular series for WWII. They have a design that is essentially Red side vs Blue side (which means pure strategy free of historical constraints).
I personally would stack their games up against the best the computer market has to offer and say quite freely, that the computer has yet to do it as good a job of pure design superiority.
But with so many of our potential wargamers being lured away by the cute games, it is predictably hard to get players to enjoy our more boring looking games.
I have been happy to see that games of our sort are still being developed though by the computer trade.
Strategic Command, being made right now by Battlefront, is peculiar in one aspect. It is being produced by one of the worst eye candy offenders, the people that are also the makers of Combat Mission. It almost seems out of place on thier web site.
I have been wandering their forum for a week or so now, and it does seem that a lot of players think well of it, but it still attracts people that think it is "dull" looking. And I have even seen comments made by persons that want more detail. But these individuals are so pre cinditioned to "prettiness" they often can't see that a grand strategy design is not about cute counters, its about brilliant thinking.
Wargaming will survive all this obsession with eye candy.The computer will eventually become what it should be, a useful tool to allow wargamers of the traditional sort, to achieve access to well designed wargames of the old board game style.
The eye candy types will in time evolve into whatever they wish to be known as.
Who knows, in 10 - 20 years they might be meeting in virtual rooms to have virtual wars while we grognards continue to fight old battles with dull looking counters on boring looking maps.
And being that one group often uses anothers technology to its advantage, I might be playing that dull looking game in a virtual club room.
_____________________________
I LIKE that my life bothers them,
Why should I be the only one bothered by it eh.
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