End of year Game Roundup

 So, like last year, I managed to get a few games done this year.

SCOUT (8)	Villagers (7)	Akropolis (4)	Burgle Bros. (3)	Codenames (3)	Coup (3)
CuBirds (3)	Dune: Imperium (3)	Gizmos (3)	Isle of Trains: All Aboard (3)	Jaipur (3)	Jump Drive (3)
PARKS (3)	Patchwork (3)	Sagrada (3)	Santorini (3)	Star Realms: Frontiers (3)	Trails (3)
7 Wonders Duel (2)	Azul (2)	boop. (2)	Canvas (2)	Century: Spice Road (2)	Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure (2)
Deep Sea Adventure (2)	Dice Forge (2)	Draftosaurus (2)	Leagues of Adventure: Rocket Race (2)	My Shelfie (2)	Nidavellir (2)
Nova Luna (2)	Photosynthesis (2)	Potion Explosion (2)	Quarriors! (2)	Salem 1692 (2)	Streets (2)
Tiny Epic Galaxies (2)	Tranquility: The Ascent (2)	Wizard (2)	7 Wonders: Architects (1)	Backyard Chickens (1)	BANG! The Dice Game (1)
Bedeville Carnival: Collector's Box Edition (1)	Bohnanza (1)	Ca$h 'n Guns: Second Edition (1)	Castles of Mad King Ludwig (1)	Cat Café (1)	Cat Lady (1)
CATAN (1)	Catstronauts (1)	Celestia (1)	Colt Express (1)	CONFIDENT? (1)	Cosmic Encounter (1)
Creature Comforts (1)	Decrypto (1)	Dice Hospital: ER – Emergency Roll (1)	Dixit (1)	Dog Park (1)	The Fox in the Forest (1)
Hanabi (1)	Harbour (1)	Herd Mentality (1)	King of Tokyo (1)	Kingdomino (1)	Kittin (1)
Labyrinth (1)	Let's Summon Demons (1)	Living Forest (1)	Lords of Waterdeep (1)	Night of the Ninja (1)	Port Royal (1)
The Quacks of Quedlinburg (1)	Raiders of the North Sea (1)	Shelfie Stacker (1)	So Clover! (1)	So, You've Been Eaten (1)	Solar Storm (1)
Sounds Fishy (1)	Star Fighters: Rapid Fire (1)	Star Fluxx (1)	Sushi Go Party! (1)	Tiny Epic Vikings (1)	Trekking the World (1)
Viticulture (1)	Voyages (1)	War of the Ring: Second Edition (1)	Wingspan (1)	Wits & Wagers (1)

There is an increase over the number of games played last year. This is mostly because I discovered a local board game group that meets weekly. Fortunately being local I can take my games along. Unfortunately the group doesn't appreciate the more technical games and prefers to play more social games. So much as I'd love to get the Gloomhaven (now joined by Frosthaven as well) campaign going, they don't want to play these kinds of games.

Still, I'd like to get a normal 10x10 challenge done. But that requires commitment from others as well to be able to play. Sadly, I don't think it'll happen.

UK Games Expo 2023

This was my first time at the Games Expo. Various factors prevented my from attending in previous years, even before the plague got in the way of things.

The Friday was an early start where Dave, Steve and myself drove up from London to the NEC. An easy journey since the NEC is very easy to get to. The only drawback is that we were informed on the way up that the Metropole hotel parking was full and we had to park in East 1. Even so, there wasn't much of a queue.

The first job was to get registered and Dave had a truck load, of stuff for the Bring & Buy. So after queue for about 30 mins in the registration queue, during which Tom turned up, we left Dave in the B&B queue and the three of us went for a quick explore.

The Registration Queue

The place was reasonable empty at this stage. So it was quite easy to make our way around the stands. Since we started in Hall 3 (Registration and B&B) we first started on Hall 2. It had the usual stuff of people trying to interest you in their games, and people eager to sell you things. And even some who were just sitting there on their phones not caring if you bought anything.

The stairs down from Hall 2 to Hall 1

As we descended into Hall 1, Steve immediately spotted a game of Heat at Travelling Man, so that was the first purchase of the day. Its a shame that scalpers seem to have targeted the game and are selling it for silly money on eBay and the like. I did spot a stand that had a load of rather life-like furry ears. But I neglected to make a note of it's location (or indeed which shop it was) which would later cause problems on Saturday.

We spent a couple of hours in the queue before returning to find Dave hadn't moved very far in the B&B queue, so we joined him to keep him company and wait.

Finally the goods were delivered and we decided to go to the open Gaming area for a little bit of gaming before we could check in.

Open gaming was a sea of yellow since all the tables had the toppers on them. We played a quick bit of Scout, Star Fighters: Rapid Fire and Photosynthesis, before heading off to check into the hotel.

Scout

Photosynthesis

Star Fighters: Rapid Fire

After that we returned to the Expo for shopping and wandering before heading off for food. Since the Expo halls had closed, we went to the gaming halls in the Hotel. This was probably the easiest way for a hotel to run a convention. Simply setup the tables and let the geeks and nerds do their thing. 

We gamed on into the night with things like Solar Storm, which we once again failed at, and Lords of Waterdeep.

Saturday was when things started to go wrong. Last night I had spoken to my Wife about the ears and she wanted a pair of furry fox coloured ears. So that was my immediate focus. However due to a bit of miscommunication, I didn't manage to get to the Halls until after 10am, and by then I was in panic mode as I couldn't remember where exactly the stand was. I had an inkling that it was in Hall 1 (it was) but I spent a couple of hours running around at a rather high speed and agitated state trying to find the stand again. 

Turns out, that many other people had also thought that these ears were cool and had bought them, so they were no longer laid out on the tables and hence I completely missed them. I did eventually track down which seller was responsible... Genki Gear.

With much sadness, I retreated to the gaming tables for a "quick" game of War of the Ring.

War of the Ring

It was during this game that things went even further downhill. I hadn't played this game for 5 years and was very rusty on the rules. Playing it in 4 player mode is also not a good idea, so I had to rely on my partner to carry the game. Unfortunately Steve was also not as experienced and we ended up in a bad position... and this is where we had a very bad experience.

Now War of the Ring has an impressive table presence. All the more so in that Dave has done a superb job of painting some of the miniatures. The photo above just doesn't do them justice. But we had a number of people stopping at the table as they walked past to offer a word or two or to take a photo. But one of the Expo Staff kept popping by and started insulting us for not playing properly. This was very unprofessional and very upsetting.

We packed up and went to a local Japanese restaurant. Which was probably one of the worst meals I've had in a long time. Missing out on the ears. A poor game. The insulting staff member. The whole day left a bit of a bad taste. Or it may just have been the food.

Sunday was better. It was shopping day. The day started by queuing for Hall 2.

I bought a few games and things to add to my collection. Before checking out and spending the rest of the day gaming before finally heading for home in the evening.

Highlights: Dune Imperium. A very enjoyable game.

Lowlights: A very frustrating Saturday.

Most surprising game: Scout. A simple card game that has a surprisingly interesting mechanism.

No longer on top

Something strange just happened. Gloomhaven has been toppled from it's number one spot.

Gloomhaven is a fantasy-themed, campaign-based tactical skirmish game, in which players try to triumph in combat-based scenarios which scale in difficulty depending on the number of players. The game is cooperative and campaign driven, with one to four players working their way through a branching story consisting of 95 scenarios. The campaign develops in a legacy format, with stickers that are placed on the board and cards and sealed envelopes that are opened when certain criteria are met. 

- Lifted directly from Wikipedia.

I started to play Gloomhaven a few years ago. Now it is a big hefty game. Both physically and technically. The sheer amount of components makes it a challenge to bring to the table. But also the complexity of the game makes it a one of the most involving games that I have ever played.

And I love it.

The Pandemic got in the way of playing of course. With something as complex as this, not being able to get together to play put effectively a full stop on this game. Now as the world returns to normal, our original group of players is disbanded somewhat (we still meet up occasionally) but it's harder to get something like this to the table.

But that hasn't diminished my enjoyment of the game. I also splurged out on the sequel, Frosthaven.

As well as a fan made publication, the Crimson Scales.

Gloomhaven's popularity made it move straight to the number one spot on Boardgamegeek's list. A spot which it has held on to for the past 5 years. But the weighting algorithm used on the site penalises older games as it gradually de-ranks them, and this mechanism saw Gloomhaven lose the top spot to another game, Brass: Birmingham.

I can't comment on the viability of this game getting to No.1 as I haven't played it. But it certainly wouldn't get to such a high spot without a good number of people liking it. Which is the reason why it does appear on my wishlist for games I'd like to get in the future. The theme of the game is very common. The industrial nature is an ideal suggestion for avid gamers all trying to vie with each other but with a little bit of co-operation thrown it. 

But there is something else at play here.

There is a game within the game. You see the mechanism used by BGG to rank games, can lean to manipulation of the results. It's also possible to "own" a game which hasn't actually been produced. Haters tend to rank a game as a 1 to get it to drop. Lovers tend to put it as a 10 to get it to rise. But they don't always balance out. In fact the whole BGG ranking system has a number of "fudges" in it. There is an interesting report on it all.

But for me, Gloomhaven will be my number one. Although once I get round to playing Frosthaven, maybe that will join it in the top spot?

Update: Well it seems that others have also found this to be somewhat shady. The listings have now changed. Either the Brass haters have started lowering the Brass scores, or the GH lovers have upvoted Gloomhaven. Either way Gloomhaven is back in the No.1 spot.

The Geeks are Revolting

There is a stereotypical image of Dungeons & Dragons players. These social outcasts sit around a table, often placed in a basement, and create fantastical stories involving, well, Dragons, more often or not, in a Dungeon. This has been portrayed many times in popular media, usually putting them as people who you wouldn't want to be associated with.

But recent media has improved their image. And yes, back in my teens, I was exactly like this. We did meet in the basement of a friends house where we created our own stories that lasted for years. Friends came and went between the group and we spent many a weekend down dungeons, in swamps or flying between the stars, or... well just anywhere our imagination took us. It was a time that started midday on a Saturday, and a brief stop in the evening for a trip down the local chippy, before resuming into the small hours or even in the middle of the next day.

So what do these quiet, unassuming people do when they're not sitting huddled up? Do they venture out into the real world. Well, lets leave the world of LARPing alone, but consider instead the world of business.

Behind every game are a set of rules. And behind every set of rules is a publisher who made and sold them. The biggest of which, back in the day, was Gary Gygax and TSR, the creator and publishers of Dungeons and Dragons. OK, the story is a little more complicated than that, but through a series of mergers, acquisitions and the usual business shenanigans, the current owner/publisher is Wizards of the Coast, now a subsidiary of Hasbro.

And for the past few weeks there has been an uproar across the Internet as changes to the gaming system of D&D had been proposed which affected all players, and future players of the games. Way back in the depths of time (2000), WotC published the Open Game License version 1.0a to release the rights to the D&D third edition to publishers to make their own content for the games. And many did. This has allowed the game to flourish. To be used in stories, campaign, be made into Youtube shows and cartoons, and eventually up to TV series and, due for release in March, a big budget movie.

But at the start of the year, WotC threw out a bit of a storm where they wanted to revoke this license and introduce a new one. One which wanted to real in some of the money that people were making on their intellectual property with the hope of cashing in, and nobody was surprised when it all blew up in their faces. WotC initially said they wanted to prevent people from using it in blockchains, NFTs, and undesirable content. But the way they wrote the clauses had such a wide reaching impact that players and publishers alike took to the streets with torches and pitchforks to protest. A thousand memes were produced, a thousand voices in protest and people started to create their own license. How dare they withdraw their rights to the game. The initial license was supposed to be in perpetuity. But this revocation meant that people could lose their income. Could lose their jobs. Could lose their fun.

• The first change was that the new OGL was that a company who created works under the new OGL v1.1 would have to report the works they are creating to WotC, and if over $50,000 is generated, the revenue would also have to be reported.  The creators making over $750,000 on their OGL-licensed Works would then have to pay a royalty of 20-25% on the excess amount.  The royalty is higher on products sold to the trade than on Kickstarter-funded products.  Either percentage is far higher than conventional licensing royalties, and would substantially dissuade publishing of any significant quantities of OGL content by a single publisher.
• A second, more controversial, provision of OGL v1.1 grants ownership of the OGL works to their creator, but gives WotC the perpetual, irrevocable right to use their works in any way it sees fit without payment.
• A third asserts restriction was that despite granting "perpetual" rights to use the game mechanics in products created under it, is no longer in effect and will be replaced by the new license, which WotC can revise with 30-day notice.
• A fourth prevents commercial publication for virtual tabletop platforms. Hasbro purchased digital roleplaying companion D&D Beyond from Fandom last year and wanted to restrict access because this would be the focus of their forthcoming push into the digital market.
• Finally, a fifth change would have required OGL publishers to rapidly accept the new terms or cease selling all OGL products.

As you can imagine this was a storm of unimaginable consequences. Garnering thousands of signatures on petitions, the formation of other gaming licenses that publishers flocked to. It was a storm like no other.

The pressure grew too much. Hasbro caved.

Come not between a gamer and their enjoyment. For you will feel a wrath so mighty that your very bones will shatter under the thousand footfalls of the revolting geeks.

Regular updates?

I've been extremely irregular in updating this blog. Why?

Well a lot of the work I do can have serious ramifications for others. I work on sensitive data sets, servers, and with information that carries personal information. So I can't post screens shots, or even some code. But that doesn't mean that I'm not finding new things, answering questions, or even finding new things to print.

But this is supposed to be a Tech Blog. It's not very technical unless I a) blog something, and b) write something technical. So I'm going to have to bring it back to some semblance of normalcy. Which means I need to pull stuff together to post about. And at least try and increase the rate of posting. Can I make it daily? No, I don't think so. But it does at least need to be a little more regular.

So lets start with me working set of technology. It's no secret that I prefer Linux over other OSes. Now technically, MacOS is based around a Unix system. It's pretty good and reliable (well mostly) but the biggest reason why I don't go anywhere near it is that I hate the Apple ethos of gouging consumers with over priced products. They are literally ripping people off in the name of branding.

Besides which, the majority of tools that I use on a daily basis are based around Linux. I use Ubuntu as my core system at home. Even The Wife also uses Ubuntu. Why do I use it as opposed to any other flavour? Well mostly because it's in common usage, and if I come across any issues with it, then I don't have to waste time trying to figure out the problems as I can be reasonably sure that somebody else may have come across the same issue and may have blogged the answer. Fortunately any issues like that have been few and far between.

Any other OSes that I run are done via VirtualBox. I've used VB for years and it's pretty reliable. Yes there are plenty of other virtualisation services out there, but VB is what I stick by. I also have many multi-bootable flash drives that boot into many various tools and utilities. I even have a few secure drives that are multi-boot as well.