Talk Fantasy Football

Well, I think my New Year's resolution is going to be to purchase an ElfBall game set and to make a real effort to attend GenCon.

I think I may also pre-order the cards, since I'll be playing the game with my 7 year old daughter (glad she is a geek like me!!) so I think that the cards would be a great help in keeping her interested in the game and keeping the action flowing. This is just speculation however since I have never played Elfball.

Just wish there was a way to play it online since I live in the absolute middle of nowhere with no real "gaming community".

There is a Vassal engine that allows you to play online that we authorized.

I also licensed a fan of the game to create a fan site, Elfball.net. He is trying to build a Java engine similar to the engine Ski had designed for FUMBBL. (see GW ... sell licenses to your fans to build your games instead of being tryants who kill fans).
Its not done but in the works.

My understanding is the the Vassal engine works pretty darn well ... so your best bet would be to go on our forums and ask someone for a game to show it to you.

Impact! forums are: http://artistsunited.myfreeforum.org/index.php

Tom

GalakStarscraper wrote:I also licensed a fan of the game to create a fan site, Elfball.net. He is trying to build a Java engine similar to the engine Ski had designed for FUMBBL. (see GW ... sell licenses to your fans to build your games instead of being tryants who kill fans).
Its not done but in the works.

Interesting. Would this be Cephalopod by any chance? If so that would explain why he came back out of the blue and has suddenly gone quiet.

For various reasons being able to play TT is hard for me and I would LOVE to see a java version of Elfball. Anything that I can do to help (if only I could help with the programming but alas, I know nothing about it) I would be glad to do so.

Now I did not know this existed. Downloading it now...

Yeah, I just downloaded the Vassal client and the Elfball mod myself. Going to try and work through the tutorial and the Elfball rules at the same time. However, I do really need to purchase Elfball before my conscience will allow me to actually play any matches with it. I just need to get through Christmas and then I can place my order.

Galak - does the additional cardboard set include ALL the Elfball teams? I know I could just ask these questions on the Impact! site but I am sure others may have the same questions. Which team(s) are recommended as good for beginners?

tchatter wrote:Galak - does the additional cardboard set include ALL the Elfball teams? I know I could just ask these questions on the Impact! site but I am sure others may have the same questions. Which team(s) are recommended as good for beginners?

Yes the Cardstock team expansion gives your cardstock players for the other 19 races in the game as well as cardstock counters for the extra stuff as well (Zlurpee Kegs, Bribed Referees, Magic Potions and Cheerleaders).

And Tchatter ... I have 3 of the Elfball card decks left (I took them out of the store so we didn't accidently oversell them) ... but when you buy a game ... I can sell you a card deck as well as I think it REALLY helps make the game enjoyable when first starting out as it prevents the game from going too long and losing the younger player's interest.

Tom

Honestly if I wasn't trying to keep the cost of the board game low .... I'd include the card deck with the boxed game.

If I was doing a deluxe game box ... I'd have have a metal team of Valkyries and Desert Dogs, the current board game contents, the cardstock counters for the rest of the races and the Elfball card deck.

Galak

GalakStarscraper wrote:Honestly if I wasn't trying to keep the cost of the board game low .... I'd include the card deck with the boxed game.

If I was doing a deluxe game box ... I'd have have a metal team of Valkyries and Desert Dogs, the current board game contents, the cardstock counters for the rest of the races and the Elfball card deck.

Galak

Galak,

You should do a poll on this one - bet you'd be surprised how many people would be interested in buying this...

Would be even more interesting if you give people the option to choose which two teams they wanted (from those available at present, obviously). Hmm... did you do something similar to this once before?

Cheers,


Nestyr

GalakStarscraper wrote: If I was doing a deluxe game box ... I'd have have a metal team of Valkyries and Desert Dogs, the current board game contents, the cardstock counters for the rest of the races and the Elfball card deck.

Galak

...which eerily enough is exactly what I bought when I bought the game, minus the lead (though that is about to be rectified...)

We didn't use the cards for our first game though as we feared they may add too much (we are generally not good at learning new rules so try to keep things minimalist) but having played once and looked through the cards I would definitely try to use them next time, and if I could have another 'first time' I would use them then. Not that there was anything wrong with our first experience either.

I should add that we found it useful to have a set of challenge dice each (which was the other Elfball item I bought at the time of purchase).

Might I add that for a deluxe version of the game you might consider adding two (one for each player) small reference cards for each team as we found the card summarising the Dogs and Valks the most used reference sheet during the game (once we'd figured out the challenge mechanic)?

Tomba

Nestyr wrote: You should do a poll on this one - bet you'd be surprised how many people would be interested in buying this...

Add a 'me too' to this- even though I own the game I'd always buy a new version )sometimes even just another copy) if I like the game- I have 3 copies of BB, four copies of Settlers of Catan (basic), 2 copies of Carcassonne etc...

Not sure what the financial implications are for Impact but should be worth some sort of consideration?

Tomba

Nestyr wrote:

GalakStarscraper wrote:Honestly if I wasn't trying to keep the cost of the board game low .... I'd include the card deck with the boxed game.

If I was doing a deluxe game box ... I'd have have a metal team of Valkyries and Desert Dogs, the current board game contents, the cardstock counters for the rest of the races and the Elfball card deck.

Galak

Galak,

You should do a poll on this one - bet you'd be surprised how many people would be interested in buying this...

Would be even more interesting if you give people the option to choose which two teams they wanted (from those available at present, obviously). Hmm... did you do something similar to this once before?

See there's the rub. I really need to pick the two teams that come in the box. Because the teams have different prices and some of them are very different. Compare the Gnome team to the Divine Wind for instance. We tried once upon a time to to a discounted box set if you bought two teams but we had too many non-English speakers shop in the online store and buy that version because it cost less without understanding that they needed to purchase 2 teams at the same time. After a few rounds of trying to use Babel Fish to explain why they could not do that ... we got rid of that option.

I'm not opposed to a deluxe set. I guess I'd need to decide what two teams to put in the box. Preferably they would be two teams that required no assembly so they could be played with immediately. Those teams whould be: Black Widows, Divine Wind, Desert Dogs, and Gnoll currently. We have new Night Elf Strikers being cast that will allow me to add Night Elf to that list next year. So if I could put in 2 of those 5 teams. That would be the ideal.

And yes Tomba ... I agree that an extra set of 6 Challenge dice and an extra Valkyrie/Desert Dogs stat sheet would be a good idea for a Deluxe boxed set.

Based on this thread I'll definitely put up a Deluxe Boxed set without the metal teams after we get more Elfball cards printed. And then maybe add a Ultimate boxed set that includes Black Widows vs Desert Dogs metal teams. Those 2 should play well against each other.

Tom

Just list a price to cover any two teams and let us live with it!!

Pug wrote:Just list a price to cover any two teams and let us live with it!!

The problem is that the prices on the teams are just so varied ... live with it doesn't quite work

Right now out of the 21 races in Elfball we have figures for 19 of them (I hope to next year fix the other 2). The two most expensive Orc and Middle Kingdoms are 85.07 GBP. The two least expensive Night Elf and (Black Widow/Gnoll/Divine Wind/Desert Dogs) are 40.28 GBP.

A gap that wide is not an easy thing to deal with on one price fits all.

Galak

Skimmed through most of this, but the java client and site sound great. I can't do TT as I live in Japan and already have games I don't use often, but online would be sweet.

It's more labour intensive on your side, but how about buy a box game and team, recieve % off second team of equal or lesser value?

Not that it matters much to me, I can't see buying a 4th copy