Greetings esteemed members of the Star Fleet Battles community,
We have created this web site to be an information hub for the SFB community. We will host news, file sharing, and uncensored discussion forums. We will start with a focus on Tournament Star Fleet Battles. Perhaps the content on this site will grow beyond that, and perhaps not - we'll see.
Unlike some of the folks at ADB, we believe that passionate debate about all-things-SFB is a good thing. If you didn't care about the game, you wouldn't be spending precious time posting your thoughts about it.
When we say these forums will be uncensored, we hope to be able to live up to that 99.999% of the time.
Discussion and debate is encouraged. The use of profanity is not encouraged.
We will not edit or delete posts just becuase we don't agree with the content, unless a reasonable person would find it wildly objectionable. We will use our judgement on this, and we consider ourselves quite reasonable and tolerant. We hope you agree.
People who post in such a way as to attempt to crash the site, or make the forums unusable for others, or who post spam, will have their accounts deleted.
We enourage people to continue to use the BBS at the ADB web site: www.starfleetgames.com/discus/
That will continue to be the main info source of the SFB community, and the definitive source on offical ADB policy and rules adjudication.
But if you would like to have an alternative place to discuss SFB, free of the kind of censorship that happens on the ADB BBS, this is the place for you.
-DC
Are we allowed to slam the
Are we allowed to slam the Miami Dolphins?
Such slamming is, in fact,
Such slamming is, in fact, encouraged.
We're all Indy fans anyway,
We're all Indy fans anyway, so screw the Dolphins.
Anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to say completely uncensored, cause who knows what crap people will spam, or what wildly offtopic crap people will post about if Picard eats Rice Crispies or whatever retarded crap people say, and I'm telling you now I'll nuke that crap or at least move it.
But hard to believe most people here would bother spamming ridiculous stuff anyway.
Great Work Dave!
Great Work Dave!
Looking forward to the new site
Thanks to all involved for doing this. I look forward to seeing what comes of it.
Yes we are all Indy fans.
Yes we are all Indy fans. When they're playing the Patriots.
Not An Indy Fan
I used to really like Peyton Manning, but he jumped the shark with those douche chill inducing Oreo Cookie commericals. ;>) It's too bad he dragged Eli onto the Endorsement Whore Brinks Truck with him. That said, GO GIANTS!
My Big NFL Prediction: The Detroit Lions will sign Michael Vick
BTW, of course Picard doesn't eat rice krispies! Everyone knows he prefers a simple coffee and croissant.
Anybody here like to play Star Fleet Battle Force? I found it to be really fun. If ADB can't scrape $10,000 to do the expansion packs (or get a micro-business loan), does this mean ADB is on shaky financial ground? Over-leveraged? I've noticed SVC seems to have greatly expanded his overhead expenses over the last couple years.
Costs of Printing Cards
It's not shaky financials. Steve watched four incarnations of TFG go under, watched AoG go under a mountain of debt, and would sooner campaign for Bill Clinton than carry a monthly balance on a credit account.
ADB typically has cash reserves sufficient for nine months to a year's operation, earning interest, plus a 'month-to-month' bank account for expected payroll and baseline expenses. When new money comes in, it's used to top off the month-to-month account, and excess is put in the cash reserves. When new products are budgeted, they're not allowed to take more than X% of the cash reserves.
It's entertaining to watch business lenders try to talk to Steve about business loans. Never has the pursuit of a commission ever been so futile.
He, Leanna and Petrick all drew salaries in approximately the low to mid '30s in 2005-2006, and I doubt any of them have bothered giving themselves a raise. Their in-building staff (Mike and Eric) make $10-11/hour, which is a living wage (and then some) in Amarillo.
The new building was bought by Steve and Leanna personally, from the final end state of his father's will, and the sale of his parent's house, plus the sale of his parent's house. They rent it to ADB Inc.
What's keeping SFBF from happening is two fold:
1) ADB really likes Print on Demand. There's no way to do that with shuffle-able cards. So they have to buy 5,000+ copies to put it into print at all. Each deck will be about $2.50 the last time I priced them for Steve, and probably about that now, though they'd have to do a Chinese print job.
2) There are still over a thousand copies of SFBF in the warehouse; at their current rate of sale, they'll be there when Steve dies. Appreciably, it doesn't sell in distribution.
3) For $12,500, Steve can make an expansion that will have to sell for about $15, or two and a half Fed Commander products that will sell for a higher margin, and sell about twice the rate.
4) The guy who did most of the graphics for the cards had a falling out with Steve. (Not the ship art, but the actual layout of elements on the card). While Eric Olivarez could probably take the existing card files and figure out how to do it (I'd about figured it out while there, and Eric is better at Photoshop than I am, and isn't on a crippled machine...), that's still an expense on top of the printing work that needs justification.
The first rule of printing card games is that you want to have the first two supplements in testing and ready to drop into layout while the first one is printing. If the base game doesn't sell, you've wasted that time and energy. If it does sell, you can get the supplements out while the iron is hot. Steve didn't do this, and honestly, were I in his shoes in 2002 and putting out BattleForce, and not having the PoD plant to work from, I would've made the same decision he did.
Steve may be cranky, but he knows how to run his business.
Thank You Ken
Ken: Thanks for the reply. That was very thorough and contained a
lot of personal info I would not normally expect to be divulged. Knowing who you are in the Star Fleet Universe, I accept everything you say as true and accurate.
If I may ask, how many copies of the basic game were originally printed? I'm just trying to put into context your comment that there are still 1,000 unsold copies sitting in the warehouse. I take it that there was only one production run?
I am surprised and disappointed to hear that this game appears to be stuck in a ditch on the side of the road, so to speak, since the last 18 or so issues of Captain's Log have continued to preview new material (that looks quite good, btw).
Perhaps a new printing technology will come along to allow PoD and break the production impasse?
Thanks again for the info.
Initial Print Run of SFBF
Was probably 5,000 sets. Possibly 8,000. I wasn't there when they were bought; I just helped move the pallets when the mezzanine was put up.
As to printing technologies, the problem is that printing cards that can survive being shuffled requires some very specialized materials (you've got a 2-ply or 3-ply core, then the fronts and packs, then a plasticized coating). They get run in press sheets that have 54 or 56 cards on them for poker size, and are then cut, sorted, and corner ground as decks.
A lot of companies promise PoD decks. I've looked into them for my own products. They usually 'feel cheap' and don't hold up to regular play; they split along the edge, or they get floppy rather than springing back after shuffling and bridging.
I'm reasonably certain that all the information on ADB, other than the cash reserves (which are laudable) are public knowledge from BBS postings Steve made. Steve's position on cash reserves and debt is well known. Some is speculation - I'm not entirely certain where the money Steve put into the new building came from, but I KNOW that it didn't come out of the company.
Stiff Cards
Thanks again for the reply. I have to say that the Battle Force cards are very tough, and very stiff. That's very high quality card stock that was used.....almost too good, as I have found it very difficult to split the Action Card deck into each hand and flip the corners together for a good shuffle. ;>) They definitely aren't as flexible as the left over decks you can pick up from the casinos in Atlantic City, but of course they are only meant to be used once, lol.
Schirmmer's SFB List
Maybe this will be like the old Schirmmer SFB list..... lots of SFB talk, lots of tactics from smart people... very little stupid crap.
That was good days.
I'm of two minds... I think I was happier when SFBOL was a crappy interface written by Gregg. I trusted Gregg. :)
Anyway... I'm done with the Official SFB Website... Its a freaking echo chamber of fanbois in there.
Order of Posts
What's up with the posts not being displayed in chronological order?
If you're done with the official SFB forums...
Why not ask them to delete your account? It tells them you've left.
Ordering of Topics and Comments
The Topics in a given forum are in Date order with the newest (most recent) topic first.
Comments in a given Topic are Threaded in Date Order with the most recent comments and responses last, like so:
Comment 1 (7/30/2009 11:20a)
> Reply 1 in reply to Comment 1 (7/30/2009 1:21p)
>> Reply 3 in reply to Reply 1 (7/30/2009 2:10p)
> Reply 2 in reply to Comment 1 (7/30/2009 1:26p)
Comment 2 (7/30/2009 12:14p)
Post order
Ahh. Can't say as I like it, but I understand now. Thanks.
Good work
Nice to finally see an alternative to the ADB discussion forum.
delete my account
Do you think that would do anything? Seriously?