April 9 Update from GMT

Hi guys!

Here are the most recent (April 9, 2009) GMT Games updates. Sorry that these are a bit longer than usual. We’ve had quite a lot going on at GMT of late.

Shipping/Charging Update

Shipping: Our next shipments will begin in late April. We’ll be shipping both Ship of the Line and C3i Magazine Issue 22 then. After that will be The Kaiser’s Pirates in late May.

Charging: We’ve finished all the P500 charging for Ship of the Line and C3i Magazine Issue 22. As always, we had a few charges that didn’t go through. If you haven’t seen a charge yet but have one or both of those on order, please contact our office ladies via phone or online chat.

The next charge will be for The Kaiser’s Pirates, starting in the next 10-14 days.

A New Combat Commander Battle Pack on the P500 List!!

We have just added Combat Commander Battle Pack #3: Normandy to the P500 list. This is probably the best “bang-for-buck” module we have yet released, with 17 (!!) new scenarios, a multi-scenario campaign game, 8 new maps, and scenarios designed by John Foley, Kai Jensen, John Butterfield, Bryan Collars, Ric Van Dyk, and Volko Ruhnke! With over 320 orders already (overnight!) since we added it late yesterday, it looks like this one may make its way to the production queue very quickly. Please order early and often! J Enjoy.

We have also recently added two popular games to our P500 Reprint list. The reprint edition for A World at War in particular contains some significant updates, detailed via the link to its Games Page, below.

A World at War
Flying Colors

We want to thank you for your support of the recent new game additions to the P500 list. One has already passed 500 and made the cut, and the other two are rising steadily.

Case Yellow Designer Ted Raicer 280 Orders to Date

Chariots of Fire Designers Richard Berg and Mark Herman 584 Orders to Date

Red Winter Designer Mark Mokszycki 215 Orders to Date

Additions to Commands & Colors Ancients: Expansion #4

We have decided to reconfigure Commands & Colors Ancients: Expansion #4, Imperial Rome, by adding a completely new Roman army. The price of the Expansion remains unchanged. The total block count (including spares) increases to 293 blocks. The reasons for the decision were numerous, but the primary consideration was that if we did not provide a new army, the red and gray Roman armies would have been increased in size to fight the new battles, and we did not want the holders of expansions 2 and 3 to “repurchase” units they had already bought. You will note by the listing of Imperial Roman units that the army composition is not like either earlier Roman army, and that it is decidedly weaker than its predecessor, the Julian army.

Purple – Imperial Roman Units

Light Infantry – 6 units (24 blocks)

Light Bow Infantry – 2 units (8 blocks)

Light Sling Infantry – 5 units (20 blocks)

Auxilia Infantry – 8 units (32 blocks)

Warrior Infantry – 1 unit (4 blocks)

Medium Infantry – 9 units (36 blocks)

Heavy Infantry – 3 units (12 blocks)

Heavy War Machine – 1 unit (2 blocks)

Light Cavalry – 4 units (12 blocks)

Light Bow Cavalry – 2 units (6 blocks)

Medium Cavalry – 4 units (12 blocks)

Heavy Cavalry – 2 units (6 blocks)

Heavy Cataphract Cavalry – 2 units (6 blocks)

Leader – 4 leaders (4 blocks)

We have increased the Eastern Kingdom army to reflect the increasing dominance of the mounted units, particularly the light archers and heavy cataphracted cavalry. You’ll get a chance to use armored camels as well. Regular camel units have been provided in case you wish to revisit older battles such as Magnesia and use the Eastern Kingdom army instead of the Greek army.

Tan – Eastern Kingdom Units

Warrior Infantry – 1 unit (4 blocks)

Light Cavalry – 2 units (6 blocks)

Light Bow Cavalry – 6 units (18 blocks)

Heavy Cataphract Cavalry – 5 units (15 blocks)

Camel – 2 units (6 blocks)

Cataphract Camel – 2 units (6 blocks)

We have also increased the Barbarian army – again to reflect the increasing use of heavier mounted units,
Green – Barbarian Units

Medium Cavalry – 2 units (6 blocks)

Heavy Cavalry – 4 units (12 blocks)

Black Rectangular Wagon Blocks

Baggage Wagon (one side), Wagon Laager (opposite side) – (5 blocks)

Black Square Blocks

Eight of these blocks are for the Imperial Roman victory banners and two are for Special Unit markers. Each block receives a label on one side only.

We have decreased the number of card holders in Expansion #4 from four to two, but feel the increase in blocks more than offsets the transfer of the other two card holders to Expansion #5.

New GMT Ventrilo Voice Server FREE for Customer Use

As part of our continuing commitment to helping our customers enjoy our games via online play, we are making the GMT Ventrilo Voice Server available to all of our customers for FREE use to augment your online game play, effective immediately. We hope you guys will find this a useful additional tool in enjoying your online play. As we’ve tested the system recently, customer feedback has been excellent regarding the sound quality and ease of use of our Ventrilo Voice server, especially for multi-player gaming.

Note that our voice server can be used to augment play of any online gaming – Cyberboard, Sun Tzu, Vassal, ADC, etc. Ventrilo just provides the voice conferencing component, while taking up very few system resources. We generally use Vassal with Ventrilo in our live online sessions (see below), but that is because of Vassal’s live “Synchronization” feature – which allows all attendees to synch up with what is on the leader’s vassal screen and follow his moves visually in real time as well.

Over the coming weeks, we will also be providing more – and more varied – online live events via the GMT Ventrilo Voice Server. Sometimes in concert with Vassal, sometimes just with audio conferencing, these will be opportunities for teaching games, showing details of upcoming games, holding seminars by various designers and company insiders, and Q & A sessions that offer real-time access to many of the GMT insiders. We’re looking forward to enhancing our communications with our customers and bettering our teaching of and support for our games via this venue.

How to access the GMT Ventrilo Voice Server

1. Go to www.ventrilo.com and download the client software (from leftside menu) (PC or Mac). Once you have it on your desktop….

2. Open Ventrilo

3. Input your Setup Information. Ventrilo will open to a screen that has three blanks at the top. You only need to fill in the top two areas USERNAME and SERVER – BINDINGS can stay blank.

To fill in an area, hit the right arrow to the right of the blank. For USER NAME, pick any name you want – but please use your real names so we can know who is using the service. Click OK when finished.

For the SERVER, you need to enter the following info:

Server: GMT Games Voice Server

Hostname or IP: vent4.gameservers.com

Port #: 4921

Password (case sensitive): GMTVoice09

(Default Channel) can stay blank

Then hit OK.

Note that Ventrilo saves all that info you entered above, so on subsequent visits, and that the server and password entry is a one-time thing. On subsequent visits, just open Ventrilo, press Connect, and you’re in.

Back at the main Ventrilo Screen, press CONNECT once all that is filled in. You should go into a screen that says “GMT Voice Server” at the top with several “channels” underneath. Each channel restricts conversation to just the users in that channel, so it works great for two-player games, multi-player games, conference calls, or just voice chat. Just click a channel name to enter that channel. Numbered Rooms are provided for game play. Just press the “left control” key to talk. (For Mac users, hit the SETUP button at right and set your push-to-talk key in the HOTKEY box.)

Once you are connected to the server, if you have any trouble with your microphone, you can click the “Setup” button at right to modify your Input, Output, volume control, etc.

Note that using speakers when speaking over any VOIP program can cause echoes and other feedback (when multiple users are speaking at once) and lead your gaming partner to want to mercilessly crush you! For an environment like Fields of Fire 101 where someone else is doing the majority of the talking, it’s not a big deal, but if you are using our server to play your online games or touch base by voice with your gaming buddies (and you’re welcome to do that), then headphones and mike are definitely preferred.

If you have any problems with using the server, please feel free to contact Gene either on the server (user GMT Gene) or via e-mail at gmtgames@aol.com.

Enjoy!

Live Online Events on GMT’s Ventrilo Voice Server

We will be running weekly live events on the new GMT Ventrilo Voice Server. Over the past several weeks, Ricky Gray and Gene Billingsley have conducted several Fields of Fire 101 audio-visual teaching tutorials via Vassal and the Ventrilo server. These sessions have been very well received by attendees, so much so that many of our internal design/development teams are now preparing various seminars of their own to teach games and provide online tutorials for existing and future products. Occasionally we’ll also have audio-only seminars with a Q & A component to provide customer voice interaction with various members of our teams. We’ll announce the event schedule weekly on our website, so keep an eye there for updates. Our near-future schedule looks like this:

* Sunday, April 12, 9:30 PM EST, Ricky Gray leads Fields of Fire 101 Audio-Visual Tutorial (Vassal and Ventrilo).

* Monday, April 13, 9 PM EST. Joel Toppen. A Sneak Peek at Washington’s War (Vassal & Ventrilo)

To participate, just download the appropriate Vassal module from our website (in the case of Washington’s War, contact Joel for the link – joel_m_toppen@msn.com), make sure you have the Ventrilo software set up on your computer, and meet us on Vassal and Ventrilo about 15 minutes before the scheduled start time (so we can make sure everyone is set up correctly).

These sessions are fun and informative. Come join us!

More Support for Fields of Fire

As we alluded to last time, thanks to great help and support from Ricky Gray, Ben Hull, and Joel Toppen, we now have several new support items/events available for Ben Hull’s immersive and addicting Fields of Fire.

1. Part 1 of a newAdvanced Example of Play, by Gene Billingsley and Ricky Gray
2. A very cool newNormandy Vassal Module, by Joel Toppen
3. Fields of Fire 101 Live Online Audio-Visual Sessions, hosted by Ricky Gray, to teach the Vassal module and the game first-hand via Vassal and Ventrilo. The next session will be:

Sunday, April 12, 9:30 PM EST

You’ll need to download the Vassal module and Ventrilo software and then connect to the Vassal website and Ventrilo to join our sessions.

Sneak Peeks for Upcoming Games

Here are a few recently-added sneak peeks for upcoming games:

* An Invasion Example of Play [483 Kb pdf] for Mark Simonitch’s Normandy ’44
* The Near-Final Rulebook for Jim Day’s The Kaiser’s Pirates
* Phil Fry’s updated Illustrated Example of Play for 1805: Sea of Glory

White Box Copies of Commands & Colors Ancients

We now have about 50 copies left of C&C Ancients in the warehouse for which we have no boxes. But we do have some sturdy white boxes that hold the game quite well. So while they last, we are offering these “White Box” versions of C&C Ancients, identical to the regular version except for the box, for a discounted price of $55. To order this item, go to this special link on our website – or as always feel free to contact the office ladies to make your order:

C & C Ancients “White Box Version” $55

Production Outlook Update

Here’s the latest (tentative) production schedule through August of 2009:

Late April/Early May:

Ship of the Line

C3i Magazine Issue 22

Late May:

The Kaiser’s Pirates

June:

1805: Sea of Glory

PQ-17

July:

Commands & Colors Ancients (Reprint of Base Game)

C & C Ancients Expansion #4: Imperial Rome

C & C Ancients Expansion #5: Epic Ancients I

Washington’s War

August:

Dead of Winter

Elusive Victory

The Caucasus Campaign

Online Customer Support

If you have any questions regarding any orders or upcoming charges (or any customer service inquiry), the quickest way to get an answer is to use our Online Chat on the GMT website – which connects your directly to our office ladies. Certainly they’ll help you by phone or e-mail as well if you wish, but the online chat is a very fast and easy way to get your questions answered. Note that if you click the “Send a transcript” box when you initiate the chat, you’ll get an e-mail transcript of the entire chat for your records. We like this feature, as you get verification of everything that was said just like e-mail, but the response is MUCH quicker. We invite you to try it out next time you need an answer from the office folks.

That’s all for this week.

Enjoy the games!

Your Friends at GMT Games