GMT Games Update
Here are the most recent (April 22, 2009) GMT Games updates.
Shipping/Charging Update
Shipping: Our next shipments will begin next Tuesday, April 29th. We’ll be shipping both Ship of the Line and C3i Magazine Issue 22 then. It should take us about a week to get them all shipped out. After that, our next shipment will be The Kaiser’s Pirates in late May.
Charging: We’ve finished all the P500 charging for The Kaiser’s Pirates yesterday. As always, we had a few charges that didn’t go through. If you haven’t seen a charge yet but have this game on order, please contact our office ladies via phone or online chat.
Combat Commander: Normandy Battle Pack Passed P500 in 40 Hours!!
You guys ordered Combat Commander Battle Pack #3: Normandy at the fastest rate ever for the P500 program! It passed 500 orders in less than 40 hours, and now sits at 670 orders, so we’ve already given it an early fall production slot! 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, John Butterfield, Bryan Collars, Ric Van Dyk, and Volko Ruhnke! For those of you who haven’t ordered, if you like Combat Commander, this is a terrific addition to the series. We encourage you to add it to your P500 list at your convenience.
Production Outlook Update
We’ve made quite a few adjustments to our production schedule recently, mostly due to parts procurement issues and the scheduling of a couple of overseas shipments. We’ve also added both Hellenes and Combat Commander Battle Pack #3: Normandy to the schedule.Here’s the latest (tentative) production schedule through September of 2009:
Beginning April 29th:
Late May:
June:
July:
August:
Commands & Colors Ancients (Reprint of Base Game)
C & C Ancients Expansion #4: Imperial Rome
C & C Ancients Expansion #5: Epic Ancients I
September:
Combat Commander Battle Pack #3: Normandy
One Deletion From the P500 List
At the request of the designer, we are removing Bataan! from the P500 list. All orders for this game will be deleted from our system. Sorry, guys, that this one just didn’t work out.
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
As we mentioned last time, 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 and Joel Toppen has provided sneak peaks at both Washington’s War and Hellenes. 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:
- Friday, April 24, 10 PM EST, Ricky Gray leads Fields of Fire 101 (Vietnam) Audio-Visual Tutorial (Vassal and Ventrilo).
To participate, just download the appropriate Vassal module from our, 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!
New Vassal Modules
We’ve recently added the following modules for online play to our website:
- Added updated VASSAL Modules Normandy (2.2) and Vietnam (1.21) forFields of Fire.
- Added an updated VASSAL Module (1.2) forArctic Storm.
- Added an updated VASSAL Module forCourtrai-Najera from Men or Iron
- Added a VASSAL Module forArctic Storm.
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
