Welcome to The Art of War
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:10 am
Firstly, a big welcome to you all. You have been individually invited to join this closed beta test as you are all respected and knowledgeable friends from the wargaming community and we value your opinion. We will be employing the same techniques that we use when testing our computer games. Our usual practice is to limit the number of testers on the initial beta test. Later as matters progress we will widen the pool. This allows us to manage the process and respond to the feedback in a much more focused way.
Please note that the entire pack will be contained in two separate mails
1 Playsheets and Report Form
2 Sample Army Lists & AOW Rules
Some of you will be working in pairs others in small groups. Whilst we want everyone to air their views we ask that when we get fully under way that your ???team leader??? compiles the information that you send to us. This will make it much easier for us to respond to your suggestions. If your group is in disagreement on a point, just indicate this and include the varying points of view in your report.
It is also very important that you understand the need for frank and if necessary even brutal feedback. You cannot hurt our feelings. You have been selected because we are certain that you will give us your honest views no matter what they are. Hopefully between us we can produce the next generation of Ancient Wargames rules that we will all be proud of. Your efforts and your contribution will be credited in the final version.
We have provided you with this, your own forum, on Slitherine's web site www.slitherine.com where you can talk with other members of the testing team. You must have already registered and let us now your username to be here!
Your postings here are private and of course confidential to the beta testing team. The writing team will not be posting in this forum so you can say what you like about the rules J. This is your forum!
Ideally we would like to hear from you weekly, but we fully realise that this may not be possible for you all. No matter how often you can provide feedback, we would still encourage you to post regularly on the forum, as issues that you may have concerns about may not be discovered by another team.
In order to drive the process forwards, we will consider a testing week to end at midnight each Sunday. We fully recognise that you may not be able to provide a report in any given week. This is not a problem, as we will consider what feedback we have received and pick up on yours later.
The writing team will endeavour to respond as quickly as possible, but by the nature of the test programme this must be flexible and is dependant on the quantity of feedback we receive. Its important to remember that we cannot possibly agree on all issues, but we are confident that you all appreciate that someone has to make the judgement calls. So even if a particular decision does not accord with your own views, we will have fully considered them before reaching a decision.
Another point to bear in mind is that it is our intention to produce a fully localised version of the rules in each of the major wargaming territories. Some of you are already enlisted to help with this task, but this will be left until we are satisfied that the project is nearing completion.
We have included a report form to help you provide information. It is intended that this will be a living document so feedback categories, methods of working etc may vary and your suggestions on how we should proceed are welcome.
Finally James Hamilton has agreed to act as Forum Moderator and he will assist us with the information flow in both directions.
Regards
The Art of War Team
Richard Bodley Scott
Simon Hall
Terry Shaw
Iain McNeil
JD McNeil
Please note that the entire pack will be contained in two separate mails
1 Playsheets and Report Form
2 Sample Army Lists & AOW Rules
Some of you will be working in pairs others in small groups. Whilst we want everyone to air their views we ask that when we get fully under way that your ???team leader??? compiles the information that you send to us. This will make it much easier for us to respond to your suggestions. If your group is in disagreement on a point, just indicate this and include the varying points of view in your report.
It is also very important that you understand the need for frank and if necessary even brutal feedback. You cannot hurt our feelings. You have been selected because we are certain that you will give us your honest views no matter what they are. Hopefully between us we can produce the next generation of Ancient Wargames rules that we will all be proud of. Your efforts and your contribution will be credited in the final version.
We have provided you with this, your own forum, on Slitherine's web site www.slitherine.com where you can talk with other members of the testing team. You must have already registered and let us now your username to be here!
Your postings here are private and of course confidential to the beta testing team. The writing team will not be posting in this forum so you can say what you like about the rules J. This is your forum!
Ideally we would like to hear from you weekly, but we fully realise that this may not be possible for you all. No matter how often you can provide feedback, we would still encourage you to post regularly on the forum, as issues that you may have concerns about may not be discovered by another team.
In order to drive the process forwards, we will consider a testing week to end at midnight each Sunday. We fully recognise that you may not be able to provide a report in any given week. This is not a problem, as we will consider what feedback we have received and pick up on yours later.
The writing team will endeavour to respond as quickly as possible, but by the nature of the test programme this must be flexible and is dependant on the quantity of feedback we receive. Its important to remember that we cannot possibly agree on all issues, but we are confident that you all appreciate that someone has to make the judgement calls. So even if a particular decision does not accord with your own views, we will have fully considered them before reaching a decision.
Another point to bear in mind is that it is our intention to produce a fully localised version of the rules in each of the major wargaming territories. Some of you are already enlisted to help with this task, but this will be left until we are satisfied that the project is nearing completion.
We have included a report form to help you provide information. It is intended that this will be a living document so feedback categories, methods of working etc may vary and your suggestions on how we should proceed are welcome.
Finally James Hamilton has agreed to act as Forum Moderator and he will assist us with the information flow in both directions.
Regards
The Art of War Team
Richard Bodley Scott
Simon Hall
Terry Shaw
Iain McNeil
JD McNeil