ERA III - Coming Summer 2025

[merc]

3 hours ago, evancelt said:

That said, plenty of "faction" still around for the people who enjoy that stuff. I for one plan on keeping the glory of Corrington alive 

So if I wanted to continue playing within the Oleon I don’t have to change. That is good to know

[Yperio_Bricks]

Is era III still happening? This would be interesting to know for potential players.

[Kai NRG]

We still want very much to make it happen, but it's been hard to push through, though some progress has been made.  At this point setting up a date would be pointless.  I think we're looking at about 3-4 months of work, but only if we actually... work. 

[LM71Blackbird]

I'm not sure about everyone else, but as soon as Era 3 was put into motion, life got cranked up to 110% for me. Lol. I hope to get some time to at least get out the LEGO for some builds this winter.

[Ross Fisher]

Is there any chance you could dial back the complexity to make it easier to launch? We don't need complex rule sets and charts of who owns what. We just need an excuse to build. 

[Kai NRG]

One of the biggest reasons for the revamp is to design it so that it can basically run itself after the initial automation work, so launching before every piece is ready would kind of defeat the purpose.  The original game required a lot of maintenance that meant that much of its potential was unexplored because leadership was bogged down in the mechanics a lot, and we're hoping to smooth that out with Era III.  I think it's safe to say that we've done so much work on it already, and there are quite a few of us who really want it to happen, that it's sure to get done sooner or later, we just have all for different reasons been intensely busy with real life lately.

[Bart]

Kai, that sounds like a very good reason to move to Era III, more automation so that the game masters can run the game instead of bookkeeping our hoards of dubloons XD. 

[Corweena]

Hello Gentlemen, it's been a while! Excited to see what Era III has in store. 

With leadership changing, who should I contact in regards to the state of my accounts? I unfortunately lost all my lists of my properties, ships, etc. in a computer crash. I didn't see my name in any of the recent KPAs, since I haven't been active in a while. 

I currently have a good bit of free time on my hands, so I wanted to do some pre-building in anticipation for Era III. I wanted to see what monetary funds and what not I have at my disposal before I start building. 

Whoever can point me in the direction of who to contact, I'd appreciate it!

[Kai NRG]

Despite being on the new leadership team, I have no idea who has the old account sheets (there are probably links to them somewhere in the forum here), but for Era III, we will be moving to a new format and new map, so while you can certainly get a head start building generic things like ships and houses, your current assets will probably not be relevant.  For story purposes, the worlds of Eras I and II will still certainly be around, but they'll no longer be part of game play.  In the meantime, it's a great opportunity to finish up any loose storylines you had going or build in any current settlements whose theme strikes your fancy, before we move onto a new map.

There are still a few "transition challenges" planned, so keep an eye out for those as we (hopefully) get closer to the new era launch!

[Corweena]

35 minutes ago, Kai NRG said:

Despite being on the new leadership team, I have no idea who has the old account sheets (there are probably links to them somewhere in the forum here), but for Era III, we will be moving to a new format and new map, so while you can certainly get a head start building generic things like ships and houses, your current assets will probably not be relevant.  For story purposes, the worlds of Eras I and II will still certainly be around, but they'll no longer be part of game play.  In the meantime, it's a great opportunity to finish up any loose storylines you had going or build in any current settlements whose theme strikes your fancy, before we move onto a new map.

There are still a few "transition challenges" planned, so keep an eye out for those as we (hopefully) get closer to the new era launch!

This is exactly the information I needed. A ship is definitely in the works, but I'll hold off on some more specific items until more info is released.

I was actually able to find the old account sheets, and I was still on it....I was just looking in the wrong place. 

 

And a question about the future....if everything is reseting, will it be from absolute zero? As in like you signed up like a new member, and have your initial small amount to begin building from? Just trying to gauge who/what I want to build. Don't want to overdo it with stuff I couldn't register to start. 

 

Thanks!

[Kai NRG]

3 hours ago, Corweena said:

And a question about the future....if everything is reseting, will it be from absolute zero? As in like you signed up like a new member, and have your initial small amount to begin building from? Just trying to gauge who/what I want to build. Don't want to overdo it with stuff I couldn't register to start. 

I know we were looking at honoring prior members somehow.  I can't remember on exactly what we settled on, but I do know we decided to keep it relatively small so that we start off with a fairly even playing field--something like bringing over one ship and maybe a small percentage of DBs.  So there's certainly no point building loads and loads of stuff, especially because the new map/game should have some cool features that you'll want to use to inspire your MOCs!  It will also be a smaller scale game in the sense that it will focus more on your sigfig's story, the adventures of their ship, and so forth, rather than building massive settlements with generic figs.  I think there's still a deal of potential on the current map/current era story if you're just looking to build some cool MOCs.

I love your enthusiasm by the way!  As I'm sure you've figured out we're running a little behind on this project, hopefully we can push through and launch sometime this year.

[Maxim I]

On 1/30/2025 at 9:11 PM, Kai NRG said:

I know we were looking at honoring prior members somehow.  I can't remember on exactly what we settled on, but I do know we decided to keep it relatively small so that we start off with a fairly even playing field--something like bringing over one ship and maybe a small percentage of DBs.  So there's certainly no point building loads and loads of stuff, especially because the new map/game should have some cool features that you'll want to use to inspire your MOCs!  It will also be a smaller scale game in the sense that it will focus more on your sigfig's story, the adventures of their ship, and so forth, rather than building massive settlements with generic figs.  I think there's still a deal of potential on the current map/current era story if you're just looking to build some cool MOCs.

I love your enthusiasm by the way!  As I'm sure you've figured out we're running a little behind on this project, hopefully we can push through and launch sometime this year.

Looks excellent :D

So I saw taht @Professor Thaum changed the title to: "Coming Summer 2025" and since Summer started: are there more teasers / info / ... to share with us? :D 

[LM71Blackbird]

On 7/2/2025 at 10:05 AM, Maxim I said:

Looks excellent :D

So I saw taht @Professor Thaum changed the title to: "Coming Summer 2025" and since Summer started: are there more teasers / info / ... to share with us? :D 

By the beginning of April, the complete rules set was almost finished, and then @evancelt could begin the automation. Unfortunately, it has been pretty quiet in the way of news, but rest assured that ERA III is still on its way to the Brick Seas!

[Yperio_Bricks]

Time to change the thread title. Again 

Honestly, it would have been better to just tweak the rules a teeny tiny bit, just so people can not get rich in no time, and otherwise keep the game as is. Now we lost 3 years already...

[Kai NRG]

I guess I wasn't really involved in the game at the time it got paused for a rewrite, but I thought that the problem really was that running it required a level of behind the scenes maintenance that just was becoming too much for leadership to handle.  So that is why we went for a hard rewrite and also why we aren't launching until it operates without the constant need for game masters to write spreadsheets, sort through forms, and run formulas.  I do apologize for how long it has taken, but after all, we all are just volunteers working on it in our spare time.  And at least Tales of Old has been filling the gap with some cool stuff!

[Yperio_Bricks]

Maybe then it would have been better to drop the spreadsheets altogether and concentrate on mocs and stories, but keep the game going. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to blame anybody!! I just wanted to write something to show that the BotBS is not forgotten. I know how it is to work an a hobby game as an volunteer. I create content for a almost dead videogame remake and I am the only person on this planet still creating maps for it  Anyway, it is sad to see such a long break, 3 years and counting and maybe the new BotBS project was to ambitious after all. Maybe you could share the current state with the players?

[FrO0ogy]

hi im new to bobs I was wondering if anyone has thought of making a website or application that could manage the all of the moves and mechanics of the game so players could just input a move to the website and then the website could do the tedious admin stuff and track whats happening on a digital map so the admins could focus on the more enjoyable parts of bobs. It could even just be on the backend too, and if its just on the backend it might be fine to just vibe code it.

Edited Thursday at 02:44 PM by FrO0ogy

[Kai NRG]

2 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Maybe then it would have been better to drop the spreadsheets altogether and concentrate on mocs and stories, but keep the game going. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to blame anybody!! I just wanted to write something to show that the BotBS is not forgotten. I know how it is to work an a hobby game as an volunteer. I create content for a almost dead videogame remake and I am the only person on this planet still creating maps for it  Anyway, it is sad to see such a long break, 3 years and counting and maybe the new BotBS project was to ambitious after all. Maybe you could share the current state with the players?

And it's definitely good to hear from you, great to know there is still interest and a little bit of pressure is certainly not going to hurt us... who knows, a lot more pressure and we might actually get it done 

Current state: map is complete (or almost? not my area), all the rules except for the war mechanics are written and I believe, again not my area, that some preliminary work has been done on the website.

That said, current state is also a zombie land, we are at a total halt on the war rules.  Garmadon--he's my brother so I can throw him under the bus--is the one who's developing the war rules and he's been... a little busy.  That project is over as of yesterday, Brickworld is the next big thing, but after June I will try to steer him back here!

1 hour ago, FrO0ogy said:

hi im new to bobs I was wondering if anyone has thought of making a website or application that could manage the all of the moves and mechanics of the game so players could just input a move to the website and then the website could do the tedious admin stuff and track whats happening on a digital map so the admins could focus on the more enjoyable parts of bobs. It could even just be on the backend too, and if its just on the backend it might be fine to just vibe code it.

Yes, that is almost exactly what we're doing!  I will say, if this turns out anything like what we're envisioning, it will not disappoint when it finally come out.