Great Brick War General Discussion Thread

[paintballman]

15 hours ago, TheBeeze said:

Great Brick War Prize Pack by Jesse Beeze, on Flickr

Great Brick War Prize Pack by Jesse Beeze, on Flickr

Courtesy of our Sponsor Minifig.cat

That's nice

A good move from all of us is to repost this in out Favebook LUG and other LEGO groups, in other LEGO related forums, and as many LEGO related blogs we can 

[TheBeeze]

10 hours ago, ODA 401 said:

How do we win?

Whoever has the highest scoring build for CP7 will win. Staff members are not eligible for it. 

[ODA 401]

Got it.

[TheBeeze]

Okay guys. I just got in from Vacation. CP7 should be dropping soon and we are hoping to have the scores from 6 up this week. Enjoy your Sunday!

[TheBeeze]

Just wanted to point out as I've had the time to really look at your builds as we've gone into scoring phase- You guys have really stepped up your game. A lot of you have come a long way and produced possibly your best builds this time around which is great to see. Keep in mind our expectations of you grow with every round and you guys are doing really well! I look forward to seeing you all tackle the next challenge!

[Leche Guevara]

Hi everybodi!

I have been reading a lot of post and the game look interesting. Can I join the game? 

Thank a lot.

[LegoRacer1]

I don't see why not. Just read over the rules (if you haven't done so already) then choose a country and post your sigfig. 

[Stash2Sixx]

15 hours ago, Leche Guevara said:

Hi everybodi!

I have been reading a lot of post and the game look interesting. Can I join the game? 

Thank a lot.

Hi Leche!

I see you are brand new to the site, so welcome!  If you have read over the rules and the general discussion thread, then you are welcome to join us.  I would also encourage you to make a few more posts, of content, so that you can achieve a post count of ten.  In fact, you need to be above ten posts before you join the game.  You need at least ten posts to access the personal message system that we use here to communicate within our teams.

Judging by your post, I can only assume that you are not a native English speaker?  That's ok, just take your time with your posts.  As I'm sure you know from the signup guidelines, the majority of the site uses the English language.  

[TheBeeze]

There has been some talk about confusion of all the mission types and what people can do. I've slapped together a quick list for all of you. Any questions, comments, concerns - discuss here. 

Types of Missions:

1. Monthly Campaign
2. Side Missions:

   - Supporting the war effort- Players can depict scenes from their country where people are doing things to aid the war effort. Everything from military training to factory production of goods is fair game. 

   - Sabotage- Players can build scenes showing local resistance sabotaging the war effort of their enemies domestically. This is not a SPECOPS mission so there should be NO High Speed Tier 1 NVG guys running around with tricked out guns and Semtex. These are underground resistance fighters that your country might be arming or supporting. This is your build, but you're building in someone else's country. Don't build something that you would hate to see done to your country. 

   - Media- Players can build scenes showing the media covering outside events that are going on to enhance the game.

   - Troop Build Up / Movement- In order to move large concentrations of troops to other regions for the next campaign, players can build scenes showing their forces moving into a new position. (Air or naval travel to a friendly a nation, ground movement along main roadways through allied nations).

   - Reconnaissance- Players can depict their armies or resistance conducting RECON of their enemies. Everything ranging from field positions to manufacturing plants is fair game. (These can be unlocked when your character achieves level 21.)

   - Lord of War- Players show their country acquiring new vehicles, guns, or other weaponry from an arms manufacturer or trafficker. It is important to note, this build is not just to show off something you have purchased or a specific vehicle you have made. You must build an environment, develop a story, have something to do with a manufacturer or trafficker. Players who just put things on display with these builds will not score well.

   - Escort and Patrol- Players are to make builds showing their forces either A. Escorting someone or something of a level of importance or B. Patrolling an area currently under their control.  Obviously combat is acceptable in a build like this, but 1. It Is Not Required and 2. Should not be a whole large scale battle. 

3. FRAGO Missions- Randomly distributed by the Staff

4. SPECOPS Missions- Custom Tailored by the Staff for players who have achieved the proper rank and request one.

5. Solo Campaign- Custom Tailored Story Line from the staff for any player that purchases one.

6. Contract Missions- Players work to complete a list of targets monthly- does not affect side build count. 

[Stash2Sixx]

Anyone heard anything from @Leche Guevara? He still interested?

[TheBeeze]

8 hours ago, Stash2Sixx said:

Anyone heard anything from @Leche Guevara? He still interested?

Nope 

[TheBeeze]

I want to open the floor up to discussion here.

In trying to keep the game exciting and interesting while also staying true to our main purpose of making better builders and having fun, we have implemented a lot of changes in the passed (2) Months. We have a few other ideas up our sleeves which may be very productive as well but first wanted to throw out an idea to the playerbase. 

In an effort to try and keep the game from going stale, I have pondered the idea of essentially bringing this "version" of the game to a conclusion and reintroducing the game for a new round at a later time. The new round of the game would feature a redesigned map and country structure that would bring the game closer to the scale we are in now. It would rely a lot more heavily on the land based geography of the map and so on. Of course this would also mean an end to the current alliances but would also allow new alliances to be created and players to start out playing for themselves as opposed to in a group. There is a lot we can do with this. 

This would require a lot of planning on our part and before we put the time in making it happen, I wanted to put a feeler out there for all of you to provide some feedback on this idea moving forward. This is obviously not something that will happen right away and we have more campaign ideas lined up. We will of course address the issue of carrying over points and things like that as well. 

Please discuss. 

[Stash2Sixx]

I like the way things are, but am also interested in changing things up.  I think in the current way the game is set up, we learned quite a bit; who works together, who cannot, who is capable of being open minded, where the game is taken advantage of, etc, etc...

I'm all for change and would support it.

[sigpro]

I will try to be brief.

The idea of the contract missions has been good. They let us develop other builds and skills.

Using a more realistic map is welcome, but ending the current Alliances is maybe too radical. But we can create the same ones again.

[TheBeeze]

2 hours ago, sigpro said:

Using a more realistic map is welcome, but ending the current Alliances is maybe too radical. But we can create the same ones again.

No, it would be a different map more drawn to suit our game. I'd say we'd likely keep the same country names in the interest of not confusing anyone but the map would be totally different. The alliances are currently part of the problem I see in moving things forward.

[Spud The Viking]

I personally like the idea of a revamp

[ODA 401]

I think it might be worth it to try.

I kind-of would like to see the era move back to the 70s, but I think that is too much of a long shot.

[paintballman]

It is an interesting idea. I agree 

A problem is the limited number of players/builders vs the number of people who are building modern military themes out there. There are many people in FlickR who participatd in similar storylines in the last years  and other who are posting pictures of their build frequently, but who did not interested to play in GBW. We must think what are the reasons and what we can do about it

[sigpro]

36 minutes ago, paintballman said:

It is an interesting idea. I agree 

A problem is the limited number of players/builders vs the number of people who are building modern military themes out there. There are many people in FlickR who participatd in similar storylines in the last years  and other who are posting pictures of their build frequently, but who did not interested to play in GBW. We must think what are the reasons and what we can do about it

I think one of the things that military MOC builders dislike is that they have to follow rules and start from zero. Let me explain myself: I build excellent planes, helicopters, tanks, etc. But until campaign 2 or 3 I will be limited to infantry and small vehicles. And some people don´t want that. By the way, I think it is a good rule, because that tells you who is really interested in the game.

[TheBeeze]

9 hours ago, ODA 401 said:

I kind-of would like to see the era move back to the 70s, but I think that is too much of a long shot.

Yeah, that's kinda pushing it haha. But consider the real world; there are a lot of countries right now that are using 70s weaponry and technology as that is all that they can afford. So it's not too far off if someone wanted their country modeled in that manner. 

1 hour ago, paintballman said:

There are many people in FlickR who participatd in similar storylines in the last years  and other who are posting pictures of their build frequently, but who did not interested to play in GBW. We must think what are the reasons and what we can do about it

This is one of my biggest problems. I've had a lot of conversations with talented builders on Flickr. Getting them here has proven to be difficult for (2) reasons:
1. They want to build what they want to build. They don't want to be told "Okay this month you're attacking this". Which I understand so trying to find that middle ground has proven to be difficult and that is why we're introducing a lot of the new things we are doing lately to try and provide a little more freedom.
2. A lot of people hate Eurobricks. It has a bad reputation of being an elitest harboring site that puts down inexperienced builders instead of trying to build them up. There is actually a topic about it on the site where I have shared my opinion on the matter (and I would encourage you to do the same if you have issues). No matter how much I try and explain to some people that what we do is different in here, they have that bad taste in their mouth already. This one is out of my control. 

22 minutes ago, sigpro said:

I think one of the things that military MOC builders dislike is that they have to follow rules and start from zero. 

I'd imagine this is part of that as well. We may rework this a bit if we do decide to do round 2. We would most likely not restrict existing players.  

[sigpro]

28 minutes ago, TheBeeze said:

2. A lot of people hate Eurobricks. It has a bad reputation of being an elitest harboring site that puts down inexperienced builders instead of trying to build them up. There is actually a topic about it on the site where I have shared my opinion on the matter (and I would encourage you to do the same if you have issues). No matter how much I try and explain to some people that what we do is different in here, they have that bad taste in their mouth already. This one is out of my control. 

Can you send the link to that topic? Once ago I had a nasty experience about a build of mine, when I was a SW builder.

[TheBeeze]

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/161164-making-eurobricks-more-active/&page=6

[Lord Buckethead]

I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a revamp. If I may I'd like to share some thoughts on the structure of this game. One of the things that's prevented me from building as much as I'd like in this game is time restraints on my part and how linear the game is, especially compared to other EB RPGs such as BOBS. 

One of the things that's great about BOBS is that you can always post a small build to further your characters story, within you real life time limits and part restrictions. That just really isn't possible in GBW, here we have campaigns and side builds (with other things like contract missions) which all feel really linear, I don't feel free to do what I want and it's not always possible to participate in a campaign (tims restraints etc.).

Take this for example, in BOBS I didn't feel like I wanted to explore the New World, so I set up an expedition to discover southern lands all on my own accord. Whereas GBW seems like you have to build this in this location, there's not really much player choice.

Now I'm not saying that GBW must become as open as BOBS, as has been mentioned before that will just lead to arguments. What I'm saying is that I think a little bit of freedom in GBW could go a long way in terms of boosting participation.

[TheBeeze]

1 hour ago, Lord Buckethead said:

 

 

 

This is great feedback. Thank you. 

[Leonardo da Bricki]

I am definitely open to a revamp! I quite like the game as is, but sure, some changes would be great!

I do like the "game" element, with the points and levels, and I think if we added a research expenditure (I.e. spend points to further research in weaponry/vehicles/etc.) to make more options open up, like they are currently around the world. This would be cool, and add some realism in another facet of waging war. I bring this up because I did a Lord of War build, and just had to build and introduce a whole new vehicle, and yes, I added backstory, but had no builds for it, nor did it cost me anything to change my means of warfare. In addition, it would allow much more freedom of building, as each nation individually would have to show the process of building up infrastructure to support their efforts.

Although I do like the current Campaigns with set objectives, where there is competition between the teams over one location/etc, I think that the original campaigns, with a bit more freedom, were good. See spoiler for more about this:

Spoiler

Campaign Guidelines [Campaign 1]

• Countries that are part of the COAC are to build MOCs depicting their side digging in and preparing for an invasion. Research what countries have done in recent conflicts to prepare for invading forces. Though not always directly in the crosshairs, nations may do certain things to prepare for war. 
• Countries in the RON are to build MOCs depicting their side mobilizing offensive forces and preparing to support an offensive campaign. Research what countries have done to prepare for an invasion in modern times. The first Gulf War is a great example. The Coalition that liberated Kuwait was comprised of over 20 nations, not all of them were involved in the assault. 
• All builds must be posted as a new topic in the “Great Brick War” subforum, the title prefixed by, "(GBW- CP1)" followed by the Country you’re representing, and then your MOC’s Title. Example "(GBW- CP1) Filace - Fueling up the Jets") 
• Being that this is the first campaign, a strong emphasis should be placed on depicting your country in a unique form (Geography, Culture, Military Equipment, ETC.) The more original and in depth your depiction is, the more points you can earn. 
• Be sure to include a Map Listing Name and Grid based on the maps we've created. 
• There is no minimum or maximum size requirement for this build. 
• All builds must be new MOC’s and not prior builds. 

That is just my opinion at this time, @TheBeeze & @Stash2Sixx and all the other staff, you guys have done a great job with this game! Looking forwards to the improvements!