Fascinating Olotka interview (plus Dune news!)

A recent podcast featuring Cosmic Encounter designer Peter Olotka is making the rounds, and it is well worth a listen. The Little Metal Dog Show caught up with Peter and had him share about 50 minutes' worth of insights into Cosmic Encounter, its history, and the current state of the game.

It's also worth noting that there's quite a bit of juicy news concerning the Dune boardgame, including the first public mention that I've ever heard that the new version of the game — Fantasy Flight Games' Twilight: Dune  or Dune: Imperium or whatever — will actually be produced.

There's also some fascinating stuff about the somewhat troubled history of the Dune game, including Peter talking directly with Frank Herbert himself at one point. Look for the Dune content at roughly the 32-minute mark.

The podcast is available as a direct download from the Little Metal Dog site or as a free podcast at the iTunes Store.

Mark your calendars for national CE Day

Wow, first post since June? Yikes.

Short answer, for those who might care: new work situation; two very active ankle-biters. And, since I don't really expect anyone to care too much, I'm just going to leave it at that.

Wait ... where was I?

Oh, right: February 12 is officially National Cosmic Encounter Day.

No, really. It's official and everything.

Personally, I know I won't be able to play CE on that day with actual physical components — I'm reasonably certain I'll never actually play the boardgame version again — but I will be making an effort to get in some time at CE Online that night.

Either way, I'm asking all true and faithful CE players to spread the word and mark their calendars. February 12, brothers and sisters. Be there or be L7.

Cosmic Encounter in the cloud: FAST!

The Thursday test of Cosmic Encounter Online running on a cloud-based server seemed to be a smashing success. With about 90-percent of the game totally functional (things such as Join In Progress were turned off), the site performed at top efficiency, supporting many rooms of players and a chatty lobby. At one point, in fact, players were encouraged to post as fast as they could in the lobby, which has often been a problem area in the past. The result: not even a minor hiccup.

To the best of my knowledge, no players reported any errors or issues with lag. I personally had one laggy moment, but I'm 99-percent sure the problem was on my end, as I've really been struggling with AT&T for the last couple of weeks. Other than that, I didn't hear of any other players having issues.

The hope is that this could lead to a better experience in all areas of the game. A faster experience, combined with some bug-fixes and new aliens, would also be just the ticket to draw in a new generation of players and entice some of the old-school veterans to return.

Thursday testing for "Cosmic in the cloud"

Re-blogging from the official Cosmic Encounter Online blog:

We want to get a bunch of players in the game on the development server to try to replicate the LAG problem that’s been plaguing the game since we have been running on Network Solutions. Our goal is to fix up the current game and then add aliens from the new FFG set.

(Can I just add that I really love that last line?)

The test is scheduled for tomorrow, June 10. All of the details can be found right here.

Update: Major slowdown; posts will be infrequent

No long speeches ... just a notice that maintaining a low-key gaming blog has been forced way, way, way down my priority list due to Real Life concerns.

I do not know when — or, frankly, if — this blog will be updated again. For now, I will leave it open for searching and archive purposes.

(Update 3/5/10: The blog, generally, is still a low priority, but I'm going to post interesting items if the seem worthy. For now, I'd guess that will mean no more than two or three posts per month. So, it's not "dead" ... just "slow.")

No one is dying or anything dramatic like that; it's just priorities.

May your Viruses always multiply by 4.

— Duke

Mystery boxes revealed; zero relevant news

So that third mystery box over at Fantasy Flight Games turned out to be some sort of bizarre you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter combination of BattleLore and A Game of Thrones.

Personally, it would be impossible for me to be less interested in this item. I mention it only because it serves as sort of an official end to the speculation: none of the three mystery boxes had the slightest thing to do with Twilight Dune: Dinosaur Ninjas, Borderlands, or Cosmic Encounter.

Bleh.

Incursion: off the boat and on the truck

It appears that the news is all good for those of us eagerly anticipating the arrival of Cosmic Incursion: the official FFG Upcoming Products and Reprints page has changed CI's status from a boat icon to a truck icon.

In English words:

The product is being shipped from the FFG warehouse in Minnesota to stores and distributors. This process takes between 7-10 days for the US, or a few days longer in Canada.

(Tip of the hat to Kobold Curry Chef for the sharp eyes)

Here's where I'm playing my next game of CE

I figure I'll be comfortable enough with 8,000 square feet. Heck, that might even be big enough to accommodate The Warp's super-deck.

I must note, also, that Fantasy Flight's new Gamer Heaven is the first thing I've ever encountered that made me wish I lived in Minnesota.

Uh, oh ... Incursion due date slipping?

Don't take this as the gospel truth, but at least one major gaming retailer has shifted Cosmic Incursion's due date back a month. Funagain Games, which I've always found to be a pretty reliable indicator of these sorts of things, now lists "March 2010" on its CI page.

FWIW. YMMV. SPQR. UCLA.

CE: Incursion due in February?

Boardgame News is reporting that the Cosmic Incursion expansion set is due in February of 2010, citing Fantasy Flight Games as a source. The FFG site itself, it should be noted, makes no mention of a release date that I can see.

So, for what it's worth: one site (albeit a usually reliable and professional one) is reporting an early 2010 release date. Make of it what you will.

FFG provides a first look at the rewards deck

Interesting stuff. A 32-card deck, available only to successful defensive allies.

Details are right here, my funny little meat-puppets.

CE: INCURSION DETAILS ANNOUNCED!

No release date yet, but Fantasy Flight Games has posted some information about Cosmic Incursion, the first expansion for the 2008 edition of the game.

No huge surprises so far: 20 aliens and pieces for a sixth player were very much expected; reward decks and "cosmic quakes" sound pretty interesting.

Suggested retail is $24.95. That sounds about right, from what I'm seeing. Hell, that cover is worth $10 all on its own.

And now even aliens have Twitter feeds

That Anti-Matter has always been a bit of a rebel. You know, with the whole "lowest total wins" thing and all that.

But now it's broken some entirely new ground. Anti-Matter is the first Cosmic Encounter alien to have its own Twitter feed. Oh, Anti, you crazy, nutty non-conformist.

My only question: how does it type without any hands?

You do NOT want to miss aliens in costume

Be sure to set aside some time on All Hallows Eve for a visit to Cosmic Encounter Online. There's nothing quite like seeing all of the aliens get dressed up.

All of the details can be found here. Be there or be relentlessly mocked.

Wow, down to two already ...

It looks like the item below was posted just in time, as Fantasy Flight Games has already revealed the first of the three Big Black Mystery Boxes.

It's not Dune: Imperium. It's something called Runewars.

Actually, it looks kind of cool.

Follow-up Friday: CE expansion still in warp

It's looking more and more likely that any possible Cosmic Encounter expansion is definitely not in Fantasy Flight Games' immediate post-GenCon plans. The company has released a very specific list of release dates for September and October, and there's no mention of the game to be found. FFG is also currently releasing rules and news for a number of their games at a very rapid clip — just take a look at the front page of the website and you'll see what I mean — and, again, there's not a "Cosmic" or an "Encounter" to be found anywhere.

It's still possible that the expansion could be a stealth release, of course; there's no rule that says FFG or any other gaming company has to do things in any specific order or has to announce their every move. But I'm leaning more and more toward a late fall or early 2010 release, after this current huge wave of post-GenCon products has been in the pipeline for awhile.

Ummm ... then again, maybe not ...

So ... never mind on those posts below. Ignore them. I was only kidding; clearly, there won't be any Cosmic Encounter news coming out of GenCon.

Or at least not in this six-minute video, which appears to be a series of highlights from Fantasy Flight Games' annual "InFlight Report" state-of-the-company address. There's all kinds of cool stuff in the video — especially if you're into things such as Descent and Talisman — but the words "cosmic" and "encounter" are never mentioned.

Now, as much as I'm disappointed, I'm also going to add that I don't think there's anything sinister going on here. I suspect that the long-rumored CE expansion simply hasn't found a place yet on FFG's production schedule, which, in all the years I've been following the company, has never been so crowded.

Stay tuned to this channel. If my Bothan spies report back with any sort of update, it will be posted immediately.

(No Twilight: Dune news, either. With or without dinosaurs)

CE expansion news coming on Friday?

The last couple of GenCons have been good ones for fans of Cosmic Encounter: the 2007 show brought us news of Fantasy Flight Games' upcoming new editions of Cosmic Encounter, Borderlands, and Twilight Imperium: Dune with Dinosaurs, while the 2008 show featured the actual first look at the new edition of CE.

Now, for this year's show, comes word that FFG will be hosting an "InFlight Report," where the company is expected to provide the gaming equivalent of a state-of-the-nation address. Here's the key part of the announcement (emphasis added):

... the 2009 InFlight Report will highlight FFG thoughts on its position in the marketplace, interesting anecdotes about FFG's operations, as well as a bundle of news and announcements.

Given that CE has been a runaway success for FFG (it completely sold out its first printing) and given that an expansion to the game seems to be about the worst-kept secret in all of gaming, I'm fairly optimistic we'll be seeing some news tomorrow. I'm pretty sure that deserves a "W00t!"

And, hey, FFG, if you're not too busy? Please, please, please announce something for Dune: Imperium. Enough with the wating game; let's hear something concrete.

Cosmic Encounter gets Wiki-fied

No, not at Wikipedia — that farcical entry is still around, just as embarrassing and semi-useless as any other article at that place. No, I'm talking about an independent site with wiki-based software, written and maintained (presumably) by Cosmic Encounter fans for Cosmic Encounter fans.

It's just getting off the ground now; check it out and maybe think about contributing a thing or two.

A nice Cosmic shout-out from Bruno

I mentioned earlier that I was looking forward to Bruno Faidutti's upcoming Ad Astra boardgame, having long ago discovered that I generally enjoy his take on asymmetrical or variable-powers games (and thinking that AA had a bit of a Cosmic Encounter feel to it, too).

So I ended up with a pretty big smile today after reading Fantasy Flight Games' first preview of the game. In addition to discussing the basic engine of the game — which appears to be more Settlers than Cosmic — the article closes with the following statement from Bruno:

In the past twenty years, the board game I’ve played most is certainly Cosmic Encounter.

Booyah! Score another point for CE's legendary influence.