Atlas Dispatches

Origins 2009: A Good Time Had By All

2009-07-02T15:25:00.004-05:00

It's been a good three years since my last gaming convention and I thought I knew what I was getting into. I mean really, if you've been to one, you've been to them all, right?

No.

Each con is unique in its own, very special way. And when you spend 95% of it from one specific vantage point (the other five percent breaking down into bathroom and coffee time) you start to draw some opinions.

Opinion #1: Columbus is cool.
Ok, I hear you pointing noisy fingers, "But you're from the Midwest! You wouldn't know cool if it came up and bit you with haute dentistry!" This is true, but I've also traveled around and have a simple criteria: if there's a selection of good restaurants within easy walking distance to the convention hall, easy access to good coffee, good architecture, nice people, and a vibe that makes me consider coming back without a con, then it qualifies as cool.

Opinion #2: GAMA's got your back.
No, they can't be everywhere at once but between board members, volunteers, and security, I was never wanting for help. Now if only they'd have run coffee for us, that would have upped the game. Next year GAMA!

Opinion #3: Origins attracts a quality crowd.
Now there's gamers, and then there's Gamers. In my mind, it's not the size of your library that counts, but the capacity of your enthusiasm. The crowd that appeared before me over the course of Origins' four days was eternally that: enthusiastic. One part savvy consumer, one part addict, two parts geek (/Black Books/ One part Fu Manchu, all bastard. \Black Books\). At the Atlas booth I found myself involved in many conversations of the best kind, "Which is the better written RPG: Unknown Armies or Over the Edge?" I might explain a new product to one fan only to have them turn around and tell the next guy that tells the gal next to him and then the kid on the end.

Opinion #4: Hawking Atlas Games is a pretty good gig.
Selling fun is crazy good. There's not enough of it in the world.

If you've never been to Origins, consider it for 2010. We'll be there!

~Bobbi

Atlas Games on Facebook

2009-07-01T18:16:00.004-05:00

Did you know that Atlas has a presence on Facebook? Go to our group page to become a fan!

Special Ops Drawing

2009-07-01T15:34:00.001-05:00

Atlas Games is pleased to announce that Erik Lee of Las Vegas is the winner of this quarter's Special Ops prize drawing. Erik will get to choose a prize from among the rare and and one-of-a-kind Atlas Games items reserved for the Special Ops drawing.

Special Ops is Atlas Games' corps of loyal fans who organize and run demos and tournaments at retail stores and conventions across the country and around the world. At the end of each quarter, Special Ops demo team members who have run a game in the last three months are entered into a prize drawing for special Atlas items. The next drawing will be September 30th, and will feature a choice of prizes such as press sheets and original art from our popular Ars Magica, Feng Shui, Penumbra D20, and Unknown Armies RPGs, and from card game favorites like Dungeoneer, Lunch Money, and Once Upon a Time.

Atlas is also happy to announce that Erik Lee went in rank this quarter, hitting Magus level at 500 HP. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!

Also, we'd like to welcome the following new recruits:

Inessa Gelfenboym
Greg Glidden
Sir John Minderman
Austin Searles

Thanks for being a part of Special Ops!

If you're interested in joining Atlas Games' Special Ops demo team, just fill out and send in an Application Form. There's no obligation.

To request a Special Ops demo at your convention or retail store, send in our Demo Request Form .

Chronica Feudalis

2009-07-01T12:45:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to give a shout-out to the new indy RPG Chronica Feudalis, which was written and published by my long-time gaming buddy Jeremy Keller. Our weekly group has been playing a Chronica Feudalis campaign for the last few months, and we playtested the earlier version. It's a rules-light system packed with medieval goodness that you won't want to miss!

Italian Gloom PDF

2009-06-29T11:50:00.003-05:00

We've just put up a new PDF version of the Gloom rules in Italian, thanks to Stefano Sorbara. You can find it in the right sidebar of the Gloom line page.

Origins Nomination for Atlas Online PbP!

2009-06-22T14:28:00.010-05:00

Atlas Games is pleased to be nominated for this year's Origins Award for Best Play by Post Game. The attendees at the Origins Game Fair this week will be asked to vote for the final winner ... so if you happen to be at show in Columbus, please be sure to give us your support!

Some of you in the know might immediately say, "But wait! Atlas doesn't DO any play by mail games." And you'd be right. This is traditionally a category reserved for mail-based games, but it's actually our ONLINE play by post campaigns hosted at the Atlas Games Forums that are nominated!

So how did this come about? I've been lobbying GAMA for about two years now to open the category up to online games, and this year after much discussion they let me submit our forums at the last minute. Here's our general position:

The play-by-post style of gaming has seen dramatic change in the last decade. From its roots as a turn-based strategy game conducted by mail, it's grown to include electronically mediated games with a stronger element of roleplaying. Last year's Origins Awards ceremony lacked a play-by-post award, due to receiving too few submissions in that category. It's time to expand the category to also include those online forms that have developed more recently out of this style of play. Play-by-post has always been at the heart of gaming, but to keep this category vital it needs to celebrate both its living roots and the possibilities that online gaming brings. We hope that both jury members and voters will take a look at the games we host with an eye for the similarities to what you may be more used to, and an understanding of the potential that the online medium brings to the category.

I can honestly say that I was surprised and truly honored to not only be allowed to submit our games (which was all I was really going for), but to actually win a nomination. It's a big step, and a huge compliment to all the GMs who make our forum campaigns so successful. Our thanks to current GMs Mad Max, Timothy Ferguson, Marko Markoko, Fireymonkeyboy, JeanMichelle, and qcipher; and to past GMs Kryslin, Liam Hart, raidingparty, Queex, Erik Tyrrell, and Falls. These games take a lot of effort on their part, with some of the campaigns now into the several thousands of posts, and we appreciate all their work!

If you'd like to join one of our play by post campaigns, just register on the forums and then contact the GM for that game by private message. If you'd like to run your own campaign on our forums, see our Instructions for GMs.

Thanks, again, and we hope to see more online play-by-post games in the running for next year's Origins Awards!

Campaign Finder

2009-06-19T13:38:00.002-05:00

We just heard word about a new fan site called RPGGameFind.com , which helps players find gaming groups in their area. Stop by and list an opening in your campaign. Or, check to see if there's anything running in your area, whether it's an RPG, board game, card game, minis game, or LARP!

Ars Magica Errata

2009-06-19T11:32:00.002-05:00

Line developer David Chart has just put together the newest errata for Ars Magica 5th Edition. Read it now!

Battle of the Geeks: Installment Seven

2009-06-18T13:10:00.001-05:00

Here I am, once more showing the world how much more of a gamer geek I am than my poor husband John, who really never had a chance.

INSTALLMENT SEVEN: MY MIDDLE NAME

The last Battle of the Geeks entry was about my dissertation. After I posted it, an astute reader pointed out to me that right there on the title page is yet ANOTHER proof of my geekiness ... my middle name. For those not in the know, it's Andromeda. No, my parents weren't into Greek mythology, they were actually into astronomy ... that's right, I'm named for the constellation Andromeda, WAY before the TV series. Which means, of course, that I was destined (or doomed?) to be a Sci Fi geek before I was even born!

GEEK SCORE:

Michelle = 7
John = 2

New OGL PDFs Available!

2009-06-17T14:33:00.002-05:00

Atlas is pleased to announce that two of our OGL titles that have never before been available as PDF are now ready for download -- Burning Shaolin (Feng Shui/OGL crossover) and Black Monks of Glastonbury (Ars Magica/OGL crossover).

Also available again after a brief hiatus are Ascension of the Magdalene (Unknown Armies/OGL crossover), and Northern Crown's New World Adventures and Gazetteer books.

That marks the last of our OGL books that still needed to be PDFized! Huzzah!

Forums Down

2009-06-17T12:25:00.002-05:00

The Atlas Games forums have been taken down temporarily. We're in the process of moving them to a new location at forum.atlas-games.com, in order to isolate them from the main Atlas site so that hackers can't keep re-infecting it over and over. We expect the transfer to be finished by tomorrow morning. Thanks for your patience (yet again).

Security Attacks: We Spoke Too Soon

2009-06-16T10:15:00.002-05:00

We've been cleaning the site again and again, but we keep getting reinfected ... four times now, at our count. We're working with our web host and a security consultant now to track down the source. Again, we apologize for the trouble, and strongly suggest that anyone using our site use a recently updated virus detection program. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

New Dungeoneer Errata

2009-06-11T16:26:00.003-05:00

The errata for Dungeoneer has been updated. In particular, a typo regarding the hero stats for Legendary Dungeoneer: Wrath of the Serpent Goddess was identified and corrected. You can read more about it at the bottom of the Dungeoneer FAQ.

Atlas Site Clean, Forums Back!

2009-06-09T15:32:00.002-05:00

We've just finished replacing ALL the code on the Atlas site, and installing a new version of our forums from scratch. We anticipate that this will be the end of our hacking problems ... keep your fingers crossed for us!

As you're using the forums, if you see any functionality that you had before that's missing, please post to our requests thread with a description of what's missing. Thanks!

Security Attacks UPDATE

2009-06-04T13:20:00.007-05:00

After more investigation, we've found that the Atlas Games website was indeed hacked, and malicious code inserted into our files. We've cleaned out the code, and disabled our forums, which we suspect was the point of entry. The forums will remain disabled until we can perform an upgrade to them next week. We're very sorry for the inconvenience.

This malicious code was designed to open up another site in the background of visitors' browsers, and download viruses to their computers. In particular, it seems that a "Trojan" virus has infected the computers of several of the users we've been working with on this. This Trojan is evading AVG, Norton Antivirus, and Windows Defender. However, Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool and Windows Live OneCare are both able to identify and purge it.

So, to anyone having trouble I'd suggest you run one of those two programs on your system, and update your virus detector.

Again, we're very sorry for the trouble. Thanks for your patience everyone, and our special thanks to those who helped us ferret this out!

Gen Con & Origins Vendors List & Search Engine

2009-06-04T12:00:00.004-05:00

We've just heard that RPGseek.com is offering a search engine that indexes all of the vendors who will be at Origins 2009 and Gen Con 2009 -- including Atlas Games. It gives you a convenient way to search all of the vendors' websites at once.

They also offer a link directory of vendors for the two conventions, including websites and descriptions. This allows browsing of websites, rather than searching through an engine.

Gloom Has Arrived!

2009-06-04T09:25:00.002-05:00

The reprint of Gloom, Unhappy Homes, and Unwelcome Guests arrived at our warehouse last night, along with the NEW expansion Unfortunate Expeditions. We'll be starting to ship it out to distributors today, so it should be in stores within the next two weeks. Start looking for it at your friendly local game store soon!

Antarctic Express to Press!

2009-06-03T14:44:00.001-05:00

Antarctic Express has just been sent to press, making it on schedule for its August/Gen Con release. Yay!

Security Attacks

2009-06-03T14:05:00.004-05:00

In the last two days we've had three reports that our site has triggered people's virus detectors. We're looking into the issue, but so far haven't found any malicious code or any modifications to our files that would indicate a problem on our side. If you encounter this issue, please send an email to info@atlas-games.com with the following info:

The web address of the specific page(s) that triggered your virus detector.
What virus detection software you're using (software name and version).
Any alert codes your virus detector gave you, or other explanation it provided about the problem.
Your browser name and version.
Your operating system and version.

Again, so far we haven't been able to find a problem on our end, but please be sure that you update your virus detection software before browsing our site, just to be safe. Thanks for your understanding, and your help tracking this down!

On the Edge Database

2009-06-01T15:52:00.001-05:00

Casey Sillito has put together a nifty new fan website that features a searchable database of all the cards in the On the Edge game, based on the official card checklists. You can try it out at c jsweb.com/ontheedge

Enjoy!

Atlas in Funniest Games Ever Contest

2009-05-14T09:40:00.002-05:00

We just received word that one of Atlas' products will be featured in the "Funniest Games Ever" contest at Origins in Columbus, Ohio. The contest features a quiz, where players are asked to answer a series of questions about particular popular (and funny) hobby games. Look in the program book and for placards all over Origins for the questions!

New ArM5 Indexes

2009-05-13T16:35:00.002-05:00

We now have UPDATED spell indexes available for Ars Magica 5th Edition through the new Tales of Mythic Europe release ... download the Spell Index by Form and Spell Index by Technique now! Our thanks once again to Erik Tyrrell, who maintains these indexes.

Ars Magica Open Call

2009-05-13T10:56:00.002-05:00

It's time for another Ars Magica open call for submissions ... this time for the upcoming Grogs book. If you're interested in writing for the game, this is your chance to start! Most of the current authors were recruited through past open calls, after all.

For this open call, we're looking for developed backgrounds for types of grog, taken broadly to mean any covenant staff who are not companions or magi. We're NOT looking for stats for particular grog characters. This isn't a book of characters, rather, it's a selection of new backgrounds for the sorts of people who might become grogs: outlaws, heretical scholars, academically or martially inclined women, and so on. For more information, read our Grogs open call overview, and be sure to turn in your submission by the deadline of September 28th 2009!

Tales of Mythic Europe in Stores

2009-05-12T13:36:00.002-05:00

Last week we shipped Tales of Mythic Europe to distributors all over, so by now it should be showing up in your favorite local game stores. Get your copy today!

Penumbra & Nyambe PDFs are BACK!

2009-05-06T17:43:00.002-05:00

Now available (again) are the PDFs for all of our Penumbra and Nyambe books, newly stripped of all references to a certain now-defunct trademark license. You'll find that the "Download it Now!" link is back up on all of these product pages, underneath the cover image, so go out there and get your fill of Atlas' OGL goodness!