This summer we got the aid of of the EA summer interns including our man Spadequack, and this lead to a much welcomed return to stability and some free Pro (which I think you can still take advantage of).

With the summer long over and Spade continuing his education we’re back to a stable state with no major new development except what Spade does in his free time.

In an astounding move the developers have announced that they will be rolling back the flash version of the site and returning the HTML version of the site. Also, announced was the start of a regular monthly blog post and corrections to the problems of slowdowns and disappearing units that previously plagued the site before Flash was implemented. Darkbee has renounced his previous statements and rededicated himself to making it into the top 15 in the shortest time possible.

All in all this big day for WeeWar!

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These three maps are our finalists and the voting will IS open in the forums later today to determine the winner of a year of Pro for any account of their choice! Please take a look – play all the maps – leave your comments here and/or on the forums and help us pick the best map for this year’s winner! You can only vote for one but please add any you like to your favorites!

Here are our finalists in order that the maps were submitted:
1. WeeWar Times for Pete’s Sake by Vagus

2. WeeWar Times Wetlands by Nature_God

3. Weewar Times Square by Stirlingxa

Thanks again to everyone that participated!

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• Announcing WeeWar Times 2010 Map Contest (WeeWarTimes.com)

In the ensuing chaos we try to talk to people about the tragedy, as we step over the bodies of ex-subscribers piled high outside the gates. Here and there, figures can be seen shambling through the mist; bedside me a young man is in a fetal curl. muttering something disconsolate and incoherent, and sobbing quietly into the twisted rags of his “I Love Darkbee” T-shirt. Further along, some members of the WeeBitch clan are chanting protest slogans and writing letters to their local representatives. “I just don’t know why they did it” one blurts out to me. “Don’t they love us anymore? What have we done to deserve this? Why are the buttons in different places? Why have our gods abandoned us?” .

It’s a constant mantra, but occasionally we find signs of hope. We caught up with part-time player and pundit CaptainCupCake, known for his sanguine and laconic approach, who shrugged: “It’s not the end of the world is it? I like the changes, keep up the good works lads”. But this wholesome attitude seems a guttering candle of optimism amid the darkness of anger, guilt and despair.

The scale of the disaster has been unprecedented. Our hearts go out to the dozen or so players who have experienced loss and trauma. You’ll be happy to know that WeeWarTimes will be setting up a hotline for victims, and charity events (meat raffle, tombola, garden fete, and egg and spoon race) are being scheduled as we speak. We have five “We hate Flash” T-shirts for each lucky winner!

In the meantime, it’s clear that the development team behind the game could benefit from some sage advice from our in-house panel of experts, and for the swathes of players threatening to produce their own version of the game, we have something special for you: “A Bluffer’s Guide to WeeWar Development.”

BLUFFERS GUIDE TO WEEWAR DEVELOPMENT

0. Introduction
Want to write your own WeeWaresque game? It’s easy if you know how: all you need is this guide and a good computer with a nice, shiny, large screen (it’s important to have the right tools for the job, which is the main differentiator between the pros and amateurs and the talented and talentless). You’ll also need oodles of confidence – which shouldn’t be hard, since you’re the best person you know and you know you’re best. It’s surprising you’re not more popular than you already are. Besides which, writing a game like WeeWar is almost as simple as playing it (see previous guides for details).

Follow the steps below, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a god of your own gaming universe:

1. Goals
What are your objectives? How do you establish metrics for success? What is your business plan for commercial expansion and longevity? – are all questions which you can safely ignore. You know what’s wrong with the game, and you know how to make it right. Without pony-trading, 14 different sorts of destroyer and the “sheep on the moor in spring” terrain tile that has been so lacking, the game was never going anywhere. It’s time to redress those disgraceful shortcomings.

2. Design
It’s not only easy to get ideas from everywhere and everyone else, it’s essential. Historians are already chronicling this phenomenon (c.f. “The Death of Original Thought” by William Hogspawn, Archimedes Press, 2005). Since it’s all been done, sample those elements of the games you enjoy, throw ‘em all together and voila, a gaming gumbo to excite and inspire the masses. Don’t worry unduly about the game mechanics or balance, these can easily be disguised by an attractive interface. Some elements are universally acclaimed, so just pop them in to your nascent TBS (Turn Based Strategy):

- Fog of War (FoW). Without this games simply suck. It also means you can introduce reconnaissance units which are always cool and popular. It’s one of the reasons that smoking is now mandatory at all top chess tournaments.
- Fantasy. It’s important to have a fantasy setting, since statistics show more people prefer orcs and elves to troopers and tanks. It’s also less nerdy and more dinner-party credible.
- Battle animations. People absolutely love these, especially long-term players. Each time they play the game they will gasp in awe at your design prowess. There’s no better way to make your game stand out among the crowd and often they’ll be so enraptured by the spectacle that if, for some bizarrely insecure reason, you feel your work of genius has the odd weak spot, rest assured this will hide the blemishes.
- Slick interface. Like everything today, it’s all about looking good and being popular. Ensure there are as many scrolling, sliding elements as possible along with plenty of pop-up windows. DIstribute your gaming information and action buttons round the gaming screen – doesn’t really matter in which order as long as they are attractively arranged. Cool icons are a must – it’s far more important they look good than give any indication of function.
- Features. Features don’t creep, they stride manfully into the arena. Having more than everyone else means that you are better than everyone else. If game X has 2 different sorts of infantry unit, ensure your game has 3 types – or even 4, if you want it to be twice as good – and so on. “Pile them on and pile them high” should be your motto here.
- Flash. It’s essential you use this showcase platform from Adobe Systems. Not only has this accessible and open technology been universally acclaimed and adopted, the new “battle animation” plugin will mean that most of your work is already done for you. You simply cannot create a non-flash interface with Flash. Once again the Adobe Angels deliver in spades…

3. Development
Programming is ludicrously easy – like lawyers, technicians like to obfuscate simple concepts to protect and promote their standing. Nonetheless, you’ll probably be far too busy being cool and popular to undertake these geeky activities. A better solution is to find a willing developer or three – there are plenty lying around in the forums gagging at the chance to spend their time helping you – so point them in the right direction and watch them go. However, some of these free-thinking nerds occasionally have the temerity to think they have some good ideas too, so remember to step in whenever necessary. If you hear some blather about how this or that won’t be possible or will be difficult and/or expensive, ignore it – they’re trying to fool you for their own egotistical ends.

When it comes to delivery platforms and technologies, it’s now widely known that the WTO, FCC, NASA and the Milk Marketing Board have mandated global iPhone adoption by 2012*, so there’s no point in writing for anything else.

4. Release
Once you finish your game, unleash it on an an unsuspecting public. It won’t be long before it garners the attention it deserves. It will be immediately apparent your game is far worthier than anything else out there.

5.Maintenance and improvements
Occasionally you may want to tinker with your creation, if only out of boredom (as a gaming god you started with perfection). People will marvel at your ability to second guess their inner desires, so there is no need to tell anyone what you’re up to and you can be confident that anything you do will be universally respected and adored. Anyway, the masses are too idle and bored not to welcome the distraction of learning something new, and even if you actually remove features or simply want a bit of change for change’s sake, they will welcome the challenge of working it out for themselves and adjusting to your new vision. Don’t worry if the game is a bit buggy, unfinished or non-operational in places – if you can be bothered to address these down the line, you will look like a messiah of munificence.

5. Stakeholder engagement paradigms
While many gaming gods revel in customer-facing roles, you may want to take a break from the unstinting adulation of your fans and disciples. A blog and email form should do suffice for feedback channels. There’s no need to make them visible or obvious, since the masses will either be trotting out the same old sycophancies or making tired and dull suggestions which don’t accord with your clearly superior vision. Concentrate on attracting new players – you’ve got the ones that are already playing, and it’s not as if they’ll be able to find something better to do with their entertainment spend.

6. Summary and conclusion
Following these simple guidelines will mean that you will be able to pop out several award-winning titles each week, not unlike Michael Moorcock used to do with Elric novels. You’ll be rich, have a hoard of fawning acolytes (some of whom might actually be women), and will have succeeded in your life’s every endeavour. A bientot mon dieu des jeux!

*Except for poor people, foreigners and republicans.

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The WeeWar Times is happy to announce something new – a map making contest!  The contest will begin with the publishing of this post and will end on January 31st-ish.  I will close the contest to new entries sometime on the February 1st with a comment on this post that will serve as the official end of the contest.

The Prize?  1 year of WeeWar Pro to the account of your choice!

The Rules:

- 2 Player map

- Balanced

- Maps must be new creations for this contest

- No special rules (like turn off hovercraft)

- Able to be completed in a reasonable amount of time – 30 turns is a good number to think about

- Map must have WeeWar Times in the title: work it into the title, stick it off to the end after a dash, whatever just get it in there somehow

- Entries are to be posted as a comment on this post

- Finalists will be chosen by WeeWar Times writers and presented to the WeeWar Community for a vote to determine the winner via a poll on the forum, voting will be open for a week before the winner is announced

The purpose of this exercise (other than to promote the site a little) is to give us another 1 vs 1 tournament map.   I lean towards a mix of air, land, and sea, but that’s not to say a creative map not having all those units couldn’t win.

Enter as many times as you like and change things up as often as you like until the end of the contest.  I encourage comments from the community, just please keep it threaded to the entry in question and keep things civil.  I reserve the right to alter the rules and moderate comments as I see fit.

Thanks for entering and let the map making begin!

You can now link your WeeWar account to your Facebook account for login and information sharing.  The only thing that I’ve seen so far is the ability to publish open games to your Facebook feed, that looks like this:

might want to avoid special characters.  And appears on your Facebook feed like this:

(note different game here)

I don’t know that this will bring in the new users in droves but it’s sound thinking – friends of gamers will often be gamers themselves.  Just be careful to note that this post to your Facebook page is timestamped and will give you away if you you’re supposed to be doing the dishes. 

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There are many legitimate uses for multiple accounts including but not limited to:

• 2 Pro accounts for more games
• More Map storage
• Map testing
• Playing multiple team members in a team game
• Keeping yourself company on slow days in chat or the forums

Be sure to clearly mark in your profile of your secondary account that it is a secondary account and what your primary account is. This is very important to allow other players to gauge your real skill level. It’s also very important to remember to check your secondary account for games, it can be easy to forget about that other account and leave people hanging waiting on your turn.

Managing your second account is easiest if you use 2 web browsers, but that can leave you without your nice Greasemonkey scripts. Today I can across a very handy little add-on – Multifox – that lets you have different login credentials between tabs Firefox instance windows! Be sure to give it a try, it should let you run 2 accounts within firefox, giving you full access to your scripts without the need to login/logout to get to your second account.

What so you use your multi-account for? Any tips for running multiple accounts?

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If you’re bored be sure to take a look at the first two installments of Captain Cupcake’s Bluffer’s Guide to Weewar and leave a comment with your thoughts!

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2.1 Introduction
Never feel intimidated or stupid: Weewar is no more complex than chess to the nth degree with bases, different colors and some other stuff. It is well within the grasp of your average strategically-shaved simian – and you’re better than that. It’s important to remember: firstly it is far cooler than chess (and the sort of thing you can talk about at dinner parties) and secondly, as a bluffer, your primary goal is to give the appearance of expertise rather than demonstrate genuine talent. Nonetheless, you may be required occasionally to play the odd game.

2.2 Points and Ranking.
A good rank is always a satisfying experience. Each rated loss is a slide down the pole of life, each win a healthy leg up. Ignore the wails from those that claim to prefer unranked matches – they’re either a bunch of lily-livered, tree-cuddling pinko commie liberal hippies who probably spend more time helping old ladies across the road than studying the Arts of War, OR, they have read this guide and are buttering you up.

2.3 Sowing the seeds of victory
To quote the old Cheap Trick lyric, “The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won”. Find or create maps which are subtly but definitely biased and play these incessantly. Try to make as many maps as possible – this makes you look like you’re helping, while actually making it difficult for your opponents to find fair and unbiased maps. If you’re lacking inspiration or creativity, simply copy someone else’s and pretend it’s your own. Extra points are awarded for maps which are risque, suggestive, or downright insane . You can also start games with a weird selection of available units – usually your opponent will be too trusting to check and may plan their strategy with the assumption that all units are available, giving you that extra edge.

2.4 Droning
Creating extra accounts and playing with yourself is a great way to get ‘up there’ by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. Alternate this tactic with joining multiplayer games as several people and pretending you don’t know each other. Don’t make it too obvious – occasionally beat yourself up a bit to make it look realistic. Additionally, grab a few friends and collude to the same effect. Combining these approaches reaps powerful rewards.

2.5 Distracting the opposition
Don’t greet your opponent in a friendly fashion or try to have a conversation – this only makes you look weak and vulnerable. It’s far better to maintain a mysterious silence – except when it’s their move, when you might be able to distract them or break their concentration by asking fatuous questions.

2.6 Intimidating your opponent(s)
To appear knowledgeable in any discipline, it’s important to use the language of the experts at every opportunity. Familiarize yourself with initialisms such as FTA and learn the abbreviations for the units so you can tell your HAs from your HCs in your sleep (if you ever get stuck, I find using bra sizes helps). Don’t capture bases, ‘activate’ them and learn to distinguish between secondary and primary ones (it’s doesn’t matter which is which, just casually slip it into chat sometime). This all serves to intimidate your opponent and make you look clever (you can also use “gg’ ,which means “good grief” to highlight your opponent’s inadequacies, or deflect attention from your own).

2.7 Booting and skipping
Whenever you have the opportunity, skip or boot a player that has exceeded their time limit. That’s part of the game, and if they can’t make their moves on time, they don’t deserve leniency. It’s war, right? Use the skip option to show you are understanding and generous – it’s pretty much the same as booting someone, but looks far more reasonable.

2.8 Playing the game
Sadly, you will need to understand some aspects of the game. Luckily, you don’t need to know much to get along. Don’t believe the so-called ‘experts’ who will suggest that you need to understand terrain modifiers, multipliers, unit capabilities and counters, or the fact that you need to look more than one move ahead. They’re the sort of people who don’t get invited to dinner parties anyway because they’re too busy at home learning the specs sheet verbatim. Instead, build destroyers if you’ve a port, and troopers, raiders and hovercrafts from your land bases. Pretty much every other unit is useless anyway, so don’t bother.

2.9 What to do if you’re losing
In spite of your preparations, you may occasionally find yourself on the back foot. In these situations don’t panic. First, start slowing down your moves right down so that this frustrates your opponent(s). Then start talking about how the map seems to favor them (even if it’s yours), perhaps mentioning mistakes you made because ‘your boss walked in’ or ‘someone came round’. With any luck, your opponents will offer peace out of boredom or sympathy. You can also claim you’re going on holiday for a while, your internet connection will be down for days/weeks/months, or even that your 7-year old son was at your computer for the last move. Use your imagination – there are plenty of options.

Thank you gentle readers! Next installment: Advanced Tips and Tricks

Editor’s note: If you are not a native English speaker, or you are incredibly daft, it may be helpful to note that there are elements of doublespeak, sarcasm, and maybe a few other literary devices I can’t remember the name of, in CCC’s superb post

Weewar servers are down, comments from the recent blog post about the server change indicate that this is unexpected and the devs are looking into it.

Images and API connections are not resolving although test.weewar.com still seems to be available.

No word on when we’ll be back up, will update if I hear anything. If you are having severe withdrawals maybe you should take a look at my post on Dealing With Your Wee Addiction . If you want something lighter be sure to see Captain Cupcake’s Bluffer’s Guide to WeeWar Part 2 is coming soon!