I have thought about diving into BrettspielWelt numerous times, but was just too damned intimidated by the interface and the Germans. I know English Town used to be the place to start, but of the two related websites I found one was last updated in 2004 and the other in 2007. I assume English Town is still around, only without a website presence.
I have played few if any boardgames (and I mean the good stuff, not Monopoly and Life) in several years as I know no one who still plays such things and there were precious few even when I was younger. So not only do I need to learn my way around BSW, but I need to learn how to play any and all games. (I last played Carcassonne 3 or 4 years ago, that is how bad it is).
I know the board game threads crop up now and again as do the mentions of BrettspielWelt, but I cannot find a good one that will give me a jumpstart. How can a 38 year old PC gamer and long time internet denizen be afraid of German gamers and their website?
Don't be afraid of the Germans! Besides the constant struggle for world domination we are a pretty sociable bunch.
As entry point I would suggest finding some like minded people and simply playing a few games. This thread could serve that purpose.
I'm open for some sessions.
If you or someone else who is interested in participating needs any help with the language (AFAIK not everything is translated) I offer my assistance in making sense of the German. :D
I was kidding about being afraid of the Germans. (It is mostly those damned Scandanavians that give me the creeps. Not the women though.)
I am going to read some rules, download the client, register and familiarize myself with things and then I will pop back in and see if you or others are still interested. Thanks Therlun.
How user friendly is it for people that haven't played a given game before? Is there online instructions or tutorials on it?
There are rules rundowns here. There are also tutors available via chat/chatrooms, although I have not experimented with that. As usual, I imagine they are fluent in English and I know that "Herr" means "Mr".
I think you need to find a friend if you want to figure it out (unless you have decent German). I kept getting lost and couldn't figure out how to navigate out of or into certain screens or areas. If you find someone who already knows it, they'll just tell you what you to type into the chat window that will jump you right in the join screen.
Don't be afraid of the Scandinavians! Besides the constant struggle for world domination (through the genes of our superior females) we are a pretty sociable bunch.Originally Posted by Tyjenks
Many of those games are simple to learn (but of course complicated to master) so reaqding the rules and then finding somebody patient for the first couple of games, should get you started.
I had my parents (65 and 70) playing Settlers and Carcasonne, when my dad was still alive.
This is probably the definitive help list for BSW. I play on BSW from time to time using Skype. If you read the list and have further questions, let me know. I'm not an expert, but if you download the client and the prop file he mentions in that list, you're 90% of the way there. When you register, be sure to note the capitalization of your login name because it makes a major difference.
How come?
And thanks for the input everyone. Especially you foreigners for your love of board games. Without you, I would be looking for online versions of Sorry! and Pay Day.
The login is case sensitive, so lorini is not the same as Lorini. I do not know why they implemented it that way.
Ok, I thought there was something more sinister.
The sinister part is that if you registered as tyjenks but put Tyjenks in your .prop file, then you will show up as unregistered and there are people who won't play with you if you are not registered. Unregistered people have had a much higher tendency to disconnect in the middle of games than registered people, thus the concern.
For one thing, I spend zero time in English Town unless I want to host a game. I find the whole metagame outdated and never very good to begin with. Instead I click on the 'Game Partner' button and it posts the name of the game and the player 'shouting' for more players. You can click on the shout and it will take you to the game. Also on the Game Partner window, you can select games you are interested in via 'filter' and under the 'game choice' tab, you can pick a game and see all the rooms associated with that game.
I think this is on Vista only, but you can also click the little arrow to the right of 'Game Partner' and then select Game Manager (I am sure there is another way to get there). This screen shows you all of the games currently waiting for more players and who is sitting at each game currently.
As for learning a game, besides BGG, BSW itself has an outstanding rules/interface page at http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/. You may still need practice and/or a patient teacher for a game or two, but this is how I taught myself Pillars of the Earth among others.
Now that would be a problem. It is hard enough to trust us self-absorbed Americans anyway. I don't want to give anyone incentives for more distrust.
I think I need to refamiliarize myself with Carcasonne and then I can jump into that and get used to the interface. That along with all the handy-dandy links you have all so graciously provided should do me just fine.
Thanks
Just as another sinister note, they play Carcassone in a very nasty way on BSW. They'll do nearly anything to gain a one point advantage. If you want nice-nice Carcassone, Xbox Live is probably a better place to play.
Me no have 360. :(
I cross-posted this from Case's online boardgame thread for future reference. Someone may stumble across this thread at a later date and find the info useful:
This may have been mentioned somewhere, but I just found the Play Catan site.
It has step-by step tutorials for Catan and several other board games.
Also, there are nice versions of Catan and the Catan dice game available through your browser for free. With a Premium account, you can play some of Klaus Teuber's other games online along with some of the other Catan iterations.
Looks cool.
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