December Arm Chair General Review December 1999 Well it's almost Christmas Time and I can already smell smoke in the Ardenne. I hope Santa isn't using his Tiger III for a Sleigh again this year. I wish everyone a happy holiday season, and hope you get a chance to renew an acquaintance or two, and of course get ready to enter the new millenium with all guns blazing. Let's review the year and check on some projects we had started. 1. The ranking database was finally completed after many many long hours of rewriting code. My sincerest thanks to Haldor for all his hard work, we all appreciate it, thanks. 2. Also thanks to everyone for helping complete the game information we were missing from the databases, and thanks to our tireless team of statisticians and log reviewers and archivers. Without everyone's help we wouldn't have been able to get everything caught up in only a year. 3. We rewrote the governmental organization to allow more participation by the membership, and so far it has proven itself to work. We had a legislative action that was passed, as well as one that was vetoed. I guess it's working, as there is currently an issue in legislative revue as we speak. Please check out the Message Boards under the Legislative Hansard Topic to see the discussions in progress. 4. CD-Rom play was finally authorized and has actually begun. There are also a few IAAPA members regularly playing in the Zone. So far this is still difficult if you use AOL as your ISP, but we are currently working on some good instructions to help you out. It seems to work pretty well for those with direct internet connections. If you have the CD-Rom, you should try out play using it over the net, it's more fun than chatroom play. 5. Local Chapters. We have a local chapter to announce in Palermo Italy! The Chapter is named the "Axis Revenge" and we have a link to their web page on our site. Let's get going out there, let's all form up into local chapters and get going with regular gaming nights with your neighbors. 6. Gaming Activity seems a bit slow lately. During Nov 99, 129 games were started [6934 through 7062]. These games have 58 different players. This indicates that we have a small core of regular players. Most of the playing lately seems to be GMless with the dice server. That brings me to the next point. 7. Fund Raising. I make a request for donations to help pay for the server costs for 2000. I want to thank those that contributed, there generosity is greatly appreciated. Sadly, we have only had 12 donations for $255, and are far short of our goal of $2000. If you can contribute something, please send it in so that we can remain as we are. Now for our new features for 2000. I'll bet you thought we just played A&A all day. Actually we devise added benefits all the time, and then struggle to figure out how to do it without going insane. 1. CD-Rom play using direct internet connection, not using the zone, will be our big project. We will first issue detailed instructions on how to do it, then later develope a utility package to make it simple. Look for more on this later. 2. Annual Ranking awards. We're going to take a look at everyone's ranking and rating on December 31st and record it. This will be posted as your ranking at year end 1999. The ranking DB will still track your current status all year long, but you will will be awarded your rank based upon year end ranking. If all goes well, certificates will be issued as well. I'll mail it to you, yes snail mail it, so make sure your address is accurate. 3. 4th Annual Convention. This years annual convention location has still to be determined . If you want to host the convention, get in touch with JohnPin569@aol.com fast! We'll wrap this up in early January, and begin preparation for a spectacular event. I was thinking of an official awards ceremony and some cool debates, clinics, and of course a Tournament. This time it'll be speed A&A, with a 3 hour time limit per game, and an impartial adjudication chart, and a prize package to the winner. You should make every effort to attend, as the event seems to be gaining in popularity and in our offerings. 4. Membership drive. We are going to go through the membership list, contacting everyone to trim out the inactive and disappeared folks. When you get a message from us, you will have to respond to keep yourself active. As well, we'll be trying to recruit more active players to keep the list of opponents full of fresh new members. But be warned, just because they're new to IAAPA, doesn't necessarily mean they're new to the game. If you meet anyone particularly in the A&A areas on the zone, encourage them to join and play in our community. 5. Increased communication with Hasbro/Milton Bradley. I can't promise anything, but I will make attempts at getting some relationship going with them. If I can persuade them to assign someone to talk with us, we'll have inside information about A&A related projects they are working on, and hopefully gain some sort of sponsorship from them. Now on to some regular stuff. Contact your legislators and voice your concern about anything in the IAAPA. We are always striving to make it a better way to play A&A. That's about it for December. Keep your tracks greased, and the gunbarrels clean. ToddVomit President IAAPA