Finnish Board Game Society Brettspielwelt Guide

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BrettspielWelt guide

Finnish Board Game Society BSW Guide 2/16

1. Introduction

BrettspielWelt (Boardgameworld in English) is a German board game website/game server in the Internet. The address of BrettspielWelt is www.brettspielwelt.de. You can switch the language into English on the front page but when you play you often meet German players and see German discussion. Don’t be discouraged by this, it’s in fact very easy to get along with board gamers from other countries J.

BrettspielWelt is a very important service to any board gamer because: • It’s easy to register and you can play for free • BSW offers THE best selection of well-known board games in a network playable format. • You can find co-players at all times in BSW. • Within BSW there is a very active community for board gamers (around medieval city theme) that offers new friends and help & company for playing.

The user interface of BrettspielWelt might seem confusing in the beginning but with very little practice and by reading this guide you will be playing with ease soon. In addition to this text you can find more English documentation and instructions from the www.brettspielwelt.de website and from Boomer’s website www.brettspielwelt.info.

The reason to learn using BSW? It can be found here. Check this list of board games! http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/?nation=en. 2. How to register

Before gaming it makes sense to register into BrettspielWelt server. You can try gaming with unre- gistered nickname and password but registering is worthwhile because: • Registering doesn’t cost anything and requires very little personal information about you • It’s easy to register and you can tweak information people see about you when you play • All games you play will be registered to you nickname and with the points you will go up in player levels and get more commands you can use in BSW. • Playing with a shared network connection (computers use so called private IP addresses / NAT) does not work without registered user accounts.

Start the registration from this address http://www.brettspielwelt.de. Click the flag to switch the pages to English. In this document it is assumed that you use English. Note! If necessary you can always switch pages to English by adding /?nation=en to the end of any BSW web link.

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Start the actual registration by clicking the Register button on the first page. Because you do not have a username and password yet, press Noch kein Brettspielwelt-Mitglied? link in the bottom of the window (Not a Member of BrettspielWelt?)

Registration page from the BSW’s Community section opens. The information on the page is man- datory. Select your gender and after that type in the nickname you want to use in BrettspielWelt. Type a suitable password 2 times. Put a working e-mail address to E-mail field. E-mail is used to send the activation code to you. After that e-mail is needed very seldom and you can always choose whether to show it to other or not. Next is your date of birth and your country. If you don’t find your country on the list select Other (Sonstiges).

After registration you will get a message saying that registration was successful and you’ll also re- ceive an e-mail titled “Brettspielwelt-Registrierung”. Click the web link in that message and your BSW account will activated, you will be logged in to the BSW web site and BSW help page is shown.

If you want to modify your data or change the information other players see about you click Profile in the BSW web site. If something went wrong in the user registration you can delete your account by clicking Delete Name. You can add your location and contact de- tails to the your profile. Additionally there are settings for the language used when game is started from the website or when you look at BSW web pages.

The last part in the profile shows messages that are displayed when you log and out of BSW and teleport in or out from the game room. Description is shown to every gamer that checks your information when you are online. You can check the information for example using /info command.

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3. How to use BrettspielWelt

You need a computer and a working Internet connection to play in BrettspielWelt. Playing happens using your browser or a separate BrettspielWelt client program (BSW players talk simply about client). All games in BSW are programmed using Java language so you need to have Java support installed on your computer. If necessary, you can install Java from this address (www.java.com) using Download link. You don’t need a specific operating system or a browser so long as Java support is installed and works properly.

In this example we will play using a browser interface. You can find more information about the separate BSW client from chapter 9. Playing starts by choosing the right language and pressing Play button on the front page of www.brettspielwelt.de. Your browser starts the Java support and retrieves the gaming interface. In the meanwhile it asks our username and password. Type your username into Name field and your password to Password field. Sound on/off lets you choose whether you hear the sound effects from the games or not. Typi- cally it makes sense to keep the sound on so that you notice the changes in taking turns not only by seeing but also by sound. Note! On the first time it takes longer to start the playing system because you computer loads game components from the server. If you experience any problems in starting the client (e.g. you don’t see graphics) restart you browser and try again.

When you log in the first thing you’ll see is the BrettspielWelt game window in English and within it Game Manager (Spiele Manager) which is used to start new games.

BrettspielWelt is organized around the theme of medieval cities and player communities form their own towns. There are houses in the towns and within those houses the rooms where all games in BSW run. There is no need to know more about the town theme if you want to just play board games. The majority of players in BSW play board games without belonging to any specific town. If you are interested more about the communities and towns, check chapter 10.

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Toolbar

Games starting up

Message area

Command line

On the top of the game window is a toolbar that gives a shortcut to the most used game commands. On the bottom of the windows is a grey message area that shows messages from system and other users. In the very bottom of the window is a command line for typing in messages to other users and giving BSW game commands that start with /. The /manager command in the example would move you to the Game Manager window. There’s more information about game commands in Ap- pendix 1.

You can adjust the size of the game window on your screen but it is a good idea to maintain the proportions of the window so that you see at least a couple lines of the messages in message area.

In the top of the gaming window is a toolbar that offers you shortcuts to some of the BSW commands. The rest of the commands are typed in using the command line.

News Shows news from BSW administrators and guilds. Game From Game you can join into games, start a game and reset a game. If the game offers options or expansions these can typically be activated from the game menu too.

Note! If you press the downward arrow next to Game button you get quick list of all game commands.

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You can close the Game window by pressing the red button in the right top corner of the window.

You can give all these commands from the command line too if you like (/join, /start, /reset, /option xx).

GamePartner Shows the invitations to starting games and link to Game Manager you can use to choose the game you would like to play. Info Shows information about the gamers in the same room. You can use command /info from the command line to check player info too. Room Show the players that are currently in this room. Channel Shows the chat channels of BSW. Help Opens help window. Display Changes display size to given resolutions.

Note! You can change what commands are displayed by clicking right mouse button on toolbar and choosing Configure from the popup menu. After login you may see chat windows opening to your screen. The main chat #SPV show discussion gamers are having and invitations to come to play with them. In this window replacement players are invited to play Settlers of Catan (Siedler) and somebody is looking for a partner to a Tichu game. At this point you can move this window so that it does not disturb you learning.

New BSW players will also automatically see Newbie help that assists you in gaming. You can look for more help from the BSW help pages or chat with one of BSW’s more expe- rienced tutor players if you have any problems in getting started with gaming.

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4. Starting a game

4.1. Using Game Manager

The most common way to start a game in BSW is to use Game Manager. You can move to Game Manager by selecting it from Game Partner menu or typing in command /manager to command line and pressing Enter.

By default Game Manager displays all games that are open. The text after the game logo is:

- Light green when more players have been requested with /gameyell command. You can join the game directly by clicking it with a left mouse button. - Dark green when more players have been requested but they cannot directly enter the game. - Brown when players have joined the game but they haven’t yet asked for other players to join. - Violet when the game is started. At this point the game is removed from the Game Manager default display.

The following information is shown from every game:

- The upper row show the game name, active options in parenthesis and players that have joined the game. - The lower row shows the number of the game room, the name of the room and players that are in the game room but haven’t joined the game. - Sex and username is shown per each user. Blue frame around icon shows that that the gamer is a beginner and golden frame symbolizes an advanced player. The green ring shows that there’s a puppet (programmed game code) in the game room so it’s not player.

Joining a game

If you want to join a game you can do it as follows: You can join the game by clicking the right mouse button. If you hold left mouse button over the game a blue popup menu appears. When Gameroom you release the mouse button you can join the game by choosing Bei- is shown in treten or go to game room Zusehen. In the latter case you can ask green whether it’s ok to join and then join by /join command or from choos-

Markku Jaatinen (JoeLamer) 2007 version 1.0 Finnish Board Game Society BSW Guide 8/16

ing Join from Game menu. Gameroom If the game room is shown in other colors open the menu by pressing is shown in lef mouse button and choose Zusehen. When you enter the game room dark green ask permission to join the game and then join by /join command or or brown. from choosing Join from Game menu. Note! It is possible to join games directly with Beitreten command but in general it’s very polite to ask for permission first becuase other players may have their own plans regarding gaming and game company.

Browsing for a game and starting a new game

If you want to play a game that is now shown in Game Manager window press the Mitspieler Gesucht button. It opens a list of all games you can play in BrettspielWelt. Games are organized in groups so that it’s easier for you to find a certain game. If you click for example Zwei Personen Spiele you will se all games that are for two players. Alle Spiele opens list of all games in BSW. In the lower part of the list are the newest additions to online games in BSW. If you choose Mitspieler Gesucht you will be transferred back to the list of active game calls.

If you select a certain game from the list you see all rooms where you can play it. If you want to select an empty room and start calling game company for yourself press left mouse button over the game room and choose Eröffnen. That opens the game and sends a request for new

players to everybody.

4.2. Use of ghook command

If you know already that you game partner is waiting for you in some gaming room (e.g. after you have exchanged messages in chat window) you can enter the right game room and load the game by using ghook command. Type /ghook following the player name (e.g. /ghook JoeLamer) into the command line and you will be transferred to the proper room. You see game invitations that mention ghook command and the user name very often in BSW chat windows.

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4.3. Other ways to start the game

In addition to previous examples there are also other ways to start games in BSW. If you have just finished a game you can quicky check game calls from the Game Partner menu. Mitspieler-Rufe list shows all active game invitations at any given moment. From list you see the username of the player that sent the invitation, the level of the player (W/K 0-21) and the game he or she would like to play. If you click one of the invitations you will be transferred into the room where the game is running and players are waiting for you.

Brettspielwelt towns may have their own game managers that still use the older display where games are grouped in chests and games are shown as pictures of the game. On this display you click the game you want to play and you are shown a list of game rooms in this town. Every room shows the name of the game. If there is a * before the name then the game is in progress. If gamers are next to the table they have joined the game. You can joint the game by pressing Join and watch the game by pressing Visit button.

You can start a new game by entering an empty room and calling for other players with /gameyell command.

If you get lost in the game windows you can always return to Game Manager by typing /manager into the command line and pressing Enter.

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5. Playing the games

Playing a game in BrettspielWelt follows very often a certain routine independent on the way the game was actually started. The chosen game is loaded into the game window and in addition to that you see (depending on the game) other information like player information, game tokens, buttons to activate things in the game etc. The game in our example is Carcassonne.

Game play typically starts with greeting the players in the room. With this little compliment players also notice that somebody enters the room for playing games or watching and is not just passing by. A short ”Hi!” or ”Hallo” is often enough. The reason I’m mentioning the German phrases is that you will see them very often and it makes sense to know the basic phrases in a typical game play. Messages are sent to other users by typing them into command line and pressing Enter after that. All messages in a room are shown in the message field.

If you have not sent the game invitation and enter the room after others it is polite to ask if you can join the game. In some cases players might want to play in a smaller group so it’s important that you don’t be to pushy. Asking for permission happens by asking ”May I join?” or ”Darf ich ?” in German. Persons typically answer by saying something like ”Join”, ”ok”, ”Ja” or even ”j”. Typical- ly it does not make sense to join the game before you got permission.

You have to join into the game from Game menu or using /join command from the command line. If you choose an empty game window and invite others in you can already join in and be ready to welcome other games into the play.

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Before game start and also before getting more players in it makes sense to choose the options you want to use in the game. You can find the options from the Game menu. Part of the options change the way game works and it’s good to set them on early on so that other players see how you want to play. Additionally there are some options that are common to all BSW games: invisible (game is not shown in Game Manager), host (only the player that joined first can set options and e.g. start the game) and drawseat (start order is randomized).

After that more players might be invited using /gameyell command that was mentioned before. When more persons are waited (and especially if no more appears) players might discuss whether more players are needed and is there a need to limit the amount of players in the game. Players might also ask if more players are waited or would it be ok to start already. The typical german terms for two person play is ”2er”, for three ”3er” etc.

Games start with /start command or choosing Start from the Game menu. Note! It considered un- polite to start a game somebody else begun. Depending on the game players might see cards, tiles etc. appearing in the game window. The standard way to mark an active player in BSW is to put the players name within asterisks (e.g. *JoeLamer*).

In the beginning of the game players often wishes each other lots of fun in the game and good luck. The typical terms are ”Have fun”, ”hf” or ”Viel Spass”, ”VS” in German and ”Good luck”, ”gl”, ”Viel Glück” or ”VG”,”. These are routines but especially with two player it is polite to answer. A typical quick way to anwer is ”The same” or ”dito” (and the last one is not a typo J).

It makes sense to play the game with no long breaks because they might irritate other players. If you are a beginner with the game mention that to others so that they understand you delays and slower play. You can send messages to other during game play and it makes the gaming more fun. Do not mock other players though or type messages when it is your turn.

When game is over BSW server counts the points and shows them to players. Now it’s time to thank other players by saying ”Thanks”, ”thx”, ”good game!” and something similar. German players typically answer with ”grats” or ”gratsi”. If the game was especially exciting or fun let others know that.

Tell to other users what you’re doing after the game. You can ask for a new round with a question ”Continue?” or why not even ask for a possibility to revenge ”rev?” J. If you want to end the playing it’s again a good idea to tell other players that you ”Have to go” and add the wish to meet and game again by saying ”See you!” or shortly ”Cu!”

You can start a new game by resetting the previous on with /reset command or from the Game menu with the same command. After that you can join in again. If you do not plan to play this game, move for example to Game Manager so that other players do not wonder your stay in the game room and start inviting you to a new game.

If you want to end up gaming in BSW close your browser or BSW client window. There is no need to log out separately from BrettspielWelt.

Note! This is just an example of a typical gaming session but with these instructions you get easily started.

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5.1. If player drops off the game

Because gaming in BrettspielWelt happens using computers many computer or communication re- lated errors may happen and stop your game play. You see quite sometimes situations where players’ computer does not display the game correctly or the connection to game server breaks. Here are some tips to these situations.

Game does not respond

There might be lag in communication with communication to server or server might be overloaded. Type a short test message like “test” or “..” to command line and see what happens. If the server or client does not respond by showing your test message in the message area wait for a second. If nothing happens in a long time (let’s say a minute) proceed to next step.

I have problems in my game play

Send a message to other players (if possible) that your having problems in game play e.g. ”Problem with computer”. Take a note about some person that was in the same game room as you. Go out from the game into Game Manager window or to some other window. Try to reload the game by using /ghook command with the player name that was in the same room where game is running (e.g. JoeLamer). If this does not help close your browser or BSW client program, log in and retry with /ghook command. If game loads now properly or the broken connection to server is up try to sit back to your previous game seat by giving command /join with your position in the game. If you were sitting in the 3rd place in the game, give command /join 3. Other players accept your request to get back with /accept command. Remember to thank everybody from their patience.

We lost a player from your game

In the beginning you should wait for a little while so that the missing player has time to do every- thing that was mentioned above. If the same player returns you can accept him/her in with /accept command. It the player does not return and you play a long game where just giving up would an- noying you can invite a new player in with /gameyell command (e.g. /gameyell Replacement needed!). New player can join the game play with the above /join x - /accept procedure. Players that are stucked in the game can be removed from game with /remove command so that they or others can join in as again.

Game has to be restarted

If you want to reset a running game (somebody was lost from the game or you started just before somebody had time to get in) you can do this with /masterreset. For that command your player level must be 5. or above and other players must accept the reset with /accept command.

Server restart

As part of system maintenance BSW game servers are rebooted every now and then. If you get a message about server restart, agree with you fellow players, whether you stop the game there or come back after restart by rejoining your old positions in the game.

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6. BrettspielWelt player level system

Registered users gain experience by playing games and with experience BSW players rise up in player levels. The idea of the level system (and registration) is that when you gain experience you also get new commands you can use and thus enhance your gaming experience in BrettspielWelt. Some more advanced commands could disturb other players game play or the gaming system and for that reason they are not available to players that don’t know what to do (and what not) with them.

BSW level system is modeled after medieval theme from newbie all the way up to the emperor. Players that play typically multiplayer games are marked with W and there levels are from 0 to 21. Players that play lot of single user games might be marked with clerical class K. The prerequisite is that 1/3 of you game experience points come from playing solo games. You can check the English levels and points you get from each game here: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/MetaSpiel/Levelsystem/?nation=en

Another handy tool is Player info in Hall of Fame: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/HallOfFame/SpielerInfo/?nation=en. By typing in your nickname you see games you have played and Teammates tell with whom you have played.

Every game in BSW has point value that you get after playing one game. Additionally you might get a 10% bonus by winning the game. Multiuser games give you more points (from 3 to 25) than single user games (1-2) and the more players there are in the game the more points you will get. You can check an estimate of your points by using for example the following point checker: http://www.janbln.de/c32/punkt.php. 7. Communication in BSW When the amount of played games increases you start to meet familiar players in BSW you like to play with. Information about whether these persons are around and in general communication with other players is part gaming in BSW.

With lists you can easily follow whether you friends are playing online. Registered users can use for example watch lists for this purpose. You add persons to watch list with command /add watch nickname and after you have typed in your friends one by one save the list with command /save. Now you will hear and see when your friends arrive to BrettspielWelt or are already there when you log in.

Different tell commands are a good way to communicate between players. The basic command /tell nickname text sends the typed text to the named user and leaves a chat window open for continuing the discussion. Other commands (/ttell, /ctell, /mtell and /shout) can be used to communicate to different user groups in BrettspielWelt. For example the /ctell command is very useful if you belong to some town in BSW. Check the use of these commands from the command listing.

Channels are way to communicate to an unknown group of persons that can (based on the channel name) come to a certain channel. Channels in BSW might belong to certain gamer group, players from a certain country or of a certain game. Anybody can create new channels freely and join to them. Command /channel channel_name creates a channel with this name (if it does not exist already) and opens a chat window for that (e.g. /channel BoardGameGeek). Command /leave chan- nel_name closes the channel down and you won’t see its messages any more.

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9. How to install and use BSW client

You can play in BrettspielWelt using a browser only but if you find yourself spending more time there it definitely makes sense to install the BSW client program to your computer. Some good rea- sons: - Game graphics loads faster - You can save your nickname and password to a profile file and speed up start - And most importantly: You can change language settings, tweak menus and keyboard combina- tion so that all necessary game commands, places and persons are easy to access.

You can install a BSW client to your computer from here: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Hilfe/Client/?nation=en

On first start it takes longer time to start the BSW client because it has load game updates from server. If you experience any graphics problems, restart the client and try again. If the server status is red on the client splash screen, the server cannot be contacted and you have to wait before it comes online again.

You can adjust the client to fit your needs better by editing a file called brettspielwelt.prop in the BSW client install directory. It makes sense at least to change the language to English and probably also put your nickname and password in.

Some things you can change by editing brettspielwelt.prop - Client default language (Nation = en) - Your nickname and password (Name, Password) - Start town/room (Room) - Menus (Menu) - Keyboard combinations (FKey) - Size of client window (WinWidth, WinHeight) and it’s position on screen (WinPosX, WinPosY) - Color of all message windows etc.

You can find more information about modifying the .prop file here: http://brettspielwelt.de/Hilfe/Client/PropDatei/?nation=en

An important note about BSW client (this applies to browser version too) is that firewall port 7670 has to be open for the client to work. If you’re using shared network (NAT) every player has to use registered nicknames. 10. BrettspielWelt town system

Brettspielwelt is organized around a medieval town theme. In the beginning you might be more interested about pure gaming but after you have played a little bit it’s probably a good idea to learn a bit more about the BSW town system. Towns are used to form communities in BSW.

When you register to BSW you become automatically a member of town called ARMfeld. Players of ARMfeld are considered living in countryside and they don’t have any privileges or obligations the players in towns have. It is not necessary to belong to any town to play in BSW so why should you join a town?

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The benefits towns offer to players are: - A more limited community that might share your interests, speak the same language (e.g. English) or be from the same country as you. - Towns have their own chat channels and you can find playing company or persons that can teach you new games from your own town. - Townspeople can build buildings into towns and run games in them. They can also belong to guilds and participate to tournaments between towns. - You can participate in the decision making of that town and become one of the town offic- ers.

Townspeople have to pay taxes if they want to live there. In practice taxes are paid when player plays regularly games in the game rooms town offers. You don’t have to play massive amount of games if you want to belong to a town. Some towns also have mills and forges that create more in- come for that particular town.

There are currently tens of towns in Brettspielwelt. Some are big and some are small. Take your time to learn players in BSW and see what group has the same interests as you. If they belong to a certain town it might be a good idea to consider joining that town.

You can find more information about the town “Meta game” from here: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/MetaSpiel/?nation=en

11. Useful links

Direct link to this guide: http://www.elisanet.fi/joelamer/bsw_guide.pdf

Rules of all BSW games: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/?nation=en

Checking your gamer stats: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/HallOfFame/SpielerInfo/?nation=en

Changing you user data including login/logout messages and user information: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/User/Profil/?nation=en

Frequently asked questions: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Hilfe/FAQ/?nation=en

List of all commands you can give from the command line: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Hilfe/Kommandos/?nation=en

Boomer’s BSW pages: www.brettspielwelt.info

BSW forum in BoardGamegeek: http://boardgamegeek.com/geekforum.php3?action=viewforum&forumid=96&objectid=1&objecttype=forum

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Appendix 1: BrettspielWelt commands

Here’s a short list of most useful commands in Brettspielwelt. You can find the full set of commands explained here: http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Hilfe/Kommandos/?nation=en

Command Explanation /help Shows a list of all commands and how to use them (in German) /manager Moves you to Game Manager /info player Show the statistics, level and personal information of named player /tell player Opens a separate discussion windows with named player /channel name Opens a named chat channel or joins you in if that that channel is already open /ghook player Moves you to same room as named player and loads the game in the room /join Joins you into a game /join x Joins you back into the game to your position x if you were dropped off the game /accept Accept a player that is trying to join his/hers previous place in the game /gameyell text Send a game invitation to other players and show text if you have typed it in /start Starts the game /reset Resets the game that hasn’t been started or that is already over /masterreset Resets a running game. You have to be at least on level 5 to do this.

Credits:

This text is partially based on the English tutorials and translations Boomer and fellow players in BSW have created and made available on the website: http://www.brettspielwelt.info/. Kudos to his ground-breaking work to bring BrettspielWelt to us non-Germans. Similarly praise is in place for all the hardworking persons behind the whole BrettspielWelt concept and especially of the new web site. Without you there wouldn’t be too much to write about!

As you surely have noticed my native language is not English. If you find typos or errors in the text or would like to comment or question this guide, contact me using BoardGameGeek or send directly e-mail to [email protected].

Hope this helps you too to get started. Cu in BSW!

Markku (JoeLamer here and there) Finnish Board Game Society

Markku Jaatinen (JoeLamer) 2007 version 1.0