I don't know why, but all of the hobby and board game stores around me don't carry X-Wing! None of my friends have any interest either! And the person I do know lives really far away! I think they should make an online X-Wing game. It would be just like the real game, but you could battle online! You could enter the code on your proof of purchase tokens(btw what are they usually for?). It would even better cause you could participate in online tournaments, and battle people from around the world! It might even happen if we draw attention to the moderators! Who's with me?

Try vassal mate

There is a X-Wing module for Vassal, don't confuse it with (Tom?) Vassel, last name of the famous board game reviewer.

Guide to download, install and getting wet with the module:

http://s93768914.onlinehome.us/xwing/

Attack Wing Country in my town as well. Have to drive south about 45 minutes for tournaments.

What's Vassal?

The link can be found in the first item of my guide, linked above.

It's a 10+ year old software made in Java (so it runs on PC, Mac and Linux) that can load modules for hundreds of different boardgames and wargames. The X-Wing module for it was made late 2012 by Aiden from the forum afewmaneuevers but was largely abandoned by Spring 2013. I took over the module just before wave 3 and have led the updates ever since, with some support help from a few people.

In August (2 months ago), I checked this page http://www.vassalengine.org/status.php?when=month to see which modules were played most on Vassal, and X-Wing was in first position. Still looks that way today.

What's Vassal?

A system that lets you play x-wing online.

Vassal is a terribly designed and extremely buggy 2D online game simulator. Gamers who are really into it are incapable of seeing its numerous flaws and pretend like they haven't spent hours trying to figure out how to load a specific game module. It is slow and disconnects frequently. You practically need a degree in computer science to make any traction with troubleshooting. You may actually spend more time trying to set it up than playing actual games.

If you decide to try it, you should be prepared for a large amount of frustration, followed by victim-blaming and little actual help from those that are afficionados.

"Oh, you just do this complex series of 40 steps to get it to work!"

*an hour later*

"It didn't work? I don't know what to tell you!"

That's my experience with other games and Vassal anyway. I would hope that the players of this game offer better support, but based upon what I've seen on these forums, I doubt it.

Vassal is a terribly designed and extremely buggy 2D online game simulator. Gamers who are really into it are incapable of seeing its numerous flaws and pretend like they haven't spent hours trying to figure out how to load a specific game module. It is slow and disconnects frequently. You practically need a degree in computer science to make any traction with troubleshooting. You may actually spend more time trying to set it up than playing actual games.

If you decide to try it, you should be prepared for a large amount of frustration, followed by victim-blaming and little actual help from those that are afficionados.

"Oh, you just do this complex series of 40 steps to get it to work!"

*an hour later*

"It didn't work? I don't know what to tell you!"

That's my experience with other games and Vassal anyway. I would hope that the players of this game offer better support, but based upon what I've seen on these forums, I doubt it.

So your not a fan?

Vassal is a terribly designed and extremely buggy 2D online game simulator. Gamers who are really into it are incapable of seeing its numerous flaws and pretend like they haven't spent hours trying to figure out how to load a specific game module. It is slow and disconnects frequently. You practically need a degree in computer science to make any traction with troubleshooting. You may actually spend more time trying to set it up than playing actual games.

If you decide to try it, you should be prepared for a large amount of frustration, followed by victim-blaming and little actual help from those that are afficionados.

"Oh, you just do this complex series of 40 steps to get it to work!"

*an hour later*

"It didn't work? I don't know what to tell you!"

That's my experience with other games and Vassal anyway. I would hope that the players of this game offer better support, but based upon what I've seen on these forums, I doubt it.

There's a lot of self-righteousness in that post. Let me break this post down.

Vassal players aren't your employees. Al they have to gain is to have a new player hanging around in the server - which is great and necessary when you think about it. They're players, just like you and unlike what you seem to suggest, a good chunk of them are patient, kind people who *will* take a 1-2 hour chunk out of their day to guide you through your first game. I've done it around 20-30 times and seen it done from many players so often that I'm not able to count it. I can't stress enough that they don't owe you anything right out of the gate.

I've gotten to learn the quirks and defects of the module by working inside the editor, attempting new stuff, realizing that some modifications failed and why they failed and I'm the first one to admit the module has a lot of defects. I don't think anyone will tell you with a straight face that the module is perfect, far from it. The reality of it all is that several hundred players (maybe a thousand?) have accepted the barrier of entry and are happy *enough* to play on that platform. The world champions (+ national champions from various countries) are regulars on it and trust me, one of them in particular doesn't have a computer science degree. The level of competition on it makes it an attractive enough platform for more than 100 players to join in the online Team Covenant tournaments (the last one and the ongoing one had more than 100).

I'm sorry you had a bad experience on vassal. I promise you the person who tried to explain the squad saving and loading steps (which is around 5 steps, not 40 like you wrote) and not having the explanation work out for you is frustrating for the other party as well. I tried to make a written guide on it. A video tutorial would be best but we'd need to constantly remake them as new features crop up and make the module look and operate slightly differently (on that note, there already are a few out of date video tutorials).

Just chalk it up as "you" didn't care enough to go through the (admittedly present) hoops to reap enough rewards, but don't dismiss the legions of people who went on just fine.

Vassal is a terribly designed and extremely buggy 2D online game simulator. Gamers who are really into it are incapable of seeing its numerous flaws and pretend like they haven't spent hours trying to figure out how to load a specific game module. It is slow and disconnects frequently. You practically need a degree in computer science to make any traction with troubleshooting. You may actually spend more time trying to set it up than playing actual games.

If you decide to try it, you should be prepared for a large amount of frustration, followed by victim-blaming and little actual help from those that are afficionados.

"Oh, you just do this complex series of 40 steps to get it to work!"

*an hour later*

"It didn't work? I don't know what to tell you!"

That's my experience with other games and Vassal anyway. I would hope that the players of this game offer better support, but based upon what I've seen on these forums, I doubt it.

So your not a fan?

But at least he tried it. Did he?

My local LGS says it sells a lot more Attack Wing too. I don't even see any XWing on their shelves anymore.

Gotta say, I agree - getting Vassal set up and even using it when you have got it set up is a huge pain in the bottom. The hardcore types who win tournaments are obviously the most likely to put up with it, but it's not for the casual player.

Written by someone who does have a computer science degree.

For what it's worth - back in February 2013, when I first tried vassal, I had checked out mrfroggies' tutorial video (at a time where there were far more bugs and non-intuitive steps to just getting to the ship pieces and cards) and tried it out. There were no automatic moves then, you had to manually place the templates down, adjust at 100% zoom level, then move the ship, then zoom back out. It was so time-intensive that I decided it wasn't appealing enough to play regularly. I remember replying back on mrfroggies' thread here on the FFG forums saying it was a bit too fiddly - but it might work out if you sped up play by using skype.

How times have changed since then.

If I only relied on tabletop play (which still rocks, still my favorite way to play by far), I would have roughly about 80-100 games played since February 2013. With Vassal, that count sits at around 360 games. Each player can decide for himself or herself how much increasing your game count by a factor of 3-4x is worth (AND playing outside of your local meta).

The internet could be your solution for finding local players and developing a gaming scene in your area. Check out MeetUp, Yahoo groups, and Facebook groups set up by and for gamers in your area. Just search for your city name + X-Wing, or your city name + games. If that doesn't give you some results, create a Facebook group, a Yahoo group, and a MeetUp. Go to game stores in your area on the days when they allow open gaming and bring your X-Wing stuff. Talk to other players as they show up and invite them to play. You might be surprised to find out there are lots of local X-Wing players who, like you, aren't aware of the others. You might need to put in the effort to bring those players together. That's exactly what I did this summer. I now have two days a week where I play with a group of about twelve X-Wing players, and just this weekend I have met four new players at a small local game convention, just by setting up a game.

So use the internet. Network. And talk to people, including the owners of game shops. They usually have websites or Facebook pages and can reach a wide audience. Ask them to announce an X-Wing game night. And don't give up if it takes a little while to get things going. Keep trying for a month and I think you'll get results.

On the upside, this is a good thing as you can feel no guilt whatsoever about buying from Miniature Market or national equivalent.

Vassal's tough to get into, particularly if like me you're using a laptop and don't have acres in which to spread out all the windows, particularly the main window that can't be foregrounded. I'm still having a hard time judging all the distances and thinking of it in the same way I think of maneuvers on the table. But it gets better and I really appreciate all the work people like Mu0n have done to make this game accessible in this format.

Well, I'm talking about an official, good working system that is ran, powered, invented, and moderated by FFG. This Vassal, while does sound tempting, just wouldn't be enough. I want something made by the creators of X-Wing.

For what it's worth - back in February 2013, when I first tried vassal, I had checked out mrfroggies' tutorial video (at a time where there were far more bugs and non-intuitive steps to just getting to the ship pieces and cards) and tried it out. There were no automatic moves then, you had to manually place the templates down, adjust at 100% zoom level, then move the ship, then zoom back out. It was so time-intensive that I decided it wasn't appealing enough to play regularly. I remember replying back on mrfroggies' thread here on the FFG forums saying it was a bit too fiddly - but it might work out if you sped up play by using skype.

How times have changed since then.

If I only relied on tabletop play (which still rocks, still my favorite way to play by far), I would have roughly about 80-100 games played since February 2013. With Vassal, that count sits at around 360 games. Each player can decide for himself or herself how much increasing your game count by a factor of 3-4x is worth (AND playing outside of your local meta).

I've tried Skype several times. Someone always seems to have a ship in the wrong place, or a wrong card, or a wrong action. Skype just doesn't do it.

The internet could be your solution for finding local players and developing a gaming scene in your area. Check out MeetUp, Yahoo groups, and Facebook groups set up by and for gamers in your area. Just search for your city name + X-Wing, or your city name + games. If that doesn't give you some results, create a Facebook group, a Yahoo group, and a MeetUp. Go to game stores in your area on the days when they allow open gaming and bring your X-Wing stuff. Talk to other players as they show up and invite them to play. You might be surprised to find out there are lots of local X-Wing players who, like you, aren't aware of the others. You might need to put in the effort to bring those players together. That's exactly what I did this summer. I now have two days a week where I play with a group of about twelve X-Wing players, and just this weekend I have met four new players at a small local game convention, just by setting up a game.

So use the internet. Network. And talk to people, including the owners of game shops. They usually have websites or Facebook pages and can reach a wide audience. Ask them to announce an X-Wing game night. And don't give up if it takes a little while to get things going. Keep trying for a month and I think you'll get results.

I'm actually too young for any of those social media things.

Under 13 but both grammatically competent and fairly eloquent on the internet?

There is hope for mankind.

I was talking about playing on vassal AND using skype to talk about what's going on. Skype alone is another beast altogether (using proper cameras, supported in a fixed position) - I've never attempted that.

there must be some human you can convince to (at least try it) play with you.....

brothers or sisters? siblings can be a pain, but a good source of practice target fodder....

do you have parents? could be a good way to bridge the generation gap, get some dad time in.....

neighbors?

schoolmates?

do you live in the woods, by yourself, your only friend a squirrel named ben?

the computer/video game produced by FFG idea has been talked about before, and I think that FFG does not have the license to produce video games with the star wars IP, also they are a board/mini/card game company not a video game producer.

Vassal is a terribly designed and extremely buggy 2D online game simulator. Gamers who are really into it are incapable of seeing its numerous flaws and pretend like they haven't spent hours trying to figure out how to load a specific game module. It is slow and disconnects frequently. You practically need a degree in computer science to make any traction with troubleshooting. You may actually spend more time trying to set it up than playing actual games.

If you decide to try it, you should be prepared for a large amount of frustration, followed by victim-blaming and little actual help from those that are afficionados.

"Oh, you just do this complex series of 40 steps to get it to work!"

*an hour later*

"It didn't work? I don't know what to tell you!"

That's my experience with other games and Vassal anyway. I would hope that the players of this game offer better support, but based upon what I've seen on these forums, I doubt it.

I've played many games on Vassal and most of them are crap but mu0n has created one of the better modules I've seen. About the only thing that doesn't have shortcuts are bumps and barrel rolls (that are not all the way forward/backward).

Vassal has its share of warts and there is little about it that is "user friendly", but mu0n's module has turned a turd into a pearl.

Also, if you ever need help getting on Vassal and figuring things out, I'm more than willing to help out (since I'm sure mu0n is always busy). I've taught a few players and it's always good to get more players on the module (more opponents, more friends!).