AVRO
History, Part IV AVRO
History, Part IV
Last modified: 01/14/2015 21:21:54
Version 2.5.1
This website was created because I was getting very exhausted trying to organize Car Wars events. With such a huge volume of information that I have to communicate to each individual player over the telephone, I had no spare time to really enjoy the fruits of labours. Now, all I have to do is post the details of an event on this website and relax.
I also created this site because of the usefulness of the information that has accumulated during our long existence. With such resources, other Car Wars enthusiasts do not have to waste their time looking around for materials. Also, it makes great material for my web publishing courses.
For 7 long years, Bruce has been AVRO's slave. He was fed only Clorets & Tic Tacs (AVRO needed the little plastic containers.) His duties include gamemastering, reporting events, advertising, contacting members, checking vehicle designs and constructing arenas. His only joys now in life are to construct bizarre autoduelling arenas and to design heavily armed & armoured vehicles. He prays one day to be let free from his captivity.
Bruce is also AVRO's worst duellist. He has only won one competition by default. In that battle, he was fool enough to fight with an unarmed cycle and a heavy pistol with anti-vehicle rounds (when they were still legal). As a result, his cycle was taken out of the battle early after playing chicken with a car. Fortunately, Bruce survived. In a flurry of rams, everyone else in the arena killed themselves by dogpiling the first person with a kill -- the one who took out Bruce. Since Bruce was the only person still alive, he won.
Before each competition, Bruce checks all the vehicle designs for legality. This has resulted in better game balance (no more 6x damage from metal rams) as there has always been a great number of mistakes discovered in each design. Bruce still competes in each game with a stock vehicle. However, he is usually one of the first persons to be eliminated since he knows everyone else's weaknesses. He is beginning to feel as if he is where one of AVRO's mythical bumper stickers.
AVRO first began in 1987 when a high school student brought together a few of his friends together to play Car Wars. This first meeting became one of many since the game was a nice release from the pressures of school. Bruce took over in 1989 when the demands of school began to mount up.
Unfortunately, Bruce was at this time approached by someone to help write up a Canadian Car Wars Road Atlas. Being rather enthusiastic about Car Wars, Bruce agreed to help and brought in the rest of the club to help. However, the rest of the club was not very enthusiastic about the project and the boss was rather demanding. After numerous arguments, swear words, complaints, threats, ulcers, overdue deadlines, legal threats and revelations, no Canadian Car Wars Road Atlas was created.
It turned out that the company which would have published this atlas was not even interested in publishing it. In fact, it was the first they had heard about the project. Sales of the last five or so Road Atlases were so lukewarm that Steve Jackson Games decided not to complete publishing all ten publicly promised atlases. It was unfortunate that all this effort was expended before Bruce became suspicious enough to contact Steve Jackson Games directly. However, the atlas boss was decent enough to compensate AVRO's wasted efforts by sponsoring our Car Wars club. Thus in 1990, AVRO became the official Canadian Car Wars chapter of Vancouver; however, the boss named us VCAA instead of AVRO.
This is a top five list of things that AVRO has learned from its rather disastrous attempt at the Canadian Road Atlas. It has been listed here to help others who are thinking of joining a venture. Wisdom is something to shared, rather than hoarded. Also, a project management course would be useful.
In our case, it usually took a few weeks to communicate with our boss via snail mail -- far too long and too limited. Complications and questions need to be taken care of immediately. Also, project members met only infrequently to discuss the project.
About half of the people I enlisted to help with the project were wishy-washy and dropped out at the last minute -- a recipe for disaster. It is best to corner the people at the start of the project and ask them to give a definitive answer about their ability to complete what is asked of them. If they do not commit, drop them. It would be unfair to the rest of the team to support them.
A couple of contracts had been drawn up -- one legal, the other not. Unfortunately, we were misinformed on which one was legal and were mixed up as to which one we were using. It is best to discuss legal issues to exhaustion. It saves one from misunderstandings in the future.
Steve Jackson Games publicly had stated years ago that they were thinking about making a Canadian Road Atlas. However, none of us checked with them at the start of the project . (Our boss did write them about it once, but never got an answer -- he also did not tell us this until too late.) After directly cornering them, it was then discovered that they were no longer interested in publishing a Canadian Road Atlas. By this time, months of work had been wasted.
Due to our numerous problems, our deadlines kept pushed further & further back. This was unfair to our boss who wanted the project done ASAP. We should have reassessed constantly. When the problems started to keep mounting up, we should have asked to be dropped from the project rather than let it drag on.
Car Wars, AADA, Autoduel, Uncle Albert's, and the AADA logo
are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated.
All names of other products published by Steve Jackson Games
Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of Steve
Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license.
Reprinted by the Seattle
Washington Autoduel Team, January 20, 2015
Updated May 27, 2023
Original URL: http://avro.simplenet.com/carwars/history/index4.html
