Just curious?

[Gary Tatro]

I wanted to find out if other people posted AAR's and how long did it take them.

[Orzel Bialy]

are great..but they are time consuming. Ah the price of being entertained!

[Gary Tatro]

I am the one that takes 5+ hours to write up my AAR's. The last one just published took around 5+5+5+5. I worked on it a long time and that included the pictures with edits. Hope you like it.

[Jim1954]

It was a great read. The screen shots were superb in conveying what was going on. Post how you did it and maybe more will follow your example. My question is how do you find the time. I can barely fit in what seems to me a bare minimum of playing time. Gotta figure out how to get by on about 3 hrs. sleep a night. Can't do that anymore like I could when I was a little (lot)younger.

Keep up the good work.

[Gary Tatro]

Jim - time is equivalent. I do not watch TV so I tend to have a lot more time to spend on the computer. But it is diffiucult I would have had the last AAR out about three weeks before I finally released it but I could only work on it sporadically.

But to begin with I try to find a senario that many people have problems with. I ask for suggestions.

Then I downloaded Hypersnap and worked with it until I could grab a picture of the game. This took some doing you have to go into the preferences or options and make it work with Direct X. It took some figuring out.

Then while I play the senario I try to record at the begining what I want to do. I keep track of losses and kills on a pad of paper. Then as I go through depending upon the map size I take picture shots of the map I would name the screenshots according to the turn to make it easier to go back to them latter. Since Patopov was big I focused on two areas.

After I have finished with a senario I refer to my notes and open up the screen shots to refresh my memory. I then start out with an ice cold beer and a comfy chair and set to work on my key board. Two things I try to focus on. 1st Making the story interesting without being repetative. I try to throw in some key persons and there first person point of views. The beer helps this process because I try to immagine myself in the same situation taking into account my own life experiences. 2nd I try to keep all of the more mundain aspects out of the story. What I mean by this is I don't say TURN 2 destoryed 3 infantry, or something like that. I got some good feed back from my last AAR and tried to incorporate it.

After I was finished righting it in Word, I left it for a day or two and then reread it. Made corrections and such. In the mean time I opened up the snap shots of the game with hypersnap and resaved them as GIF's. These I found worked the best when you attach a file. I then opened up the gif's picture with windows pait or something else besides Hypersnap and edited the pictures to get rid of the stupid hypersnap ad. I find that annoying.

I then would post. I would copy and paste from my Word file and then attache the appropriate picture. I would have liked to make the AAR all one post but you ar limmited to a maximum byte size and to one pic. So I repeated the process by replying to myself a number of times until I had finished the senario. I then did one last read of the AAR and edited mistakes I had made.

I thank you for your encouragement. I tend to get discouraged fairly easily when I don't get any replies about it. It makes me think that the Matrix gamer isn't interested.

[Jim1954]

Sounds like you could be practicing to design a megacampaign. Those of us with less time to devote will just have to enjoy the fruits of your immense labors. Don't get discouraged about lack of response, plenty of viewings are there. As long as they are looking at it you are serving your intended purpose, but yeah, everybody likes to hear job well done ....So...

Job Well Done!

[Grenadier]

Originally posted by Jim1954
Sounds like you could be practicing to design a megacampaign.

Don't wory. Gary is on my (short) list:D

[ivantheterrible]

Your dedication amazes me, gary

[Jim1954]

Gary ,I don't watch a lot of tv either, but I have found that this system works remarkably well:

Put a 13" itty-bitty tv with a remote on my computer desk, turn it on to the History channel, volume off, play SPWAW with headphones and during the AI turn I'll pull off 1 earphone off, kick up the TV volume a little and alternate carnage between that and the PC. Keeps my wife really happy that she doesn't have to listen to explosions half of the night. This is normal, right?

[Gary Tatro]

Gary ,I don't watch a lot of tv either, but I have found that this system works remarkably well:

Put a 13" itty-bitty tv with a remote on my computer desk, turn it on to the History channel, volume off, play SPWAW with headphones and during the AI turn I'll pull off 1 earphone off, kick up the TV volume a little and alternate carnage between that and the PC. Keeps my wife really happy that she doesn't have to listen to explosions half of the night. This is normal, right? [/QUOTE]

But if it works for you that is great. If I spend to much time on the computer my girlfriend will slip into the room quitly while I am intently watching the computer screen and the next thing I know I will have a pair of naked Double D's in my face and a lapdance going on in my chair. Try to work or play while that is going on!!!

[Jim1954]

Point taken. After you've been married for over 20 yrs., had kids and everything else that comes with it, the lap dances decrease somewhat in frequency. How did you manage to string together 5+5+5+5 to do that last AAR?, given your current distractions.