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Games Entertainment

The Ultimate Gaming Table 191

Posted by timothy from the this-is-not-at-ikea dept.
Johnzo writes: "Wow. Dude's built himself a super-deluxe custom gaming table, with built-in coasters, dice pits, a sound system, lamps for each player, glass inlays for handouts, books and paper storage, an elevated miniatures battlefield, privacy screens for each player, and (best of all) an under-table tube network using hollow gravity-fed balls to deliver secret messages to players. The only way this could possibly be cooler is if he used pneumatics to deliver the messages."
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The Ultimate Gaming Table More

The Ultimate Gaming Table

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  • Wow. (Score:1)

    by Gldm ( 600518 )
    And to think I was making do with a $50 plastic table from Home Depot me and my roommates pitched in to buy.

    • Re:Wow. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by javajames27 ( 536883 )
      You had a table? What about sleeping bags, pillows, an old tape deck playing cheezy soundtracks, and dice amuk due to the random monster attacks of your cat? Tables - Bah I say!

  • Tea Balls for message spheres (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15, 2002 @04:42PM (#4079314)
    Wow. I just want this for Risk!


    To player: "Sure, I won't attack you."


    (Under the table): "Attack on the next turn! Kamchacka won't know what hit them! BWahahahaha..."

    • You absolutely owe it to yourself to check out "Napoleon in Europe". (http://www.eaglegames.com). This game rocks. It has more advanced rules, an interesting innovation system and some great, great game pieces! It costs $7.50 per LBS.!!! Give it a look, my gang of players loves it.
      • I'd also like to reccomend "War in the age of imperialism" by the same company. I just bought it at GenCon last week and I've only played it three times, but I definately can tell I'm going to like it for some time to come.

        I also saw at GenCon that the same people (eaglegames) are also working on a Civilization board game similar to the computer games. (yeah, I know there was a Civilization board game before the computer game, but this is sort of a "port" from the computer version back to a boardgame again, using different rules. It's supposed to be out ath the end of September.
        • I can't say enough good things about the newer Risk 2210, published by Avalon Hill. It takes all that is good about the original and makes it better. Commanders rolling with 8 sided die, command cards that can have devastating effect, energy points to buy said commanders and cards, bidding for turn order, water and moon colonies and its limited to 5 turns. No more 6 hour marathons. It is one of the best variation on an old game I have seen.

          More info here [avalonhill.com]
      • Aww I can't beleive no one mentioned Axis and Allies the biggest time burner ever printed on paperboard.
        • Also good is Samurai Swords, aka Shogun. Its quite similar to the Total War: Shogun series for the Computer.
        • GOD that game sucks.

          Yeah, I can't remember half of the stupid rules, but here are two of my favorites:

          I'm MOVING troops with my carrier, so when you attacked my carrier, you actually killed that trooper there.
          OR
          My SUBMARINE traveled from Northern Russia to Spain in one turn. WTF? There some kind of time warp through England?

          Rant off...

          • I haven't played in a couple of years, but I don't remember carriers being able to transport non-aircraft units, and there's no way for a sub to move that far in one turn.

  • Slashdot effect / bad neighbor? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15, 2002 @04:46PM (#4079317)
    Okay, the slashdot effect has incinerated yet another poor innocent server.

    Slashdot might consider warning / hosting cached images of pages that arent designed to handle major traffic.

    If I built a cool backyard widget and told a few friends, I might be a tad disconcerted when CNN tells a half-million people to check out my house.
    • If I built a cool backyard widget and told a few friends, I might be a tad disconcerted when CNN tells a half-million people to check out my house.

      Uh... he did put this stuff up on the internet, presumably so people could see it.

      Your analogy might work if CNN broke down your fence or peeked in your windows to see your "widget," but you can hardly complain if you built it in your front yard so everyone walking down the street could see it.

      I suppose if the submitter got the link from this kid in an e-mail that was just sent around to a few of his friends, you might have a point. But if the submitter found it through a search engine, or through random surfing, well, webmaster emptor

      • ANd if a webcrawler grabbed it? Put up a random page some time, don't publicize it, and it will eventually get hits.
      • If I put a cool fountain up in my front yard, it's all well and good for people seeing it who happen to go down my street. It's in public view, and I like it that way. The analogous /. effect is that thousands of people flock to my house overnight and trample my grass and block the driveway so I can't get out of my house. It's a major inconvenience and not appropriate
        • Wrong- they may flock to your house, but since it is private property they can't trample your property (call the cops if they do), though they may block the street (you can still call the cops for this). Also think of this, anything that you display for the public, even if it is on private property but can be seen from public property, is fair game. Inconvience? Sure. Inappropriate? Maybe. It depends on whether you want to blame yourself for displaying whatever, or you want to blame people for showing up to look at it. If you didn't want people to see it, put it where others can't see it (back yard, maybe?). This attitude is becoming more prevalent from people who do something (web page, work of art, a fountain) and then bitch when it becomes popular and they are inconvienced. "It's not my fault, it's all the people who caused all the unexpectated consequences from what I did." What is the root cause? You built/showed/did something. Therefore, any result from that display that is not illegal is your fault. If you don't want your web page to be /.ed, don't put up something neat. Don't know about /.? Well, you put up something neat because you wanted people to see the neatness, and if you really didn't want lots and lots of people to see it, ie. only your friends, you would password protect the pages and email your friends the password. Newbie to the web? Again, too bad, don't jump in when you don't know how deep you are going in.

          The closest proper analogy that I can think of is putting up a billboard/public ad- you paid for it, and pay for it per month, it is posted in a public forum, and if it is so popular that it is swamped by people trying to see it, well too bad, you put it out there.
    • Does IP, copyright, fair use bla, bla, bla ... ring any bells? Slashdot could not just cache any page used in a story. If so they would have to contact each copyright owner to ask for permission to cache their page, but the they'd have to change "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" to "Olds for Nerds. Stuff that used to matter."

      It's entirely posible to cache pages for personal use, but not to republish through your own page. (Wonder how Google looks at this.)

      • Re:Slashdot effect / bad neighbor? (Score:5, Funny)

        by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:34PM (#4079474)
        Right. Like Slashdot's news is always on the bleeding edge. Waiting a few hours to make this post would have made it completely irrelevant.


        I'm convinced that the reason why Taco doesn't bother to cache these pages is that he enjoys the notoriety of the "Slashdot Effect." The excuses in the FAQ are really lame.

        • Finally! Someone who agrees with me!

          I am so sick and tired of Slashdot editors whining that "it's in the FAQ" - yeah, I know, but those seem like lazy excuses that boils down to "this'd be kinda difficult and we're way too lazy to attempt it."

          Besides, I think all they really need to do is just e-mail the webmaster of the site they're linking too. If it's a big web site, then yes, go ahead, link directly to it. If it's got ads, then link to it. If it's obviously some hobbyist's webpage, then contact them first!

          Although, this is the Internet, so apparently being polite is passe. *sigh*

          Oh, and it's nice to see that Slashcode now removes all HTML entities, so I can't put a nice accent in over the e. Thanks.

          • Oh, and it's nice to see that Slashcode now removes all HTML entities, so I can't put a nice accent in over the e. Thanks.

            That was in response to "all those French whipper-snappers that kept crapflooding with their damn accented letters..."
        • oh come on, get realistic. Some of the webhosts out there don't care about such shtic. All they see is that the website has 'overdrawn' it's allotment of traffic...
        • I'm convinced that the reason why Taco doesn't bother to cache these pages is that he enjoys the notoriety of the "Slashdot Effect." The excuses in the FAQ are really lame.

          I'm convinced that Taco does this because it makes him smile to link to an asp page off of slashdot, especially when using the word "cool" somewhere in the blurb.

          It always seems to be asp or occasionally php pages that go down in less than 90 seconds..
      • What the hell do you call google? They cache every page they hit and they'll let me view it.
    • The only decent alternative I can see is something similar to what fark.com does. Have a subscriber base that's allowed to see the links a couple hours before they get posted to the main site. This will allow subscribers an advantage when viewing slashdotable sites, and may give them the opportunity to mirror those sites if they feel it might be needed. It will also give the webmaster a warning of what is soon to come and allow them to make whatever changes are needed to prepare for the onslaught. It will also make first-poster's jobs completely useless (unless they want to buy a lot of subscriptions).

      Of course, this means that articles might grow stale by a couple hours, but CNN and other sites that will have no problem with the traffic can still be posted normally. Oh well, just an idea.
      Happy moderating.

      -Restil
    • I was at this site a few days ago. The day after I was at it a friend tried to get to it. It was dead then. I suspect it recovered just long enough to get slashdotted.

      It is a VERY cool table though.
    • Slashdot THIS!

      http://papa.burningserver.org [burningserver.org]

      I need to reload this machine anyways, so go ahead and nuke it. I'm interested in seeing what kind of traffic it can handle. ;-P
    • Slashdot might consider warning / hosting cached images of pages that arent designed to handle major traffic.

      "Might consider", as if this has never been discussed before [slashdot.org].

      Worse, what's with the moderators scoring at a +5 Insightful?

  • Beautiful furniture (Score:5, Funny)

    by hugesmile ( 587771 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @04:46PM (#4079318)
    I bet Verizon would like to get this guy to design the furniture for their offices to put the $22,000 workstations [com.com] on!
  • So I haven't read the article or seen pictures yet.

    But I think this would be great for AD&D type games. Guessing from the posting text I think this table might be built just for these kind of games.

  • Another feature (Score:4, Funny)

    by gatekeep ( 122108 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:01PM (#4079333)
    There's another feature the blurb didn't mention which is sure to be of great benefit to people who would want something like this. It's sized such that it can easily fit in most parent's basements!
  • 'Dude' builds himself a new webserver, as the Slashdot crowd help him melt his after only a few minutes! :)
  • No beer dispenser.

    • Re:Oops! Forgot one thing. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Roadmaster ( 96317 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:13PM (#4079371) Homepage Journal
      This table appears to be built for roleplaying games.. and trust me, you DON'T want to be dungeon master to a bunch of 15 drunk fellas whose level 20 characters have just been slaughtered by a couple of lucky kobold assassins.
      • Roadmaster: you DON'T want to be dungeon master to a bunch of 15 drunk fellas whose level 20 characters have just been slaughtered by a couple of lucky kobold assassins.

        If they really fell by kobolds at level 20 I'd wonder how they got this far ...
        • Well, for one thing, monsters in 3rd edition AD&D are scalable now. It is entirely possible to build that (as an example) 14th level orc chieftain without having to pull rules out of your ass. Likewise, you can make a 20th level Kobold Assassin (which actually would be fairly powerful). It's a much more flexible system, as it allows a lot of the different types of monsters to have different abilities and features, rather then just having your 20th level party run into dragon after dragon. (Yes, I play. Isn't it obvious?)

          We now return you to your regularly scheduled geek-fest.

          Kierthos
      • it's official.

        this post is the dorkiest thing i have ever read.

  • Additional Features (Score:5, Funny)

    by gleam_mn ( 226101 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:09PM (#4079347) Homepage
    Features not yet mentioned:

    1) Makes a perfect girlfriend repellent
    2) Eliminates that pesky urge to shower
    3) Acts as a cosmic magnet for Trekkies
    4) Absorbs excess light to help maintain that lovely shade of "pasty white" you've worked so hard to obtain

    The sad part is, ten years ago I would have killed for one :) Now my wife won't let me... :P

  • Link.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by gatekeep ( 122108 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:09PM (#4079348)
    Here's the google cache link [216.239.33.100]

    • Re:Link.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by spencerogden ( 49254 )
      Interesting, so he just took the actual page down, the pictures are still there...
    • Problem here is that the Google link doesn't link the entire page, you have to go through bit by bit via google's cache.

      Man, shouldn't we be doing people like this a service and mirroring these sites on machines that can tolerate slashdot effect?

  • Pnuematic (Score:5, Funny)

    by rbgaynor ( 537968 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:12PM (#4079360)

    ...and (best of all) an under-table tube network using hollow gravity-fed balls to deliver secret messages to players. The only way this could possibly be cooler is if he used pneumatics to deliver the messages.

    Sadly I can see where an under the table pneumatic device probably would have appeal to /.ers

    • Re:Pnuematic (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kin_korn_karn ( 466864 )
      I'm thinking the gravity balls make noise, and that kind of cuts out the secrecy aspect of it, right?
      • From what I can see of the cache link [216.239.33.100] it looks like the messages might only run from DM->player and possibly the other way around.

        It's not of much value to know the DM is sending someone a message if you can't see the actualy message. Between players it might be, you could tell if two people are keeping secrets from the rest of the group of something...

        Why not just have laptop/palmtop PCs with IM running or something?

      • Re:Pnuematic (Score:3, Funny)

        by jyoull ( 512280 )
        The gravity-fed secrets are vulnerable to traffic analysis, but not content analysis... so it depends on how and what you're playing.

        or just turn up the music at random times, and occasionally send a secret message during one of those noisy intervals.
        • or just turn up the music at random times, and occasionally send a secret message during one of those noisy intervals.

          Or continually send bogus messages ("hey, what's up?") so people get used to you constantly sending messages, and they'll never know whether you're sending a game strategy or just fluff.

    • Re:Pnuematic (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ooblek ( 544753 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:49PM (#4079534)
      What would happen if the pneumatics malfunction? How many MPH can it make a secret message ball eject out of the tube that is probably at about the same level as the family jewels? Talk about a d20 damage roll.....
  • Beer cooler and/or snack bowl

  • Fantasy Gaming Table (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jharish ( 101858 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:18PM (#4079400)
    I've always fantasized about a table that would have a small console with a keyboard and screen for each player where there could be messaging between players/GM. I've also wanted to be able to send images/maps and other important information over the consoles on this, my fantasy gaming table.

    Of course, cool holograms ala Star Wars Chess Table would rock for the battle map. The problem... I know the technology exists for all of the above, but the cost is far too prohibitive to make a gaming table this cool.

    -Steve
    • El-cheapo or near free terminals...

      get 5-7 386 B&W laptops, and 1 586 with a 8 port serial card.

      linux on all of them, BitchX only on the laptops, ircd on the server.

      Instant private/broadcast messaging system.

      If you gave me 5-6 weeks I can get all of the above for free or less than $300.00

      • You can get me free laptops? Or even nearly free? Gimme a link! NOW! :)
      • Serial, eh?

        With the 16450 (or, gasp, 8250) UARTs common on old laptops, you're going to have issues keeping speeds reasonable. (57600 baud being a minimum value for "reasonable".)

        Better to use ethernet. Standard hardware, and everything else already talks to it. Oh, and it's -really- fast, as far as these machines are concerned.

        (yes, I've done SLIP, PPP, and plain terminal sessions with my Linux-equipped 386SL-25 laptop. Yes, I also tried PLIP, using an old laplink cable. Yes, I turned up the priority of the port's IRQ. Yes, I still had dropped characters and random strangeness. And yes, the IBM-branded PCMCIA 10base-T ethernet adapter I picked up off Ebay for $3 (!) works great, including the modem. Yes, it's a lot easier to plug into a hub anywhere one happens to be and be able to talk to the world, than it is to cart around a *nix box to tie into with RS-232. Oh. And, yes, Cat-5 is cheaper than shielded multi-conductor serial cable, and vastly easier to terminate. Also, yes, one saves a bit of RAM by not keeping the SLIP/PPP/PLIP code in memory - ethernet is cheaper.)

        Too bad more 386 laptops don't have PCMCIA support.
    • I've always fantasized about a table that would have...

      Dude...you really need better fantasies.

  • One more feature I'd need... (Score:3, Funny)

    by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:23PM (#4079415)
    A built in hooka in the middle of the table, with pipes going out to all of the player seats. Not *that* would make for a good game table.
  • Don't you people know any better than to post an article linking to a Microsoft server? The thing went down within seconds!!

    At least post a mirror link or a google reference or something...

  • haiku (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3ryon ( 415000 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @05:29PM (#4079454)
    The web page you seek
    Has been destroyed by Slashdot
    God-damned geek bastards.

  • well... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Sebby ( 238625 )
    TOO BUSY TO COMMENT

  • Google Cache (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Cached Link [216.239.35.100]

  • Copy of website text in case of Slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)

    by ALoverOfPeace ( 586114 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @06:25PM (#4079703)
    HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy
  • one of those electro-zappers used to such good effect in the first episode of the Simpsons. I can see it now:

    Player: "But, I never actually said I was gonna attack the dragon."

    DM: "Uh, no, but you yelled out 'Die scumsucking winged lizard!' and told me you were running towards it with your +5 Holy Avenger drawn."

    Player: "Yeah, but how do you know the dragon interpreted that as a hostile act?"

    DM: (pushes the under-the-table zapper button, jolting the player with a dose of electricity strong enough to take down a rhino)

    Hmm.. wait, am I putting too much of my own history into this little scenario?

  • Right on top of the table is the feard "Intergalactic Cat of Destruction" that is known to ravage armies in this and many other universes. Closely related to the "Toddler Cthulu" and "Cosmic Sneeze."

  • Save? (Score:2, Funny)

    by bpfinn ( 557273 )
    DM: Um, what's yer save versus Slashdotting?

    Dude: 12

    DM: Sorry, you didn't save. You are separated from the party, and you lose all your spell points.

    Dude: D'oh!
  • Hope that gaming table didn't contain the web server too, because it'll be up in flames. All that time wasted...

  • Server Too Busy (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    cache [216.239.35.100]

  • Secret Balls (Score:4, Funny)

    by Boawk ( 525582 ) on Thursday August 15, 2002 @10:21PM (#4080686)

    and (best of all) an under-table tube network using hollow gravity-fed balls to deliver secret messages to players.

    Knowing the geeks I knew in high-school, they'd probably put more than their balls in the under-table tube network.

  • We at Agyris.net really built the game table to:
    - Get Space Chicks. Not just any chicks, mind you, but the really hot klingon ones with thick knees and sharp, pointy armor. We met some down by the river, and they came back with us after they heard about our bitchin' table. Alkhound said that they were just carnies, but I know better.
    - Fight Owlbears. We just hate them, so we built the player stations to be too small for their big, furry, hunched backs. They can't even send messages back to the GM because their claws are too damn big to hold the message spheres. We also hate their fur-less asses.
    - Promote the Mullet. At Agyris.net we think that the 1984 Mullet should be protected and promoted. The ultimate game table attracts innocent newbie gamers to our personal hygiene lacking hobby. Simply put, more gamers = more mullets!
    - Improve the Flavor of Dr. Thunder. Gamers love caffinated drinks, and the ridiculously cheap Dr. Thunder (27 cents per gallon) is certainly no exception. However, since the now famous game table fad of 2002 causes thousands more oily spills than ever before, Walmart will be forced to improve the flavor since there will be a shortage of the horse hide flavoring that they commonly use. ---
    We never thought that we'd be featured on Slashdot, but we also never thought that we'd be forced to move out of our parents' basements at the age of 38, due to an official court order. Life is funny.
  • "These are some of the icons that were designed for individual player stations by Shannon Potratz, the lead conceptional designer for Agyris.net... Each player station will have it's own iconic identity, which will be painted on the wall of each one, and also on the Game Master side next to each sphere hole! The icons themselves symbolize the elements of change and decay, Creatures and Gods, in the World of Agyris."

    The icons themselves symbolize just *HOW* much time I spent playing Magic:The Gathering. But since I changed them around on my giant POOLTABLE, they now mean various geeky ingame things about chaos and checkers or something.

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