Welcome to the first issue of Operations. I suppose something of an explanation is in order. We felt a natural need to support our own products and were somewhat disappointed with efforts in their support outside our own control -- we needed a consistent, accurate, and responsible voice to provide our customers with the latest news, revisions and discussion on the how and why of our own games. You must forgive us for being forward enough to do this, but, at least, I believe you understand why we did it. I hope we can provide you the product you deserve.

To do this, we need your help. Support in the form of subscriptions would be one way. This magazine is designed to support itself, period. You and I both need no reminding of the importance of subscribing to support a magazine and I will not belabor the point.

Next, second only to subscriptions, is writing. This is to be a player supported support magazine. I need your articles -- your tips and tricks, your play strategy, your views on whatever. For those inclined away from formal articles, your letters to the editor will be welcome and published (if you don't tell me otherwise) hopefully inspiring a readers forum debate -- the content of which will be only limited by your imagination, a little "good taste editing" and space availability. I will never intentionally edit your comments in such a way as to change their thrust or meaning as I've seen elsewhere.

You say you don't have the time or desire to write either an article or letter? Ok, how about dropping me a line on what you would like to see an article about, but don't have the time to put it together yourself. Since you know what you want to see, you are the best judge of the desired subject and approach -- let me know what you want to read about.

Ok, the what we want and need stuff is out of the way. What do you get out of it? To begin with, we will give you an intelligent forum for examining gaming products and their play. With both examples of play and discussion of the reasons behind rules, players should gain a deeper understanding of the products. The goal is that increased understanding will lead to greater enjoyment.

Also, you will get a look at systems under development so you can interject your views before publication -- giving all of us a more satisfactory product. All of this is meant to apply to other company's products as well, although we can only speak with authority about our own. We, of course, cannot claim to be unbiased, so product reviews are not to appear in these pages. If a particularly noteworthy product appears from another company, I will comment on it and give a short description of what I see as its good points. It is neither our right, nor goal to criticize the work of other companies. This is not a review magazine. I hope other game companies take advantage of these pages to help their products and gaming in general.

As I've stated before, this magazine will not accept any advertising other than announcements of our products and services. We do, however, wish to publish the names, addresses and phone numbers of game stores (free of charge) in every issue. This is provided as a service to both the stores and the gainers. Game stores are notoriously hard to find. If you know of a local game store that could use a free plug, tell them to drop me a note.

Thank you for your interest in this magazine. With your input and help, I hope to interject a good amount of life back into a beast announced as DOA by others our hobby!