It is simply amazing how much you can get done with a simple phone call (or Skype call). Mick and I talked about Vegas After Midnight for an hour after another conference call for the After Serenity Shindig at this Gen Con 2007. We have been emailing back and forth, posting on our design forum, and communicating with just text in general.
The Skype call, similar to a phone call a few weeks before, accomplished so much. We communicated more of how VAM works, Mick’s vision for it, and my vision of his vision (luckily they are similar), in that one hour than we would have in twenty pages worth of emails or posts. The forums and email are definitely helpful, but getting esoteric concepts down requires a constant back and forth dialog that is just not there on forums or even IM. You lose the nuances of vocalization, and you lose a great deal of time when talking over forums, email, and IM.
I am looking forward to making these calls more frequently, since it gets us on the same page design-wise, and it also has the added side benefit of reinvigorating our enthusiasm for this project.