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Crom wrote:Does anyone actually research anything before they post? I find so much misinformation dealing with technology more so than anything else. The fact is, 3D printers will totally change table top war gaming, but not the way you think. It will change the DIY "beer and pretzels" war gaming. You can already print out pretty decent looking models, and people upload the design files for free use. So it only costs you the printer + materials. Then people will start publishing their own rules.

Here is an example of what you can print right now, if you had a 3D printer. You don't need the top of the line model to do so either.




source: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/08/print-your-own-wargaming-minis.html

Lol, conversions would be so bitching when these become cheap too.

chaos0xomega wrote:No, it really wouldn't. GW goes under and the inflow of new players will decrease to virtually zero. A large chunk, near 100%, of the newer players at the time of GWs demise would cut their losses and jump ship immediately. All that will be left are the players who have been around for a couple years and the veterans. Within 2 years the couple year group will move on to games that are still being supported, as will the vets. The difference is that the vets will break the game out every once in a while at a convention for nostalgia purposes and the couple year group won't.

I have played several games over the years that have gone under, and this is the pattern that they have always followed. Don't let the seemingly large size of the GW hobby mislead you. If GW had a half way decent game system that was designed to last, this wouldn't be the case, but given its engineered obsolescence its not going to last, because it was never meant to last.

NO

If GW goes under then someone WILL buy 40k and very likely fantasy. Then they will support it and try not to screw up the same ways GW did.

AND HOLY CRAP THAT 3D PRINTER STUFF IS COOL!

Here's hoping that Section 7 or whatever that Privateer Press announced is actually a hostile takeover of GW.

Toastedandy wrote:When 3D printing becomes larger, whats to stop people just making their own games? their own minis? Companies like GW or PP would go have to up their game massively. The scope of 3d printing is astonishing. Anything you could possible imagine, turned into plastic, with little to no skill involved at all.

You're kidding right? Little to no skill at all? Its not that easy, thats why people who know how to do that kind of stuff get paid big bucks by Hollywood, video game publishers, etc.

In any case, I don't see what 3d printing has to do with people making their own games with their own minis. People do that now already. Just because PP is a company doesn't mean it was always that way, they had to start from somewhere about 8 years ago, right? 3d printing is never (at least not in the near future) going to replace the old methods of molding and casting, all what 3d printing will do is offer an alternative to conventional miniature sculpting using greenstuff/clay, etc. People with access to 3d printers are going to have the same issues that sculptors do now, in that they will still need to find someone to mass produce their stuff for them.

They definitley would need to up their game to compete with the general populace. if you think about it if roughtly 10% of thsi forum dedicated itself together to make a fun game system for all of us to play tahst roughly 4000 people working together to make somethign they wnat exactly hwo they want it. How many people does GW have working on tehir system? maybe 20 or 30? I think 3D printing in the future will make the tabletop genre MUCH better than it is now both in the fan-made market and will cause companies liek GW to up their game to provide with a truly superior product.

Personally, I'd rather play the game made by 20 to 30 people tops over the game made by over 4000 people. I'm thinking most people would agree, including yourself, you just don't realize it. Design by committee doesn't work. Its a wonderful concept, lets all band together and make a game exactly how we want it, and have fun with it. The problem is that each and every person wants something different, and nobody is going to make a compromise, because they were told that they could have it exactly how they wanted. If and when you do get the end result of your project, and it is exactly how each and every person wants it, then you end up with a steaming pile of gak that isn't worth anyones time. Kinda like the wargames factory greatcoat minis.

Yeah I could very well see an open source gaming system. Where people constantly play out the rules, test the, balance them, someone uploads tons of free design files of 3D rendered models, then you print out your models, print out the rules, and essentially create your own gaming system.

The chances of that occurring are again, slim to none. Very few people I know are willing to upload 3d design files for free. 3d models are as good as digital gold, only a small group of very selfless (or maybe its very naive) people are willing to do that.

NO

If GW goes under then someone WILL buy 40k and very likely fantasy. Then they will support it and try not to screw up the same ways GW did.

AND HOLY CRAP THAT 3D PRINTER STUFF IS COOL!

You assume that GW would allow the licenses for 40k and fantasy to be sold. That is likely, but not necessarily the case. Also, GW has done a pretty damn fine job, especially considering Hasbro/Wizkids have been trying for the license for years. If what you want is a 40k clix game, then more power to you. I prefer my wargames without prepainted minis and hex grids.

The open source market is a 500 million dollar a year industry. People could donate their designs for free, and if you look at any other design field (3D models, textures, photos, pixel art, web site themes, etc) there are always a plethora of free open source options. People do not code for free, yet you look at any open source solution (Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, etc.) there are tons and tons of free open source code modules, libraries and APIs you can use for ZERO dollars.

Some people would donate their time as a hobby, some people would donate their time and charge a few dollars to buy their design, others will be free but you can donate if you want. I wouldn't write off there not being free designs at all. In fact I can see tons of design students doing them as class work projects then releasing them online or adding them to their portfolio. If you have a free design for a 3D printer that has been downloaded 100 million times, that looks very impressive on a resumé.

I contribute to open source code all the time and I don't make any money off of it, but I do sharpen my skills, broaden my skill set and network with all sorts of people from all other the world in doing so.

chaos0xomega wrote:You assume that GW would allow the licenses for 40k and fantasy to be sold. That is likely, but not necessarily the case. Also, GW has done a pretty damn fine job, especially considering Hasbro/Wizkids have been trying for the license for years. If what you want is a 40k clix game, then more power to you. I prefer my wargames without prepainted minis and hex grids.

Hex grids would remove a lot of sketchy measurement cheating (something they tried to squelch with pre-measuring in WFB), but fair enough. Pre-painted minis would mean we would actually get to face painted models instead of shambling hordes of partially assembled bare plastic/metal models.

I know exactly what you mean Crom, however, what works well with software does not necessarily work well with a rules system. Part of the frailty of the open source philosophy is that it's difficult to establish standards. In Debian, I have to leap through hoops to get rid of Iceweasel and install Firefox. CentOS has the tendency to install a different default package set when contrasted against the same version of RHEL. Slackware always seems to be about 2 versions behind everyone else. Sure you can execute workarounds/go out and get those packages/manually update everything, but at the end of the day, my objective is a usable computer, not making the computer usable.

And I say this running a custom rom on my Android phone, with Debian on my laptop, and spending all day, every day, supporting software running on RHEL.

You run into similar situations with gaming. How do you have tournaments? I can't go to Adepticon and play four team games that play cover the same way, and that's for an established game they've been playing for years. Consider when people begin making their own slightly different versions of games, and tweaking the versions others make. One of the nice things about 40k is that all the sizes and shapes of vehicles are standard. What happens when there's no standard model of a particular unit with which to base your construction from? All of a sudden we have 3"x2"x2" land raiders and guardsmen about a half inch tall. It just doesn't work.

Also, do you have any actual models of the renders you posted above? I'd be interested to see the actual pieces post-production.

I myself don't own any prints of those renders, but I have seen them in person before (a friend/acquaintance owns some). They don't look bad, but there is somewhat significant stairstepping (a result of the printing process) on some of the prints and significantly obscured details (partially as a result, but also because some of the details are so tiny the printers used by shapeways just doesn't have the 'resolution' to print them).

daedalus wrote:I know exactly what you mean Crom, however, what works well with software does not necessarily work well with a rules system. Part of the frailty of the open source philosophy is that it's difficult to establish standards. In Debian, I have to leap through hoops to get rid of Iceweasel and install Firefox. CentOS has the tendency to install a different default package set when contrasted against the same version of RHEL. Slackware always seems to be about 2 versions behind everyone else. Sure you can execute workarounds/go out and get those packages/manually update everything, but at the end of the day, my objective is a usable computer, not making the computer usable.

And I say this running a custom rom on my Android phone, with Debian on my laptop, and spending all day, every day, supporting software running on RHEL.

You run into similar situations with gaming. How do you have tournaments? I can't go to Adepticon and play four team games that play cover the same way, and that's for an established game they've been playing for years. Consider when people begin making their own slightly different versions of games, and tweaking the versions others make. One of the nice things about 40k is that all the sizes and shapes of vehicles are standard. What happens when there's no standard model of a particular unit with which to base your construction from? All of a sudden we have 3"x2"x2" land raiders and guardsmen about a half inch tall. It just doesn't work.

Also, do you have any actual models of the renders you posted above? I'd be interested to see the actual pieces post-production.

Yeah I know what you mean, I am a Systems Administrator by trade and since I am the only guy the knows Unix I get to admin all the Linux/Unix and OS X boxes at work. We have 15,000 Mac clients too, so I am very familiar with the Mac platform. Debian is really solid if you use your own package deployment tools to push out standardized updates amongst your servers. I know that with open source you often have to roll your own so to speak and get dirty and write your own shell/python/perl/ruby stuff and you are sort of going away from a standard that was set by third party but instead creating your own standards.

Open source gaming would be done in the same manner as say GPL licensing. One person would actually own the license, and distribute the official rules. Then people would have their own sets of house rules or modified rules but they would never be published under the "parent set." Then when a really good modified or new rule surfaces in the community it can be integrated into the official rules.

I have been working on a science fiction gaming system for a while now that I will publish online for free. I already wrote the disclaimer though that the rules may be freely distributed but changes made to the rules are not done so under any official capacity. Then just put md5 of SHA1 dumps with the files so you can verify you have the proper version. You can even have 3 sets of rules. 1) the official rule set, 2) rules in testing and 3) proposed rules and ideas.

Any official play would fall under the official rule set. Just because it is open to the community and free doesn't mean one or a few people cannot regulate it and make the official rules the game goes by.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:I myself don't own any prints of those renders, but I have seen them in person before (a friend/acquaintance owns some). They don't look bad, but there is somewhat significant stairstepping (a result of the printing process) on some of the prints and significantly obscured details (partially as a result, but also because some of the details are so tiny the printers used by shapeways just doesn't have the 'resolution' to print them).

I would assume if this 3D printer thing did take off, people would not print whole models, but rather parts and use them to build their own kits. That way you can have some of the detail, and they can be assembled dynamically. Wouldn't that be the case you think? I have very little actual experience with 3D printers other than my last job had one.

###EDIT

and no I do not have any of the actual design files. However I do have several good friends that work in architecture and drafting and they also do 3D work. I bet they could design some awesome stuff. If I ever get a 3D printer I would commission them to design some stuff and pay them in beer, and possibly a few bucks.

Those kits came in parts, it really doesn't change much in terms of printability.

chaos0xomega wrote:I myself don't own any prints of those renders, but I have seen them in person before (a friend/acquaintance owns some). They don't look bad, but there is somewhat significant stairstepping (a result of the printing process) on some of the prints and significantly obscured details (partially as a result, but also because some of the details are so tiny the printers used by shapeways just doesn't have the 'resolution' to print them).

Thanks. That's concurrent with most of the observations I've had up until this point with Shapeways and other similar services.

If you want high quality prints, you go to a service like Moddler. It costs tons more, but the prints are amazing.

Toastedandy wrote:I don't see it as stealing if I cast 5 meltaguns. Simple fact is, if I didn't recast them, I wouldn't of bought them. GW lose no business at all.

That's a fairly common 'justification' for it. The thing is, for all those who say that they wouldn't have bought it anyway, if they didn't have the option of getting it for free, a lot of them would have.

You can't definitively say you wouldn't have bought it anyway because you're not presenting yourself with 'buy it or not' as your two options. If you consider recasting a valid and acceptable way of getting what you want, you're instead presenting yourself with 'buy it, or get it cheaper' ... so of course you're going to say that you wouldn't buy it.

For everyone who says 'I would never pay 'x' amount for the new shiny', there's always a certain number of them who ultimately decide to do so after all...

insaniak wrote:
You can't definitively say you wouldn't have bought it anyway because you're not presenting yourself with 'buy it or not' as your two options.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440339a&prodId=prod1400031

They do sell meltaguns, in packs of 5. I'm still not going to buy them.

I suspect that you rather missed my point... The issue isn't whether or not GW sell them. It's whether or not you see another available way of obtaining them.

insaniak wrote:I suspect that you rather missed my point... The issue isn't whether or not GW sell them. It's whether or not you see another available way of obtaining them.

Errr.....what? I do see another way of obtaining them, casting them.


I think I still have no idea what your point is.

Are you trying to say I'm only choosing to cast them because its cheaper?

I haven't slept at all well.

Toastedandy wrote:Errr.....what? I do see another way of obtaining them, casting them.

That was the point, yes. Your claim that you wouldn't buy them anyway is skewed by the fact that you see another way of obtaining them without buying them. If you didn't have that alternative option, nearly 20 years of observing gamers in their natural habitat tells me that regardless of how much you protest about the prices, there's a good chance that you would wind up buying them anyway,

Whether someone casts a weapons or scratch builds one technically GW still lost money. If I am in a tourny and took my squad of 5 marines and wanted 5 melta's I could A. Buy them legit no problems. B Cast them for use in the tourney, GW loses money and I Risk getting caught. C. I can just put a barrel extension on a bolter and modify a bit to resemble a Melta. Technically I did not violate the copyright law but I still get to use Melta guns in the tourny which I didnt pay GW or anyone for so technically they are losing money.

Just throwing that out there

There is a fairly large difference between modifying something and reproducing something.

Not least because GW allows (and even encourages) conversions. Aside from the odd slip up, like that Black Gobbo GS-moulding article years ago, they tend to take a dimmer view of recasting.

Yeh I understand their is a big difference in their eyes but all else aside they are still "losing" money from it.

Yes and no. They may lose a little in that specific situation, but encouraging conversions has it's advantages, sales-wise, particularly when it leads to people buying multiple kits in order to kitbash stuff.

I would like to point out that I don't view ALL illegal downloading as morally reprehensible.

I view Canadian 5th's view of illegal downloading as morally reprehensible. The idea that you have a right to luxury goods, and you should take them if you can't afford them is what is reprehensible to me.

I can think of plenty situations when I would consider illegal downloading morally justified.

1) You bought a game/movie/music/book, but somehow said copy of it got lost/stolen. I would consider it morally (if not legally) justifiable to download a game in that sense.
2) The example listed earlier of a game that no longer worked on a later system due to anti-piracy software. This is the company's own fault, and you should not have to buy a game twice.
3) Downloading a game/movie/book as a sample, and then buying if you believe it's a good buy. While I view this as less justifiable than the others, I can see the point. You don't want to waste money on a crappy game, so you do the equivalent of borrowing it from a friend to try it out. If it's good, you buy it, if it's not you give it back to your friend.

I would of course recommend renting a copy as a sampling method, but I don't view it as completely reprehensible.

I hope this has illustrated my point better. I don't think piracy = evil because it's not legal; I think that certain mindsets behind piracy are morally reprehensible, but that there are some situations when I'd consider piracy 'alright' if not perfect.

ChrisWWII wrote:I would like to point out that I don't view ALL illegal downloading as morally reprehensible.

I view Canadian 5th's view of illegal downloading as morally reprehensible. The idea that you have a right to luxury goods, and you should take them if you can't afford them is what is reprehensible to me.

I can think of plenty situations when I would consider illegal downloading morally justified.

1) You bought a game/movie/music/book, but somehow said copy of it got lost/stolen. I would consider it morally (if not legally) justifiable to download a game in that sense.
2) The example listed earlier of a game that no longer worked on a later system due to anti-piracy software. This is the company's own fault, and you should not have to buy a game twice.
3) Downloading a game/movie/book as a sample, and then buying if you believe it's a good buy. While I view this as less justifiable than the others, I can see the point. You don't want to waste money on a crappy game, so you do the equivalent of borrowing it from a friend to try it out. If it's good, you buy it, if it's not you give it back to your friend.

I would of course recommend renting a copy as a sampling method, but I don't view it as completely reprehensible.

I hope this has illustrated my point better. I don't think piracy = evil because it's not legal; I think that certain mindsets behind piracy are morally reprehensible, but that there are some situations when I'd consider piracy 'alright' if not perfect.

You could also see if there is a free demo of the game to try it out, as many games have these if you look for them.
I feel similar to you about semi-justifiable examples of piracy, as I have had similar happen to me as the first. I had lost my CD key code printed on a piece of paper for my copy of SimCity 3000 Unlimited, and I got a new computer so I had to re-install it but could not without the key.
I feel that Canadian 5th's opinion that he has a right to entertainment for free and that he is somehow superior because he steals is very immoral.

The problem with the whole arguement of justifing pirating for demo purposes makes no sense.

1. Most games have free demos available with a little looking, also you could always rent games from gamefly or such to try them out.
2. You can sample music by using any of the free internet radio sites
3. You can watch previews and bits of movies on many sites ike youtube and such.
4. Books you can just go to any bookstore and read a chapter or two, or go to a library where they don't charge you for checking out any book. Many books will also have sample chapters available on-line.
So really any need for sample or demo purposes can be found legally online with just a little searching.
Piracy is piracy no matter how you try and pretty it up.

Canadian 5th wrote:

Commisar Wolfie wrote:So let's go ahead and support re-casting and violating copyrites. there is a great idea.

I already do support it. I haven't payed for movies, most PC games, cable, or PPV sporting events in years. If I could recast things on the cheap I would do so and if I had a hand scanner a few books I own would be easier to torrent by now.

Really? I understand a few thing maybe but surely there are some things you think are worth supporting buy buying them...

purplefood wrote:

Canadian 5th wrote:

Commisar Wolfie wrote:So let's go ahead and support re-casting and violating copyrites. there is a great idea.

I already do support it. I haven't payed for movies, most PC games, cable, or PPV sporting events in years. If I could recast things on the cheap I would do so and if I had a hand scanner a few books I own would be easier to torrent by now.

Really? I understand a few thing maybe but surely there are some things you think are worth supporting buy buying them...

He has already stated that he feels entitled to free entertainment and only cares about himself.

Commisar Wolfie wrote:The problem with the whole arguement of justifing pirating for demo purposes makes no sense.

*snip*

I agree with you that piracy is piracy, but I feel that there are justifiable reasons for piracy.

While the demo reason is the LEAST justifiable reason I listed given how many other ways there are to access said demos, I still see it as a semi-justifiable reason, espescially if the person then buys the game/book/whatever.

I dunno maybe i am a little up tight about it all having been raised by a cop but Im pretty much of the stand point that the law is the law and you can't change that. What is illegal is illegal for everyone regardless of the reasons. Even with the most nobal of intentions if you commit a crime you still commited a crime and should accept the penalty for it.

General Seric wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Canadian 5th wrote:

Commisar Wolfie wrote:So let's go ahead and support re-casting and violating copyrites. there is a great idea.

I already do support it. I haven't payed for movies, most PC games, cable, or PPV sporting events in years. If I could recast things on the cheap I would do so and if I had a hand scanner a few books I own would be easier to torrent by now.

Really? I understand a few thing maybe but surely there are some things you think are worth supporting buy buying them...

He has already stated that he feels entitled to free entertainment and only cares about himself.

You know i very rarely feel like i have a moral highground but right now i totally do...
Incidentally http://xkcd.com/924/

purplefood wrote:

General Seric wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Canadian 5th wrote:

Commisar Wolfie wrote:So let's go ahead and support re-casting and violating copyrites. there is a great idea.

I already do support it. I haven't payed for movies, most PC games, cable, or PPV sporting events in years. If I could recast things on the cheap I would do so and if I had a hand scanner a few books I own would be easier to torrent by now.

Really? I understand a few thing maybe but surely there are some things you think are worth supporting buy buying them...

He has already stated that he feels entitled to free entertainment and only cares about himself.

You know i very rarely feel like i have a moral highground but right now i totally do...
Incidentally http://xkcd.com/924/

LOL thats hilarious