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malfred wrote:Not really news when we all kind of expected it, right?

I posted it more as a warning, so that anyone who wants the files can go download them before the site disappears.

Legal issues aside...

Even though we all kind of knew this was going to happen. Didn't a lot of people use Vassal to test out an army before they bought it?

Typeline wrote:Even though we all kind of knew this was going to happen. Didn't a lot of people use Vassal to test out an army before they bought it?

Yes that was a great use of vassal. In this case vassal actually contributed to GW sales.

yeah,
...or hurt sale when a army didn't work.

Panic...

Panic wrote:yeah,
...or hurt sale when a army didn't work.

I'd hazard that most people don't know about Vassal, and if they found out they wouldn't care. And I very much doubt that it could ever 'hurt' sales.

Fallen668 wrote:


Riiiiight. So... the person who has a PDF rulebook, a PDF codex, a copy of vassel and no models is not hurting GW sales? How exactly? With this and Rule+codex torrents a person can play as much as they want without ever sinking a dime into it or spending any time on the hobby aspect. It isnt exactly like playing but it gives a good feel.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. PLaying 40k without spending one red dime? yeah thats not going to fly with GW.

carmachu wrote:

Fallen668 wrote:


Riiiiight. So... the person who has a PDF rulebook, a PDF codex, a copy of vassel and no models is not hurting GW sales? How exactly? With this and Rule+codex torrents a person can play as much as they want without ever sinking a dime into it or spending any time on the hobby aspect. It isnt exactly like playing but it gives a good feel.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. PLaying 40k without spending one red dime? yeah thats not going to fly with GW.

Most fo the people I know who use vassal for 40K (and WM) use it to playtest/proxy lists that they then go out and buy or us it as a tool to put together batrep pics/diagrams...

Funny... one of my friends was bugging me almost daily to get it so we could play and he could run current armies without having to buy anything new. It would allow him to get games in with his torrented books, and not have to update his marine army which he hasn't bought anything for since 3rd ed. He also wanted to do the same thing for flames of war. Use it to play without actually getting anything. I at least shelled out for a small starter army and the book. That has been nearly 6 months now and I still havent been able to get a game in. I am already thinking about selling the stuff because i havent used it.

Mr T Marine wrote:There is a bit of a difference between THQ and the creators of VASSAL. One Costs money, the other is completely free.

That was kind of the point...

Oh, GW. How many different ways are you going to tie that noose before you finally go ahead and stick your neck in it?

Shut down your own feedback forum.
Redesign your website so it has very little relevant information and is basically one big shopping catalog.
Shut down internet sales.
Redesign White Dwarf so that it's useless.
Keep increasing the price.
Shut down eBay sales.
Shut down Vassal.
Raise trade prices on internet distributors.

It would be comical if it wasn't so sad. You couldn't run a business this badly on a dare.

They're just lucky their customer base is obsessed nerds rather than normal human beings. But even a nerd can only be bullied so long before he shoots up the school.

Can't WAIT to see GW's next brilliant idea. "Buy a box set, get hit in the head with a brick for free!"

insaniak wrote:

Mr T Marine wrote:There is a bit of a difference between THQ and the creators of VASSAL. One Costs money, the other is completely free.

That was kind of the point...

And that is why THQ cannot sue GW.
Vassal is making NO money off of this. No profit. THQ sells to make profit, Vassal is a program created by, used by gamers.

GW is stopping vassal for one reason, and one reason only.
Why allow vassal to be run for free when gw has the ability to commission someone, or company, to turn it into a product and sell it.
They may never do it, but it is something they can do, so why have vassal out and running.

This reminds me of PC game piracy, there is data that proves that most piraters, are those that buy the games.
I know i do. And if i dont like the game i delete it, and forget it, if i like it i go and buy it. Same with music. It is free advertising.


As much as GW pisses me off. It is doing things right. Better quality models, slowly putting an archive of white dwarf online,
SLOWLY making their own bitz service. I just wish GW would go about things differently. Hell idk about any of you, but if GW uses the vassal idea
and creates their own game with it, i will buy it. Im pretty sure others will too. It is a good business idea, helping us play more=getting us to buy more.

Seems like GW just wants to hurt its players as much as possible even tho vassal doesnt limit their sales

It lets people test things out and play with others across the world..

Honestly I dont see why the vassal people give a damn.. By using the internet correctly you can give their IP lawyers the middle finger quite easily

As others have said, offshore hosting is extremely easy or just remove all your contact information.. Put it on hosting sites, etc

Not sure why the vassal guys are folding so easily with a product theyve put YEARS of work into.. IP rules mean nothing on the internet

Its not hurting GW in the slightest, theyre just being bullies

Also, I make my own PDFs of every codex, have vassal and do all the other "evil" things.. Click my signature links and you'll see how much ive supported GW with how much Im involved in the hobby

Mr T Marine wrote:

insaniak wrote:

Mr T Marine wrote:There is a bit of a difference between THQ and the creators of VASSAL. One Costs money, the other is completely free.

That was kind of the point...

And that is why THQ cannot sue GW.
Vassal is making NO money off of this. No profit. THQ sells to make profit, Vassal is a program created by, used by gamers.

Wrong. Whether or not Vassal 40k generates profit is irrelevant, as far as THQ's rights re: GW are concerned. I don't have access to their licensing agreement, obviously, but it is fairly common to include clauses in such IP agreements that require the IP owner to act to prevent third parties from acting in the licensed space.

GW is stopping vassal for one reason, and one reason only.
Why allow vassal to be run for free when gw has the ability to commission someone, or company, to turn it into a product and sell it.
They may never do it, but it is something they can do, so why have vassal out and running.

Nonsense. GW has obligations under (US) IP law to prevent unauthorized use of material they consider to be their intellectual property. GW probably has obligations under their licensing agreement with THQ to prevent video games from using their IP. And, yes, GW has every right to prevent third parties from taking their IP and incorporating it into a product like Vassal, even if their is no money being made in the process.

This reminds me of PC game piracy, there is data that proves that most piraters, are those that buy the games.
I know i do. And if i dont like the game i delete it, and forget it, if i like it i go and buy it. Same with music. It is free advertising.

Bull. At best, there is data that pirate copies don't translate into lost sales on a one-for-one basis. And understand that you are rationalizing - pirating games/copying music is infringement of someone else's intellectual property, and is actionable under both civil and criminal law. If a company wants "free advertising" for a game, they make a demo. If a band wants "free advertising" for their music, they release it in a manner where people can get at it without having to become criminals in the process (see, e.g., the creative commons license). I personally couldn't care less what you choose to do, but don't try to fool yourself.

As much as GW pisses me off. It is doing things right. Better quality models, slowly putting an archive of white dwarf online,
SLOWLY making their own bitz service. I just wish GW would go about things differently. Hell idk about any of you, but if GW uses the vassal idea
and creates their own game with it, i will buy it. Im pretty sure others will too. It is a good business idea, helping us play more=getting us to buy more.

It would be nice to have an electronic tabletop version of 40k. However, it's fairly inimical to their business model, unless they make you buy "virtual" minis...and who is willing to do that?

It would be nice to have an electronic tabletop version of 40k. However, it's fairly inimical to their business model, unless they make you buy "virtual" minis...and who is willing to do that?

People do this for MTG online.. When they buy cards online they can just trade them in for the real version if they want.. GW could do something like that as well

But they wont because I dont think GW really cares about the gaming aspect in all honesty

Moz wrote:That's too bad. Another one of those instances where protecting their IP is tantamount to killing interest in their IP.

As they have no competing product, GW should be happy to have Vassal40k continue; just minus the terms and icons that reduce their stranglehold on their IP, right?

They let Blizzard get away with it, which was a boneheaded maneuver, cancelling that project. TDK makes a nice game, but Dawn of War is no Starcraft or Warcraft. I think Blizzard's product is more like what a game of 40K/fantasy on a computer should be like.

They should retool their engines, rename everything, and do it again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

H.B.M.C. wrote:I think this is a good a place as any to show off another very similar game to Vassal 40K. It's called MegaMek.

What is MegaMek?

It's a complete translation of BattleTech on the computer, playable against bots and multiplayer across the interwebs. It uses images and IP from BTech and is completely unofficial and free.

Why am I talking about MegaMek?

Because they haven't been shut down by the owners of the BTech IP. In fact, they have their own subforum at the official-fething-site.

And there's the difference. One company supports its players, wants the best for them and works with them to create new playing opportunities.

The other is GW.

I remember when TSR used the Internet as guerrilla marketing, supporting fan sites, giving away product so it was freely distributed and supported their fans with....oh wait. I'm talking about TSR, not WOTC ...

When the Internet was in it's infancy, TSR would shut down every site they found that mentioned any of it's IP, no fan sites, no forums, no content at all that mentioned about any product made and/or copyrighted ever by TSR. The Internet was small back then, so it didn't take their lawyers long at all to sniff out all the sites with bootleg products or even original works, if you put up a character sheet, you'd get a cease and desist letter in a week. Most of the people that were online were also gamers, so people stopped playing D&D. WOTC stepped in and did the opposite to promote Magic and were able to buy out TSR, set up the OGL so other companies could use their IP to support the core rulebooks, and created a resurgence. Well, until Hasbro stepped in and bought them out. The only bad thing they've done is kill off support for 3.x and earlier rules sets, d20 Modern is their red headed stepchild, since it's based on 3.x, they're going to kill it off as soon as they come up with a 4th edition rules set for it.(I've got to check my nearly unopened 4th ed DMG to see if it's got machineguns in it.) But they still allow fan sites and OGL and they don't touch sites that promote old stuff. They also cancelled their license to companies that produce pdf's of the rulebooks, they want to insist that people have a hard copy of the rulebook that WOTC published. THey figured out that people were copying the pdf's and giving them away online. That's clever!

GW makes money selling miniatures and they want to protect their IP to ridiculous extremes. If you've read the fine print on the 2nd edition rulebooks, they hold the copyrights to every word or phrase that's not nailed down by other companies, like Space Marine, Ork, Eldar, etc..even though they're in common usage in fantasy or sci-fi. (TSR was sued by the Tolkien people back in the day for using the word "orc", but it was found that the word was already in the public domain because of other writers using it. Tolkien didn't defend his IP hard enough.) I guess they don't want the work "dakka" to become the next kleenex. I guess they make a quarter every time someone says it.

Cutting off Vassal - will have little to no impact on GW's future sales.


Therefore they can do it.


You will buy GW no matter what - one way or another ;P


Trust me!

Um, given GW track record on updating/new codex - I'd say we have about 2 years to play with current V40k edition.

Even then, GW won't have all the updates done before they need to sell more SPAASE MAREENES!

Remember the days when GW was all about having fun and gaming?

....like back in 87-93 or so?

I almost wish another company would come in and topple them. PP has failed. Any new takers?

Rackham . . . or is pre-painted plastic not to your liking? They kinda screwed themselves with that one, they had a good thing going with Confrontation, shame they had to ruin it by following AT-43 =[

Kirasu wrote:

It would be nice to have an electronic tabletop version of 40k. However, it's fairly inimical to their business model, unless they make you buy "virtual" minis...and who is willing to do that?

People do this for MTG online.. When they buy cards online they can just trade them in for the real version if they want.. GW could do something like that as well

But they wont because I dont think GW really cares about the gaming aspect in all honesty

omg, who has let the crazies come out to play today. This is about the 4th pro-GW post I have had to make today because people are talking pure unadulterated tinfoil hat wearing bollocks.

Of-course they care about the gaming aspect you dumbass - the rules generate mini sales, mini sales are where they make their money. The product is not perfect by any stretch of the word but it is functional and has a mass appeal - they care, of course they do, it is the golden calf. However, caring and having the ability to construct a decent enough rule set where I will actually play 40k may not necessarily by the same thing.

Deadshane1 wrote:Remember the days when GW was all about having fun and gaming?

....like back in 87-93 or so?

I almost wish another company would come in and topple them. PP has failed. Any new takers?

I personally like PP games - thats just me.

Rackham faileedddd mega hard.

Yeah, which is a shame cos it completely killed off Confrontation, which was working perfectly well, we managed to run 2 or 3 nationwide tournaments since the pre-painted plastics came out . . . but sadly due to lack of interest Confrontation is well and truly dead =[

And it's a shame the Vassal is to close down, it was great for trying out new armies/squads before buying it, or for trying out lists before tournaments . . . ohwell, just have to play down the local club instead of from the warmth of my bed =[

carmachu wrote:

Fallen668 wrote:


Riiiiight. So... the person who has a PDF rulebook, a PDF codex, a copy of vassel and no models is not hurting GW sales? How exactly? With this and Rule+codex torrents a person can play as much as they want without ever sinking a dime into it or spending any time on the hobby aspect. It isnt exactly like playing but it gives a good feel.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. PLaying 40k without spending one red dime? yeah thats not going to fly with GW.

Not to point out the blatantly obvious here: But if people aren't spending money on GW products because of that, they aren't going to magically start spending money on it later. If I really need to , I can go ... Borrow a friends book.. borrow a friends army... and generally NOT spend any money still.
So either way, people who want to play for free, will. Or they won't even try at all. All this game was doing was letting people try out things in a virtual setting. Was that bad? no. Did it hurt GW sales? No.

GW needs to pull its collective head out of its rear and realize that there's a game that people enjoy playing here, and that its not just a Miniatures company. It would do them a world of good. The positive PR boost of a company that cares about its game, rules, and customers would be mind blowing. But.. Meh.

RogueMarket wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:Remember the days when GW was all about having fun and gaming?

....like back in 87-93 or so?

I almost wish another company would come in and topple them. PP has failed. Any new takers?

I personally like PP games - thats just me.

Rackham faileedddd mega hard.

Rackham big FAIL by tinkering with Confrontation. Branching out to AT43 was a good move and the prepaints are good, especially the vehicles, but new Confrontation sucks so bad that even EPIC FAIL isn't suitable. Don't know why they din't concentrate on fixing Confrontation 3, fixing the army lists and consolidating them down a tad and then expanding into plastics to make entry into Ragnorak cheaper. The quality of the plastic Aberation Prime is something that has to be seen to be believed - no model GW has made has ever come upto that quality. I haven't bought a Rackham model since C3 (except 2nd hand metals) and won't either. I was a big customer of theirs.

Shoot their magazine was a thing of beauty, almost an art book. Used to wait for it with anticpation. Then it went to web based and made White Dwarf look like a gothic masterpiece.

So yes, modern day Rackham sucks big time.

strange_eric wrote: All this game was doing was letting people try out things in a virtual setting. Was that bad? no. Did it hurt GW sales? No.

Whatever this game was doing, if GW have a legal obligation to preserve THQ's investment, then they have to shut it down.


Again, that's assuming that the legal reasoning is actually the way internet scuttlebut suggests. It might not be, and GW might indeed be shutting down Vassal and have shut down the online Space Hulk game out of pure bloody-mindedness. but there's certainly not enough evidence of that to be breaking out the pitchforks just yet.

Quite a lot of the time, seemingly idiotic decisions made by large companies simply come down to them being forced to work within specific legal constraints.

I agree with Insaniak on this one. GW most likely was legally required to do something, even if they didn't mind doing it all that much anyway.

However, I do greatly agree with those who say that GW should make a virtual version of their game and sell that. They could even sell me the models (at 10% of real models preferably) and I would buy them.
Imagine an "Assault on Black Reach" set for the PC that comes with the same models as the AoBR boxed set, but in virtual form. The game would handle things like Line of Sight, moving masses of models for you (with the ability for the player to tweak individual models if needed), rolling boxes of dice, assisting wound allocation, things like that. Toss in a painter program and bitz program for painting and modeling your own figures, and you would be golden. Hell, take it a step farther and allow for player content creation of models and terrain as in Second Life.

I like playing 40k, but if I get 3 games in a month I am lucky. Table top games are wonderful for socializing with your friends and throwing back a few, but they take time far inexcess of the actual process of playing. Being able to bang around after work for a few hours, and possibly get the wife playing due to the lack of complexity computer assistance would offer, would be great.

we will still be able to play just no updates when DE/Wolves for whatever comes out :(

btw I'm Miggles on vassal if anyone wants a game.

There's nothing to stop you being able to use it, just without the updates you won't be able to have any cool new miniatures that GW bring out.

fullheadofhair wrote:

Kirasu wrote:

It would be nice to have an electronic tabletop version of 40k. However, it's fairly inimical to their business model, unless they make you buy "virtual" minis...and who is willing to do that?

People do this for MTG online.. When they buy cards online they can just trade them in for the real version if they want.. GW could do something like that as well

But they wont because I dont think GW really cares about the gaming aspect in all honesty

omg, who has let the crazies come out to play today. This is about the 4th pro-GW post I have had to make today because people are talking pure unadulterated tinfoil hat wearing bollocks.

Of-course they care about the gaming aspect you dumbass - the rules generate mini sales, mini sales are where they make their money. The product is not perfect by any stretch of the word but it is functional and has a mass appeal - they care, of course they do, it is the golden calf. However, caring and having the ability to construct a decent enough rule set where I will actually play 40k may not necessarily by the same thing.

Lol? How about you add something to the conversation instead of personal attacks and insults?

We all have opinions.. Learn to live with other peoples