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EPIC uses volunteers to maintain the army lists and develop new ones. Is there a difference between that and this?

Howard A Treesong wrote:
I'm not sure. It's easy for us to say this online, but would you want to face a court case to sort the dispute out? Over the sake of releasing a set of rules that earn you nothing? I wouldn't unless I was absolutely sure I had a solid case. Even then it's time, money and stress for very little return. It's the same reason most websites prefer to close and companies remove miniatures from their ranges. The authors could probably prevent GW publishing the v6 rulebook, but to publish it themselves would be risky - in a court it could go either way.

I've said it before:
Now, the interesting thing about copyrights is that you cannot copyright the rules to a game; it's interesting how the law specifically mentions you can't. Here, look at this, from the government: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Simply get the LRB, take out all mention to GW, any of it's trademarks and images and you can mass produce it all for free if you wanted to.

The, U.S. anyway, law is very plain. GW lawyers would have to be raving loons to attempt a suit of any sort if the people doing the work are careful to remove any trademarks or GW copyrighted material. Since GW can't copyright work created by unpaid volunteers, then most of the book is fair game. That is, with the assumption that GW didn't make the volunteers sign away their rights or any other such legal maneuvering.

sirisaacnuton wrote:... D&D is still just fine (some people don't like 4th ed vs. 3.5, but I'm fine with it...very fun). In fact, I've wished GW were more like WotC for about as long as I've been playing 40k... In the aspects that actually make the game a game, WotC has GW beat hands-down, and that didn't change at all with the Hasbro takeover.

I'm looking much further back- towards the original takeover of TSR by WoTC. When they came in, the game changed dramatically, and arguably much for the worse. Their attacks back then were very much in line with what GW's doing now, but in the early days of the internet, such things really didn't get as much attention. Or, looking more recently, when the open license agreement was changed based on upcoming independent releases, often leaving publishers over a barrel. Or insisting that all third party releases must be screened by WoTC prior to publishing- which often took nearly a year (indeed, some 3.5 releases never saw the light of day because of this). Or turning Dragon Magazine into a paid online subscription(think WD sucks now? Imagine if you had to subscribe online, sight unseen, to read it...). Even looking at the minis for D&D in the 80's vs today- high quality(for the era) metal figs vs cheap prepainted plastics. Maybe if Hasbro took over we'd still get good figs from GW, but I'm certain we'd also see collectible pre-painted Space Marines.

Not that there wouldn't also be plusses- I'm sure Hasbro wouldn't sit on products like Battlecars or Warhammer Quest. Certainly Hasbro would have the sense to sponsor big tournaments along the lines of what they do now for Magic. And we'd probably be able to get the prepainted Orks for the tourney at Toys R Us.

sirisaacnuton wrote:
Besides, with a company as big and long-running as Hasbro, one would imagine that they have some concept of the balance between legal, marketing, and PR.

GW's a pretty big international corporation- and we see what a bang-up job they've done balancing legal, marketing, and PR.

Man the head of marketing for GW should walk over to the head of GW Legal and slap the gak out of her for the PR blunder this was.*


*I don't condone violence against women. So maybe he can't slap her but he can shake the gak out of her.

LuigiX wrote:Or, looking more recently, when the open license agreement was changed based on upcoming independent releases, often leaving publishers over a barrel. Or insisting that all third party releases must be screened by WoTC prior to publishing- which often took nearly a year (indeed, some 3.5 releases never saw the light of day because of this).

I'm pretty sure there was never any requirement to pre-screen any products published under the OGL. Indeed, material can still be released under it, WOTC cannot revoke the license. What made the grox dung hit the fan, rather, was the introdcution of the GSL when 4E came out.

Frazzled wrote:EPIC uses volunteers to maintain the army lists and develop new ones. Is there a difference between that and this?

No, the pressident has been made with blood bowl. if GW wishes it can do the same thing. or try to. in truth it could have before, but the diffence with now and then is that we thought, 'na, they couldnt could they?' and now its 'damn those $§%/&("$%/!&/!%/%/!!!! went and did it.'
on another note, id do what ever i could to help those that helped make the LBR6 if they went to court. This is something to think about because these people are just like us, their fans and now we REALLY see what GW thinks of its fans. we should support these volenteers cause it might be another game next. not only that, its the Moral thing to do.

LuigiX wrote:
GW's a pretty big international corporation- and we see what a bang-up job they've done balancing legal, marketing, and PR.

Er, no. They are strictly moderate commercial sized. They don't get near corporate level who's janitorial budgets are larger than GW. Sorry, doesn't make them worse, just smaller.

LuigiX wrote:

sirisaacnuton wrote:... D&D is still just fine (some people don't like 4th ed vs. 3.5, but I'm fine with it...very fun). In fact, I've wished GW were more like WotC for about as long as I've been playing 40k... In the aspects that actually make the game a game, WotC has GW beat hands-down, and that didn't change at all with the Hasbro takeover.

I'm looking much further back- towards the original takeover of TSR by WoTC. When they came in, the game changed dramatically, and arguably much for the worse. Their attacks back then were very much in line with what GW's doing now, but in the early days of the internet, such things really didn't get as much attention. Or, looking more recently, when the open license agreement was changed based on upcoming independent releases, often leaving publishers over a barrel. Or insisting that all third party releases must be screened by WoTC prior to publishing- which often took nearly a year (indeed, some 3.5 releases never saw the light of day because of this). Or turning Dragon Magazine into a paid online subscription(think WD sucks now? Imagine if you had to subscribe online, sight unseen, to read it...). Even looking at the minis for D&D in the 80's vs today- high quality(for the era) metal figs vs cheap prepainted plastics. Maybe if Hasbro took over we'd still get good figs from GW, but I'm certain we'd also see collectible pre-painted Space Marines.

Not that there wouldn't also be plusses- I'm sure Hasbro wouldn't sit on products like Battlecars or Warhammer Quest. Certainly Hasbro would have the sense to sponsor big tournaments along the lines of what they do now for Magic. And we'd probably be able to get the prepainted Orks for the tourney at Toys R Us.

It's funny the different things people prioritize. This is definitely a case of two people wanting very different things. I'll admit that I don't know what TSR is, but in regards to the rest of it, none of that really bothers me. My D&D group was perfectly fine playing out of PHB, PHB2, and maybe a scant collection of add-ons. Just the rules were fine by us. I've never bought an issue of WD and only idly skim through them if there's one lying around. And honestly, assembly/painting is my least favorite part of this "hobby." While I will give GW credit for making some absolutely cool-looking models, it completely defeats the coolness if I can't assemble them worth a crap (I'm looking at you Bloodcrushers) or just absolutely can't paint for squat (I'm looking at you...everything I've ever painted). If I could go out, buy a pre-assembled, pre-painted army straight out of the box, and play it without affecting my scores at a tournament, I'd be all over it. Inferior or not, it'd still be better than the crap I can churn out.

If the games had consistency in its rules, with absolutely solid rulebooks a la current M:tG, an official place to turn to answer any question, an accreditation system for judges to standardize rulings, and a more supported tournament scene, I would be in heaven, and would honestly consider it a more than worthwhile tradeoff to decreased quality in other areas. I know plenty of people would disagree with me, but that's where my priorities are.



On a side note, in terms of this "GW hates its customers" sentiment that's been more vocal than usual lately, I've always felt that a little bit. Just reading their material in WD or on their site about "cheesiness/beardiness," their depictions of events like 'Ard Boyz, their lack of serious attempts to rectify their rules issues or standarize tournaments, and the widespread opinion towards "tournament gamers" held by large numbers of people (which had to come at least paritally from the top down...other competitive games don't have such a negative view on competitive players), it's always been pretty clear to me that GW doesn't care too terribly much about people who feel about the game the way I do. It's always bugged me, but I've never stopped playing or boycott or anything. I just go with it, because what can you do?

Good post.

I also don't see why a decently written set of rules would require compromises in the standard of models.

LuigiX wrote:Not that there wouldn't also be plusses- I'm sure Hasbro wouldn't sit on products like Battlecars or Warhammer Quest. Certainly Hasbro would have the sense to sponsor big tournaments along the lines of what they do now for Magic.

I wouldn't count on it. WotC pour all of their effort into their flagship games (Magic and D&D) and everything else is pretty much just given the bare minimum required to keep it going.

Star Wars Miniatures, which supposedly sells as well as D&D minis, has one guy handling game development, has no support for official play, has a volunteer handling rules queries online, has some rather variable quality control on the miniatures, has fairly obvious card errors in pretty much every set, and has minimal advance information on upcoming product (previews start, theoretically, 6 weeks out from release... but are often delayed). Sound familiar?

Quite honestly I think that if Hasbro bought out GW the only real changes would be that the games would be overhauled and changed to a simplified D20 system with prepainted miniatures. Beyond that, nothing much would change.

People still play bloodbowl?

Quite honestly I think that if Hasbro bought out GW the only real changes would be that the games would be overhauled and changed to a simplified D20 system with prepainted miniatures. Beyond that, nothing much would change.

You don't buy a brand to turn it's IP into something you already sold. Brand identity is based in the product sold, not who distributes it, thats akin to saying that if Volkswagon bought jeep they would just turn them all into small hatchbacks for urban use but keep the jeep name. It's not economically viable to procure a company solely so you can demonstrably alter it's IP in order to fulfill a failed business model (most of wizkids pre painted lines have ceased and died).

ShumaGorath wrote:People still play bloodbowl?

You´re kidding right? Please tell me this was sarcasm. The local 2 leagues/year schedule has been going on uninterrupted for 10+ years.

A-P wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:People still play bloodbowl?

You´re kidding right? Please tell me this was sarcasm. The local 2 leagues/year schedule has been going on uninterrupted for 10+ years.

You realize than when you live across an ocean the word local ceases to have particular common relevance. Also yes, it was sarcasm, though more caustic than supportive, I don't particularly like blood bowl, the games I played were fun, but the game is very unbalanced in my opinion.

ShumaGorath wrote:You realize than when you live across an ocean the word local ceases to have particular common relevance.

That cuts both ways. Just because people near you don't play doesn't mean nobody plays.

Also yes, it was sarcasm, though more caustic than supportive, I don't particularly like blood bowl, the games I played were fun, but the game is very unbalanced in my opinion.

When did you play? I started playing again last year and most of the games were pretty even.

If you look up the Australian BB sites there is clearly a thriving community.

For the moment, anyway.

ShumaGorath wrote:You don't buy a brand to turn it's IP into something you already sold. Brand identity is based in the product sold, not who distributes it, thats akin to saying that if Volkswagon bought jeep they would just turn them all into small hatchbacks for urban use but keep the jeep name. It's not economically viable to procure a company solely so you can demonstrably alter it's IP in order to fulfill a failed business model (most of wizkids pre painted lines have ceased and died).

That's not a great example, as to many Jeep fans the brand was irrevocably tarnished when bought by Chrysler in 1987 and watered-down 'SUVs' started being sold as Jeeps (Depending on how opinionated the fan in question is, the 'not-Jeeps' include the Liberty, Patriot, Grand Cherokee, or various generations of Wrangler. The strictest only approve of Jeeps built for the US government circa 1940-something.)

Not quite 'hatchbacks' but the newer designs were seen as departures from the company's strengths.

Ozymandias wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Also yes, it was sarcasm, though more caustic than supportive, I don't particularly like blood bowl, the games I played were fun, but the game is very unbalanced in my opinion.

When did you play? I started playing again last year and most of the games were pretty even.

Does that mean no more Norse Teams?

Frazzled wrote:EPIC uses volunteers to maintain the army lists and develop new ones. Is there a difference between that and this?

Fraz- No, it’s pretty much just like that.

Canning Tom Anders is insanity. That guy’s been a rock, and if there were any justice GW would have hired him long ago (assuming he was interested). GW has a right and obligation to be careful about their IP, and some of their “evil attacks” on websites recently have really been pretty reasonable and understandable, but they’re really cutting off their nose to spite their face at this point.

LuigiX wrote:I'm looking much further back- towards the original takeover of TSR by WoTC. When they came in, the game changed dramatically, and arguably much for the worse. Their attacks back then were very much in line with what GW's doing now, but in the early days of the internet, such things really didn't get as much attention.

LuigiX- my memory is much different, and I think your dates are off. TSR was running itself into the ground through amateurish corporate mismanagement through the early to mid 90s. Frequently putting out garbage products like the Combat & Tactics expansions to 2nd ed, and the absolute fiasco of ineptitude and arrogance that was Spellfire. It was also in the early and mid 90s that TSR (prior to WotC’s takeover) went through an even more deranged and anti-fan version of trying to police the internet about their games than GW has done. It was back then that TSR was frequently referred to as T$R by fans.

WotC bought them to save their much-loved D&D, and say what you will about 3rd edition (particularly that it was not well-designed for high level play), but they sure did save it.

WotC has definitely gone a bit more corporate and profit-minded since Hasbro bought them, but they’re still a relative paragon in the areas of customer communication, updating and fixing rules, and of effective use of the internet. They’ve had some real stumbles (like the total failure of Gleemax and the online D&D play environment they promised for 4th ed), but they do a lot right.

LuigiX wrote:Or, looking more recently, when the open license agreement was changed based on upcoming independent releases, often leaving publishers over a barrel. Or insisting that all third party releases must be screened by WoTC prior to publishing- which often took nearly a year (indeed, some 3.5 releases never saw the light of day because of this).

Ah, no, I don’t think this is right at all. D20-compatible was a total free-for-all. The only time they exercised any control was over products with the D&D logo. Again, maybe you're thinking of old TSR? They were super tight-handed with licensing and "only Official TSR products have our seal of approval" back in the late 70s and through the 80s. Gary Gygax had some epic rants in Dragon back in the day.

LuigiX wrote:Or turning Dragon Magazine into a paid online subscription(think WD sucks now? Imagine if you had to subscribe online, sight unseen, to read it...).

Except that D&D Insider is chock full of rules, modules, maps, new character class previews, useful editorials, etc. It’s not an advertising vehicle anything like White Dwarf. Whether it’s worth the money is a personal choice, but I sure get a lot of mileage out of it.

LuigiX wrote:Even looking at the minis for D&D in the 80's vs today- high quality(for the era) metal figs vs cheap prepainted plastics. Maybe if Hasbro took over we'd still get good figs from GW, but I'm certain we'd also see collectible pre-painted Space Marines.

D&D miniatures over the years is a huge category, and this is an enormous oversimplification. Hell, Citadel produced officially-licensed D&D minis back in the 80s. They’ve been made by a ton of companies over the years, so it’s tough to do a direct comparison between the old metal stuff (or all the recent and current stuff by third-party manufacturers, like most of Reaper’s output) to the quick (not cheap anymore, though) & cheerful D&D pre-paints they have now. Most of the people I know who play D&D aren’t into painting miniatures. Those who are still love the convenience and portability of the pre-paints. Both of the groups I’ve played with in the past several years have literally hundreds of those suckers. I’ve bought scores, while at the same time using nice metal Reaper figures for my own PCs. There’s a clear market for the product, and it’s not mismanagement to cater to that.

Anung Un Rama wrote:Does that mean no more Norse Teams?

I don´t think that the Norse are the "weakest" team. I personally rate Ogres, Halflings and Goblins as "just for fun" teams. I stopped playing Ogres after Snotlings were dropped to Strength 1. Its not fun when 90%+ of all opponents get 3 dice blocks without assists against the little runts. But this is getting off topic. Please carry on.

I think he means the Norse were broken. Back when their Blitzers had the Pile On and Jump Up combo, they were super nasty at crippling or killing opposing players. I lost most of my team in a single half against them once.

Mannahnin wrote:I think he means the Norse were broken. Back when their Blitzers had the Pile On and Jump Up combo, they were super nasty at crippling or killing opposing players. I lost most of my team in a single half against them once.

Oh, the old Norse. I was thinking the current version.

Last I played in a league (about 4 years ago) Norse were overpowered. The whole team has block? WTF?

Never played against them but on paper they didn't look too bad. Must have been looking at the newer Norse rules. I played Wood Elves and my most common opponent was Orcs. If I could survive I could usually pull off a win (but with Wood Elves vs. Orcs that's a big "IF").

Osbad wrote:

Anung Un Rama wrote:

Ozymandias wrote:Heh. Living RuleBook v. 6. Basically the fan created Blood Bowl rulebook. The current one on the GW site is LRB5.

Wait. The official rulebooks they (used to?) publish on their own site was fan created???

Yes. And this has been the case for many, many years. GW have put absolutely £zero into bloodbowl for a decade or more. All the development work was done by the "Blood Bowl Rules Committee", all volunteers, all for free. Other than taking the time to zay "yes, that's OK, go ahead", and publish the thing on their website, GW have made absolutely no contribution to the game rules.

Given then that those rules have evolved out of all recognition since version 2.0 (or whatever was the last version Jervis Actually contributed any text to), it is VERY questionable as to whether GW actually have any real legal claim on the version 6.0 text. Given that it was written by volunteers who received no compensation for their contribution by GW.

In fact, were I a betting man, I'd say that the volunteer authors of the current version of LRB5.0/6.0 whatever would have a fighting chance of sueing GW for copyright infringement if they actually published the document. This being because they were unpaid, and therefore GW possibly cannot enforce any in any contract the volunteer contributors made as they gave them no quid pro quo. "In common law consideration it is a prerequisite that both parties offer some consideration before a contract can be thought of as binding." So if GW don't offer any payment or other consideration for the volunteers' work, then those volunteers can freely break the (now void) "contract" permitting GW to publish their work.

In reality I can't see it happening, but that there is even the possibility just shows how morally bankrupt GW's posturing is. Fethers!

Truly the addage "if you sup with the devil, use a long spoon" is well deserved in this case.

There are many lovely people who work within GW's walls, but many of those with the real power are pretty much just unconscionable douchebags, and corporately GW acts in ways that outside of corporate life many would see as completely amoral.

To caviot off of this conversation, Remember Necromunda? It used to be a heck of a game...

I wonder what happened to it?

This sort of BS is about along the same lines that MONGOOSE pulled with Starship troopers. Took a good game, took a dump all over it, then tried to come back with a couple of tables full of Kool Aid to try to get people back to play it after burning out the player base.

All I can say is Blood Bowel loooked like a heck of a game. Too Bad I won't be able to try it. Heven forbid I try painting the guys with Reaper paints.


(I wonder how much scratch I can get for this GW stuff...)


Anyone interested in buying some GW stuff? I'll be setting it up pretty soon.

Blood Bowel... Heh. Not sure if it was on purpose or not but either way it made me smile.

ShumaGorath wrote:People still play bloodbowl?

Quite honestly I think that if Hasbro bought out GW the only real changes would be that the games would be overhauled and changed to a simplified D20 system with prepainted miniatures. Beyond that, nothing much would change.

You don't buy a brand to turn it's IP into something you already sold. Brand identity is based in the product sold, not who distributes it, thats akin to saying that if Volkswagon bought jeep they would just turn them all into small hatchbacks for urban use but keep the jeep name. It's not economically viable to procure a company solely so you can demonstrably alter it's IP in order to fulfill a failed business model (most of wizkids pre painted lines have ceased and died).

..... Ask Fiat how thats going for them, or Dimler/ Chrysler. AMC? Wizkids with that FASA farce? WOTC and TSR?

How's that Disney/ Marvel thing working out?

Large business gets hold of property, runs it into the ground by making as much off of it as they can, anyway they can, and if someone stubs thier toe along the way, then they'd better suck it up and keep up or get left behind.
Have you heard of Avalon Hill?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_Hill

How's that Disney/ Marvel thing working out?

Not really done yet, still some voting, buyout, etc until it's totally finished. But I don't foresee a whole lot of change. Warner Bros has owned DC for years. Disney wants Marvel for the current liscensing ability, and to make movies. Disney doesn't care about comic books, just characters. Boom studios is publishing Disney comics.

I don't think Avalon Hill is an entirely fair comparison.

The whole map wargaming scene took a beating in the 90s because computer games began to offer better graphics, simplicity of play, and setup times, and boardgames have never had the emotional appeal of 3D tabletop games.

Mannahnin wrote:Ah, no, I don’t think this is right at all. D20-compatible was a total free-for-all. The only time they exercised any control was over products with the D&D logo. Again, maybe you're thinking of old TSR? They were super tight-handed with licensing and "only Official TSR products have our seal of approval" back in the late 70s and through the 80s. Gary Gygax had some epic rants in Dragon back in the day.

The one debacle that did occur was with the separate D20 Trademark License. It got changed around after the Book of Erotic Fantasy came out, to stop anything like it from ever being allowed to use the D20 logo ever again. WOTC wasn't too crazy about people mixing things like Power Word: Disrobe with one of their trademarks.

Ah, so the head of GW legal is a woman. That explains everything.