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I use this on my desktop and bsttlescribe in my phone.

I prefer army builder's print layout and battlescribes interface. None of them are perfect but I'm glad to see the direction AB is taking.

privateer4hire wrote:
Also always thought it was crap to rely on fans to have to generate the files.

For Lone Wolf to put out the data files, the company would have to have licensing from Games Workshop, which they were not able to acquire. However, because the need for this kind of software was high, Lone Wolf decided to create the infrastructure so that the community could create files for the various games. Lone Wolf will not receive approval from GW to create the files. :(

I had a licenced copy from 3.0 to 3.something (I know it updated to 3.1 and stuffed a whole pile of files up) - I never used the v2.x version. I renewed the licence twice - but since I stopped playing games that had support from it in 2011 - the licence renewal expired in April this year. My club tourney is in MAY.

It was handy as a tool to assist with the verifying of tournament lists (when I was a TO). It was handy with club games as it meant I didn't have to deal with the chicken scratchings of my clubmates.

 chromedog wrote:
I had a licenced copy from 3.0 to 3.something (I know it updated to 3.1 and stuffed a whole pile of files up) - I never used the v2.x version. I renewed the licence twice - but since I stopped playing games that had support from it in 2011 - the licence renewal expired in April this year. My club tourney is in MAY.

It was handy as a tool to assist with the verifying of tournament lists (when I was a TO). It was handy with club games as it meant I didn't have to deal with the chicken scratchings of my clubmates.

You aren't kidding, one of the worst installer programs ever.
See earlier post.

LWDLiz wrote:

privateer4hire wrote:
Also always thought it was crap to rely on fans to have to generate the files.

For Lone Wolf to put out the data files, the company would have to have licensing from Games Workshop, which they were not able to acquire. However, because the need for this kind of software was high, Lone Wolf decided to create the infrastructure so that the community could create files for the various games. Lone Wolf will not receive approval from GW to create the files. :(

Skip it.

If anyone has any further questions, feel free to PM me or ask on the AB Facebook page.

LWDliz, I for one think the direction LW is going is great. Having been a datafile author for several years and trying to explain these same things to the general populace, I can only say you should not try to explain. Most of the naysayers had no understanding of how AB worked, what they were buying, and how the licensing actual model functioned and what it provided.

I can say to those who complained on list issues between version changes, that was not an AB issue but a developer decision as some functions were made easier in newer versions which when used broke the older file lists.

For those that were confused on licenses, the license model ONLY provided free updates to AB and automated access to files listed thru the updates function in AB. You were always capable of downloading files to load manually, but most of you never figured that out or were to lazy to do it so quit using the app. That was your choice, stop blaming LW and the datafile authors for your ignorance.

I think LW would be getting allot less flak if they would simply open up the lifetime license to anyone who has paid for vs those who simply happen to have a current license at this time.

 NecronLord3 wrote:
I think LW would be getting allot less flak if they would simply open up the lifetime license to anyone who has paid for vs those who simply happen to have a current license at this time.

Then everybody that is current will start complaining about how they got screwed for paying the license while all the people that quit or refused to pay get free access.

Either way, one group will be ticked off. So you might as well err on the side of the customers that are currently paying.

 d-usa wrote:

 NecronLord3 wrote:
I think LW would be getting allot less flak if they would simply open up the lifetime license to anyone who has paid for vs those who simply happen to have a current license at this time.

Then everybody that is current will start complaining about how they got screwed for paying the license while all the people that quit or refused to pay get free access.

Either way, one group will be ticked off. So you might as well err on the side of the customers that are currently paying.

Or just concede your current or future potential customers to freeware like Battlescribe which they are effectively doing. Instead of maintaining any level of loyalty to those who currently are using the product and/or whom have paid for the product 3 times in the past, such as myself.

 Kalamadea wrote:

Nice to hear that they're moving away from the screw your customer business model though. It never made sense to me that I needed to pay them every year for updates that are generated by unpaid 3rd party volunteers.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Lonewolf just makes the program, it's the fans that make the content and kept the content up to date. And yet Lonewolf kept all the money, released new versions just to make old versions obsolete to force people to update. I take issues with having to pay to "upgrade" something that works absolutely fine when the "upgrade" isn't really any better, it was just done to force you to pay for the same program all over again. I gave up on AB years ago, excel works just as well and has cost me a lot less (a LOT less, Open Office is freeware)

Lonewolf got $80 out of me for versions 1 and 2, I hope they enjoyed it because it's the last they'll see of me. Consider that bridge burned.

Lonewolf tried to get GW to allow them to do the files in-house before the product was ever released. The answer was 'no'. If you're interested in the full details, you can read them HERE on the AB40k Maintainers website.

Why would current and future customers leave them for Battlescribe?

"Nothing changes for me and my license doesn't expire? I'm going with Battlescribe!"
"I buy this product today and never have to renew my license? I'm going with Battlescribe!"

That argument does not make much sense.

Like I said, choosing between making customers angry that decided to keep paying and giving a free lifetime license to people who quit supporting the program or grandfathering current licensees into the new lifetime license and not giving a free license to people who already chose to no longer pay for a license is not that hard.

Piss off people who remained loyal and are, right now, giving you their money is not smart. "I just renewed my license last month, but I could have just paid you $0 and let it lapse and get a free license anyway? You screwed me over LW, I hate you!"

 d-usa wrote:
Why would current and future customers leave them for Battlescribe?

"Nothing changes for me and my license doesn't expire? I'm going with Battlescribe!"
"I buy this product today and never have to renew my license? I'm going with Battlescribe!"

That argument does not make much sense.

Like I said, choosing between making customers angry that decided to keep paying and giving a free lifetime license to people who quit supporting the program or grandfathering current licensees into the new lifetime license and not giving a free license to people who already chose to no longer pay for a license is not that hard.

Piss off people who remained loyal and are, right now, giving you their money is not smart. "I just renewed my license last month, but I could have just paid you $0 and let it lapse and get a free license anyway? You screwed me over LW, I hate you!"

Per the FB linked statement all current licenses are going to be prorated and refunded with store credit, which effectively means you aren't paying anymore than someone who has let their license lapse. The fact is myself and many others have paid for this program many times over, and LW has failed to keep up with desirable versions of the program like mobile versions, leading to freeware versions of effectively the same program with options (like mobile) that LW has failed to meet the demand for. There was no effective incentive to continue to support the product other than if you happened to need to purchase a new PC, thus requiring a new license. Now those who just happen to have their license current won't have to pay again if they purchase new equipment, but others like myself, will have to buy a new license even if I've already bought the program three times. Why would I pay that again as LW has not maintained my loyalty, and there are now free alternatives available. I'll stick with the free version, and most future customers will probably choose the alternative as well and I for one won't continue to support or promote the brand like I have in the past, including up to this announcement.

Just like anything else; noone held a gun to your (collective) head to make you buy the program. The EULA was there, plain as day, if you (again collective) didn't bother to read it, you've only got yourself to blame. I had 2.x forever and just kept updating the data files which included all the rules, made the mistake of "upgrading" and now it's nothing but page references. Downloaded Battlescribe and it's the same, now regretting getting rid of AB 2.x. Sad panda. I'm not going to hate on the company that took my money so I didn't have to make spreadsheets, it was a convenience fee; one that I was happy to pay.

No reason to switch then? O.k.

 agnosto wrote:
Just like anything else; noone held a gun to your (collective) head to make you buy the program. The EULA was there, plain as day, if you (again collective) didn't bother to read it, you've only got yourself to blame. I had 2.x forever and just kept updating the data files which included all the rules, made the mistake of "upgrading" and now it's nothing but page references. Downloaded Battlescribe and it's the same, now regretting getting rid of AB 2.x. Sad panda. I'm not going to hate on the company that took my money so I didn't have to make spreadsheets, it was a convenience fee; one that I was happy to pay.

This is a file development issue, not a program issue. Find better versions of the files, or make them yourself. It is seriously not that hard, and I ended up doing a decent version of all the 40K codexes in Battlescribe for use in my club. Stats, special rules, and all that. It did take some time, but it also gave me a pretty good understanding of how all the army book work. Especially if you're talking about updating all the existing files to have stat readouts, I wouldn't think it would be that long once you understood the process and used shared profiles and the like.

40K & Fantasy are pretty easy to do files for IMO. I did the full set of files for WAB 1.5 back in Army Builder 3.0 (gave it up after AB 3.1 broke my files) with at least an order of magnitude more lists (140+ when I stopped) and less complex ones from what I can tell. I figure I could do a full set of WFB files in about 20-25 hours at this point, given that they are much less complex than 40K ones as far as extra wargear, ect.

This is excellent. Once I reformat my PC next I'll just buy a new copy of it. Quite happy with this change. 4 years of manual downloading is quite long enough.

hands_miranda wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Just like anything else; noone held a gun to your (collective) head to make you buy the program. The EULA was there, plain as day, if you (again collective) didn't bother to read it, you've only got yourself to blame. I had 2.x forever and just kept updating the data files which included all the rules, made the mistake of "upgrading" and now it's nothing but page references. Downloaded Battlescribe and it's the same, now regretting getting rid of AB 2.x. Sad panda. I'm not going to hate on the company that took my money so I didn't have to make spreadsheets, it was a convenience fee; one that I was happy to pay.

This is a file development issue, not a program issue. Find better versions of the files, or make them yourself. It is seriously not that hard, and I ended up doing a decent version of all the 40K codexes in Battlescribe for use in my club. Stats, special rules, and all that. It did take some time, but it also gave me a pretty good understanding of how all the army book work. Especially if you're talking about updating all the existing files to have stat readouts, I wouldn't think it would be that long once you understood the process and used shared profiles and the like.

40K & Fantasy are pretty easy to do files for IMO. I did the full set of files for WAB 1.5 back in Army Builder 3.0 (gave it up after AB 3.1 broke my files) with at least an order of magnitude more lists (140+ when I stopped) and less complex ones from what I can tell. I figure I could do a full set of WFB files in about 20-25 hours at this point, given that they are much less complex than 40K ones as far as extra wargear, ect.

Thanks for the advice. Convenience is the entire reason to pay for the program to begin with and making my own files is less convenient than what I did before AB, excel spreadsheets.

Try Battlescribe then. It's an order of magnitude less powerful, but also very easy to develop/modify files for. If you can deal with nested menus, you can fix the current Battlescribe files to have stats in them.

hands_miranda wrote:
Try Battlescribe then. It's an order of magnitude less powerful, but also very easy to develop/modify files for. If you can deal with nested menus, you can fix the current Battlescribe files to have stats in them.

I couldn't find 40k files for battlescribe, everyone on the interwebz had it on like a need to know, and unless you knew, you didn't need to know. So instead I've been using wonderful piece of American ingenuity, the pencil and paper*. While I love using army builders for games, so many other groups and companies have their own army builders that I'm not sure why anyone would buy Army Builder for anything other than 40k.


* - The pencil was not invented by Americans, nor was paper.

Google 'Battlescribe Data Repository' - its the first link

 Alfndrate wrote:

I couldn't find 40k files for battlescribe, everyone on the interwebz had it on like a need to know, and unless you knew, you didn't need to know. So instead I've been using wonderful piece of American ingenuity, the pencil and paper*. While I love using army builders for games, so many other groups and companies have their own army builders that I'm not sure why anyone would buy Army Builder for anything other than 40k.

The author has some sort of C&D crap from GW, so he can't tell you directly. Random hit is the forum you're looking for.

hands_miranda wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

I couldn't find 40k files for battlescribe, everyone on the interwebz had it on like a need to know, and unless you knew, you didn't need to know. So instead I've been using wonderful piece of American ingenuity, the pencil and paper*. While I love using army builders for games, so many other groups and companies have their own army builders that I'm not sure why anyone would buy Army Builder for anything other than 40k.

The author has some sort of C&D crap from GW, so he can't tell you directly. Random hit is the forum you're looking for.

And that's the same thing that GW gave to Army Builder... And yet, people can say, "hey go to AB40k..." no one until Filbert was able to give a sustained answer... I will check it out this evening.

 Alfndrate wrote:

hands_miranda wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

I couldn't find 40k files for battlescribe, everyone on the interwebz had it on like a need to know, and unless you knew, you didn't need to know. So instead I've been using wonderful piece of American ingenuity, the pencil and paper*. While I love using army builders for games, so many other groups and companies have their own army builders that I'm not sure why anyone would buy Army Builder for anything other than 40k.

The author has some sort of C&D crap from GW, so he can't tell you directly. Random hit is the forum you're looking for.

And that's the same thing that GW gave to Army Builder... And yet, people can say, "hey go to AB40k..." no one until Filbert was able to give a sustained answer... I will check it out this evening.

When the AB40K guys got hassled by GW, they spoke with AB's legal team and their own. Basically a compromise was made to take the heat off, even though legally they were already in the clear(they didn't want to get sued, even if they were right). So they did "compliance" which was removing most rules from the files, and instead having those entries reference a page number in the relevant book.

Note, the WFB file authors don't generally do this for any of their files. Legally the only thing that can be protected for a game are the mechanics. The points values, stats and special rules are all trivial without the core mechanics that use them, and none of those mechanics are in the AB files.

Furthermore, game mechanics are only applicable to patent law, and patents expire quickly. Iirc the only GW specific mechanics are things like the Hit and Wound charts, and perhaps things like turn order, how Magic works etc.

The stats and points values as well as special rules are in no way protected by any patent, and that assumes that GW ever filed a patent for their games in the first place(which I doubt).

From what I understand, BS is easy to work with. I've only ever used AB. I know how it works, and I like how it works. The only gripe I have is that the default skins are meh, but cosmetic issues can largely be ignored with utility software like this.

I'm more than willing to work with Battlescribe now that I have a source of the files .

As to AB changing their policy, good on them, that was really the only thing that bugged me about their software.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:

Nice to hear that they're moving away from the screw your customer business model though. It never made sense to me that I needed to pay them every year for updates that are generated by unpaid 3rd party volunteers.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Lonewolf just makes the program, it's the fans that make the content and kept the content up to date. And yet Lonewolf kept all the money, released new versions just to make old versions obsolete to force people to update. I take issues with having to pay to "upgrade" something that works absolutely fine when the "upgrade" isn't really any better, it was just done to force you to pay for the same program all over again. I gave up on AB years ago, excel works just as well and has cost me a lot less (a LOT less, Open Office is freeware)

Lonewolf got $80 out of me for versions 1 and 2, I hope they enjoyed it because it's the last they'll see of me. Consider that bridge burned.

Lonewolf tried to get GW to allow them to do the files in-house before the product was ever released. The answer was 'no'. If you're interested in the full details, you can read them HERE on the AB40k Maintainers website.

This link was very insightful as my company is currently working on two similar products.

So the folks who'se license has recently expired (based on the date they originally paid for AB) will get to pay 1 final time.
Thats a nice way to treat customers who have been faithful to your company for years.
(sarc)

dkellyj wrote:
So the folks who'se license has recently expired (based on the date they originally paid for AB) will get to pay 1 final time.
Thats a nice way to treat customers who have been faithful to your company for years.
(sarc)

No need for the sarcasm. If your license expired, then buy the new version which is a 1 time price.

If you are a customer "who has been faithful" for years, then you've been renewing your license every year? Then look at the $40 as prepaid renewal for X years, and then free renewal after that.

The complaint is pretty thin.

 Aerethan wrote:

dkellyj wrote:
So the folks who'se license has recently expired (based on the date they originally paid for AB) will get to pay 1 final time.
Thats a nice way to treat customers who have been faithful to your company for years.
(sarc)

No need for the sarcasm. If your license expired, then buy the new version which is a 1 time price.

If you are a customer "who has been faithful" for years, then you've been renewing your license every year? Then look at the $40 as prepaid renewal for X years, and then free renewal after that.

The complaint is pretty thin.

No it's not. Group A) has paid $100+ and has to pay $40 again for lifetime license. Group B) pays $40 and receives lifetime license.

There's a major discrepancy there and Group A has been supporting AB way more than Group B ever will.

It's not going to effect me until I upgrade to a new PC, but given the choice between a freeware program like Battlescribe and paying another $40 for AB, I'll stick with the freeware. I'm also never going to recommend AB over Battlescribe to anyone ever again. AB is a better program but its not $40 better, and I'm not going to continue to support a company that shows no loyalty whatsoever to existing customers, whom supported them for years in the past.

I actually paid $20 to renew my license before it expired and now I get a lifetime of free updates? Woohoo to me for being on the ball and not letting it lapse.

Battlescribe sucks compared to AB. Sure, it's free, but I gave it a shot and removed it. I'd rather email myself PDF files than deal with BS.