Triple A is AWESOME

Good news  :-)

@questioneer:

My supplier, who does get word from Wizards from time to time said that WOTC is planning on making another CD game version of the game based off of the AA42 and/or AA50 boardgame version.

Awesome, hopefully it will be as buggy and unplayable as the old A&A and Iron Blitz and receive the same minimal support!  The AI was uber too!  [/rant]

Information wants to be free.  Just the way it works.  WOTC should think about hiring the people who built TripleA, they seem to have known what they were doing and were dedicated.

I don’t think they can do anything with Battlemap or Mapview since neither use the rules of Axis and Allies.  Battlemap is probably more protected since it is just a game board, the tiles look completely different than the pieces in Axis and Allies and there are no “chips” to use as counters.  Mapview uses the other charts as well including the IPC production chart and stuff.  But both are probably safe.

On top of that, Mapview has chess and checkers and other mods and Battlemap has different versions of games as well so it could be argued they are gaming platforms that users sometimes use for Axis and Allies, but were designed to let players just play games in general - thus they were not designed to allow users to get the freeware and not buy the game (though I am pretty sure most of us own at least one copy, some of us 5 copies.  One is never enough for me, need more pieces!)

I would say that TripleA technically hasn’t been shut down, it’s only been slowed down. It is available from other places than sourceforge.

I’m a bit concerned about the future development on TripleA though, but it will not disappear until there is a better product available.

If they’ll go after TripleA, why not come after us here?

@bongaroo:

If they’ll go after TripleA, why not come after us here?

I think there are two main differences between TripleA and PBF with ABattleMap on this forum.

First of all ABattlemap is not under constant development. It has no computing routines or mechanisms that a computer game has. It is just a substitute for the gameboard. You could even use pen and paper as a substitute for the gameboard. TripleA is more than this. Although it can serve as a substitute for the gameboard, it is a sort of stand-alone-product with all game-routines implemented.

Second, TripleA is in a way “isolated” from advertisement or marketing of AA. A person who does not know about TripleA and comes to the project site by chance will -at the first view- see no link to AA. There are no ads, no banners etc. - as this is a “free project”.
This site/forum here on the other hand shows direct links to the games, there is some AA-merchandising etc.

So this site is more obviously a site where Hasbro will see it’s commercial demands fulfilled than TripleA is.

Just my thoughts…

As English is not my native language I hope I was able to clearly point out what I mean ;-)

Also, it would make very little sense for Hasbro to try and do harm to the gaming communities of DAAK, FoE, AAMC and here because it would be a very hard sell in court and because we do more good than harm to Hasbro.

I mean common, if it were not for sites like this, I woulda never known that anniversary was here, let alone buy 5 copies!

@Cmdr:

Also, it would make very little sense for Hasbro to try and do harm to the gaming communities of DAAK, FoE, AAMC and here because it would be a very hard sell in court and because we do more good than harm to Hasbro.

I mean common, if it were not for sites like this, I woulda never known that anniversary was here, let alone buy 5 copies!

But we are all still here playing the game.  Thats what TripleA was about, was it not?  That this site has advertising is actually more of a problem, as it could insinuate that a profit is being made (whether it is or not).

I’m going to continue playing here of course, but TripleA will probably continue to be my favorite way to play the game.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hasbro release another crappy video game that they fail to support in the most basic ways.

@Cmdr:

Also, it would make very little sense for Hasbro to try and do harm to the gaming communities of DAAK, FoE, AAMC and here because it would be a very hard sell in court and because we do more good than harm to Hasbro.

I mean common, if it were not for sites like this, I woulda never known that anniversary was here, let alone buy 5 copies!

But the exact same arguments can be said about TripleA, almost all TripleA players have bought at least one boardgame.
The difference between the sourceforge site where TripleA is hosted, and aa.org, is that theres is no links to the official A&A “networks” like Hasbro and Wotc.

@P@nther:

@bongaroo:

If they’ll go after TripleA, why not come after us here?

I think there are two main differences between TripleA and PBF with ABattleMap on this forum.

First of all ABattlemap is not under constant development. It has no computing routines or mechanisms that a computer game has. It is just a substitute for the gameboard. You could even use pen and paper as a substitute for the gameboard. TripleA is more than this. Although it can serve as a substitute for the gameboard, it is a sort of stand-alone-product with all game-routines implemented.

Second, TripleA is in a way “isolated” from advertisement or marketing of AA. A person who does not know about TripleA and comes to the project site by chance will -at the first view- see no link to AA. There are no ads, no banners etc. - as this is a “free project”.
This site/forum here on the other hand shows direct links to the games, there is some AA-merchandising etc.

So this site is more obviously a site where Hasbro will see it’s commercial demands fulfilled than TripleA is.

@Cmdr:

Also, it would make very little sense for Hasbro to try and do harm to the gaming communities of DAAK, FoE, AAMC and here because it would be a very hard sell in court and because we do more good than harm to Hasbro.

It would be impossible to prevent the PBEM (PBF) games, b/c quite honestly you DON’T need any outside program.  Obviously some things make it easier, but I remember back in the day when I started playing I used no program, and manually updated my board (Classic), wrote down my moves, rolled thru DAAK or FoE, then wrote down my Non-Coms, then posted.  It was a pain but it was still being done up thru Revised by other players.  With DAAK, you simply send emails to your opponent, there is no way they could prevent emails.  If one wanted to one can make an Excel file with country updates to facilitate PBEM, and good luck going after Microsoft and getting them to pull Excel.  LOL!

@bongaroo:

@Cmdr:

Also, it would make very little sense for Hasbro to try and do harm to the gaming communities of DAAK, FoE, AAMC and here because it would be a very hard sell in court and because we do more good than harm to Hasbro.

I mean common, if it were not for sites like this, I woulda never known that anniversary was here, let alone buy 5 copies!

But we are all still here playing the game.  Thats what TripleA was about, was it not?  That this site has advertising is actually more of a problem, as it could insinuate that a profit is being made (whether it is or not).

I’m going to continue playing here of course, but TripleA will probably continue to be my favorite way to play the game.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hasbro release another crappy video game that they fail to support in the most basic ways.

No, there is a difference.  TripleA was a stand alone, full version of the proprietary game owned by Hasbro.

Here we are people who are playing the game with typed up text.  It’s like the old days when you played via the USPS and that was held to be legal.

@Subotai:

@Cmdr:

Also, it would make very little sense for Hasbro to try and do harm to the gaming communities of DAAK, FoE, AAMC and here because it would be a very hard sell in court and because we do more good than harm to Hasbro.

I mean common, if it were not for sites like this, I woulda never known that anniversary was here, let alone buy 5 copies!

But the exact same arguments can be said about TripleA, almost all TripleA players have bought at least one boardgame.
The difference between the sourceforge site where TripleA is hosted, and aa.org, is that theres is no links to the official A&A “networks” like Hasbro and Wotc.

Again, the difference is that TripleA is blatant, outright theft of proprietary material.  You have the rules, the pieces, the map, the AI, etc all exactly as the game is.  Here we have players, there you have the game.  It’s a huge distinction really.  Dogs of War was gotten because it had the rules, not the map and pieces, but the rules.

There is quite a difference between going after people who play your game, and people who steal your game.

Yeah, I don’t think it is fair to say they stole anything.  They did their own coding and made their own map, having an AI is not a copyrightable thing, the pieces were also custom designed.

They used the A&A rules, and had a game that was easily playable On-line in Real-time, that was the down fall.  It competed with GTO, who it appears have the on-line rights.

If they call TripleA something else like the Ultimate World War 2 Game, and alter the rules, like add a few Territories/Units and the values it can become a new product.  Heck, Ask Func and implement some of his China Mod rules throw in a few new Territories and release TripleA as an entirely new Game with new features.

If you do, please make all Pac Islands worth something, bump up the value at Wake/Mid/Hi and lets make the Pac playable.  Add in a Central Canada to hurt the Allies Shuck.  Scrap NOs and VCs and lets come up with something else as an Alt to taking capitals.  :-)

@Cmdr:

Again, the difference is that TripleA is blatant, outright theft of proprietary material….There is quite a difference between going after people who play your game, and people who steal your game.

@Subotai:

TripleA did not steal anything, now you are delusional again!!!

well - from an outside POV - I think a key question is: could you play TripleA reasonably well having never purchased a WOTC/Hasbro product?

If TripleA is providing a good that replaces the product then it’s not unreasonable to view it as IP theft, IMO.

Again, measured against other alternatives, the only live game competitor being GTO, is very far from the level of TripleA. TripleA has many more options than GTO, the only thing that is better at GTO is the graphics.

And TripleA has not been shutdown, I’ve had more than 1000 downloads (stable+unstable versions) since the DMCA letter arrived at sourceforge.

There’s a good discussion here about the copyright infringements of TripleA and how to clean them up. It’s a good read actually.

http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki/Forum#nabble-td3279250|a3279250

Wow, go away for a while and all hell breaks loose.

:-o :-o :-o

From my prior research on the matter, there are lot of changes you can make to mitigate such copyright claims but at the end of the day it comes down to who has a lawyer on retainer…

Mot

Plenty of things you could do.

Rename units:

Infantry = Army
Armor = Tank Battalion
Fighter = Squadron
Bomber = Bomber Squadron
etc

Alter the map slightly:

Change the color scheme…make Germany Red and Russia Green, or whatever!

Change the mechanics:

Make the player assign hit/defend/move values, maybe even costs. (Hell, this would be nice anyway!)

Any one or more of those would make TripleA significantly different enough not to be theft of concept/idea.  Then if the players CHOOSE to make it Axis and Allies rules, well, that’s the players.  The programmers just made a platform to play games. (Heck, the players could, theoretically, chose to play risk!)

Speaking of risk, why not put that, Chess, Checkers, etc in there too?  That would lend credibility to the idea that it’s a gaming platform, not Axis and Allies clone designed to steal money from Hasbro/WoTC/Larry.