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Army Roster no longer has rosters....
Well it really was just a matter of time that a website that allowed for free WH Fantasy roster building with all the GW names, stats and point costs would be asked to stop. Really a matter of protecting it's intellectual property plus not authorizing another business to make money off that property, GW had to try to stop this.
It was a very handy tool, much like Army Builder, except that it did not have nearly the same set of built in restrictions or checks. I actually liked that aspect as I think people put far too much trust in what AB tells you is legal or not points and rules wise. This one required you to really read & know your codex. The big difference with AB and Army Roster was Lone Wolf Development (AB) does not sell rosters or stats or names of models. It has nothing in it's product that is specific to any game system. It's just a handy tool for running other's data. That data is submitted by others freely with no payment or compensation involved.
This has, of course, generated a bit of discussion among players on Warhammer forums. A lot is hate toward "the evil empire that is GW", some is discussion of legal issues many of us know little about. It did bring a few things to mind for me.
First I can see how GW needs to protect it's property. As soon as you let others make money off your work without coordinating with you, you begin to relinquish control of those works. Also I can see how GW would make an effort to protect their army book sales. We've had to contend with that here regularly. "Why do I need army and rule books ever when AB has everything I need?" Even if that's simply untrue, AB-based rules knowledge, supplemented by using the new copies on the wall as reference material comes up often. Also, there's always the possibility that GW may currently be or in the future want to create an online resource like this for themselves. They might have people offering to do it for them. If there are third parties out there doing it on their own for free or "donations", it's certainly going to make that difficult.
I will use AB when someone submits the Warriors of Chaos info, as I used AR, but I can totally understand GW not wanting to have people completely supplant their system of sitting down with a pen & paper, making lists. Unfortunately, it's one of the reasons I was drawn to Flames of War and Warmachine and away from Magic and GW. I hate deck/army building. I find it very tedious, stressful and myself prone to error. Any tool that makes crunching all those stats easier or gives me less choices in the first place, makes me happy.
I have a feeling that they didn't tell GW they were going to sell subscriptions or advertise on the site. I also have a feeling that they didn't tell them they were going to include stat lines.
The team had a pretty active member on the boards and he seemed pretty confident that they had worked out an agreement with GW. What I think happened was they e-mailed and said "We are students looking to make an online army roster program for Warhammer as a project. It will tally up points costs and stuff.", and then GW probably responded "Ok kids, have fun."
Then they saw a money making machine spread its tendrils through the online community and pimp slapped it back into oblivion. Hopefully GW will hire somebody to write an official online army program / community site. Then again, GW doesn't even maintain any forums or have any easy to contact community manager. [i]Hey GWs internet scanning robot, hire me and I'll setup some forums for you, pretend to be awesome like PPS_Kevin, and start work immediately on a site way cooler than armyroster.com. Heck, I'll even travel around the world running sweet tournaments.[/i]
How long was that site up? I'd never even heard of it.
It was up for a few months. For a while they were releasing a new army every few days. I'm not sure if they ended up hitting them all before the take down.
The site was a little clunky but had some nice features, like pdf rendering. As it was free and online I preferred it to Army Builder.
How long was that site up? I'd never even heard of it.
Well, they seem to be indicating that they've figured out a way around their GW issues and are moving forward. So we'll see where that goes.
Well, they seem to be indicating that they've figured out a way around their GW issues and are moving forward. So we'll see where that goes.
I have a feeling that they didn't tell GW they were going to sell subscriptions or advertise on the site. I also have a feeling that they didn't tell them they were going to include stat lines.
The team had a pretty active member on the boards and he seemed pretty confident that they had worked out an agreement with GW. What I think happened was they e-mailed and said "We are students looking to make an online army roster program for Warhammer as a project. It will tally up points costs and stuff.", and then GW probably responded "Ok kids, have fun."
Then they saw a money making machine spread its tendrils through the online community and pimp slapped it back into oblivion. Hopefully GW will hire somebody to write an official online army program / community site. Then again, GW doesn't even maintain any forums or have any easy to contact community manager. [i]Hey GWs internet scanning robot, hire me and I'll setup some forums for you, pretend to be awesome like PPS_Kevin, and start work immediately on a site way cooler than armyroster.com. Heck, I'll even travel around the world running sweet tournaments.[/i]
"This is where apple pie goes when it dies."