Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Mostly because I'm crazy, and partly because the new HPS updates allow it, I've tried my hand at modding again. Using the old NWP maps and some new research, I've more or less completed the following:

Eylau (for Jena)
Marengo (for Eckmuhl)
Vittoria (for Bonaparte's Peninsular War)

These are mods of old existing projects that I've done a value-add too (revised OOBs, new pdts, and so on). In most cases, I don't know who to credit (Greg Gorsuch, for one!)

I'm also working on Freidland, Pultusk, Golymin, and Heilsberg (all for Jena). These are mostly done, but I haven't finalized them yet (you figure out how many guns the Russians had at Pultusk! There were at least 50 stuck in the mud).

A couple of questions:

Is what I'm doing ethical (using other people's work without being able to get permission)?

Is anybody interested in working with me on this project?

Were there really 1000 man battalions at Eylau?


Chris Perleberg
Prussian Newbie

Are you saying that we can create maps again?

_________________
Général David Guegan

3ème Régiment de Grenadiers - Bataillon d'élite du 3ème Légère
2ème Brigade
Grenadiers de la Réserve
Réserve
La Grande Armée
--------------------------
"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
Napoléon Bonaparte

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx

Yes, it appears so. Everything appears to be unlocked. Civil war games too.

I can't create a map, but I can modify an existing one. I wrote a little checksum program to calculate the correct checksum for the various games.

Chris Perleberg
Prussian Newbie
(I'll remember my proper designation when the website is back up!)

Cool! I'd love to lend you a hand on the Jena ones, but I am not sure yet how much time I'll have for it.

_________________

Not exactly sure if it is kosher or not, but I'd not share the process you've done it under with anyone or publicly post it. Especially the checksum. HPS/JTS can be a bit upset if some of the inner concepts/codes start getting out there.

_________________
Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

This is exactly what I'm asking here. I've dealt with HPS before (playtested a couple of Squad Battles titles and another one I can't mention that you'll probably never see .

I do not want to PO anybody. But the "secret" of checksums has been out there for a long time, and they're the ones who opened it up (years ago I brought this up when I found out that a single nappy game was open, and Rich Hamilton asked me not to do anything more because they were gonna fix it in the next update, which they did).

But I'm taking your advice and gonna wait for more comments before I release anything to anybody.

OTOH, last night I spent time moving Kreege Berg about 7 hexes north, as the map has too far south.

Before this, I was working on First Kernstown


Chris Perleberg
Prussian Newbie

Are most based off of existing Mods or are some completely new maps & scenarios??

I know that even though the checksum info is out there, they prefer it not be published openly. Someone posted info at the ACWGC in the last year & we asked him to remove it at Rich's request. I know that Mods for Eckmuhl 1.00 & 1.01 are ok, but that everything else is sort of touch & go.

I think they'd not be too upset if it is changing an existing Mods by someone. But creating stuff for games/battles that are not out yet, like Marengo & Eylau et al, might be frowned upon. This after all, was the downfall of Battleground when the NIR Project made the whole war pretty much.

I expect once the series is complete, they will allow things more openly.

I suggest, so there aren't any issues later on, you ask Rich Hamilton about things and get his input. For campaigns already out, he might approve extra scenarios & battles, but for campaigns not done yet, I expect he would be a bit more hesitant.

_________________
Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

They are "existing mods" in the sense that I started with the NWP mods. In other words, they are part of what you indicate was part of the original problem...

Keep in mind that to date, I have given nothing to nobody, and will not if the right people object. I will contact Rich and ask.

OTOH, I did send a prototype of an ACW OOB editor (limited in that it could only work with existing OOBs -- it was useful to match pictures with units) to a few people (Old Banshee, for one). Overland was the first game that was opened up.

Chris Perleberg
Prussian Newbie

The HPS Series started more than 14 years ago.

Changing an existing map to correct it is something totally legitimate. It doesn't break any game file.

Creating new maps in my own opinion is also fair game as the HPS and JTS companies are addressing a niche of players who anyway buy the new games to support them. And we have been waiting for ages for all the battles to be covered. It's about time that the community starts working on it. It could even free JTS so they could create a new series at a different level of command... And why not a new engine...

Creating new map doesn't involve any hacking and doesn't change any original file provided with the game. Therefore if HPS and JTS have remove the protection I would guess that it means that we can add new maps.

Modding seems to be a bad word for some. To me it's always a compliment to the creator of the game and usually it doesn't make them loose any income...

_________________
Général David Guegan

3ème Régiment de Grenadiers - Bataillon d'élite du 3ème Légère
2ème Brigade
Grenadiers de la Réserve
Réserve
La Grande Armée
--------------------------
"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
Napoléon Bonaparte

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx

It is a interesting idea.

I too, would suggest running everything by Rich to see if you have their "blessing".

support@johntillersoftware.com

Who knows, they may very well welcome the idea and could possibly add the mods to future updates.

It is a pretty grey area in the sense that I am not really sure what you are saying - if it is about creating an entirely new map -I am pretty sure that the answer is a no - it's not on.

If it is changing terrain - unless you are doing it in the scenario editor (which is pretty limited) - again, I am pretty sure that is not on too.

If you are talking about expanding an existing map -again, I am pretty sure that one is not on either...

However if you are talking about using the submap editor -which basically is text and typing in hex coordinates -then that is fine -but then again you only need to type in text for that -so, personally I don't get the impression that you were referring to creating a submap, however I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

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Mods -fwiw, the main issue with mods is that it seems like 90% of the guys doing them have no concept of copyright or public domain -yeah sure a nice plate from an Osprey would look great in the unit.bmp file - but the problem is one of it is not in the public domain. I imagine Osprey might not pursue guys doing this as a one off ... who knows, maybe they do - I sure as hell don't host any of that type of crap at SDC because I don't feel like dealing with cease and desist letters from lawyers.

I guess the larger point here is that no company that has two brain cells to rub together would ever mess with that sort of thing either - as you basically put the existence of your company in jeopardy -and why would anyone do that?

Otoh -to be fair I am pretty sure that I know one company that did slap an Osprey print on their printed and published gamebox -and the guy tried to get me to use it on his website (for the record I let that request go through to the keeper and -did not- use that image of some German stormtroopers running amongst British tanks in their Cambrai title ... interestingly enough Osprey doesn't seem to have gone after that guy -but that might just be indicative of how small time that boardgame company is -- no one probably brought it to their attention.

I guess what I mean is - if you want to experiment with this concept on your own - try hosting a sound mod with Elvis tunes in it -and see how long it takes Lisa Marie's legal team to get on to you Or in other words - ymmmv - it is one of those, situations where as a business just does not find it worth the risk -and I never can understand exactly some people claim not to get this.

Further communications has convinced me to drop the whole thing entirely.

For one thing, Stephen is 100% spot on about copyright -- I'm fully aware of these issues (which is one of the things I was asking about). For another, modding is an unending activity -- you can always change that unit one more time.

I may continue to mod in the privacy of my own home (Iiiiiiiiiif ya know what I mean , but will not share.



Chris Perleberg
Prussian Newbie

In a completely different kind of game... I don't know if you heard about it...

It's called DayZ SA (Standalone)...

It started as a free mod for a game called Arma 2.

The company supported it... More than 2 millions people (yest two) downloaded and played that mod. And most of those people had to buy the original game to play the mod. The game became a hit just because people wanted to play the mod. Later on, the company decided to hire the guy who did the mod.

He ended up convincing them to create a new game from his mod... So they made the game and released it on Steam as an alpha (it is still in development for at least one more year).

As of today 2 970 589 people bought the alpha and are playing it.

The copyright issue of some artwork would be a big deal if the diffusion of the games we play was important which it's not. To me it looks more like an academic hypothesis than anything else.
Mods are mods.

_________________
Général David Guegan

3ème Régiment de Grenadiers - Bataillon d'élite du 3ème Légère
2ème Brigade
Grenadiers de la Réserve
Réserve
La Grande Armée
--------------------------
"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
Napoléon Bonaparte

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx