Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stevechase

What? Scenarios are not private or intellectual property, they are simply plausible or for that matter implausible situations. No one can own that. I think you are confusing plagiarizim in this case. Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
If you follow your logic then you can not make scenarios based on "Red Storm Rising" (or any other known authored story/scenario)as many have requested. Again history or the idea of alternate history is not intellectual property.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stevechase

What? Scenarios are not private or intellectual property, they are simply plausible or for that matter implausible situations. No one can own that. I think you are confusing plagiarizim in this case. Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
If you follow your logic then you can not make scenarios based on "Red Storm Rising" (or any other known authored story/scenario)as many have requested. Again history or the idea of alternate history is not intellectual property.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Russian Heel

"Copyright" is just the wrong term. No big deal. The spirit of what he is saying is true within the norms of any gaming community created content. If you use a part of somebody else's work give them a credit in the readme. If you base something off somebody else's stuff give them credit in the readme. If they don't give explicit permission in the readme about use of their stuff make a reAsonable effort to ask them first. I don't think guy A rewriting Guy B's scenario without permission would ever make it to any court, but the case would certainly be tried in the court of community opinion. These are just the norms of online gaming communities. Although I don't know legally what what the case would be if somebody took your actual work and made some payware scenario pack.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bazza042

quote:

ORIGINAL: Russian Heel

"Copyright" is just the wrong term. No big deal. The spirit of what he is saying is true within the norms of any gaming community created content. If you use a part of somebody else's work give them a credit in the readme. If you base something off somebody else's stuff give them credit in the readme. If they don't give explicit permission in the readme about use of their stuff make a reAsonable effort to ask them first. I don't think guy A rewriting Guy B's scenario without permission would ever make it to any court, but the case would certainly be tried in the court of community opinion. These are just the norms of online gaming communities. Although I don't know legally what what the case would be if somebody took your actual work and made some payware scenario pack.

Whilst, and I'm in the trade, there is no legal impediment to 'copying' scenarios etc. - games are a different matter - you are quite right to bring the morality issue into the equation.

But I do feel that providing reasonable attempts are made to identify the original author to seek their permission it is OK, if they cannot be traced, to release a similar scenario for another game and acknowledge the original author - if identified - in the documentation of the scenario. Something like:

'This scenario is based on an original idea by xxxx'

normally suffices.

It seems a shame to have 'lost scenarios' like this but, of course, Meroka37 must do what he thinks is right.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

I do think this copying stuff 1:1 should be left in the past but there is nothing wrong with borrowing a theme or idea to build your own scenario with it. I don't even know why you'd want to do a 1:1 thing as Command's engine is designed to do more and there is so much more info available on orbats, units etc.

Mike

quote:

ORIGINAL:

Mike,
I am suspicious that this may be the reason for the lack of imaginative scenarios regarding the cold war era that was so well covered by Harpoon--that is maybe there is an inaccurate understanding of copyright rules that have kept some of our talented scen designers here afraid to let loose their creative juices on this era. When designers say that they have made them for "personal" use but are concerned about posting publicly well that says something. In fact I've kept waiting for others to make some scenarios similar to the GC 1, 2,& 3 (so I'm lazy)and was just thinking to myself recently why in the world has no one created these yet. They seem like obvious choices but yet very very few scenarios on one the most platform useful eras for Command of modern naval history.Maybe if you guys at Command could set some of our great community scen designers minds at ease we could get a alot more fantastic scenarios.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bazza042

I suspect that the relative lack of 'Cold War' scenarios is twofold.

The first is the one you mention: the (non-existent) concerns over copyright, as to a degree evinced by Meroka37. (no criticism intended)

Whilst I take Mike's argument about 'copying' there are only so many 'reasonably authentic' OOBs that can be created to populate scenarios such as those for Iceland, Norway, the GIUK gap etc so there is bound to be a considerable overlap in any OOBs created for COMMAND and Harpoon in the Cold War era. So there is going to be considerable duplication (copying, if you will) between these types of scenarios as far as OOB and locations are concerned.

But I also believe a major factor is the 'been there, done that' factor which leads many designers to move onto the the more 'glamorous' stuff like F22 Raptors, Mig31s, the newer CVNs etc.

I'm with you on this, however, its a shame that, so far, the Cold War is being largely ignored by the designers for whatever reason........

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mgellis

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bazza042

I suspect that the relative lack of 'Cold War' scenarios is twofold.

The first is the one you mention: the (non-existent) concerns over copyright, as to a degree evinced by Meroka37. (no criticism intended)

Whilst I take Mike's argument about 'copying' there are only so many 'reasonably authentic' OOBs that can be created to populate scenarios such as those for Iceland, Norway, the GIUK gap etc so there is bound to be a considerable overlap in any OOBs created for COMMAND and Harpoon in the Cold War era. So there is going to be considerable duplication (copying, if you will) between these types of scenarios as far as OOB and locations are concerned.

But I also believe a major factor is the 'been there, done that' factor which leads many designers to move onto the the more 'glamorous' stuff like F22 Raptors, Mig31s, the newer CVNs etc.

I'm with you on this, however, its a shame that, so far, the Cold War is being largely ignored by the designers for whatever reason........

My own take on this...

I'm not too worried about copying scenarios because I either come up with my own orders of battle, events, etc. (and that makes it a new, original scenario) or, if I was going to translate someone else's scenario unit-for-unit, I would ask permission. That pretty much covers the issue, I think.

I sometimes get frustrated because I have limited information on the exact orders of battle for certain historical periods. I've got copies of Janes Fighting Ships for the early 1990s, the early 1980s, and the mid-1950s, but otherwise I've got to piece information together from sites like Hullnumber, DANFS, etc. I am probably just over-thinking things, but I am trying to make the historical scenarios as "real" as possible, so tracking down things like "What was Ghana's air force like in 1971 and where were their air bases?" can be tricky. I don't want to just make up stuff, although sometimes coming up with a guesstimate is the best I can do.

(In other words, Cold War scenarios can be more work than future ones because you have to track down the details instead of just making them up and/or basing them on current information that is usually on wikipedia.)

Another thing, and this is just a personal quirk, I'm sure, is that World War III scenarios often make me sad. I have trouble getting around the fact that a war in Europe would likely to go nuclear, and if it goes nuclear it will probably go all-out, and that means, simply put, the end of America, Europe, and Russia. Even a limited exchange, a few hundred warheads, would cripple the northern hemisphere, kill hundreds of millions of innocent people, etc. (It probably did not help that I recently watched Threads, about the the most depressing movie ever made about nuclear war, doubtless because it is probably the most realistic in what a war like that would do to civilization.) I try to work up the backstory to a scenario and I realize it's probably going to be "well, everyone we love is dead, so let's at least get revenge" and it just makes me depressed.

Here's a bit of light reading for those interested in the subject...

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html

Actually, a good alternate history would be "Ten Years After" in which the nations not affected in a major way by World War III--Australia, South Africa, Brazil, maybe India, maybe Indonesia, etc., are starting to flex their muscles and establish the new world order.

And, yes, there is the sense of "been there, done that" sometimes. What I'm trying to do is come up with the situations that haven't been looked at much, and especially at smaller conflicts, real and what-if, that are not going to turn into a nuclear exchange. So, I do things like, "Okay, there was a coup in Ecuador in 1963...what if it turned into a civil war, and the U.S. decided to back one side, but had limited resources to do so, what with the Cold War and everything, and sent a task force with some helicopters, etc. to help out...??? Hmmm..." That sort of thing.

(Wikipedia has some terrific "lists" by the way, including a list of major coups, successful and failed, throughout history, that can be used starting points for building scenarios. Basically, all you have to do is assume any conflict got out of hand and either neighboring countries, or regional powers, or one of the superpowers decided to get involved.)

Anyway, that's my take on the whole thing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

I do think this copying stuff 1:1 should be left in the past but there is nothing wrong with borrowing a theme or idea to build your own scenario with it. I don't even know why you'd want to do a 1:1 thing as Command's engine is designed to do more and there is so much more info available on orbats, units etc.

Mike

quote:

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

I´m more in favor of alt-hist Cold War era scenarios/campaigns.

One possibility would be that the Able Archer situation turns, not to nuclear war, but to a conventional war, because the Soviet Leadership thought Able Archer presented the preparations for a NATO invasion.

Another would be that, after Gorbachev comes to power, hardliners who don´t like the way he´s taking the Soviet Union conspire to assassinate him and blame it on the US (I was thinking maybe a plane Gorbachev is on gets shot down with one of the Stinger missiles the US supplied to the rebels in Afghanistan, one or more of which could have been captured by Soviet forces) - from there, the build-up to war could go much like in Red Storm Rising.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Russian Heel

quote:

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

I´m more in favor of alt-hist Cold War era scenarios/campaigns.

One possibility would be that the Able Archer situation turns, not to nuclear war, but to a conventional war, because the Soviet Leadership thought Able Archer presented the preparations for a NATO invasion.

Another would be that, after Gorbachev comes to power, hardliners who don´t like the way he´s taking the Soviet Union conspire to assassinate him and blame it on the US (I was thinking maybe a plane Gorbachev is on gets shot down with one of the Stinger missiles the US supplied to the rebels in Afghanistan, one or more of which could have been captured by Soviet forces) - from there, the build-up to war could go much like in Red Storm Rising.

What hardliners? Tikhonov blew his wad getting Chernenko in power and had no support to challenge Gorbachev's election and Ligachev didn't have the balls to pull that off even if he wanted to! These guys didn't want war, the demise of only Gorbachev would have done little to change the course, they'd have to kill 60 percent of the Politburo for that, and they certainly wouldn't do it in a way to lead to war with NATO. Tikhonov wanted to preserve his country - not hurl it into a destructive war with the West, that win or lose would set the USSR back decades in economic growth - if the country wasn't destroyed.

The 'hardliner' war craving boogie man that always creeps up in books, movies, games, etc. just didn't exist.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

I´m more in favor of alt-hist Cold War era scenarios/campaigns.

One possibility would be that the Able Archer situation turns, not to nuclear war, but to a conventional war, because the Soviet Leadership thought Able Archer presented the preparations for a NATO invasion.

Another would be that, after Gorbachev comes to power, hardliners who don´t like the way he´s taking the Soviet Union conspire to assassinate him and blame it on the US (I was thinking maybe a plane Gorbachev is on gets shot down with one of the Stinger missiles the US supplied to the rebels in Afghanistan, one or more of which could have been captured by Soviet forces) - from there, the build-up to war could go much like in Red Storm Rising.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stevechase

Actually I think all of the plots mentioned here are plausible. But if we try to hard to make something sound legit then it becomes contrived. The politics and players are on stage even now for such a conflict to transpire. As long as there are opposing political ideologies and power to be gained by expanding political power then there will always be those willing to sacrifice a nations treasure and population to achieve its goals. All you really need is a fltashpoin.