Hallo nettes online game
http://armorgames.com/play/5426/steambirds
Online Wings of War
Hallo nettes online game
http://armorgames.com/play/5426/steambirds
Fun! Played it for some time. Thanks for sharing!
"We do not stop playing when we get old, but we get old when we stop playing."
i earned 37 stars
Cute game.
another part of steambirds
ooops forget the link lol
http://armorgames.com/play/7564/steambirds-survival
The story of this game is interesting IMHO.
Programmer Andy Moore played Wings of War at the Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX, and just after he designed this Steambirds. Quite naturally you titled this post "Online Wings of War": Steambirds has similarities to WoW in plotting, movement, firing, damage system. Graphics by a certain Daniel Cook. No aknowledgement whatsoever of Wings of War. Contacts with Steambirds staff failed.
Now another game called Steam Pirates has been released last year by a competitor of their. It looks pretty close to Steambirds. I find quite interesting that just after that, suddenly Daniel Cook discovered that plagiarism is immoral:
http://www.lostgarden.com/2011/11/pl...al-choice.html
Luckly, a real Wings of War Online is coming:
http://www.bigdaddyscreations.com/68...cret-any-more/
01_range-533x400.jpg
Although to be fair their is a pretty big divide between "inspired by" and "plagiarism". I've played Steambirds and it never really struck me as being inspired by WoW. No more than Avalon Hill's Air Force" and the old Newbury air rules from 20 years ago and many, many others which involve pre-plotting movement of aircraft.
Well, my opinion is of course different. Steambirds is a videogame played in turns with pre-plotted, simultaneous movement - pretty unusual for a videogame: if you consider that Moore played WoW just before programming Steambird, the inspiration seems pretty evident to me. True that WoW is not the only pre-plotted movement dogfight boardgame, but in Steambirds you build your move with arrows, and that's even visually very close to WoW - not to the simulations you quote. In a gridless space, as in Wings of War (and this is not obvious - my Face2Face air combat videogame had a hexagonal grid in its logic for example, even if it was not visible). Besides in Steambirds you fire during the movement, and not only at the end as in Air Force and the boardgames you quote, and that's again specific of Wings of War (I'd say that this has been one of the main features I wanted in the game, to avoid unrealisting crossings between planes with no shoots during the turn as in many of the games you quote). In Steambirds you have a firing cone as in Wings of War, that's innatural for forward firing machineguns (and toitally unneeded in a continuous movement system as Steambird), and this is explained IMHO only with the game being "inspired" from WoW. In Steambirds you have a single amount of sustained damaged points for the plane, as in Wings of War, and not the locations of hits to several sections of the plane (tail, wings, fuselage, engine...) that is featured in Air Force and pretty standard in simulations boardgames - a designer decision that for WoW I took going against the trend after a long discussion with aviation historian Gregory Alegi, and it is remarkable that Steambirds did the same.
Please notice that I just stick to details that I can se as an user, not knowing how the game is programmed - but I suspect that I could find more in the code. For example, the damage system in Steambird is pretty close to the card system of WoW with a random choice of misses, hits with variable amounts of damage points and sometimes special damages on top of them.
Overall, "inspiration" seems pretty clear to me. And to several users that commented it on BGG and other forums when the game had been released - this is actually how I went to know that Steambirds appeared was released. Including this very post where Steambird has been presented as "Wings of War Online", no less...
Last edited by Angiolillo; 09-06-2012 at 21:58.
Thats not right. You shoot at the end of movement in WoW. You can fly right through someone's arc of fire during movement, or turn so that your firing arc sweeps an enemy aircraft, but unless you are in arc at the end of movement - no firing (unless I've missed something).Besides in Steambirds you fire during the movement, and not only at the end as in Air Force and the boardgames you quote, and that's again specific of Wings of War
Yes there are similarities, but there are also significant differences - and only so many ways to execute something like this. I played an ACW naval game many years ago that used the IGOUGO principle. It was fun, but not wonderful but on the strength of that game I bought some ACW naval minis and developed my own rules. They used an IGOUGO system, but then again so did lots of other games. They were "inspired by" the earlier rules in that having played the earlier game led to the second. they involve rolling to see if you hit the target, rolling to see if you penetrate the armour and then determining damage. Like the other set, but then again like just about every other set of naval wargames rules. Does that constitute plagiarism? No, of course not. You can't copyright a game mechanic. If you could Avalon Hill and SPI would have had a high old time sueing each other, as would many, many other game companies. Using cards to plot manoeuvres - in essence merely a different representation of pre-plotted movement. If someone else decides they want to use that mechanic in a future set of rules theyare quite at liberty to do so. Damage cards have been used before - I recall several sets of naval rules that used sets of playing cards to represent damage with "special effects" occurring on some cards. Same principle as WoW. plagiarism? No. Just a mechanic.
Well I do that in my Air War series of games - but then again I did that in my Fox Two modern rules from 1990. So perhaps WoW is "inspired" by my rules? And its the approach taken in the "Air War xxxx" series (which also has pre-plotted movement and the ability to perform pre-plotted manoeuvres) Were they inspired by WoW or vice versa? No, of course not. Its a perfectly natural way of doing it in a set of simple set of rules.In Steambirds you have a single amount of sustained damaged points for the plane, as in Wings of War, and not the locations of hits to several sections of the plane
I fully agree that there are times when plagiarism and excessive use of a concept without due credit is worth fighting over - your "Star Wars WoW" situation being a highly probable case in point. I don't think Steambirds is one of those, nor worth the effort.
I respect your opinion but well, to quote Wilson Mizner (at least let's quote sources!) "Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research." As WoW has been inspired by many games, there are also several games that got some inspiration from WoW, sometimes declaring it and sometimes not. Usually takig some bits. But in the case of Steambirds I see similarities in every part of the game: movement, firing, damage.
True that examining any game you can probably say: for this mechanic, the designer choosed the same solution of the designer of Game A. For this other mechanic, of the game B. For this other, of the game C. Hard to invent anything really new. But if all the designer's choices reminds the same game A, and the designer just played A for the first time a few days before, the suspect of direct derivation is pretty strong - that's how I see Steambirds. And I am not saying that I intend to fight against Steambirds' staff accusing them of plagiarism - I just find quite fun that one of them suddenly becomes a paladin of originality in game design only after somebody played their same game and took inspiration from it.
Just to be clear, a couple more of explanations of what I tried to say before without being too long and boring (with the result of being then unclear).
In some of the previous pre-plotted movement simulations, for a turn you choose a whole move for your aircraft and it is a complex move: for example in Blue Max or Ace of Aces. In others you build your complex move for the turn step by step, as in Air Force and its many derivations, as a sequence of very simple moves: advance, turn, slip. In both cases you plan a whole move, execute it, and then fire. You could have two planes going parallel at the start of the turn, then turn 180° one toward the other. In those games, at the end of the turn they are parallel again and can't shoot each other: Even if, visualizing their paths, there has been a moment during the turn in which they could. Or you could have two planes one in front of the other, too far away from each other to shoot at the start of the turn, then flying at full speed one against the other so that at the end of the turn they are one at the back of the other - again not in a position to fire, even if visualizing their path in most of the turn they were one in front of the other and in range. The same for a plane just going on the path of another, but turning a bit to the right just at the end of the turn... Or for many more situations like those.
To explain my design process: I wanted a system where you could fire in that mid part of the turn in which the planes could fire, even if at the end the positions prevented that. And that allowed planes having a target during all the turn to deal more damage than planes just getting to have the target in sight at the end of the turn. All in the simpliest way for the players to handle.
This is why I choosed a planning system made of very simple moves, not of complex ones as in Blue Max and Aces of Aces. And this is also why I decided that players should choose exactly 3 of them each turn - the same amount for everyone, no more, no less. So in WoW you plan your complex move as a sequence of 3 simple bits. In the first third of the turn you execute one and fire, in the second third of the turn you execute a second one and fire, in the third part of the turn you execute the third bit and fire again.
That's why I say that you actually fire during the turn, that forms a 3-step complex maneuvre and so it is overall equivalent to a turn of Blue Max, Ace of Aces or Air Force (they also feature a complex maneuvre overall, but during which you can not fire). And so in WoW you have the effect I wanted: if a plane has a target in its field of fire during the turn but not at the end it gets to fire to it anyway; if a plane has a target in sight during all its path of a turn it deals it 3 cards of damage (6 at short range) while if it just has it at the end of the turn it only deals it 1 card of damage (2 at short range).
For the detail of the damage cards, I ded not mean that WoW is the first game to use them. What I find peculiar of WoW is that with a single card draw you decide if you hit or not, if there are critical hits or not, if you jam your guns or not. Again for the sake of simplicity. Just think about Blue Max, where damage counters with points and special damages are included: in that game you have to roll a die, to modify it and to consult a chart to see if you hit, and then the chart tells you how many counters you have to take and which side of them to read, and then you have to distribute hits to locations, and then you have a separate die roll with other modifiers to see if you jam your guns. Pretty different from WoW's "if you have a target in sight, draw 1 or 2 cards and that's it".
Steambirds could have other solutions: for example it could decide that a plane is hit just because it is in an enemy field of fire, and then deal virtual "cards" to deal damage and special damages as in the games you say. But again, of all the possible solutions they seem to have chosen exactly the same as WoW, with cards that miss and cards that hit, and some hits with just generic damage points and some with special damages, and those damages generic instead than located.
For damage location: I did not know your rules alas. The dogfight games I played and I had in mind when designing WoW were mainly Air Force, Aces High, Dawn Patrol, Wings, Blue Max, Ace of Aces. All uf them but Ace of Aces used hit location. Comparing their weight, the most natural thing to think was that lightweight AoA was oversimplified and all the other suimulations were more correct. I had to investigate to decide that it was not really so. That is why I said that I went against the mainstream trend I saw.
Last edited by Angiolillo; 09-06-2012 at 23:58.
The finer legal points of inspiration or plagiarism are beyond me - But I'm very exited by the news of the official Wings of Glory online game in the making!
/Niclas
Let's hope it comes out soon!
And actually legal implications are quite hard to be understood by me too, I think there is no ground for anything - but if plagiarism was the real problem here, it should have been discussed in court two years ago more than on forums and on Facebook today. What actually striked me and prompted me to comment is that one of the developers of Steambirds become a paladin of originality and of an ethic abstention from copying previous works by others, but only after that their copy has been copied.
About "inspiration" for Steambirds from Wings of War, I can just add a note from Andy Moore's blog: "There’s a card game with similar mechanics to SB, but for automobiles – from the 80s. There’s one about airplanes from around 2001 (and I’ll admit that the earliest tech-test prototypes were indeed very much clones of these games)."
But in his opinion that's ok, after all he cloned more than 10 years old games and realistic ones, not fantasy/steampunk. Game mechanics are not an issue.
Source:
http://www.andymoore.ca/2011/08/the-...of-steambirds/
Last edited by Angiolillo; 09-07-2012 at 03:08.
Hi Andrea. You can copyright the rule book and all the artwork but you can't copyright the game mechanics. I found this out when FASA put out Top Gun and basically copied Blue Max. I asked Frank Chadwick about the legalities of what FASA had done and he told me it was perfectly legal. Whether it is ethical or not is another question
Which is why lawyers get rich, and gamers lose out when companies reinvent the wheel instead of innovating.Originally Posted by phililphall
Have many lawyers got rich from taking wargaming based copyright cases?
mmmmhhh... I agree.
Last edited by Attila57; 09-07-2012 at 11:02.
Phillip is correct: game rules cannot be copyrighted under US law, only their graphic presentation thereof. Which is what opened the door for the clones of Classic D&D to be published.
As for Steambirds. Meh. It's cute. Makes for a pleasant distraction. Don't care much for the "steampunk" theme. I'll stick to WoW/G & WW1 thanks.
Under US Law ist the Magic Phrase Other country other Laws. Thats the reason for International Layers, it´s sad that the Law Department of a Company is the Most important one today.Phillip is correct: game rules cannot be copyrighted under US law, only their graphic presentation thereof. Which is what opened the door for the clones of Classic D&D to be published.
As for Steambirds. Meh. It's cute. Makes for a pleasant distraction. Don't care much for the "steampunk" theme. I'll stick to WoW/G & WW1 thanks.
True, but on this point laws across the world are pretty consistent.Under US Law ist the Magic Phrase Other country other Laws.
Sad, but inevitable in a world where people believe they are entitled to damages from a coffee vendor because the coffee they split in their own lap was too hot, where corporations sue people for using their own name because it is the same as the corporation's, and companies make strong legal cases based on their right to lie because telling the truth would be harmful to their businessit´s sad that the Law Department of a Company is the Most important one today
Last edited by David Manley; 09-07-2012 at 23:08.
As we're going down this slippery slope, there are some interesting 'handy hints' on copyright here. Of course, enforcement is another matter!
http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/co...opyright_myths
While 1 is probably most germane to this thread, 4 and 5 are of greatest relevance to activities on the WoG Aerodrome site.
Last edited by Baldrick62; 09-07-2012 at 23:56.
Very interesting link. Yes I am not always at ease with the use of WoW/G materials made around, especially when done for profit (everybody can do miniature in the same, quite popular scale but some game bases for example are a different matter IMHO, copyright or not). For fan materials, my publishers have always been liberal for the industry standards (see what Game Workshop did) usually just asking for aknowledging the game in a proper way.
A big hallo to Philip Hall. Speaking of online games, his Blue Max (for those of you not knowin it) has a very involving online version here:
http://www.youplay.it/play/bm_GameRules.asp
Besides, another thing that maybe not all of you know is several months ago Giochi Uniti announced a new edition of his fun boardgame, a real milestone in dogfight games. Good luck with it!
I Knew a Complett Area where Copyright means the Rigth to Copy.
The new American Dream sue one to get Rich.Sad, but inevitable in a world where people believe they are entitled to damages from a coffee vendor because the coffee they split in their own lap was too hot, where corporations sue people for using their own name because it is the same as the corporation's, and companies make strong legal cases based on their right to lie because telling the truth would be harmful to their business
The online game may be cute. But I'm a face to face gaming kind of guy. Andrea I really like the WGS and WGF and the minis. Keep them coming and I will keep getting them. If others try to copy you good luck. Nothing beats the real Ma coy.
By the way...will you be coming out with Ace Cards for WGS?
Thanks for all you do.
Thomas
Last edited by CappyTom; 09-08-2012 at 07:17. Reason: credit
Andrea, thanks for the kind words. I'm enjoying WoW/G. Have all but Goerings D-VII of the planes and I'm looking forward to the duel packs. I hope you have much success with the game.
Yes indeed. Quite looking forward to it!
2nd on both face-to-face (or even board vs video for that matter!) gaming & also the thanks to Andrea!The online game may be cute. But I'm a face to face gaming kind of guy. Andrea I really like the WGS and WGF and the minis. Keep them coming and I will keep getting them. If others try to copy you good luck. Nothing beats the real Ma coy.
By the way...will you be coming out with Ace Cards for WGS?
Thanks for all you do.
Thomas
Phil, if the Series 2 re-issue will not come quickly enough (and of course it will include the all-white D.VII) I will search closets and attics to see if I have any spare copy - last one I found it was given to a marrying couple with game themed tables at their banquet, and the spouse of course deserved an all-white one:
pic1369728_md.jpg
Moving to another flat in the next few months will help personal archaeology...
Andrea, thank you for the offer. If you can find one I would gladly pay you for it.
I'm looking forward to the duel packs. I think it's a good marketing move and hope it is successful.
Last edited by phililphall; 09-09-2012 at 10:37.
Actually it is a blessing game-mechanics are very hard to copyright or we would have not seen any new games on board or screen in the last 15 years. Think about it guys - most successful games evolve other working principles and mechanics and refine them with something new. Now what would we do if there was no way to actually utilize ANY previously released information or gaming experience? I would be out of a job, and most people would be still playing Defender or Chess. Hehe.
Obviously I don't endorse blatant copying or stealing other peoples intellectual property - at all! Such as has been the case with companies like Zynga and others. There's a clear line between "inspiration" and "copy-paste".
I agree. Several games were clearly influenced by WoW, and I never complained about them (X-Wing apart of course, where the matter is pretty more delicate). I may think of TechnoWitches and a similar German dragon race game published in 2005. I could probably add a recent game about regattas.
On the other hand, WoW has been influenced by many games - and I hope I declared loudly enough how much I am thankful to all of them.
In a case like SteamBirds, if Wings of War was both the direct inspiration and a big influence for the first prototype, maybe the original programmer (who defined it "a clone") could have called to discuss a license. He did not, the game somehow evolved from its first version, and that's how it went. After all, I can live with that. The other kind thing that the Steambirds team could have done would have been to acknowledge from the start the influence of WoW, and maybe of other titles if any, instead than just speaking of its derivation from "obscure boardgames" (pretty a nasty and useless definition). But I can live with that too.
Last edited by Angiolillo; 10-01-2012 at 04:21.
If you search youtube you will find some Clones of WoW
Of course there are similar games available - just as WoW is similar to some of its predecessors (both digital and board). And it's good that way. Concerning the licensing: that's of course a very hot topic as there are many implications that come along with a license. In all honesty: I would avoid licensing unless it's something like Star Wars or other massive franchise especially if thinking about a different setting and platform. I've been working with major IP's over the last 10 or more years and it's always a hassle. Unless you can really gain on a marketing side it usually doesn't pay of - but of course it depends on the individual contract and relationship to the licensor, meaning there is no rule carved in stone...
Concerning credits: absolutely right. I totally believe in "honor where honor is due". That way everyone has a benefit and fans actually broaden their horizon, finding new games and designers they didn't know. Again the only reason I can see against it is a legal one. Speaking to an IP or copyright lawyer he/she will present you with an absolute worst-case scenario - especially if US based
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks