- #PLAAYING VASSAL WITH FRIENDS FULL#
- #PLAAYING VASSAL WITH FRIENDS DOWNLOAD#
- #PLAAYING VASSAL WITH FRIENDS FREE#
“If none of the players owns a copy of the game, I would hope that the experience leads some of them to buy the game,” he says. The only option left is that publishers benefit from VASSAL in some way. “But I don't see a substantive difference between playing in person and playing using a computer in that regard.” Is it permitted because most users do own a copy of the game? “It's typical that some players don't,” admits Joel. But does it happen often? “Seldom,” says Joel. I’m aware of at least one publisher, Fantasy Flight Games, who dislike people making VASSAL modules for their games. But I can hardly see that it would be worthwhile for anyone to go to court over any of this, since we remove modules from the site whenever asked.” “Copyright law in the US, at least, tends to be about distribution, not production. “There is, to the best of my knowledge, no jurisdiction in which it is illegal to *produce* VASSAL modules,” he tells me. I presume that Joel would know a reasonable amount about copyright law, and he doesn’t disappoint.
#PLAAYING VASSAL WITH FRIENDS FREE#
Joel goes so far as to suspect that “the vast majority of wargames are not played live.”īut since VASSAL is free software, and the majority of the game modules available for it are fan-made and released for free, it would seem to be on rather sticky legal ground even though the terms and conditions specify that users must own a physical copy of the game. Joel’s been on the project since 2006, but it was originally released in 2003 by Rodney Kinney and has gained a devoted following. Whatever its shortcomings, it’s become incredibly popular. “I’ve never clumsily knocked over a stack of pieces with an errant die roll in VASSAL, I can think as long as I want about a move when playing by email, and I have a log of the game when we're done.” Any game I play using VASSAL is a play I wouldn't have had otherwise.”Īnd, as he points out, the experience has its compensations. “But it's not a question of VASSAL replacing face-to-face play.
“My grandfather always said that to get something, you have to give something up,” he says. Nevertheless, Joel agrees they’re better played face to face. But wargames tend to be slow, heavy, two-player affairs where the social dimension takes a back seat. Moving them online seems inherently contradictory. Board games are traditionally viewed as primarily social experiences, giving players the chance to glory in the startled expressions of their opponents before laying the smackdown. Support for things like cards wasn't added until later, so wargames had a head-start.” “When VASSAL became a separate project, it had the capabilities you need for games with stacks of square pieces on a hex grid - i.e.
It was just for ASL, not a general program for playing board games,” he says. “VASSAL began as VASL: Virtual Advanced Squad Leader. Joel lets me in on a particular reason, beyond the administrative advantages, why this should be so. It’s also representative of the bulk of games that can be played on VASSAL, most of which – though not all - are conflict simulations of some kind. It’s not hard to see why anyone wanting to play it might prefer to do so on the convenience of their computer desktop. It’s a great way to accommodate large, long games.”ĭAK II is a monstrous military simulation of North Africa during World War Two, with 1500 counters and five 22” by 34” maps. “I'd have to keep our two-year-old daughter and two cats away from the kitchen table that whole time.
#PLAAYING VASSAL WITH FRIENDS FULL#
“If I want to play the full campaign in DAK II it would take weeks,” he tells me. It’s a situation that Joel Uckelman, the project leader on VASSAL, understands well. There were games I already owned, games I wanted to try, games I’d never heard of but sounded superb all at my fingertips alongside an army of eager opponents. There are more out there in the wilds.Īt the point of succumbing to child-induced cabin fever, I was suddenly free to choose from this bewildering library of brilliance and play games as slowly as I wanted without ever leaving the house.
#PLAAYING VASSAL WITH FRIENDS DOWNLOAD#
And not a narrow selection, either: each game requires that you download a specific module, and the official site alone lists over 1,300 of them. It’s a freeware, open source Java program that lets you play boardgames over the internet, either live or via email. I found this out the hard way as a first-time parent, house bound by the demands of a baby and drained of energy but not my feverish appetite for gaming. If you want to play a board game, one of the most essential ingredients is someone to play against.
0 kommentar(er)
