Talk Fantasy Football

Darkson wrote:In the tournament proper.
Ruling from GW staff was: "you can use custom pitches, but only with your opponents consent".

Yup. I over heard this as well.
If I had know I would have hauled my stadium around!


"Want to play under flood lights or not? !!"

Darkson wrote:

nyarlathotep wrote:Couldn't that all be cleared up by the addition of another row of squares beyond the endzone?

Then that's treading on GW's IP for 2nd edition boards.

In addition it was my understanding that it was more about the way the field is divided than the exact number of squares.

DDogwood wrote:

Mordredd wrote:Oh, and I remember talking to someone in GW about this at the time (JJ, Andy, can't quite recall who) and the story they spun was that there were indeed many things that contributed to the victory; but that the pitch layout was the killer blow that sealed the deal for them due to it being unique to BB.

I don't know if anyone, even the folks at Cyanide or GW, can actually say whether the board layout was the 'killer blow', since the lawsuit was settled out of court. The fact that Cyanide walked away with the rights to produce a Blood Bowl video game implies that the case was far from cut-and-dried, and that both parties realized that there wasn't much benefit in a drawn-out court case.

If GW had an impregnable case, there wouldn't be much incentive for them to settle at all, let alone give the defendant the right to develop the game.

On your first point; have you considered that there had to be a point in the pre-trial negotiations at which Cyanide folded and conceded to GW? If that point was when GW pointed out that their BB pitch layout was unique then labelling it their coup de grace would seem reasonable, wouldn't you say?

As for incentive, well GW have tried to do BB computer games before (one got aborted in development pretty recently, relatively speaking; you can probably still find the trailer on youtube), and they know about the sucess of FUMBBL, so they're obviously interested in pursuing BB in this format. Now, thanks to legal action, they more or less own a computer games developer who has already gone most of the way to making one. Its wasn't actual BB, but the foundations and expertise was already there. So instead of having worthless IOUs from a bankrupt company they go for the we'll invest in you-you give us royalties in liu of damages win-win approach.

Ok, that may or may not be what happened (I don't know); but its a very plausible scenario.

Mordredd wrote:Ok, that may or may not be what happened (I don't know); but its a very plausible scenario.

Totally plausible; GW has made some very poor choices in picking developers for their electronic entertainment licenses, so it does make sense to pick a company that's already done a good job with your IP

All I'm saying is that we don't have enough information to say whether the pitch design is something that GW can defend as their IP. I doubt that it's patented, and the only unique features are the number of squares and the wide zone lines.

If you made a board with the same number and size of squares as a Blood Bowl pitch, and drew in the extra lines to make it look like a tennis court, I doubt GW could do anything about it (especially if you said it was a tennis court).

I've spoken to koliriokolapso, and he is happy to ship pitches to the UK. He would prefer to send a batch of them at a time, and I guess that would probably be the cheaper option, so if there are a few people interested in getting one I could do a bulk order.

The cost is £25 for the basic pitch in your choice of colour - blue, red, green, mustard yellow, black.

A pitch with one half in one colour, and one in another is £30. Same colours available.

If you want your NAF nick or something else in one of the endzones, that's and extra £5, or two nicks/phrases in both endzones is £10.

So I'm looking at getting a black and mustard yellow pitch with my NAF nick wilzif in one endzone and something else in the other - that's £40 plus postage.

koliriokolapso is finding out how much it will cost to send them to England and then I can place an order.

So, anyone else interested in getting one of the pitches? I'm happy to place and order and receive them and then ship them on in the UK if there are enough takers.

Let me know.

Come on, any takers?

Still thinking abouut it.

Ok, koliriokolapso has found out it will £14 for postage and packaging, but it will be the same price for up to 4 pitches to be sent over here.

It makes sense then to get 4 if there are enough people interested. I'm still happy to receive them and ship them on in the UK.

Do we have another three?

Very temted, let me check my bank and bills etc

I'd definately be interested, shall I PM you details of what specifics I'd like Wilf? And how should we organise payment?

Hi Nippy, yes PM me that's fine. Payment-wise I think kolirio is looking for PayPal, so ideally if there's another 3 interested plus me then if you could send me the funds - I will transfer them on as one payment for the whole lot.

If you're not happy with that, it should be fine to pay kolirio directly and just pay me for the postage in the UK.

Not sure how much it will cost to forward on in the UK, but I can't see it being any more than £5 per pitch.

Cheers

Hi Wilf,

I'm also up for getting a board Shall I pm you with details as you have advised Nippy to?

I am in

Leipziger - that's fine mate. Send the details.


As soon as I have received funds from you lot, I'll confirm you as part of the order. We can fit up to 4 pitches per package, so it will be first come first served really. I guess if there's more than 4 we could go for two packages, so long as people are happy with that and kolirio is happy to take on the extra workload!

Let me know as soon as.

So far there is me and Valen - any more?

I am interested. but have to check the Bank account