Chaos Daemons Roster Update

[edavi830]

Originally Posted by jlong05

While we thank you for your willingness to limit your personal use of army builder due to a misunderstanding on how files are created, I don't think any current, past, or future data file creator/maintainer feels that lonewolfs is making money off their hard work.

I know for myself I work on the files because I play the game, enjoy the game, and use the files as a game aide myself. This in effects show the datafiles maintainer process ever started. As a game comes, someone decides to make the files as a aide for themselves and provide it for others.

Holding lonewolf or army builder responsile for not understanding this is just bad for you. As stated before, I am not bitter or upset, and while my response was pointed and short, it was not in anyway bitter or rude. As I indicated, simply a review of the forums and the sticky traded items would have given a baseline of when rules are available.

Since in general we have to answer this same question about every other month(basically as each new codex is released by GW) one can see where it has become faster to answer as I did and not as we use to do in long personalized posts or pm's. instead we posted a sticky thread and also listed the same details in the FAQ.

Also remember, that the files exist for more than just GW, and there are many other great games available. The licensing system is great for keeping all your games updated.

Thank you for this post. As I said before I am really impressed with the work that you guys (the datafile authors) do. I admit to being a bit standoffish with my posts before, and I want to make sure you know that I do appreciate the work you do for the hobby. I was just a bit put out to realize just how much LW benefits from your work.

The reality is, that (in my humble experience) people buy army builder primarily to make WHFB/WH40k army lists. We certainly do not (and in most cases cannot since the process is complex) expect to be able to create our own datafiles. The fact is that none of us would have purchased this software if the datafiles weren't going to be available, that's just the way it is and should be realized and accepted.

The hard part for me here, is that knowing the above statement to be true, it is hard to see any way in which the datafile authors are not being exploited by LW (I DO realize that this is not intentional, it seems true though, regardless). So personally it becomes difficult for me to accept that I am paying $$$ to a company who directly benefits from the free work of others.

I also understand your frustration with people continually asking about the releases (especially with current release schedule for codices. They are coming damn fast!). There are lots of idiots on the internet (I probably am one myself). It's easy to be irritated with them. That said, I now accept that your previous post was not meant to be rude or bitter, so I apologize for the attitude I showed you previously. Please accept my apology and gratitude.

Not sure what else to say. Thanks guys.

[jlong05]

Edavi,

Apology accepted and I hope you accept mine as well as my intention was not to alienate players, but educate as quickly as possible.

Again, I don't think any maintainer feels 'taken advantage of'. At least by Lonewolf. The guys at LW are all great and willing to help out in any way they can, but we as maintainer understand the limits legally. That isn't to say we haven't tried to work out better arrangements with GW, but in 100% of the cases we have been met with closed doors and in a few cases letters requiring we stop.

Now, as you know we haven't stopped, but I will admit it was damn close last year and this was because of GW, not LW and not because of maintainer feelings. As such we endeavored through a solution that for now seems to have stopped GW from bothering us and continue the files for everyone. This is mainly the reason for my sig, and is a shared sig by several, if not all, the maintainers.

In the long run though, Army Builder is a great tool for tabletop gaming. Everyone needs to remember though that when/if the files for GW products stop, it is not be quad of anything LW did, or any unhappiness from maintainers but will most likely be due to GW finding some official way to stop it permanently. Most other companies see AB for its benefits to their sales, but for some reason GW just sees it as a loss to them. In fact, think yourself on how much more willing you are to buy new models and books and stuff when you have a tool available to make your gaming so easy.

Hopefully you see this as reasons to stick and continue using AB, I know I prefer seeing lists from AB over handmade lists as I have to double and triple check those taking time from my games. I can't speak for your gaming group, but in general AB has more merits than pitfalls in my opinion.

[morkalg]

Originally Posted by edavi830

The hard part for me here, is that knowing the above statement to be true, it is hard to see any way in which the datafile authors are not being exploited by LW (I DO realize that this is not intentional, it seems true though, regardless). So personally it becomes difficult for me to accept that I am paying $$$ to a company who directly benefits from the free work of others.

You do realize that that statement completely discredits the hard work that the programmers from Lone Wolf put in to create an excellent framework with a very intuitive and useful user interface right? All the formatting tools which pull data from the user maintained files, all the views and "reports" are made possible by the Army Builder Program. The math, the ability to link custom pictures, the various export options are all only available because of the code the programmers from Lone Wolf write. Without it, you may as well use Excel or some other spreadsheet-like tool to just total your points up for you.

Army Builder isn't useful at all without the datafiles... but the datafiles are useless without Army Builder.

[edavi830]

Originally Posted by morkalg

You do realize that that statement completely discredits the hard work that the programmers from Lone Wolf put in to create an excellent framework with a very intuitive and useful user interface right? All the formatting tools which pull data from the user maintained files, all the views and "reports" are made possible by the Army Builder Program. The math, the ability to link custom pictures, the various export options are all only available because of the code the programmers from Lone Wolf write. Without it, you may as well use Excel or some other spreadsheet-like tool to just total your points up for you.

Army Builder isn't useful at all without the datafiles... but the datafiles are useless without Army Builder.

Well it certainly wasn't my intention to discredit the hard work of the programmers themselves, AB IS A GREAT TOOL...when there are datafiles to use it with! But the fact remains that the LW programmers get paid, so frankly they shouldn't need a pat on the back too (yes it's always nice to be appreciated, and just so we are clear, I appreciate them too). Just like a hammer would be a useless tool without a handle, AB is pretty much a useless tool without the datafiles. A seeming harsh reality, but there you go.

Jlong was also damn right about GW being very shortsighted on this, it seems like they have put all parties in a bad position. AB really does make it easier for me to build lists and as such makes it easier for me to build "wish-lists" which do in turn cause me to purchase more models, there's no doubt about that.

All that said, for now (thank you Jlong i'll keep on using AB (my current license is good for about another 6-7mos anyway), but as a WH40k player I just can't see the current setup continueing forever. Major kudos to the file authors doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, because I know that if it were me i'd eventually get tired of working for nothing and burn out on it.

In closing, I think I'm ready to let it all rest and see what happens in the future.

[fyrebyrd]

And seeing this thread come to a calm close is where I will let it stay.

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