Contacting a LOT of people

[Bilbo the Hutt]

Well, here's a policy I found on their website under forum rules:

Dream cards are not allowed. Ideas for virtual cards, revisions to the game, discussion about potential future card ideas, and the like are all welcomed, but we cannot allow members to post virtual card text due to potential copyright issues from the dream card creator, Luscasfilm, and decipher, as well as other concerns. Violating this policy will usually result in the post being locked and edited, but persistence after repeated warnings may result in other action.


So it's not as harsh as you may think, they leave you with some wiggle room for discussing future card ideas, I think they just don't want people posting in the format of, hey! I came up with this new card while I was bored at work, here it is!  From what I understand you can essentially say you've made a dream card but you have to phrase it more along the lines of wouldn't it be cool if there was a new version of Luke who blah blah blah.

Now I don't know any of the 'official' specifics but I've heard that Lucasfilm and the Player's Committee have some sort of gentleman's agreement going that allows them to make virtual cards as long as they don't use any images or ideas that don't appear on previously printed Decipher cards (i.e. no cards named General Grievous or Count Dooku because the Star Wars CCG only went as far as Episode I and those names do not appear on other cards).  As far as I know these policies have been in place since day 1 and there haven't been any big copyright problems between Lucasfilm and the PC and they've been making virtual cards for longer than Decipher made actual cards at this point.  It seems that the Star Wars PC has done a really good job of handling the whole copyright relationship so they would be good people to contact for advice on this issue, and I'm sure they won't mind helping out because there is quite a bit of overlap between SWCCGers and LOTRTCGers.

[Sete]

In their site's forums... And thats merely because no card creator want to be linked with V-Card made by fans... (and for legal purposes, if a card designer really made a copy of a dream card made by any fan, they could use it 100%, since they OWN the rights of the game). A real and practical example of this is Magic the Gathering... if you have a ton of dream cards, they are MTG dream cards... anywhere, everywhere... I even know a couple of friends that run a software to create virtual cards... and the site still up, after so many years, so Wizards of the Coast it's not very concerned with that...

Listen, it's as stupid as this: "Oh no, don't create any dream cards that we might see, copy, print and SELL FOR MONEY!"

Copyright issues are severe, when you steal something to make profit out of it, when you claim you are the owner or creator of something you are not... Then copyright can totally punch you in the face...

They state the policy of "no dream cards" among their websites, not fan websites... One of these days you have Chris Tolkien (or whatever his name is) forbidding any fan to write a fan fiction or an rpg about Lotr... "Oh, sorry, you can't... I probably will have that idea in a near future so you are not allowed to write it..."

Right now, even if you do any DC for Lotr TCG, what would Decipher do? "Oh, they stole ideas we could use... for future sets... that we are not allowed to do anymore..."

Seriously?  

[Cw0rk]

Guys, can we keep focused on the topic "contacting a lot of players" and talk about V-cards and copyrights issues somewhere else?

[Cw0rk]

Did we get any answers from the decktech or masahamatman community?

[chompers]

No reply from Dechtech - can't say I am overly surprised - but we did have a new member called Dech shortly after I sent the email - coincidence ?? Maybe Dech can let us know

Contacting both actually prosed to be quite difficult - but I was able to place a message on one of the boards pointing them to this site - can't say if it worked - but membership at TLHH continues to expand rapidly IMO and some that have joined recently are quite active on this site.

[Kenddrick]

Man, we also got to get our people, the active members here on TLHH to get involved with the PC. Almost all of the regular forum visitors are showing no interest in the PC at all.

[chompers]

Kenddrick - I find it strange that there does not appear to be universal interest in a PC on these forums. Being involved in the creation of the PC means having a voice and stopping the proposed PC heading off in the wrong direction.

The PC can serve so many purposes - marketing, resources, tournaments, rule support (beyond just discussion on a forum but creating up-to-date current rulebooks), v-cards, errata cards, promo cards, etc. With the right people discussing and forming the PC, each of these elements can be introduced in a way that will support every player of the game (not just the needs of a few).

We know people still like and play the game - everyone should get behind it and let this game evolve (even if that just means getting more people playing it).

IMO the best part about LOTR is that it is finished. This means it is free or almost free to play (see GCCG and the PC could issue printable cards from high-res pdfs). What could possibly be better than a free card game, that evolves and is supported by the players that love it.

A friend told me the other day - you need to get in the land of the living - play a game that still exists (why - so I can spend $6 on a booster and not get the card I want). Incidently - he still plays Star Trek (which is also a dead game but supported by a PC).

[CategoryOneGames.com]

Neal and I have been talking about the LOTR PC a lot recently but he never mentioned that email that you guys sent him.  I'll contact him and talk about that specifically as well as the other things we have been talking about with the LOTR game recently. 

[Smeagollum]

Maybe you can use this for Dutch players:

http://www.armbell.com/theprancingpony

If you click on "Gebruikerslijst/memberlist" you'll find all accounts from members of the prancing pony.

If you need an account to get in you can use mine:

Accountname: smeagollum
Password: tlhh

I trust you'll not miss use it

[chompers]

Great to see some activity. Hopefully now we're past Christmas, New Years we can get some momentum happening.

Welcome Category1Games.com, all the help you can offer would be a great support!