The Next Evolution of Online Miniatures Gaming

[Cobalt]

Not intended to be a replacement for real face-to-face gaming, I am interested in helping out with the next step of online miniatures gaming. My remotely located brother and I are long time war gamers and we have tried multiple ways of playing turn based war games online. He is a big Falmes of War player and I prefer Axis & Allies Miniatures.

The one thing that keeps him away from playing by forum here on this site is the drawn out process of stating your actions and rolling die via individual posts and then copying those results to MapView. Do you (that is anybody with a remote inkling of programing knowledge) think it is feasible to build a real-time Java based engine that sdepicts all of these functions, as well as real-time chat in a single user interface.

What are the legal implications? Even if we are doing something like that for non-profit, would Wizards unleash the lawyers from Mordor on us?

[Motdc]

Not intended to be a replacement for real face-to-face gaming, I am interested in helping out with the next step of online miniatures gaming. My remotely located brother and I are long time war gamers and we have tried multiple ways of playing turn based war games online. He is a big Falmes of War player and I prefer Axis & Allies Miniatures.

The one thing that keeps him away from playing by forum here on this site is the drawn out process of stating your actions and rolling die via individual posts and then copying those results to MapView. Do you (that is anybody with a remote inkling of programing knowledge) think it is feasible to build a real-time Java based engine that sdepicts all of these functions, as well as real-time chat in a single user interface.

What are the legal implications? Even if we are doing something like that for non-profit, would Wizards unleash the lawyers from Mordor on us?

There are a number of free, open-source, and even low-cost commercial tools that will support the creation of a "real-time" table-top battle. 

Here are a few:

http://www.kloogeinc.com/index.html

http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/index.html

VASSAL is another one

[Cobalt]

Thanks for the leads Motdc!

[Cobalt]

Having looked over the two options previously listed my Motdc, that I am surpised to see Battlegrounds was made with Macromedia (now Adobe)Director. I thought that developing tool was going the way of the dinosaur and being replaced by Flash.

I was hoping the future digital gaming table would from an open source like Java so those of us inclined can tinker with it to make the specific games we want to play.

More to follow ...

[Motdc]

klewdge is Java-based.

If you find a tool that supports what you needs, I highly recommend that over "lets modify the source code".  Its better to configure than to code. 

[Cobalt]

Well, I've checked out all three options recommeded by Motdc and it looks like the Vassal game engine has the most potential for my particular interest. There seems to be a large game community already built around this engine. They do have some Axis & Allies Miniature and War at Sea mods, but I have only experiemented with the BattleLore board game so far. (It's done very well!)

[Motdc]

Again, just make sure VASSAL is configuration-based enough.  if you have to code to make changes then I'd look at one of the more polished products.

Battlegrounds has stated on their website that they are working on a wargamer-specific tabletop version of their software.  Id be curious to know how that is comiong  along...

That being said VASSAL has been around for a while and lots of games have been ported to it so I know its pretty solid.