Anyone remember the old Hero Quest board game? Man I'd love to see a return of that with more features and stuff.
Anyone remember the old Hero Quest board game? Man I'd love to see a return of that with more features and stuff.
HeroQuest is the game that introduced me to the high fantasy genre and, later, to tabletop RPG. It's because of HeroQuest if I play D&D/Pathfinder today. The box art of HeroQuest is so awesome that it makes the box art of Descent: Journeys In The Dark, a HeroQuest clone, look silly. :)
We still use the pieces to build our maps.
I recently picked up a nearly complete copy of Hero Quest, along with two expansions. I still get giddy thinking about it. Between the copy I just picked up, and the old copy (which was less complete) I had as a kid I have a full functioning board game.
We may actually get together tonight and play a scenario or two.
Glad to hear there are other players. Use the minis all the time on my games.
Anyone remember the old Hero Quest board game? Man I'd love to see a return of that with more features and stuff.
Actually I like the simplicity of it and more features would probably damage some of the value. We've played mine a few times in the last couple of years when we just wanted a quick game instead of running a whole session of D&D.
HeroScape used a similar mechanic for their dice, in fact you can use HeroScape dice for HeroQuest dice.
We still use the pieces to build our maps.
Yea I remember way back when, joes hero quest was our first foray into using actual miniatures for our monsters on the board, instead of go-pieces or coins.
Hero Quest was the gateway game that got me into RPGs.
I still use the miniatures and dungeon dressing in my Pathfinder games.
I have it (borrowed from my Aunt), and I'm running my kids through this right now!
Currently on Quest 3, with two total party wipeouts (they haven't figured out NOT to split the party!). Then again, at 8 and 5, I don't expect them to. They think it's a riot!
Aww man I had a chaos warrior in WarhammerQuest...fun times.
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I happily own this game! My husband ended up finding a full game on Ebay since my fathers original had been destroyed by my half brother messing with it.
-sniffles- Poor Chaos Warrior lost an epic battle to the youngin' and is now missing a wing and his weapons.
I just wish we knew of more people in the Tampa Bay Area that loved to game so it may see some use for once.
Ah, why did I ever sell HQ?
Luckily I discovered Descent, which has much better character options. I do end up ignoring some of the more finicky rules, but hey who doesn't?
Like a few others in this thread, Hero Quest was my introduction into high fantasy gaming, and it forever has my thanks for this. I had all the expansions (plus all the ones in the White Dwarf magazine). We never quite got the whole "party" aspect. In fact we were often in direct competition to see who could grab all the treasure and complete the quest (for it's rewards!). We may have been some of the first people to perform PVP, when the Wizard cast Sleep on the Barbarian to get prize. We had a LOT of TPK's in that game, in fact I don't think we ever completed a single expansion set with the same party as we had started with. Ah, youthfull memories.
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Inevitably, there is now a Kickstarter for a new-but-faithful version of HERO QUEST.
They've already smashed the Kickstarter target (they asked for $58,000 and have already gotten $327,000) so this is definitely happening, with a fair number of extras on top.
Werthead, if I could favorite your post infinity times, I would.
Not so definately. Intellectual property writes dispute just had this taken out of view from the public on kickstarter.
There's been a C&D, which isn't quite the same thing. Almost anyone can C&D and Kickstarter will always take it down briefly to look at it. If it has no merit, they'll put it back up.
According to the company, they'd been in constant contact with Hasbro throughout the process and had been talking to them about officially licensing the product in those territories where they didn't already have the rights. It's possible Hasbro's legal team threw a fit regardless, or maybe the company's, "We'll ship anywhere in the world regardless," claim violated the spirit of the talks with Hasbro, since that did seem to be saying, "We're going to licence the game elsewhere in the world with you if we can, but if we can't we're just going to ship it anyway."
It's also possible it had nothing to do with Hasbro and GW threw a fit and C&Ded it with no legal basis to do so (like they did on Amazon with the Space Marine debacle last year which completely backfired on them). On that basis, I would expect Kickstarter to dismiss the claim as baseless and reinstate it within a couple of weeks. If it's with Hasbro (who actually own the original game rights now), it could be more serious.
ETA: Crikey. They'd made $542,000 and were trending towards $4 million! Maybe Hasbro just said, "Sod that, we'll do it ourselves"?
It is exactly the same thing wert.
A cease and desist, based on an intellectual property claim has been issued.
Kickstarter, has as a result, taken the project from public view. Which is what I said had happened.
Fair enough.
Ah, it turns out that the company issuing the C&D is called Moon Design. They are, apparently, the rights-holders to the HERO QUEST name in the USA. I gather the rights situation was rather complicated and Gamezone had not fully cleared everything with every other company involved. Apparently they are now in discussions over a licensing deal.
I hope that goes through. I would pay good money just for a bag of the miniatures. Generic skeletons, orcs, goblins have a million-and-one uses.
@Sar: I wholly concur. I am more than willing to pay the ~$100 for the game next year. Like the others have said, I'm certainly hoping this/these dispute(s) can be worked out amicably.
The project can no longer be found through simple searches on Kickstarter. I fear the discussions don't seem to be yielding favorable results.
And an update from gamezone minatures: here. It looks like it will eventually move to a different funding platform, though this doesn't really explain any of the matters of copyright/licensing in question.
The situation reminds me of this a little bit.
A new crowd sourcing platform has been found. Lanzanos.
A new crowd sourcing platform has been found. Lanzanos.
Yeah !!! Now it's time to cut on some expenses to get this :)
I wouldn't touch this thing now with a 10 meter pole.
I wouldn't touch this thing now with a 10 meter pole.
Why?
Is there anything that prevent you from buying a product in a foreign country, where the publisher owns the rights to the product identity?
The problem was that they tried to sell the game in america through an american distributor (Kickstarter) while in the USA the rights to the product identity belongs to someone else.
88 dolleridoos is unfortunately too expensive for me. Although it is definitely preferable to the 419 dollars they are asking on amazon for the original game.
I agree that it is a little expensive for my wallet, but there enough instances where I would like some sort of roleplaying experience and a short adventure like this would be more in line with what would work. The campaign goes for about a month still, so as we get closer to the close, I'll be able to better evaluate my financial situation.
Additionally, I think this is a game I would be able to break out for (eventual) children to play on a rainy afternoon.
Super Dungeon Explore! is a very cool game in the same vein as Heroquest. Its a lot more polished and the models are beautiful. It might not bring back the same nostalgia as the original but is still a damn good game.
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Without getting too deep into this, I can give you a designer's perspective on the Heroquest situation in this interview.
Some fans contend that since Hasbro hasn’t done anything with the game in years, it should be open season on the rights to the game.
Put me leaning this way strongly. I am not 100% committed to that position, but I certainly understand it and agree intellectually with it.
That’s insane.
I'm sorry if you feel that way, but I disagree.
In the US, copyrights extend for the life of the author plus 70 years, and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication. You don’t have to like that law, but it is the law.
And if it turns out that Gamezone is using a legal loophole in the laws of Spain and/or EU ...
That’s what people like me need to keep paying our bills, and later those of our heirs.
I understand this sentiment. Let me ask you though, why should I or anyone else care about you (generic IP holder) and your "heirs"?
My understanding is that IP laws were enacted to incentivize producers of IP to create material for public consumption. The producers make things that enhance the lives of the public and the public agrees to protect the rights to those things for the producer. There is two sides to the coin, not merely protection but also production for the public good. When producers of IP decide to sit material up on a shelf and remove it from the public's consumption, in my mind the producers have broken the social contract in that case.
So why should the public in those cases care about protecting the producer of IP?
EDIT: Let me add, if anything this situation should be lighting a fire under the rumps of IP holders that there are markets for their older products and there is an opportunity to make money on them. Why the US holders of the IP for HeroQuest didn't see this as a chance to come out with an "Official 25th Anniversity Edition". And the great thing about things like Kickstarter is that big companies can use it too and not have to risk anything on an endeavor. It they don't raise enough to make it financially worthwhile, it fails.
EDIT2: And let me say that it is not that I don't want to give folks like yourself your money for your products. In fact I am begging you to let me ("Shut up and take my money!") But companies have to put the stuff out for people to buy it.
Without getting too deep into this, I can give you a designer's perspective on the Heroquest situation in this interview.
Thanks for the interview, Mike. I didn't have a chance to wade through the nearly 30 pages of posts on BGG, but everything is sound. I would still like a copy of Hero Quest (or an appropriately faithful clone), but given the situation as it stands, this doesn't seem like the avenue for it.
That said, I have my disappointment with copyright law, especially in the event like this: my inability to get a copy of Hero Quest from game store or Ebay for less than $400 most days.
Without getting too deep into this, I can give you a designer's perspective on the Heroquest situation in this interview.
I do understand your concerns, and yeah it can be like opening a can of worm if designers don't protect correctly their ownership over their creation.
But in this case, from my comprehension, is that Gamezone owns the rights to Hero Quest PI in Spain. They do not own the right to the miniatures, which is still under GW control. They are now producing a game based on the original with new miniatures (that's their main business anyway) and writing new scenario using the rules from the original game (now that's where I'm not sure if PI cover games mechanic or not)
You're right that they may not sell the game through distributors in other country where the do not own the PI to HeroQuest, but there's nothing preventing customers from other countries to buy online as we do more and more often since the first online shops.