A while back I enjoyed play Game of Thrones online. I own a mac, and there was this great site that allowed me to play called tradecardsonline.com, and everything was great.

That is until FFG threatened to slap a cease and desist.

Now normally, this would be totally fair. FFG does own the artwork and I am all for copyright protection. What doesn't sit well with me is that they targeted one website, and totally left the other alone.

Yes, OCGN states that card text will not appear, sneaking their way past FFG copyrights somehow, but let's be honest: 95% of the people playing on OCGN have replaced images with copy written material. It's easy to do, and often encouraged.

So why is FFG targeting one site and not the other? The owner of tradecardsonline.com even reached out to FFG and offer a similar setup to no card text as OCGN, only that they would not even get the chance to replace the image file. FFG would not listen or negotiate with the owner at all.

FFG: If you are going to slap cease and desists out, do it fairly. Give them to all the sites that are breaking the copyright laws, or none at all.

Wow - That's rotten.

I noticed that aGoT is the only FFG game on TCO that received the ban. All other FFG games are still fully playable. It's sad that something could not have been worked out.

First, I don't think we have any first-hand account of what the cease and decist (or threat of one) was for - the rumor grew from the primary distinction between OCTGN and TCO; the censored cards. The assumption is reasonable, of course, but I heard there were other very important distinctions, primarily that TCO generates revenue by advertising. As such, it is attempting to profit from the attraction offered by using FFG's IP.

I also know that when the original OCTGN module was developed, the develloper got in contact with FFG to try and work something out beforehand. That is much more likely to result in a working solution than "well, we've been abusing your IP but now that you've caught us, can we work out a deal".

Second, while replacing the copy-written (censored) cards is possible, it requires that you have access to the original card images - typically by scanning them yourself. While those files used to be readily available for public distribution one way or another, in an effort to reduce the risk of a C&D, the OCTGN AGOT community has made a strong effort to reduce the spread of these public "uncensored' files.

Third, what do you hope to gain from this thread? They're not going to magically re-instate TCO because you complained, so you seem to be asking "if I can't play on my mac, then nobody else should be able to either" ? I have made the effort, and am able to play on my mac using OCTGN by having a windows partition. You could have an emulator, or possibly remote-desktop to a PC as well.

Clearly OP owns TCO and has a severe case of labial inflammation. A little midol will knock that **** right out buddy!

It was just an observation. Maybe a little reminiscing of the days where I could actually play aGoT online. That is all.

As I mentioned, if playing AGOT online is important to you, you do have a few options; a Windows emulator like Parallels , or obtaining a copy of Windows and installing it on a second partition and use it using Boot Camp. In my experience, the latter is a safer bet than the former.

You could, of course, buy a second box just to run OCTGN. Given the fairly low system requirements, you could probably assemble it for very little and use a Remote-desktop application to access it from your mac. You'd save on all accessories (keyboard/mouse/monitor).

I have been able to run OCTGN with a year 2008 mini-laptop and a year 2004 laptop both of which are using Windows XP (the OCTGN at times notifies that there can be issues, but I have still been able to play). Now getting something like this for a secondary computer shouldn't be expensive at all.

All I gotta say is if your supporting FFG attacking Octgn I got a problem with you. Sure you don't own a windows but no reason to punish other players. I pay ffg a ton of money with playing and buying all the cards for 5 lcg and some board games. But I don't have large group to play with regular and online is my only option as do I feel is for others. So anyone supporting getting rid of octgn because only "fair" that seems pretty selfish to me.

If it wasn't for OCTGN and online play, I almost certainly would've stopped playing AGoT about a year ago. And that's not only true for me. Shutting OCTGN down would result in a lot of "metaless" players leaving the game. And by "metaless" players I mean regular customers who purchase chapter packs but don't have people to play with in real life.

95% of the people playing on OCGN have replaced images with copy written material. It's easy to do, and often encouraged.

Could you link me to the survey that proves your oddly specific percentage of 95%? And as far as I know, no one has ever encouraged anyone to violate FFG's copyright terms. If you're convinced of the opposite, can you link us to a significant number of contemplable threads to prove your point?

As a mac player, I hate that I can't run octgn. I wish someone would write an online play site, which was compatible with octgn file formats, and was ok with FFG. I would play a HECK of a lot more if I could play online reliably.

For the record, I would be MORE than willing to write it if I thought it had a chance of implicit FFG approval. I understand that monetization of the IP is problematic, but I suspect that it'd be better than nothing...

You work for google. Pretty sure they make at least ONE product that will run OCTGN.

OCTGN is bad enough that I'd rather reimplement it than set up a windows vm to run it...