INDOOR Game wish

[Marauders]

I would like to know by any chance could you make the field goal posts have nets like in the real indoor game?

 
By the way, only one real indoor games has the nets.  All of the others do not.

[mudrick]

I'm no expert in this, but how do you patent a tight net?  Or is it the rebound?  Is there a goal post patent?  What about a chalk patent?  If you put a rebound sponge up there, would that violate anything?  Maybe someone should look into a patent on onside kicks.  Oh no, can't duplicate that.   There has to be a way around it.

[Marauders]

Games cannot be patented.  
 
James Foster tried to patent indoor football, but football is a game, so they could only patent the rebound net.

[MB Sports Net]

Exactly. The only suggestion I could add would be different goal post size. That would seem to work out, however you couldn't do the nets then. HOWEVER some striking person could figure out high walls behind the goal that the ball bounces off of. Silly idea as it still isn't a simulated action in any football league. Also would rule out selling seats, which we know isn't plausible in business. We shall see the way that the ball turns in the future.

[Marauders]

As I recall, some indoor leagues allow balls that bounce off the back hockey rink wall into the endzone to be in play.
 
I think that David has much to do already before he considers adding bouncing balls and the rules that go with them to the game at this time.
 

[dreamtheatervt]

ORIGINAL: Marauders

As I recall, some indoor leagues allow balls that bounce off the back hockey rink wall into the endzone to be in play.

I think that David has much to do already before he considers adding bouncing balls and the rules that go with them to the game at this time.

I agree with Marauders, but for a slightly different reason. If there was no chance of DW/Wintervalley/Matrix getting hit with a Cease and Desist order (or worse), then I wouldn't mind having "rebound technology" being a high priority. But the fact that adding "reboound technology" could be immidiately recalled or even essentially end MF updates makes this upgrade a non-issue in my mind. It would be great if they could be included in a perfectly legal matter, but that is not the case, and it is not something that is going to change overnight.

Please, let's not waste any more time on this subject until everything else is right with the game and the issue of the rebound net patent is settled in a definative matter.

[David Winter]

"rebound technology" isn't terribly difficult. It is in fact already in the game simply as a side effect of how I've built the engine. On more than one occasion I have had to fix a "bug" that would not have been considered as such had I used a full set of AFL rules. There has has already been one public bug report of kick offs 'bouncing off the net' on the far goal and being caught for a TD by the kicking team. If Maximum-Football held an AFL license, that would have been fine. However as it doesn't it actually required me to write more code to remove that 'feature'.
 
I also purposefully absorb a lot more of the energy of the ball when it hits the net to give the feel of a slack net with no elastic qualities. I think AFL rebound nets have more spring back to them allowing the ball to bounce back further. Again, not terribly difficult to implement.
 
That all being said, at this time, I have no plans to implement any rule that makes use of rebound nets. I've already spoken to councel here in Vancouver and he told me what I basically already knew. Stay away. The only reason I even spoke to him at all was that it struck me that the patent was created for a real world game and not a computer game. A grey area, that was just deemed best not to get into.
 
And you can patent games by the way. The only reason the AFL game in full isn't patentable is because it's a derivative of an existing game (outdoor football). If it were something completely new, it could have been patented. It would be like me inventing a computer mouse that uses sonar technology to track the movement. I can patent the sonar technology (if it hadn't been already), but I couldn't patent the whole mouse.
 

[Marauders]

As far as I know, complete games are not really patented, but a "method of play" can be.  The AFL rebound nets are "a method of play".

Board games are usually copyrighted and trademarked to protect them, as are computer games.

When I was in high school and college, I was an avid gamer.  My firends and I invented many games.  It's too bad I didn't patent "tapping cards" back in 1984, because Wizards of the Coast would owe me a lot of money.  Then again, it costs $4-5 thousand dollars to gain a patent and maintain it over the life of the patent.  That is too expensive for most of us creating simple games for fun.

I guess the guy who "invented" the blinking cursor made out pretty well in the end.  In my opinion, the governement should never have granted him a patent for that.

[Magnum357]

ORIGINAL: Marauders

I guess the guy who "invented" the blinking cursor mad out pretty well in the end.  In my opinion, the governement should never have granted him a patent for that.

Marauder, I agree with much of what you said above, but I'm a little confused by this statement. What do you mean by "blinking cursor mad"? Not sure I understand that.

[Marauders]

[X(] He made out pretty well.
 
He may have been some sort of mad man as well, but I just don't know.