Welcome to the HarpGamer Forums. Our objective is to create a meeting place and resource center for the vibrant community of fans of the Harpoon series of warfare simulations. We invite you to enjoy all that this community has to offer.

In these Forums it is hoped that you'll find subjects of interest and make new friendships with fellow Harpoon players, historians, and enthusiasts. While the Forums will try to cover a diverse group of topics related to Harpoon, it cannot possibly be "all things to all people." We hope you enjoy the site, and thank you in advance for your compliance with some common sense guidelines, detailed below, when posting to the forums.

RESPECT

Remember that this is a community that you are joining. There are places to be serious, and even some places to have fun. To make it all work, an atmosphere of courtesy and respectfulness is required.

It is inevitable that differences of opinion will surface from time to time. Also, due to the diverse and international membership at HarpGamer Forums (not to mention the occasionally confusing nature of Internet communications), it is quite likely that misunderstandings will also arise. While healthy debate is encouraged, please be mindful at all times to “disagree without being disagreeable”. Anything less will not be tolerated.

MODERATION

The HarpGamer Forums are fully moderated. While we strive to keep an open and friendly atmosphere for discussion at HarpGamer, we reserve the right to edit and/or delete inappropriate submissions prior to their posting to the forums.

Posts containing racist statements, personal slurs, foul language or obscenities will be rejected in all cases.

Also, please be advised that the HarpGamer Forums are not intended for nationalistic or political grandstanding. Posts of an overtly partisan nature will be edited or deleted by the moderators.

A member whose conduct fails to meet Forum standards shall be warned, suspended, or as a last resort, banned from the group, at the sole discretion of the HarpGamer Staff.

CONTENT: OFF TOPIC THREADS

All of the forums at HarpGamer are category specific, with a description under the Forum name in the index. Our moderators will be working hard to keep fresh and appropriate content in each area; please help reduce their workload by posting threads in the correct Forums. Threads posted in an inappropriate Forum may (and likely will) be moved to the proper place at the moderators’ discretion.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES

While it is not our intention to be unduly restrictive, we wish to avoid potential intellectual property issues with the owners of material that members may choose to include or quote in their posts. Please keep this in mind when using sources that aren't your own. In any event, HarpGamer reserves the right to remove material from the site due to intellectual property issues.

Please note that individual persons may own the copyright to any scenarios or databases that they have created. You may not offer those scenarios or databases, or any other intellectual property not your own, for sale or redistribution without the prior explicit authorization of their respective authors.

Thank you for your co-operation, and we hope you enjoy The HarpGamer Forums!

HarpGamer Staff

"Chris Carlson and I are the original creators of Harpoon, and Don Gilman and his company AGSI is the licensed holder of the computer rights for Harpoon. Chris and I created Harpoon over twenty-five years ago, and since then have released four editions of the print game, along with many supplements. Don Gilman has worked with us on computer implementations of Harpoon for over twenty years. Darrel Dearing and Dale Hillier have contributed fifteen and five years’ of design experience respectively, including working on earlier versions of the game, and have a deep understanding of modern naval warfare.

The Harpoon player community is very active and for the most part eager to participate in improving the product. We are grateful to everyone who has participated with us in the past, and we encourage continued communication as we introduce each improvement. Feedback is vital to improving the Harpoon system, and user-created scenarios enrich the entire gaming community.

However, Harpoon is a large, complex, data intensive simulation. Unlike many other popular games, it is constrained because it has to model real-world processes. No Zurgs allowed. It is inevitable in such an ambitious project that programming bugs will occur. Gamers have a right to expect a quality product, but most are also sophisticated enough to know that bugs happen.

On some discussion boards, a few players have attacked AGSI and Matrix Games personally and professionally because of programming bugs. This unhelpful behavior says much more about the attacker than it does about AGSI’s quality control. Providing AGSI with complete information about any problems is the best way to correct them.

Others in the gaming community have made self-serving claims to speak authoritatively for the game system. The only official source of information for the Harpoon game system is Chris Carlson and myself, and we will work through Don Gilman, who is the only computer rights holder.

Anyone who attempts to distribute or profit from original or modified code without authorization is violating the law. We will act to protect our copyrights. Anyone who distributes Harpoon code or data without AGSI’s approval is at best wrong, or in violation of the aforementioned law.

We categorically denounce flame wars or negative posts concerning the quality of one version of the game over another. Chris and I founded Harpoon as a collegial enterprise, with the twin goals of enjoyment and education. We have always shared information freely, including our physical models and databases, and in return have received valuable support and information from the Harpoon community.

Anyone with ideas or suggestions about the game is welcome to contact AGSI or Chris or me. We do not have a monopoly on information, the laws of nature, or imagination. Even after twenty-five years, there’s still plenty of work to do, but for the community to benefit, we have to work as a team.

We work closely with Don and AGSI regarding improvements to the computer game, and feedback provided by Don and his team also influences design of the print game. We are committed to continuously improving both products.

We look forward to the upcoming improvements that lie ahead. Our goal is a nothing less than a totally superior product, one that everyone can enjoy. And we will achieve this goal if we all treat each other with respect and work through our disagreements in a constructive, respectful manner.

If you have questions or comments, please contact us, either through AGSI or Clash of Arms, our print publisher."

Larry Bond and Chris Carlson

January 2007"

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Note from the HarpGamer Admin:

We at HarpGamer are working alongside AGSI to produce the latest and greatest version of Harpoon Classic - Harpoon Commander's Edition - and players can look forward to even more features from this stalwart version of Harpoon. As well, just as we have done with efforts like the Harpoon 3 ANW server and a dedicated subforum here at HG for Harpoon 4 paper rules, we will continue to fully support all versions of Harpoon. Lets hope that the greater community doesn't just pay lip service to this message from Larry and Chris, but rather takes it to heart.