Well, as a member of conquer club, I think a LOT of people here are ignoring the facts of the situation.
I played the board game "Risk" with my friends on game nights and enjoyed it, and sought out a place where I could play online. I didn't go searching for "Feudal War, World V2.1" maps etc etc....
The classic map (old version) was identical to the board game risk except for the cards were colors instead of the board games soldier, cannon and cavalry.
If I honestly sit here and picture myself as a member of a jury being called in for a lawsuit having never really heard of
www.conquerclub.com and not really caring about the board game risk because I maybe played it 1 time when I was a kid 20 years ago, what am I going to think when they present the facts.
Hasbro (whatever their name is) is going to present the case by showing their board game, then say "this website is making money off of our product by selling it online."
A jury isn't going to sit there and buy all the intellectual property bullshit, they are going to look at the facts and say "You copied it, your making money off their product" and there goes CC altogether. I'm quite sure that whoever runs CC does not have near the assets to go through a lawsuit like that and the end judgement (which is extremely likely) would probably take it down completely.
That means, we are just fucked.... well sort of at least.
Now what CC is telling me, is that I didn't join this website because I love the game Risk. I did pay money because I like the game Risk, that's the bottom line.
So, what do you do in situations like this? You pay them dividends/dues/fees/whatever.
To whoever runs CC, it's a great website and a lot of fun, but I do actually believe that you owe the owners of Risk for the rights to use their product.
For me, I can compare this to drinking beer. If I like to drink Corona beer, you can sit down and put a Budweiser in front of me all day long and tell me it's still a beer and I should just drink that. That does not believe I am going to start preferring Budweiser.
It's the same thing with the website. I like getting cards, rolling dice, taking territories and attacking other people. I don't want to get spoils and assaulting people. You may have changed something to the same thing, but I like it the other way.
You have just lost all the new people that come to this site looking to play "Online Risk" because it doesn't exist anymore.
It's time to negotiate with the Risk owners on how to keep their map on this site. You are abandoning your abilities to attract new members because they are going to skip past CC when they see you do NOT have online risk here.
Do what you need to do, change it back. Start paying dues to Hasbro, I'm sure you can still make money here. I'm willing to pay an extra $5-$10 a year to make up the difference (speaking only for myself though).
It is not the same, you have changed what I came here for. You lost my renewal unless it gets fixed. It's not a threat, I just am not going to pay money for something I don't like, and I don't like what this site turned into.