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General For serious discussions about general Wyvern topics. |
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#41
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While Teshuvah and I have complained about having difficulty getting a response from him we were referring to how things were during the last downtime and during our tenure working on the game ourselves. He never failed to respond to us during this downtime, we just didn't like what we heard, so we stopped bothering him about the game and left it in your hands. Also, if you learn to read, you'll see that I said he emailed me.
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#42
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I hope it is a prank, because the direction Rhialto said wyvern was going sounded terrible.
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#43
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Agreed, he'll lose a good chunk of what player base he actually has left.
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#44
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On second thought, it wasn't a prank at all. Rhialto also..*cough* intends to do all of things and he's also planning a cash shop that will allow you to buy permanent versions of artifacts with real money. I don't know what you guys hate about Runescape exactly, but whatever it is, he said he plans to implement that as well. Oh and he's decided to let advertisers put product placement within the game itself. So, not that Mcdonalds would advertise with Wyvern, but using it as an example, imagine if you go into Minath Elion and right when you enter is a nice and spiffy looking fast food joint with the golden arches prominently displayed. How cool would that be? It's google ads taken to the next level.
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#45
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I'm ok with what it takes to keep the game running, if that's the route he wants to go. I just really want to keep playing on my PC.
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#46
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How this went from a joke on Bullfrogz to him playing along I don't know. But I'm going to keep quiet on the subject from now on and see where this goes. I love when pranks take on a life of their own.
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#47
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This is now a wyvern idea's thread 1. Wyvern needs escort quests. You must herd a brain damaged NPC through dangerous perils, and if you fail you must start all over. 2. All NPC dialog voiced by wyvern's very own players- sometimes with secrets hints not in the text so you better listen! 3. Katanas should be more powerful than "western" swords. 4. A quest with a boss monster that you must quickly lose to, if you beat it or take to long then you can't continue the quest. |
#48
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Also it hit me yesterday, to everyone who said they'd pay to play Wyvern- as it stands, you couldn't. Several monsters and such would have to be reworked/eliminated. For example the Beholder is considered Wizards of the Coast product identity- Wyvern only gets away with having them in the game because it is free. If I remember what I've read right no trademark infringement is made so long as no money is made off of it.... I could be wrong though.
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The butterflies are evil, we must declare war on the NV butterflies! |
#49
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We had always gone out of our way to avoid implementing anything that was copyright protected. So there shouldn't be too many issues and those are things we would have dealt with regardless of the game's status.
With beholders, I don't exactly know what the deal is. I have read that D&D allows the free use of its monsters with the exception of a handful of signature ones, including the beholder. I have also read that there are a number of games have had "beholders" in their game and ended up simply changing their names to "eye tyrant" or something along those lines to skirt the issue. But, I never looked too deeply into it because it's a Legolas approved monster and he was always very strict about copying monsters that he thought was unique to D&D because he was concerned about copyright infringement. For example, when I was first promoted he let me into Bandar Gaah before it was released and asked me if there was anything I would suggest. One of the things on my list was a sand shark, but he thought he remembered it from D&D and thought it might be an issue. Although, of course, sand shark isn't exactly a novel idea and is pretty widespread. So, if using beholders was a mistake, I'm sure it's one of the rare exceptions. But, those are things that we would normally have looked into it and dealt with regardless of the game being free. For example, we have had issues with certain wizards uploading content that didn't belong to them and as soon as we became aware of it, we got rid it. In one instance, a wizard supposedly uploaded graphics that he/she never intended to use, but was showing it off privately to wizards. Since everyone thought he/she drew those things, another wizard snagged those graphics for public monsters without asking permission and it only came to light when the original wizard came back to the game and expressed surprise at what had been done. So, if you've ever noticed that we were really strict with submitted images and such, that's why. |
#50
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The butterflies are evil, we must declare war on the NV butterflies! |
#51
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We would often get accused of stealing monsters from other fiction when, in fact, we both drew from mythological sources. Sadly, there are people who have a habit of thinking things originated from wherever they first learned about it (funny examples: http://notalwaysright.com/re-vamping-dracula/4077 and http://notalwaysright.com/re-vamping-dracula/4077). Of course, Beholders are no doubt original monsters and whether or not their creators have licensed them for use outside their game, I do not know for certain. However, Crier infamously claimed that we could never use Asmodeus and Tarasque because they were trademarked names (which he thought more people would catch - lol). Apparently, nobody told that to the ancient Hebrews or the medieval Franks because they should totally go to court and sue whoever trademarked something that they invented hundreds of years ago. Another funny bit is that in the mind of one individual we would owe the Stargate franchise for stealing the name of one of their alien races. What's that name, you ask? Asgard.
Needless to say, those are just the tip of the iceberg. It happened all the time and those were just the ones funny enough for me to bother remembering. Edit: For your amusement, here's the text of Crier spouting off nonsense... 04-03-2009 2:43 AM Crier: Well comsidering Asmodeon, and the Terresque are both trademarked names.... 04-03-2009 2:43 AM Crier: I thought more people would have caught that 04-03-2009 2:43 AM Crier: considering* 04-03-2009 3:32 AM Arilou: Asmodeus and Tarrasque are mythological creatures. Asmodeus was a demon and Tarrasque was a monster that was said to have caused great devastation. So considering you don't know what you're talking about... 04-03-2009 8:20 AM wyvernRa: tarrasque was actually a super strong ultralisk ... 04-03-2009 3:53 PM Crier: Terraque was trademarked by D&D, atleast to my knowledge it was, and I was thinking os Asmodeon, a character in the Wheel of Time book series 04-03-2009 4:24 PM Salkand: I love that series! 04-03-2009 4:44 PM Teshuvah: Asmodeus is way older than Wheel of time lol Although im sure he is flattered. And Tarrasque is older than D&D. Copywriting names is near impossible. 04-03-2009 4:45 PM Teshuvah: Thats like saying I copywrite "cat"... not gonna happen. |
#52
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Also while the design is clearly unique in Wyvern I would like to say the earliest mention I can find of Shoggoths is in Lovecraft, but it's not copywrited (see impossibe to copywrite a name).
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The butterflies are evil, we must declare war on the NV butterflies! |
#53
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Shoggoths are absolutely a creation of Lovecraft's, (remember the game also contains Cthulhlu) but a lot of his work is in the public domain and other writers reference his creations all the time. Supposedly, Lovecraft even actively encouraged people to do so as he wanted his mythos to have a life beyond just his works.
So it's not all just about whether the person who created something can be identified. There are even different types of licenses where a copyright owner can maintain that "all rights are reserved" to a work or that a work can be used under certain circumstances. Going back to D&D, they have an open game license whereby much of their content can be used in other games, royalty free. There are exceptions and I'm not clear on the full workings of the license, but as you said a lot of things that are seemingly inspired by their content are not theirs to begin with. For example, there's an internet rumor that Wizards of the Coast claims ownership over "drow," but dark elves are mythological creations and the word drow, itself, is also derived from mythology (it's an underground dwelling trollish creature). Yet we've had several players (and one wizard) buy into this and tell us that we were in violation of their copyright. |
#54
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Thankfully there aren't many monsters out there that are truly unique and copywrited designs.... and those that aren't often aren't the sort any of us want in Wyvern. (Sparkling vampires anyone? No? I thought not.) As for their attempt on the drow, I seem to recall that was blown out of proportion when they went after people who ripped of D'rizzt, who isn't part of the game but a character in several of the novels based off one of their worlds, so basically the same as someone playing wyvern and then writing a third party novel to sell about the adventures of Rhialto and Arilou in New Verdan. Ironically the mind flayers, one of the monsters they cling tightest to as product identity, is heavily influenced by lovecraft.
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The butterflies are evil, we must declare war on the NV butterflies! Last edited by Lanterra : 04-03-2013 at 11:28 AM. |
#55
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Its a shame I only vaguely remember these things, but can't say I am suprised with myself.
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"Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order [...] and the like." - Justice William O. Douglas "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security would deserve neither and lose both." -Benjamin Franklin |
#56
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everytime you do this....
I die alittle inside |
#57
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Further...it doesn't matter at all if you charge for the game or it's free. If it's not for your exclusive and personal use (e.g. you allow anyone else to play the game, see it, etc) then copyright still applies.
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-bitsey |
#58
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Yeah people try to get away with it because they think that if they're not making money, it's unlikely that a copyright holder is going to spend money to go after them. Thus they laugh off cease and desist letters as they know most people just have their lawyers send them out to scare people. But it's unlikely someone is going to want to go to court if it's going to cost more than it's worth. However, copyright holders do have the legal right to do so regardless of whether or not something is making money off their content.
So, we've always been careful with what content makes it into the game. It's generally easy to see if someone's art or music doesn't match their ability. Therefore we don't usually have problems with that, (and I go out of my way to try to give contributing artists assignments rather than just taking their work as a way of testing them) but intellectual property is more difficult as you might think something is allowed to be used, but it really isn't and we have so many different people who basically come off the street without any knowledge of copyright law. So they don't know. |
#59
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One thing I've never understood with that is how fanfic writers get away with posting their work. And in such mass numbers.
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The butterflies are evil, we must declare war on the NV butterflies! |
#60
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there's a limited amount of 'fair use' (for example, limited length quotes inside an otherwise novel work) but mostly it's just a lack of prosecution on the part of the copyright holders.
Try posting widely, say, Mickey Mouse fan fic. Some are more aggressive about this than others.
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-bitsey |
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