New MMPORPG Being developed (Boston, MA)

[Shinzon]

@subhuman_bob

I completely understand where you're coming from. You are right in a lot of respects. I used to develop programs and also repair computers for people (still do) and I charged very little. Several of my clients told me that I was losing customers BECAUSE they didn't think I was good enough. Otherwise I would have charged more. So I jacked up my rates so they were more "mainstream" but within a margin below the competition... and suddenly I had people being scheduled weeks or months in advance because they thought I must be "good enough" but I was reasonalby priced.

I still think it's crazy. But that's my opinion.

@Mynt

I also understand your side of the board and I know first hand what it's like to be down there at teh bottome of the barrel willing to get "bargin" games. I wanted to target people who enjoy playing, but can't afford a fortune. (like college students).

@jaggex

Perhaps the best avenue is to have the client for free or nearly free and market the hardware through the game stores. After all the hardware is going to cost between $300.00 - $500.00. But it will be SO worth it.

[throneinc]

Nearly 5% of the gamers would pay 300-500$ for a gaming hardware, 50% of them will know about your game?, and Lets say it's a super duper impressing piece, 80% of them will pay for it. very tiny small chance to count on my friend.

EDIT : Just as a note, Those hardwares Like blizzard Sell (gamepads, spical keyboards) were ment for advertisement. and your aim should go no farther then that.

My suggestion would be making the game with free client and monthly payment. just like blizzard did. was succesfull wasn't it ?

Another thing to point: What realy made those games in the top of the today's market is not just thier old history or new futures, it's design of the game, you see, WOW's was realy atractive somehow, No one could resist it

[Shinzon]

Nearly 5% of the gamers would pay 300-500$ for a gaming hardware, 50% of them will know about your game?, and Lets say it's a super duper impressing piece, 80% of them will pay for it. very tiny small chance to count on my friend.

EDIT : Just as a note, Those hardwares Like blizzard Sell (gamepads, spical keyboards) were ment for advertisement. and your aim should go no farther then that.

My suggestion would be making the game with free client and monthly payment. just like blizzard did. was succesfull wasn't it ?

Another thing to point: What realy made those games in the top of the today's market is not just thier old history or new futures, it's design of the game, you see, WOW's was realy atractive somehow, No one could resist it

Hmmm... interesting thoughts. But I'll let you be the judge once I can tell you WHAT the hardware actually is.

[Mynt]

Give away free tshirts... everyone loves tshirts!

Actually, I had an idea which I am working on with several other companies which.. might work out in your favor.

I am part of an actual gaming client relation program. I know my in/outs with the buisness and well know some people. I know were working on a program that would allow ingame advertisment without the interruption.

An example we created for for Madden 09. It was a modified version of there banners that they have set up along the edge of the playing field. It would auto cycle through while on Live/WindowsLive, and rotate banners inside the game. Basically allowing companies to bid/buy a slot to show there banner ad, in game. Imagine the profits from that.

Could your game have any situation where this technology be proficient? Maybe a billboard that rotates loading new ads pending on time in game etc.

-Mynt

[Shinzon]

Give away free tshirts... everyone loves tshirts!

Actually, I had an idea which I am working on with several other companies which.. might work out in your favor.

I am part of an actual gaming client relation program. I know my in/outs with the buisness and well know some people. I know were working on a program that would allow ingame advertisment without the interruption.

An example we created for for Madden 09. It was a modified version of there banners that they have set up along the edge of the playing field. It would auto cycle through while on Live/WindowsLive, and rotate banners inside the game. Basically allowing companies to bid/buy a slot to show there banner ad, in game. Imagine the profits from that.

Could your game have any situation where this technology be proficient? Maybe a billboard that rotates loading new ads pending on time in game etc.

-Mynt

VERY interesting idea. Perhaps a little TOO realistic (isn't that one of the reasons we play games... to escape reality? jk)... lol. But I like it. Definitly a viable alternative to offering a less expensive game and actually raising money to pay for R&D of it.

[Mynt]

Have you ever thought about making the first Opensource MMORPG?

The money would be made towards the company that pushes it out. But the development platform and gaming industry would boom about it.

Mind you, you can then pick and choose who you want on the main team, releasing packs etc. But you could sell CD's with tools, sources etc, as well as offer the ability to have the contributors on a game. Thus it allows others to say they had a part in the making.

-Mynt

[jaggex]

Have you ever thought about making the first Opensource MMORPG?

The money would be made towards the company that pushes it out. But the development platform and gaming industry would boom about it.

Mind you, you can then pick and choose who you want on the main team, releasing packs etc. But you could sell CD's with tools, sources etc, as well as offer the ability to have the contributors on a game. Thus it allows others to say they had a part in the making.

-Mynt

Actually it wouldn't be the first one. Dythzer posted a youtube video in which a open source MMORPG gamedeveloper talks about the good and bad in open source gamedeveloping. As seen in the clip/video there are some negative sides of having it open source as well. Check it out:

There is a pretty interesting video from googletalk about an open source MMORPG called planeshift. You should check it out if you're interesting in creating an own MMORPG.

As posted above, it sounds really hard, probably requires hundreds of developers and it will still take years

Cheers

[Shinzon]

Actually it wouldn't be the first one. Dythzer posted a youtube video in which a open source MMORPG gamedeveloper talks about the good and bad in open source gamedeveloping. As seen in the clip/video there are some negative sides of having it open source as well. Check it out:

Cheers

Very interesting. Thank you jaggex.

[Mynt]

Actually it wouldn't be the first one. Dythzer posted a youtube video in which a open source MMORPG gamedeveloper talks about the good and bad in open source gamedeveloping. As seen in the clip/video there are some negative sides of having it open source as well. Check it out:

Cheers

I was talking about an actual opensource community. Like Mangos.

Planeshift was built off Crystal Space and Realmcrafter. These are tools that basically are like... drag/drop, heres what it can do and cant have fun. Its almost like someone picking up the latest git/svn of mangos and building a server off it.

When I say opensource, community, I mean bare bones, start from the ground and work your way up. Like the old WoWD was, just start from the bottom at the bare minimum and start improving.

I can clone Mangos, and call it my opensource also. Thats all Planeshift did, they use Crystal Space (An MMORPG engine developed for faster rendering with high numbers) and RealmCrafter "A database/server interaction tool that was already created for hobbyists to pick up and learn programming an MMO"

Do something like Graal, once again referenced. Graal was opensource.. but went closed. When it was open, I have never to this date still seen a community contribute as much as they did. They had ages 5-90(yes 90, XXGrup was the oldest person on Graal). 5 year olds making water images.. etc.

Opensource from the community, not a premade.

[Shinzon]

I was talking about an actual opensource community. Like Mangos.

Planeshift was built off Crystal Space and Realmcrafter. These are tools that basically are like... drag/drop, heres what it can do and cant have fun. Its almost like someone picking up the latest git/svn of mangos and building a server off it.

When I say opensource, community, I mean bare bones, start from the ground and work your way up. Like the old WoWD was, just start from the bottom at the bare minimum and start improving.

I can clone Mangos, and call it my opensource also. Thats all Planeshift did, they use Crystal Space (An MMORPG engine developed for faster rendering with high numbers) and RealmCrafter "A database/server interaction tool that was already created for hobbyists to pick up and learn programming an MMO"

Do something like Graal, once again referenced. Graal was opensource.. but went closed. When it was open, I have never to this date still seen a community contribute as much as they did. They had ages 5-90(yes 90, XXGrup was the oldest person on Graal). 5 year olds making water images.. etc.

Opensource from the community, not a premade.

That's exactly what I want... my BIG HUGE question is, how do I protect the copyright of the storyline while development begins? (We are talking a world wide basis here)

[jaggex]

That's exactly what I want... my BIG HUGE question is, how do I protect the copyright of the storyline while development begins? (We are talking a world wide basis here)

It sounds very very expensive to me.. Isn't it almost as buying a patent in every country? Or am I wrong?

I was talking about an actual opensource community. Like Mangos.

Planeshift was built off Crystal Space and Realmcrafter. These are tools that basically are like... drag/drop, heres what it can do and cant have fun. Its almost like someone picking up the latest git/svn of mangos and building a server off it.

When I say opensource, community, I mean bare bones, start from the ground and work your way up. Like the old WoWD was, just start from the bottom at the bare minimum and start improving.

I can clone Mangos, and call it my opensource also. Thats all Planeshift did, they use Crystal Space (An MMORPG engine developed for faster rendering with high numbers) and RealmCrafter "A database/server interaction tool that was already created for hobbyists to pick up and learn programming an MMO"

Do something like Graal, once again referenced. Graal was opensource.. but went closed. When it was open, I have never to this date still seen a community contribute as much as they did. They had ages 5-90(yes 90, XXGrup was the oldest person on Graal). 5 year olds making water images.. etc.

Opensource from the community, not a premade.

Yeah but what's the real difference? Planeshift may have been built with/of other tools that simplified the creating of it but it was still partly open source - which I guess Shinzons game also must be because of that he also wants to protect some of it. Let's say that Planeshit developed all those tools they used by themselves, this wouldnt really affect the later on developing? Only difference would be who actually developed those tools. What youre talking about is starting from scratch without any kind of help from other engines/tools, not about creating an "actual open source comunity" because I think you can call a open source project based on other engines/tools a "actual open source comunity".

Cheers

[Mynt]

Yeah but what's the real difference? Planeshift may have been built with/of other tools that simplified the creating of it but it was still partly open source - which I guess Shinzons game also must be because of that he also wants to protect some of it. Let's say that Planeshit developed all those tools they used by themselves, this wouldnt really affect the later on developing? Only difference would be who actually developed those tools. What youre talking about is starting from scratch without any kind of help from other engines/tools, not about creating an "actual open source comunity" because I think you can call a open source project based on other engines/tools a "actual open source comunity".

Yes and no on that.

I will explain a little more. I am not saying I know better. And I am not calling someone out, or saying they are wrong. What I will reference though is what I was taught. I have a degree in video game programming. Mostly debugging, and server side networking. Hence why I am here. However, don't let me be a bigit. I have my flaws, I suck as a programmer in general, however I know my database's and conceptual designs.

"Some people are artists.. some people are brush makers."

Lets get to the nitty gritty though :-).

Lets say, the project went with the way that PlaneShift went. I am not saying its a wrong way.. but lets say that Crystal Space and RealmCrafter decided to pull an Unreal3d move. If you know about gaming engines, at one point, UNREAL3d, back when ID software owned the rights, had an open source engine. When Duke Nukem from 3drealms took and used the engine, what happened?

Unreal realized, wow, we should have started liscensing this. Now this commercial game is making tons of money, and what.. we provided them the tools. Unreal files a lawsuit against 3drealms, thus a large sum of money is created and poured into the first liscenced gaming engine.

Now, lets say the program Shizon plans on creating was like Mangos. He wants to create his own World of Warcraft private server. Knowing somewhat of what was coded prior, with no or little documentation on what is what, and why its there, he builds himself a healthy server.

Heaven forbid, Mangos shuts down.. and now is unsupported. Patch 4.0 comes out, and Shizon needs to change the nitty gritty core. Theres documentation, as well as people that have played with it before.. but he doesn't really know his own tool. Does he? Now he has to go back, guess checking and updating his software to new standards because he didn't write his own tools or engine.

It happens more often than you think. Think about the latest smash in the video game world. DirectX9b is launched. Then shortly after, Directx10 was released. Gaming and publishing companies are going apeshit about this new shader system etc. Companies start buying up premade 3D system that will basically solve there problem. Uhoh guess what, 90% of the consumer market doesnt have a computer that can run Dx10. Uhoh, Dx10's engines are not compatible with the same engine for DX9. Uhoh, money / time / workforce lost, because you used someone elses code, instead of knowing what the difference was. Luckily for us, M$ was nice and made DX9.0c which addressed the happy medium. Otherwise, alot of your favorite games.. well wouldn't be here.

Open Source, groupware is where it should be. We use frameworks here on Mangos because we have to. No one here has the ability or capability yet to write there own subroutine for C++. If they do, or have, they aren't sharing it. Thats why we use other scripts here.

If we use a system thats already made.. maybe we should just get a script thats already made. And some art, of images.google.com. I say from the bottom, or not at all.

A game programmer should know the game, be the game, and make the game, not borrow the game.

As for developing something to protect yourself. Be smart about it. We all know there is this simple thing which we can do. Variables.

$A = "Your text here"

you can plug a variable into anything. And unless you have the variables.. you have a blank script. Placeholders are great also. So is Base64 encoding.

-Mynt

[subhuman_bob]

my BIG HUGE question is, how do I protect the copyright of the storyline while development begins? (We are talking a world wide basis here)

Under the Berne Convention, signatory countries agree to respect the copyrights of citizens of other signatory countries. To date, 164 countries have signed. The ones that haven't, to be honest, probably have very few citizens who have access to computers.

The Berne Convention itself does not cover computer software or database contents, however it was expanded by the WIPO Copyright Treaty to cover them. 160 countries have signed this- note that it's not as many as have signed the Berne Convention. Two notable exceptions are Norway and Russia.

Meaning, you could make the program OSS (like MaNGOS) and store actual content in a database (like MaNGOS) and maintain protection of that content in the vast majority of the world. (how many potential customers do you think live in Uganda or Ethiopia anyway?)

As soon as you put down any original work onto a fixed format, you're protected under copyright and are legally consider to be the "owner" of that work. Write it, type it, speak into a microphone and record it- it's yours. Just speak it to another person, and it's not in a fixed format and you have no rights to it.

Frankly, if you're looking into this as a business your legal council should have already informed you of this.

It sounds very very expensive to me.. Isn't it almost as buying a patent in every country? Or am I wrong?

Popular misconception. from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention

" Under the Convention, copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright in countries adhering to the Convention. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights in the work and to any derivative works, unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them or until the copyright expires. Foreign authors are given the same rights and privileges to copyrighted material as domestic authors in any country that signed the Convention."

You do not need to apply or register for protection of original works, and as soon as you create that work it is protected as your intellectual property in 164 countries around the world. This is also not anything new- the original Berne Convention was in 1886.

A notable exception to this is the US, who was not a party to the Berne Convention until 1989 because up until that time the US did require registrations for copyrighted works.

There are advantages for applying for a copyright, and this will vary from country to country. For example, in the US you are limited to only suing for actual (compensatory) damages if it's an unregistered work. For registered work, you can also sue for punitive damages in addition to actual damages. Note that this only applies domestically, not internationally (meaning if both parties are citizens of the US or are legal entities operating inside the US). Most European Union member countries do not allow punitive damages, BTW.

This is another reason to charge for the client. If you give it away for free, your actual damages (amount you can sue for) will always be nothing.

Ex: company "y" clones your game and sells 500 copies for $20 each. Actual damages to you are nothing- you lost sales of 500 units, but you give it away for free (500*0=0). On the other hand, if you sell the game for $30, you can sue for $15,000 (500*30=15000).

[Edoz]

if you plan to make the videgame with a new hardaware imput, well be sure the game also supports normal keyboard and mouse (just to make ppl think "hum, this game is pretty nice itself, but i wonder how awsome it would be with the hardware...") and also you should be prepared to make it reviewed by gaming sites, magazines etc but so that they try it with the new hardware. i don't think anyone is goind to pay 500$ if they aren't 99% sure it's worth it.

[jaggex]

Yes and no on that.

[...]

-Mynt

So what youre basiclly talking about is dependencies on other tools? The danger of depending on tools which potentionally always have the risk to get closed down and not getting further developed? Or if you want to do something which the tools doesn't allow/support?

Under the Berne Convention, signatory countries agree to respect the copyrights of citizens of other signatory countries. To date, 164 countries have signed. The ones that haven't, to be honest, probably have very few citizens who have access to computers.

The Berne Convention itself does not cover computer software or database contents, however it was expanded by the WIPO Copyright Treaty to cover them. 160 countries have signed this- note that it's not as many as have signed the Berne Convention. Two notable exceptions are Norway and Russia.

[...]

Very interesting information, thank you for sharing and clearing things up! I didn't expect this at all as i've heard about so many legal issues regarding different software/code/music. So I simply assumed that: "well it must be because they didn't pay for the copyright".

Cheers

[subhuman_bob]

Very interesting information, thank you for sharing and clearing things up! I didn't expect this at all as i've heard about so many legal issues regarding different software/code/music.

I could go into a big discourse on this, but it would be horribly off-topic, so I'll keep it short. The main issues we hear about are in regards to music, and while the main companies pursuing this aren't headquartered in the US, they choose to serve legal notices from the US because there they're allowed to claim punitive damages instead of just real damages. If they tried this action in most other countries, at most they could sue for approx $2 (US) per song- and it's not worth their time.

This isn't a case of the US trying to impose its laws on the rest of the world (but there are other examples of this) it's a case of multinational companies taking action where they stand to gain the most.

But back on-topic: registering a work for copyright, in most countries, increases the author's protection under the law. I'm just stating that even without registration you retain some basic rights. These rights will vary from country to country. In the case of a relatively small company like we're discussing here, it's not financially viable to register the product in every country- but failure to register definitely does not mean the work is public domain!

Another option would be a Creative Commons license, of which there are several variants. One of them allows copying and distribution for non-commercial purposes, but the author still retains legal ownership of the work.

This might also be an option- you could let people legally distribute the client via BitTorrent or websites, but you would still be the owner of the work in every legal sense.

Tying-in the first off-topic paragraph, more and more bands are releasing one or more songs under a Creative Commons license to encourage distribution while not having to rely on a big record label to "get their sound to the masses." However, if the song was used for commercial purposes (like on a movie soundtrack) the band would still be entitled to royalties from that commercial use.

A similar approach also works for software.

[Mynt]

So what youre basiclly talking about is dependencies on other tools? The danger of depending on tools which potentionally always have the risk to get closed down and not getting further developed? Or if you want to do something which the tools doesn't allow/support?

Actually that was my point. My point was, that depending on another tool.. or even program that feeds your fire could be a dangerous move. Knowing your code is better than taking code. But if your in for the quick buck then by all means.

But look at the little guys, Alien Hominid, CastleCrashers, Little Big Planet, Mysterious Mushroom. De Blob, all these are coded from the ground up. They know the limitations of there engine cause they made it all. Where as you look at others... Quake Arena.. what happens? Its just another mee too clone of every other game out there.

Own tools vs Premade.

[jaggex]

I could go into a big discourse on this, but it would be horribly off-topic, so I'll keep it short. The main issues we hear about are in regards to music, and while the main companies pursuing this aren't headquartered in the US, they choose to serve legal notices from the US because there they're allowed to claim punitive damages instead of just real damages. If they tried this action in most other countries, at most they could sue for approx $2 (US) per song- and it's not worth their time.

This isn't a case of the US trying to impose its laws on the rest of the world (but there are other examples of this) it's a case of multinational companies taking action where they stand to gain the most.

But back on-topic: registering a work for copyright, in most countries, increases the author's protection under the law. I'm just stating that even without registration you retain some basic rights. These rights will vary from country to country. In the case of a relatively small company like we're discussing here, it's not financially viable to register the product in every country- but failure to register definitely does not mean the work is public domain!

Another option would be a Creative Commons license, of which there are several variants. One of them allows copying and distribution for non-commercial purposes, but the author still retains legal ownership of the work.

This might also be an option- you could let people legally distribute the client via BitTorrent or websites, but you would still be the owner of the work in every legal sense.

Tying-in the first off-topic paragraph, more and more bands are releasing one or more songs under a Creative Commons license to encourage distribution while not having to rely on a big record label to "get their sound to the masses." However, if the song was used for commercial purposes (like on a movie soundtrack) the band would still be entitled to royalties from that commercial use.

A similar approach also works for software.

I did some more thinking on Shinzons specific case and I came up with another possible problem. You say that every author of a specific code/text/program has sort of a "basic world-wide copyright" on his work. But one big problem could be, how to determine the correct author? If Shinzon releases his story and idea to the public, who will stop someone from actually take that story and/or the idea and just put his name on it. If Shinzon never registered his work then it will be very hard to claim rights over such work that 10 others also claims as their own work. How to protect yourself against that in all countrys of the world?

EDIT:

Actually that was my point. My point was, that depending on another tool.. or even program that feeds your fire could be a dangerous move. Knowing your code is better than taking code. But if your in for the quick buck then by all means.

But look at the little guys, Alien Hominid, CastleCrashers, Little Big Planet, Mysterious Mushroom. De Blob, all these are coded from the ground up. They know the limitations of there engine cause they made it all. Where as you look at others... Quake Arena.. what happens? Its just another mee too clone of every other game out there.

Own tools vs Premade.

True. But it's maybe not always about the "quick buck" but also about your own development-team resources. Obviously it will take longer time and more effort to create a game from scratch compared to creating it with already complete engines which already are designed to be easy to use. So if you're going for creating a full game (server & client) by yourself without using one single other framework/tool then you must have a very big team with very talented/experienced coders/designers/etc, which will cost a lot of money. Now if the project would be open source the money problem maybe wouldn't be as big but I think the main issue would switch to being "time"...

Cheers

[subhuman_bob]

You say that every author of a specific code/text/program has sort of a "basic world-wide copyright" on his work. But one big problem could be, how to determine the correct author? If Shinzon releases his story and idea to the public, who will stop someone from actually take that story and/or the idea and just put his name on it.

The easiest way (in the US, which is where he resides) is to do what's known as a "poor man's copyright." Enclose the work- even a rough draft will suffice- in a registered letter mailed to yourself. Do not open the letter. If the dispute comes up in court, allow the court to open the still-sealed letter. In this case, the storyline burned onto a CD will qualify.

Registered Letters (in the US, your country may vary) have a Post Office-affixed seal making tampering evident, plus are dated- thus establishing when you first came up with the idea. If posting the story on a forum, "save" the webpage and burn that to the CD you mail.

A rough draft suffices because the author retains rights to the work and any derivative works.

Meaning, if you write a story using characters and places from (for example) 'The Lord of the Rings' you do not automatically "own" that work- J.R.R. Tolkein's heirs might, since it's derived from his work and less than 50 years after his death. (there are exceptions to this, namely for reference works and parodies)

Similarly, if a person bases a completed work on your rough draft- you would technically own their work. This is harder to prove, however. There are some unclear guidelines on what constitutes a derivate work- and computer related ones are mainly untested in court.

Example: MaNGOS incorporates several libraries that are GPL and require any derivative works to also be published under the GPL. The "grey area" comes from what qualifies as a derivative work- just simply using those libraries does not necessarily make MaNGOS a derivative work in the legal sense. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. There is a strong argument that MaNGOS is different enough from its included libraries to be a new work, and it also does contain substantial amounts of new material.

I'm not saying TheLuda should switch the MaNGOS license- just saying that if he wanted to, he would have a good chance of legally doing so. It's probably not worth the possible legal battle however.

Also, bear in mind that the exact definition of a "derivative work" may vary from country to country.

[Ntsc]

If you are going to release something as open source or on the internet it is way easier to simply release it under GPL or some other license and provide a copy of that liscense with it. Do not expect some sort of autobinding license to take place as I doubt you would be able to fight something like that in courts outside of the US (mailing yourself a letter may not hold up in non-US courts).

Anyway this is way off topic now and if he has lawyers I'm sure they'll know more about this issue than we will.

[Own tools vs Premade.]

Obviously it will take longer time and more effort to create a game from scratch compared to creating it with already complete engines which already are designed to be easy to use. So if you're going for creating a full game (server & client) by yourself without using one single other framework/tool then you must have a very big team with very talented/experienced coders/designers/etc, which will cost a lot of money.

You will be using tools that are made by someone else. If you think that you can write all your own tools you clearly are mistaken and haven't attempted to create a game yourself. You'll likely want to use 3d models made by Maya or some other current 3d modeller. You'll want Mp3 support so your music doesn't take up 500mb. You'll want to use 3d in your game meaning OpenGL or DirectX. You will also probably want a wrapper for OpenGL or DirectX as it is a real pain to write your own methods for drawing a 3d mesh (non-X format) to the screen.

Most of these libararies are free to non-commercial games but some are not. FMOD is a great example of a free to non-commercial product. Official client uses it so it is a very well known audio library that works amazingly well under many circumstances. While the Crysis engine is a 3d engine that isn't free. You have to pay great sums of money to liscense it for you game (it works off of DirectX).

In this modern age it is just something you have to live with.

[Shinzon]

Under the Berne Convention, signatory countries agree to respect the copyrights of citizens of other signatory countries. To date, 164 countries have signed. The ones that haven't, to be honest, probably have very few citizens who have access to computers.

The Berne Convention itself does not cover computer software or database contents, however it was expanded by the WIPO Copyright Treaty to cover them. 160 countries have signed this- note that it's not as many as have signed the Berne Convention. Two notable exceptions are Norway and Russia.

This is VERY interesting news. My lawyer validated this today for me. I always love subhuman_bob's advice. Seriously... he always comes up with very insightful information

if you plan to make the videgame with a new hardaware imput, well be sure the game also supports normal keyboard and mouse (just to make ppl think "hum, this game is pretty nice itself, but i wonder how awsome it would be with the hardware...") and also you should be prepared to make it reviewed by gaming sites, magazines etc but so that they try it with the new hardware. i don't think anyone is goind to pay 500$ if they aren't 99% sure it's worth it.

Not a problem, It will have both interfaces available... can't lose 90% of the market. Right?

Now if the project would be open source the money problem maybe wouldn't be as big but I think the main issue would switch to being "time"...

Cheers

That's sort of along the lines of what I was thinking. I mean, if we could get a really good team working on this... I'll provide the needed software and datacenter to house everything.

The easiest way (in the US, which is where he resides) is to do what's known as a "poor man's copyright." Enclose the work- even a rough draft will suffice- in a registered letter mailed to yourself. Do not open the letter. If the dispute comes up in court, allow the court to open the still-sealed letter. In this case, the storyline burned onto a CD will qualify.

Registered Letters (in the US, your country may vary) have a Post Office-affixed seal making tampering evident, plus are dated- thus establishing when you first came up with the idea. If posting the story on a forum, "save" the webpage and burn that to the CD you mail.

A rough draft suffices because the author retains rights to the work and any derivative works.

Meaning, if you write a story using characters and places from (for example) 'The Lord of the Rings' you do not automatically "own" that work- J.R.R. Tolkein's heirs might, since it's derived from his work and less than 50 years after his death. (there are exceptions to this, namely for reference works and parodies)

I had actually thought of this and very well may end up doing it. My attorney said that under the Berne Convention copyright should be protected internationally (at least as far as anyone with any game creation capabilities are concerned.

If you are going to release something as open source or on the internet it is way easier to simply release it under GPL or some other license and provide a copy of that liscense with it. Do not expect some sort of autobinding license to take place as I doubt you would be able to fight something like that in courts outside of the US (mailing yourself a letter may not hold up in non-US courts).

Anyway this is way off topic now and if he has lawyers I'm sure they'll know more about this issue than we will.

True... I will post some more indepth details next week.

[subhuman_bob]

If you are going to release something as open source or on the internet it is way easier to simply release it under GPL

He's talking about a commercial product here, not OSS. GPL is not intended for use with commercial products and would be a very poor choice as it would afford him little or no protection.

In general, commercial products should not be published under the GPL. Take that lesson from LinkSys, who made the mistake of shipping their original WRT54G routers with a Linux kernel. That folly, and their subsequent releasing of the source code due to legal pressure, has cost them untold millions.

[Ntsc]

Sorry I meant GPL for open source non-commercial style code and a ZLIB type license for open source commercial.

[Mynt]

If you are going to release something as open source or on the internet it is way easier to simply release it under GPL or some other license and provide a copy of that liscense with it. Do not expect some sort of autobinding license to take place as I doubt you would be able to fight something like that in courts outside of the US (mailing yourself a letter may not hold up in non-US courts).

Anyway this is way off topic now and if he has lawyers I'm sure they'll know more about this issue than we will.

You will be using tools that are made by someone else. If you think that you can write all your own tools you clearly are mistaken and haven't attempted to create a game yourself. You'll likely want to use 3d models made by Maya or some other current 3d modeller. You'll want Mp3 support so your music doesn't take up 500mb. You'll want to use 3d in your game meaning OpenGL or DirectX. You will also probably want a wrapper for OpenGL or DirectX as it is a real pain to write your own methods for drawing a 3d mesh (non-X format) to the screen.

Most of these libararies are free to non-commercial games but some are not. FMOD is a great example of a free to non-commercial product. Official client uses it so it is a very well known audio library that works amazingly well under many circumstances. While the Crysis engine is a 3d engine that isn't free. You have to pay great sums of money to liscense it for you game (it works off of DirectX).

In this modern age it is just something you have to live with.

Let me reiterate my statement again.

There is a difference from using a rendering tool, or a library. I as someone who HAS worked on a video game creation timeline know first hand the difference between a resource, as well as an outlet. You either are misconstruing what I said, or your bending the facts of what I stated.

What I had said, is that using a premade script, as in a 3d rendering engine. "Unreal, Orge, RealmCrafter, TreeSpace, Openworld, Dreamworld, ..etc" is not as effecient as making your own code. You cannot tell me it can't be done. You write your own engine for everything you do, if you agree or not you do. All an Engine is, is a force or working script that will handle the elements that you throw at it. No matter what you throw at it, it will parse/understand what you said, and create a defined output based on your input limitations. Thats all.

Using premade tools, 3DSm, Flash, Mp3/4/G encoders, Wav directions, lightmapping etc, is all technology that is released for ease. No matter which way you do it, you will always come out with the same thing using those tools. Hence why they are tools. As for 3d Engines, they are Mechanics, or Outlets, meaning there are 100000000000000000 possibilities on what can happen when you output the code.

If you don't use 3d making tools for a 3d game, and you write every model in DX draws, your a moron and well shouldn't be making a video game.

Theres a difference between Tools, and Gaming Premades.

Mangos source code is considered an engine. It was written from the ground up, using 'tools' and libraries. Without using a Library, we might as well continue to play Pong.

-Mynt

[Ntsc]

Hey that's two more than me. Anyway good food for thought.