Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Fourth on GoG!

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Whatever you use for distribution make it easy to use and make sure the price will be 30 euros or so at most.

As much as I adore GoG, Steam is probably the best platform. Impulse and Gamersgate aren't terrible per se, but Steam has so many more users.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

As for Steam check out:

Avadon

Spiderweb software have been making quality RPG games for years and their latest is on Steam. I highly recommend it.

I put this here to show that Steam isn't just for games with the latest graphics mindblow or triple A titles.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

The Progress page has almost frequent changes
http://jaffa.illwinter.com/coe3/coe3progress.html

And Screen Shots have been added to the Illwinter CoE3 page
http://www.illwinter.com/coe3/screenshots.html

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

The updated screenshots look great.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

I hope we have the option for really large maps. I like playing games where it feels like a world instead of an island.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

You know Ive done my part for that.
I think you will be quite satisfied. The maximum size map is only possible thru command switches. But its beyond even my lust for large maps. Johan is again wondering why anyone would even want to play on a map so large :)

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Playing a small map can be interesting too. Maybe elysium can be just a small island with strategic or spiritual value, like the Dardanelles or Jerusalem respectively (though this aren't islands, but you know what I mean, right)?

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Yes that is already in the game also.
As far as Island; the maps are always water surrounded. So you are always playing with either an island or a continent.

Im sure there will be small map games also (I tend to get outvoted in my love of big maps). But maybe not as much as Dom3s games. There are nations which would rule small maps while other nations would be almost impossible to win with (even more than Dom3 does)

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

I'm pretty sure "Beholder" name is not available for use without negotiating with Wizards of the Coast.
"They are one of the few classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters that Wizards of the Coast claims as Product Identity.[1]"

I understand it's legal to have an eye-monster that casts spell, as long as you don't call it a Beholder.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Age of Wonders has beholders; check out the level 3 unit on this page:

http://aow.heavengames.com/unitdata/...azracs_ts.html

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

They might have asked.
But good point.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

I believe that HoMMIII also has a beholder unit. You need to upgrade it from Evil Eye.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

No, you upgrade beholders to Evil Eye in HoMM3.

Beholders also appear in the Might and Magic games, at least in M&M6, which is contemporaneous with HoMM3 in terms of the timeline.

AoW has indeed got beholders.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Well, the point's the same. Beholders are present in HoMMIII.

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Wrong. You cant copyright fictional races or their names. In fact, Wizards of the Coasts themselves would not exist if it was not for this fact. WotC have replied in previous cases that races and rule-sets fall under the "you cant copyright rules and facts" exception in international copyright law. They do have copyright on characters, settings and similar things though.

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It may be wrong, I'm no expert on copyright law, but they do claim ownership of beholders (and mind flayers.). Probably other, less famous, monsters as well.

I don't know if anyone has challenged that in court, but games using the D20 content don't include them.

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In any case it may pay to be prudent and avoid serious conflicts. Beholder as a name is interesting in that it's actually a word of the English language, so you can't copyright that, but the concept of the floating spherical monster with magic eyes that is called a beholder may in fact be specific enough to be copyrighted.

Mind flayers I'm not sure about, but that could depend a lot on how Lovecraftian their origins are. In Dominions they are mainly called starspawn and it's the same in CoE3. Illithid is a TSR/WOTC name, which appears in Dominions and it is more problematic.

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Mind Flayers are only Lovecraftian in Dominions. In D&D, they're just creepy tentacle people.

But if you can't copyright monsters, then I'd say using mind flayers in-game should be fine.

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Re: Illwinter's next project
 

I would like to answer thejeffs argument but I seem to have misplaced my article.



Anyway, i am not a lawyer but this is how I understand copyright law.

You can not copyright a fictional monster or a race. After all, a monster or race is when you boil it down just a list of attributes. And lists, facts and descriptions are excepted from copyright. If you could i'm sure the Tolkien estate would be even more wealthy than they already are.

You can patent certain facts or lists in some jurisdictions. Mainly the american. (Business method patents for example.) But even then it has the limitation, (i think), that it must be a method to achieve something.

Nor can you copyright a name. You can trademark a name however. But that is something quite different. Not only must you pay for a trademark. It will not prevent anyone from using it unless they use it in ways were a person could be led to believe that it is a wizards of the coast product.

A character can, however, be copyrighted. So Bob the beholder is copyrightable but the beholder race as such is not.

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It is also worth noting that not all legal actions by lawyers mean something was illegal. Ive worked for a law firm and can verify that some cases are taken up just because the other person cant possibly afford to fight it. So the "win" goes to the firm with the most money, not the one that is in the right

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

(I know I'm a little late to the party but I don't log in that much...)

I'm super pumped about this news.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

This is so hard for people to understand sometimes. I'm often baffled by people not understanding how the legal system works.

"You should just sue them". Yeah, good luck with that. Being in the right, and being in the legal right are different things, and getting your legal right is even more difficult.

Offtopic reply btw.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

game looks great :)

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Regarding the copyright discussion: I really doubt Illwinter or shrapnel is big enough on the market for WoTC to give a **** in this case.

The game looks promising.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Indeed!

Business world uses ruse all the time in pursuit of benefit. Saying or writing something does not mean it is so. There are no laws againts general lying, while some special ways of unscrupulous cheating are forbidden. There are, unfortunately, even real companies based on theme "trying-out-our-luck" on copyright field, benefitting on the cost of unaware and ignorant businesses or start-ups.


It really makes me wonder how come so many people are driving with dim-lit torches, just consider general notion of how EULA works. It seems most people have no idea about their own rights as buyers - thinking everything written on EULA would bind a buyer just because its written down in there. One example people still fight over is a typical misconception among mac/PC community that one cant install OS X on PC because EULA just happens to place restrictions on it (or something like that).

But the point is, people and businesses try to make claims without a base - because it might prove profitable, and theres no restrictions how many claims one can make. Only restricting value is the number in your account, and usually the claim maker got more.



Common behavior in the business environment is to start caring right after the profit or sales margins reach some indicator. It is most likely even be more lucrative to wait silently and calmly and make the claim far later to maximize the profits - when someone else has first done the footwork.



~ edit ~

too cases more:

just remembered the "recent" Kinect incident, it was covered thoroughly in Wired (US). When that one organization announced a price for who ever would first hack Kinect and publish the results, Microsoft came out too and announced it would sue the hacker. This, of course, cooled down the number of try-outs, but - as we know - it was eventually done. Then Microsoft came forth again and said " just kidding, by the way heres the tool package for Windows-use also."

In my personal experience theres also recent incidence where a guy came to me and said we had written something about him in public, and while it was all true, it harmed his career and, even worse, it was actual malice. He gave me ultimatum that if we were not gonna fix it he would sue us. We reviewed the scriptings and decided to let him sue us - the (pretender)god would decide the truth of it. He never sued us anywyas - but he almost forced us to do something we were not willing to do freely, by just lying he would sue us. (actually, I have got plenty of these over the years, this one happened this summer).

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Well the conversation has been brought up with Illwinter as have any other points made here.
So we will hope they act safely. But if not, we have all done our job. :)
Thanks everyone.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Wow, that comment sparked quite a discussion. I just wanted to point out that it's possible the name "Beholder" might cause legal trouble, not that it is certain to cause them. If the devs, or a tester, comes up with a cool alternate name, changing it just in case causes no harm.


Fantomen, I have to disagree with you. Illwinter (and Shrapnel Games) might not be very big, but that doesn't mean they should be prepared to do well. Casual games are big, and while CoE won't be published on mobile platforms, it could do well. Better than Dominions, even - the market audience is much better than Dom3's more hardcore players, and the existing Illwinter fanbase could potentially spread the word rather wide.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Tolkien Estate did ban TSR from using hobbits and balrogs back in the day though, hence halflings and balors.

Also, levitating balls with a huge eye and/or lots of eyestalks have a history of being called differently than Beholder in non-D&D games. Gazer in Ultima, Chaos Spawn in Master of Magic, etc. That's a proven and safe road to go.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

A single monster trademarked (not copyrighted, mind you) on dubious grounds in the US is not going to cause any trouble for a 2 man indie developer in sweden, just because they use a similar monster type among hundreds of others.

First, I withhold that it's far too irrelevant for WoTC to care, and second sweden doesn't have a money driven legal system where you can just sue anyone just because you're a big company. You need to actually be more or less right to win a case here.

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Actually, Shrapnel is an American company (right?). So if WotC decides to sue, they can effectively stop distribution of the game everywhere

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Right, bringing the product to the States aint a problem, BUT distributing the product in the States may change the situation.

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If Shrapnel is indeed located in the US, distributing it anywhere would be a problem should litigation ensue.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Well, if they trademarked the name it could be a problem. IIRC, you have to aggressively keep up your trademark or else you can lose it.

But this is just the thing Shrapnel should have lawyers for. So I think they will deal with this. (Sadly we will not really hear from it, but that is their decision).

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

The thing is though I have never seen Beholder written as Beholder(tm) in any D&D book. While the wiki claims it is part of the "identity" of D&D and therefore is not in the SRD I did a quick search for "Yaun-Ti" which they also consider the same. Lo and behold there is an entire module dedicated to the Yaun-Ti from a third party, Goodman Games. I'm also guessing you can find beholders in third party adventures.

And as pointed out beholders, while often not called beholders, have appeared in computer games since the 8-bit days.

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I don't think it is mandatory to tag each mention of a trademarked word with (TM). But hey, I'm not a lawyer :D.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

When I worked for a law firm I was told that tags, signs, declarations, etc are fairly worthless. Instead of being informative or legally useful, they are often used as intimidation. Signs like "not responsible for" or "do not trespass" or "violators will be shot" or "beware of dog" have little real legal value. If you are responsible, then no sign changes that. And things like (tm) tags, ToS, AUP, (or warning letters from lawfirms) are more along the line of "I want you to believe me so you wont take me to court about it".

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

Once registered though it provides more strength than just a warning.

Re: Illwinter's next project
 

[quote=Johan K;781995The game is Conquest of Elysium 3. For those that haven't tried it, it's another fantasy strategy game, but simpler and much quicker than Dominions.[/QUOTE]
:up: for a game simpler than Dom3, and :up: for a game quicker than Dom3, too. :)

I think the copyright/trademark thing on the Beholder was settled when brxbrx posted this...

But here's a link about copyright law that some people might find interesting, too: 10 Big Myths about copyright explained