Example unit graphics from our mod

[JaydedOne]

Gandalf Parker said:
Oh great. Like it will do any good to try and have the conversation with a completely non-tech legal department. That kills most of the arguments you might give.

*chuckle* As both a lawyer and a former Wizards of the Coast employee, I can assure you that I highly doubt that their legal department is non-tech.

You might want to think a little more deeply about why it is that a legal department might request a *physical letter* before opening discussions about the legality of a proposed action.

[DominionsFan]

BigJMoney said:
Haha. They might be non-tech, but they are the legal department for the world's #1 role-playing and hobby gaming franchise. If anyone knows anything about this, you can bet they do. Also, I'd like to point out that Leif's information is not his subjective opinion. He is giving you helpful information, DF. It's not what you wish to hear, but it's helpful.

This reminds me of the story of a man who asked his father how to get rich when he was a young boy. His father told him he needed to discover a way how to "make money". He and his best friend thought for some time and then they became excited when they came up with their very own idea. They went around the neighborhood, collecting the used toothpaste containers from their neighbors. They told their neighbors they were starting a business project, and they'd like some help. Their neighbors were encouraging to the boys, so they assisted them. Eventually, the boys rounded up enough empty toothpaste tubes to begin execution of their money making plan. It turns out their plan was to melt down the nickel tubes and mold them into coins. They had literally discovered a way to "make money". Needless to say, their father had to tell them it was illegal. My point is, whether something is illegal or not is not someone's opinion. Maybe Leif is incorrect, but he is not stating an opinion. He is stating the law.

=$= Big J Money =$=

PS -- He is not incorrect. However, if you feel that what you are doing is not immoral you could probably go ahead and do it, and I seriously doubt you would ever incur legal action. Even if you did, the worst that would happen is Wizards would contact you and threaten a lawsuit if you do not remove your mod from development/distribution. This would be a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" situation. That decision is yours to make. I personally don't reccomend making breaking the law a habit.

Yep. I will use photoshopped miniatures. If Wizards never cared about it in the past, they won't care now at all.
People are using the miniature images for years now in the various game modifications. ...and not in games with a small fanbase, but in games with a huge fanbase, like the civilization series.

[Morkilus]

Oh noes! WotC owns my avatar now that they bought D&D! I'm ruined!

I won't tell on ya, DFan. *encouragement*

[Frostmourne27]

You might want to consider what JaydedOne said, but sending them a letter might not be a bad idea. Or reading around on their web page. I know nothing about DnD miniatures, but you might make a case that your use is open game lisance (spelling?) if your mod resembles greyhawk type worlds. One the other hand, this is hardly widespread, so they probably wont care, and as BigJMoney pointed out, worst case they probably will do nothing more than send a few insulting letters demanding you stop publishing your mod.

[paradoxharbinger]

here's my 2 cents: you said that you could draw these things up yourself right? wouldn't it give you a greater sense of accomplishment to do that rather than rip off wotc?

and here's a thought: your mod could very well be construed as a way to help boost sales for dom3, whether it is what you intend or not, this sort of scenario results in profits for dom3 with wotc created material and they won't ever see a red cent of it.

[DominionsFan]

Drawing units like these would take many hours. Our vanilla mod will need approx. ~200 + 200 = 400 sprites for the new units. Just calculate how much time would it take to draw those. I would say it would be impossible, since we cannot do this all day long. In fact I cannot do it, since only I am good in photoshop in the team. Anyways like many people have pointed out, I doubt that anyone would care if we would use these images, or if they would, the maximum what could happen is, that they would send an e-mail that we shouldn't use these images. If they do, we replace the images with in-game unit images. They never cared that everyone used up these images in countless game modifications, why should they care about this mod?

[DominionsFan]

I was playing around with non miniature images. Take a look at this orc with a sword. [You won't see too much from the sword & his black leather armor, because they are almost black, but not 0,0,0]
It is also not complete, this was just a quick test.





I think that unit gfx like this could also work perfectly.

[PDF]

I can't even understand why someone not connected to Dreamlands can start such a debate :? ... A lawyer maybe ?

Go on DomFan, make the graphics please !

[Frostmourne27]

PDF said:
I can't even understand why someone not connected to Dreamlands can start such a debate :? ... A lawyer maybe ?

What's to say we're not connected to dreamlands? The omniprescence of cthulhu in incredible. (hmmm... degrees of omnipresence... that might not work...)

[Gandalf Parker]

Besides, its not like there arent netcops around