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Originally posted by VoinianAmbassador:
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If I understand you correctly, you are advising making a game with basically the same engine as EV/O, but a modified scenario to avoid the copyright problems. Unfortunately, I don't think this will work. If kierke tries this, he might not be sued, but it is likely that Ambrosia will likely not allow distribution of the software -- certainly not through these web boards or the Ambrosia site -- or endorse it. What you neglect to mention is that effectively remaking EV -- in other words, reverse-engineering it -- or any other copyrighted software is illegal. For example, if kierke were to make a version of Mac OS X that looked very similar, but had a different color of Aqua and said "OK?" instead of "OK", Apple would definitely have a rightful platform to sue him on. By your argument, because Apple did not invent windows (no pun intended), the mouse, or icons (or if they did, they don't have a copyrighted claim to it), this would be entirely legal. But it isn't. The copyright prevents anyone from combining the elements you named to form a game that would end up being very similar to EV/O, and that's what it'll do in this case. In Matt's words, forget it.

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Visit my EVO web site at (url="http://"http://www.evoverride.com")http://www.evoverride.com(/url)!
"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." -- Samuel Johnson

I dunno, friend Shayborg...

We're all EV:O fans here. We have all enjoyed everything that Ambrosia has had to offer in terms of Escape Velocity Override. By now, I'm pretty certain that we've all registered. Until such time as Nova comes out, there's nothing left to pay for. A guy comes on the boards and (not the first) says, 'How about a web-based EV:O-style game?' I really don't foresee a problem with someobdy having a go at a multiplayer 2D space combat game with missions.

I hoped to suggest a path by which Ambrosia's wrath might not be incurred. Personally, I'd enjoy coming up with a new map, with new politics and new ships. To anybody except the most ardent techie, cloning isn't half as much fun as creating anew. Is it?

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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)

The fact that someone named mburch told me to forget it makes me very afraid.

So for now I'm going to restate my original project to a better extent and pose a question. The project I'm about to make is a Java Massively Multiplayer or arena style game engine. The classes that I will create (which should be finished and fairly optimized by December) will enable the small time computer programmes to add multiplayer capabilites to their games. All they'll have to do is create the Game functions and add it to the server and then create the graphics functions and add it to the client. It's not a huge project, just something to put on my resume and teach me the basic concepts of game programming. I was going to use EV as a test.

So what do I use as a test now. I still love the idea of an online EV.
If so what do I have to change around?
Most likely the graphics, sounds, text, interface, etc.
But must I also change the game algorithm. It's just asteriods so is this a problem.

Then again, I do have the time to create a server engine but do not have the time to create a whole new assortment of graphics and game actions.

What if didn't plan to make any money off of it and just use it as a test? I wouldn't run it all the time, only for a couple hours on Sunday, until I surpassed my bandwith, and only to test the main project. Why couldn't I do this? Or is there another reason? Are the people at EV secretly trying to build their own EV Online?

Oh well, as far as this weekend went I spent a lot of time tearing apart my game engine and restructering it, then I created a better (well at least I think it's better) way of creating a buffer for the data to be transmitted, and finally I spent the rest of the time trying to get X-Windows to work on Mac OS X.

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Originally posted by kierke19:
Are the people at EV secretly trying to build their own EV Online?

I doubt it; all of the Ambrosia/mburch/ATMOS/affiliated people I've heard comment on it have had no interest in a multiplayer EV, have believed it impossible or both. As to whether you can do it or not, just remember that there are two considerations to any approach:

• whether it is possible, and

• whether it overlaps with Ambrosia/mburch/ATMOS/affiliated intellectual property.

If what you create overlaps with their intellectual property, whatever you create is distributable only in whatever form (if any) you can get them to agree to.

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David Arthur
I don't watch horror movies, and I don't use Windows. That's called consistency.
(url="http://"http://members.aol.com/darthur1/talon-ev/")Talon Plugin for the original Escape Velocity(/url)

I have posted questions here before, asking which terms and concepts are registered trademarks of Ambrosia or related organisations. I wanted to mopdify a set of roleplaying (real roleplaying, not fleet battles) rules to set games in the Override universe, but I never got an answer from anyone in authority as to whether I would be considered to be doing harm to Ambrosia by publishing a document which included stats for characters of races such as 'Azdgari' or 'Hinwar', and letting folks buy a 'blaze pistol' or 'phase rifle'.

The project is stalled. If it is released it is likely to feature races which include those an EV:O enthusiast might recognise, but with different names. Very fast green-skinned folks with fast reflexes, secretive orange/yellow guys who don't talk much and have no interest in fighters...

Oh, and it's likely to be called 'Darien':

"Then I felt like some watcher of the skies,
When some new planet skims into his ken
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific - and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien"

(John Keats)

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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)

just make it with the EV stuff.
ambrosia has released the 3D models for public consumption, so there's no problem using them.

secondly, if ambrosia was so anal to ban your software or something then i think it would lose a hell of a lot of it's user base because if there's one thing we all can't stand it's a jerk software company like microsoft.

tycho

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Where the Hell's my roof?

Quote

Originally posted by VoinianAmbassador:
I have posted questions here before, asking which terms and concepts are registered trademarks of Ambrosia or related organisations.

It's more a matter of copyright than trademarks, really.

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David Arthur
I don't watch horror movies, and I don't use Windows. That's called consistency.
(url="http://"http://members.aol.com/darthur1/talon-ev/")Talon Plugin for the original Escape Velocity(/url)