NeverWinter Nights

[hunter]

This came up on the TML so I thought it best to post it here also:

I have a question has anyone given thouht that since Neverwinter Nights uses the D20 system and a DM Toolkit will be available, making a Traveller T20 modlue/place, ie like a space station or a base on a world.

NWN modules will NOT be covered under the FFE Fair Use terms. This is because of the way the NWN end-user license reads. If you create a NWN module and distribute it in any way, according to the NWN EULA Bioware/Infogrames will have the right to use what is contained in those modules anyway they see fit (yes I realize such a claim is dubious at best).

Like everything else if you want to create such modules for your own use you can, you just can't give it away, post it on your website, or distribute it in any other manner.

Running a NWN module on a server would also likely be out because you would need a license from Marc.

Hunter

 

[Murph]

Just got it, and WOW! While I think Baldur's Gate II had a better story line, the graphics are pretty incredible. Can't wait to play with the dungeon designer portion.

 

[RabidVargr]

Originally posted by Murph:
Just got it, and WOW! While I think Baldur's Gate II had a better story line, the graphics are pretty incredible. Can't wait to play with the dungeon designer portion.

I got it but my graphics card cant hang...

RV

 

[Blue Ghost]

Originally posted by hunter:
This came up on the TML so I thought it best to post it here also:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I have a question has anyone given thouht that since Neverwinter Nights uses the D20 system and a DM Toolkit will be available, making a Traveller T20 modlue/place, ie like a space station or a base on a world.

NWN modules will NOT be covered under the FFE Fair Use terms. This is because of the way the NWN end-user license reads. If you create a NWN module and distribute it in any way, according to the NWN EULA Bioware/Infogrames will have the right to use what is contained in those modules anyway they see fit (yes I realize such a claim is dubious at best).

Like everything else if you want to create such modules for your own use you can, you just can't give it away, post it on your website, or distribute it in any other manner.

Running a NWN module on a server would also likely be out because you would need a license from Marc.

Hunter</font>[/QUOTE]My two credits; I can't imagine any sensible judge agreeing with an all encompassing EULA if two parties came to blows over a property translated to a game engine.

My reasoning goes something like this; by declaring all property used with your game mechanic, and threatening retaliation for defiance of this declaration, one is, in effect, declaring a kind of sovereignty over anyone who even presses a key on a computer that has the thing up and running.

I just think it's pure BS on the part of the NWN people. Greed knows no bounds, and these guys just want everything that ever created with their tool to belong to them. It's like me manufacturing a series of oil paints and claiming that all paintings created with my product belongs to me. It just doesn't wash, and I'd like to think a well heeled judge would toss any claim made by the NWN people back in their face ... and possibly throw them in the slammer for a couple of weeks/months for being such unmitigated jerks.

I'm tired of game companies (present company excepted, because Mark Miller and crew are definately one of the good guys) trying to exert unwarranted and unreasonable authority over their customers.

Rise up! The time is now! Liberty of death! (that last statement was of course done with tongue in cheek)

 

[theSea]

Blue ghost - excuse me for jumping in here but....

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
My reasoning goes something like this; by declaring all property used with your game mechanic, and threatening retaliation for defiance of this declaration, one is, in effect, declaring a kind of sovereignty over anyone who even presses a key on a computer that has the thing up and running.

I have to disagree with that statement - you can do anything you like for personal use - which covers your rights under 'fair use.' Much more so than, say, the license granted by the RIAA or the MPAA.

I just think it's pure BS on the part of the NWN people. Greed knows no bounds, and these guys just want everything that ever created with their tool to belong to them.

Actually I think this is their lawyers way of ensuring that they maintain some control over what's done with their IP. this stuff is mostly so that they have some recourse if someone decides to do a Debbie Does Dallas all over their spiffy game engine.

It's like me manufacturing a series of oil paints and claiming that all paintings created with my product belongs to me.

Well if you created the paints and the special glasses needed to view them then one might be able to argue this a bit... as it stands I'd say that your metaphor is broken.

It just doesn't wash, and I'd like to think a well heeled judge would toss any claim made by the NWN people back in their face ... and possibly throw them in the slammer for a couple of weeks/months for being such unmitigated jerks.

IANAL but I'd say it washes just fine - the judge would have no problem enforcing that EULA and Bioware is actually being quite generous with their IP. Perhaps you forget we're talking about the same legal system that awards a woman in NYC $9,000,000 for laying down on a subway track and not dying....

I'm tired of game companies (present company excepted, because Mark Miller and crew are definately one of the good guys) trying to exert unwarranted and unreasonable authority over their customers.

Try not buying their products - it's the most effective remedy you have.

 

[Blue Ghost]

No. You have to understand that NWN is like a "Lego" or "Erector Set" for games. As such they have no right to control the content of what's created with their engine. If they had a list of themes or fiction from which the end user could create things, then they might have a leg to stand on (i.e. like LEC and their Dark Forces series), but that's not what NWN is all about. Another example might be the venerable Lite-Brite set. No picture created with that colored peg set was copyrightable, yet according to NWN the makers of Lite-Brite could (were they of a mind) demand royalties and/or rights to all pictures created with their product.

The courts have already established that algorithms (for the purposes of usable software) are copyrightable. Therefore any EULA that claims it has rights over things created with its tool is sheer greed and nonsense. Why? Because the creator or owner already has rights over his intellectual tool.

I'm almost of a mind, just for spite, to buy NWN, make a Traveller mod, and post it on an offshore website and see if the NWN people will try to exercise ownership over mod.

 

[Scarecrow]

What you guys are talking about are called 'mods'. The First-Person Shooter community have been doing them since the days of DOOM.

It's perfectly acceptable (and even encouraged by many games developers) for end users to create their own content.

NWN even has tools thrown in to do this very thing.

You'd only get into legal trouble if you started charging for it. As long as it's free to download for all NWN users then there's no problem =)

Even if you were to make a Traveller mod for NWN there shouldn't be legal repercussions - again unless you stood to profit from it.

Crow

 

[Blue Ghost]

But the issue is ownership of intellectual property created with what amounts to a "game tool" of sorts. According to the NWN EULA if I create a "Star Trek" or "Star Wars" mod, then the NWN people own it. And then they can, upon their choosing, decide to make and distribute (for a profit, as you correctly pointed out) Star Trek or Star Wars material.

The core issue is the common sensical parsing of a piece of intellectual property that's used to create other properties, and the properties created from that tool. To me the difference is crystal clear, but some game companies are overly greedy, and thus include a "We own everything you do with this thing" satement at the begining of installation and at the end of the hardcopy users' manual. In my mind perhaps somekind of reinforcement legislation may be needed to remind people of the law as it already exists, and was written.

 

[Scarecrow]

I just read through the thread properly and I have to say that I really think it's just simply the NWN people covering their arses legally.

99.9% of the mods and conversions created for use with NWN using the NWN tools will either be dross or of no interest to Bioware whatsoever. However if someone should create something interesting that they would like to pickup and distribute themselves, this whole intellectual property thing makes it easier for them to acquire.

I think Counterstrike is actually an excellent example of something along these lines. Developed entirely independently on the net using the Half-Life engine as a base, Sierra/Valve noticed how popular this mod was and bought it up to publish as a game in it's own right. I believe they made some sort of deal with the developers. Whilst I don't have the specifics of that deal I'm pretty certain they didn't just steal it from the developers, saying it's their intellectual property. I believe they either employed them or cut some sort of financial deal.

Saying that anything created with the NWN software is theirs is just legal wrangling to make such maneuvres easier should they encounter resistance.

If you were an independent party on the net developing, lets say a Star Wars mod for NWN, Bioware couldn't claim intellectual ownership of that project because Lucasarts would have some very long words to say about it - and I'll bet their lawyers are bigger and scarier than Bioware's =)

Go! Create a Traveller mod for NWN. You can guarantee Bioware won't be interested - unless it's incredibly good and incredibly popular and if that happens, they'll either approach you (and FFE) with an option to develop it commercially or they (and FFE) will take it from you legally.

Either way we get a Traveller version of NWN - that can only be a good thing.

Crow

PS - I'm a professional computer games artist and I'd love to help out =)

 

[Blue Ghost]

No. Or rather what you say may (but also may not) be the case, but what they've done, and the effect of what they've done, is, by the letter of the law, illegal, unethical and immoral on a number of levels.

To cover one's backside legally one need only establish their ownership over that which they've created. Nothing more.

Often I find myself amidst a sea of sans-willed gamers. The type of people who, because of their unique upbringing on facets of fantasy, find it easier to escape to those immaginary realms during times of confrontation, than to stay and confront the opposition; i.e. fight. It is so that people will try to explain away the most blatant attempts at legal theft and the equivalent of high-seas piracy. Blue collar workers on strike may be boorish, insulting, bullying, and otherwise undesireable, but they are not spineless as often I find most gamers to be.

I remember expounding the virtues of sueing 989 studios at the Star Wars Galaxies thread. I'd had a particularly unhappy experience playing Everquest; in short no in game rules of etiquette were ever enforced, and customer service was lack luster to say the least. You know, I actually had people tell me that I better be careful what I say because I might anger the people creating the game.

I've enjoyed various games throughout my years of gaming. I've had great fun having my immagination taken to places unique, fantastic, and filled with wonderous things and events. I've enjoyed thinking of tactics in wargames, puzzleing out traps in RPs, and otherwise interacting with various trappings of wargames and RPGs. But I've never really enjoyed the company. And after having my hackles raised by gamers who do nothing by think of ways to exploit loopholes in rulesets, being troubled by people whose lives revolve around games and their immagination, and now dissapointed by well meaning cowards, I think it's time I moved on.

No doubt someone will post a rebuttal, but I won't read it. I'm am, quite frankly, fed up with the hyper-intelligent cowards I've faced throughout my years of gaming. To be sure not all are of this ilk, but the frequency and percentage of hard core gaming ilk are so. May you all get what you deserve in terms of EULA.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

don't you think you are being just a tad rude?

 

[James Bolivar DiGriz]

For the Neverwinter Nights sort of thing I currently like Dungeon Siege, the best. As far as older games go I would list Darkstone and Stonekeep as two of the better ones(but then again, I liked Zork and kinda miss the low-tech TRS80 with it's cassettte drive).