Freeshard

[Xest]

Breach of contract doesn't automatically mean you're breaking the law, loss of your account is the result of breaking a contract so I'm not sure why you're referring to breaking the law Belisar, playing a freeshard absolutely in no way breaks any law other than those set forth by GOA/Mythic and last time I checked they weren't running any countries and determining laws just yet, even if Requiel's FH posts would suggest he might like to think so.

The only extent to which something like a EULA/CoC is legally binding is to the point where they're allowed to terminate your account if you do break it. The reason banning/suspension of accounts exists in the EULA/CoC is so that you could sue the company for breach of contract if it wasn't as you're the paying customer.

[Xest]

I have seen how DAOC will be when mythic lets go of it at some point in the future and if mythic finally lets the game die in what ever distant plan that is, then i see nothing wrong with fans keeping the game alive as they have done with freeshards on ultima online - And will do with any other game

Yep, that's one reason EXACTLY why reverse engineering is legal, so that if a company ceases support for a product you're not left with a worthless product. For example, I had an old webcam which they refused to support after Windows 98, without reverse engineering being legal for the purpose of alternate products I'd have been left with a useless webcam, however reverse engineering meant I was able to have drivers that worked in Windows 2000.

[<ankh>]

I have seen how DAOC will be when mythic lets go of it at some point in the future and if mythic finally lets the game die in what ever distant plan that is, then i see nothing wrong with fans keeping the game alive as they have done with freeshards on ultima online - And will do with any other game

True, but until the game is actually gone, one should support it by playing on the official servers or else the game will go away fasters imo.

/Ankh

[Lairiodd]

I wonder if something like splitting the devs and the hosts would be a good idea.

For example, in the US they have split television companies from content providers. There would be 2 companies with the same name (with 1 word different). One of them would produce the shows, and would sell them to all the providers. This means that you can see shows on more than 1 station. They can't sell shows to one company for less than they sell to another.

Hmm, you would end up with multiple MMORPG's and multiple hosts. Mythic-network and Blizzard-network would run the servers and Mythic-dev and Blizzard-dev would produce the actual content.

You could play either game with either host. The devs would not be allowed to give preferential contracts to the same company. This is basically breaking vertical integration, where one company does everything.

In fact, you could have devs which sell to hosts and hosts which don't do any dev themselves. Something like realmcrafted is like that, where one company hosts all the games ... but in that case, it is the same tool set for every game

[Belisar]

Sorry Xest - did not mean to imply that freeshards were breaking the law..

Just that you/Arc clearly do not agree with mythics view. My view is that UK law is crap in places, the UK Govt disagrees, but I would hesitate to post anything which may encourage people to break it.

[Xest]

Sorry Xest - did not mean to imply that freeshards were breaking the law..

Just that you/Arc clearly do not agree with mythics view. My view is that UK law is crap in places, the UK Govt disagrees, but I would hesitate to post anything which may encourage people to break it.

Still not sure what you mean in terms of UK law and encouraging people to break it? The UK has the same laws as the rest of europe with regards to reverse engineering software for the purpose of developing a competing product and that is that it's legal.

[ambera]

I do wonder though - do the freeshards have the same classes, same abilities, same landscapes, same quests... same anything, in terms of the look/feel/design/text of the game? You don't just copyright the code when you copyright a creative product, you copyright the ideas. DaoC is not an application where you could argue that the same features would probably have been invented anyway. Someone sits down and writes a DaoC quest and I don't see how that differs from someone writing a novel - if the idea is stolen, that's an infringement, even if the words are different. If the words are the same, that's a clear cut case.

[Belisar]

Hhhmm not sure how to explain - let's set aside the mythic, freeshard stuff for a sec.

What we have here is a thread which was made in order to highlight something. That something if used could land peeps with a ban (however small or large).

I would not suggest peeps try it just in case they get caught.

I would not suggest peeps drive at 80mph on a UK motorway even if I think the speed limit should be more than the current 70mph because whatever I think will not help them escape punishment.

Got no problem discussing principles but we need to be careful not to give people the impression it is an ok place to go.

[Lairiodd]

What we have here is a thread which was made in order to highlight something. That something if used could land peeps with a ban (however small or large).

I am not sure how high the risk is, but yeah, Goa/Mythic would be well within their rights to ban people for using the software against the COC.

I would not suggest peeps drive at 80mph on a UK motorway even if I think the speed limit should be more than the current 70mph because whatever I think will not help them escape punishment.

That would actually in fact, be breaking the law .

Got no problem discussing principles but we need to be careful not to give people the impression it is an ok place to go.

Right, ignoring the risk would be a bad idea. However, I think that most people who try free shards are likely to be pretty bored with the game already. Getting banned might not be a big deal to them.

[Xest]

Hhhmm not sure how to explain - let's set aside the mythic, freeshard stuff for a sec.

What we have here is a thread which was made in order to highlight something. That something if used could land peeps with a ban (however small or large).

I would not suggest peeps try it just in case they get caught.

I would not suggest peeps drive at 80mph on a UK motorway even if I think the speed limit should be more than the current 70mph because whatever I think will not help them escape punishment.

Got no problem discussing principles but we need to be careful not to give people the impression it is an ok place to go.

Yeah but speeding is against the law and can result in death or injury, freeshards aren't quite that bad ]I do wonder though - do the freeshards have the same classes, same abilities, same landscapes, same quests... same anything, in terms of the look/feel/design/text of the game? You don't just copyright the code when you copyright a creative product, you copyright the ideas. DaoC is not an application where you could argue that the same features would probably have been invented anyway. Someone sits down and writes a DaoC quest and I don't see how that differs from someone writing a novel - if the idea is stolen, that's an infringement, even if the words are different. If the words are the same, that's a clear cut case.[/QUOTE] You're right but afaik the freeshards out there don't copy quest content, what they probably do copy is things like spell names, class names and such which are stored client side as text strings, the server just sends a number responding to a text string and the client displays it, therefore the freeshard server only has to send the number determining a specific text string. The idea is that a client could then have a seperate text string for a different language and the server doesn't even need to know about it.

Also, you can get away with copying some things, if you couldn't then DAoC wouldn't be possible in the first place as something like LotR could claim prior art for elves or whatever. You're certainly right in that copying everything would indeed be a case of copyright infringement but freeshards don't and can't do that - see my earlier note about the ruleset not being public, they can however make a best guess. It's certainly true that there is the potential for copyright infringement for most shards and again - this goes back to what I said previously, this is where some reverse engineering cases have failed because the whole product or near enough has indeed been mimicked.

I think the issue people have is understanding what a freeshard server actually does, it doesn't remake the DAoC graphics and such those already exist on the client, it's literally just a server that's been custom written with a custom built ruleset and that's the key point - everything about it is custom, just because it works with the DAoC client is not in any way copyright infringement until that code or that ruleset is copied identically or near enough from Mythic's setup. The fact is as similar as a freeshard looks it doesn't actually copy anything it's literally just a home grown server that's compatible with DAoC. Just like Linux and MacOS are compatible with Windows in terms of many Microsoft protocols.