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Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 3:52 pm
by Sven
Ok, who here can program?



Anyone interested in starting up a team to recode majormud?



Basically, we would recode all the hard-coded stuff, and keep the database files.



Seems like a lot of work, but it would break majormud free from the prison metro is keeping it in. If theres any interest I will go into more details.

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 3:53 pm
by Hobo_Bill
Sounds like someone's wanting lawyers crawling all up his ass.... hehehe

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 4:16 pm
by Raiden
Wouch... That's probably not something to post about. We should see a big {edited for content} on your entire post Sven ;)



A good name to use for 'recoding', 'cracking' is simply 'fixing' :-p



~Raiden

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 4:36 pm
by Sven
eh, being as how we would be coding everything for free and not using any of the main .exe files for majormud, I don't think they would have much of a case.

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 5:26 pm
by Raiden
Well... I beg to differ.



You will be taking and twisting around their hard-coding which they have copy-written and protected for this exact reason.



Anytime you take software that a group has legal claim to and twist it around in any way, they can legally find ways to bring up a lawsuit or shut you down.



I honestly wouldn't suggest speaking on this topic in the forums, as it can be quite touche' and may even violate Syn's term of agreement... Though I would ask him personally before quoting me on that. I'm sure he will throw in his input in here shortly though.



~Raiden

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 6:42 pm
by EvanElias
They'd completely have a case, since it'd rely on MajorMud's data files, which is copyrighted intellectual property. If you included anything outside of the MajorMud Demo -- ie, any game areas from any modules -- and made it publicly available, it'd be outright piracy, too :(



A better idea might be to recode MajorMud *for Metro*, getting a license from them to do so, and then getting royalties on future sales with the new game engine.



I'm very doubtful that they'd agree to such a thing, though. I offered to do it for them for Farwest Trivia, for a very low cost, and they said no without even reading most of my e-mail.

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 9:55 pm
by The Ghost
However, technically you could say Metro is also becoming a Monopoly for WG in general.. :)

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 11:33 pm
by Aragon
What practices do they employ in driving competitors out of business?

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sun May 09, 2004 12:15 am
by Sven
Well, if you make it able to read the data files, it is ok. Making the system to emulate majormud (without saying specifically thats what its for) is legal. If it can read their database scripts, thats legal. (If it isn't then Nightmare would be illegal as well). So as long as we don't package and distribute the .dat files with the product, they can't do anything.

Re: Calling all programmers..

Posted: Sun May 09, 2004 2:49 am
by syntax53
Well, if you make it able to read the data files, it is ok. Making the system to emulate majormud (without saying specifically thats what its for) is legal. If it can read their database scripts, thats legal. (If it isn't then Nightmare would be illegal as well). So as long as we don't package and distribute the .dat files with the product, they can't do anything.

nightmare is different from what you want to do. nightmare does something that majormud itself doesn't. it's a tool, or utility. what you're talking about would replace the core engine of majormud.



i think it would be more legal to just develop a game that played very very similar to majormud. it could use any database type and reside outside of WG.