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Interplay Targeted By Bioware-fare
corby writes: "Bioware Corp., developer of the highly anticipated multiplayer Dungeons & Dragons game Neverwinter Nights, is escalating the conflict with their troubled publisher Interplay. In September, they filed a lawsuit against the publisher, and now they have terminated their contract with Interplay to distribute Neverwinter Nights. The problem is, these guys need each other. The loss of Neverwinter Nights means that Interplay will lose out on substantial revenue from a surefire hit, but Interplay is apparently the only company with rights to distribute games under the AD&D license."
... yet another example of crappy headlines! That title was just used to feed off the current thoughts of bio-terrorism. Bah I say to yee.
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AD&D is generally taken to refer to the second edition Dungeons & Dragons Rules.
Neverwinter Nights will be based on the 3rd edition D&D rules (D&D3e), which is different from AD&D.
A link to the 3rd Edition System Reference Document with all the core rules released to the Open Gaming Foundation (including Psionics!) may be found here.
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Floccinaucinihilipilification - the action or habit of judging something to be worthless
When Hasbro bought out Wizards of the Coast and sold off their rights to D&D computer games, you could see something like this eventually happening. Wizards had a 'Mastertools' program under development which was designed to remove all the bookkeeping tedium of handling a campaign. Once the license was transferred to Interplay, WotC had to gut the project to ensure compliance. I wish them all the best against Interplay.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Stated reason was difficulty breaking them from an MS framework. Seems like a designer fubared by choosing that framework to begin with, huh?
Surely it's not. AD&D is a trademark owned by Wizards of the Coast (formerly TSR).
MasterTools has not been "gutted". It's still in active development, and seems to be on track for release in the first quarter of 2002.
In fact, Ryan Dancey posted updated info regarding the project just two days ago on the WotC Message Boards.
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Floccinaucinihilipilification - the action or habit of judging something to be worthless
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/srd.html
The second link is to the SYSTEM REFERENCE DOCUMENT for D20/DnD. It contain's most of the content from the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monsters Manual I, and the Psionics Handbook.
I got a giggle out of it, at least...
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Who cares, those games are for nerds and satanists.
http://www.poolofradiance.com/
I don't see any mention of Interplay or Bioware there, yet it's an AD&D computer game. Would anyone care to explain?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Once again slashdot amazes me with the ability not to be able to post reliable or good information.
Bioware CAN publish titles under AD&D license, interplay has been rideing the "bioware" wave for over a year now. Bioware has every damn right to terminate their contract, especially since Interplay VIOLATED the terms of it.
The game is slated to be released Mar 2002, and on another note, I submited this story on wednesday.
I have posted anonymusly in order to protect myself and other sources.
If Bioware can't hash things out with Interplay, I'm sure they can get a deal with Infogrames.
Ed Chauvin IV
Bunch of wart-faced trolls getting worked up over a bunch of "pimply-faced dorks". Don't YOU people have lives at all?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
The part that does mention AD&D indicates that it is being used under license, no mention of exclusivity.
Can anyone clear this up?
-- Dan
Another obvious and trite comment posted by the humorless, and modded up by the same.
It took a quarter second for my eyes to move from the headline to the article, during which time I did not succumb to a panic attack or suffer overwhelming confusion.
Should I infer from your post that you believe most Slashdot readers are thin-skinned and stupid?
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You'll see a few intresting titles / names, does anyone know what these were licensed for?
* Bill Watterson - Calvin and Hobbes - This one I really don't understand, Bill didn't license anyone C&H...
* Peter Townhend - Tommy
* Mario, Luigi, The Princess, Yoshi and Koopa are trademarks of Nintendo of America, Inc
* Rodney Dangerfield Copyright © 1997 Dangerfield Entertainment
* Statistics provided by STATS, Inc. © 1998. All rights reserved
Makes you wonder what these chacters are used in / licensed for...
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Put Baldur's Gate and Rogue side by side, and you see that Bioware has done more than just computerize D&D. They've greatly enhanced the user experience with sophisticated interaction, simulation, and non-player character engine. And they've also created a story that is sophisticated enough to engage but simple enough to be managed by a "Dungeon Master" that's just a piece of software, and thus has no ability to improvise. That last is not technically sophisticated, but it's what impresses me the most.
That's just a declaration of who owns copyright to things seen on the site.
Black Isle (which is related to Bioware) tried to use GURPS (it was to be the foundation for Fallout) but Steve Jackson games were apparently too much of a pain in the ass to deal with so they striped out the gurps system and created their own.
Regarding our recent announcement of Neverwinter Nights contract termination with Interplay, we can't comment on this, except to say that BioWare is looking forward to releasing Neverwinter Nights on schedule, early in 2002. Development at BioWare is continuing on both Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic as well as on other as yet unannounced projects."
I'm thinking people are jumping the gun.
How does releasing the product as a non-commercial, open source game, suddenly make it legal to violate the trademarks, and copyrights that Hasbro holds on the AD&D gaming system?
Just because you're not charging for it, doesn't mean you can steal someone elses works to include. Just try and include some Metallica MP3's, in an open source projet of some sort, and see how well that flies.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I don't see how this is a troll. Michael posted a misleading headline, and misleadingly updating it without using the update: tag. This poster was merely pointing that out.
The original headline read "Interplay Targeted by Bio-Warfare."
Michael is also an idiot.
abusing +2 since 1998
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
it appears in response to criticism michael has changed the headline.
without using the update tag of course.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
How about makers of MMORPGs come up with something remotely new and inventive? Stop dragging out the Dungeons and Dragons license for the 50,000th time. You know, there are some rather interesting things you could come up with.
lol, nice nihilist definition. wish i had a mod point for ya.
When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another."
Actually, AD&D is a trademark owned by Hasbro. Remember who bought WotC.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
No, this isn't flamebait. I'm glad that they might get out of the AD&D business, and back to writing original, interesting, and easy-to-use adventures. Baldur's Gate was ok, but it was too tied to what it tried to reproduce -- AD&D, without going all the way.
Fallout was excellent because it was a role-playing game, but it wasn't any RPG you'd ever seen, short of pen-and-paper. What made Fallout great were the multiple conversation paths and the options you'd get, based on how knowledable or personable you were. It also helped that it was structured, but not overwhelmingly linear.
Yes, it had flaws, but the gameplay more than made up for it, and that's what I want to see more of.
corby stated that "Interplay is apparently the only company with rights to distribute games under the AD&D license" while this is only partially true.
I'm pretty sure that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro split the Dungeons and Dragons lines into several different developers' hands. Interplay owns only Forgotten Realms (which includes the Baldurs Gate games, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights) and Planescape.
Due to a grandfather clause, SSI (the company to first publish D&D games, including Eye of the Beholder, Shattered Lands, Menzoberranzan, Strahd's Possession) can still produce Forgotten Realms games. They publish through Mattel, NOT Interplay. Take a look at the Pool of Radiance site for more information. Oh, and Pool of Radiance will also use the D&D 3rd Edition rules (and is the first and only video/computer game out currently to do so).
I believe that other companies (not Interplay) have rights to other D&D worlds, such as Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright (Sierra owned this one a few years ago but the line may be dead), and Greyhawk.
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BTW, Wizards of the Coast is a division of Hasbro now. WotC bought TSR with the fortune they made from Magic: The Gathering, and then Hasbro swallowed them up.
... Hasbro does that:
...WotC's staff have always been enamored with D Peter Adkinson, CEO, is supposedly a really good Dungeon Master. The world he created had a group of wizards who called themselves the "Wizards of the Coast."
oop. MTG didn't give too much money to wotc (not enough to buy the near-bankrupt TSR and survive with a chance of success). It was Pokemon and WotC's alliance with Nintendo that raked in the cash. It was Pokemon that Hasbro bought WOtC for. Magic and D&D were just "bonuses"
Hasbro bought Microprose to get into the computer game industry, Avalon Hill was suing over the rights to the name of competing games called "Civilization" - so Hasbro just bought Avalon Hill rather than fight them. The entire development team at AH was scrapped as was almost the entire product line (except, of course, Diplomacy).
here's a fun fact for ya: Wizards of the Coast made unofficial D&D accessories (and greetings cards) before picking up a certain Richard Garfield and introducing the world to Magic.
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