FreeCraft Forks Offer RTS Alternatives

TekPolitik writes "Blizzard's attempt to shut down the multi-platform freeware RTS, FreeCraft appears to have backfired. There are now two replacement projects - Project Inferno and Stratagus. The new sites are making some effort to catalog all the games that use the new engine. Stratagus lists Wargus, Aleona's Tales and RoboVasion. Project Inferno lists ShadowConflict." The Stratagus FAQ page constructively explains: "Stratagus aims at being a generic realtime strategy engine, with no special focus on Warcraft2."

Comments

Re:Reasons for shutting down FreeCraft

[mugnyte]

Why would the engine functionality mean anything? Games seem to repeat models quite often. Perhaps if there was an official list of the unique aspects of WC that people cannot copy without infringing on Blizzard's copyrighted/patented/trademarked IP (notice, IANAL). Without that, its kinda vaporous. Even if they could produce such a list, its questionable if those aspects alone make WC a unique game, and repeating them or any part of them "confuses" a game player into thinking they are playing a Blizzard game.

MS has lost to "Lindows" and Fox just lost to "Fair and Balanced". I've never heard of any law that says you can't imitate an existing behavior by writing it yourself, unless there's a unique algorithm involved, the GIF compression. Did WC employ a unique algorithm that had a patent?

mug

Re:Reasons for shutting down FreeCraft

[NetDanzr]

Does this mean it's still close to the original? If so, is the new name enough to keep Blizzard at bay?

I'm no legal expert, but I think Blizzard doesn't have a case here. Defining what's "too close to original" is very hard, and can easily backfire. For example, if I compare Diablo to Gauntlet (or Rogue for that matter), I see the same game only with different graphics. So as long as the new projects keep to their own graphics, they should be as safe as Blizzard was when it decided to release Diablo.

However, that doesn't mean that Blizzard doesn't try to sue them, and you know how such lawsuits go: the big guy sues the small guy who doesn't have the money for a defense, and even though the small guy is wully within his rights, he rather settles.

Shadow Conflict

[MichaelKVance]

Ah, poor Linux gaming. Since Loki shut down (I used to work there), things have really been grim. As it is, Shadow Conflict is a "game" written by a 19 year old kid in Maine who spends his day in #sdl--and isn't anything more than a collection of bad fiction. And this is what gets written about on /. now. Too sad.

You guys should be sending money to Ryan Gordon of icculus.org instead of complaining about Blizzard shutting down reverse-engineering sites.

m.