Classic MMOG Raised From the Dead by Past Players

Chromain writes "Back in 1996, the Seattle-based company Starwave created one of the first graphical MMOGs: Castle Infinity. Though it was well received by all who tried it, it quickly sank under bad marketing, extended downtime, and sloppy leadership. Now, nearly 8 years since disappearing off the map, the game has been (quite literally) rescued from a dumpster by a group of past players. It's available for free at their new website."

Comments

Sadly, trash is where most MMOG's belong

[zhevek]

...that is, if you want any part of your life back ;)

Classic games that you can never find again

[AEton]

Twelve years ago the landscape of the Internet was totally different. We had Clevnet, and that could get us anywhere!

BBS games were before my time (or I just missed out on the craze), but I was a big fan of single-person text adventures before they were Interactive Fiction. I was especially fond of a couple of adventure games on some pay-per-minute service, Compuserve or Prodigy maybe. One in particular stands out because it involved a vampire (Dracula?) and it was designed to be incrementally solvable. It's where I learned the maze mapping skills that came so handy in Adventure later (even though it came out earlier).

Does anyone else remember this vampire-themed adventure game that was available on some early ISP? Even a name would be a start...

since the article is still unavailable...

[bnitsua]

I think this raises interesting questions about abandonware...
what's the legality of taking over a project that was aborted? even though the company who owned it literally trashed the project, don't they still own some sort of rights to it?
if it became popular, could they do anything, since they bought the rights from Starwave... or does throwing it in the trash forfeit those rights?

Re:since the article is still unavailable...

[The Famous Brett Wat]

To the extent that physical artefacts were recovered from the trash, there's no question of theft here. I recall reading about a case a while back in which the police obtained evidence without a warrant by taking it from someone's trash, and the court ruled that as non-infringing. Some reporters retaliated by raiding the trash of some high-profile public servants associated with the area, and reporting on it. Sauce for the goose... gotta love it.

Anyhow, what you're asking about is the copyright, no doubt. We've had some succinct answers offered in this thread already, and I'll have to back the "maybe" on this. If it went to court, the arguments would be pretty interesting! Can you throw a copyright in the trash? I don't think the law specifies, and I don't think the courts have ever ruled on it. Interesting concept, though. If I were the lawyering type, I'd want to argue that the copyright was trashed, unless there is some evidence to suggest that the work was retained, or the copyright sold. My argument would be that the material entered the public domain due to abandonment -- although I'd find out what the accepted Latin phrase for that is, to underscore my lawyerhood.

How about, "if a copyright owner abandons all physical embodiments of the work, and has not entrusted the preservation of that work to another party, then, ceterus paribus, the copyright has also been abandoned." (Latin included only for show.)

Re:Illegal?

[eclectro]

Actually not. Once you throw it away, you're throwing it to the birds.

The problem is more how it was thrown away. If the dumpster was located on private property, then that's tresspassing. Public property - that's a different matter entirely. Laws vary from state to state on this. But you do not see much enforcement anyway, as it's trash.

I imagine that there are different laws for each state that prohibit people from climbing into dumpsters for safety reasons..

So much as the code goes, I searched and could not find information about the status of code ownership/trademarks or current license. I do note that a non-profit was started for the sake of preserving the game.

As an aside, I think this exemplifies why current copyright law is too long, and favors those who have deep pockets for lobbyists to protect a "few" things, while literally everything else goes to the trash.

A similar fate

[hobotron]

Was one of Redmoon. (http://www.redmoon.co.kr/ Korean version) An english server lasted for at least 5 years, but due to mismanagement, ingame and secuirty, the server software was "obtained", and now countless old players can download it and set up their own, or play on one of the many private servers, I have first hand knowledge of these events because I was a Redmoon player for a long time, I've followed it from the US version, to the Singapore company that bought it, to its home right now as a player created/tinkered operation.

Sure some of the things done to obtain the software were ethically questionable, but when you really love a game a lot, its hard to see it completely given up on. A lot of this love comes across with the development team that ressurected castleinfinity. It wasnt the first MMORPG that was resurected, and it wont be the last, as long as you have a deep emotional tie with a game (bordering on adiction, believe me, I know) you cant just let it go.

Thanks for bringing back some memories that were close to me with this story.

Re:A note from one of the Architects.

[kdq]

I am the Keeper of the Keys to Infinity - that is, I officially run the joint. First, let me apologize for the down server - Apache stays up for about 45 seconds at a burst, and sometimes won't even start. We're working on it. Second, the old servers are dual P6-200's with 128MB of ECC RAM. They are 10 year-old HP machines, and if you want to pay for shipping or come pick them up, there are three of them. I've been spending the money for the last seven years to keep C8 alive because I believe it deserves a chance to be exposed to the public. Total donations from other sources just barely make four figures. I don't mind, as long as people are playing. Again I apologize for the inconvenience, but the dinosaurs thought they were under major attack from the monsters and panicked.