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World of StarCraft Mod Gets C&D From Blizzard
eldavojohn writes "If you've been following the team who created World of StarCraft (an amazing mod of StarCraft II to be more like World of Warcraft), their YouTube video of what they've done so far has already resulted in a cease and desist from Activision/Blizzard. Evidently when you are given tools to make custom mods to games you should be careful about making something too good. The author of the mod is hopeful that it's just a trademark problem with the name of his mod, but few reasons for the C&D were given."
In other StarCraft news, reader glwtta recommends an article about how a Berkeley team won the world's first StarCraft AI competition with code that can beat even pro-level human players.
They better be making a "World of Starcraft" game, otherwise this just reeks of asshattery.
Living With a Nerd
I remember back when Blizzard was an awesome company with great customer service. Well, that, and when the gamers buying their games were the "customers" they were so great to.
That Activision merger seems to have totally killed the company we used to know. Not that this is totally surprising, mind you, but it's sad. I would guess that this was a matter of the Blizzard company officials not being paranoid enough to check the fine print in their merger deal. Either that, or they were ready to cash out.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
...a smart company with plenty of resources like Blizzard/Activation should be saying: "Hey, you guys want a job?"
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
If people can just come along and knock your shit down?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Blizzard will make the UI changes available in the options menu of the inevitable expansion without crediting the people they obviously got the idea from. If questioned about this, they will claim that the team stole the idea to make StarCraft more like WoW from them.
Sometimes, I hate how cynical I am. Then I surf to /.
The AI article was quite interesting, on all the various techniques that they had to use to avoid hardcoding exploitable behaviors and use heuristics to obtain desireable emergent behaviors. Fascinating stuff.
Disappointingly, though, the punch line boiled down to "We discovered a tactic that is functionally unbeatable if you have superhuman micro and aren't handicapped by starcraft's(sorry fans) frankly shitty interface". Much of the most interesting AI work was them allowing their team to survive long enough to build the unbeatable mutalisk swarm, along with a little bit to build a threat heat map and a target value map to guide the swarm as it picked the enemy apart.
Essentially, mutalisks' virtues were "balanced" by the fact that their range sucks and they tend to clump, which makes them easy meat for AoE AA attacks. It turns out, if your micro is inhumanly fast, you can break and reform the mutalisk clump fast enough to avoid most AoE attacks while still achieving concentrated fire on high value targets.
It's Starcraft II that they modified - to play like World of Warcraft.
Yes, sometimes it's obnoxious, sometimes people pick music that doesn't fit with the visuals. But your second point, while true, has no bearing on anything. No one makes music (or visuals, or whatever) choices based on what other people might possibly like, unless you're producing something meant to be bought by other people. Then you'd cater to those preferences. If you're making an internet video like this, you're going to pick the music you like, and you're not going to give a shit if other people like your personal taste.
You got that backwards. It's a mod of StarCraft, and it doesn't incorporate ANYTHING from World of Warcraft except the title. (Although I'm pretty sure "World of X" is pretty generic in and of itself.)
Other than the title, this is just a copy of any of a million 3rd person RPGs. I haven't done more than watch the Youtube trailer, so I don't know what the mod-team was promising to do and if any of that would cause problems, but changing the UI and the camera angle on the game doesn't seem to warrant any 'death by lawsuit' threats....unless, as other have surmised, they happen to have a 3rd person RPG in the StarCraft universe planned.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
Nope. They took the tools included with every copy of Starcraft II and used it to make a World of Warcraft-style.
A better analogy would be: they were given a bunch of Legos, then were smacked for putting them together to make the Lego logo.
Living With a Nerd
No. Read TFS, if not TFA.
It was a mod for Starcraft 2. They were making a mod of Starcraft 2 with serious RPG elements (all of which is perfectly reasonable, given the tools that are available) and named their mod "World of Starfcraft" (for obvious reasons).
If the cease and desist is just because their mod name was too close to that of an official Blizzard product, I'm sure this will be a non-story and the mod will continue with a more original name. If the C&D was just because Blizzard don't want RPG elements to be used in a mod for their strategy game, that is some serious arse-hattery,
For having Worlds of Warriors in iCarly, one of the best mocking of WoW that I've seen.
Le sigh. In the old days we used to mock each others games by having mock characters - and we liked it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This has nothing to do with the content of the mod, only the name. Blizzard supports the modding community to an extent few, if any, other gaming companies do. If he changes the name, I'm certain that Blizzard would have no problem with what he is doing. The mod has the potential to be high quality, and if it became popular, Blizzard would have to deal with issues if they are indeed planning on releasing a World of StarCraft.
Blizzard is suing people for a mod that makes one of Blizzard's games, Starcraft 2, more like another one of Blizzard's games, World of Warcraft? How exactly is Blizzard harmed by this; is it causing Blizzard to lose game sales to themselves?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Following the link, no copy of the C&D letter. So we have no idea WTF is going, just the incoherent ramblings of a developer who is whining about not allowed to have anything good. Apparently he e-mailed the tech support department for clarification....
It could be as simple as the legal department scouring the web for the name "Starcraft" - not even knowing there is a tool out there to build mods.
Bottom line, we know nothing at this point. No need to pucker up.
The problem in the RTS genre is that there's *way* too much emphasis put on micro-management. When I write *way*, I really mean **wwaayy** or something like that (jokes welcome).
The fact that so much emphasis is put on micro-management instead of strategy leaves the door to a great many hacks/cheats and also make it easy to write AI beating even top-notch players.
Bring us RTS where the 'S' means something. A lot of people would love it.
Btw, I was highly ranked on Case's ladder at Warcraft II but not in the top 10. Yet my rank was due to me outsmarting my opponents using real strategies. In Warcraft III it became much harder if not impossible (besides a few cheap builds that get rendered useless by the next anti-imba-patch anyway and that anyway aren't "strategies").
So yup, please, bring back the 'S' in RTS...
Depends - Which is worse - being C&D'd by Blizzard, or by Kirby?
Though I hate to admit it - Imagine a MMORPG based on that - {G};
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
This is the same company that stomped on people over Starcraft LAN tools long before Activision got in the picture.
That was the wrong link to the result. For a better summary go here.
So apparently they already had his demo yanked off of youtube, and the above linked youtube video is just a repost - so they are taking it fairly seriously.
I am always amazed on how little forsight is put into legal decisions like this one.
Why don't they just hire the guy, and let him run with it. He clearly has the skillset they are looking for - he made the entire app, demo and produced a bulk of materials by himself. Sounds like he deserves at least an interview with them...
Ahhhhh....alright. TFA actually did not say that. In that case then yeah, Blizzard's probably in the wrong.
From TFA: Update: Activision Blizzard has sent a cease and desist notice to YouTube in order to remove the videos showing off the mod. According to various sources, Blizzard's intention is not to stop the project itself, but to protect their properties names, whether they plan to work on a "World of Starcraft" game in the future is anyone's best guess.
Yep, but that's not exclusive to Blixxard. Almost every 'real time strategy' game is really a 'real time tactics' game. Also, the speed at which units appear is mind bending for 'real time' - it's really an 'accelerated-time tactics' game, where there's no time to give real strategic thought to the game, not the style of control necessary for strategic activities. About the only thing which even comes close to a true strategy game is Supreme Commander 1 (not 2) - and that's still accelerated-time.
FGD 135
...World of Netcraft! Gives actual confirmation on which enemies are dying.
I remember when www.diablo3.com was bought by Blizzard.
The guy that owned it was a huge diablo 2 fan, and he built the blog to track all news about an upcoming sequel. Blizzard didn't want to announce any plans yet for their upcoming game, but they wanted to announce that they were going to start working on a "new game". Since the guy was such a fan, he sold them the site, and honored their request to not announce that Blizzard was going to make an announcement about announcing a game. Really, I am not making this up.
Around that same time, Blizzard trademarked a ton of other names, to hide which game they were going to announce. I could swear that "World of Starcraft" was one of them.
My guess is that WoS is already in pre-production over at Blizzard. When they saw the trailer for this mod, they freaked out. Not using a trademark means that they will lose it, yet they don't want to give any spoilers for what their next project may be.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
Everyone's name is public record. HOWEVER, the relationship between your full name and your aliases is NOT. This is the problem with the RealID login.
World of KirbyCraft?
Given Blizzard, we can't really tell which it is though, and their past actions give equal probability to either.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
There are several custom mods that have RPG elements. Check out SC2mapster.com for a list.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
someone wasted their time on that. I want to sue blizzard for the hours i used up trying to get that lame game to work in the first place. once i got in to play, it was the clunkiest pile of poop ever. I really hope they had been spending their good time and money on Diablo 3 then, because playing Star Craft II, it makes me want to stab my eyes out and go back 10 years to when that type of game was relevant.
by the number of idiots who have posted comments on this story. 1. Blizzard has to defend their trademarks or lose them, so of course someone creating a game called "World of Starcraft" is going to get a C&D. 2. People seem to get the idea that fans of something should be able to do whatever they want with that thing. Fanfic can be interesting, but non-canonical, and a creator may feel that his/her baby was violated by it. I feel it is entirely up to the copyright owner as to whether or not they allow such things, and so it is completely up to Blizzard whether or not they let you muck around in their world. If someone steps over the line of what they will allow, here comes a C&D.
It's sad that these guys have put so much work into their mod for naught, but Blizzard acted as soon as they knew, so you can't really blame them.
IANAL... But I play one on
It's in the first sentence of the Slashdot summary.
I don't generally read those too closely, since they're usually wrong.
Great going Blizzard:
- Failure to have stable WoW servers even if you make a gazillion/minute from the franchise
- Disabling SC2 LAN play and just overall making it necessary to connect to your servers to play
- Taking down SC2 servers the day WoW Cataclysm comes out because you need the extra servers to make sure WoW players can get on. (I dread to think
what will happen the day you day you release Diablo 3, will you take down WoW and SC2 for the Diablo3 release then?), YOU ARE INCREDIBLY RICH FFS, cant afford extra servers wtf?
- Now this...
Oh well I am not interested in Blizzard anymore, I played way too much WoW even though Warcraft is a franchise I care only mildly about.
The only Blizzard game that I might be remotely interested in nowadays is Diablo 3, presuming they didn't ruin it completely with WoW-style cartoon stylings.
And even then Torchlights seems to be overall alot better than what i've see of Diablo 3 so far.
Oh yeah also Blizzard = Vivendi/Universal, the greediest people on earth
Don't be coy, they stole assets from WoW in the process. That's not Kosher in modding.
Oh wait, looking at the video instead of the screenshot, those are sc2 icons. MY BAD
Or I'll have C & D their asses "with a nuclear launch detected". Shit! "They'll never know what hit 'em!"
If the cease and desist is just because their mod name was too close to that of an official Blizzard product, I'm sure this will be a non-story and the mod will continue with a more original name. If the C&D was just because Blizzard don't want RPG elements to be used in a mod for their strategy game, that is some serious arse-hattery,
I'll one up that, if the cease and desist is not because of incredibly obvious trademark infringement, monkeys will fly out of my ass.
You guys are hilarious... "if"...
The article doesn't bother to explain to a non-SCII player what is so special about the mod.
I've played WoW, but not SCII, so I can't tell from the video what's "mod" and what's stock.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
IC Cup is just like Bnetd. They even have a download for the full starcraft game on their website. There are tons of people on it at all hours and Blizzard hasn't shut them down.
Is it just me or is the 4th robot shooting by flashing his metallic phallus? See for yourself at 0:17.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
SupCom was fairly weak compared to its venerable ancestor Total Annihilation.
I still find myself bewildered by the love for Starcraft ahead of TA. One had a great story, very high production values, superb game balance and strong multiplayer, but the other had automation of the economic micromanagement and supported some serious hard edged wars of attrition if you weren't nimble enough to win quick.
Maybe there just wasn't room for both at the pro level; for whatever reason Starcraft went global and TA remains unrecognised as the greatest RTS in gaming history.
For gameplay and fun factor the Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series have easily matched it - but they're clearly more tactical in scale/scope.
However, for serious strategy, I always end up going for the 'Total War' series (and their clones - I picked up King Arthur the Roleplaying Wargame on a Steam cheap deal the other week and that's another turn based strategic with pausable real-time battles. Having fun with it, and they've added enough nice features that you don't get in the Total War games that it's not a direct clone or rip-off.)
A gaming company needs to work with the guys behind Spring to re-release a professional production quality version of TA designed for modern computers. Better AI, better graphics, same macro-scale carnage where your army has to claw its way through the wreckage of the last fight just to reach the enemy.
Slashdot,
You've been at this for years. Can you fix that bug, please?
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
... for both Blizzard and the modding community. The reason is, this guy made this mod using tools Blizzard made available to all StarCraft II users. He didn't hack the game or add libraries.
If Blizzard's legal counsel decides to issue a C&D on the project itself (to my knowledge they've only griped at Google/Youtube so far), that will have a chilling effect on the modders, which is probably smaller than it would be had not Blizzard insisted on taking ownership of any mods made with their tools in the EULA. Furthermore, the modder who was targeted this time can probably prove in court (unless Activision Blizzard tries to starve him by stalling the court) that he didn't in fact violate the EULA and that Blizzard, should it take him to court, is acting arbitrarily. That could have consequences for Blizzard or the modders that wouldn't be good for anyone-- the EULA could be scuppered, or edited to include a "Blizzard can do anything it wants to your projects including shutting it down and banning it from the Internet" clause.
The best course of action is for Blizzard to back the fuck down. They're already going to lose this talented artist to Riot Games, and going after him may cause other artists and modders to avoid Blizzard like the plague.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
"It's also noted in the first line of the second paragraph of the article... "
The first line of the second paragraph of the article is "Ryan's email to us:"
The author, Ryan Winzen, agrees that Blizzard "...have every right to do what they did"
He posted this on his forum at http://www.worldofstarcraft.proboards.com/
know there's a lot of questions as to what has gone on with it.
A brief history of what happened in case you're not fully aware... I posted that youtube video about a week ago, and after the 4th day it started to go viral. I was periodically checking it to view comments when I noticed the hits were going up at about 10,000 an hour... Once it got up to about 150k views with over 300 supportive comments, Activision pulled it. I was really confused seeing as how there were many other World of Starcraft projects attempted and youtubed, and furthermore confused by the copyright issue. Everything inside of Blizzard's editor is copyrighted material so I thought as long as things were being produced within SC2 it was fair game regardless of title. Kid logic I suppose. The Deputy General Council from Blizzard contacted me last night to discuss the details of the "World of Starcraft" project. We talked for a while and apparently some people from Blizz were concerned I was developing the game somehow outside of SC2. Anyways I explained the details of the project to him and made it clear this mod was to be developed within SC2. After that was clear he obviously wanted the name to be changed... I'm trying to work with him to get the name Starcraft Universe (Currently in holding by Mille25) or Starcraft Chronicles. I am fully respectful of Blizzard's Intellectual property, and they DO in fact own a copyright on "World of Starcraft" and have EVERY RIGHT to do what they did. If I want to continue this project I'm at the mercy of Blizzard's good graces since they OWN it all. Anyways yesterday I was contacted by Riot games in Los Angeles for a potential position in game design. I'm not special though I will have to go through the application process and testing like everyone else, and this is not a 100% guaranteed thing, and I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do at the moment. There's a lot going on outside of what I've even mentioned here. Literally overnight I've grown from a nobody to a guy that half a million people want to design a mod. I've had professional composers contact me, dozens upon dozens of game designers and programmers and organizers. Many professionals seeking a fun hobby project even though there is NO MONEY TO BE MADE. ( At this time premium maps is still just a concept ) Finally I want to say how GRATEFUL I am to SC2MAPSTER.COM and everyone in it and all my friends there. From the Tutorials to the amazing help I've recieved in the IRC over the last four months. That place is amazing. I could have never made the transition I have from the wc3 editor to sc2 edit without that place, and regardless of what happens to me I will stamp sc2mapster on everything I can from here moving forward. Mille25 and I are going to discuss the possible fusion of his Starcraft Universe project today with mine, and we'll see what happens. But regardless I know that an instanced based Starcraft MMO will happen somewhay, somehow, eventually - within Starcraft II. Thankyou: Shawn, Onetwo, Progammer, Proziac, Lillianna, Xaragoth, Sumo, Sixen, JmanV, Helral, Slaydon, SCMapper, A1Win, Skizot, Vjeux, DarkRevenant, Dogmai, Fockewulf, HeyRevolver, Mindful, Skittles, rrowland, Phaos... and all the other names I may be drawing a blank on at this time... If you've ever helped me with the editor, I truly truly appriciate the time. There's a lot of people there who I know are more technically and creative talented than I am.. Cordially, Ryan Winzen Read more: http://www.worldofstarcraft.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=visit&action=display&thread=70#ixzz1BbMsbZkg