legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

No idea if it's ok or not legally, but sounds awesome

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

thanks! I'm also looking for coders who are familiar with C++ or visual basic.. not sure which one i need tho cuz i'm illiterate that way lol

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

As long as you don't charge people for it I think it's okay. Be wary though, in the past Nintendo has proven they don't really like this kind of fanmade stuff (like the OoT 2D remake).

There's a Zelda MMO being developed by hyrule.net though, maybe you could ask them whether they had to deal with any kind of legal issues before they started the project.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

you should be able to make a game legally, so long as you don't use any copyrighted material such as characters and what not, but even if you do use copyrighted material so long as you stay under the radar (i.e. don't post about it on forums) and make sure it's not distributed I'm sure no one will know or care too much

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

We'll need more information on the game you're making before any of us can come to a reasonable decision.

For instance, are you going to be using Nintendo characters? While I think this is -technically- illegal, hundreds of Flash games on Newgrounds and other sites show that this probably isn't going to be a problem. To be safe, you could add in, "Mario, Link, warp pipes, [insert other things used here] (c) Nintendo. All other copyrights belong to their respective owners." or something like that, amending it as necessary. It could just be at the bottom of every page on the website or somewhere in the game.

You say it's based on Super Smash Bros., but how far do the similarities go? If it's an MMO, I doubt you're talking about the battle system. From what I can gather, the only SSB things you could really "copy" are the story from Brawl's SSE, the characters used, (which are all in other games anyway), and items.

Third, I know of a browser MMO that's basically a direct ripoff of DBZ, but they haven't had any problems, and they're free-to-play.

I'll end with this. Most game companies only tend to care about games like this when people are enticed to play them instead of the company's game. Since Nintendo doesn't have an MMO, I doubt your game would cost them any remotely noticeable profit. The fact that it'll be free-to-play helps you, but I think in terms of copyrights, it's -technically- illegal to use characters etc. without permission, though I doubt anyone will care.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

well heres what i had in mind for my storyline:
You can start by selectiong a character (a character from ssb of course). and the story is that master hand does something (perhaps kidnaps someone or sumthing dramatic of the sort) and you have to stop him.. so you go on an adventure through all sorts of town, battle enemies (some might include other nintendo chars. ie koopas, goombas, etc...) and you will level up and gain skills, buy items and weapons etc.. i might even re-create some towns like onett for example.. but i dont think i wanna push things that far..

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Yes. It's illegal if you don't get permission from Nintendo to use their characters, or pay their royalty fees.

No. You won't get in trouble for it unless you start to profit off of their intellectual property.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

You do not know how to code, but you want to make a MMORPG?

xD Good luck, and do not use Nintendo's characters. Make your own up.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Well, there's all sorts of Halo offshoots, so I can't see anything wrong with an SSB MMO... good luck doing that though, that takes a lot of resources.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Change everything slightly, like make a character named Blink and make him look sort of like Link with similar abilities. Also if you don't know how to program yourself I suggest you give up now. If you want to learn go to http://www.holtsoft.com/ and download Turing and the PDF handbook on the front page. Also it will try to redirect you so it's going to take a lot of entering the URL in a gain and going to the undirected page >_<. If you can't manage to get the files send me an e-mail. That's a good learners language and at best you could make a good Text Based MMO but you need to start somewhere...will take you years =D.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Fido, your method is the surest way to be sued for millions.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Really? You see it a lot in TV shows where they make fun of a character that belongs to a corporation and they change the name and characteristics slightly...but I'll take your word for it.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

Don't start with turing, from the code I've seen it could lead to bad coding practices.

Re: legal issues regarding mmorpg's

so what exactly are you contributing to the project if you aren't going to program

are you just going to pester everyone and insist that they do what you tell them to