Author Topic: Posted by our beloved devs :P  (Read 7761 times)

Victoria Victrix

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #20 on: October 24, 2012, 04:55:59 AM »
This is where I am going to weigh in, because I know a tad bit about Intellectual Property.

If the Paragon devs were going to make a superhero game, they would not want any participation from the Plan Z makers.  In fact, if you were to offer them anything, they would stick their virtual fingers in their virtual ears and go "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Now please don't get your hearts broken, or think this would be a snub.  They absolutely cannot allow any outside input for precisely the same reason why I cannot read fan fiction.

You can all sign NDAs and contracts saying you are giving your mental efforts to the cause, get run over by a bus, and your brother or mother or Uncle Clem can turn around and sue the new studio for "theft" of your idea.  And indeed, you yourself could change your mind and sue (I'm not saying it's likely, or accusing anyone.  I am just saying that it is completely within the realm of possibility and is something they have to consider).

All you have to do is look at the long, sad history of people suing popular authors for "stealing their ideas" to know how very real a possibility it is.

(Never mind that ideas cannot be "stolen," only the execution of an idea: that's called plagiarism.)

The fact that such a suit would very likely be dismissed, thrown out of court, or lost, is completely beside the point.  Fighting the suit would be expensive and take time and money away from creating the new game. 

So...no.  There is no way the devs would solicit, or accept, help from the Plan Z group.
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Terwyn

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2012, 05:06:47 AM »
This is where I am going to weigh in, because I know a tad bit about Intellectual Property.

If the Paragon devs were going to make a superhero game, they would not want any participation from the Plan Z makers.  In fact, if you were to offer them anything, they would stick their virtual fingers in their virtual ears and go "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Now please don't get your hearts broken, or think this would be a snub.  They absolutely cannot allow any outside input for precisely the same reason why I cannot read fan fiction.

You can all sign NDAs and contracts saying you are giving your mental efforts to the cause, get run over by a bus, and your brother or mother or Uncle Clem can turn around and sue the new studio for "theft" of your idea.  And indeed, you yourself could change your mind and sue (I'm not saying it's likely, or accusing anyone.  I am just saying that it is completely within the realm of possibility and is something they have to consider).

All you have to do is look at the long, sad history of people suing popular authors for "stealing their ideas" to know how very real a possibility it is.

(Never mind that ideas cannot be "stolen," only the execution of an idea: that's called plagiarism.)

The fact that such a suit would very likely be dismissed, thrown out of court, or lost, is completely beside the point.  Fighting the suit would be expensive and take time and money away from creating the new game. 

So...no.  There is no way the devs would solicit, or accept, help from the Plan Z group.

Quite true... but what happens if they choose to join us, instead?
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Golden Girl

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2012, 05:11:13 AM »
My prediction is about half of the people who have been posting plan Z stuff agree with you and would stop / combine efforts, and about half are too attached to their ideas and would split off.

Just my gut feeling on it.

I think it'd be way less than half who'd still want to go ahead with it - it's called Plan Z for a reason :P
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Victoria Victrix

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #23 on: October 24, 2012, 05:11:34 AM »
Quite true... but what happens if they choose to join us, instead?

That will depend on whether or not any of them end up employed in their chosen field.  If they are not in games design/programming/developing, they can do whatever they want with their free time.

But the postulation was that an actual studio would be formed from the remaining devs and programmers, and that the Plan Z people would offer their ideas.  I merely pointed out why this was vanishingly unlikely.
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Golden Girl

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #24 on: October 24, 2012, 05:19:31 AM »
I don't think it'd matter if they used any Plan Z ideas or not - the main thing would be that a new studio was being set up by a core of the CoH dev team and was going to make a new superhero MMO.
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Victoria Victrix

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #25 on: October 24, 2012, 05:32:10 AM »
Honestly I think I would probably give any game our devs put together a try, provided it wasn't a sidescrolling casual for handheld devices. 

I'd even put aside my longstanding objection to fantasy games (ARG!  fantasy is my DAY JOB!) and give it a try.
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Xieveral

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #26 on: October 24, 2012, 06:53:20 AM »
Wonder what they are starting to work on.  Hope we aren't going head to head with them.  Of course if we do find out it's another superhero MMO I'm sure everyone here agree we turn over our ideas to them.  And lend any help we can.

There wasn't much mentioned in the Massively article other than that some were working on another project. I'm assuming the "project" is their gangnam video and  people are just discussing a "what if" scenario since there were no links to anything concerning work on another game.

If they are in fact working on another game or have plans to someday, I'd like to know where I could read up on that.
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P51mus

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #27 on: October 24, 2012, 07:18:31 AM »
If they are in fact working on another game or have plans to someday, I'd like to know where I could read up on that.

They won't announce anything until they're officially off NCSoft payroll.  California law requires 2 months notice for mass layoffs, which means they're still technically working for NCsoft (even though the offices are empty and they're not actually doing anything).  That ends on November 1st, I think.  Which is the earliest they could announce any game projects.

Zolgar

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #28 on: October 24, 2012, 09:18:30 AM »
They absolutely cannot allow any outside input for precisely the same reason why I cannot read fan fiction.


OK, I gotta say, that's just a funny one...

"She stole my idea, I'm suing her for $10,000,000!"
".. how'd she steal your idea?"
"Well, I wrote a fan fiction about one of her worlds.. and he next book was totally just like my fan fiction!"
"So, you used her characters and her world.. and she stole your idea?"

.. I know that the legal system is just stupid enough that that works.. but.. it's still pretty funny to think about in that context ;)

Kaos Arcanna

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #29 on: October 24, 2012, 11:09:43 AM »

I think, given the lousy economy in general, the former Paragon Studios staff who haven't found a job may be considering reorganizing. (They certainly were interested in trying to buy COH themselves and going independent). Now that that's fallen through, they may still go ahead and form a new studio, but the impression I got from Matt on the last Coffee Talk wasn't that he sounded all that eager to do a new super hero MMO.  (And honestly, after 8 years, they may want a different challenge- or the wound may be too fresh to want to start over again.)

And that honestly may be a good idea on their part. I'm quite sure that NCSoft will watch a new Paragon Studios II (or whatever they'd call it) like a hawk to make sure they weren't implementing ANY ideas they came up with while on NCSoft's payroll. And super hero or not, I'm sure that a new MMO from them would take quite a bit of time as they'd have to come up with new Lore, new setting, quite possibly whole new power sets...

And they may try, and still fail.

So my perspective as someone from outside Project Z is that I think Project Z should continue even if the Devs DO form a studio and announce they are going to make another Super Hero MMO. Better to have two options than one. While you have the energy, the enthusiasm, and the creative people willing to work on Project Z, I say continue because you may not have the same resources if Paragon II fails to materialize or do a super hero MMO that carries on the City spirit.


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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #30 on: October 24, 2012, 12:31:43 PM »
So my perspective as someone from outside Project Z is that I think Project Z should continue even if the Devs DO form a studio and announce they are going to make another Super Hero MMO. Better to have two options than one. While you have the energy, the enthusiasm, and the creative people willing to work on Project Z, I say continue because you may not have the same resources if Paragon II fails to materialize or do a super hero MMO that carries on the City spirit.
Or shift the focus more towards a private server version of CoH? That way Plan Z doesn't grind to a halt, and it won't be competing with the new project (if there is one).
It would also keep people busy if it does turn out to be necessary to come up with a spiritual successor to CoH (Plan Z_2.0? :P )

Atlantea

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #31 on: October 24, 2012, 12:35:39 PM »
Just a random thought here but  -   

I hear stuff about Paragon studios coming on to work for Project Z.

Or that there would be problems if they took any ideas from Project Z as Mercedes said comparing to fanfic etc.

What if it were the other way around. And THEY hired Project Z people on? These days, a writer or pure idea person doesn't have to be there in California. There are contracts and such for short term work etc. Or long term projects. Whatever.

Seems more workable that way to me. But I may not have thought it all the way through. Just random idea tossing as I said.




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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #32 on: October 24, 2012, 01:19:04 PM »
Or another idea.

They form a new Studio and take on Titan as a sub-Studio.  As in they fund the production of Plan Z.  They be more of a Parent company, They be Titan Studios Cryptic/NCsoft.  I hate having to use that name in this context.

Anyway if they fund the operation (And we will need Major funding) wouldn't they Own the plan Z ideas then.  Like how NCsoft has ownership of CoH plans.
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Atlantea

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #33 on: October 24, 2012, 01:39:54 PM »
I'd certainly feel better knowing THEY owned it than... well ANYBODY else!


chasearcanum

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #34 on: October 24, 2012, 01:46:45 PM »
Atlantea,

In general, what Victoria Victrix is probably referring to is the way IP law can create very awkward situations for a content-creator.   I know a webcomic writer who's got probably the next 3 years' worth of story plotted out with a large fan following that includes its own wiki and hundreds of postings on fanfiction or speculation on where the story's going to go.   As a storyteller, if I were him, I'd be THRILLED to read these and see what my creation inspired others to create.  It would be the most valuable form of reward for me, and I know he feels the same.  He's told to steer clear of those stories by his lawyers. 

If he'd read them and a future story he published paralleled one of those those too quickly, he might have someone claiming he 'stole' that idea from the fanfic... no matter that it was an "obvious" progression of the story from the hint's he'd been dropping over time.  Heck, he might subconsciously insert some of that work into his very-similar, originally-intended story.  If the wording is similar, or the idea seems unique enough, the claim alone will tie up money in legal cases and tarnish the author's reputation.   

In that light, if a Paragon dev browsed our brainstorming area and then started working on a project of his own where he incorporates ideas that are very similar to ours, did he steal them?  Did he use them without our consent?  All that is at risk. 

Just "hiring some" of the team members doesn't absolutely save them, unfortunately, because in a collaborative setting such as this, the work may have many contributors or the author may draw on multiple ideas by different people to create it.   It isn't even that "the dev doesn't own it"-- in a court of law, it could easily be determined that the similarities aren't unique enough to consider it a breach of the original authors' copyright.   Its that you're going to potentially lose a good deal of money and reputation getting to that ruling.


Lily Barclay

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #35 on: October 24, 2012, 02:38:12 PM »
Personally, the only way I see Plan Z and our devs working together would be if instead of crowd founding Plan Z, we crowd fund their new studio should they form one. I don't think they will implement anything from plan Z.

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #36 on: October 26, 2012, 04:19:56 AM »
I will reiterate: the only Plan Z-related thing that I will ask the New Paragon for is a new Mission Architect or its equivalent that will enable those of us involved in Plan Z to make the missions and groups for Plan Z.

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #37 on: October 26, 2012, 09:50:59 PM »
Would it be possible to give them a perpetual license to the Plan Z material? Bundle up the 'IP' and hand it off as a free perpetual/eternal license?

Victoria Victrix

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Re: Posted by our beloved devs :P
« Reply #38 on: October 27, 2012, 12:01:34 AM »
Would it be possible to give them a perpetual license to the Plan Z material? Bundle up the 'IP' and hand it off as a free perpetual/eternal license?

*Can* it be done?  Yes.

How complicated would it be?  Extremely.

You would have to get a copy of a perpetual assignment of rights or license of rights document drafted up and passed by a rights lawyer.

You would then have to get signed and notarized individual copies of the document from every single member of the Plan "Z" team.  And if only one objected to something, you'd have to go through the entire process again.
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