NMA Project - Starcraft: Invasion of Char

[Cain]

MyZrael was one of the original forum creators He is a friend of mine and a fine 2D/3D artist.

 

He has been shadowing the forums until now.

 

He is also a member of the NMA (our moding team).

[Foshjedi2004]

Yes i've read it :

 

 

Can I do a total conversion of your games?

 

Yes. We've seen some very polished and fun conversions for our games, and have no problems with total conversions so long as they are for personal use and do not infringe our End User License Agreement included in our games, nor the rights of any other parties including copyrights, trademarks or other rights.

 

 

But the thing is they keep mentioning "our games" and that'a a problem. Yeah... Well say we do it, what then?? They'll track us down and maybe shut down the forum, we have to be very carefull about the distribution. And Darkman fire away... we could use ideas.

 

As it is an infringement of copyright they can and most likely will sue the NMA/ AMA or whatever this area will be eventually called.

[Cain]

As it is an infringement of copyright they can and most likely will sue the NMA/ AMA or whatever this area will be eventually called.

 

Nobody will sue noone. You can't sue a mod since you can't target its creators not to mention that we don't make money out of it ... etc. Not to mention that once a mod is out there is no way you can stop it from spreading. In the end you have nothing to loose only to gain some publicity.

 

We will take anyway all the precautions necessary to avoid any problems.

[MyZrael]

Good point Cain... That's exacly what I've been trying to say.. we must keep anonymousy (I hope I got that right ), the creators I mean. Sooo.. no credits...

Yeah and ok... we've been chating... and... chating, but I don't see any new additions to the crew... I mean who's in so far?? I wana get this mod started.

I'm already working on the models... trying to model the battlecruiser.

[Juggernaut1985]

You guys are making a terrible mistake. Blizzard has a team dedicated to finding this sort of stuff.

[Guest JediIgor]

As it is an infringement of copyright they can and most likely will sue the NMA/ AMA or whatever this area will be eventually called.

 

Nobody will sue noone. You can't sue a mod since you can't target its creators not to mention that we don't make money out of it ... etc. Not to mention that once a mod is out there is no way you can stop it from spreading. In the end you have nothing to loose only to gain some publicity.

 

We will take anyway all the precautions necessary to avoid any problems.

 

Yes, yes they can.. they can sue you just fine.. unless you live in a country which doesn't give a shit about U.S. intellectual property and copyright laws (Romania might work). So here's the deal, if you really want to do this, get your mod leader to be from that country and *thoroughly* hide any, and I mean *any* contact information for the rest of your team so they can't sue the individuals.

 

Now if the mod leader is American, then don't bother, they'll subpoena your ass pretty quick.

[Foshjedi2004]

JediIgor. You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

Cain. This forum has been recorded over Google!! So Blizzard just looks up Starcraft Mods every few weeks and woopsie. Look this thread comes to the top!!!

[Nevets]

I'd delete it personally.

[Foshjedi2004]

Yup. Oh Wait....I've been DEMOTED

[Stellar_Magic]

Thats alright... none of the moderators can do anything in this part of the forum...

 

CAIN... Delete this topic before we become awash with Blizzard's Evil Lawyers.

[Ghostly_Substance]

Lets use codenames That way we can at least have a chance. Btw why is everybody so jumpy and so insulting on these forums all of a sudden. Its like everybody is ticked off against one another so chill out.

[Stellar_Magic]

Holiday stress is being bled into the forums...

 

I really don't want to risk NMA on the wims of Blizzard Entertainment.

[MyZrael]

OK then... let's modify all our posts that contain words that whould give any connection to the game, just use codenames:

zea**t

ter**n

pro***s

ze*g

 

well that's not exactly codenames, but anyway under that format.

 

Or ask Cain to make this a hidden section.

 

And don't worry about google i've tried this: "NMA Project - Starcraft: Invasion of Char" and it gave out no result... I've even added swempireatwar and still nothing.

[Garbageben]

Yeah. That's not the sort of attention we'd like to bring to this forum. As nice as it is, like Fosh said, we are being watched. That's why everyone's jumpy ghostly.

[Cain]

Project moved to the Maw until a hidden section will be made.

[Gen.Vader]

You may make and distribute StarCraft™ and Warcraft® maps and campaigns that you have created yourself, so long as it is for personal, non- commercial purposes.

 

well that little slice of info was from thier site that fosh posted a while ago, and seeing if we made NO profit, and used it in our own little personal gaming community, then whats the problem? if we add the mod it will essentially be starcraft maps and campaigns..

[MyZrael]

But you haven't fully read the disclaimer it says that you have to use their own games and since starcraft is a very old game with no support for 3d, and warcraft just doesn't have the mood for starcraft it's practically illegal to mod it on a different engine besides their own... haven't u read anything so far ???

And think of this as an interesting scenario... we make a mod on the EAW engine and blizzard hasn't released anything about a future starcraft 2... ok... say we have a big success and a higher quality then the rest of the mods out there... starcraft fans will want to play this mod and so they will buy EAW in order for the mod to work and that's where blizzard looses costumers... so you see where you say it's harmless to release a mod, blizzard says it's illegal, and it all revolves around the profit.

[MyZrael]

So who want's to join??? Any moding skills are apreciated.

[Darkmark]

I don't mind supporting it, giving my opinions and any assistance that way, but I don't really have either the skill or time to participate in a mod.

 

If you're really pressed for people later I might be convinced to help out as a skinner... but I should warn you, I'm far from great at it.

 

On a related note, I've been reading up on what little Starcraft lore I can, and have also tried to collate a list of planets. As it stands:

 

Tarsonis, Mar Sara, Chau Sara, Antigua Prime, Korhal, Aiur, Brontes, Dylar IV and Shakuras.

 

I have other notes that go with these as a basic idea of what they might appear like. Lots of those, as you might guess, are very much decimated. I'm also toying with the idea of a Heroes list, but with 3 long essays to get done these next two weeks it's looking unlikely either complete list will appear too soon. I just don't have time nowadays to play starcraft all the way through writing down all the planets and heroes.

[Guest JediIgor]

Hey guys, I have a better idea.. why don't you make a StarCraft-look alike instead? You don't need to have Protoss, Zerg, Terran, but having Humans, Plague, and Ancients could work..

 

Just look at Natural Selection, it's basically a StarCraft FPS and they never got sued.

[Darkmark]

Probably the safest option. I don't know about other people, but I think it might lose some of the 'feel' by relagating to a 'new' idea and history...

 

On the upside, the security of not being sued and the ability to stray for starcraft and intergrate other original ideas does appeal to me. In which case I would be glad to offer both ideas and assist in creating storyline, backstory etc. in an attempt to recreate some of the starcraft magic.

 

I'd be interested to see what everyone else's views on JediIgor's idea is.

[MyZrael]

That's a very good suggestion but as Darkmark said it losses the Starcraft feel .... but hey I'm going to get busy modelling I really wanna do this on the EAW engine... it's shows potential... and look on the bright side at least now, Darkmark, will be able to finish his exams, given the release date. Oh and don't worry about the story, I know it by heart.

[Cain]

To those concerned. (*Myzrael pls. delete all the replys inside here that cover the initial debates about this issue resolution - thanks).

 

This mod is not a NMA project. It is only affiliated to the unnoficial section AMA. The NMA only supplies feedback, has no authority over it and also no gains.

 

In case of problems NMA has nothing to do with this mod.

 

- Project moved to the general mod forum.

[Teradyn_pff]

Hoooo Kay. Maybe that is why I haven't seen a good StarCraft mod for any games. I would hate to see something get 50% or more done and have it shut down because of Blizzard. I never thought they would pull Microsoft on us, but I guess when you get so big, you become above the consumer.

 

I figured it would be a kick-a$* mod and it will probably if it were to be able to survive to completion. I wish I had artistic talent, but I will have to relegate myself to waiting on the demo of EAW or EAW itself (depending on which comes out first ) so that I can find out what the engine will allow us to do in terms of coding and the like.

 

I am not looking to lead the mod, mind you as I don't believe I could contribute that much initially. Mods are more for graphics and sound folks as that is what is usually changed to fit the engine that already exists.

 

At any rate, all the discussion has been about how fast Blizzard would strike this down and sue all involved. At what point in the modelling and skinning process do the Starcraft units have to be associated with EAW?

 

Models and skins do not have to be openly displayed. There would be no point to advertising a web site and showing the models as they progress like LoW does if there is any danger in Blizzard getting their panties in a wad. The policy as listed on their web site doesn't specifically prohibit doing a Starcraft mod for a different game, so that would be at their discression, which they have already exercised from what some of you are saying. I don't know if there was something specifically objectionable to them with that particular mod, but if so, it would be wise to find out and make sure that it isn't repeated.

 

Anyway, I nominate MyZrael to lead this mod. For a storyline, something following broodwar would probably tick off Blizzard, because if they are planning on making a sequel to Starcraft then they would probably want to make the story themselves. At any rate, who says there has to be a storyline anyway ? Just some simple models and appropriate skins, sounds dont even have to be incorporated at this point... etc etc.

 

The trick to something like this is to get the most time consuming parts out of the way first, such as the modelling and skinning (especially since we dont have an engine to play with yet). Those models don't have to be associated with EAW or any game at their creation point you know. The only point at which it gets specific is when you try to import them into EAW and we can't even do that yet.

 

Any thoughts?

[Foshjedi2004]

So The NMA Starcraft Mod is not happening?? Its the Alterego AMA now!!