FlowsionMS Down!

Just a random point about Nexon over this issue. I am by no means a Nexon Fanboy, but I don't think they are necessarily doing this because they "want" to. Its similar to a case I saw on a mailing list for an author I was on a few years ago. A couple of guys created a MUD based on his books and contacted him about it. He then served them with a cease and desist order to bring down their game even though it was a text-based game and they werent charging (and had no intention to) to play the game. When questioned about it on his mailing list he replied along the lines of:
I wasnt against them for what they did. I actually played the game and was impressed with the level of detail they put in. But my legal advice told me that if someone else came along and created a game based on my works and then charged people to play, I would not be able to send them a cease and desist notice as I had let the free one go. Legally I have to stop ALL people using my work unless they pay me a licence.

This is the same situation here. If nexon lets the free pservers go on about their business, then others could charge and Nexon would not be able to stop them as they had already let some "slip through the cracks".

That's not how the law works. Not bringing legal action against a free-to-play unlicensed service does not mean that the company cannot protect their IP. For example, Nintendo of America never localized Mother 3 for GBA. Fans translated the game, and word is that employees were actually supportive of the job, because NoA was NOT going to bring it stateside. Does this then mean that another company could come by and sell a Mother 3 game?

No. If a company came by and sold a game which was identical to Mother 3, Nintendo would still be justified to bring legal action against the company, even if they had neglected to do so against another instance of IP infringement.

Laws are meant to be broken. In Alabama, you're not allowed to buy a sex toy for reasons other than medical. It's just so stupid it's laughable.

You should be allowed to choose the better quality product.

Laws are meant to be broken. In Michigan, it's illegal to shoot your neighbor in the head for insulting your haircut. It's just so stupid it's laughable.

You should be allowed to defend your honor of your appearance.

I wonder if those of you who argue about laws needing to be enforced have ever downloaded music, watched something illegally streamed online, or pirated software. I highly doubt you've done no such thing. Or hell, underage drinking or smoking.

I have in the past, but since I now have a job I have purchased all kinds of music, even legit copies of albums I already have MP3s of. As for illegal videos, well, I'll just say this: anything I've watched that is an unlicensed copy of an official product, I will, would, or have bought the product (assuming that the product was proven to not be a pile of utter crap). I used to download new Smallville episodes because I always missed the premier thanks to school. But now I own 5 seasons on DVD and will be getting the last two seasons for Christmas. Oh, I've also downloaded FLCL, but since they're not making them on DVD anymore, I can't exactly buy it either... they put FLCL on DVD or Blu-ray and I'll snatch it up in an instant, regardless of price

And as for software... bah! Open source alternatives are an easy way to avoid that. Don't use an illegal copy of Photoshop, use GIMP! Don't use an illegal copy of Office, use OpenOffice!

As for underage drug use, that is morally justifiable as it is a victimless crime. Ideally in my opinion, such laws would be HIGHLY minimal in society. Having a glass of wine on New Years Eve isn't terrible. If I'm a minor, it should be my parents' responsibility to ensure that I don't do anything irresponsible. In addition, I am against the fact that legal adults who are under 21 are not trusted by the state to be responsible with alcohol, yet we are trusted with responsibilities such as voting, army enlistment, etc.

Some laws are morally justified in breaking. Stealing IP is not one of them.

Keep in mind programming is the, from my point of view, easiest thing to do. Graphics and sounds are the hardest/most time-consuming.

It's not that bad. You just need artists who can help in the same way the devs can. I'm not saying the programmers should be artists too, I'm saying that the dev team should include people who are only there because of artistic ability.

Not the same thing as doing sprites.


How many of them have meticulously drawn the same 70 views of a character for hundreds of different items... probably not many.

That's only one way to tackle the graphics question. They could also do it as one image that is rendered at different angles by the engine. Imagine how a flash cartoon is animated. Like that. The character would be composed as many different individual images, one for the arm, one for the body, one for the legs, one for the head, one for the weapon. There would only exist one instance of each image for each piece of art, and the engine would render the character's animations by rotating and moving the individual "bones" of the "skeleton".

Then take a look at Sonic 2 HD which is doing exactly as you suggested (frame by frame animations) and they're coming along nicely for a fan game. Bit more devoted of a fanbase, but if there was a commitment to make a game similar in art style to MapleStory, I don't think it would be difficult to pull in artists to help with the project.

Another way to do it would be prerendered 3D. Create a 3D model, render in predetermined positions, compile frames to animate. Think of how Donkey Kong Country did it. This would require the work of creating a 3D model, but it wouldn't be as tedious to create the individual frames to create animations.

I beg to differ to a degree Fiel. A competent team of programmers with the appropriate testing team and/or test server can wipe out the latest hack effectively without affecting legitimate players.

A person doing something as a job will almost never do as good as job as is possible. What you're upset about stems down to the basic fact that the team at Nexon don't care about the game; it's just a paycheck for them.