Roughtrade

More context may be required.

I do feel the essential debate is becoming sidetracked by nitpicking. Anytime someone posts “I know he was mostly right but he got this one word wrong and I have to call him out on it” then the conversation is getting drowned out. So the essential question of “can players make copy cats” is answered as yes they can. The game engine makes it possible and legally there is murky coverage but it is unlikely to be an issue. The larger question of “should players make copy cats” is still up for debate. Could it cause problems? Yes, of course it could. Will it cause problems? Very unlikely. Personal Opinion, players should not make up copycats. Its just lame. If you want to do an homage to Batman, then steal with a little more finesse. Marvel has Nighthawk, a rich man using his money to fight crime and The Moon Knight, a rich guy who uses his money and some magic to fight crime. So even they ripped off an IP but with some style. But I also feel that most direct rip off characters will eventually get changed by their player. Eventually you get tired of people making assumptions on your style because of the name you chose. Or you get tired of seeing thirty five other players with almost the exact same costume and the exact same power set and nearly the exact same name as your character. In the short run, most people do it for a joke or just to see how close they can get to doing something. In the long run, people tend to want to be unique and so the problem becomes self correcting over time. Not all of them, but most of them.

And that is fine, and complete different than making up exact copies of computer and comic heroes and using exactly their same name.

I was just calling him out for making erroneous claims about copyright law, while saying "If you are going to argue copyright law, please show some familiarity with copyright law." Thank you for proving my point. If you do not think copyrights can be lost you should talk to the Estates of Tolkien, (who defend theirs) vs Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sax Rhomer and, well, anyone who’s work fell into public domain and had Disney turn it into an animated feature because they did not.

Your naïveté is astounding. Of course Marvel could sue this fan based show, the same way for many years Lucas nuked any Star Wars fan site. If a company doesn’t protect its copyright then they can lose it. If you are going to argue copyright law, please show some familiarity with copyright law. Yes, the people here could argue fair use and not for profit, but they would have to hire lawyers and file paperwork and generally deal with the grief and garbage. That’s how these things work. You don’t have to be right, you just need more money. And taking out this project takes less money than Disney’s lawyers lose in their couch cushions. To date, nothing is happening. That could change on a dime. It would be great if this was all just wasted breath, an exercise in philosophy. But to think no one will take notice when we’re getting weekly articles in Massively and some people are again negotiating with NC Soft is simply refusing to deal with reality.

Not for nothing, but is anyone likely to recognize your self made character from your self published game as a trademarked entity? I think you are just borrowing trouble. There isn’t much sense in stressing.

I try to put in something that would help a person looking for role play to work with. Absinthe Rose is an undisciplined low level psychic who sells designer drugs. Her bio says other players may have met her in Pocket D, where she mostly sets up shop, or heard about her from someone. And it also says any psychic sensitive within ten yards can probably pick up low level feedback/white noise because of her lack of skill. She’s like someone who talks too loudly, or smacks their gum constantly, it can’t really be shut off and doesn’t really provide any information. Halo Jones, has a note mentioning that Players may recognize her from when she successfully sued Crey because one of their plots backfired and settling in a civil case stopped an investigation which may have brought up criminal charges. My supergirl homage, Liberty Star, has a publicist and her bio notes that she shows up at celebrity dinners, makes the talk show rounds, does charity work for good causes, and so on. Generally, I try to think of something to put in which a person who was looking for role play might be able to have a reason to say, hey, I know you, and start a thing. I should note, these were all, previously created characters. I am still rebuilding and have not done all the bios again just yet. Haven’t even got all the names set yet.

I don’t have a dog in this fight one way or the other, but your points are poorly chosen. Hysterical hyperbole about “punishing the masses” and “witch-hunts” serves no purpose. Multi boxing behavior is easily identifiable in game from a thematically similar family group playing together. Detecting it by connection only is difficult, but in game you can distinguish between a multi box player and a group of friends with a glance. The issue isn’t can we figure them out, the issue is we do not really have the resources in people to effectively adjudicate the issue. Also, “people will always find a way to cheat so allow all forms of cheating” is possible the weakest debate point I have ever seen. People are going to murder anyways, so make it legal? As long as multiboxers are not taxing server resources, then I welcome them. As long as they are not “stealing my kill” for something that this actually works for... I dunno, holiday bosses maybe? Is there anything kill stealable on a practical level? Anyways, there can be room for multi boxing, but if you want to support them, you could not have picked a worse argument.

Virtue was home for my villains. Malfeasance (and the VG he named after himself) Rad/Rad corrupter and scientist without conscience Alice Malice Psi/Psi Dominator and chief of security for Malfeasence. Absinthe Rose Plants/Psi whackjob drug enthusiast and designer. I have managed to reclaim those on the Everlast server. Hope to see you all again soon.

Annnnnd there he is!

OMG you're here! Halo Jones! Do you remember me, Sgt Pandora and the Sentinels of Liberty SG? Yessss Panda! Have you seen American Valor anywhere? I have been in the game and not trolling the forums much. Finally getting resettled on the RP server this week in hopes of running into familiar faces. Abrams and I have been teaching his kids how to play.

Oooh! Really? I started there on one character just to see it again. I will try to remember to put every Pratorian through it.

If you are not face-planting and making a rez run as a group from a TPK at least once a day, you have your mission level set too low. Nothing wrong really, sometimes I prefer to glide along in easy mode myself. But this game has such a negligible penalty for losing a fight, I really like taking on just as much as I can and taking the risk of tripping to the hospital.

This might be the funniest thing I have seen in months.

I might have the website name wrong. There was one of the early character listing services website that was called Crey Files or the Crey Corporation Files. It was just a place to list your character and powers, with the overall idea being this was what Crey Corp had on you. I never saved my write ups from it. Wish I had transferred them to Orobus before things went offline.

I prefer the current system which allows my names to be unique. That said, I think some the arguments supporting this position are rather spurious. If people were able to “copy” names, I do not think we would see hundreds of Doctor Stranges. There are many players who would abandon a name if they saw ten or more of the same names running around. Especially if they were all the same archetype. And we might see three or more “Don of the Dead” though, because pun names are just popular. It might not be that someone saw your name and stole it so much as someone else thought of the same joke. It doesn’t mean they would all be MMs though. Someone else might think of it as a dead mobster come out of the grave with darkness powers. And that is where I think I could be okay with it. One person might want to do a Guardian that is an homage to the shi’ar Guard character. Someone else might want to do a shield carrying knight called guardian, someone else might think of it as a street fighting Batman type. There should be room for everyone’s imagination. The real problem however is the coding of the current game probably prohibits the sharing of names.

I think there is a difference between a rip-off and an homage. I have a super strength and invulnerability tanker. Her name is Liberty Star, because Liberty used to be my main server, but she is essentially a supergirl homage. And yesterday I saw a big green guy named “Gamma Monstrositity” that was pretty cool looking. It was an obvious Hulk clone but I think he was using the bio-armor. You can do an homage without directly doing a copy/paste. The legal aspect comes in at fair use and copyright/trademarks. So long as no one is profiting, then companies can’t do much. Except they can threaten and harass and cost money defending against spurious charges. In the defense of “Big Comics” and the Marvel suit of years gone by..... Companies have to protect their trademark. If they don’t, then someone can claim it is in the public domain. So the Marvel suit was not as bad as some people make it out to be. Personally, I am more concerned by the people who think that because this is a “free” game they can make offensive names referring to bodily functions and religious figures. But those people are why we can’t have nice things without also having a reporting system.

Thanks for bringing it back. If it crashes and burns tomorrow, if Monday comes and brings it all to an end, you guys did an incredible job. I cannot thank you enough. You caught lightning in a bottle.

1,600+ people trying to log into Torch. 900+ on Ex. Of course there's trouble! I am just glad to see so many people wanting to get back into the game. I feel badly for the ones running it, but so happy they are willing to put up with the stress and fuss of it. Please never think it is unappreciated! I see stories posted of dads and daughters getting back into the game together. Families reconnecting. Lucky as I am to be normally logging on when things are quiet, my weekday job is evenings, I would wait an hour and a half each day to log in if that is what it took.

You're not lost. Had this same issue the other day. You can delete your Mal and then remake it. Unless someone nabs the name in the five seconds it takes between deleting and renaming, you should be fine.

Liberty for Heroes Virtue for Villains Halo Jones Liberty Force (Liberty Star now) Roughtrade Many others, but those were the main Liberty toons I played.

Bouncy Punch Pom Poms of DOOOOOOOM! Loved my Blapper. Only really played her around 20 to 25. No one wanted to group with me. But it was fun. And I took every hand to hand combat power that came up so I could see their point sometimes.