General Concensus on "fan" modules?

[Corporate Dog]

So I've been pondering the idea of doing a "Mass Effect" roguelike. And the T-Engine just screams out to me, "I'd be perfect for this!"

But I'm wondering where the comfort level is among the TE4 development team (just darkgod?) and community at-large when it comes to independently-developed modules, using another company's intellectual property (and possibly even some repurposed graphics, sound effects, and music).

Obviously, the Pernband/Tales of Middle Earth/Tales of Maj'Eyal community has some perspective on this. I'm just wondering where that perspective lies.

Thanks,
Corporate Dog

[Final Master]

DG made the T-Engine to be used for just such a purpose; so, use it!

[Canderel]

Hi

DarkGod, and the rest of the community would *welcome* lots of fan modules. He would embrace it, probably add in requested engine changes, and consult/help you if you have questions, or programming problems.

The only thing he is highly possessive about is the Shockbolt graphics. You could probably use the simple UI theme, or maybe even the stone or the new one, but the actual pictures of items/trees/grass/mountains/monsters etc. is according to him what helps give tome a unique feel and it's identity.

Music and sound probably less so, but even those you should request (though the Music is general creative commons stuff so even if he wants to object he really has only a "suggestion" rather than actual ground to stand on regarding that.)

Some (most) of the sound effect files was specifically created for Tome but I don't think DG will have too much issues with them being reused (but again I cannot know for sure). The sound dude is somewhere on the forums and might be convinced to do files for your module too.

But again, we as a community and DarkGod in particular would love to have developers use the T-Engine (for whatever reason!).

[yufra]

I think the OP is mostly concerned about the intellectual property of Mass Effect, and how DG himself moved first away from Pern and then away from Middle-Earth. I believe that there is no problem doing it, but you do open yourself up for a cease-and-desist letter. That is actually what happened to move Pernband to ToME, but the move from Middle-Earth to Maj'Eyal was only partly fueled by that concern (DG had a fleshed out world in mind).

I say go for it, but remember that you may have to change or obfuscate settings in the future.

[Canderel]

Travels in Mass Effect?

TiME?

[Corporate Dog]

I think the OP is mostly concerned about the intellectual property of Mass Effect, and how DG himself moved first away from Pern and then away from Middle-Earth.

Bingo, although the info on the Shockbolt graphics is also good to know. I ask these things, because I'm all about not stepping on toes.

I believe that there is no problem doing it, but you do open yourself up for a cease-and-desist letter. That is actually what happened to move Pernband to ToME, but the move from Middle-Earth to Maj'Eyal was only partly fueled by that concern (DG had a fleshed out world in mind).

I say go for it, but remember that you may have to change or obfuscate settings in the future.

Yeah, there's always that risk. I just wanted to make sure that DG and others in the community weren't gunshy about being associated (however vaguely) with such a project, given the prior name changes of ToME, and the possibility of a corporate behemoth like EA not being particularly choosy about who gets slapped with a cease-and-desist letter. I'm guessing that subtleties involving the T-Engine, ToME's content, and whatever content I create, would tend to get lost on most copyright and trademark lawyers.

Travels in Mass Effect?

TiME?

Heh. I was thinking of going the Angband-variant route of adding a letter or two, and calling it 'ToMEff' for "Tales of Mass Effect", but the wording of the acronym sounds a little funny to me. I can't help but think that "Tales of Mass Effect" would involve a bunch of arcane quantum physics formulae, and a wacky Salarian lab technician, who gets up to all sort of crazy hijinks while using Prothean technology for completely unintended purposes.

On the flip side, "Tales from the Mass Effect Universe" is too wordy, bland, and ruins my acronym.

Eh. It'll come to me eventually.

Regards,
Corporate Dog

[edge2054]

You can make a Mass Effect module. The 'gunshy' part of it is that a module like that would never be 'packaged' with Tome. Daftigod's tileset falls in this gray area and that's why it will always be an optional download.

T-Engine is just the engine. Whatever people develop to run on it is there business. It would be like Microsoft getting sued because someone had used Windows to pirate software.

So go for it

[Grey]

Go for it, but don't name it after ToME and make sure you offer a separate standalone package for downloaders so the separation is clear. I did this with Broken Bottle (a post-apocalyptic roguelike with a touch of Fallout influence).

[daftigod]

Just echoing what the others have said so far... Do whatever you like as long as you realize that your work can be shut down at any time if you borrow too much copyrighted material!

I would personally be very heart broken if square sent me a cease and desist, especially since I've dumped a few hundred hours into the oldrpg project. Even with this threat in the back of my mind at all times, I highly recommend trying a project like this purely for the learning experience.

On a related note about oldrpg, I've been working towards getting the copyrighted stuff out of the pack for awhile now. The npc tiles are really the only taboo stuff remaining l, so if I can find the time and ability to design some 500 or so monster tiles, then you might actually see the tile set in game w/o a separate download. ETA somewhere in 2014