Ryandor.com

Personally I think most EULA's are completely unenforceable. No one reads those damned things, you shouldn't need to have to send your software for a damned legal review every time you buy a game. I'd like to see a day when the Supreme Court slaps down the ability for game companies to put these one-sided "agreements" on their games.

As for the whole Bnet fiasco, the DMCA is so poorly written and one-sided against the consumer that hopefully we will see a day where some of these poor laws and legal decisions are re-examined.

I could give a rat's ass what any company says or thinks - if I've paid them $50 for a game, you can rest assured I am going to do whatever I damned well please (short of pirating it or something) with the game I purchased. They can say it's "leased" to me all they want. If they don't like it they can blow me.

I USED to buy all my music until the RIAA started acting like nazis. Guess where I get all my music from now. I refuse to support those types of tactics and I download my music mostly based on principal. If an artist sells their music direct then I buy it from the artists, or sometimes I will buy used CD's on Ebay, but I refuse to put any money into the hands of these nazi dinosaurs at the RIAA.

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

Yeah, you say it Hellrazor!

Its just like Microsoft and Vista now. In the old XP Eula they "say" the EULA was unclear about how many times you can transfer a copy of XP. Basically it states providing you uninstall the old copy of XP, you can freely move your copy around.

However they say now that was incorrect (Even though nobody can find anything on the MS site to back that up), and the new Vista EULA states you may only transfer your copy ONCE.

So you pay say $700 for Vista Ultimate, install it. Damn, it doesnt work right on your machine, so you buy a new one. Oh crap, All of a sudden you can no longer transfer it again. You want to put it on a new PC after uninstalling it, you cant. You must pay $700 again (Again, with this copy, you only get 2 installs).

That is totally BS, If you buy a software licence (Especially when its THAT MUCH MONEY) you should be able to move it as many times as you like or do what you want with it.

I think I read somewhere that Microsoft originally planned to limit the number of Vista installations per copy, but that they reversed that decision because of public outcry. Supposedly now Vista installations works similarly to the way Windows XP installations work.

I don't have a problem with being able to only use Windows on one machine per copy as long as Windows remains affordable to the average consumer. That at least makes sense. But to tell me I can't format my hard drive and reinstall it, or I can never toss out my old machine and install it on a new machine, is total BS. That would make the software as expendable as your hardware. I sure as hell am not going to buy another copy of the OS every time I upgrade my hardware. That would probably push me enough to use pirated copies instead of buying it, or to switch to some other platform.

A lot of software companies have never figured out that their business works a lot like standard businesses. If you treat your customers well, they will keep coming back. If you shit on them, they will not only find alternatives to your product, but a lot of them will actively seek to hamper your business at every opportunity.

I have a lot of software that I COULD just pirate, but I don't because the software is worth the money and the business I buy it from treats me right as a customer.

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

It was going to be an actual feature to only allow so many installations, but it has been put on the backburner. Public has been told it won't go ahead, but the functionality is there and ready to activate at a whim.

But as for the legal side, in the EULA of the RTM copies that have been released to business, it clearly states that you may only transfer your licence once. After that, you must buy a new copy.

If you do a quick search, you'll dredge up the articles I read it from, Or if you have a copy like me, you can read it yourself :P

The minute re-installations become impossible, that will be about the same time I start googling for pirate sites for ways to get around it. And since they are basically forcing me to pirate to receive fair treatment anyways, I guess I might as well use the same copies on ALL my computers.

End result? I will still use Windows and MS will lose the cost of 4 systems worth of copies times whatever future versions they produce. Oh, that and I'll never purchase another MS product.

I live by the philosophy that "each action causes an equal and opposite reaction".

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

Gah, I only read the most recent post, and thought for a moment it was UO you were talking about, not Windows ;P

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

Reverse engineering is illegal, everything else if fare game from what I've read over the years in the various news post and legal action taken against people who have made EMU's.

Other than that I think we should just wait until it comes out and see what they do. It will not effect me either way even though I do run a shard it is 100% private and not even listed any where.

MS just plain sucks ass!

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Reverse engineering illegal? Whatever gave you that idea?

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-= Ho Eyo He Hum =-

At least in the U.S. I think the DMCA prohibits it.

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-= HellRazor =-
Shattered Sosaria is coming!
http://www.shatteredsosaria.com

Me and Xuri both don't live in the US :P

My country is actually really behind in terms of Comuter Crime laws. And most of the effort right now is going into Music Protection.

Xuri lives in the magical land, far far away, where reasonable laws still exist.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

I think it is. Well - for me at least. We are building a custom UO server for about 4 years now. With these graphics our RP server will be perfect. I do not know much about emulation, as I am a decorator myself. Just tell me guys - when KR comes out, will I be able to use the new client on my private server? Illegally or legally doesn't matter, because I live in a place where copyright laws are not tolerated (nobody cares).

PS
2D forever.

To be honest it looks exactly like the crummy uo I quit years ago but a bit darker and more diablo2-style art, every single year uo becomes more like diablo, I know uo was created before diablo to technichally diablo could be a copy of uo but the dark mock shots reminded me of diablo, even saw they added 'soulstones' to uo, those are key element in the storyline of the diablo series. I prefer 2d games because they run on my notebook but it's obvious their artists specialize in 3d graphics all of the monsters and new art I've seen through the free shards are very polygon in shape, they have little concept of 2d art, anyway I am not impressed at all to say the least but if it will help the free shards and modders I wouldn't mind, ea's attempt to continually add-on isn't going to stop the drop in subscribers.

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--- Razimus
serpentisle.com

Diablo (December, 1996) was released before Ultima Online (September, 1997). Ultima Online's subscriptions have pretty much leveled off, too, and are not bleeding subscribers anymore. As for the art, it is completely different than the rendered-to-2D stuff they have right now (think Chinese sweat-shop factory good).

Anyway, to answer the question about whether or not it will be usable with current emulators -- I would assume so, since the current protocol is not likely to be depreciated suddenly. Whether or not you can have custom maps, though, is an entirely different story (it could go either way).

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Ultima Online has been known to change their protocols and break emulators but to my knowledge that has only happened once in the last 10 years. Odd's are that they will remain the same or with very minor changes.

If they add the new graphics in addition to the old ones however it could require a massive re-writting of scripts to the new hex id's for them to work properly. This should not be a problems since no one can seem to get the old graphics working properly...

So many wonderful animations and graphics from the previous expansions are no longer supported or scripted properly and have fallen to the way side. Sliding curtains, beekeepers hat (wearable) etc. Most emulators don't use what they have now and are already screaming about new graphics, seems a bit ironic to me.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"