Warcraft: Total War

[Murfios]

It would be great to make a mod for Medieval II based on Blizzards Warcraft univers. We could make Horde vs Alience. The fall of Lorderon and Dalaran. The First ans second war. The Ancients. The Burning legion and fall of the Lich King followed by the freedome of the Undead lead by Silvanas Wind Runner. A world falling into the depths of war, unbalanced by the tides of darknes. We could be based on Warcraft III mainly, humans fighting the Orcs of their lands. Then the Undead stalking the Night Elves. Then Orcs, Elves and Humans alied to destroy the Undead. Finaly the fragil Alience shattered by a Fool to set sail on forviden lands. It could be great.

[Filibustería]

I think there IS an idea of creating that mod for M2TW. Check Mods iin devlopment

[Roman_Man#3]

i always wanted to do that, but i dont think blizzard would like it that much, you know, as you would be breaking all the copyright laws.*except you dont make money from it;)*

[Murfios]

Well, since we don't make any money out of it, they cannot drop the big hammer on us. If they wanted to stop us, they could have their representatives talk to us, but they probably would never reach that far.Decides, they CAN'T make us stop developing and release it just here on the Org.

[SSJVegetaTrunks]

And why would they want to? It might convince a few more people to buy their games!

[Roman_Man#3]

i suggest any one worried about the legality of it, and some more points, to look at the other warcraft tw thread. but youy could always email someone at blizzard and tell them you will not make money of it or anything, and ask them if it would be ok.

[wlesmana]

Blizzard will shut you down. They're super protective of their IP. They even shut down a Starcraft mod, converting it into Warcraft right before Warcraft3 comes out. Yes, they shut down a mod of their own game based on another game of theirs. They do not want any wrong perception of their products, as in, having their product mistaken for something not theirs. Their quality control is incredibly strict.

Emailing them will not work. Your best bet is having them send no reply because if they do send a reply, it will be a cease & desist. Companies NEVER consent to an amateur mod of their IP, even if it's for free. Because once they do, it opens up the flood gates of doing all sort of things to their products. I'll repeat, they WILL NEVER give you a written permission. Your best bet is having them purposely ignore you.

[Roman_Man#3]

correct me if im wrong, but then wouldnt making a lord of the rings mod be illegal, because EA could shut you down.

[SSJVegetaTrunks]

That's exactly what I was thinking, unless they actually got permission.

[Warluster]

There is a mod for M2TW about Warcraft, I know that because I am working on it! The mod leader is Darkabiter, PM him if you want to join. We have actually pretty much nearly got permission from Blizzard.

[wlesmana]

correct me if im wrong, but then wouldnt making a lord of the rings mod be illegal, because EA could shut you down.

Illegal, not exactly. But does EA have the right to shut down my mod? The answer is "yes" since they currently hold the copyright to the IP.

[Roman_Man#3]

ok, i understand that, but because they hold the copyright, and you are making a game/mod, that would make it illegal, wouldnt it?

Dont get me wrong, lord of the rings is awesome, and some of Ea's games don't do it justice compared to your mod, (sometimes even when they stand alone), but isn't that just as illegal as a warcraft mod. Yes, I hear Blizzard is more strict, but please clarify it.

Where does being being legal stop and becoming illegal begin?

and now a question directed at Wlesmana from his reponse:

What do you mean its not exactly illegal?









I probably asked the same question five times, so please excuse my arrogance.

[wlesmana]

It's not illegal because I'm not making profit from it. The mod distributed are my personal works but the IP is still someone else's. It's the same as making a fan website and featuring screenshots from the movies. All the names of the characters in LOTR are copyrighted by Tolkien Enterprises and EA currently hold the rights for the movie adaptation (aka. things exclusive to the films as well as visuals and designs, etc) but they got got the rights for the books before BfME2, so they can use events, names, etc, from the books that didn't appear in the films.

However, it is still their property (to a limited degree), so they can decide whether some mod should be shut down or not. Usually they'd just keep quiet, until the mod in some direct or indirect way is hindering their business. For instance, if I were to mod Warcraft3 and made it into LOTR, they'd shut me down in a heartbeat because that would compete with BfME.

Emailing them is a bad idea, because that's announcing your existence. They will never reply to you (unless it's a cease&desist letter) and would just keep a close eye on your mod. The moment their marketing or legal department raised a peep, they'd shut you down. No big companies would ever consent to a freeware product that is similar to their own. If they did, it would have opened the floodgates and many would assume it's okay to use their IP. What if that company a year later decided to make a similar game to the mod? The mod could potentially hurt their sales and/or marketing. Not to mention the legal wrangles over designs. The mod could, technically, sue the company if they "followed" some design decisions that are unique to the mod, because they're the modder's IP, assuming they got permission to make the mod in the first place. So the companies would rather keep it hazy, making the mod's legality uncertain, and thus keeping the "Shut It Down" card in their pocket.

The issue is different if the IP was never made or planned to be made into the medium you're modding. For instance, the guys at Westeros TW got permission from GRR Martin about making a mod of his fantasy series. But if instead they were making a tabletop game of the series, then it's harder because there's an official one already.

[Roman_Man#3]

right, thank you for clarifying that.