Ultima IV — EA Takedowns Precede Official Reboot 194
Kevin Fishburne writes "According to posts at the Ultima fan site Ultima Aiera, both the browser-based Ultima IV Sega Master System emulation at Master System 8 and the IBM-PC port at Phi Psi Software have received cease and desist letters from Electronic Arts, the current IP holder of the Ultima franchise. The post states that despite the widely held belief that Origin had allowed the Ultima Dragons to distribute Ultima IV freely in 1997, in fact that is no longer the case. It further suggests that the EA takedowns are preceding an upcoming browser-based Ultima IV reboot by Bioware Mythic. Has EA lost an eighth, or are they well within their rights by going DMCA on a 26-year-old game they had no hand in developing?"
If they own the copyright... (Score:5, Informative)
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It being within their rights certainly doesn't make it right, though.
As for Mythic making an Ultima reboot, yeah, no.
Re:If they own the copyright... (Score:4, Informative)
Of course it does. Copyrights aren't supposed to be eternal for a very good reason, despite the best efforts and desires of culture vultures who believe that they should have a license to get paid forever for work someone else did.
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On the contrary, it actually benefits the game companies if the old stuff gets forgotten. This way, they can dredge up forgotten IP, market it as a gritty reboot and have something to sell.
Take EA for instance. I wonder how long it will be before they decide to make a Wing Commander reboot for the consoles. Cybermage? The old Origin IP they are sitting on can provide them with decades of IP to attach to what would be another boring FPS.
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Uh huh. And who makes up most of the audience for aging rock bands that announce "reunion" tours - people that have never heard of it before or people that were fans of the band in the 80's?
Nostalgia sells for a reason.
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Different markets. There are far fewer people who played Ultima 1-4 than there are aging hippies who yearn for another Woodstock.
The games are being sold to 14-30 in age range. Yes, some of the older gamers may remember some of the Origin games, but most of the people marketed to consider World of Warcraft a classic game, and Everquest a rickety old MMO for old people.
So, EA and other companies with older IP will have their bean counters tell them to try to get the old stuff as forgotten as possible, so l
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I'm all right with "public domaining" old GPL code.
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It has nothing to do with being reasonable. The simple fact of the matter is that it's not worth their time / money to sue them, considering lawyer time is expensive and they're unlikely to even get their court costs covered even after they win their case.
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Actually, *I* never liked Ultima. And *I* don't think it's right that copyrights should last that long. 5-10 years is reasonable, if there's no DRM. If there's DRM, then the work should not be copyrightable. The entire *purpose* of copyrights is to get works into the public domain. It has not other justification for existence. So DRM should make the work uncopyrightable. And the period of copyright should be long enough that most of the profit can be extracted from the predictable customers, but no l
That's correct from a legal standpoint (Score:5, Insightful)
Though one can ask if it is correct from a moral one, and also if it SHOULD be correct from a legal standpoint.
My feeling is no. Copyright is far too long. The idea of a limited time copyright is to keep people creating new works. You make a work, you get to make money off of it, but only for a little while. After that it belongs to the public and you need to make new works if you wish to keep making money.
Seems fair to me as that is how most professions work. If I fix a computer, I do not continue to receive pay for that computer so long as it is in use or functional. I am paid for doing the job. If I want more pay I need to keep working.
Personally I'd do copyright something like this:
You get 10 years, upon the creation of the work, no registration needed. That way everyone has a chance to profit from a creation of theirs that is valuable. Once the 10 years are up you've three choices:
1) Do nothing and allow the work to fall in to the public domain. If you do this there are, as they say on the playground, "no taksies backsies." The work is public now and forevermore.
2) Register and renew the work with an exclusive license for another 10 years. You get to dictate everything about its usage, just like the first 10, you've complete control. After that, it falls in to the public domain, no further extensions permitted.
3) Register and renew the work with a mandatory license agreement for another 20 years. In this case you get to keep copyright longer, however part of the terms are that the government mandates a reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing of it. People can make derivatives and pay you a set fee for that and you cannot stop it. You can still profit from your work, but on fixed terms. After that, the work falls in to the public domain.
This was people still have plenty of time to profit from their works, but they can't hold on to them forever and ever and just milk a single gravy train. Also, if someone abandons a work and doesn't bother to register, it falls in to the public domain quicker. After all, if you are still making money 10 years later, you can take the time to register. If you can't be bothered, obviously it isn't that valuable to you.
So while under current law they are 100% in the right, I feel they are being dicks and I feel current copyright law should be changed. You shouldn't be allowed to just hold on to something forever. Many of our more modern favourite works are directly possible because of the use of public domain earlier works (like most of the famous Disney cartoons). That needs to continue.
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The Corporations will just structure it so that the copyright holder earns nothing.
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You may wish to do this yourself, as you would then realize that Hollywood accounting is designed to reduce the âoenetâ income a film claims, to avoid paying out profit-sharing agreements based on net income.
You're naive if you think Hollywood accounting is designed to reduce the net income. Hollywood accounting is supposed to make a certain few parties as rich as possible.
By basing the renewal fee on the gross income, you can't get around it.
Oh yes they can. Before assuming I'm wrong, go look up "gross profit":
gross profit or sales profit is the difference between revenue and the cost of making a product or providing a service
Gross profit is not revenue. Go figure.
They can also have one entity owning the copyrights and not making much revenue at all, while licensing out the "limited use" rights to another entity which makes the money. So if you even if you make a "percentage of revenue deal" if
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You're the one who should be modded down not me.
There's revenue (which can be split/siphoned/"counted differently"/etc), then after subtracting direct costs, you get gross profit (which after all isn't the same as revenue).
If you think Hollywood doesn't play about with "direct costs" you're pretty stupid.
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0.5-1% of the cumulative gross of the work would be more like it. Cumulative being the vital thing (otherwise, if something just doesn't sell after the 'big hit few years', then you effectively get the extension almost free as a big studio. Steamboat Willie not selling much? Well that renewal is $50 for the year; go for it!). This won't affect the small time authors much either; will cost a pittance for a work that doesn't sell much, but at some point, they'll just not care enough to keep it going, es
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Fourteen years is still far too long in today's world (and twenty-eight years is beyond an eternity).
According to typical sales records, maybe two or, at most, five years is more than enough protection.
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Why would you buy any form of entertainment new if you knew you would be able to get it legally for free in 2 years?
I sure wouldn't. Any book, movie, video game, tv show etc, can wait. I'll just watch/read whatever was the big deal in 2009 while I wait.
Popular culture moves quickly, but not as quickly as you think.
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Unless you're a multi-millionare and have a real "Movie room" in your mansion, chances are good that going to a real theatre is something that you simply can't replicate at home 2 years later. That I understand. it's an "experience" thing.
What I'm saying is whether I read stephan king's new ebook for my nook on release day, or 2 years later, it will be the same experience. Whether I play mass effect 3 on release day or 2 years later, it will be the same experience (probably better 2 years later as my comput
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You don't need to be a multi-millionaire to have a real 'movie room' in your house, especially if you only want to equal or surpass the iffy quality of the standard multiplex. If you want to equal the quality of a very good theater though things get very expensive very quickly.
$10,000 or so will buy you a decent projector (The Epson Home Cinema series is quite bright and HD quality) and screen, a PS3 (still one of the better consumer Blu-Ray players on the market), a receiver, decent (but not spectacular) s
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I don't mind paying for content.
I'm already 18 months behind the curve on (most) computer games. I'm buying them at a quarter of the price on Steam instead of paying the 'brand new game' premium.
Some games (online ones and FM2011) need immediate purchase, but a lot don't - last week I put 43 hours in Dragon Age, while on steam my friends are playing Dragon Age II. I'm playing the Ultimate Edition of the original, with all the DLC and expansions, which I paid a lot less for than they've paid for less of a ga
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Hmm, Steam tells me Amnesia: The Dark Descent is Action, Adventure, Indie.
The Indie bit works for me, Action games can be fun but I've never had the patience for Adventure games. (Action Adventure games are even worse, but to be fair that doesn't look like one to me).
The reviews are exceedingly positive and I doubt for a moment that it's a superb game. I just don't think I'll get on with it. There's a demo available, I'll give that a go, see how it goes..
Arx Fatalis for £2.99 on Steam is downlo
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I wait at least two years now. I'm not bothering with movie theater prices, and sometimes I'm not going to deal with pay-per-view fees, so I'm often waiting until a movie shows up on TV. Music needs a lot of time before I know it's worth spending money on. Books usually need to be in paperback form and that's often well over a year from first publishing and two years before I even hear of them, and another couple of years before I get around to reading it anyway.
Two years is almost nothing if you're over
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This can be easily abused by those who make their living profiting off of others' work. For example, studios would gain a huge advantage in terms of book-to-movie deals. It can take months to proceed to the point of getting an offer; with a two year limit the seller is now forced to take the first offer for fear of losing all rights while trying to negotiate. Even bette
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That, of course, depends on how you define reasonable. According to Rufus Pollock [arstechnica.com], he determined that about 14 years is the optimal balance point for copyright. I think at that point the author has earned about 97% of the copyright rents that can be earned from most works.
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How would TV shows work? After season 2 every other network just takes your characters and starts making episodes of the same show?
While I certainly agree with you, I feel the need to point out that TV networks have been doing exactly this for decades, they just rename the characters and add in a random quirk the original show didn't have.
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10 Year Copyright? That's Fine... (Score:2)
...but then the government needs to police and prosecute like friggin' Elliot Ness on steroids the torrent seeders and other violators. Root 'em out and hang 'em up to dry. Every kid, every grandma, every wise-ass college nerd pleading poverty: shut 'em down and cleanse their hard drives clean of any content they did not pay for that is not in the public domain. Everyone needs to understand that they have three choices for possessing entertainment content:
1. Pay Now and Get It Now
2. Wait 10 years and Get
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Give us sensible copyright laws first and then focus on punishing those who break them.
No.
Law enforcement cannot adequately police the torrents now. Songs are merely a dollar on iTunes -- less other places -- yet the latest pop music album is but a two-minute download via Vuze or some other client within a few days of its release. How will diminishing the copyright term -- which at least assures the artist of some revenue from reputable distributors and honest consumers -- increases the technical efficacy
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Give us sensible copyright laws first and then focus on punishing those who break them.
No.
Law enforcement cannot adequately police the torrents now. Songs are merely a dollar on iTunes -- less other places -- yet the latest pop music album is but a two-minute download via Vuze or some other client within a few days of its release. How will diminishing the copyright term -- which at least assures the artist of some revenue from reputable distributors and honest consumers -- increases the technical efficacy of the forces policing copyright?
Demonstrate how the consumer genie can be placed back in the bottle and then we can have a discussion about attenuating the creators' term of copyright.
Buddy, you got this whole this up-side-down. Fix the structure where it becomes reasonable then most people will find it to be easier to be honest. More people uses iTune to acquire music legally now or using streaming music from legal sources than pirating music nowadays (at least in my circle of friends now). Majority of people will do what is right when they don't feel like being ripped-off on a transaction.
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That's all well and good, but unfortunately it doesn't change the facts or context of the case.
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Good luck arguing that before Congress. My advice would be to bring a a LOT of generous campaign contributions with you when you come.
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10 years is far, far too long. Don't movies usually make 90% of their money in theaters like in the first 4-6 weeks after release and the same time period for DVD release?
20 or even 10 years ago, I'd agree that 5 or 10 years makes sense. But now, the best tradeoff would probably be 1 or 2 years IMO.
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My feeling is no. Copyright is far too long. The idea of a limited time copyright is to keep people creating new works. You make a work, you get to make money off of it, but only for a little while. After that it belongs to the public and you need to make new works if you wish to keep making money.
Seems fair to me as that is how most professions work. If I fix a computer, I do not continue to receive pay for that computer so long as it is in use or functional. I am paid for doing the job. If I want more pay I need to keep working.
If I build a house, it belongs to me until I sell it. By your logic, my house should become a public shelter and I should go out and build a new one if I want to keep the benefits of having built my home.
Creating something, and servicing something are two very different things. A guy fixing a computer just serviced it. He MAY add new parts, but he actually sells them to me. Creating goods allow you to sell them or duplicates of them.
You should be able to milk your creation for as long as anyone is willi
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But the copyright duration isn't really the issue here. The problem is EA disagreeing that Ultima Dragons was given the right to distribute the game in the past. I suspect it's a lot like SCO in some ways, EA obtained some copyrights that they think are more valuable than they really are.
At the same time... (Score:2)
...this kind of dick-ish move is the same sort of thing we've come to expect from EA. Remember the takedowns sent from Fox to Simpons fans in the 90's? This seems fairly similar.
Being anal about the distribution rights of a 14 year old video game seems like it's an issue of screwing your most dedicated fans, the very people that the company should be catering to.
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Being anal about the distribution rights of a 14 year old video game seems like it's an issue of screwing your most dedicated fans, the very people that the company should be catering to.
Actually, the DOS version of the game is about 26 years old.
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It may be within their rights, but it's also a clear example of why copyrights on computer games shouldn't last for 26 years.
The part that confuses me (Score:2)
Why bother with a DMCA takedown if you still own the copyright? Are they saying they don't mind people distributing the content, just so long as nobody reverse engineers it?
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They don't necessarily need to show that it was in "public domain" but that some parties were given the rights to copy and distribute it. Copyright holders do not have the ability to retroactively take back copies that had previously been allowed. If some earlier copyright holder once allowed another company to freely make and distribute copies this can't be undone. Of course there's the legal issue of having to prove what the actual circumstances were, what the evidence is, how many copies were allowed,
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However they may do so for the low low sum of $15 million.
Personally, i would agree to EA's new EULA for only $1 million. Not that i play the game, but i would click the 'accept' button for that low amount!
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I've read plenty of EULAs ...
You're too early, save that one for Friday...
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Since when can EA assume that I agree with their (new) terms just because they bought the company
It depends on what terms we're talking about here. When one company buys another, it IS the bought company. You can say "Ah, but I never made an agreement with EA." But EA is Origin. It can be both, at once. And you didn't make an agreement with Richard Garriot, you made a deal with Origin (hypothetically speaking, of course).
This moot, since the 'rights' being talked about here (basic copyright) don't require any acceptance or agreement on your part.
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If EA or whomever they bought the IP from failed to make reasonable efforts to protect their copyrights, then they can lose them. If these games existed for quite a while and EA or the original holder knew of them and did NOTHING to stop them, then it's possible that a judge could throw the works into public domain.
This is so incorrect. You can't lose your copyright because you don't defend it. You can lose trademarks that way, but nothing will ever force the work into the public domain.
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Ultima IV was in the unofficial category of Abandonware, which essentially means, "It's not technically legal to distribute it, but it is no longer being sold and the copyright owner so far seems not to care if you download it, so go ahead."
I think this is a good point. It's basically "We'll just look the other way"-ware.
Who developped does not matter (Score:2)
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>>buy 30 karma for 0.99 $ !"
Brings new meaning to the dungeons in Ultima IV: ...all apply equally well to the developers of microtransaction, spam-based social games, and the players that play them.
Deceit
Despair
Despise
Wrong
Covetous
Shame
(Pedants: Yes, I'm ignoring Destard and Hythloth. Whatever.)
"thou hath lost an eighth" (Score:4, Interesting)
I seem to recall if you were stupid enough to attack a villager in a town, you'd not see that once, but about six times over. (I don't recall which few virtues you didn't lose)
But EA probably is within their rights to do this. It does no good to get upset at them because they're playing by the rules. As we all know, it's the rules that are broken.
BUT, the reason the rules are broken are because companies (like EA) have brib...er lobbied congress critters to write those laws. But again, that's still them playing within the rules, and again leads back to the rules being broken. It's a problem that's two levels deep, and in both cases comes down to a defective legislative system. Defective, not malfunctioning. It's working as designed, it's just designed wrong. Unfortunately certain aspects of its design (such as lobbying) make it a problem that's self-perpetuating to a large degree.
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When distribution rights are given there's usually a contract that says when, how, how many, etc. They can't just arbitrarily change the terms of the contract at their whim, they have to wait until the terms of the contract expire. The issue is whether or not Ultima Dragons were or were not legally given the rights to freely distribute. There does not appear to be a typical legal document to this effect, but rather a very informal email from someone who may or may not have been the copyright holder (ofte
Never understood why ultima IV was so great (Score:3)
I remember abandoning it for Might and Magic (I & II), and then returning to the series when I got a hold of Ultima V. Ultima V kicked serious butt!
How come no one ever wants to remake/re-release/re-whatever that one?
*goes in a corner and plays the stones song*
Re:Never understood why ultima IV was so great (Score:5, Insightful)
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Assuming one is still on winxp of course. DS wont run on win7 for instance :p
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there's many remakes of all ultimas before 6.
6 is the bee's balls superduper though. the world in it is far bigger than in dragon age, or anything hand done. ultima7 feels like a kid's park compared to the size(ultima7 has no caves, for example, just those pseudo caves).
also, ultima ix isn't half bad. no computer could run it when it came though.
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I've used Voodoo library wrappers before to get Voodoo games running well.
Diablo II, for instance, only "supported" (it was really a Voodoo trick) running at 1600x1200 if you used Voodoo instead of DirectX, and I installed a Voodoo to DirectX wrapper to make this work.
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Yes it was over the top in its morality, and Ultima V was directly a r
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Games used to be about story, plot and themes and not simply hack and slash. While I've enjoyed all of the Ultimas (even 8, /shudder), 5's combat system, while allowing plenty of control, took too long and slowed down the flow of the game. It was almost as cumbersome as the Times of Lore combat system where one battle of a group of 6 against 6 monsters took a good 20 minutes.
I am, of course, talking about playing on the Apple/PC. Combat on cons
Just so long as it remains readily playable (Score:5, Insightful)
If EA are sending out takedown notices, then they really had better have an official port in the pipeline. I'm going to leave aside the moral dimensions of copyright law for a moment and focus on something else - the fact that this is a game that needs preserving in an accessible form.
Ultima IV is, to my mind, one of the most important games in the history of computer and video gaming as a medium. While the first three Ultima games (and Akalabeth) had been relatively straightforward "hack and slash" type RPGs, Ultima IV was revolutionary. It was a game based around morality, where the objective wasn't to defeat the big bad and save the world, but rather become a paragon of virtue. It was an early sign that the medium was capable of "growing up" and its influence over the years has been immense. While hack and slash still predominates, you can see the influence of Ultima IV underpinning pretty much every Bioware RPG, as well as a whole host of other games which attempt to tell more sophisticated stories or allow the player a degree of freedom in how to accomplish objectives.
In terms of significance to the development of the RPG genre, I'd rank Ultima IV as sitting alongside the second installments in the Final Fantasy and Baldur's Gate series - the former for its development of what we now recognise as the standard model for Japanese RPG storytelling and the latter for re-popularising the genre in the West following a major period of decline in the mid-90s.
It's a sad fact that because people at the time saw them as ephemeral, many of the significant early works in film and television have been lost forever. It would be nice - and no doubt welcomed by future generations - if we could actually preserve the most important early gaming titles in a readily playable form.
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The game is in no danger of being lost to time. And a copyright violation notice has nothing to do with whether or not it will be lost to time.
The game was based around wandering around a fantasy kingdom killing monsters. That made up approximately 100% of gameplay. They mentioned morality in the parts nobody cared about. It's no more deep than the cut scenes in Mario, where the Princess is in another castle.
The morality system of Bioware games is so incredibly trite, who cares what its inspirations wer
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It may not be "deep" now, but in the context of when it was released, Ultima IV was groundbeaking. This half-assed attempt by EA to quash the game outside of its own walled garden is nothing more than a revenue grab. It's typical of a company like EA, of course.
And who cares if Bioware's implementation didn't advance the morality system further in the mid 90's... Ultima IV did a great job on computers that had less memory than your wristwatch.
Stop trying to wrap today's game ecosystem around Ultima IV. If y
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Don't worry, Ultima IV will always be readily available on the internet. I can assure you that.
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if we could actually preserve the most important early gaming titles in a readily playable form.
Oddly enough I think that software pirates are already doing this. There is also Gog.com.
Has EA lost an eighth (Score:3)
It's an 'in-joke' (Score:5, Informative)
Quote from http://everything2.com/title/Thou+hast+lost+an+eighth%2521 [everything2.com] - to stop me wasting my time re-wording;-
A warning that first appeared in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Earning all eight pieces of the ankh is a major part of the aforementioned quest. You have to act in harmony with all eight virtues in order to earn each piece. If you act unvirtuously, by cheating a blind herb-seller, attacking a peaceful citizen, etc., you will lose that virtue. If you've earned that virtue's piece of the ankh, you will also lose that eighth.
On the Ultima-related newsgroups, "Thou hast lost an eighth!" is used as a rebuke when someone asks a stupid question.
"Thou hast lost an eighth" also appears in Doom II -- when you want to quit the game, the confirmation dialog occasionally warns you that "Thou hast lost an eighth" for wanting to quit!
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In U4 you gained "skill" in each of the eight virtues. Once you "ascended" in each virtue you gained an eighth of an ankh. If you took any action counter to that ascended virtue, you lost it and had to again work through regaining it. Even if you were fully ascended (all eight pieces of the ankh) and did something that went against honesty and the other three virtues based upon the axiom of Truth, you might see...
"Thou hast lost an eighth!!!"
"Thou hast l
Virtues (Score:3)
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I guess they have Valor because they never seem to stop or back down from anything especially where money is involved.
Aw hell, I'm quite certain EA as a whole *is* The Guardian, Mr. Muppet himself.
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Naw, you don't get Valor for attacking non-evil creatures. You of all people, Mr. Avatar (if that is your real name), should know this.
Also, it was well established [ultimaaiera.com] in the events of Ultima VII that the Guardian is in fact behind EA (which is to say Elizabeth and Abraham).
Asking Slashdot (Score:2)
"Has EA lost an eighth, or are they well within their rights by going DMCA on a 26-year-old game they had no hand in developing?"
Asking this on Slashdot... I wonder what the answer's going to be? ;-)
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Both, except that it would have been 4/8ths, except that they'd previously lost the other three.
I.e., if rights are determined legally, then they are within their rights. If rights are determined morally, then they are immoral.
If you believe "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights", the the usage is clearly moral. But if you're a lawyer, then it's the other way around.
Can still be downloaded legally (Score:5, Interesting)
You can still download the Ultima IV legally [thatfleminggent.com]. Or, at least, according to both that page and the first article linked to from the summary. And, from that page there is a link to a Usenet post with the permission:
So, I just went and downloaded the game. Go me!
As far as I can tell, EA is only going after those who didn't have permission in the first place. Which, is perfectly legal, and not even that dickish when considered from that perspective. (From another perspective, that copyright is shit, and/or that copyright for a 26 year old game is shit, it is dickish. Whatever.)
But yeah, to bad nobody reads the article around here hey. Too bad the summary didn't mention this little point about the game still being available from some places.
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Where does that "26 year old" come from?
2011 - 1997 = 14, no?
I really don't understand (Score:3)
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Why do people keep spending money on EA Games?
EA publishes the games they want to play.
Dragon Age
The Sims
Madden NFL
Medal of Honor
Crysis
The eight virtues: (Score:2)
HUMIdity
SACRilege
HONEy
SPIRals
VALOrem
HONOlulu
JUSTico (these days you could use JUSTintimberlake or JUSTinbieber... but I did not know who the former was back then and the latter did not exist back then).
(the Ultima IV language parser only read the first four letters of any word) you could pass all the challenges where they asked you questions about the virtues by answering with thse...)
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Of course, the purist that I am, I cursed my friend for using my U7 save game and killing Lord British with the Blacksword. :-)
An eighth? (Score:2)
Abandonware (Score:2)
Just because EA plans to re-release (and likely ruin) a title, does that mean they have the right to stop all the independent, original and to the best of my knowledge *non-profit" work? If people were making money off of it, I could unders
Oh, crap - they own me? (Score:2)
Guess I'll get the GMs in WoW to change it to "Phuquea" (phuq you EA)
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What are you talking about? No one cares about your character name, unless it also happens to be the name of an NPC character in the game, or in someone else's book, movie, tv show, or game, etc which you ripped off.
There's nothing in the linked article about character names, so I don't even understand why you bothered posting this?
You don't have to develop something to own IP (Score:2)
Owning the IP to something has nothing to do with if you actively developed it or not. There are companies that do nothing but buy/sell/manage IP without actually developing anything.
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One of the arguments companies have used over time is that if they do not police their copy right they somehow lose it legally.
Wrong. That's trademarks. You must actively defend your trademark or lose it. You are confused. Copyright is commonly ignored until market reasons can justify otherwise. This behavior is actually pretty common.
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I need to retry Mass Effect. Bought it, tried playing it, kind of ran out desire to go back to it.
I loved SW:KOTOR, enjoyed SW:KOTOR2 (despite the negative comparisons everyone made to KOTOR) and I'm currently having a lot of fun with DAO, so the genre/approach clearly works for me. Just Mass Effect didn't..
(I do still consider Baldur's Gate as one of the top RPG games though, having had surprisingly few good RPG experiences prior to that)
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I am not a lawyer, but I think I have a decent basic understanding of copyright law.
If you sell your car to someone, can you tell them what they can and can't do with *their* car? If you sell your house, or your computer, or any other thing (well, sometimes in the sales contract you can dictate some things, c.f. Homeowners' Associations, but if it's not in the contract, you can't retroactively make demands of the new owner - it's too late, the ownership has transferred).
Ownership carries with it the right t