Armed Heroes Online—— A Free 3D MMO RPG is coming

[jsrco]

Originally Posted by knighthalo123

Dude who gives a crap? It's an iOS game, just because they copied some textures, who cares. It's not like they copied the gameplay of torchlight a diablo like game.

Just stop... if you read the main thread for this game you would know they copied more than a few textures. Which is just wrong period. There is no argument for that.

[Castl3mania]

Who the hell cares, i am enjoying this mmo now i have to worry of it getting pulled or shut down cause someones a little upset about textures or "cause it feels like torchlight"

[Molando]

How about I take a book, scan it in, then reprint it with a new cover, but with my name on it? It's only the words. It's my paper and cover. I could mess the ending around a bit, add in a monkey, as all people like monkeys. Maybe rename a characters or two.

How about I sell it in a country that the original book was not published? The original author would not have had sales there, so why should I not make money from their work?

Maybe not the best analogy, but close enough.

If the assets have been stolen, then altered, then something should be done about it.

I am off to write a book called: 50 hues of off-white.

[Artfoundry]

Originally Posted by Castl3mania

Who the hell cares, i am enjoying this mmo now i have to worry of it getting pulled or shut down cause someones a little upset about textures or "cause it feels like torchlight"

I for one care, being a game developer myself. If I found someone had not only made a game similar to mine (which is common and generally acceptable) but had actually copied assets to look exactly like mine, I'd be pissed as hell. It's ethically wrong and illegal. Unfortunately many countries (particularly Asian ones) don't have the same copyright laws we do, so they get away with this type of stuff all the time. Even so far as making stores that look just like Apple stores, selling products that look just like Apple products (not anymore - they got shut down). There's a reason we have copyright laws. It's important to protect people's creations. Otherwise nothing has any value (and I'm not talking about just monetary value).

I was pretty excited about this game. But now that I know what the devs have done, I have no intentions of supporting them. I have plenty of other great games made by devs with integrity.

[squarezero]

Originally Posted by Molando

How about I take a book, scan it in, then reprint it with a new cover, but with my name on it? It's only the words. It's my paper and cover. I could mess the ending around a bit, add in a monkey, as all people like monkeys. Maybe rename a characters or two.

How about I sell it in a country that the original book was not published? The original author would not have had sales there, so why should I not make money from their work?

Maybe not the best analogy, but close enough.

If the assets have been stolen, then altered, then something should be done about it.

I am off to write a book called: 50 hues of off-white.

That's actually a pretty poor analogy. Armed Heroes plays little like Torchlight: to begin with, it's an MMO, which Torchlight is not.

The best analogy I can think of is a comic book artists that uses stolen character designs to tell a completely different story. It's reprehensible, but it doesn't mean that the offending work has no value.

As I mentioned in the main thread, there is a possibility that the copying is the work of freelancers and not intended by the main developers. It has happened before, and to folks who are beloved around TA. That doesn't get the developer/publisher off the hook, but it does leave open the possibility that the game could return with new assets (it would also mean that the developer was swindled, which makes it another victim of this fiasco). Time will tell.

[Artfoundry]

Originally Posted by squarezero

That's actually a pretty poor analogy. Armed Heroes plays little like Torchlight: to begin with, it's an MMO, which Torchlight is not.

The best analogy I can think of is a comic book artists that uses stolen character designs to tell a completely different story. It's reprehensible, but it doesn't mean that the offending work has no value.

As I mentioned in the main thread, there is a possibility that the copying is the work of freelancers and not intended by the main developers. It has happened before, and to folks who are beloved around TA. That doesn't get the developer/publisher off the hook, but it does leave open the possibility that the game could return with new assets (it would also mean that the developer was swindled, which makes it another victim of this fiasco). Time will tell.

Actually Torchlight MMO is coming out very soon, so they're probably trying to bank on that. That aside, the devs have no excuse, even if the art was made by contractors. A developer would review all assets as they're being produced. And if they don't, and they didn't know until they were done, then that's their own fault. There's simply no reason the art should be that close to another game's art.

[squarezero]

Originally Posted by Artfoundry

Actually Torchlight MMO is coming out very soon, so they're probably trying to bank on that. That aside, the devs have no excuse, even if the art was made by contractors. A developer would review all assets as they're being produced. And if they don't, and they didn't know until they were done, then that's their own fault. There's simply no reason the art should be that close to another game's art.

Do the terms "That doesn't get the developer/publisher off the hook..." mean anything to you .

I am not arguing that they developer isn't at fault. But from a moral/ethical perspective there is a difference between them being remiss and being willfully deceptive. As I mentioned, a very similar thing happened to someone I (and most likely you) respect. In the end they fired the offending artists and paid to have the stolen assets redone. If the AH developers do the same, I'm okay with welcoming them back into the fold (assuming tha they were incompetent and not actual thieves).

[GrimbyBECK]

As the AD for Runic Games and Torchlight I can tell you what it appears to be regarding 3D models.
1- Start with our actual art assets.
2- They did a Mesh Optimize to drop the poly count and retain the UVs.
3- In some cases they did very minor alterations to the texture, some not at all.

This isn't a case of making a brand new model *look* like ours. This is taking our models and reducing polycount.

This isn't an "homage"
This isn't "a similar style".
This is theft of actual assets with a verrrry lazy attempt to disguise it.

And that's not even counting the level assets, sound effects, or font.
Or the other games they pinched assets from.

[squarezero]

Originally Posted by GrimbyBECK

As the AD for Runic Games and Torchlight I can tell you what it appears to be regarding 3D models.
1- Start with our actual art assets.
2- They did a Mesh Optimize to drop the poly count and retain the UVs.
3- In some cases they did very minor alterations to the texture, some not at all.

This isn't a case of making a brand new model *look* like ours. This is taking our models and reducing polycount.

This isn't an "homage"
This isn't "a similar style".
This is theft of actual assets with a verrrry lazy attempt to disguise it.

And that's not even counting the level assets, sound effects, or font.
Or the other games they pinched assets from.

Nobody is arguing any of those things. There are folks who simply don't care, but their opinion is worthless.

If they stole other "level assets" (whatever those may be) and sound effects, then there is simply no getting around the fact that we're dealing with thieves, not incompetent managers. Of course, this is the first we've heard of that accusation (as well as them stealing from "other games" so far unnamed). Considering that you are an interested party here (rightly so) you may want to be more specific about the additional charges.

I have to say, I find it very strange that the developer of AH would think that they could get away with such an extensive pilfering of assets. Outside of the stolen assets, developing an
MMO is a significant investment. It is bizarre that they would gamble it all on the off-chance that no one would notice their theft.

[Artfoundry]

Originally Posted by squarezero

I have to say, I find it very strange that the developer of AH would think that they could get away with such an extensive pilfering of assets. Outside of the stolen assets, developing an
MMO is a significant investment. It is bizarre that they would gamble it all on the off-chance that no one would notice their theft.

As I said, Asian companies don't have the same reservations or laws about theft/copyright infringement we do. And judging by the Chinese name and broken English of the Dev who started the thread, I would guess the company is Chinese.

Now if their contracted artists stole the assets and the devs really didn't know/didn't recognize the art, I could understand, but I highly doubt that's the case. I doubt we'll see any changes in the game. The only thing I could see happening is Runic games talking to apple about it and apple pulling the game. My understanding is international litigation is mostly a lose lose situation unfortunately (for the victim; of course it's a bonus to the perp).