Remember the link I tossed off a couple weeks back where an Evil Megacorporation threatend a Plucky Development Studio with the Forces of Lawyerly Darkness? No? Well, that’s why they have links and stuff. Anyway.
So along with the game I bought this week that wasn’t Halo 3, Gamestop saw fit to throw in a demo CD of Fury. Cool! I like new MMOs.
But wait! I flip the demo CD over to see just what this game is besides a big glowing F, and we find…
Hm. Something doesn’t look right.
Wow! You mean that I can fight in huge battles alongside my countrymen storming castles?
Uh, no. Auran uses the term to describe cross-server deathmatches. Which even Fury’s designer admits isn’t really described by the term “realm vs. realm” at all.
Huh. Suddenly Evil Megacorporation’s flying into a legal tizzy makes a bit more sense. “Using a phrase when discussing something on your forums” is a touch different from “a point on your demo disc’s punchlist with no other explanation”. I guess the only thing left to wonder is, who would engage in such blatantly misleading marketing?
Oh. Well, then.
#1 by RadarX on September 26th, 2007
Yeah that was really surprising because Gamecock NEVER goes for the exaggeration like a funeral for E3 (which…ok I laughed. I’m thinking it’s done, but I’m also thinking Gamecock is going to make a statement how they’ve been “unfairly targeted” and are just “the little guy being pushed around.”
#2 by changling bob on September 26th, 2007
You know, I’m sure I can think of a better term for cross-server deathmatches than Realm V Realm given some time. I mean, it needs to be fairly short, describe everything it can as simply as possible, and be fairly easy to remember. Like, say, cross-server deathmatch?
#3 by Will Jennings on September 26th, 2007
Scott, did you mean to link to something else when you said “Which even Fury’s designer admits isn’t really described by the term “realm vs. realm” at all”? The post at the other end of that link doesn’t say that, the way I read it.
#4 by Nate Emmott on September 26th, 2007
To add insult, it’s not even a very well-built game at this point. Five times I have tried to get into a match to try the combat with no success. The introduction to combat in the tutorial is intriguing, but I have yet to see how it plays out. There are betas and then there is this. Guess I will have to re-re…re-try it this weekend.
#5 by GreyPawn on September 26th, 2007
“One Realm – Free Transfer” if you pre-order, also on the back of the box there. Not to nitpick, but uhh, isn’t… a pre-order a little early to be concerned about character transfer?
#6 by BadMisterFrosty on September 26th, 2007
When innovation is a thin layer of dust on a ton of stuff »inspired« by another game, you probably have to defend that layer of dust. Maybe at some point they start to get fancy as elsewhere and trademark health-bars. Yep, the term is indeed misleading.
… and GreyPawn, do you stalk me now to Jennings?
#7 by Bregor on September 26th, 2007
Brilliant!
Honestly, though, I agreed with Evil Megacorporation the first time around. I can’t wait to see what their response to this is.
#8 by Knurd on September 27th, 2007
Ok; I’ve played badminton, in my time. I recommend ‘Cock vis-a-vis Cock’, as appropriate nomenclature.
Honestly, is a competitive arena so hard to name? Do they really lack creative development?
“Field Competition”
There you go. No charge. No need for thanks. et al.
#9 by Tony H. on September 27th, 2007
I’m a little lost here. So they use the term Realm vs Realm. But in their case, they use it to describe some kind of cross server PvP they have going on? But the game is a free to play mmog much like Guild Wars, it sounds like. Yet,they have distinct servers you can join. Or something….
I’m very lost here. So their aren’t unique sides you can join like Albion, Hibernia and Midgard from say DAOC? You pick a server and that’s your ‘realm’. Then, is their any reason to to fight for your ‘realm’? Any specific goal or is it just pure PvP instanced brawls like a glorified quake game? (Much like Guild Wars has.)
#10 by kalain on September 27th, 2007
Just to whine about other things in the pictures!
Thanks for reminding me it was released, and screw you to those canadians for expecting me to still know where my old CD/Key is. I love the installer: “hey, I found the old game on your computer! Instead of using it, I’m going to delete it, install myself, and you can go find the install media again!”
*grumble*
#11 by Scott Jennings on September 27th, 2007
> screw you to those canadians for
> expecting me to still know where
> my old CD/Key is.
They don’t. Log into your Relic Online account (which you have to do now to even play CoH single-player) and it’ll unlock the original CoH campaign. Only key you need to enter is for the expansion.
#12 by BugHunter on September 27th, 2007
Pretty narrow definition of “Realm” you folk have these days. Of all the things to attack Fury about (current performance or matchmaking anyone?), this is it? No, this is really all you came up with? From now on, no one is allowed to have a game where one kingdom/nation/region/deminsional rift/group of scientists/world/galaxy/continent fights against another and call it Realm vs. Realm? Are you going to start defending Microshafts copyright on while loops now?
Scott you are most times very level headed, what happened? Did you hit your head? Are you feeling well? Getting enough sleep?
#13 by kalain on September 27th, 2007
If you call something a while loop publicly that isn’t in the format of While ____ (do something), you’d be specifically obscuring an already known phrase.
Realm vs Realm is a marketing term for Mythic, and a description of their gameplay type. Using the term might be fine, but using it to mean something completely different than what it’s been used for is just obscuring it, and confusing (such as me talking randomly to people about realm vs realm gameplay, and us all having to sit down and define terminology for the conversation since the phrase now means two things).
Also: Thankee Mr Lum. I’ll have to go find my real relic online account somewhere, I hadn’t played online in ages. It was pretty insistant in the prompts that I needed my media/key still.
#14 by yunk on September 27th, 2007
I still fail to see how it’s EA/Mythic’s business. Even if they use it differently. The word is generic enough to mean most anything, and I doubt Mythic trademarked it.
These cease and desist letters are just bandied about whenever as an opening salvo at anything remotely resembling a company’s interests. Whether it’s real or not comes if they sue and win. But they probably won’t since it’s a pretty fair bet they’d lose.
#15 by kalain on September 27th, 2007
Realm is a generic word, feel free to use it. Realm versus Realm is a specific phrase used to describe something in the same rather small marketplace.
I can make an MMO and label it all over the box with Player versus Player! PVP! etc, and simply mean that at some point, players interact with each other in a non violent way in town. It’s an accepted term in the industry, and I’m using said term to describe something it’s not typically used to describe. It’s confusing.
Now, outside the MMO market, redefining the phrase is perfectly okay, because nobody already uses it there.
It’s the difference between me saying the word While, and using the term While Loop. One is a word that can mean a lot of things found in a book full of meanings for words. The other is a specific term that when used, conjures up a specific usage. I can call my new programming language’s For Loop’s syntax “While…Do”, but I’m going to get smacked around for it.
#16 by Scott Jennings on September 27th, 2007
> The word is generic enough to
> mean most anything, and I
> doubt Mythic trademarked it.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=md179t.4.1
#17 by BugHunter on September 27th, 2007
Anyone can google trademark law these days from the intertrucks. I wonder what a lawyer would have to say (Cmdr. Slack where are you?) about all this. To a layman it looks more like “Realm vs. Realm” would be the lowest ranking trademark (servicemark really) classification of “descriptive” (maybe even generic). The service would lack the volume (how many units were sold of DAOC anyway?) needed to defend it, as well as a consumer survey (is this all gamers, or just MMO gamers…WoW, habbo, etc.) would probably have a vast majority going “What’s this about camelot?”.
While it’s an interesting thought that you can just pick any phrase and trademark it (Your Fired!), I don’t think it really works that way, once a court gets involved.
#18 by bonedead on September 27th, 2007
I guess I’m the only one wondering why you were tossing off a link.
#19 by yunk on September 27th, 2007
kalain, what does that have to do with EA/Mythic?
The argument whether it’s your idea of RvR or not is spurious. That’s saying they are not delivering what they are advertising. But that has nothing to do with DAOC. The argument is, even if it was matching your definition, what does EA/Mythic have to say about it? Is realm vs realm specific only to EA/Mythic games is the question.
Besides if we want to get specific and say it’s DAOC realms, then EA/Mythic should not use it even for WAR, since when does anyone call Warhammer factions “realms”? Nobody I know.
#20 by kalain on September 28th, 2007
The factional fighting in DAOC is described as Realm vs Realm, that establishes a basic defenition for the terminology in the game.
The factional fighting in WAR is equivalent in most instances (multiple teams you can’t switch off of fighting on the same server in factional pvp).
Fury’s defenition of it is entirely different, and confuses the defenition that was already established.
I can call a hamburger a sandwich, and on a basic level they’re loosely similar with some liberties taken with defenitions. However, most people would expect a sandwich if I had it on a menu without a picture or description next to the name. THAT is what the whole thing is about.
The back of the label says Realm vs Realm. This is an established term in the industry. It does Not contain what the established defenition is, it has it’s own system which they used the term for. That’s not something you should do in any industry. It’s confusing, and typically seen as trying to use someone else’s good name/rep/terminology to lend credibility to your product.
#21 by Ajeba on September 28th, 2007
Well, if anyone buys into that over-hyped crap-on-a-box, they could say …
“I’ve been screwed by Gamecock!”
“Damn Gamecock screwed me right up the ass!”
bbbaaaZING!
#22 by Sam on September 29th, 2007
Wouldn’t the correct use of “Realm vs Realm” depend on the definition of Realm within the game?
For example, World of Warcraft has Realms instead of servers. And, they do in fact, have a Realm vs Realm system (but I don’t think they call it that) where people from one server can fight against people from another in the battlegrounds.
If they called it Realm vs Realm instead of battlegroups, and it was very apparent what a “realm” was (you know, it says Choose your Realm when you first choose a server), would that be OK?
And besides… anyone who reads that Fury box is just gonna assume you can get in a team and fight other teams. And isn’t that what they offer?
#23 by antipwn on October 1st, 2007
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver…
The issue is that Realm vs Realm is a trademark of EA Mythic and is used to describe a very specific mode of play.
Imagine you owned a fast food company and you had a menu item which was a very large piece of chicken so you called it a Big Mac. How long do you think it would be before MacDonald’s lawyers filled your mailbox with expensive letters?
#24 by BugHunter on October 1st, 2007
Seriously, just stop before you hurt yourself. From that last comment, it’s pretty clear you haven’t even tried to read anything about trademark law. The “Big Mac” falls into a completely different category (alongside things like “Nike”) than “Realm vs. Realm”, which probably shouldn’t have even qualified at all (if only the paper pushers weren’t asleep at the wheel).
#25 by antipwn on October 1st, 2007
*Bzzzt!* You lose! ‘Big’ and ‘Mac’ are commonly used words just like ..oooh! ‘realm’, ‘versus’ and ermm. ‘realm’. Big Mac in the context of fast food has a specific meaning and is trademarked just like Windows in the context of computer software is. And like ‘Realm versus Realm’ in the context of MMOs is.
I can build a blimp, call it ‘The Big Mac’ and watch as MacD’s squirm. If I use the term in the catering industry then I deserve everything I get.
#26 by BugHunter on October 2nd, 2007
Right. “Mac” is a more commonly used word than “Nike”? A “Mac” (whatever you are saying that is) bears no inherent relationship to food buddy.
Why do you make me hurt you like this?
#27 by antipwn on October 2nd, 2007
‘Right. “Mac” is a more commonly used word than “Nike”? ‘
As a word rather than a brand name yes. Mac is amongst other non-trademarked terms a name for a style of raincoat. Nike isn’t a word, it’s either a trademarked brand name for sports equipment or the name of the Greek goddess of victory.
‘A “Mac” (whatever you are saying that is) bears no inherent relationship to food buddy.’
I don’t think you understand your own point let alone the rest of the argument..
#28 by Please on October 2nd, 2007
“Nike isn’t a word…”
Proper nouns aren’t words now?