TIMEWARP? TO HELL WITH THAT - WE’RE SUING! [Author: Lum the Mad]
Lawsuit: We want back the castle we lost to the server error.
Jun.13.2001
by reporter I Kayon
(translated into English by Lineage Gazetteer)
Members of an online game have filed a lawsuit to reclaim virtual territory.
This recently, as incidents of online item hacking and offline item trading causing lawsuits, discussion of “cyber property rights” is expected.
Representing a group of like-minded Lineage players (a bloodpledge), An (age 31), submitted a lawsuit calling for the return of “Giran castle” to Seoul District Court on the 13th.
NCsoft has been offering the online game Lineage since 1998 (with over 1 million players), becoming one of the largest online game companies.
The “Giran castle” An demanded restoration of began operation in Lineage’s Episode 8 (Giran) last month and is the fourth such castle within the game.
The bloodpledge which takes the castle, controls the virtual territory within the game and gains tax revenues. This tax money greatly increases the ability to buy various weapons, so competition to control the castles is fierce.
As the leader of a bloodpledge, An and 100 pledge members fought with other bloodpledges at the known siege time and took Giran castle. But afterward the siege was declared invalid and the server was reset, causing the loss of the castle and then the lawsuit.
NCsoft explained, “at that time, due to a program error, the siege did not run normally, so in accordance with the user agreement, it was declared invalid and the server was reset.”