A sad day for LotR and Bethesda fans.

[Eärendil]

Not sure if anyone's posted this (since I haven't found anything posted here about it) but figured I'd try to spread the word about how Warner Brothers has decided to kill the ambitious and highly praised Middle Earth Roleplaying Project (MERP), a total conversion mod for Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Here's a link to an article describing the team's dilemma:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/06/mi...se-and-desist/

Here's a petition you can sign to support the team in trying to save their mod from annihilation:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middl...-merp-petition

The mod's ModDB website:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middl...laying-project

Sign the petition folks, this mod's worth fighting for if you look at their work.

regards,
Eärendil

[Kelimbror]

I hate to sound so disrespectful, but they already have a LotR game. It's called LotRO. I hear RP is pretty easy to do there.

[Ridesdel]

links broke

[tigojones]

It sucks, but yeah, the copyright/trademark/IP owners have that right. Not everyone's going to be cool with fan-made projects like Valve has been with Black Mesa: Source.

[Deleted]

Umm, they have to protect their own IP since they already have a game out so ye, working as intended as they say.

[SteakAndAlePie]

Those things happen all the time. I remember the Chrono Trigger Remake, I think it was a on either the Quake 3 or Unreal 2 engine, being axed by Square Enix. And Nintendo killed the Super Mario custom level creation and play framework Super Mario Bros XX. Interestingly Lunar Magic is still untouched though.

[Kisho]

A petition won't do much in this situation unfortunately. The law is on their side with copyright infringement. Sucks, but hey. Not much that can be done.

[fizzbob]

bethesda is pretty forgiving (because the fan-created content increases the longevity and profit of their games) but when you are basically taking their framework to make your own new game, they kill it. happened with morroblivion and will happen to skywind

[Wilian]

First of all this is old news (like two months or so).

Second of all, it's a company protecting it's IP. While I'm in huge favour of modding I do understand the company PoV from this expesially if Warner Bros (who owns the IP at the moment) is making RPG based on LotR. With Skyrim being so damn huge game in terms of popularity and sales a fully realized mod like this would probably chip into their sales.

In any case, I would've loved to see this mod to come real and it had great potential. I hope they do the cheap trick and just rename everything while retaining the stuff. Like Revendell instead of Rivendell.

[Eärendil]

I hate to sound so disrespectful, but they already have a LotR game. It's called LotRO. I hear RP is pretty easy to do there.

Links fixed

First of all this is old news (like two months or so).

According to what you can read in the PC gamer article, they got the C&D letter at the end of august, so barely a month, but haven't seen any topics about it here. While it does suck completely, a petition always helps (it only depends on how many people sign it and organize)

Look at the Mass Effect 3 debacle about the ending (and the ensuing sh!tstorm) and tell me that a petition didn't help to get Bioware to do *something* about the game's issues.

bethesda is pretty forgiving (because the fan-created content increases the longevity and profit of their games) but when you are basically taking their framework to make your own new game, they kill it. happened with morroblivion and will happen to skywind

Bethesda didn't axe the project, Warner Brothers did.

[cherb]

People violate IP rights without permission, and then want to petition when the IP holder takes it away?

I see nothing wrong with what Warner Bros. is doing, only something wrong with openly violating copyright law.

---------- Post added 2012-10-10 at 05:03 PM ----------

Links fixed



According to what you can read in the PC gamer article, they got the C&D letter at the end of august, so barely a month, but haven't seen any topics about it here. While it does suck completely, a petition always helps (it only depends on how many people sign it and organize)

Look at the Mass Effect 3 debacle about the ending (and the ensuing sh!tstorm) and tell me that a petition didn't help to get Bioware to do *something* about the game's issues.

Bioware didn't violate the law for one, and second, Bethesda has nothing to do with this, it's a 3rd party who is well within their rights to send this cease and desist.

[Wilian]

Links fixed
According to what you can read in the PC gamer article, they got the C&D letter at the end of august, so barely a month, but haven't seen any topics about it here. While it does suck completely, a petition always helps (it only depends on how many people sign it and organize)

Look at the Mass Effect 3 debacle about the ending (and the ensuing sh!tstorm) and tell me that a petition didn't help to get Bioware to do *something* about the game's issues.

Henche the "like", as I was not sure of the exact date, it has been floating around for quite a while though and covered quite well in plenty of different medias. And no, petition doesn't help. Online petitions are just ball-waxing because anyone could fake as many votes as they want to. No one will ever react to them.

And your ME3 example is shitty because they never did anything about the ending, they just added more fan-service around it to cover their tracks. (And the ending debacle was hilarious in any case because the whole game defied everything that ME1 and 2 stood for anyhow, storywise)

[flarecde]

Unfortunately they violated copyright.

Personally I think the fact that anyone can even hold that copyright as a little ridiculous, but that is that.

[cherb]

Henche the "like", as I was not sure of the exact date, it has been floating around for quite a while though and covered quite well in plenty of different medias. And no, petition doesn't help. Online petitions are just ball-waxing because anyone could fake as many votes as they want to. No one will ever react to them.

And your ME3 example is shitty because they never did anything about the ending, they just added more fan-service around it to cover their tracks. (And the ending debacle was hilarious in any case because the whole game defied everything that ME1 and 2 stood for anyhow, storywise)

The ME3 example is shitty because Bioware was completely within their rights doing what they did (even if it sucked) it still wasn't against the law. The creators of this mod openly violated copyright law without permission and now they are paying the price for it.

[vindicatorx]

Yeah, sorry but if IP holder says no there is no petition on earth that will get them to do it.

[Eärendil]

Henche the "like", as I was not sure of the exact date, it has been floating around for quite a while though and covered quite well in plenty of different medias. And no, petition doesn't help. Online petitions are just ball-waxing because anyone could fake as many votes as they want to. No one will ever react to them.

And your ME3 example is shitty because they never did anything about the ending, they just added more fan-service around it to cover their tracks. (And the ending debacle was hilarious in any case because the whole game defied everything that ME1 and 2 stood for anyhow, storywise)

They did do something about the ending, more clarification (bad one at that), and you'll get no argument from me (quite the contrary) that what Bioware did with ME3 was complete BS but I sort of had a feeling they'd go that direction after playing ME2. While ME2 was awesome, it felt disconnected from the first game to begin with. Smudboy on youtube had a point in his ME3 story-dissection that Bioware clearly never planned this before they started this "trilogy". In any case, you may hold the opinion that they did nothing, but the truth nearly swings to that they didn't do something you (and I) wanted. Which once again ended up with craptastic storytelling.

The ME3 example is shitty because Bioware was completely within their rights doing what they did (even if it sucked) it still wasn't against the law. The creators of this mod openly violated copyright law without permission and now they are paying the price for it.

What are you talking about?

As I understand it, they had no issue(s) with the previous IP holders (Warner Brothers is not the first), only reason WB is axing their project now is The Hobbit (trilogy) and the subsequent games they want to milk their customers with.

[Larath]

What they should have done is not work on this project for what 6+ years without asking for permission, that in itself is pretty silly tbh.

[Eärendil]

What they should have done is not work on this project for what 6+ years without asking for permission, that in itself is pretty silly tbh.

To be fair I'm not wholly sure what the state of the IP was for all these 6 years and what previous IP holders told them. It'd be best if one of their team jumped in and answered that question.

[Fencers]

I don't really support these guys. They were making a mod off a licensed and well known property. I'm sure if I made a Harry Potter mod that wouldn't necessarily be cool just because I love the lore and put a lot of work into it already.

[Deleted]

It's not as if a free to play mod would compete with some triple A title, so don't really understand all the commotion.