Reiisha
Splint Eye Probabilities Inc. Dawn of Transcendence
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Posted - 2012.03.14 08:56:00 -
[1] - Quote
Vel Tora wrote:I donGÇÖt know how the game actually stacks up. I had some interest in trying it. However, I have been hesitant to invest time or money into playing what might already be a dead game and a plagiarism. NCsoft has filed lawsuit in the USA to prevent TERAGÇÖs release and appear to have some ground to stand on. Members of the development team have been convicted of corporate theft by Korean courts regarding Linage 3 materials that they are now accused of using ilegally in Terra. I think NCsoft is now seeking an injunction in Europe and the Korean version of Tera is near to folding up shop as national players felt it too GÇ£western.GÇ¥
KTera is coming back actually since the release of some extra content and tweaks. The game did badly on release but is slowly getting back on its feet.
NCSoft doesn't really have a case to shut down the game. They are claiming too much in their suit (NCSoft will go bankrupt is one of their arguments), which makes judges a little weary to start with. They're claiming that Tera is causing the drop in subscribers to Lineage 1 and 2, but of course, those games being 14 and 9 years old respectively doesnt have anything to do with it ;p
Unless the case is presented to an idiotic judge, the worst that will happen to En Masse/Bluehole is that they'd have to pay a settlement or royalties for use of original L3 assets. Given that Epic actually licensed the engine seperately to Bluehole, even this is on very shaky legs as it means the codebase cannot be claimed by NCSoft as theirs. they have little to not proof that Tera is the game they worked on as L3 and almost all the art assets they use as arguments look nothing like what's been used in Tera.
One piece bears a resemblence to the race lineup, but it's the only half-way valid link between Tera and L3 and still has massive differences in design.
NCSoft cannot actually bring any prior art or other proof that Tera IS L3. The game now presented as Tera has little resemblence to the original design of L3 in the first place, the latter was supposed to still use a traditional combat system, which was one of the reasons why the devs left in the first place iirc as management was getting far too involved in the design process.
I very much doubt that Tera is in any real danger. While Bluehole is not entirely without guilt in the matter, presenting NCSoft as being right on every count is not exactly correct either. They sunk a lot of money into L3 and despite cancelling it are now trying to earn it back by sueing the people who did all the work, basically it's management trying to cover up their mistakes by shifting the blame to someone else.
Edit: The case in Korea is appealed and still going. NCSoft may not have been entirely clean in this case and forced some premature rulings. |