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View Full Version : About homebrewing a system & RO



Thieves
2010-02-22, 12:48 PM
1) Is there, by any chance, a role-playing system that uses the flavour (I mean, data: classes, abilities, setting etc.) from the MMORPG Ragnarok Online? Anyone heard of such finished / playable venture?

2) Intellectual / copyright property: do you think that using OGL d20 mechanics, one could create a setting based on RO, like people did with FFX somewhere here on this board? Is there any copyright infringement on the way? (I mean, not planning to re-sell the thing, of course, just to make it public)

The thing about RO is that the Korean version of it is apparently so poorly / oddly copyrighted that anyone can put up a game server - and modify the game in a variety of ways, some private servers have a lot of customized stuff - and is not infringing anything. Do you think this somehow extends to other forms of activity dealing with this trademark?

RagnaroksChosen
2010-02-22, 12:57 PM
The thing about RO is that the Korean version of it is apparently so poorly / oddly copyrighted that anyone can put up a game server - and modify the game in a variety of ways, some private servers have a lot of customized stuff - and is not infringing anything. Do you think this somehow extends to other forms of activity dealing with this trademark?

You do know that 90% of the time private servers are in violation of copywrite laws.

Felyndiira
2010-02-22, 01:13 PM
1) Is there, by any chance, a role-playing system that uses the flavour (I mean, data: classes, abilities, setting etc.) from the MMORPG Ragnarok Online? Anyone heard of such finished / playable venture?
Not that I know of, although it should be relatively easy to design. There are only a limited number of classes, after all, and rescaling monsters with stats is easier than designing them from scratch. The only hard part would be the story (although Soma Labs can probably provide a pretty decent one).


2) Intellectual / copyright property: do you think that using OGL d20 mechanics, one could create a setting based on RO, like people did with FFX somewhere here on this board? Is there any copyright infringement on the way? (I mean, not planning to re-sell the thing, of course, just to make it public)
RO does not specifically forbid it, I believe. Using RO's setting to create a public domain system would not be any worse than creating RO fanart or fanfiction - as long as you sell it, you won't get into legal trouble.


The thing about RO is that the Korean version of it is apparently so poorly / oddly copyrighted that anyone can put up a game server - and modify the game in a variety of ways, some private servers have a lot of customized stuff - and is not infringing anything. Do you think this somehow extends to other forms of activity dealing with this trademark?
No, that's actually because RO is horribly protected, so the [korean] server gets leaked quite frequently (that, and independent developers can make their own servers). The private servers are still against the law, just poorly punished by the developers.

Reinboom
2010-02-22, 01:14 PM
The thing about RO is that the Korean version of it is apparently so poorly / oddly copyrighted that anyone can put up a game server - and modify the game in a variety of ways, some private servers have a lot of customized stuff - and is not infringing anything. Do you think this somehow extends to other forms of activity dealing with this trademark?

This is one of those myths that get spread because it makes people (server owners in this case) feel good about themselves.

One of the two most common private server software, eAthena, is legal. It is an emulation of expected gameplay, functions, setup, packet exchange and similar and takes no code directly from the official software. This isn't an issue of RO being poorly copyrighted, this is just that software designed to emulate something - as long as it doesn't take anything from the actual thing it's emulating - is legal as stands no matter the software.

The client, by extension, can be downloaded freely and easily from the gravity website. As per their terms of use and standard distribution restrictions.

One can even modify the client they have downloaded freely and use it to play nongravity servers.

One can NOT, however, redistribute the client or its IP. In any form. Which most private servers must do in order to give you a client that can connect to their server.


(The following two paragraphs applies to any game interpretation)
That said, actual game mechanics and theories surrounding them cannot be copyrighted. How those game mechanics and theories are presented, however, are. The goal of the project you wish to see would be presenting familiar mechanics through a different media and different writing. This means that, unquestionably, it would be legal to make a game system that is an interpretation of the RO game mechanics.

That said, you cannot freely use the name Ragnarok Online on this system. You can elude to it, you can say it is based upon it, and so on and so forth... you can even call it "RORPG" (but not Ragnarok Online RPG, etc.), but you cannot use "Ragnarok Online" as part of the title without getting into murkier trademark water than what you would wish to get into for a homebrew system. Or use any other proper names that may or may not be trademarked.

Of course... RO's mechanics use pretty common terms of which can't be trademarked such as "Assassin", "Rogue", "Wizard", "Swordsman", etc.

That all said, I have not yet seen a d20 remake of RO.

Edit: You could still use "Ragnarok d20". Ragnarok is a general use (thanks to it being an old myth) term and d20 is common use due to game mechanics (but the "d20 system" is not! You would need to read the licensing by WotC for that one)

Zaq
2010-02-22, 09:13 PM
I have nothing to add about legality, but I will add that I have always wanted to play some form of Ragnarok d20. If you do end up homebrewing this (or finding someone who already has), I'd like to know about it.

Tyndmyr
2010-02-23, 08:11 AM
Legality wise....I would not draw any conclusions whatsoever from the existance of korean servers. They tend to exist if legal or not, and they generally claim legality because admitting you're doing something illegal is generally stupid.

Even if they are legal there, laws vary wildly between countries. Running a server is also very different from a pnp game. If you ever plan to distribute this system to anyone at all, free or not, either A. get permission from the company(some love fan stuff) or B. talk to an IP lawyer. Distributing something for free can, in some circumstances, still get you sued.

Reinboom
2010-02-23, 08:17 AM
Legality wise....I would not draw any conclusions whatsoever from the existance of korean servers.

Nitpick: The company that makes Ragnarok Online, Gravity, is Korean - and thus - the primary Korean servers are definitely legal. :smalltongue: