Exult on Ebay

[Mikael Scott]

Heya!

Just wanted to let you know that someone is selling Exult on Ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... :B:SS:CA:1

I reported them, cuz I don't think a "Finder Fee" for Freeware is particularly legal.

Though I'd letcha know in case you wanted to report them as they are infringing on your work.

Thanks! Mikael.

[Bobb]

Serpent Isle is NOT freeware!

[Mikael Scott]

Yeah .. that too!

Just to clarify, the freeware I was referring to was Exult ... not Serpent Isle.

[artaxerxes]

however, there is an inaccuracy in the description which should be reported to eBay. The seller says: Crash-free and bug-free. This is simply not true (yet) as the many posts in this forum can attest.

Artaxerxes

[Bobb]

The problem is, he is selling both as freeware, so it is illegal.

[WWWWolf]

Crash-free and bug-free? *No* program is...

Wonder where they got the 8 MB figure from? Exult binary download is 2 megs. SI sound pack? For five dollars I'd expect them to include Ogg music too!

[PanSola]

> Crash-free and bug-free? *No* program is...

You haven't been out much, have you? d-:

Check out NaDa v0.5

http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/


ps. Ok, so there is ONE single bug report, but the person who reported it said, and this is the quote:"I don't know what it did but it did something "

Would you consider it a valid bug report? No, I didn't think so.

So it's truely bug free!


q-:

[Colourless]

There is nothing wrong with selling 'Exult'. GPL doesn't forbid profiting off of GPL work. We can't stop it. We ourselves would never do it, but someone else could if they wanted to. Can't say we'd be happy to see it though. EA of course might have something to say about it though, but that's nothing to do with us, or the license involved.

The problem is what would appear to be selling a pirated copy of Serpent Isle and calling it 'Freeware'.

[Wizardry Dragon]

I Am Not A Lawyer, but the fact that (s)he's doing it without the consent of the liscensor brings up legal issues, as far as I know.

Both on Exult's case and in the case of a pirated SI version.

On the plus side, this makes me think of licensing issues for TFL. Should probably figure that out, shouldn't I..

--------
Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[WWWWolf]

I've got another bugreport for NaDa - the file consists of a single 0D byte, which on 6502 processor is an opcode for absolute ORA, and since there's no address that follows, it's results are dependent on the previous contents of the memory following the address where you load this.

Think C64 is obsolete? Well, there's the *NIX thing...

$ sh NaDa_0.5
: command not found

...ironic considering they do supply it as .tar, they should have at least *tested* the thing.

What do we learn from this, kids? Stick to 00 bytes, the near-universal "don't do a damn thing" signal =)



Anyway, as mentioned, I don't think this thing includes SI - 8 megabytes doesn't leave much room when Exult runtime takes two of them. The Serpent Isle .zip file copied off The Complete Ultima VII is 9.9 megs. Only a little bit less if you only include the STATIC directory, which is all Exult needs.

Which is *rather* crummy, considering how the auction rambles on about how there's no need to mess with old disks or CDs... (But who has them in inoperable condition anyway? My TCU7 stands upright on front of the game shelf on my computer desk, on a place of honor, if I ever need the copy protection questions handy. Not that it matters for the installation, the .zip is always ready to use on the hard drive. =)

So basically, the auctioner is either a) selling people a pirated copy of Serpent Isle, or b) guilty of false advertising and *very* slimy one at that.

And for the nth time: A distributor of GPLed software is under *no* obligation *whatsoever* to beg for permission to distribute the software. That's the whole point of GPL. Of course, GPL places some additional restrictions on under what terms that can be done, like, ahem, which reminds me, does that 8 megabytes include the *source code* too? =)

It is kind of shame - a typical blessing *and* a curse of the open source is that you can get some really powerful and nice allies (think of Debian and other Linux dists that distribute Exult), but you can also get idiots like this. The only thing, really, the copyright holder can do at that time is to offer deep loathing to the people who engage in such practices, and tell the customers they've been conned. *Warn* people. It's one thing to buy a CD with all of the Exult stuff for a couple of dollars, when the seller tells upfront that they're just selling the downloadable stuff; it's completely another thing to buy a *download* of thing that's already freely available and widely mirrored for free, and not even tell what the program's name is!

I was about to point you all to one of the slimiest sites of this genre, luxuriousity.com, but looks like their site has finally gone the way of dodo. Which is a shame, it was hilarious. Selling OpenOffice.org, GIMP and Audacity under a dozen different names and configurations. I think the best was the "real estate realtor", which was a, um, photo manipulation software for, um, realtors. Or something. Would be fun to make a parody website now that they're gone. "Crematorium Undertaker", the version of Exult for Gravediggers(r).

[MV]

Ah dammit.

Why is it whenever I see links to these things that Ebay has already pulled the auction down so I can't look at it?

It's like telling a joke then dying before you can tell the punchline.

[pak150]

I reported it as a violation on eBay last night, and saw that it had been pulled. However, I did a search and saw that the same guy readded the item (it's now auction number 8262038035). I've reported it again, and suggest some of you follow suit!

[Wizardry Dragon]

Damn persistent bugger.

You guys should elave some negative feedback about him, otherwise, people will be fooled by the high amount of positive feedback into thinking what he's doing is legit.

--------
Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[Wizardry Dragon]

It's absolutely frightening to look at how many people have given him positive feedback and think just how many people he may have conned o_o

--------
Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[WWWWolf]

Boom! That one's dead too!

Just wondering, what user name the guy had? Anyone got a link to the profile?

Someone really ought to make a "lamest gaming scams of eBay" site. This goes right alongside the guy who sold *pictures* of Xbox360 bundles for huge amounts of money.

[Enderandrew]

I looked at his other auctions. Each one of his auctions he was selling free information basically. You paid to download a file from him that you could get for free elsewhere.

The guy was trying to print money out of thin air.

[Gradilla Dragon]

If you excuse me, the guy was NOT ONLY selling free information, he was also selling illegal copies of a game. If they were legal, they would certainly be made available from the Exult site.

[enderandrew]

EA did eventually release U4 for free. I don't see why they couldn't release 1-8 for free as a nice gesture to the fans.

The Ultima series is an important piece of gaming history and should be properly preserved. Furthermore, younger players should have an opportunity to play these titles they likely missed.

[Dominus]

EA did eventually release U4 for free.

Not really. Some computer magazine slapped U4 on their bonus CD (apparently thinking they got the right to do it for some reason), EA was "outraged" but the harm was done. Eventually they allowed members of the UDIC to offer that version for download on their pages.
The result is the same of course, but EA never officially released U4 for free, you will not find an official statement on that on either the EA site or on the Origin site. When companies release their games for free you will find such a statement AND an official download.

[WWWWolf]

Expecting a "nice gesture"? From EA?

Actually, I hear they're going to allow GameTap.com to make U1-U6 available. No niceness here, just same usual EA bloodsucking, that's what.

And thanks for the information, Dominus - I always wondered what the weird deal with U4 was. I heard the Dragons are allowed to distribute the games, and I heard some weird other theories (eg, to promote UC, U9 or whatever), but I was confused. Never found an official download.

[Dominus]

about the GameTap story:
http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/02/gam ... releas.php

[drcode]

I wonder what the "low monthly fee" is. Anyway, what's to stop someone from joining for a month or two, downloading all the games they're interested in, and then quitting?

I wouldn't mind buying games from them for $5-$10 apiece (about what you can get classic games at Target or Fryes for), but I wouldn't want another fixed monthly cost for something I'll probably get bored of after a while.

[Wizardry Dragon]

Quick, someone find a magazine to put UW 2 in so we can distribute it >_>

I seriously want to try that game, but paypal doesnt like me, and it's impossible to find otherwise.

(By the way, PCGamer distributed UW1 and Ultima 1 a while ago - July 2000 - does this mean the UDIC can distribute them too? )

--------
Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

[Dominus]

(By the way, PCGamer distributed UW1 and Ultima 1 a while ago - July 2000 - does this mean the UDIC can distribute them too? )

You wish

[Dominus]

if you can't use ebay/paypal yourself, don't you have a friend that could do that for you?

[Wizardry Dragon]

Well the problem is that my roomie and I use TD Canada Trust as our bank, which (according to paypal when we put in the institution number listen on our cheques) doesn't exist

---------
Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands