Exult Forum

I have a comment regarding the statement in the FAQ that no one should ask the team for a copy of the game nor should they download it from the net since it's piracy. I mean no offence, but this is plain silly. I know that the complete ultima collection was released only a while ago and I have the U7 collection and even the original diskettes for both games. But such a statement is ridiculous. Instead of helping to spread such a gread game, a legend and do everything possible to help the people who want to play it you run around saying it's piracy to own an "illegal" copy of a 10 year old game. Come on! Instead help the community and do your best to assist the people in finding a working copy of the game. Again I meant no offence, but it simply bothers me when I read something like that, not to mention the fact that finding a legit copy of the game is a horendous task, especially if you are a resident of a smaller country where there is very few people that own the game or let alone are willing to sell it, and the stores have only but the newest releases.

We do not want to promote piracy. Exult is our hobby. What if EA wakes up one morning and decides that we are infringing their copyright and tells us to stop ?
U7 and SI are not abandonware, as it is still possible to purchase them legally. Therefore it would be illegal for us to provide any information on finding illegal copies of these games.

We will not allow the use Exult's forum or mailing lists to provide information on how to get these games illegally. If people want, they can use private e-mail or a search engine. It is not difficult.

I'm sure there are Dragons from the r.g.c.u.d. newsgroup who will enjoy feasting on your entrails if you continue suggesting the above. Don't tell me I didn't warn you.

>I know that the complete ultima collection was released only a while ago
>and I have the U7 collection and even the original diskettes for both games.

One of these statements is a lie - see if you can pick out which one!

Can't see which one is wrong..

Artaxerxes

You can't tell if his lieing just because of his suggestions.
I thought games after 10 years are ment to be abandonware?
I mean I would download Ultima 7 again even though I bought the collection on cd a while back.

There is no such thing as abandonware. Unless companies explicitly release games for free, it is illegal to download and/or copy them.

There's no such thing as "Abandonware". Even though I completely agree that old games should be made available for free downloading, Abandonware is NEVER legal. If someone says something else, they're lying.

From http://www.patents.com/copyrigh.htm:


What is a copyright?

The owner of a registered copyright enjoys the ability of blocking the unauthorized copying
or public performance of a work protected by copyright. Depending on how old a work is,
whether or not copyright was renewed, when the work was published (if at all), and whether
or not it is a work for hire, the U.S. copyright term for a work may be 28 years, 56 years, the
life of the author plus 50 years, 75 years from the publication date, or 100 years from the
date of creation. The reader will appreciate that these terms are much longer than the
17-year or 20-year term of a U.S. utility patent.

Of course Abandonware as a legal term does not exist. I think most people know it, so there is no need to argue about this.

On the other hand it is more or less tolerated with just occasional threats (see Home of the Underdogs or Classic Trash etc.). The above mentioned time periods for expiration of copyright are good for books, but they are jokes for programms.

As for downloading and spreading Ultima games: I think Exult team has right position on this. DO NOT RISK. Probably nothing would happen if games would be for download here, but it could. Lawyers are strange people. Also EA (owner of the Ultima copyrights) is very user unfriendly in this area (see their comments about Ultima remakes some weeks ago).

If they decided to be mean, they could probably force closing of Exult project and it would not be worth of it.

So better not to take the chances. If somebody wants a game, he can get it elsewhere with some effort. It is not worth risking Exult project for that.

> Instead of helping to spread such a gread game, a legend and do everything
> possible to help the people who want to play it you run around
> saying it's piracy to own an "illegal" copy of a 10 year old game.

We say it's piracy to own an 'illegal' copy of a 10 year old game, because it
is. As far as I know all the members of the exult team, live in countries that
have laws saying it is, and as citizens of those countries we either must abide
by them, or use _legal_ means to get them changed. After all, that's the whole
point of living in a democracy isn't it? We can say it's dumb, and use the
system to try and correct it.

> Come on! Instead help the community and do your best to assist the people in
> finding a working copy of the game.

Why? It has taken me about 15-20 minutes so far composing a reply to your
questions, yet it took me under a minute to find the exact link to downloading
a l33t war3z copy of Ultima 7 BG and SI, using my preferred search engine.

If they want a copy of U7 that badly, they surely can do a quick web search on
their own, without wasting my 'spare time', which I'm sure can be put to much
more theoretically useful purposes.

#include "rant.h"

That for me, is the crux of the matter. As much as I would like U7 to be
abandonware, it isn't. People who are pestering us about wanting us to provide
links to 'illegal' versions of U7 are:

1) Wasting our 'spare time' because it would take them less time to search for
it themselves, then it would take us to search for it and get back to them.

2) Wasting our 'spare time' because, as it says in the Exult Team's FAQ, we'll
answer with "No, go buy yourself a copy.", or in my case, a more polite version
of "Use your brain."

3) Wasting our 'spare time' individually defending a descision that the team
made as a whole, for reasons already stated here, both in this thread, and in
previous threads. I believe I even suggested to Dominus to add the 'Don't ask
on the forums' after the previous request for a link.

As an additional note, I believe that most of us code exult in our 'spare time',
I'll leave the causality unstated.

Darke
(Only speaking for those, who are insane enough to let him speak for them.)

If there such a legal term as abandonware, it still be illegal aquire it without purchase.

because one stopped supporting a product, does not mean any license that came with the product is invalid, nor have they given up their copyrights on it.

so in short, if you DON'T want work in exult to continue, feel free to advocate the piracy of U7.

In fact, the efforts that are going into the development of ExultStudio, are a means of using the excellent framework of the U7 games, as implemented by Exult, to create new games, without the need to own the originals.

What I would like to see here is the creation of a team of writers, artists, musicians, programmers who are willing to create a new world and story using Exult.
You don't have to wait for ExultStudio to be finished to start doing this. We (the Exult Team) would be more than willing to provide support for this (writing code, forum space, web space, technical insight, etc.).

To rant as well a bit:
I would really like to see "Abandonware" become legal. But this has to happen in the way everything works in a democracy. People have to demand in public that software older than x years should become freely availlable for everyone.
But as long as everyone is hiding behind a d00d namez it's not going to happen.
And even the standard definition of Abandonware seems to be not valid for U7. That thing about software that is older than 10 years. Well in my static folder the files rank from august '91 to february '94 so I don't see how you could say it is abandonware.
Also Darke sums it up nicely.

I've suggested this before, and it's a bit selfish:

What would really please me is if EA would release an Ultima Collection with Exult included for playing U7. This isn't likely to happen, as they've never even acknowledged our existence. But perhaps if a lot of people contacted them about buying a copy of U7 so they could play it with Exult...

Jeff:

Exult needs to get to 1.0 before EA would consider including it in its packages. Additionally, I doubt they would anyways since they will refuse to support it and redirect all requests and problems to this forum.

I can already hear the "It seems the companions are not walking in formation, can you fix it?" comments.



Artaxerxes

EA isn't even selling the Ultima Collection anymore, only Ascension and Online. Just go to their homepage and see for yourself!

And?

EA are greedy (no offense it just seems that way) of course I may be wrong and all they are doing might be just trying to copyright everything for future use.
Imagine Ultima 7 using the Doom 3 engine . lol
Seriously just so no on thinks that I am a pirate I do own the Ultima coolection the 1 with BG with addon and serpert isle with ad-on all on 1 cd.

BTW thanks for the info on that abandonware stuff, I never knew it was illegal I thought it is normal for games to be freeware after 10 years.

I love this forum, very helpfull place.
I might try and see what I can come up with exult studio as well just like Nadir Dragon suggested.

>>I know that the complete ultima collection was released only a while ago
>>and I have the U7 collection and even the original diskettes for both games.

>One of these statements is a lie - see if you can pick out which one!


Heh not really. Except if you refer to the ultima collection being released "only a while ago" which is actually a few years, but in Ultima terms it's really a while ago.

I never meant that the Exult team should actually help people find a copy.
I'm just pointing out that it's really not a bad thing if someone wants to play U7 be it pirated, free or an original copy.

Infringing copyrights is ALWAYS a bad thing.

No, Infringing copyrights is always an ILLEGAL thing. The moral value of
doing so is up to the person themselves.

Well officially you are stealing some ones ideas cause that is all a game is: ideas from a person or group of people.
Anyone can make a game but it's the ideas that sperate 1 game form another.

go and buy it. its cheap. and well worth the money. QED

I'll suggest this again: If they're no longer selling it, pester them about it. Game companies seem to think that everything they produce has to be on the cutting edge of technology. If book publishers worked the same way, they'd have to reinvent the printing process with each novel they publish.

rotflmao

Personally, I say to hell with the copyrights when it's abandonware. If they're not making it available to the public in any way shape of form, pirating is the only way to keep it alive. And it's not like EA is going to listen to public outcry. For crying out loud, they're MUCH too evil and greedy for that. EA makes Bill Gates look like a saint (does the outlandish Richard Garriott/Toto comparison ring a bell to anyone?). END OF STORY. However, I agree that Exult should not be asked by anyone for pirated copies, especially of Ultima 7 or anything newer. Hell, they're taking a big enough risk as it is by simply making Exult, given how knee-jerk enthusiastic EA is to threaten anyone who makes a fan game/fan engine/fanart/fanfic/walkthrough/so much as mention the names of their quote-on-quote copyright material.

Yeah, like I said, the moral value of it is up to the person, but it's illegal
regardless.