[MUD-Dev] Opinions (even harsh) on Castle Marrach by Skotos?

[KevinL]

>>> "Christopher Allen" wrote
> (this is a resent of my message in October, right before the Mud-Dev
> crash)
> 
> The beta of Skotos' Castle Marrach game has now been going on for a
> month. Have any of the Mud-Dev'ers had a chance to take a look? What
> do you think of our client? The start story? The game parser? Our 
> weird mix of MUSH & MUD?
> 
> The beta test is free, and signups are at:
>  	 http://www.skotos.net/games/marrach/
> 
> Any comments (including critical) would be appreciated.

So, I went to have a look at Castle Marrach - and read the Terms of Service I 
was agreeing to.  22 points (with sub-points), comprising a declaration of the 
things I can and cannot do.

In amongst that, I appear to sign away the rights to anything I might do on 
there, any ideas I might offer, etc. etc., but not the responsibility.  Sigh.

What I found more intruiging is that to play, I have to immediately break at 
least two of the terms - thou shalt not use someone else's name ('Darius' is 
not my actual name, but it does apparently belong to others, and it is my 
standard 'net name), and thou shalt not store any portion of the game (which 
makes my squid and netscape caches rather, uh, problematic).

I understand by normal people's standards I'm being picky, but damnit, so is 
whoever's writing this legal crud.  Can someone please explain to me why I'm 
put in a position of breaking the contract technically every time I sign in 
for one of these things?  Have the lawyers gone too far already?

Am I the only one that finds being forced to technically break the conditions
on a document that exists purely to _be_ a technical nitpick, in order to
play, offensive?

KL
(Still debating whether to sign up for playing or not - I'm not even qualified 
to know whether "
       You hereby grant Skotos a perpetual,
       irrevocable, non-exclusive, sub-licensable,
       worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce,
       modify, adapt, publish, distribute, publicly display
       and perform any and all of your Participatory
       Content in all media now known or later
       developed.
" would mean they can harass me for taking ideas I've had on Marrach and 
building my own mud areas or not.  It's almost getting so a prospective game 
developer shouldn't play anyone else's games, for fear of legal ramifications.)




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