Quote:
Originally Posted by Tnair
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theres two different ideas of theft being conflated here
(1) legal theft of copyrighted material ... part of the whole reason something like Sojourn is free is because its based on copyrighted material. this is the p99 server using the titanium client. theres no basis for this here because of the admittedly cutthroat move of copying a world built by volunteer effort and then in turn copyrighting it for profit. if someone took all the custom changes made in p99 and used them as the basis for a project they coded themselves, and then copyrighted the results of Rogean n Co's work, it would be in this camp. not illegal at all, but using legality to advantage yourself over your previous fellows. understandable to be a bit upset over when receiving no credit whatsoever (for legal reasons partly im sure)
(2) creative theft... where idea of ownership get all mixed up. i didnt really see anything in OPs posts about this being the actual problem; the problem was taking a share of this freely available, communal worldbuilding effort, and then legally gating it behind money, without so much as an ackowledgement or gratitude (again maybe for legal reasons, or Brad was imo just caught up in the crazy times of early EQ management)
OP just brings up repeatedly that Brad was relying directly on essentially fan fiction without crediting the authors. thats not evil. its just not as hero-worship worthy as his involvement is often lauded as being. its only the replies where people are reading "did you know Norrath was basically already someone elses fan project?" but hearing "brad is a thief". it adds more depth to know about TorilMUD than it does to pretend Norrath was developed straight from reading Tolkein. reading the new player guides for it are neat.
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I'm not too familiar with Sojourn's lore but seems like it would be surprising if it had the same lore as Norrath.
To me, the arguments for similarities come down to 3 things:
- Classes and abilities. But as mentioned these were likely already taken from D&D (or heavily influenced thereby) by Sojourn, so not really relevant.
- Races. Is this really an argument besides a couple specific races like Gnomes and Barbarians? Unless are Gnomes in D&D I can't recall. Basically all these races already existed in Tolkien and then D&D (or at the very least in D&D if not in Tolkien).
- Cities. The human cities are obviously heavily inspired by Sojourn. As is Halas. Seems like there's an argument for Oggok too. Kaladim? Not really...dwarves in mountains comes from Tolkien so not really something Sojourn could claim. Neriak? Doesn't seem like this type of DE city originated with Sojourn. Not sure what the other cities in Sojourn were like...was there a Kelthin-type place? Felwithe and Rivervale are clearly inspired by Tolkien not another video game.
Every fantasy and sci-fi author for example has likely implemented things in their world inspired by other books they've read. It happens. Doesn't mean they aren't a good or creative world builder.