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NDA VIOLATIONS!
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Not sure how you can say that DDO is a huge failure ... it was designed for DD players and not really for the generic MMO audience, so in reality, if it has pleased that DD community, then it is a success. So far there seems to be little negative feedback from DD players, only from MMO players who do not like the DD game-style. For those generic MMO players the failure would be on them to try a game that they don't like the game-play style .....
Tetters you are completely dead wrong on this.
It wasn't made for us D&Ders, if it were they would have made it a fast turn based style and preserved all the 3rd edition rules.
We told them it was going to suck if it wasn't strictly D&D, they didn't listen.
We told them having the game completely instanced would result in garbage, they ignored it.
We told them Eberron wouldn't work, they know better....look where it got them.
We told them what we wanted, it didn't make a damn bit of difference.
Turbine ruined probably the one shot DnD had to become a MMORPG. Never will I forgive them, nor darken their doorway with my patronage ever again.
QFT.
Anyone claiming that DDO was designed for D&D players is NOT a D&D player.
You're reported. And I hope you don't lose the access you waited so long just because you're stupid.
PLEASE, send the personal contact information of every violator of the LOTRO "NDA" to turbine so that the can take legal action.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
You got no clue whatsoever how the legal system works do you? Also, do you think it would be good business for Turbine to start taking legal actions? There's probably been a like a thousand NDA breakers, now let's say each of the legal actions cost Turbine 100$, they would have to use 100.000$ on legal actions.
On topic:
I don't need a beta tester to tell me the game is major crap
You got no clue whatsoever how the legal system works do you? Also, do you think it would be good business for Turbine to start taking legal actions? There's probably been a like a thousand NDA breakers, now let's say each of the legal actions cost Turbine 100$, they would have to use 100.000$ on legal actions.
On topic:
I don't need a beta tester to tell me the game is major crap
The game is not crap, it's quite a great PvE game.
Sure, the guy is an idiot, and yet you're the one who is "Waiting on Dark and Light, and DDO".. you're kind of late, oh and news flash, they both sucked. You obviously can't judge games very well, can you?
The game is not crap, it's quite a great PvE game.
Sure, the guy is an idiot, and yet you're the one who is "Waiting on Dark and Light, and DDO".. you're kind of late, oh and news flash, they both sucked. You obviously can't judge games very well, can you?
lol. Yeah it is actually. I know from experience. The only way its good is if you're used to the lowest common denominator type of game. Like you're coming in from WoW.The game is not crap, it's quite a great PvE game.
Sure, the guy is an idiot, and yet you're the one who is "Waiting on Dark and Light, and DDO".. you're kind of late, oh and news flash, they both sucked. You obviously can't judge games very well, can you?
lol. Yeah it is actually. I know from experience. The only way its good is if you're used to the lowest common denominator type of game. Like you're coming in from WoW.Interesting. Moirae went from supporter to hater.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Pretty sure it's a closed stress test and NDA is still in effect.
Retired from WoW
Rebellion - 60 Warlock || Kalaa - 60 Warrior
Littlerebel - 60 Hunter || Albie - 60 Shaman
Played: Erm, a lot more.
You know how betas go. Click "Yes" here, "I Agree" there. Might have said something about an NDA, but not sure. Who reads any of it..
Lord of the rings is NOT in open beta It is a stress test ... but its still closed beta. the NDA has not been lifted.
Repeat NDA has not been lifted for like the jillionth time if it had it would of been splashed on the front of mmorpg.com
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
http://lotro.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=83
I am NOT a lawyer. Do not quote me and think it has any standing.
The NDA does not state that the content of the NDA is a secret. The NDA is also available on a public, non authenticated, http server, making it, definitively, non-secret
Section 5 lists what is considered "Confidential Information"
5. Protection of Confidential Information. During the course of the Preview Program, you will have access to non-public information concerning the Game, including, but not limited to, the game design, look and feel, computer software, game concepts, storylines, features, screen shots, characters, graphics, audio, visual images, any information, discussions or postings of Turbine or other participants in Preview, any and all Feedback, business methods or other technical or business information which is not generally known and which is proprietary to Turbine (and/or its affiliates, publishing partners, licensors or licensees) (“Confidential Information”). All of the foregoing is confidential and proprietary to Turbine (or its affiliates, publishing partners, licensors or licensees). You agree to treat as confidential all Confidential Information (including your password) of which you become or are made aware in connection with your participation in Preview, regardless of whether it is specifically designated as confidential and regardless of whether it is in written, oral, electronic, or other form. The Confidential Information may include, without limitation, trade secrets, know-how, inventions, game interfaces, technical data or specifications, testing methods, business or financial information, research and development activities, product and marketing plans, and customer and supplier information. You agree that you shall maintain all Confidential Information in strict confidence; you will not disclose or permit access to Confidential Information to anyone other than Turbine (or its affiliates, publishing partners, licensors and/or licensees), or discuss Confidential Information with anyone except within the Game itself or on the Preview boards accessible by logging in with a username and password on http://beta.lotro.com; and will use all Confidential Information only for the purposes of your participation in Preview or playing the Game after commercial release. Your obligations and Turbine’s rights under this Paragraph 5 will continue and survive any termination of this Agreement.
This NDA does not include beta participation as "Confidential Information". This NDA does not include general opinions and impressions about the game as "Confidential Information". So, by the letter of this NDA, I don't see any legal restrcictions against saying "I am in the beta and it sucks" or "I am in the beta and it rocks", so long as you don't disclose any facts about the game.
Besides that, an NDA can't possibly be enforced against someone lying about being in a beta, and there is no way for MMORPG.com to confirm that anyone claiming to be in beta isn't lying about it. (at least not without doing a lot of legwork)
It is certainly MMORPG.COM's best interest to enforce NDA's on their forums. It my be even be MMORPG.COM's policy to not allow people to say if they are or are not in any particular BETA when it is under NDA. But, that policy is not defined in either the "Rules of Conduct" http://mmorpg.com/disclaimers.cfm#conduct or the FAQ at http://mmorpg.com/faq.cfm. If they are to disallow ANY mention of beta status or general opinions, going beyond the prohibitions of this NDA, then they really should state their position in the "Rules of Conduct". Otherwise, their prohibitions seem very questionable.
P.S. I am not in the LOTRO beta.
The Devs aren't lawyers either. Their opinion of the NDA holds no more weight than yours or mine. Legally, it doesn't matter what they say. Unless something is a direct statement from Turbine's lawyers, than it holds little weight in a court of law. In fact, am ignoring what the devs have written in forums because I prefer to reference actual documentation, not hearsay from programmers. Just because a Dev tells you it is so doesn't make it so.
Certainly this discussion is mostly academic. Turbine is still free to kick anyone from the beta for any reason. They don't have any obligations to the beta participants. It may be Turbine's policy is to revoke people from the beta for revealing their beta status regardless of NDA conditions, and that is fine and well. Certainly , I don't expect anyone who might get yanked from the beta to be compensated somehow.
But, my problem is that in the first post in this thread, I believe that Stradden is falsely accusing people of breaking the law and MMORPG.COM rules for innocuous comments. There is no section of the MMORPG.COM code of conduct explicitly regarding games under NDA. It does not prohibit you from revealing your beta status. The only possibly applicable line mentions prohibition of illegal activity. But it is highly doubtful that saying "I'm in the beta" is illegal, no matter what the Turbine Devs say.
In the first post, Stradden says:
"Remember, a Non Disclosure Agreement is just that, an agreement that you will not discuss the project in question until the NDA has been lifted. They are common in the video game industry, not just for alpha and beta testers, but also for employees and developers."
1) An NDA is not a general gag order. An NDA is a contract. If something isn't written in a contract, you can't enforce it. This NDA only prohibits any discussion of "Confidential Information". This NDA does not list beta membership as "confidential". It does not prohibit mention of general quality.
He also said
"I also feel the need to point out that saying things like "my sister is in the beta and she says that it's great" is still breaking our rules. Violation of NDAs, even as a third party, is still against our rules."
2) You can't violate an NDA as a third person. If you haven't agreed to it, you aren't subject to it, therefore you haven't broken any law. It can be illegal to reveal trade secrets as a third party, but "my sister is in the beta and she says that it's great" is not a trade secret.
If MMORPG.COM is going to prohibit posting of beta membership confessions and harmless comments about beta products, then they need a more clearly written statement to that effect in the code of conduct.
"Furthermore, you may not post information or screen shots of any kind of the Game to any website or otherwise publicly display game play elements of the Game. "
Section 5. that you posted.
"uring the course of the Preview Program, you will have access to non-public information concerning the Game, including, but not limited to, the game design, look and feel, computer software, game concepts, storylines, features, screen shots, characters, graphics, audio, visual images, any information, discussions or postings of Turbine or other participants in Preview, any and all Feedback, ... etc...All of the foregoing is confidential and proprietary to Turbine "
You may not post information... of any kind
"look and feel" is included in the confidentiality
I think the NDA pretty well covers the bases for saying "the game is fun"
I believe the NDA also covers saying "i'm in beta" as this would be information pertaining to the game on a public website.
I believe these are MMORPG's forums and we should just follow their rules.
Retired from WoW
Rebellion - 60 Warlock || Kalaa - 60 Warrior
Littlerebel - 60 Hunter || Albie - 60 Shaman
Played: Erm, a lot more.
NDA's are meant to be broken, it's in the NDA somewhere.
Just out of interest how can they track down violators? Through your IP? I mean, on this site, people just use a pseudonym, probably different to the one they use in-beta, and they can easily give false information when signing up.
Just for the record, i was really looking forward to LOTRO, i have absolutely no idea how its going...but it seems to me a mixed bag. Ultimately i fear, that it wont go far enough in terms of "tolkien feel" and "middle-earthiness" for true fans (im one of them, and no, i dont mean the movies), but by going halfway there, will in fact potentially alienate its other fanbase, the typical young gamers, who probably loved the movies and just want to be Nazgul or Orcs...but of course wont be allowed to. Yep I heard DDO was a big dissappointment, not sure exactly what that means for this title, after all, Dev teams change almost seasonally at these big companies, and different specialist staff are usually brought in for specific games.
Overall - LOTRO = Big worry that Tolkiens world will merely be further commercialised by this outing. True fans will left crying into their Gandalf beards at what could have been....of course, I could be wrong.
"Furthermore, you may not post information or screen shots of any kind of the Game to any website or otherwise publicly display game play elements of the Game. "
Claiming beta membership is hardly information about the game. It is information about you. Now if you compiled a list of beta participants and shared it... that would be different. But, you have a greater claim on information about only you than Tubine does. Sharing your password is explicitly mentioned in the NDA and that seems pretty well obvious from other parts of the NDA. If something as basic as membership were considered "confidential" it should be explicitly mentioned because it is not obviously from the rest of the NDA. If Turbine wants people to conceal beta membership they should have written it into the NDA explicitly.
"look and feel" is included in the confidentiality
"Look and feel" Does not mean "I like it" or "I hate it". A violation about "Look and Feel" would involve revealing placement of windows, buttons, hotkey organization, etc. When Apple accused MS of copying the "look and feel" of MAC OS, Apple didn't base it on people "liking" both operating systems. It was about more specific interface similarities. No body is going to be able to approximate LOTRO's interface based one someone posting such a non-descriptive impression on a message board
I also agree with you wholeheartedly about following the forum rules.
I just think the rules need to be better defined and that the forum masters should not accuse posters of breaking laws over ill-defined rules.