A New Chapter for Median XL
So it is possible to be a new stand alone game in the future!!!
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holy shit ggs!
time will showPitStains wrote:hyped -
However, I'd be concerned with a game studio taking on a blizzard game (even tho it's heavily modded). I just hope blizzard doesn't come here and shut it down. It's different when hobbyists are modding a game, versus a business/company modding a game. I'm sure you've done due diligence to ensure this is "okay" and Activation/Blizzards won't be knocking
Excited to see all the new stuff that will comes from this. When should we expect the first release/patch from this new team?
Your concerns are completely justified.
In addition to just trying to have Median (and for that matter all the TSW servers) shut down, the other very real possibility would be for Blizzard's rent-seeking lawyers to sue LambdaClass for "royalties" based on "original intellectual property" (note that the lawsuit would take place not in Argentina but in the U.S., probably in the East District of Texas circuit court which is notoriously friendly to "intellectual property" suits).
Even if "Median" as we know of it later in 2024 and beyond, were to be completely reverse-engineered (e.g. it had no dependency on the original D2 code), Blizzard's lawyers would still claim that "the code model was originated by us, therefore all derivative works with a similar look and feel are also encumbered by our 'copyright'". Remember we are not talking about fairness or common sense here... we are talking about the litigious, corporate-friendly U.S. legal system, e.g. "multi-billion dollar corporation 'Blizzard Inc.' vs. tiny independent development group 'Lambda Inc.'". Guess who is likely to prevail?
Since the game (except for of course having to use a "legit" copy of D2 LoD on install) is basically free to play, a finding (including a preliminary injunction, which is a favorite trick of rent-seeking corporations) would in turn force Lambda to start charging money just to be able to pay the royalties imposed by a U.S. court on Blizzard's demands. It would cost at least as much to play Median as any other RPG game -- actually likely more, because remember, Blizzard would be quite happy to shut Median down altogether, on the theory that the player base thus marooned, would just have to migrate back to D2R. So unlike normal situations where the party taking over another company wants the latter to succeed, in this situation Blizzard would have a strong motivation to make Lambda, and Median, go the way of the Dodo.
Don't say you weren't warned!