<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property --> <!--X-From-R13: Qnyvona Fverfvnf Rnexybpx <pnyvonaNqnexybpx.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: from stimpy.globecomm.net [207.51.48.4] by in12.ibm.net id 866059250.29252-1 Wed Jun 11 20:00:50 1997 CUT --> <!--X-Message-Id: 339F0409.3D7487ED#darklock,com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 199706111412.JAA22412#matrix,eden.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg01297.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01299.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg01302.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01304.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#01298">Author</A> | <A HREF="#01298">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#01298">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Caliban Tiresias Darklock <<A HREF="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 16:01:13 -0400</LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> Dr. Cat wrote: > > Any idea I've ever mentioned anywhere publically, or ever do in the future, is > absolutely free for anyone to use anywhere in any way, commercially or > non-commercially, with or without credit. I think there's one thing that a lot of the 'intellectual property' jockeys in the world overlook, which is that nothing happens in a vacuum. Every pioneer in every industry, with very few exceptions, has built on the concepts put forth by other people. Richard Garriott, to add an observation, was widely heralded as brilliant for his work on the Ultima series using tile-based graphics. This wasn't a new idea; mosaics and the like were being built thousands of years ago. It was the notion that this was an appropriate and efficient way of doing computer graphics which was the real idea; and even this wasn't new. After all, what is ASCII art if it isn't the use of a limited (and generally unsuitable) set of small graphics placed into a coherent whole? It wasn't *entirely* his idea. He had inspiration. We all get our inspirations from somewhere; we have to. It's what inductive leaps of reasoning are all about. And lots of people turned around and used this concept, but he never seemed to complain that it was unfair. Because it wasn't. As long as they didn't have to worry about how to implement that part of it, they could work on more important things like storyline and plot development. In the end, it made those games better; those ideas, in turn, came back to other people, and made other games better. Myst had a revolutionary concept, didn't it? The general idea was "Let's throw the player into an incredibly frustrating puzzle environment and not give him any instructions or directions; he has to figure everything out himself". And people loved it; but it wasn't new. It just wasn't popular anymore, because way back when it was first done the majority of people hated being stuck in a situation like this. Many of them still do. But to top it off, the game was *beautiful* -- the graphics alone were stunning, and even *that* wasn't really new. But it was something that you had lots of options with; you could just play around with it and gawk at the images, or you could wander around playing with parts of the environment to see what they did, or you could actually try to solve it. It wasn't that the interactive environment, the rendered graphics, or the no-hints structure were new on their own -- it was that they worked well in combination, and the combination offered a wider group of people some way to enjoy it. People hated this in text-based games. They hated it with cartoony graphics. And they hated it when given some sort of control-panel type interface. But when you added in the graphics, the interactive operation, and the visual nature of the game... it was fantastic. The ambient sounds alone are wonderful, and that's pure gravy. When you stick them next to each other, you see that Myst and The Seventh Guest bear a significant resemblance to one another. But the people who created Myst aren't wailing and crying about The Seventh Guest using their ideas. It's just not worth moaning about. They're not new ideas, anyway. Look at Harvester, which is much like a strange spinoff of King's Quest. Phantasmagoria, likewise (From the same designer, no less). Games these days are very much alike, within their respective categories. Id Software, much as I love them, has been doing the same game over and over ever since Wolfenstein 3D... with a few particulars changed, yeah, and much more capable graphics and sound engines, but it's still just wandering around and shooting things in first-person perspective. Most of what Id Software designs, however, is provided to the world at large -- file formats, various algorithms, source code, etc. Strangely, even though they give away an awful lot of what they make, they still seem to make a lot of money and sell a lot of games. If you try to keep your ideas secret, they won't grow or flourish. They're like flowers; they need to be placed in the right soil, watered appropriately, and given the right amount of sunlight. When you do this, you'll find that the flower grows best around other flowers, and it looks better too. Nobody just has one flower in his garden. It looks so much better when you put it in the right setting, with other complementary plant growth, so other people can enjoy it. When you keep a flower in your pocket, it generally just rots. Ideas are the same way; when you share them, you find that they sound much better and end up becoming much more efficient and useful. You combine the skills and opinions of several people to create the whole idea, and it shores up some of your weaknesses as well as theirs. In other words, you end up with a bouquet of sweet-smelling and lovely ideas, instead of a little greasy spot that smells vaguely of fungus and may at one time have been something you wanted to look at, but not anymore. </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="01304" HREF="msg01304.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Jeff Kesselman <jeffk#tenetwork,com></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="01290" HREF="msg01290.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Dr. Cat" <cat#eden,com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01297.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] The laws of probability</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01299.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Room-based vs. coordinate-based</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01302.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01304.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#01298"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#01298"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="01290" HREF="msg01290.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></strong>, Dr. Cat <a href="mailto:cat#eden,com">cat#eden,com</a>, Wed 11 Jun 1997, 21:12 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01294" HREF="msg01294.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Thu 12 Jun 1997, 02:10 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01296" HREF="msg01296.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Thu 12 Jun 1997, 02:58 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01302" HREF="msg01302.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Thu 12 Jun 1997, 12:15 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01298" HREF="msg01298.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Thu 12 Jun 1997, 03:00 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01304" HREF="msg01304.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Intellectual property</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Thu 12 Jun 1997, 12:18 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="01293" HREF="msg01293.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] Genuinely brief intro</A></strong>, Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Thu 12 Jun 1997, 00:03 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01270" HREF="msg01270.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] web archive for MUD Design List ?</A></strong>, Dmitri Kondratiev <a href="mailto:dima#paragraph,com">dima#paragraph,com</a>, Tue 10 Jun 1997, 04:41 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01275" HREF="msg01275.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] web archive for MUD Design List ?</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Tue 10 Jun 1997, 20:56 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>