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Gorfob
Feb 10, 2007

Semisponge posted:

Bethesda are legally obliged to protect their trademark, in case someone else actually tries to copy their IP in the future they can prove that they've been actively defending it. Blame the legal system that makes this necessary if you must blame anything.

This is about as spot on as you can get and people need to redirect the spergy rage at the system that forces this sort of poo poo.

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moondust
Feb 3, 2011

Mo' Problems
Yeah, I suppose that was a pretty bad example. You're right, I guess the part that makes Bethesda sympathetic is that if they wanted to sue someone for legitimately breaching their copyright in the future someone could throw out "WHY DIDN'T YOU SUE MOJANG?", making the Scrolls lawsuit necessary.

What a wonderful legal world we live in~

Schweinhund
Oct 23, 2004

:derp:   :kayak:                                     

Klyith posted:

If Bethesda owns a trademark for "Elder Scrolls" is the area of "video game title", it is actively harmful to them for someone else to use "Scrolls" as their video game title. If they don't make any objection to this, when someone else makes a game called "Ancient Scrolls" a year later, then either Bethesda or Mojang would have a more difficult time preventing it. Bethesda would be in danger of losing their trademark, something which is pretty valuable to them, being the supertitle to a very successful franchise.

except suing over "Ancient Scrolls" would be frivolous too. And there is no way in hell they would lose their trademark because of a game called "Scrolls". The only way that would realistically happen is if someone was selling another game called "Elder Scrolls" or like "Really Elder Scrolls!".

Waldorf Sixpence
Sep 6, 2004

Often harder on Player 2

Klyith posted:

The line between abuse and normal defense of trademarks can be really thin. You have things that are obviously abusive, like Monster Cables suing anyone they see using the word monster, even if it happens to be "Bob's Monster Bait Shop", or that guy who said he owned the word stealth. But in a lot of these cases, this one in particular, it only seems abusive if you're a fan of one of the parties or there is a big underdog component.

Playing Devil's advocate here, but this is less like an AV company suing a fishing shop and more like a car dealership called Deals On Wheels trying to sue another called Wheely Good Cars.

:iiaca:

Fake edit: God I hate car analogies, I feel almost bad just having typed that.
Real edit: Don't ever let me run and name a car dealership.

Internet Kraken
Apr 24, 2010

slightly amused
Honest question; I thought scrolls was a card game. Are the cards in it called scrolls or is there some other reason for the name?

EDIT: To clarify I'm asking this since I'm trying to figure out why Notch didn't change the title to avoid all the legal hassle.


VVVV Thought so. Guess that explains why he's unwilling to change it.

Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Aug 18, 2011

LordAndrew
Jul 13, 2009

Walking death machine equipped with the knowledge of Nuclear.

Internet Kraken posted:

Honest question; I thought scrolls was a card game. Are the cards in it called scrolls or is there some other reason for the name?

Glancing at the Scrolls website:

quote:

Scrolls is Mojang's next game and offers a new and unique game play where you fight to outmaneuver your opponent on the battlefield using the destructive powers in your collection of magical scrolls. ... Obtain the powerful scrolls and decide which ones you will take to battle as you fight to become the mightiest Magician of all.

LordAndrew fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Aug 18, 2011

ThndrShk2k
Nov 3, 2009

by Nyc_Tattoo
Bread Liar
Basically they're suing because they have to. They have a team of lawyers on payroll so they are not losing money on this suit.

With it being already paid for, they send it out and then prosecute cases accordingly. All Mojang has to do is defend their use of not being similar at all.

But of course that needs money for court stuff, so PR direction like this is free for them. And since they are popular, Bethesda could respond in suit and everyone is happy and no one hates either company.


Basically, it's business.


Internet Kraken posted:

Honest question; I thought scrolls was a card game. Are the cards in it called scrolls or is there some other reason for the name?

EDIT: To clarify I'm asking this since I'm trying to figure out why Notch didn't change the title to avoid all the legal hassle.
Because no one likes to bent over and be hosed. (for free)
Well, no one wants others to know they like it.

Captain Matchbox
Sep 22, 2008

BOP THE STOATS
Bethesda made me change the name of my indie game once. It was called Small Trout. It was a RPG Fishing Sim game where the fish leveled up as you did and I even had Leonard Nimoy agree to voice the main trout character.

Bethesda said they had already trademarked the word 'Fallout' and because my project is a game that people would think the two are related in some way. I didn't bother fighting it because I spent all my hard earned indie money on Fedora hats, so I dropped it for a new project.

This new one is called The Melded Souls: Fire Twin. Its a table top dice rolling game about two dragons who are brothers and they fight crime.

CaptainCaveman
Apr 16, 2005

Always searching for North.

Captain Matchbox posted:

RPG Fishing Sim game where the fish leveled up as you did and I even had Leonard Nimoy agree to voice the main trout character.

I don't care that you made all that stupid stuff up. I want this game.

Blunt Force Trauma
Mar 16, 2008

No one gives a fuck about shit.
So fuck your shit.
We fuck shit up,
Cause shit's fucked anyway.
Shit is run in to the ground.

I don't wanna think about it,
I just wanna get down.

CaptainCaveman posted:

I don't care that you made all that stupid stuff up. I want this game.

it pretty much already exists :colbert:

CaptainCaveman
Apr 16, 2005

Always searching for North.

Blunt Force Trauma posted:

it pretty much already exists :colbert:

I see no references to Leonard Nimoy there. :colbert:

ThndrShk2k
Nov 3, 2009

by Nyc_Tattoo
Bread Liar

CaptainCaveman posted:

I see no references to Leonard Nimoy there. :colbert:

Fish game with Nemoy narration

He combined the two games into one as a facetious example.

Bat Ham
Apr 22, 2008

Bat Nan

CaptainCaveman posted:

I see no references to Leonard Nimoy there. :colbert:

Leonard Nimoy was the narrator in Seaman. A game where fish-like creatures grow and evolve. Does that count at all?

Captain Matchbox
Sep 22, 2008

BOP THE STOATS

Blunt Force Trauma posted:

it pretty much already exists :colbert:

Natsume didn't slap me with a lawsuit either.

Edit: I honestly didn't know there was a fishing RPG and a fish game with Leonard Nimoy in it.

Edit edit: I would've called my character Leonard Nemo

Captain Matchbox fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Aug 18, 2011

Vertigus
Jan 8, 2011

ThndrShk2k posted:

Basically they're suing because they have to. They have a team of lawyers on payroll so they are not losing money on this suit.

They don't have to. Yeah I understand about protecting your trademark, but they don't have to sue over a card game taking a single word from their incredibly lengthy title since the possibility that they'd lose their trademark over it is 0. They made the choice to sue.

Now if he'd titled it "The Older Scroll: Torment", then they'd probably have to do it.

DR AIDS
Nov 4, 2008

No shits will be given
Hello Minecraft thread, I'm new to this poo poo and I wandered off the edge of my map and now I can't get back to an area where my marker is back on my map, therefor can't get back to my house/stuff. I didn't think about it and already slept outside the edge of the map too so I can't just spawn back at home. What do i doooo?

Edit: single player btw.

pylb
Sep 22, 2010

"The superfluous, a very necessary thing"

DR AIDS posted:

Hello Minecraft thread, I'm new to this poo poo and I wandered off the edge of my map and now I can't get back to an area where my marker is back on my map, therefor can't get back to my house/stuff. I didn't think about it and already slept outside the edge of the map too so I can't just spawn back at home. What do i doooo?

Edit: single player btw.

The compass points to your original spawn-point, not your bed. It doesn't require a whole lot of material so if you can't make one it shouldn't take too long to mine for it.

DR AIDS
Nov 4, 2008

No shits will be given

pylb posted:

The compass points to your original spawn-point, not your bed. It doesn't require a whole lot of material so if you can't make one it shouldn't take too long to mine for it.

You are the lord. What a long journey home that was.

Iacen
Mar 19, 2009

Si vis pacem, para bellum



I'm trying to recreate the lighthouse design from this site: http://www.kevblog.co.uk/minecraft-piston-lighthouse/

By following the picture, I can make the bottom of the lighthouse to work, as it should be identical to the top, but I can't figure out how to get the current to go up to the top, not to mention where to place the button that starts the entire thing.
I think the video attached blast through the wiring too quickly, so that doesn't exactly help me.

Has anyone built this thing and could post some pictures of the workings?
Keep in mind that this is my very first redstone project, so keep words like flip-flops, T-switches and stuff like that light, okay?

Schweinhund
Oct 23, 2004

:derp:   :kayak:                                     
That was made by someone on here and posted in the last thread. If you look at 1:10 you can see where the redstone is going up in the corner. And you see a button at 1:24 which presumably starts it.

Schweinhund fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Aug 18, 2011

Iacen
Mar 19, 2009

Si vis pacem, para bellum



I see them, but I have a hard time visualizing where in the whole circuit they fit.

I may just have to watch it a couple of times, trying to wrestle its secrets from it.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Vertigus posted:

They don't have to. Yeah I understand about protecting your trademark, but they don't have to sue over a card game taking a single word from their incredibly lengthy title since the possibility that they'd lose their trademark over it is 0. They made the choice to sue.

Now if he'd titled it "The Older Scroll: Torment", then they'd probably have to do it.

The thing is, they kinda do (or at least their lawyers are telling them they do), because judges are occasionally dumb. If a judge decides to boil the suit down to its most basic concepts, here's what he'll see - one product is a Computer Game called The Elder Scrolls, and the other is a Computer Game called Scrolls.

The fact that the gameplay styles are completely different and that no sane consumer of computer products will ever confuse the two doesn't matter; the judge could confuse the two, and that's kinda the important standard here. It doesn't matter that to you or I or probably anyone else posting here there is a world of difference between the two games; there's always the risk of running into that one judge who thinks that computers are like TVs you push buttons for and computer games are those things his grandkids are always talking about and why don't they get off his fuckin' lawn.

The reason Bethesda has to sue is that if they don't, then later on down the line when I produce my magnum opus "The Really Old Scrolls 7," Bethesda will want to sue me... and if they get one of the aforementioned Moron Judges who think a category as broad as "computer game" has any meaning, then my lawyers can turn around and claim that by not suing Mojang, Bethesda has failed to actively defend their trademark and thus forfeited its protections.

It's stupid, but it's how the legal system works. A company has to actively defend their trademarks. Now, a company can say "eh, no need to sue" if they decide that the infringement is inconsequential... but my bet is that Bethesda's Legal Department would like to have a broad body of work to point at to continue justifying their salaries.



It's a stupid argument anyways, really, because what'll happen is that Mojang's "Scrolls" will get a new name that doesn't suck and then poof! Done! No more lawsuit, better name, everyone is happy.

Insanity Prawn
Jul 17, 2007
Hooray for moon jesus!

Iacen posted:

I'm trying to recreate the lighthouse design from this site: http://www.kevblog.co.uk/minecraft-piston-lighthouse/

By following the picture, I can make the bottom of the lighthouse to work, as it should be identical to the top, but I can't figure out how to get the current to go up to the top, not to mention where to place the button that starts the entire thing.
I think the video attached blast through the wiring too quickly, so that doesn't exactly help me.

There shouldn't really be any complex wiring for this. I whipped these up quickly, hopefully it helps. for the bottom layer:

The button can go wherever really, as long as it leads into that bottom corner and the dirt steps on the side, are how you get the redstone to the next floor.

The next floors pretty much the same:

The wire comes in from the same side it did on the bottom floor, via the steps.

I tried this out and it seemed to work fine for me.

Edit: I just noticed I'm missing one piece of redstone between the two repeaters on the far left, but by the sounds of things, you already had that part of the wiring down anyway. (also two of my pistons in the second picture are facing the wrong way :shobon:)

Insanity Prawn fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Aug 18, 2011

Cephalocidal
Dec 23, 2005

http://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/104185682674728960 posted:

Ok, rivers are working. I'm knee deep in this code now, and I'm getting scared. I think I need coffee.
Hooray rivers.

Amppelix
Aug 6, 2010



Oh gently caress yes notch

E: this pic also has

notch posted:

forced high height contrast

Amppelix fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Aug 18, 2011

Waldorf Sixpence
Sep 6, 2004

Often harder on Player 2

Amppelix posted:



Oh gently caress yes notch

E: this pic also has

Gonna need river crocodiles in that

Al!
Apr 2, 2010

:coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot:

LordAndrew posted:

Glancing at the Scrolls website:

Sounds like maybe Wizards of the Coast should be the ones who should be suing.

fondue
Jul 14, 2002

Amppelix posted:



Oh gently caress yes notch
Wow, that's fantastic! Honestly if the next update was just rivers and mod-controlled world height I'd be pleased.

Reveilled
Apr 19, 2007

Take up your rifles

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

The thing is, they kinda do (or at least their lawyers are telling them they do), because judges are occasionally dumb. If a judge decides to boil the suit down to its most basic concepts, here's what he'll see - one product is a Computer Game called The Elder Scrolls, and the other is a Computer Game called Scrolls.

The fact that the gameplay styles are completely different and that no sane consumer of computer products will ever confuse the two doesn't matter; the judge could confuse the two, and that's kinda the important standard here. It doesn't matter that to you or I or probably anyone else posting here there is a world of difference between the two games; there's always the risk of running into that one judge who thinks that computers are like TVs you push buttons for and computer games are those things his grandkids are always talking about and why don't they get off his fuckin' lawn.

The reason Bethesda has to sue is that if they don't, then later on down the line when I produce my magnum opus "The Really Old Scrolls 7," Bethesda will want to sue me... and if they get one of the aforementioned Moron Judges who think a category as broad as "computer game" has any meaning, then my lawyers can turn around and claim that by not suing Mojang, Bethesda has failed to actively defend their trademark and thus forfeited its protections.

It's stupid, but it's how the legal system works. A company has to actively defend their trademarks. Now, a company can say "eh, no need to sue" if they decide that the infringement is inconsequential... but my bet is that Bethesda's Legal Department would like to have a broad body of work to point at to continue justifying their salaries.

Can you provide an exmaple of this happening? It may very well be my own ignorance, but the only examples I can think of this happening is where a trademark became generecised into a noun or verb for everything of that type. I can't think of any situation where a trademark was lost because the owner didn't pursue another company who had a trademark that shared a single word of the first company's trademark.

I mean, are the owners of the film franchise Step Up in danger of losing their trademark because they didn't sue Pixar for Up?

pylb
Sep 22, 2010

"The superfluous, a very necessary thing"
Can Mojang and Bethesda settle this out of court (with private conditions), allowing Mojang to potentially keep the name Scrolls without it impacting Beth's hold on their trademark ?
Those private conditions could include a showdown of Notch vs. Carmack.

Cephalocidal
Dec 23, 2005

Amppelix posted:



Oh gently caress yes notch

E: this pic also has

Snow on high-altitude blocks.

hogofwar
Jun 25, 2011

'We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'
'Precisely,' said a passing bush.

Cephalocidal posted:

Snow on high-altitude blocks.

Or it could just be a snow biome.

MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




hogofwar posted:

Or it could just be a snow biome.

From the look of the tiny amount on the top of the trees in the central spire, I'd say it's altitude based.

glug
Mar 12, 2004

JON JONES APOLOGIST #1
Please tell me these actually flow so we can huck finn this poo poo.

Hexacrodium
Feb 29, 2008
That huge mushroom looks so out of place in that nice scenery, mostly because it looks so retarded (the brown mushroom we saw in some older screens is even worse, just a flat disc on a column).
Maybe he should reserve them for a special kind of underground cave biome thing.

Al!
Apr 2, 2010

:coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot::coolspot:

glug posted:

Please tell me these actually flow so we can huck finn this poo poo.

Buildable boats in a similar vein to the zeppelin mod would be both incredibly awesome and way beyond Mojang's purview.

Fishstick
Jul 9, 2005

Does not require preheating

Al! posted:

Buildable boats in a similar vein to the zeppelin mod would be both incredibly awesome and way beyond Mojang's purview.

either the airship or the zeppelin mod had a different behaviour if the object was 'anchored' in water, didn't it? A control block on a 'craft' on dirt would turn it into an airship, one on water would limit it to x:y movement like a boat.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

pylb posted:

Can Mojang and Bethesda settle this out of court (with private conditions), allowing Mojang to potentially keep the name Scrolls without it impacting Beth's hold on their trademark ?
Those private conditions could include a showdown of Notch vs. Carmack.

Yes they can totally do that. All that matters is that Bethesda made a nominal effort to protect part of their trademark. Hashing these deals out in private negotiations is the most common way trademark and copyright disputes get settled.

csidle
Jul 31, 2007

Is there a sketch program that is useful for sketching out blueprints for buildings? I've used Excel in the past but that was pretty useless.

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Tuxedo Jack
Sep 11, 2001

Hey Ma, who's that band I like? Oh yeah, Hall & Oates.

csidle posted:

Is there a sketch program that is useful for sketching out blueprints for buildings? I've used Excel in the past but that was pretty useless.

http://sketchup.google.com/ Maybe?

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