389 replies to this topic

[Autobot9000]

Bah I think that's nonesense. There are always nerds, that you can not please how hard you would ever try, but I think the majority of people are pleased with just quality art. There was a Marauder IIC posted by Bishop Steiner here on the forums that looked awesome, I saw 2 Marauders from Shimmering Sword that looked very good... I can understand a company like Harmony Gold. If it's legally your design then you are the one who controls it. Why would you be upset with it? I think it's just normal, why would you want to steal original work of others? You can do some original work too and then it's yours, it's not very hard to understand.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

First question on the "New Artwork".

What exactly does HG have "copyrighted".
Is it just the original rendered art work?
Is it anything that appears to represent the original art work?
Does it cover the load out of that Mech or just the design placement?

Their original mech design suffered from an unbalance of legs and arm weapons and if modeled would fall over on it's first step. The legs relied on a single point of structure support at the knees, and did not appear to be able to extend the legs for walking strides. Original design did not have the ability to rotate the legs during a turn, causing very large turn radius.

Are there parameters that this mech must have, but do not conflict with copyrighted spec's?

I hope the new design's alter the legs in a faction that allows for better movement and turning radius. Additionally bringing in the arm weapons closer to the body for better protection and weight balance.

Just thinking out loud,
9erRed

[HugoStiglitz]

GalaxyBluestar, on 28 October 2013 - 05:32 PM, said:

as far as i know the names aren't a problem {they're all different names anyway in robotech/macross} it's just the design rights.
time to re-invent the wheel. gentlemen start your sharpeners!

Right, but we don't know what the settlement with Harmony God was and that could have mechs named. The way I think of it in this case would be something like "Any redesigns of the Marauder, Warhammer, ect. must be approved by Harmony Gold."
The only other case that I could think of would be if the settlement allowed Harmony Gold to approve of all new mech designs, which I would think unlikely even if FASA's money was depleted at the time.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Prize amount update. It is being logged and publicly posted to avoid dishonesty.

There has been a donation of $19.71 CAD (after exchange rate and paypal fees). Prizes updated accordingly. I will make up the difference to ensure that all donation money is used.

Thank you IqfishLP!

Edit: Added (exchange rate and paypal fees)

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 29 October 2013 - 02:52 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Well in the end my eternal grattitude is for the op and those helping to make this possible. if we can't have the original then an evocative remake will have to do because some reseens are just foul. FD does a marvelous job of evolving some designs, the current phoenix mechs aren't bad addaptions at all, but reseens like the marauder or the riflemen cannot be saved, made to look decent and imposing in anyway. the reseen marauder looks like the cheapman's cataphract made with loose ends. that's why i'm very interested in this competition, we could finally have an impossing marauder back after all these years.

For those who ponder why this has to happen, to many people black is black and blue is blue and a marauder is a marauder. Do you know how much stink was cast over poker night at the in 2 because Bruce Campbells evil dead character was in it... but it wasn't voiced by Bruce Campbell!? why do you think star citizen is being a bowl over success for attracting people? because it gets ORIGINAL {CR} associates in the project.

nostalgia is incredibly powerfull. Why do you think there's so many reboots and remakes for film and telivision these days instead of new material? Why do you think this game came back!? Because people want their good memories to come back like a hit on a lazy weekend. nostalgia is a serious drug that people haven't just being making a living on, hollywood's been surviving {just} off of nostalgia. that's why i'm sure pgi is keeping a big eye on this one, to find out just what level of nostalgia is at work here and just what will be acceptible to people like me who are just like those who say "A team movie? no MR T!? **** that ****" and move on. believe me the money invloved {see batman, transformers, final fantasy etc etc} is enormous and enormously important to those who have publishing rights. and if those can be bypassed by intelectual evolution on previous properties like this competitions will stir the value is enormous.

think big... think 75 and 100 tons of Killer nostalgia!

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 29 October 2013 - 03:44 PM.

[DirePhoenix]

HugoStiglitz, on 29 October 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

Right, but we don't know what the settlement with Harmony God was and that could have mechs named. The way I think of it in this case would be something like "Any redesigns of the Marauder, Warhammer, ect. must be approved by Harmony Gold."
The only other case that I could think of would be if the settlement allowed Harmony Gold to approve of all new mech designs, which I would think unlikely even if FASA's money was depleted at the time.

That makes absolutely zero sense. They have licensed the artwork. They argued for their 'exclusive' rights to the artwork. They only care that other people don't use the artwork that they feel they have exclusive rights over. Don't use the art, and there can be no issue. They don't have any claims over names. They don't even use Battletech names to describe the objects they attribute the art to. They have no reason to care if someone calls their giant combat robot a "Marauder" unless it looks like the art that they're using for their Glaug Officer's Battle Pod, so just don't make it look like that. The text/lore descriptions give plenty of room for making something that fits those descriptions without using the same imagery.

[GalaxyBluestar]

^^^ what he said

[Nathan Foxbane]

Saw the thread in the art section and finally wandered over to see what was going on. Glad I did.

For me the Marauder has three very basic features which define it: the handless, club like lower arms; reverse canted* legs; and a generally elongated torso with a forward thrust cockpit in its center. Nothing else defines the Marauder in my eyes beyond those very general features.

For the record I hated the original art. The toy like legs and upper arms with no consideration to mechanical articulation in them what-so-ever and the improbably placed autocannon on a spindly swivel mount with magical ammo feeds (reletive to bore size) were particular pet peeves. Not overly fond of the tiny cockpit viewport, canon or no canon. The reseen artwork made me very happy with the Marauder for those exact reasons. Don't get me wrong I loved the stats and loadout, the art just, words fail me.

Shimmering Sword, the patron saint of Marauder art may enter the contest?! Bad suspense! Stop killing me! I am suddenly held captive by crippling curiosity to put a cat to shame.

* Seriously Ginger? You cannot tell the difference between "can't" and "cant"? Worst spell/grammar checker fail ever. Of all time.

[Devillin]

gavilatius, on 19 October 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

oh well, here's an OMEGA to keep you company

The MAC III Monster? Cool.

[MadFJohn]

my self i wood say i hate the re-seen art work. the discripshion in all the novels and tech books relay did not mach the torso for this mech i just hated it. i did like how they worked the legs and arms. the cockpit was forther up the torso than the re-seen showed it .

[Devillin]

ackstorm, on 24 October 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

http://www.animenews...d-for-tax-fraud

Old news.

http://www.animenews...ve-no-jail-time

[Devillin]

Reno Blade, on 29 October 2013 - 12:24 AM, said:

Welcome brother! Back from February:

I think if you make the upper arms thinner, and add those shoulder shields that the new Battlemaster has, I think you may have a winner here.

[Wootin87]

-Here's some quick sketch concepts I made periodically through out the day. Will have a Wip up in coming soon. O7

[HugoStiglitz]

DirePhoenix, on 29 October 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

That makes absolutely zero sense. They have licensed the artwork. They argued for their 'exclusive' rights to the artwork. They only care that other people don't use the artwork that they feel they have exclusive rights over. Don't use the art, and there can be no issue. They don't have any claims over names. They don't even use Battletech names to describe the objects they attribute the art to. They have no reason to care if someone calls their giant combat robot a "Marauder" unless it looks like the art that they're using for their Glaug Officer's Battle Pod, so just don't make it look like that. The text/lore descriptions give plenty of room for making something that fits those descriptions without using the same imagery.

They might not use the names ever, but If the legal settlement between FASA and HG did use the names, then (if the settlement allows) HG would be able to review all reworks of the Marauder. They might not have a reason to care, but based on Bryan and Russ' comments via Twitter on the matter, for some reason they do. Even if it doesn't really look like the "Glaug Officer Battle Pod" they are shutting it down. To your first statement about it making no sense, that's copyright law in the US, none of it makes any ******** sense.

Edited by HugoStiglitz, 30 October 2013 - 12:50 AM.

[Foster Bondroff]

DirePhoenix, on 29 October 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

If we could get this take of Alex ingame i'd be extremely happy and could call it a Marauder without hessitation.

[Autobot9000]

Nah, that one doesn't look like a Marauder

[GalaxyBluestar]

Autobot9000, on 30 October 2013 - 02:59 AM, said:

Nah, that one doesn't look like a Marauder

exactly! i know some like the reseen but this little competition/experiment will give us numbers on what design features will appease and please the most people. thus what would be the best seller which i'm sure pgi will be gratefull for as mechs seems to be the best they can sell to us for the moment.

can't wait to see a decent looking marauder that HG can't touch.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 30 October 2013 - 03:35 AM.

[King Arthur IV]

my ms paint contribution

[Bhael Fire]

Damn...wish I had noticed this thread earlier. Had no idea my tweet would start such a ruckus.

Think I'll take a stab at it anyway, though it's going to be hard coming up with a better design than Alex's. I think if HG has issues with his design then they're going to pretty much shoot down any design that has the name "Marauder" tagged to it even if it looks like R2-D2. Which is really sad.

[DirePhoenix]

Foster Bondroff, on 30 October 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

If we could get this take of Alex ingame i'd be extremely happy and could call it a Marauder without hessitation.

The great part of this particular design is that it has already gotten past whatever mystical (probably nonexistant) approval process since this is his take on the ReSeen design that Catalyst Game Labs/Topps Inc. is using currently (and has been for a decade) in sourcebooks and miniatures, not the original UnSeen art.

EDIT: Note, that PGI also cannot use Battletech art that appears in sourcebooks or any print media without licensing it from Topps and still has to create new art for use exclusively for MWO. If this art appeared in a sourcebook (I'm not sure if it has, it looks very similar to his art of an HBK in a MechBay which I believe has appeared in a sourcebook), he would have to make another iteration of his own artwork, just like he's already had to do with all the other 'mechs we've got in-game now (except so far those have all been iterations of someone else's art, would it be weird to have to make a new iteration of your own art?).

Edited by DirePhoenix, 30 October 2013 - 09:05 AM.