PA clones

[vent]

are these illigal, and is there anything you can do about em


(Please don't link to any other online games on here, even if it's only to ask if something can be done to shut them down-JBG)

[JonnyBGood]

Unfortunately from PA's point of view most of these games merely copy the game-type Planetarion made so successful and well-known and alter small things to avoid law suits. Maybe someone on pateam has a better answer than I do though.

[Cochese]

Expect one of them to no longer be a clone in the very near future.

[barney]

Originally Posted by vent

are these illigal, and is there anything you can do about em


(Please don't link to any other online games on here, even if it's only to ask if something can be done to shut them down-JBG)

Why close them down? they are usually only played for a bit of fun, really it should be down to pa to out compete them, and to be fair from what i understand they use old stats and are never gonna come up to the standard of pa. however if ppl choose to play these INSTEAD of pa, someone is doing something wrong.

might even get some ppl from the free clones who wanna upgrade to the real thing? you never know

[DarkHeart]

being a bit skint and signing very late to the pa round, i didnt wanna upgrade so i signed up for a clone as well...clone doe suse old stats/formate, but on the other hand it is fun tooo!!!

however after reaching this with my free planetarion account

Due to insufficient research in Resource Handling, you currently miss out on
42000 Metal, 36750 Crystal and 39750 Eonium

no matter how skint i am im determined to play a paid accoutn next round....seems to be a good way of sucking us gj pateam

on the other hand...how many 'nub' or free account can reach over 600 inititaed roids...i landed in a good gal so i get to see the reasoning behind pateams 'limiting' and have been tempted to pay....cant really see nubs who get continuously bashed ever seeing it though, fo sho they would want to play the free clones

[Ramihyn]

I wouldnt just look at every "clone" as a threat or a reason of customer loss. The ones worth mentioning, developed further themselves and i would keep a close eye to what they changed and how the players and the game is affected by the changes. Even if you dont want to "rip" or "clone" what somebody else has "invented", it will still give you a better idea of what you cant or shouldnt do.

Personally the "clones" i am participating in, are running with ticks between 10 to 60 seconds. That isnt even offered by PA AFAIK - only once every few months (maybe) at some party. What is the state of "speed-pa" versions of the "original" PA?

The speed-pa clones run "around the clock" and if one round is ended, 2 days later the next one starts. Yes that means a single round doesnt mean that much and it does wear people off if they play every round, but the good thing is that you can choose when you want to play and not vice versa and also it isnt that much of a problem if you get completely wasted in one round.

Some people who play the clones, also play PA, others dont like the many changes in PA and prefer to play a clone with rd4 rules/stats as they dont want to re-learn everything "constantly". This isnt a judgement that the changes in PA are bad, but simply that some people dont want to "relearn" the game all the time.

And ofc there are those who wouldnt pay for this kind (or any) of game and therefore play a free clone. I can try all kind of things in a free clone, in PA it would often cost me a credit and i could only test one playstyle each 3 or 4 months "legally" cause otherwise it would be multiing.

I personally think games like E** are a way bigger "threat" to PA then the clones are.

One word about the technical side (and i assume here that PA is still html+css+perl/php and a itsy bitsy jscript maybe). PA seems to insist very much on the pure "browser only" approach (even though i remember that 5th season/spinner had much bigger plans for the future some years ago). If you follow the software development scene, you have noticed that there is a heavy trend making more and more companies/developers go a slightly different approach due to the ultimately limiting "pure browser" abilities in regard to the UI. I'm talking about the thin rich client approach here.

Apart from that - "browser only" means much more then "html+css+jscript" anyway. Nowadays you would need to include applets, thin rich client technology and flash at least and all three of them extend the possibilities quite a lot.

Maybe you should have a very close look at some technology and make a honest judgement about it because things _did_ evolve the last 4 years

[Nadar]

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but isn't Planetarion a copy of a game too?

[Blixxard]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but isn't Planetarion a copy of a game too?

What did you have in mind?

[mist]

there's some german game or other that's basically the same as pa, but was about before pa was. i forget the name now.

-mist

[flikman]

So Blixxard, are u gonna answer the original question

[ils]

it's 100% legal as loong they don't take out names of ships etc tht pa crew got copyright on etc. Sad but true...

[mist]

do pa have any copyrights? i've not seen that lil © symbol about the place much

-mist

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by mist

do pa have any copyrights? i've not seen that lil © symbol about the place much

Copyright doesn't work like that.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Correct me if I'm wrong please, but isn't Planetarion a copy of a game too?

Nothing in this day and age its totally original. Creators of anything will be infulenced by things which will see elements of these things appearing their own work. If they really wanted to those poeple whos work has infulenced PA could probally swamp PA with lawsuits as there are hundreds if not thousands of copyright infringements in this game however its generally regarded ok to 'rip' others off to a certain point but going as far as these clones are is where you get the problem and its where people get annoyed with having their work copied. The clones go out and almost completly rip off the game style, the setting, the names and even advertise the fact they are a complete copy of this game.

[Blixxard]

Originally Posted by flikman

So Blixxard, are u gonna answer the original question

It isn't my position to answer.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by ils

it's 100% legal as loong they don't take out names of ships etc tht pa crew got copyright on etc. Sad but true...

Before you drift into wet dreams about how you could just sue others away if just the law would be more "strict", you should also think about the oodles of lawsuits you would get knocking at your door from other companies claiming turnbased strategy games, using browsers for interactive entertainment appliances and many more "concepts" as "theirs".

On the other side, complete rip-offs of (for example) user interfaces down to each small element may give legal reason to act. Same ofc. for using the exact stats and names of a PA round, but i doubt it would result in more then just name-changes and statchanges and a bit bad publicity.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by wakey

Nothing in this day and age its totally original. Creators of anything will be infulenced by things which will see elements of these things appearing their own work. If they really wanted to those poeple whos work has infulenced PA could probally swamp PA with lawsuits as there are hundreds if not thousands of copyright infringements in this game

Indeed.

Originally Posted by wakey

however its generally regarded ok to 'rip' others off to a certain point but going as far as these clones are is where you get the problem and its where people get annoyed with having their work copied. The clones go out and almost completly rip off the game style, the setting, the names and even advertise the fact they are a complete copy of this game.

No argueing about it - some "clones" went too far with "borrowing" things.

However IMHO if a commercial game has trouble competing with people doing "clones" in their sparetime, then there isnt only something wrong with the clones...

If you think about sueing a free "competitor", you should in advance think very hard about what you are trying to achieve with it. Sure you may remove one or two and force the more popular ones to change enough, but in which way would that benefit your own game/position? Even if you speculatively are able to remove all 90 to 100% clones, do you think that would give many new paying customers to PA? IMHO i dont think so for several reasons.

[DarkHeart]

as i mentioned earlier been very skint so stayed in most of xmas period when pa was down, and played pa 'clones', speed rounds etc

couple of observations

a) speed rounds allowed bashed players to fight with the 'big' alliances and allowed for change in the universe top100 rankings....showed that with the right determination anything is possible and i came back here with a hoooge desire to seriously mess with the power structure next round

b) some of the speed rounds played 1minute, 2minute, 5 minute ticks with participant numbers close to what the 1hr tick pay to play pa has now........if a clone 'ran in the spare time of a wannabe' (as sumeone mentioned earlier) can run these speed ticks...why can't the pa (jolt backed) server handle more than 3 ticks an hour in havoc

c) the amount of first time players who wanted to continue playing these clones is high, i asked a lot ofthem i met why...they mentioned the free aspect

d) i brought players to planetarion from other games not like this at all, that i play.... and they where put off by the limited account aspect (this was just b4 end of round, not over xmas, but thought it was worth a mention since i like the letter d)

----
edit
----

i meant to put a c)ii) surely the strain of 200k free players in early pa is more than the strain of 4k 3 ticks an hour on a jolt server (couldnt it be increased )

aslo meant for a d)ii) limited is good but perhaps its 'too' limited

[ils]

The fact is that pa is might the best browser game, so I really doesn't think the comunity loose players becasue of the clones, so why don't let em go on playing

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Blixxard

What did you have in mind?

I can't remember the name of it
btw.. PA clones is rips of PA, not this game.. what's wrong with ripping a game that died rounds ago?

[Ramihyn]

What you could do is asking the more popular "clones" to add a banner for PA on a prominent place in their game for free. It could be used to remind players which already know PA but arent aware of relevant dates like a new rounds beginning or some of the many recent changes they may like or free restricted planets beeing available (again). Also the more successfull clones may have gathered new players which arent aware of the original PA and these banners will make them check it out.

I dont think the clones can deny such a free banner as they clearly owe to PA. I would emphasize the fact PA has evolved and therefore gives a new/different playing experience then before (then the clones which offer old experience for free and therefore its hard to compete with) and also ofc. stress that PA is the original/root of this type of games. Just dont overdo it so the banner isnt devalueing to the clone. A prominent place could be the overview page so it shows regularly but not on every page. On the login page it would probably be skipped too quickly by too many players as they often want to quickly login to the game.

I think that could give PA some new players in one form or the other - what do you people think?

[Cochese]

Since the code has changed, and apparently so much so that the "old" code is effectively lost, I don' t see the legal aspect here. PA is now a different game than these clones, since they are clones of a system that effectively no longer exists.

That being said, I would have no problem 'advertising' PA in the community where I'm involved. However, if that's going to be the case, I think we should be able to advertise here as well...and more than that.

As Kal and I talked about some weeks ago, there isn't any need for this hostility amongst our respective communities. We all share a large pool of common players, and if we were constructive with the potential of that, it would only serve to be mutually beneficial.

Think about it.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

No argueing about it - some "clones" went too far with "borrowing" things.

However IMHO if a commercial game has trouble competing with people doing "clones" in their sparetime, then there isnt only something wrong with the clones...

In the real world I would say you are right that a commerical game shouldnt have trouble competing BUT in cyberspace its not really unusual. We are still in a transitional stage of the internet and this is where the trouble lies. the mahority of net users are from a pre transitition period of the net where everything was free. This has instilled a deep belief that everything on the net should be free as we saw when PA went p2p with people refusing to pay. Even those from the transitition period still have the option of getting most services free and while are generaly more inclined to pay for things than those old school but its not at the stage yet where people will pay for receiving a 'superior' service. As such these free clones will always be attractive, atleast until net users are more used to paying for things

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Cochese

Since the code has changed, and apparently so much so that the "old" code is effectively lost, I don' t see the legal aspect here. PA is now a different game than these clones, since they are clones of a system that effectively no longer exists.

That being said, I would have no problem 'advertising' PA in the community where I'm involved. However, if that's going to be the case, I think we should be able to advertise here as well...and more than that.

As Kal and I talked about some weeks ago, there isn't any need for this hostility amongst our respective communities. We all share a large pool of common players, and if we were constructive with the potential of that, it would only serve to be mutually beneficial.

Think about it.

There may not be a reason for hostility between the games but that doesnt mean it wont forever be there. There will always be hostility because every community always thinks its better than the other and theres been many run ins between the communities of some of the longer running games. E M P I R E Q U E S T (Yes I know i'm censor evading but it didnt need censored) for example has some major hatrad on both sides towards the other. Pa players took offence to them 'ripping' pa off and then their players coming here advertising the game. This was then made worse by their admin NickB's actions on here and the lack of action spinlock took to punish him for his actions. EQ took offence because they didnt like us invading their forums to complain about NickB and demanding action. While over time this has probally become less heated it will still be there and your never going to get the communities to be that friendly.

Its like expecting all fans of rangers and celtic or Man Utd and Leeds Utd/Liverpool/Man City or Liverpool and Everton to be best pals . Its just never going to happen

[Cochese]

I haven't really seen a problem with players being hostile...I was more referring to 'higher ups' and so forth.

About the EQ thing, I remember...I was there

What I was trying to say is, instead of "competing" against one another, and getting nowhere, we could cooperate with some sort of integrated community (along the lines of the infamous 'Passport' system) and share the players we have, to everyone's benefit.

[demiGOD]

competition principles and analysis are good for a market to function properly be it catering to a free, non-paying market or to a paying one, in an equilibrium where both paying and non-paying communities are linked to each other (which is the general market), the factor of "quality of service/product" will be considered thus where the quality of service/product of a company (Pa) aiming the "paying" market supremely overpowers the quality of service/product of the other companies (clones) aiming the "non-paying" market, a regular individual will settle for the extra expenses paid to "consume" the service/product of the higher quality..

with the purpose of improvement within the game, leaving the pa clones be only appreciates the quality of gaming, planetarion offers its players..

[Troglodyte]

Now that would be an interesting idea... the PA community against other Clones out there..It would make one hell off war me thinks.

[noah02]

Pah.
I have tried the clones and just cant be bothered with them, there so whats the word I am looking for hmmm gash maybe.
There like round 2 of planetarion were everyone just gets hammered if there new.
There was one game were i was stuck on 15 roids because i would constantly get hammered and it was the same for virtually 75% of the universe. Where is the fun in that?
Free game's suck because Ppl have scope to abuse to the maximum so let the free games be what they are a pile of s h i t e.
Oh and paying for planetarion was the worst idea ever made but now its round 13 soon and i think its the best idea they ever had who wants to spend loadsa money on farms? No ones that desparate to win the game specially since the PA team are doing a cracking job on clones etc...

Ooooops Im talking to much

[[Graham]]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

What you could do is asking the more popular "clones" to add a banner for PA on a prominent place in their game for free. It could be used to remind players which already know PA but arent aware of relevant dates like a new rounds beginning or some of the many recent changes they may like or free restricted planets beeing available (again). Also the more successfull clones may have gathered new players which arent aware of the original PA and these banners will make them check it out.

well no offence but the clones are all from the myphppa code written by khan mainly. i could mention some but i ts against the rules of this post. all of the clones ive played are based upon khans code and not that of pa.

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

I dont think the clones can deny such a free banner as they clearly owe to PA. I would emphasize the fact PA has evolved and therefore gives a new/different playing experience then before (then the clones which offer old experience for free and therefore its hard to compete with) and also ofc. stress that PA is the original/root of this type of games. Just dont overdo it so the banner isnt devalueing to the clone. A prominent place could be the overview page so it shows regularly but not on every page. On the login page it would probably be skipped too quickly by too many players as they often want to quickly login to the game.

perhaps if planetarion hadn't evolved into something the players did not really want they might have kept older players. older players like myself play these clones as its how it was in the 'old days' now i know things change but sometimes change isnt always for the better. the clones owe pa nothing as i have described above its based on khans code which was written by himself and not copied therfore pa has no right to a banner anywhere in these clones of khans.the clones are giving the players what they crave most the gameplay that was missing from round 4 (mainly)

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

I think that could give PA some new players in one form or the other - what do you people think?

even if they were to get free banners i think it wouldnt really help in the slightest as people these days arnt willing to pay.

[Graham]

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by [Graham]

well no offence but the clones are all from the myphppa code written by khan mainly. i could mention some but i ts against the rules of this post. all of the clones ive played are based upon khans code and not that of pa.

a) thats not true, for a long time the myphppa code wasnt even released and there where/are some "clones" which arent based on it. Ofc once a stable, easily installed/maintained codebase is released under GPL, the number of installations will naturally multiply but if you look at the sites, their userbase is very small (total number on all installations based on this code is even less than before the source release AFAIK).

b) you seem to misinterprete "cloning" (a software/game) as "using the sourcecode" of somebody else. If somebody would use (even parts of) the sourcecode of any PA version, they would be criminals by copyright law and i guess the current owner of the source would immediately act upon that. This discussion (IMHO / AFAIK) is about people cloning the ideas/concept of PA - that doesnt involve taking/using the PA sourcecode however.

c) myphppa is a bad bad ... bad example which i prefer not to discuss in some aspects here.

Originally Posted by [Graham]

even if they were to get free banners i think it wouldnt really help in the slightest as people these days arnt willing to pay.

People are way more willing to pay on these days then they where 2 or 3 years ago. You can have some hundred thousand people paying monthly fees instantly if you offer the right service / type of game.

There was recently a new game released which again proved that.

Ofc some people wont ever pay no matter what, but thats not the point