It's too bad there isn't a yearly tax on the value of 'intellectual property', just like on real property. If a company doesn't pay the tax, someone else could pick it up. It would provide a legal path to handle abandoned things.
Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well it's not about server, but about MASTER servers. Those used to discover "players own servers" in the internet.
Isn't that even worse? That would require even less resources on EA's part, and is even less consequential to the actual game.
Yeah right ... showing homemade server by official EA servers. It's a recipe for disaster.
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#33Anyone play Battlefield 2 on the PS2 I think it was? You could look at any allied character on the battlefield and hit a button and you'd take over control of the character. So you could be a soldier on the ground being pinned down by a machine gun nest, look up to an allied helicopter, hit the button, become the pilot, launch missiles at the nest, then look down to a tank, become the driver, then back to the soldier…
All of the ARMA games have had this feature if you bother to enable it. It's not usually seen in the popular online "maps" though
Thanks! I've set up an alert for when it goes on sale :-)
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#34It's too bad there isn't a yearly tax on the value of 'intellectual property', just like on real property. If a company doesn't pay the tax, someone else could pick it up. It would provide a legal path to handle abandoned things.
On the other hand its common for people to inherit property they can't maintain, forcing them to sell it with much regret. If a poor person patented tremendously valuable intellectual property it might be lost to an unscrupulous buyer.
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#35Anyone play Battlefield 2 on the PS2 I think it was? You could look at any allied character on the battlefield and hit a button and you'd take over control of the character. So you could be a soldier on the ground being pinned down by a machine gun nest, look up to an allied helicopter, hit the button, become the pilot, launch missiles at the nest, then look down to a tank, become the driver, then back to the soldier…
One of my favorite games, MercurySteam's Jericho, is based on that mechanic. We definitely need more games to experiment with that.
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#36APIs and protocols generally can't be copyrighted in Europe. Not sure where they're based, but what stops them from running this in Europe?
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#37It's too bad there isn't a yearly tax on the value of 'intellectual property', just like on real property. If a company doesn't pay the tax, someone else could pick it up. It would provide a legal path to handle abandoned things.
> just like on real property
Most of a company's tangible assets aren't taxed. In fact, quite the opposite...
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#38What bothers me about this is that people bought the game, but they can't play it because EA doesn't want to run servers for it and prohibits everyone else from doing so. I very much preferred the old days when players had to run their own servers. It was less convenient, but made for great community and avoided situations like this.
>EA doesn't want to run servers for it and prohibits everyone else from doing so
The actual content of EA's letter makes it quite clear they are specifically after the unauthorized usage of their branding and trademark, and the fact that the site hosted the actual Battlefield Heroes game binaries for free download. The letter does not demand the site unilaterally shut down its server hosting. The site's response is arguably a big overreaction by the administrators, and most of the comments here seem to be misreading the events the same way.
There's a potential debate to whether EA should still "own" the right to block distribution of Heroes when there's no other way to acquire or play it, but debating whether or not EA has the right to shut down player-hosted servers is unrelated to the subject at hand. They do have an established right to enforce the use of their trademarks (logos, branding, etc) on a fan site like this.
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#39I found Squad and Planetside 2 to be great heirs to the Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 legacy.
Amazing how Planetside 2 being a free game manages to outclass pretty much any combined arms FPS and is still looking really good visually for 2012 release.
Re: Old Battlefield games re-killed after EA’s legal warning
#40It's too bad there isn't a yearly tax on the value of 'intellectual property', just like on real property. If a company doesn't pay the tax, someone else could pick it up. It would provide a legal path to handle abandoned things.
On the other hand its common for people to inherit property they can't maintain, forcing them to sell it with much regret. If a poor person patented tremendously valuable intellectual property it might be lost to an unscrupulous buyer.
> If a poor person patented tremendously valuable intellectual property
Challenge for HN: find the most recent three patents which (a) were filed by individuals not an employer (b) those individuals could reasonably be described as poor (c) aren't subject to widespread infringement by a big company. (and (d) is for something actually useful not a perpetual motion machine etc)
I think it might be quite a hard thing to find.