Let's suppose someone wanted to make a Daggerfall roguelike. The events are those taking place in Daggerfall the game, using characters, events and perhaps some dialog pieces and quests adapted from the game. Graphics is not a problem since this would be a roguelike and characters or icons would be used.

I have two questions about the legality of this. First would Bethesda permit this game as long as it checks for the existence of a Daggerfall installlation?

Second if someone makes a modable roguelike would modable content, that expands on the lore owned by Bethesda, still be legal? Say for example a mod that explores the war between the kings of Sentinel and Daggerfall.

A fangame made in a completely different style would almost certainly be legal.

Though if you want to be absolutely straight sure, it couldn't hurt to ask the suits themselves.

No, it would almost certainly not be legal. Daggerfall is 100% Bethesda's. You can't legally use the name, story, or content to make any kind of game. When such things are legal it's because the company decides it's ok.

I'm allowing discussion pending administrative review. Please don't use this as grounds for any kind of claim that the game you propose is legal or illegal: it needs review by someone with official capacity.

Why don't you make some sort of a fanfic? I mean, Daggerfall is great, and I guess a roguelike version of it would be funny, but it'd probably be a quite frustrating project for you.
And personally, I'd be much more interested in NEW adventures at the Iliac Bay! Seeing the old characters again, but in a different context... new intrigues, new enemies... the books of the TES games offer more than enough inspiration.

This is by the way not related to the legality discussion, I guess that a fanfic like that would probably just be as legal/illegal as a direct recreation of DF.

What about this?

http://doom.chaosforge.org/

It's a Doom roguelike that's been in development for at least 4 years and has yet to be shut down.

Doom's source code might've been released many years ago, but the IP for Doom still belongs to id.

Unless this project happened to receive special permission from id, my only deduction is that a Daggerfall roguelike would be alright.

I've noticed id doesn't tend to shut down things like that. They haven't even killed all the Doom-based platform games that blatantly use resources. That says nothing about their legality. So far nothing seems to have changed with Zenimax running the show, except for John Carmack saying he has to convince them to let him open source his engines.

At any rate, such a game could be cool, but really only if it was a totally new story or a new chunk of lore.

The word is that this is allowed, so long as it is made and distributed for free.

Take Aliotroph's and Fearabbit's advice: don't just recreate Daggerfall in a roguelike engine; do something new and interesting with it.

Wasn't someone doing this a few months ago? I do remember this topic being hashed out before.

Edit: http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=774248&hl=roguelike

Cool. I wasn't planing in distribute in any other way.

@Sur_Warlock
I'm talking about a roguelike, not a text based rpg. A roguelike is something like this:
http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Category:ADOM_screenshots

I don't plan to use ascii characters only and will attempt to mix small icons with letters where it's convenient.

Further proof that Zenimax is not EA! Still a bit surprising, actually.

isnt daggerfall free for download? i dont see why theres any issue with a free game.

There's a difference between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software. Daggerfall being freeware.

Beth has sent cease and desist letters in the past to people trying to recreate Daggerfall in updated game engines. Thus it would probably be a good idea to get permission from them first, before creating things using their intellectual property.

Just because you can obtain a copy of the game at no cost doesn't mean you also acquire rights to do whatever you want with it. If you're going to make a derivative work of the game, you still need permission.

In the case of a Daggerfall roguelike, the question of whether this roguelike would be permitted was discussed, and it was agreed that it would be allowed, so long as any resulting game was distributed at no cost.

Roguelikes don't make use of the more sensitive forms of intellectual property, such as artwork and music. That's one reason I can see that this would be allowed, while a 3-D recreation of Daggerfall might not be.

or do it this way:

JUST DO IT.

as long as you dont sell it for personal profit or claim to be on the payroll of the company no one is going to care (well, except the original devs if your homemade game proves to be even better then the original game that is.) and if you against all odds complete it (which is unlikely if it isnt some small mod that is.) people will be very happy.

I've noticed companies seem to allow things that encourage fandom of a given work without stealing the experience. For example, id doesn't go around stomping on people who make DOOM platform games, but they would certainly stop anyone releasing a remake of DOOM itself using their assets (except in the form of a mod that requires you to own the game).

Another example is Square Enix. They don't mind their music being played everywhere, but play the videos from their games and they have a problem. Why? Because their names are horrible and the people who play them are doing it for the movies. (Personally, I think this is a horrible way to design games.)

Now I'm not saying this is a legal philosophy, or even one that 99.99% of companies will agree with in public, but it seems to usually hold as rule of thumb. A Daggerfall roguelike fits the idea so it doesn't surprise me they allowed it to go ahead. Good on them!

Eh? Beth has stopped a nonprofit project which didn't use any artwork, music, graphics, etc. from TES, other than some names and world layout.

They give you a message like


But this was before Daggerfall was released as a free download. They may have become more 'easy' on fan-made projects now.

Square Enix. :yuck:

When the release of an awesome Chrono Trigger total conversion mod called http://crimsonechoes.com/ was only weeks away (last spring) they send the makers a cease&desist letter and they were forced to delete the whole thing.

I think it's better to be safe and ask permission first than to start a long project and find out after having done a lot of work already that Bethesda doesn't want you to release it.

Most companies would send a note like that for such a mod. Square Enix is notable for even refusing to license videos of their games for concerts like Video Games Live. Bethesda does allow them to show video of Oblivion for that one, though it's a horrible vid that gets shown and it just leaves everybody confused as to exactly what Oblivion is.

Another one bites the dust, eh? I remember following http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.opcoder.com%2Fprojects%2Fchrono%2F&rct=j&q=Chrono+Resurrection&ei=VOotS8jnIY-SsgO50sHWAw&usg=AFQjCNGqMHk0J1nI5HLTxAJgFBGGHFV-jw and sulking for nearly a week when that got it's cease and desist letter. At least, even if Bethesda were doling out cease and desist letters right and left, they'd still be giving life to the series. Square Enix seems all-too-determined to keep Chrono Trigger rotting in a crypt in their corporate HQ basemant.

this is why you do remakes in secrecy. no chance of stopping it once its been finished and released to the public, how many servers you shut down.

This is bad advice. It's not a matter of whether the cat will go back into the bag after it's let out, it's whether or not they will sue you and cost you money to defend yourself. Being sued is a very painful process. Good advice would help you avoid getting sued, not increase your chances.

then dont sign it with your name. just look at the emulator market, has anyone been sued there?

thats why you shouldnt be so loud about it while developing, and then release it secretly for free and let it spread by hearsay.

if everyone would send letters asking for permission we wouldnt have any C64/NES/other emulators at all.

and now i am talking about these old games not being sold anymore for like the last 20 years being emulated, not the new ones, m'kay.