Engine

[gajop]

Hey, congratulations on your release.

I'm here to ask if this game was made in an engine derived from SpringRTS, as it has some striking similarities.

[Total Warfare]

Thanks! We are using third-party stuff whenever we can, especially on the server side, but there is no underlying "engine".

[MattyWS]

It does look an awful lot like SpringRTS engine but that's not where the similarities end. Would you happen to be the creator of the TLL mod for Total Annihilation?

19 seconds into the first video on the steam page you can see this ship;

https://units.tauniverse.com/?p=u&v=5350

29 seconds in you can see this one;

https://units.tauniverse.com/?p=u&v=5431

There's more, and all the units and buildings seem to be derived from TA. If you aren't the creator then did you get permission? members of the TA community have brought this to my attention so I figured I'd enquire.

[gajop]

After seeing http://total-warfare.com/cont/INFO.txt , can you please further elaborate on how you're using Spring stuff?
Some art assets might not be PD (CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, etc.), but more importantly, GPL has other requirements, such that you release the source code under a GPL compatible license (Spring license: https://github.com/spring/spring/blob/develop/LICENSE ).

[Total Warfare]

We have (of course) all the relevant permissions from the author(s) as required. I will not comment on the technical aspects of our game, but I can say that all usage of third-party items is in compliance with the respective license(s).

[MattyWS]

But you also seem to have content from the original Total Annihilation game which is still owned by Wargaming. Meshes like 6x6a.3do for example.

[MattyWS]

Originally posted by Scolar Ironfist:

Originally posted by MattyWS:

But you also seem to have content from the original Total Annihilation game which is still owned by Wargaming. Meshes like 6x6a.3do for example.

oh yeah? if thats so true. Then cmon go a head and tell it to the world and idk see what happens next....

Sure thing.

[MattyWS]

Originally posted by 🐐:

The Total Annihilation: Kingdoms full-screen radar/megamap is also copyrighted and is used by TAUniverse (an unofficial TA fan website who asks for donations) without permission on their unofficial patch - and subsequently on their mods - and even without proper credit given as well. And that's not all but more than enough.

Don't give those hypocrites a single second of your time. Move on ahead!

SpringRTS is also based off original TA and their offspring Zero-K, like this game, also has DLC content. So, yea, you're all on the same boat.

PS: that punkass doesn't own ♥♥♥♥ and isn't suited to 'inquire' ♥♥♥♥ as well.

The TA fan made patch is a mod of TA and has no direct connection with the website TAU, which is just a forum where people discuss it. The forum donations goes directly toward keeping the website running which again has nothing to do with the mod known as the 4.0 unofficial patch.

They'd be in the same boat if the people who made that patch also sold it and included TA which would be entirely illegal. The patch is free and doesn't include TA content.

If this Mars Warfare is using original TA content to profit that is entirely illegal. TA isn't abandonware and it's contents cannot be used like this. I'm not sure why you have such a toxic attitude about this, pointing it out now and allowing the dev to rectify this before Wargaming find out and shut it down is is pretty nice thing to do.

[MattyWS]

Probably worth mentioning that some of the modders who made a lot of the content for this game did not give permission and aren't happy either, but that's more a grey area. than a legal one.

[MattyWS]

Again.. modding a game is entirely different from profiting from content owned by another company and TAU is just a platform for discussion. The guy who owns TAU only takes donations because it costs him money to keep the TAU domain going, which isn't related to other people modding TA. There is no hypocrisy here, I'm not profiting from TA mods and I don't sell any TA content, I'm simply pointing out that Mars Warfare has content owned by Wargaming. Mars Warfare is profiting from this.

[Scary le Poo]

I don't see solid proof on what you are saying. Don't see how this is much different from Spring's Zero-K either.

You're joking... right?

Zero-K has absolutely no copyrighted content and is built from the ground up.

[MattyWS]

Originally posted by 🐐:

Zero-K is a Spring mod, which is an engine - initially called TA Spring - copied from the original copyrighted TA. How on earth is it built from the ground up?

However that doesn't change everything else I said, and there's nothing proven. Regardless, like I said, none of these clowns are in a situation that they can talk about others.

Spring engine is open source and has no original TA content within it... Mars Warfare is profiting from copyrighted content that Wargaming owns. I'm not sure how you're not seeing the difference between things that are legal and illegal but I assume (and hope) you're not a dev for Mars Warfare so I'm going to assume you don't speak for him.

This could simply be an oversight by the dev which is fine, it's no big deal he just needs to remove any copyrighted content/content that doesn't have permission to be used.

And again, not that it's related in any way but the guy who owns TAU accepts donations to keep the web domain alive and is not a modder that worked on the 4.0 patch mod (which is perfectly legal anyway because it's just a non-profit community mod).

You should stop hurling insults around as well. You're helping no one.

[MattyWS]

The burden of proof is on you, if you think TAU is doing something illegal by all means report it to the correct authorities with your evidence. Your claims have nothing to do with this topic though.

TA demo recorder is also perfectly legal, it just read TA content and output recordings in 3D in it's own engine. Spring do not distribute copyrighted assets for profit (that I'm aware of) but again if you think Spring is doing something illegal feel free to direct that to the right channels with your evidence.

For now, we're not talking about Spring or TAU and again unless you're a dev of Mars total warefare I would just stop, you're still helping no one with your insults and false accusations. This topic is about the content and engine used in for this game.

[PlasmoidThunder]

Selling a video game that uses copyrighted material from another game is a vastly different circumstance to modding a video game and supplying those mods for free, hosted on a website that doesn't run ads and merely asks for donations instead of mandating them to access the content; the site doesn't profit from the mods, as the donations are optional and thus made by individuals who were willing to donate in the first place.

It's also worth mentioning that the first person to bring up TAU was actually you.

[MattyWS]

Originally posted by 🐐:

I still don't see any proof for the claims you are making. Either way trying to claim ownership over modifications of copyrighted units and engine is pretty funny.

Originally posted by PlasmoidThunder:

It's also worth mentioning that the first person to bring up TAU was actually you.

Not true...

I did, by post #5 in this thread I believe I pointed the dev to a file he's using (maybe by accident, i'll give him the benefit of the doubt here I'm sure he's not intentionally ripping TA content) which is OTA. I only wanted to point it out, and I gave that information to him. Unless he has permission from Wargaming it's not legal. as for the rest of the content used from various TA mods, I've seen several of the creators mention never having given permission, but I'll leave that to the creators of the content to talk to the dev. In the mean time Wargaming may end up getting wind of this game and pulling it from the store which is why I mention some OTA content being used here.

I have yet to see any proof of your claims that Spring, Zero-k and TAU steal and profit from Wargaming content though. Since you signed up to Steam just for this discussion I'm going to assume you're just trolling. Please move on to somewhere else.

And yes, you were the first one to bring up TAU. :P

[Total Warfare]

Like many other similar projects, what we are selling is meant to "cut our losses". We are not actually selling this game, the game is FREE. We are only selling some additional services on our infrastructure (such as watching replays and playing private battles).

If anyone is unhappy about our usage, we act swiftly to remove the content, provided that we get sufficient evidence that the original owner/author really is unhappy. We reviewed our content recently and found no apparent problems.