The use of Warband and With Fire and Sword assets

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monnikje

Master Knight
The use of Warband and With Fire and Sword assets.
When you look at both Warband and With Fire and Sword, you could get the idea to use some assets from one of these games in a mod to enhance the other. For example, you could see some nice cathedral in WFaS and get the idea that it would greatly enhance the Calradian city of Praven from Warband. Or you could try to implement some features from Warband into WFaS - maybe in order to make your Warband mod compatible with WFaS. I know that some of you might get that idea, since I had it too. For quite a while now I've been bugging all the devs in order to find out if I'm allowed to do so. In short, the answer is no.

To understand this answer, you'd have to know that Warband and With Fire and Sword are produced by two different companies: the first by TaleWorlds, the second by SiCh. Despite the similar 'Mount & Blade' prefix, there's no trademark relation whatsoever. This means that for all purposes, you should treat them as two completely separate games: not games from the same series or brand. The transfer of content from WFAS to Warband will break the software agreement you have aggreed when installing WFAS. Vice versa will break the agreement with Warband. This means that you are legally not allowed to just transfer anything from one game to the other. The reason behind this is that no one can guarantee that the mod users have a legit copy of both Warband and WFAS. Therefore copying content from one of those games and distributing it as a mod is copyright infringement.

Even tough you can't just do it, you could try to ask the devs for the use of certain assets. I did it, but unfortunately the devs don't allow it. Understandable, since if they make an exception for me, why wouldn't they make it for you? Or him? Or anyone else? And if they allow the use of one part of the game (be it a model, texture or part of the code), why not the other parts?

What kind of consequences does this 'no' have?
- Some minimods for Warband might work without any problems in WFaS. But any larger mod that uses native assets might not run on the other game without implementing all kinds of native assets into the mod. This is not allowed, so unless you create your own replacements, you can't make your Warband mod compatible for WFaS, and vice versa.
- Features that are present in Warband but are absent in WFaS can't just be brought over, unless you write your own code. So no female faces or tournaments unless you write them yourself in the game. Mind you, all the tournament equipment from Warband is present in WFaS - altough not used as such - and doesn't have to be copied from Warband.
- Assets you might like from WFaS (like nice cathedrals, dresses, map icons, code improvements, bug fixes etc) may not be used in Warband mods.

My own mod - the Floris Mod Pack - thus won't become WFaS compatible, and I doubt that many other Mount & Blade or Warband mods will make this transfer. So I hope that - once and if the module system for WFaS is released - some modders who like WFaS wil build good mods from the ground up.
 
Its logical. After all, with no changes in the engine, if one uses the assets of WFaS in WB you can effectively have WFaS for free. More than that, even a better game considering you already have implemented some things of WB.

But, its a pity. The great thing about WFaS is, in my opinion, the high number of great models, and a fantastic grass and all that. It could add so much to lots of WB mod.

In the WFaS modding side, is something a bit worse, as you cant port straight away. Add to that the lack of MS and well... :roll:
 
monnikje said:
To understand this answer, you'd have to know that Warband and With Fire and Sword are produced by two different companies: the first by TaleWorlds, the second by SiCh. Despite the similar 'Mount & Blade' prefix, there's no trademark relation whatsoever. This means that for all purposes, you should treat them as two completely separate games: not games from the same series or brand.

I have to ask for clarification here. My understanding is that Taleworlds liscensed the engine and materials of their Mount and Blade game to Sich so that SiCH could make WFaS. I don't know all the ends and outs of copyright law but I would think that this means Taleworlds retains the creative copyright on WFaS and could shut SiCh down in a heartbeat or force SiCh to make their own game from scratch if Taleworlds wanted too. I don't buy this argument that there is no trademark relation between the two and maybe a developer told you this but a lawyer might tell you different and since I happen to know a copyright and contract lawyer I think I'll ask them just that. Now their other reasons for not allowing transfer are legit i.e. the bit about not being sure if you were using a legit copy of Warband or WFaS or a pirated one. That's the valid reason. But I am certain, 100% certain, that Taleworlds ultimately owns WFaS because even if SiCH made a fort or a church, or a uniform, the engine is Mount and Blade and it is that which ultimately decides who has trademark/ownership.
 
I don´t think so...
while Taleworlds owns the engine,
I´m sure, that SiCh owns all the graphical models that they created for WFaS,
unless they explicitely agreed upon them becoming intellectual property of Taleworlds.

Not sure about any module scripts however, as they couldn´t be used outside of the warbands engine...
maybe for them, Taleworlds reserved certain copyrights
 
Proteus said:
I don´t think so...
while Taleworlds owns the engine,
I´m sure, that SiCh owns all the graphical models that they created for WFaS,
unless they explicitely agreed upon them becoming intellectual property of Taleworlds.

Not sure about any module scripts however, as they couldn´t be used outside of the warbands engine...
maybe for them, Taleworlds reserved certain copyrights

See this is the key thing-the engine. Sure SiCH made some cities, uniforms, models etc but the engine is clearly of Taleworlds design and I can't see Taleworlds having signed away full rights to that. I am sure they own it lock, stock, and barrel and so if the two companies were to feud I am sure Taleworlds could pull the plug i.e. "Don't like it don't use our engine! Make your own!"

The engine is more important than the graphical models. It has to be. No engine and you can have all the nice models you want but you have no game.
 
I'm no expert in law, so I'm interested to hear what your lawyer has to say about it. The way I wrote it down, is the exact way as I was told by the devs. Hm... Maybe I should have put that in quotes. But even if lawyers disregard this argument about trademark relations, TaleWorlds devs still don't want any assets to be transfered between the two games.
 
monnikje said:
I'm no expert in law, so I'm interested to hear what your lawyer has to say about it. The way I wrote it down, is the exact way as I was told by the devs. Hm... Maybe I should have put that in quotes. But even if lawyers disregard this argument about trademark relations, TaleWorlds devs still don't want any assets to be transfered between the two games.

I asked my friend and got a quick reply but it's based on US law and that is that SiCH may own any content they created and that may be in the contract they have with Taleworlds. However if the game is based on an engine designed by Taleworlds they own the copyright to that as well as the brand-name "Mount and Blade" and therefore could shut down SiCH's right to distribute WFaS at any time based on the ownership of the engine and name (i.e. force SiCH to make it from scratch and it then would be an entirely different game and not use "Mount and Blade").

I think it's likely their agreement with each other called for no use of items created by either company in swaps between either game by third parties i.e. modders because as you've pointed out they would have no way of knowing whether these assets were legally obtained and thus no control.

My reason for questioning the OP was that I found the claim that they are two different games to the effect that Taleworlds might not have trademark to be dubious and I still think it is. However they do have the right to control content and in that sense yeah we will not be allowed to swap assets from one game to other and I have to say there are entirely understandable reasons for doing so on their part.
 
It seems it is like an engine creator and licensee sort of setup. Where for example, games that use the unreal engine are seperate entities in terms of copyrights and the creators of the unreal engine do not own the content created on the engine but have an agreement on how the engine may be used. The only difference here is that FaS uses M&B name and branding so they probably just have an agreement that Taleworlds still retains all rights to their Mount and Blade name and brand and gets their royalties.
 
Auldman said:
I think it's likely their agreement with each other called for no use of items created by either company in swaps between either game by third parties i.e. modders because as you've pointed out they would have no way of knowing whether these assets were legally obtained and thus no control.
Until international release all of the files for WFaS were locked in 2 files, so there was no way to edit anything. they unlocked it for international version. It was that way in 2009 and 2010 releases.
 
Just make the mod and make a readme with instructions for the transfer of assets between games.
That way no EULAs are breached...
 
If you look at the files with fire and sword there is a warband compatability.ini meaning you can put warband resources in with fire and sword.
 
But apparently not legally. Which is stupid, by the way. All it will do is prevent both games from becoming as good as they could be. For the sake of being consistent.
 
I am pretty sure there is no law in any country that prohibits the transfer of assets from a folder on your hard drive to another.
If they merged everything into an encrypted file, you would probably break at least US law by reverse engineering said file. This is not the case when the files are loose in folders on your hard drive.
I cant see them complaining about this, either, since it would just help both companies sell more games, as people would go on steam to get the game they dont own to get the assets required for this killer mod they want to play...
They probably said no, assuming that the guy asking was intending to redistribute the assets -- something that is illegal too, of course.
 
No-one indeed stops you form doing stuff on your own harddrive (I have no clue if it's illegal or not). But that's not the point here, and this topic is not about that. It's not allowed to make a mod with assets from one game for the other and share it with the rest of the world, something the typical modder does. In my experience as a modder, I noticed that the average user is rather 'lazy': they just want to download the mod (preferable with an .exe that does the entire installation for them), install it without much fuzz and play within five minutes or so. They don't want to read through a readme that gives instructions on where to place what assets and what files to edit to get the mod to work.

oasf said:
I cant see them complaining about this, either, since it would just help both companies sell more games, as people would go on steam to get the game they dont own to get the assets required for this killer mod they want to play...
You do know that you can download a trial version for both Warband and With Fire and Sword from the TaleWorlds website, and thus get all the assets for free? There's no guarantee that the people who read the instructions on how to cross assets, indeed buy both games. And why should you buy them both if you can just buy the cheapest of the two, download the other for the assets and read through instructions on how to get it working? I think that both TaleWorlds and SiCH won't appreciate it.
 
monnikje said:
...It's not allowed to make a mod with assets from one game for the other and share it with the rest of the world, something the typical modder does.
...

Yep,
sometimes it might even be too much to publish a simple text file.

I remember more than a decade ago when Civilization 3 came out...
in germany it was published first in the english version, with no german language options whatsoever...
every text from the game menus and dialogues was stored in simple textfiles.
As Infogrames (now Atari) germany already had announced that a german version of Civ 3 woulodn´t be available in the stores for more than half a year, Coldfever, a well known modder thought it would be a good idea to translate said textfiles and offer them on his homepage for free.
Well, he announced the project in the official Infogrames Forum and even wrote a mail to Infogrames, informning them about this project and offering his services for the translation of Civ 3 into to official german version
and finally (after getting no replky from Infogrames and completing the translation) he offered said textfiles for download on his homepage.

This was a bad idea however, as shortly thereafter he got mail from the lawyers of Infogrames,
containing a cease and desist order which he ways forced to sign (in which he had to state that he, under contractual penalty, would never ever offer modified Civ 3 files anymore) 

See here for a short version:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/01/11/24/1818254/Infogrames-Serves-Civ3-Fans-With-Cease-and-Desist
(almost all other sources for this case are in german)

(Fortunately SiCh and Taleworlds aren´t Infogrames, so I assume that they would handle such a case wthout lawyers first :wink: )
 
monnikje said:
You do know that you can download a trial version for both Warband and With Fire and Sword from the TaleWorlds website, and thus get all the assets for free? There's no guarantee that the people who read the instructions on how to cross assets, indeed buy both games. And why should you buy them both if you can just buy the cheapest of the two, download the other for the assets and read through instructions on how to get it working? I think that both TaleWorlds and SiCH won't appreciate it.

Or you can go on piratebay. This is not the point. They cant assume that everyone is a pirate. That way they would end up being like sony. Someone that pisses all over their customer base...

Proteus said:
monnikje said:
...It's not allowed to make a mod with assets from one game for the other and share it with the rest of the world, something the typical modder does.
...

Yep,
sometimes it might even be too much to publish a simple text file.

I remember more than a decade ago when Civilization 3 came out...
in germany it was published first in the english version, with no german language options whatsoever...
every text from the game menus and dialogues was stored in simple textfiles.
As Infogrames (now Atari) germany already had announced that a german version of Civ 3 woulodn´t be available in the stores for more than half a year, Coldfever, a well known modder thought it would be a good idea to translate said textfiles and offer them on his homepage for free.
Well, he announced the project in the official Infogrames Forum and even wrote a mail to Infogrames, informning them about this project and offering his services for the translation of Civ 3 into to official german version
and finally (after getting no replky from Infogrames and completing the translation) he offered said textfiles for download on his homepage.

This was a bad idea however, as shortly thereafter he got mail from the lawyers of Infogrames,
containing a cease and desist order which he ways forced to sign (in which he had to state that he, under contractual penalty, would never ever offer modified Civ 3 files anymore) 

See here for a short version:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/01/11/24/1818254/Infogrames-Serves-Civ3-Fans-With-Cease-and-Desist
(almost all other sources for this case are in german)

(Fortunately SiCh and Taleworlds aren´t Infogrames, so I assume that they would handle such a case wthout lawyers first :wink: )

I understand (and say in my post) that any redistribution of assets are illegal, logically enough, since its redistribution of intellectual property. Even if its just a small text file...

--

Doesnt matter anyways. All I want to do is to point out a solution to the problem laid out by the OP. I dont know about you guys, but I would prefer the option. You could even make two versions of a mod: One WB mod with extended features that requires the WFnS assets to be copied and one that misses this feature, for the lazy or not so tech-savvy...
 
This issue needs to be clarified by Taleworlds.  Right now, we can't ship any Warband mods to WFaS, even if we want to, for three reasons:

1.  Adding all of the missing Warband content would raise download sizes considerably.
2.  There is nothing in either EULA allowing it.
3.  There is no Module System code available, so it's unclear what operations have been added to the engine.

Right now, I think it's safe to say that it's illegal to port any of the bigger Warband mods; there's no solution for the content problem that makes any sense, and there's no code to use to upgrade mods to 1.140.
 
If there a way we could merely import the gunpowder weapon models/textures/animations into Warband?  Couldn't care less about the setting at this point, given all of the morons who bash people for DARING to want to customize their character.
 
Melissia said:
If there a way we could merely import the gunpowder weapon models/textures/animations into Warband?  Couldn't care less about the setting at this point, given all of the morons who bash people for DARING to want to customize their character.

Isnt there good mods for this in warband already?
 
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