Defiant

On behalf of the MB2 team - "Wooooooohoooooo"

MovieBattles II is a fast-paced, action packed mod for the award winning Jedi Knight Jedi Academy game, that lets players play and fight in the most iconic battles seen throughout the entire saga! Choose your class, ranging from a simple Soldier to the powerful Jedi or Sith, and play as your favourite characters such as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Maul, Mace Windu, Han Solo, Darth Vader, Jango & Boba Fett, Chewbacca, Padmé, Leia and more! Battle on some of the most iconic Star Wars planets and locations such as Naboo, Mustafar, Kamino, Tatooine, Death Star, Jedi Temple, Tantive IV, Cloud City, Jabba's Palace and more! Will you fight for the liberation of the Naboo or will you subjugate them as Darth Maul? Will you storm the Jedi Temple and kill all the Jedi or will you defend it? Will you escape the Death Star or will you stop those pesky Rebels from getting away? Take the lead role in a game that puts you in the middle of the action of the most memorable battles spanning the entire Star Wars feature films and beyond. War is coming once again. Choose your allegiance and change Star Wars history forever! Moviebattles II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpoEWv9xQ3Q&feature=plcp The Movie Battles II team is always on the lookout for talented community members to help out. If you are interested in helping please take a look at the roles listed below and create a thread here (or here for beta testers) stating a little bit about yourself, where you are from, how old you are, what position you may be interested in applying for and what you feel you could contribute to the development of this mod. There are no limits on the number of spots available and in some cases technical ability is less important than having a willingness to learn. You may be asked to provide a sample of work as part of your application. As a development team working in a distributed environment communication is very important, as such for all roles we require team members to be able to communicate effectively in English. Programmer Responsibilities: Developing Server & Client side code, Debugging Server & Client Applications Implementing new features from a written specification Providing community support on bugs and issues, providing code support to Level Designers, 3D artists and Beta Testers. Required Skills: Knowledge of programming concepts Good team skills Desirable Skills: Knowledge of Q3A/JKA SDK Game play experience of MB2 Game play design experiance Knowledge of the C programming language Knowledge of C# and Microsoft .NET Win32 Programming & Platform Experience Mac OS X Programming and Platform Experience Linux Programming and Platform Experience Maths - 3D spatial calculations and 2D co-ordinate systems Level Designer Responsibilities: Designing and Producing new maps Bug fixing existing maps Designing and Producing game play improvements to existing maps Required Skills: Artistic Flair MBII Gameplay Experience Desirable Skills: GTK Radiant Experience Q3A Engine Mapping Experience Knowledge of Q3A Entities 3D Artist Responsibilities: Designing & Creating World Elements Designing & Creating character models Providing art support to level designers Designing and Creating 3D models to support new feature implementations Required Skills: Artistic Flair Ability to produce good looking designs within application performance constraints Able to use a chosen 3D art package capable of producing models compatible with Q3A/JKA Desirable Skills: 3D Art experience Experience producing 3D Models for Q3A/JKA Knowledge of JKA Tools Ability to model, unwrap AND texture your own models, ie. the whole pipeline. 2D Artist Responsibilities: Providing textures for 3D world elements Providing textures for maps Providing 2D art work for UI Producing Promotional Material - including Stills and Videos Required Skills: Artistic Flair Team player Able to use a chosen package to produce striking & professional visuals Animator Responsibilities: Producing character animations Required Skills: XSI Mod Tool, 3D Studio Max 5 or Blender 2.62 w/ GLM plugins Experience with GLA merge JKA Animating Experience Able to use a chosen package to produce professional animations Community Relations Responsibilities: Communicating between the development team and community - in both directions Producing news items Producing trailers and promotional material Required Skills: Good communications in English Deep knowledge of MBII's workings Able to come up with unconventinal ideas with promotional benefit Beta Tester Responsibilities: Regularly able to attend tests and provide feedback on game play and functional game changes Finding and reporting bugs throughout the development lifecycle. Required Skills: Unconventional Thinking Desirable Skills: Good knowledge of MBII game play Good Knowledge of Q3/JKA engine behaviour. Defiant Moviebattles II Project Lead

At the very least it is as serious as a no CD crack. It's certainly against the EULA to by pass the copy protection. Without a copy of the JKA EULA to hand i cant tell you for sure if your license to use the assets (Including the game DLLs) is restricted. But i'd be fairly confident it is. If it isnt then it's not an issue. Chances are it wouldnt be enforced anyway, but you can never be sure.

That is against the JKA License agreement - although i doubt that would be enforced. though you never know - LucasArts moves in mysterious ways. The problem with mods is that they would require the JKA game logic (That is the code that compiles into jampgamex86.dll, cgame.dll, and uix86.dll) to be re-written, and then the modifications be made to that code in order to not be infringing on LucasArt's IP. Of course, assuming you did all that, you may still be violating the JKA copyright (this is a seperate issue from the IP), as you have literally copied the game, even if it has been remade from scratch, that is to say, JKA is protected by copyright in whole and in part. You can use SW imagary, ideas, and some likenesses under copyright fair use, but my knowledge of software law is alot better than my knowledge of copyright law. Im not sure if iojamp would be protected by fair use, particuarlly given that JKA is still being sold for profit on steam. LucasArts is a business remember, i doubt they're above squabling over whats maybe a couple of grand a year from steam sales. Actually, the beauty of it is that you have full control. Technically you can use the JKA-SDK to build 64bit versions of the game DLLs, you just dont have an engine capable of loading them.

It states right there that the SDK code is for us with only "...full version of the software game Jedi Academy..." You cant pick and choose which parts of a license agreement you adhere to. You cant simply treat the SDK code as open source when it clearly isnt. If Raven or Lucas Arts care is an entirely seperate issue. One would assume that neither LucasArts or Raven would object to the use of what is ancient code from a dead engine, but, from a project point of view - thinking of MB2 here. It's safer not to spend what would probably be a good year of replacing base JKA assets just to be stamped with a 'Cease and Desist' from LucasArts, remember according to the reply you got from Raven, LucasArts still own the JKA code - Including the SDK. From discussions i've had with the MB2 team, especially the Vets who have been down this road before, like you, talking to Raven about it have advised me that the answer in the past has always been 'You'll have to ask LucasArts - they own the code'. You cant simply take code that you dont own, and with the permission of a firm involved in the development of the code who also doesnt own it, assume you're gonna be ok dropping it into a project which is expressly prohibited by the License Agreement. I am aware that the License agreement for the SDK states the license is issued by Raven, but, again, from talking with MB2 Team Members who have been down this road before, that doesnt neccisarily mean alot. As a development company Raven might not care, but in my opinion and as a project lead, i'd stick to the side of caution slightly and not just assume Lucas Arts consent here. To be absolutly sure that what you're doing is above board you'd need somthing from both Lucas Arts and Raven's legal departments. Surprisingly, the private comments and opinions of a developer who was sorta involved in some of the side bits of a project are not legally binding and arnt gonna mean a thing if you get sued (Well, you wouldnt get sued, you'd most likely adhere to the 'Cease and Desist' they send you...). Chances are they dont care, but i'd hate to be the one biting the bullet if they decide to make an example. Chances of getting a reply from Lucas Arts historically isnt great, that being said, it may well worth be taking the chance that they dont care, the technical benifits this could give would be incredible. I really hope LucasArts are in the mood for some good PR and decide to smile on your efforts, if they do, i can guarentee you that MB2 will look VERY seriously at switching.

My first thoughts are to drool. My second thoughts is to how difficult it will be to port code given that everything would have to be pulled from the JKA-SDK. You cannot simply load the same DLLs you would for JKA as it is specificly prohibited by the SDK license. Section 3 - Permitted usage states: So question is, do you have a workaround for this, an exemption from lucas arts or raven are you simply taking the risk that no one cares?