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  1. #11

    Default Re: Hi

    EA just hates everyone *sighs*

  2. #12
    Moderator MaxHayman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hi

    Quote Originally Posted by The Evil One View Post
    But I thought EA abandoned War for the Overworld?
    EDIT: It was scrapped right?
    Dosent mean they don't have rights over the name.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mothrayas View Post
    We aren't renaming it. War for the Overworld is perfectly fine.
    "It's perfectly fine" is how you describe a terrible dinner if you don't want to insult the cook. And even then, I don't think that's true. I don't know if it's fine from a legal standpoint first of all, EA may have trademarked it. It's pretty common practice to trademark names as soon as internal development starts.

    Secondly, wasn't it unaccurate already when it was still being designed as a fan sequel to Dungeon Keeper? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the actual Overworld portion of the game cut? So it didn't really reflect the content, and it only showed its connection to Dungeon Keeper to the most hardcore fans who know the development story of DK3. That's fine for a fan sequel, it's mostly going to appeal to hardcore fans in the first place and grow through word of mouth. That's pretty much the only ways a fan project can start. But one of the oppertunities (and probably, considering talk of maybe going commercial or using it as a kick off point for a game development studio, one of the goals) of rebranding this project is that you can appeal to a wider audience, and I'm not sure "War for the Overworld" is going to do that. Especially considering "Overworld" is a pretty lame sounding term anyway. It only has meaning as "not the Underworld" (nobody would ever refer to anything as "Overworld" without previous mention of an "Underworld", they'd just call it "World") and a teneous connection to Dungeon Keeper.Whereas words like Underworld or Surface have a plethora of associations connected to them and will instantly create an image in the mind of the person who reads it. That kind of thing is powerful.

    That's just my view, though. I thought War for the Overworld was fine for a DK fan sequel primarily for hardcore fans, but I don't think it works in any way, shape or form outside of that context. At all. In fact, if I hadn't known about it's connection to Dungeon Keeper before coming here, my first impression of the name would probably have been "that sounds kinda stupid". Have you ever heard anyone use the term Overworld outside of the Dungeon Keeper community? Because I haven't. I think most people would do a double take at that word alone. I'm sure there are literally hundreds of better options than "War for the Overworld". Especially because "War for the ..................." titles are extremely generic in the first place, doubly so for RTS games.

  4. #14
    Mistress kyle's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hi

    EA dropped the tademark ages ago, they didin't have a game to attatch the name to. Also, dropping our name after what we've built up now would be very silly indeed.

  5. #15
    Elite Dragon Mothrayas's Avatar
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    Default Re: Hi

    Quote Originally Posted by Funderbunk View Post
    "It's perfectly fine" is how you describe a terrible dinner if you don't want to insult the cook. And even then, I don't think that's true. I don't know if it's fine from a legal standpoint first of all, EA may have trademarked it. It's pretty common practice to trademark names as soon as internal development starts.
    Except it WASN'T trademarked. And I don't get the dinner/cook analogy at all. What are you trying to say?

    Quote Originally Posted by Funderbunk View Post
    Secondly, wasn't it unaccurate already when it was still being designed as a fan sequel to Dungeon Keeper? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the actual Overworld portion of the game cut?
    I know this has been said several times before, but I'll say it again because people continue to misunderstand.

    The name is War for the Overworld. Not War on the Overworld or anything like that. A war for the Overworld doesn't mean it takes place there.

    Quote Originally Posted by Funderbunk View Post
    So it didn't really reflect the content, and it only showed its connection to Dungeon Keeper to the most hardcore fans who know the development story of DK3. That's fine for a fan sequel, it's mostly going to appeal to hardcore fans in the first place and grow through word of mouth. That's pretty much the only ways a fan project can start.
    It "only showed its connection to Dungeon Keeper to the most hardcore fans who know the development story of DK3"? Remind me what the basic plot of DK1 and DK2 was? Wasn't it something like, you know, the Keeper fighting a war with the Heroes to rule the Overworld? You make it sound like the DK series prior to DK3 had nothing to do with a war / overworld / whatever.

    The Awakening


  6. #16
    Imp Xan's Avatar
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    Wow. Look at the ant hill I kicked up.

    Firstly, its never too late to change a name. People already aware of the project will find out, and it won't make a big deal. Secondly, WftO isn't such a bad name. Weird, unusual, and a trifle cliche, but not bad. I've heard the term Overworld used before, but definitely not often. But because this no longer is a sequel, you can change the name (or anything else) without fear of losing connection. Its a spiritual connection now, not direct. But just because you can change the name doesn't mean you don't have to... UNLESS they do still have the name trademarked. Do we know for sure they dropped it?

    Quote Originally Posted by Searingflame2 View Post
    The law suit is just plain offensive. The actual game developers of Mojang and Bethesda have so much respect for each other... were they to commune themselves, they'd resolve the issue in but a few hours.
    Quite right. Notch is completely puzzled by it. And Minecraft has a large following, and a different kind of following, than Bethesda. If they actually by some black magic win the case (think McDonald's and spilled hot coffee), it will make a lot of people really mad at them. Course they probably don't care about that, but it will nevertheless affect their sales more than the phony charges they've invented ever will.

    And EA is anal enough to do it here, if they still have the trademark.

    As for my other question, to be more specific, in WftO, will traps be chained together to improve their effects, as in Evil Genius? Will there be more rooms to experiment with like EG, or a fairly simple (and less cluttered) approach like the DK games? Will there be funny ways to interact with the environment and minions (EG style), or is that too much effort for a feature not connected to gameplay? Will players build rooms like DK, or rooms and stuff in rooms, like EG? And most importantly of all, if there is anything like unto sentry guns, will they actually be useful? (For those who have never played Evil Genius, sentry guns were "traps" that could only shoot in a very limited arc, meaning enemies simply approached outside of said arc and destroyed them. Which meant players had to build them in specially designed places in large numbers with covering fields of fire, making it too expensive and time consuming for the dubious gain of having every government in the world angry with you.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Mothrayas View Post
    And I don't get the dinner/cook analogy at all. What are you trying to say?

    The name is War for the Overworld. Not War on the Overworld or anything like that. A war for the Overworld doesn't mean it takes place there.

    It "only showed its connection to Dungeon Keeper to the most hardcore fans who know the development story of DK3"? Remind me what the basic plot of DK1 and DK2 was? Wasn't it something like, you know, the Keeper fighting a war with the Heroes to rule the Overworld? You make it sound like the DK series prior to DK3 had nothing to do with a war / overworld / whatever.
    What do you call an ugly baby? "Interesting". That's what Funderbunk was trying to imply; sometimes people describe things in a manner so as not to offend, even though they don't mean it the way it is interpreted by listeners. Which is, I think, not what you were doing when you said the name was "perfectly fine", but I get the analogy.

    To my understanding, DK3 would have taken some part above-ground. That's why it received the name. The previous titles were wars raged against the overworld inhabitants, but we never actually went up there in-game. They may have dropped that functionality, but its where the name got its start.

    For a similar parallel, look at the Exile/Avernum game series by Spiderweb Software. (Avernum was the remake of the same story original told in Exile.) In Exile 1, the player fights in the 'underworld', a series of caves. They fight the surface Empire. Same happens in Exile 2. Both games have very little to do with the surface (I think you spend maybe an hour there between the two games). Yet the whole game is about fighting the surface. In Exile 3, players actually go up there. It was novel, it was exciting, it was different, and it allowed lots of new features and ideas to come through from the developer.

    Which is probably why some are saying the name should be changed, as WftO isn't going up there. Frankly, I don't know how well DK's play style would adapt to above-ground mechanics. Sure, you could do it Evil Genius style, building into a mountain or whatever, but the core design of both DK and EG was lair is out of sight and in the rock somewhere. Exile is an RPG game- it was much easier to change from caves to grassy fields there than it would be for DK.

    That was a long-winded way of saying I understand where both sides are coming from. It really doesn't matter either way; the name isn't dumb enough to turn people away by itself, so anybody who hears about it will google pictures of gameplay. THAT'S where the binary hits the bus, so to speak.

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mothrayas View Post
    Except it WASN'T trademarked. And I don't get the dinner/cook analogy at all. What are you trying to say?
    Alright, fair enough. I'll take your word for it. After all, I said "EA may have trademarked it", I didn't claim any facts.

    As for the analogy, let me put it this way: If you just had sex with someone, and they then told you "it was perfectly fine", what would you think? Perfectly fine has never been used to describe something great, it's at best used to describe something adequate, and at worst used to cover up something inadequate. If you refer to something as "perfectly fine", you better re-evaluate whether or not you actually liked it.

    I know this has been said several times before, but I'll say it again because people continue to misunderstand.

    The name is War for the Overworld. Not War on the Overworld or anything like that. A war for the Overworld doesn't mean it takes place there.
    I understand (and I find it a little insulting that you think a simple concept like that could even be misunderstood, but whatever, this is the internet and I'm sure all of us have had to deal with our fair share of idiots on it) but it's not a good (enough) reason or rationalisation, in my opinion. If it doesn't even appear why does it merit such a prominent place in your product identity? There's nothing more prominent than a game's name. "Dungeon Keeper" described the gameplay, the concept, the setting, the ENTIRE GAME in two words. "War for the Overworld" describes a single plot related motivation without a lot of other meaning. It could be attached to hundreds of games. It's not unique, it doesn't grab the attention, it barely reflects the content. It doesn't really do anything. In fact, the only reason it worked in the first place was because it was attached to "Dungeon Keeper 3". On it's own, it doesn't really mean anything.

    It "only showed its connection to Dungeon Keeper to the most hardcore fans who know the development story of DK3"? Remind me what the basic plot of DK1 and DK2 was? Wasn't it something like, you know, the Keeper fighting a war with the Heroes to rule the Overworld? You make it sound like the DK series prior to DK3 had nothing to do with a war / overworld / whatever.
    I make it sound like nothing, and I said nothing about the connection of "war", and I'm speaking of terminology, not plot. Don't project meanings that aren't there on my post, and if you do, don't expect me to take responsibility for your own misconceptions.

    What I meant with its tenuous connection is that I don't recall them ever referring to it as "the Overworld" in the DK games, except maybe for that DK3 trailer. It was always the surface, the land, the kingdom, the world. It became known to hardcore Dungeon Keeper fans as "the Overworld" only due to its use as the subtitle (not name) for Dungeon Keeper 3 before it got cancelled. If that subtitle had never gotten out to the public, it's highly likely nobody on this board would ever have referred to it as "the Overworld". It would always be one of those other words. Those other words are strong, they all have meaning on their own. The use of the word "Overworld" is completely meaning-dependant on it being accompanied by the word "Underworld" or something with a strong connection to that word (such as "Dungeon").

    I stand by what I said, the word "Overworld" is not a strong enough word to stand on its own without a context. The only reason it worked for DK3 in the first place is because it was preceded by the context of being Dungeon Keeper 3: War for the Overworld. It wasn't even the name of the project. It was Dungeon Keeper 3 with War for the Overworld tacked on. It was always going to be DK3, not WftO. In any other context than a DK sequel, it's a pretty dull and generic name. And your game's name is your game's first impression. Do you want it to grab the reader instantly and stick in their mind, or do you want the part where they even notice it to be a "maybe"?

    And make no mistake, that's what will happen. If it doesn't grab your audience, they won't even take the time to check it out or google it like Xan just said. I think he has a more optimistic view of consumers than me because he assumes they're like him, they'll google things they see to find out what it is. I'm like that myself, but we're the exception, not the rule. People on the internet have zero attention span. There's a rule in webdesign that every time a user has to click on your website, a third of them quit your website. That means you lose a third of your readers for every time they have to click to get to a new page or open up a new function. This is the kind of attention span you're dealing with. You *need* to grab these people from the very first second. If you don't, it doesn't matter how good your product is, nobody will check it out. This is not a light decision, this is not a question of "why change it"? This is a question of "when do we have something good enough that we no longer have to change it?".

    Quote Originally Posted by kyle View Post
    EA dropped the tademark ages ago, they didin't have a game to attatch the name to. Also, dropping our name after what we've built up now would be very silly indeed.
    Fair enough, I don't know about your following or website hits, so I'll take your word for it.

    Is it that big a following, though? Like I said, I don't know what it is, and I have no idea about the size of the dungeon keeper community outside this board, but this board is a really small community with long stretches of inactivity broken up by people joining to make one post for tech support and never coming back. At least, that's my impression of this place since I joined. This board is pretty dead with the exception of a small handful of loyal regulars. This switch up where WftO broke up with the Dungeon Keeper franchise is the first time since I got here that there has truly been any real activity, and it's still not a lot. I've seen small mod projects for ancient games where an announcement as big as the recent change up would have gotten a thread to fifty pages within a day. This is a full game project, but we've still only managed a few pages only by going off topic into these rants about specific details.

    I also don't see why someone would break away from a franchise but still keep a direct link to it.

    I mean no offense with this, of course, I'm trying to be constructive and helpful here, as much as every time I do the posts I get in return seem extremely annoyed with me for it for bringing it up and hammering on the same point all the time. I get the feeling people here aren't familiar with the principle of "kill your darlings" and are going to be in for a big surprise when they start to actually do work in the industry and have to deal with publishers*, deadlines, and the high pressure of milestone based perpetual crunch. The average time a person spends working in the game industry before they quit is five years, and it's because people don't realize how much you're going to have to fight for every decision. I've been involved with a few game design projects from the industry, and I can tell you if you don't obsess over details like this you're going to be thrown out on your ass.

    *Especially this, if you think I'm annoying, wait until you regularely have to deal with publishers. They are your worst nightmare. A single bad presentation can mean the difference between going on with your project or throwing all your progress out the window and starting over, or worse. They will ignore the big picture and pick on the smallest details, insist on adding whatever is popular at the time whether or not it works for the game, and sometimes they'll shut you down simply because they see more profit in another project. They'll hire marketing people to keep tabs on you and every single decision you make during all stages of development. If you want to work in the game industry, you need to learn how to think like them. To give you an idea, even with all my overthinking of small issues like these, I still can't handle these people when working on small casual game projects. I can't even imagine how horrible they'll be about a huge game project like this.
    Last edited by Funderbunk; November 18th, 2011 at 18:58. Reason: Typo Fix

  8. #18

    Default Re: Hi

    I'm going to agree with Bunk. War For The Overworld? Sorry, but it really does not convey "I'm fighting heroes in my dungeon!". Sounds like you'll be fighting up outside. Even the title "Wars In Dungeons" sounds better to me than what you've named it. I wouldn't have really seen the connection to DK if I didn't either, A: Seen a video, and B: Didn't see "DK" anywhere in the description.

  9. #19
    Mistress kyle's Avatar
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    Well we aren't changing the name, so sour grapes I guess.

  10. #20
    Imp Xan's Avatar
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    *Cough* So, uh, not to hijack the thread back on topic or anything, but how 'bout them questions about EG influence on WftO?

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