Removal of Fleet Operations mod and prohibited upload of the 1.2 game patch

[ColdDarkParanoia]

Does this mean that the patch no long fixes the vista problems? now that the edited .dll has been removed? (btw i don't have vista! )

[DOCa Cola]

no it still does fix those vista issues. just the method has been changed so that the networkmanager.dll does not need to be modified anymore. that just meant more programming work that way, that's why it was not in the first version.
and no, i do not use vista either i just read the reports here in the forum about those vista crashes and tested the patch in a virtual machine later.

[fullphaser]

Originally Posted by Major A Payne

I'm wondering if anyone has considered contacting activision directly to get an officialy statement of what can and can't be done now. The way I see it we all know that Mad Doc and Activision no longer support the game in any capacity and with the introduction of Vista, this patch can only be doing the community good.

I still believe that the games should be released into public domain. At least that way the legal side of things would be mute and access to getting the games would be available.

I attempted to contact Mac Doc's PR department this week;however, it would seem (as I am sure some of you are well aware) they do not care to respond to e-mails. At least Activision is kind enough to respond with a template.

[AdmarilRyan]

Originally Posted by Freyr

What in them do you think breaks the EULA? I can't see anything. If you think your being funny then please stop it before I get annoyed. We do have to look into reports like this and I don't like people wasting my time deliberately.

I am by no means joking Freyr, Jolt will kill my for saying this, but you asked me in the first place so braking an unwritten rule as he puts it, is hardly concequential:
If you looked carefully you would find present in midnight universe a new map editor which provides an new exe which, I believe is a modified version of the stock exe but focused to map editting. As for Naval Armada, it has an exe that causes the splash screen to alternate.

These are minor changes perhaps, compared to fleetops, but the principle is exactly the same, wouldn't you agree?

I really believe that every effort should be made to contact activision or maddoc on the issue, if they do not respond in a conclusive way then surely we should assume that they have no issue on the matter. As for A2 site rules I believe, correct me if wrong, but they seem to have no issue providing the software isn't illegal. If Maddoc and Activision do not say that it's illegal, them having written the EULA in the first place, then there cannot be an issue.

As for ways to contact them, e-mails are only one method of communication, perhaps an admin could telephone their technical support, or legal branch, at least that way you should get to actually speak to someone who should eventually pass you on to someone who can give a definitive answer.

[The Joelteon7]

Originally Posted by Main Article

Regardless of whether or not Activision or Mad Doc ‘care’, Filefront is unable to host the files as they violate the Terms of Service of Ziff Davis Media (ZDM being the owner of the Filefront Network).

Additionally, we've looked over Midnight and concluded no issue and I believe Freyr looked over Naval and found no issue.

[Freyr]

Its not a new map editor or any modification of the existing one, it just lists the maps you have already and feeds the external parameters to Armada2.exe if you decide to edit or create a map.

In other words its a glorified shortcut, and thats all it does.

As I am sure you know very well the splash screen is changed via the bitmap file in the root of the armada II directory.

Thats twice you have wasted my time. I think that you know your wasting our time and not raising something that we actually need to look into. If you continue to do this for your amusement then there will be consequences. Please read the site rules before posting again.

You may want to consider that whilst your wasting our time checking random files on the site we aren't doing other things. You wonder why it takes so long to sort a problem with fleetops? Do I need to say it? You waste our time downloading and throughly checking files and we can't do something else in the meantime.

[Major A Payne]

Freyr. I've gone over the complete TOS for ZDM and it seems that its more than just a grey area:

"8. Copyright Policy
You may not post, distribute, perform, display, transmit or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights. Without limiting the foregoing, if you believe that your work has been copied and posted on the Service in a way that constitutes copyright or trademark infringement, please contact Tara Garfinkle, Director of Intellectual Property at 28 East 28th Street, 12th Floor, New York, New York 10016, fax: (212) 503-3560, tara_garfinkle@ ziffdavis.com with the following information: (a) an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or trademark interest; (b) a description of the copyrighted work(s) or trademark(s) that you claim has been infringed; (c) a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Website; (d) your address, telephone number, and email address; (e) a written statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright or trademark owner, its agent, or the law; and (f) a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or trademark owner or authorized to act on the copyright or trademark owner's behalf."

You do realise that if this is taken literally then EVERY file that is located on ANY of the FF sites is in breach of this ruling as they do contain copyrighted material. For example. SOD, ODF files are specifically copyrighted formats which Activision has a copyright over (the same goes for the .NIF model format for Bridge Commander).

DOCa. I would suggest directly contacting the person in this and explain the situation in its entirety. The thing is Activisions reply is sketchy at best and MadDoc really dont' give a (pardon my wording) toss about this if they are unwilling to respond. I'm still of the mind that this is beneficial to the community and will give Armada 2 a continued life.

Still. I'm going to do some searching. Perhaps I might find some avenue of cantact that hasn't been tried yet.

[F-Bobby]

i think its pretty obvious that Mad Doc them selves doesnt care about thier work. Hell look at legacy. If they cared about their work they wouldnt have made such a half-assed game that all of US had to fix. I Highly doubt you will hear anything on them about anything on supposed EULA violations. But if you guys want i can go pay them a visit and ask someone their personally cause they are like 25 min away from me here in Mass. But from what i can see and have seen in A2 and Legacy is that tey are just in it for the money NOT in it for making exceptional pieces of software. So if they get pissed that we are changing what they did. maybe they shoudl say to themselves hey if they are puttin all this work in to FIXING stuff we made, maybe we shoudl try a little bit harder next time....

and as for the whole Fleet ops thing. Doca-cola just said he rewrote the file in question that that its no longer a violation of the EULA... So why isnt the file back up and why are we still arguing about this?

[Curtis_A2]

i think that as far as copyright infringement issues go..the site did what it had to do..now as far as legacy,etc..well if mad doc,etc release such crap..why buy it? leave it on the shelves..thats the best way to get them to release a better product.stop buying their products.

[Aerilon]

As much as I'd like to have FleetOps hosted still, as it has been said, we can't. What we can do though, as Joel has mentioned both here, and on A2Files, is keep you updated on the FleetOps Progress.

Hopefully they'll keep us updated on the modification..