How to run a public server without being issued for copyright infringement?

[rraallvv]

I love the look and feel of this version of Travian, and its minimalistic approach on the UI. So I'm wondering what would need someone to do in order to run a public server without having copyright infringement related issues. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a game with the name of Travian in it, but with a different theme and name. My guess is that replacing all images for original artwork and changing the name isn't enough. Maybe one would need also to rewrite all text in tutorials, help, descriptions, etc. although I'm not so sure about that. The idea here is to have a browser MMO strategy game up and running as quickly as possible, and modding TravianZ seems to me better that creating an entire game from scratch.

I'd really appreciate your comments on the matter, keep up the good work!

[iopietro]

Yeah, I've love too the T3.6 version of travian, imho it's the best one.

I don't know, but imo changing the whole graphic and the name should be enough, it also depends depends on your actual country.

Yep, it would great, but the actual version is 0% moddable or expandable, in the future and after the OOP rework it will be easily moddable and expandable (and more quick).

Sure, recreating a game from scratch would be a lot harder and tiresome.

[rraallvv]

There is also Dominus, but it has a more steep learning curve, and the UI and game mechanics seem way too complicated for a mid-core MMO strategy game, IMHO. Although modding Dominus into something that resembles Travian could be a good option too. Maybe even forking Dominus to create a moddable version of Travian could even attract more attention that the original project, just saying.

[eliopinho]

if the server was on a particular vps like amsterdam or china maybe you wont worry :+1:

[Shadowss]

We spoke with Travian juridic department. If you don't charge money like gold charge of players or if you don't take any beneficts on goods about that source they don't sue you. T3.6 is an old version and the graphic image are public that you can change on gpack. Thats why exist many gpack on that version. So you can use it for your own fun , play with friends or public play but you must not use any charge method.

So we don't want to modify any other game like Dominus or what are you sugest. We stick to the original version.

Image of Travian from gpack travian_default are not protected by copyright rights. They make it public to make people to develop more graphic pack. Only code is protected by copyrights , but we don't use the same code.

Also T3.6 have no longer supported by Travian GMBH.

I'll search in my email and give you the answer.

Also Travian make public all formula for combat simmulator and moralbonus , etc..

[rraallvv]

I see... so, it seems only the source code in the backend is original work, so even if one changes the artwork, and other content like text in tutorials and descriptions, the scripts in the frontend would still be proprietary, am I right?

About charging the users or driving some economic gains from the game, I guess I would want to do so at some point if the game attracts some attention.

If I'm correct, in such a case one would only need to re-written the JavaScript code from scratch, although that's still a more bearable task IMO than creating a whole new game.

An alternative though, could be to transpile or "decompile" the JavaScript "binary" or minified version into something like TypeScript, although I'm not so sure if the sources created in that way would be considered derivative work from the original.

[iopietro]

I don't know, most of the JS files are open source/freeware, I think that the only "copyrighted" JS file is unx.js.

[Shadowss]

Can be closed !