d20 Cybernet now OGL Cybernet

[Maggan]

I was looking att Mongoose Publishing's website and noticed that d20 Cybernet is now OGL Cybernet.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/detail.php?qsID=193&qsSeries=Core

It seems as if the d20-logo has been dropped, and so we won't see the challenge to the license that seemed to be coming up.

I think this is an interesting development, and not surprising in wake of the renewed interest at WotC to make sure the license is adhered to.

Anyone else has any thoughts on this?

Cheers!

M.

 

[Kichwas]

I expect you'll see more and more of this as companies try to get games to suceed by making OGL recognizable as the -central- RPG system everybody uses rather than d20.

I think most gamers know it's roughly the same thing, and will associate OGL in the same place they put d20. In fact I think OGL has a better chance of being seen as quality -as d20 has had a LOT of misses in that department whereas almost every OGL product on the market has been of top caliber and some of them have even gone on to Origins nominations. Publishers seem to put more care into getting it right when they do OGL...

 

[Nellisir]

...almost every OGL product on the market has been of top caliber.... Publishers seem to put more care into getting it right when they do OGL...

I'm sure you know this, but...d20 is OGL, and there's no guarantee that a non-d20 OGL product will be compatible with d20 products.

Cheers
Nell.

That said, I think it's a smart move on Mongoose's part, and it'll likely be the first Mongoose book I've bought in a few years.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'm not at all surprised. I've raised the red flag (of using the term d20, that is) several times in various announcement threads from Mongoose, but never got a reply from Matt.

It's a very last minute change. I wonder if it was planned all along (they've been advertising it as d20 for some time now) or if someone finally woke up to what they were about to do and said, "Whoa there!"

I had begun to think Mongoose was ready to challenge WOTC in court.

Wulf

 

[Maggan]

Ad in Dragon

I'm not at all surprised. I've raised the red flag (of using the term d20, that is) several times in various announcement threads from Mongoose, but never got a reply from Matt.

It's a very last minute change. I wonder if it was planned all along (they've been advertising it as d20 for some time now) or if someone finally woke up to what they were about to do and said, "Whoa there!"

I had begun to think Mongoose was ready to challenge WOTC in court.

Wulf

Yeah, in Dragon 312 there's even an ad for Cybernet claiming it to be d20. Somehow I myself has difficulties accepting the thought that Mongoose weren't aware of the limitations of the d20-license from the get go of the Cybernet project. The Everquest gang did the same mistake, but that was in the infancy of the licensen, and they quickly fixed the press release associated with the EQ game. So other major publishers shouldn't do the same mistake today, at least that's what I think.

But I don't want to believe that they deliberately misled the consumers, so I'm leaning towards the combined effect of WotC:s recent activity regardign the license, and someone saying, "hey, this might not be a very good idea after all. Let's quietly drop the d20 logo".

They might have wanted to challenge WotC, but decided not to. A shame actually, it would have been interesting to watch the resulting carnage.

Cheers!

M.

 

[Kichwas]

What issues were there in it that would have been challenged or caused a court case?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

What issues were there in it that would have been challenged or caused a court case?

The use of "d20" in the title, without the use of the d20 logo or the d20 System Trademark License.

It looked as if Mongoose were trying to have it both ways: Release a game under the OGL, so that they could include character generation and advancement, while at the same time trying to claim compatibility with WOTC's d20 system trademark.

It would have been a pretty clear-cut violation of WOTC's trademark as well as their Product Identity (since the release of the 3.5 system reference document, WOTC have asserted that the term "d20," when used as a trademark, is Product Identity).


Wulf

 

[Ranger REG]

Mongoose challenging Wizards regarding the QSD??? I find that hard to believe. One might argue that this may be an isolated incident, that is, until Conan Role-Playing Game hit the store shelves with mouth-drooling Frank Frazetta artworks.