a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Yes, we'll have to see what happens.
But my intention is not to actually have these apps taken down, but demonstrate to the mobile developers just how serious I am, and convince them, somehow, to take the clarifying steps that I'm asking them to take.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked. The mobile devs are aware of the take-down notice, and my offer to cancel it, and seem to be sitting tight.
My assumption is also that Apple et al. won't be able to make heads or tails of the whole "public domain" thing, and that mentioning that in my initial foray will confuse them into thinking that the source material is in the public domain for more traditional reasons. Like Cuphead or something. But nope, I drew this artwork within the last two years.
Also, "I'm asking them to clarify that their app is Unofficial, so please take it down" would be a baffling initial request.
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... so why let people comment at this point.
Because why not let people comment? People like to share opinions on things. They like to speculate and they like to vent sometimes too.
But you're right that it is what it is right now. Nothing to be done.
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And here's a summary of why I think the term "unauthorized" is accurate here:
The mobile developers have continued to mislead people in this way, including most recently taking full credit for the game as sole authors in their Chinese version.
Given this behavior, I have asked them to take specific and reasonable steps to clarify the situation, but they have refused.
So, at this point, I have decided that what they are doing is no longer permitted, because they have violated their promises to me, committed fraud, and refuse to take steps to make it right.
In other words, their version of the app has now graduated from "unofficial" to "completely unauthorized."
I do no authorize them to continue to mislead people about my work. Thus, all the ways they are currently using my work is unauthorized, because without additional clarification, it is all misleading (the icon, the screen shots, the name, the game itself---all of it).
If this is not corrected in a way that is satisfying, the only remedy is having the misleading apps in question taken down.
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Just heard from the author of this Touch Arcade review:
https://toucharcade.com/2018/08/23/one- … fe-review/
I really want to apologize, it was pitched 100% that it was sanctioned by you. I swear I even saw a mobile thread on your forum prior to doing the review but I could be mistaken. I never would've went forward with a review.
In other words, I was right: this reviewer had no idea that this was an unofficial adaptation.
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This has been going on for more than four days, and I have more pressing matters to attend to (family, GDC talk, more OHOL updates). So, at this point, I guess I give up.
I have withdrawn my dispute submissions from Apple, Google, and TapTap.
I feel like a great deal of damage has already been done to my legacy and reputation as a designer, and an unfathomable amount of additional damage will be done in the future, if the current course with the mobile adaptation isn't altered. I can imagine a situation in the future where OHOL becomes widely known, but the vast majority of people in the world mistakenly believe that the mobile version is the original version, and that DualDecade alone authored it, or that I am part of DualDecade, and that I approved the changes that they have made. If that comes to pass, that situation will haunt me for the rest of my life. We're pretty close to that already, at least in China and Japan.
One Hour One Life is the biggest project that I've ever worked on, and the one that I'm most proud of, and also the most personal. My pen-and-ink drawings, my watercolor backgrounds, my characters, my voice making all the sounds, and my soul poured into the piano music, which I improvised in one take, directly from the heart. A love letter to the world and to humanity, from where I sit at age 41, half-way through my life, as my three boys transform into men right before my eyes, and as I pass from being the main character in my own story to a supporting role in the stories of other people.
You can all understand how terrible it is for anyone out there who plays and enjoys the game to not understand where the game came from, or think that other people made it, or think that I put Santa Claus in it.
That said, I don't think copyright is the right tool to prevent such harms. The truth does not expire after limited terms. The truth doesn't change or become irrelevant 70 years after the death of the author. The truth doesn't need copyright. The truth just needs people who are willing to tell it.
The truth now, for whoever is willing to tell it, is that the mobile version has gone from "unofficial and not specifically approved" to "specifically unapproved and directly against my wishes as the original creator," only because of the way that its presentation has misled people in the past, and will continue to mislead people in the future, in its current form.
Hopefully, Christoffer, you will be willing to correct this, and prevent additional harm to my legacy, in a way that you can live with.
I've given you four years of my life and creative output, allowed you to build a successful commercial product using that output, and asked for nothing in return. Nothing but the truth. That's on you now.
But as for me, I'm out.
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Even with Jason taking a step back I do hope you have the decency to fix this situation and atleast come up with some sort of name change.
At the moment if I knew nothing about the game and logged into the app store I would see "One hour one life for mobile, by dual decade". It is clear as day where the confusion is coming from. How are you supossed to know that its an unofficial port from reading that. Don't tell me that nobody on your team is up to date with the attention span of most common users when reading description.(They simply don't unless they have a compelling reason)
It's not about the money to him, It's not about the annoying bug reports. He seems genuinely hurt that allot of people believe that his handcrafted work was made by you! Just pointing it out because I'm not sure wether you are not seeing that or activily dancing around it.
Any way Jason has tried everything in his power(maybe even more than he should have) to save what he sees as his legacy. Like I said before if you hold the love for jason that you say you do you will honor his request, Otherwise it seems it were just just empty word. Nobody would want to hurt the person they love.
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I'm glad that Jason has withdrawn his takedown requests. I have had the most awful days and I'm sure they have been tough on him too.
I will get back with more info soon, but not today. But, yes, there will be actions taken on our side.
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We're now in the interesting situation where the mobile game is unauthorized and will remain unauthorized until such time as the developers label it as "unauthorized", at which point it will then be authorized.
Last edited by CrazyEddie (2019-03-05 16:37:28)
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That derivative work is here:
Thanks to the public domain, this developer had full, unfettered creative access to remix and reuse my work, and the result is nothing short of beautiful and astonishing. There are times that I think OneTech is the coolest part of the OHOL universe. Beautiful and astonishing... but NOT confusing!
Onetech would have been very possible as well, if you would have used CC-BY or MIT. Even with the most restrictive CC version (CC-BY-NC-ND) onetech would have been possible. Just saying.
The only thing all of them would require is *somewhere* to put a remark on the license and Jason. And yes it's not regulated on how visible/hidden it may be. In modern cases it could not even be. Imagine a device running an embedded GNU/Linux system, you'd have contributions of thousands of people...
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PS: As OpenSource enthusiast I especially condemn this kind of behavior as seen from that Mobile team, as this really just creates that negative climate and fulfills the fears why so many other people won't go open in the first place. So the damage even goes way beyond OHOL or Jason's legacy.
PPS: I suppose another good example would be "Two hours on life". Nobody ever complained here about confusing, wrong claims etc...
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I don't feel much sympathy for Jason.
He makes his living as a game developer and has done so for fifteen years. He wrote an essay staking out his philosophical position regarding copyright. He's had plenty of time, opportunity, and incentive to fully understand what he was doing when he gave away his intellectual property to the world for free with no strings attached.
While donating his work to the public domain served his purposes in the past, he's now discovered that there are some consequences of doing so that he doesn't like. But those consequences were completely foreseeable. Anyone as deeply interested in the concept of intellectual property as Jason is (his business model for fifteen years has been built around it!) should have known what it implies: that giving up control means you give up control.
You don't get to have it both ways. You take the good with the bad.
---
I'd offer some solace that Jason's legacy as a game designer and as the creator of OHOL is not altered in the slightest. Because let's be blunt. Effectively zero people know who either Jason OR Dual Decade are. They don't know them as people, they don't know them as entities, and they don't know their relationship to One Hour One Life. People don't care about developers, whether individuals or studios. They're players; they just want to play some fun games.
Jason's legacy is still solid and secure among the only audience that it ever existed for: his fellows in the game design community. Other developers, some people in the gaming press, and a very very small segment of gamers (including everyone on this forum!) all know who Jason is and what he's done. The unofficial unauthorized adaptation work by Dual Decade hasn't changed that at all.
If DD's mobile version goes on to take the world by storm, that will only increase the number of people who might care enough about the game to actually learn something about it... and anyone who does will very quickly discover that One Hour One Life is Jason Rohrer's crowning achievement, and that the mobile version doesn't live up to his vision because someone else adapted it and changed it. They'll learn that as soon as they read the full description in the app store, or read the in-game description that DD will no doubt include, or read the Wikipedia page, or read Jason's own page (should he care to mention it there).
Anyone who only reads the name and tag line in the app store wouldn't know Jason Rohrer or Dual Decade from a hole in the ground, and wouldn't care about or remember either of them.
Last edited by CrazyEddie (2019-03-05 17:11:05)
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I am very glad that there has been a deescalation in this conflict.
The main issue is that the truth is not clear in the mobile team's statements. So what is the truth? That the mobile version is a game made by Jason, freely adapted, modified, and exclusively supported for mobile platforms by dd. Something like this statement would in my mind be perfect as the first statement in any online store or description, or the bottom of loading screens, and clearly depict the situation.
Is the mobile game unofficial? Well, English is not my mother tongue, but I have been speaking it and studied in it for 20 years. I don't believe unofficial is the correct description for this situation. Unofficial means that it is not made in an formal way, by people who do it professionally and consider it their job. Unofficial implies bad, wrong, especially in an app store. Unofficial could be the correct term if all rights were reserved by Jason, because unofficial also implies sketchy/illegal. But the game (at least all content up to now) is in the public domain. Nothing is illegal about what dd is doing. They didn't even need to contact Jason in the first place. So there is no legitimacy or officiality order between the games. Both are equally valid, just as valid as 2hol or other adaptations are. The issue is that dd, by not making it clear they did not write the original game and that they are making alterations unrelated to the original game, are being misleading to customers.
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I hope you’re right, Eddie.
Jason hasn’t changed his position on copyright throughout this though. He says so up top.
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Is the mobile game unofficial? Well, English is not my mother tongue, but I have been speaking it and studied in it for 20 years. I don't believe unofficial is the correct description for this situation. Unofficial means that it is not made in an formal way, by people who do it professionally and consider it their job. Unofficial implies bad, wrong, especially in an app store. Unofficial could be the correct term if all rights were reserved by Jason, because unofficial also implies sketchy/illegal. But the game (at least all content up to now) is in the public domain. Nothing is illegal about what dd is doing. They didn't even need to contact Jason in the first place. So there is no legitimacy or officiality order between the games. Both are equally valid, just as valid as 2hol or other adaptations are. The issue is that dd, by not making it clear they did not write the original game and that they are making alterations unrelated to the original game, are being misleading to customers.
I don't like the word "official" either, or anyone but a state authority claiming it. Originating from latins "officium" "to serve" always referred to a position of public state. So I eye any body claiming it. I know however that it has been claimed already by several entities anyway, other game publishers selling "official hintbooks" etc. In sports there are broadly accepted institutions, albeit private foundations, also use "official" all the time. It's no a protected adjective either. Anyway it's something I'd rather avoid was is "official" and what not. This shouldn't distract from the fact there shouldn't be confusions on who did what and is responsible for mainting which.
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While I'm sensitive as you are, lionon, to the use of the word "official" to describe anything that doesn't originate from an Office of some kind...
I suspect that the use of the word "official" in a product name or publicity material could run afoul of trademark law if its use tended to create confusion in the marketplace as to the origin of the product. So an "Official Guide to Major League Baseball" published by someone other than Major League Baseball (without their approval) might get ruled as a trademark infringement. Whereas an "Unofficial Guide to Major League Baseball" would treat MLB as a nominative use and thus not infringing per se, with the "unofficial" serving to ensure that no confusion as to the product's origin could result, making the whole thing non-infringing. Where "Guide to Major League Baseball" would sit I'm not sure.
This would be true regardless of what you and I know to be the correct use of the word "official", simply because it's presence or absence would affect how the public perceives the product based on the common understanding of the term.
Undoubtedly this analysis is leaving out a lot of actual law that an experienced professional would be better situated to correctly explain.
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Eddie, I'm not sure that is true about players not caring about who made their fun games.
LOL players talk about "Riot" and "what Riot is doing," and "Riot sucks and doesn't care about players" all the time.
Rust players talk about Gary.
And boy oh boy did Minecraft players talk about Notch. I've heard kids on the playground arguing about him.
I think that aspect of the gaming world is changing, as gaming becomes (unfortunately) a bigger and bigger part of people's lives---they start to care more about who is making the thing that they are spending every waking moment playing. Remember, there are people who have played OHOL 5+ hours per day, 7 days a week, for 52 weeks in a row.
Even if they don't know them by name, "the devs" are given some consideration by a large number of game players.
And in this specific case, where OHOL is an unusually huge game made by a single guy doing everything by himself, that becomes part of the story of the game itself. This is also the story of Stardew Valley and Cave Story. I pushed this further than ever before, where I stuck myself in the trailer and address the audience directly with my own voice. That is highly unusual and unprecedented. So, if any game has a chance of being connected to a specific creator, this one does.
And as for picking the wrong "license," there is no other permissive license that would have helped here. The required "by" line can be hidden in a reasonable way that would be just as confusing. I mean, yeah, I could forbid all commercial versions (a CC NC license), but a totally free clone of OHOL could have been just as confusing. Same with an "infectious" license like GPL, which would allow commercial clones, but force them to be open source. It would still be confusing, if not explained clearly.
It seems that the only way that I could control this one aspect of the situation (a misleading presentation causing public confusion) would be to wield full-blown, restrictive copyright.
I suppose that I could craft my own license, where I say, "There are absolutely no restrictions on what you do with this work, how you distribute it, or how you change/adapt it, BUT I must hand-approve the way the work is presented to the public."
But even that feels like overkill, and overly burdensome in almost all cases, and would have an unnecessarily chilling effect (what if they can't get in touch with me? what if I'm dead?)
I.e., it's not a problem until its a problem.
The initial wording on the mobile version probably was fine, back then. Just like the wording on 2HOL is currently fine.
Mass confusion is the problem, and it's not an automatic problem.
"I must hand-approve the way the work is presented to the public, and reserve the right to demand changes to that presentation in the future, should the need arise."
Or maybe just the second part, by itself:
This work is not copyrighted. I place it into the public domain.
Do whatever you want with it, absolutely no restrictions, and no permission
necessary.EXCEPT: I reserve the right to demand specific changes to the way you are presenting and explaining your work to the public in the future, should the need for clarification arise, due to public confusion.
Again, sheesh, WTF is something like that doing in a copyright notice?
Copyright says nothing about how something is presented and explained. All it says is that authors have control over who can copy, distribute, or make derivatives from their work for limited times.
I think it is often leveraged for this purpose, as in, "You can only publish this copyrighted book of mine if you put my name on the cover in 72 point red font." If you refuse, you are not allowed to publish my book, end of story.
Now, despite all that, if the publisher, in an interview, says, "Jason didn't really write that book. With how much editing needed to be done, it was practically written by the editor," we'd have a legal problem if that wasn't true, even if they weren't in specific violation of our publishing agreement (they used 72 point red font and everything).
Likewise, if there's a video made where you "meet the creator" of the book, and the entire video features an interview with the editor.
Copyright CAN be leveraged to prevent such defamation, by spelling out all possibilities in the publication contract, but that doesn't mean it is the proper way to prevent such things from happening. After all, the same thing can happen in all other areas of life where no copied works are involved.
And maybe it's a trademark issue. Maybe trademark is used to prevent this kind of confusion for products from competing vendors. But again, it's kind of an ill-shaped hammer to deal with false or misleading claims, generally.
"Heintz Ketchup isn't made from ripe tomatoes at all. They buy run-off swill from the Hunts factory, and boost the red color of the end product with artificial dye."
I haven't violated copyright or trademark there. But I've still broken the law, if I made that statement in earnest, instead of as an example.
So, I think that all the people who said, "Jason, you should have wielded copyright here," or "Jason, you should have wielded trademark here," are trying to "force" the problem into a traditional solution that doesn't really fit.
By not copyrighting and not trademarking, I have apparently opened the door to a very troubling problem. But copyrighting and trademarking would close so many other doors too, along with closing that specific one.
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Jason, I agree with all of your points there about copyright, trademark, and the limitations thereof. I'm not sure what the best approach would be to preserve the kind of control that you'd like to have ("the right to demand specific changes [..] due to public confusion") while giving up the kind of control you'd like to grant freely (everything else, basically).
But I know some people who probably would know.
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Oh, Eddie, you're way smarter than you think you are, and probably a way better lawyer than about 90% of the lawyers around.
Don't succumb to the "expert" fallacy.
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I'm just saying it's good to bounce ideas off of someone who really knows what they're doing.
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I.e., it's not a problem until its a problem.
I clicked on the link.
Regarding trademarks. To me it seems that the name of the mobile app is the most confusing thing about it. It is the thing everyone reads and it certainly implies your involvement or approval. Trademark exist in part to protect consumers from being mislead about the origin of goods and services. I assume you allowed the use of the mark in this case, but doesn't that action contribute to the confusion? Even if you don't mind others using the name itself shouldn't you take the word mark seriously? Even if it is just, "you can use the name but must highlight prominently that you are not the original author of the work".
Incidentally, this is now the second longest thread on the forum.
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I still think the main issue here was just the identical name in the beginning. That doesn't seem like it was a wise choice for either party to have allowed it to happen, and I do think relinquishing trademark was the issue here. Sure trademark isn't going to solve that heinz issue you posted, but it's not like it's meant to solve world peace, just a some specific issues of confusion. You'd have to convince me of a case where it caused a problem rather than not solving some problems. RyanB also gave some scenarios that are worth pondering earlier, so I'm not even sure a public domain for the copyright is that great.
Last edited by Greep (2019-03-05 19:02:08)
Likes sword based eve names. Claymore, blades, sword. Never understimate the blades!
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I am so sorry Jason. Truly cannot imagine being in your position at this point and totally understand your frustration at how they've responded (and not responded in some ways). I have a lot I could say (as a game developer) but thinking on it I won't.
Christoffer, please just stop. Change the name. Add the description text. Add the disclaimer with your side in more info. Seriously. It is not complicated at all. If it impacts the sales of your derivative work, so be it. You selling that work is dependent on the work Jason has done, his good will, and consent. Attempting to hold on to the position you find yourself, and your peers, in now can only be a catalyst for suffering. Please let go, I guarantee you will all be fine. There will be more work to do, good work, and it will not be damaging to others. Clearly this situation has caused enough suffering and damage already, and to let that continue is a shame.
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Yes, maybe Trademark should be my thing, Greep. I've never really given trademark much thought, certainly not as much thought as I've given to copyright.
Does trademark cause any problems or injustices? Is it as delusional as copyright?
Some others have mentioned it, but here is a much younger (14 years younger), much more bright-eyed version of me thinking about the topic:
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason … ution.html
At the time, I hadn't really figured out the whole "making a living part," and now I have, and that's good.
But my concern expressed back then still stands: copyright is impossible. It's impossible to stop consenting adults, operating in the privacy of their own homes, from making "illegal" copies of your work. According to copyright, collage is an illegal artform, but every 6-year-old who is learning to use scissors and glue makes collage. Nice try, copyright.
Now, maybe copyright isn't really about that (even though its wording purports to be, and the RIAA at the time was claiming that it was meant to be---you can't give your friend a copy of this album, goddammit!)
Maybe it's really just about commercial exploitation.
But even that seems immune to enforcement, at least in many cases. Those consenting adults, operating in a private home, could also be engaging in a financial transaction. And if somebody tries to sell a collage, what then? The Internet has made illegal distribution harder to stop in some ways (so many more ways to make copies) and easier to stop in other ways (app stores are easier to keep tabs on than every street-corner bootleg-seller in the world).
The problem is really this: copies of your work can be made without you ever finding out about it, and without you ever being capable of finding out about it. And thus, if you can't even know it, how can you possibly claimed to be harmed by it?
Even so, I think that "copyright" is mistakenly being wielded to combat two very different things (so-called piracy/bootlegging, on the one hand, and unjust commercial exploitation on the other hand---Warner Brothers making the OHOL movie without giving me a dime.)
It seems to me that trademark mostly has the same fundamental problem, though maybe less so, because it specifically governs very public actions (promotion of trade), and doesn't get into the private actions so much. Making a collage with a McDonald's logo isn't a trademark violation.
But separate from whether it is right or even possible, for me, has been the "why bother even trying" factor. I can lock up my bike and defend it against physical theft, and if it is stolen, and I see someone riding around on it, I can go and take it back, or call the police and have them take it back for me.
But if someone is violating my copyright or trademark, what am I really going to do? It's kindof a joke, right? Especially in the international economy. Modern DMCA takedown procedures have made it a little bit easier, I supposed, but eventually, the tip of the spear has to involve litigation.
This is the first time in my life that I "bothered," and look how that ended.
So, for me, it's always been: I'm not really going to stop you, so why pretend that I will? It's in the public domain as an acknowledgement of that reality.
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It is really sad to see that there is such a conflict between Jason and the mobile developer. I really love OHOL on both PC and PE and actually, I first learned OHOL through the mobile version.
From my understanding, what really bothers Jason is that people keep contacting him for the bugs and different things added in the mobile version plus that the reviewers always mention both PC and PE version in the app store.
For the first part, it can definitely be avoided by clarifying clearly in the app store and the mobile app. But I don't think to put 'unofficial' on the splash screen can do the work. People never read that part because they are urging to enter the game. I think a rolling screen of credits before/after the tutorial session is more likely to attract attention. Other places like after the death of each gameplay and a credit page in the menu can also help.
More important is how you attribute the credit. Putting 'unofficial' is not clarifying anything and people would still think of asking Jason when there is a bug or something. In addition to saying that the original work is made by Jason, I think it is more important to add the statement that 'the mobile version is developed/coded by Dual Decade and some adaptations are added without the approval of Jason; If you have any questions or to report any bug please contact Dual Decade'.
For the second part, the reviewers mentioning PC and PE together doesn't really mean they mix them up. To be honest, I would say the same thing and recommend everyone to buy both PC and PE even though I know Jason has no control over the mobile version. It would be really bizarre to see the reviewers saying how much they like the game, how much they appreciate Jason for creating the original one and in the same time clarifying that they know the PE version is not delivered by Jason himself. Most of the reviews on AppStore are positive and I can see from the reviews that people really love both PC and PE version. I hope this won't be a problem to Jason anymore as long as the first part is solved properly.
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Well my personal hate of IP laws is just how people can abuse the length of them. There's no sensible reason for copyright to last like 70 years or whatever the heck it is (edit: yeesh, the authors whole life plus 70 years), or trademark lasting literally forever if used forever. You can of course, give up the rights later after you've made your mark and people generally know who to credit the original work.
The only odd thing I know about trademark is how it's not necessarily just the exact name that is protected. For example, I remember some lawsuit where the holders of "tetris" won a suit against anyone naming a puzzle game ending in "-etris". So even "Unofficial One Hour One Life" e.g. may not be allowed. But probably would be. Don't know for sure.
Last edited by Greep (2019-03-06 01:30:43)
Likes sword based eve names. Claymore, blades, sword. Never understimate the blades!
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