Really...so there’s the answer to the question that’s been burning up in the gaming world since it released: why aren’t other games using this mechanic? It’s so fresh and fun and yet it’s entirely...
Really...so there’s the answer to the question that’s been burning up in the gaming world since it released: why aren’t other games using this mechanic? It’s so fresh and fun and yet it’s entirely absent...yet every game has map-revealing radio towers and other now cliche mechanics after popular games pioneered them.
Now we know I guess. God I dislike the rules that allow people to just hold ideas hostage. It always seems like the coolest ones have owners that don’t do much with them too.
Patent system is way outdated. These days it's basically just weaponry for big companies. If you patent something as a small company that a big company wants, best case you get bought out. Worst...
Patent system is way outdated. These days it's basically just weaponry for big companies.
If you patent something as a small company that a big company wants, best case you get bought out. Worst case they steal it and throw an army of lawyers at you till you shut up about it.
Applied for a patent. Not patented. This turns the headline from informative into a bald-faced lie. Which is then also repeated in the opening paragraph. I hate when journalists do this. A lot of...
Warner Bros. applied for a patent on the system back in 2015. So far as I can tell, it's an application that hasn't officially been granted a patent number, but it seems the chilling effect on developers who might want to tinker with a similar system is the same.
Applied for a patent. Not patented. This turns the headline from informative into a bald-faced lie. Which is then also repeated in the opening paragraph.
I hate when journalists do this. A lot of people only skim headlines. Lying in a headline, even if the article corrects it, is just an act of mass epistemic poisoning.
Patents often take quite a while to be fully processed, so even the act of applying for one can prevent the use of the idea by others, since major competitors won't want to risk the patent...
Patents often take quite a while to be fully processed, so even the act of applying for one can prevent the use of the idea by others, since major competitors won't want to risk the patent eventually being approved and then getting sued by the patent holder if they copied the ideas in the mean time.
Not only that but it looks like the Nemesis system patent was more than just applied for, unfortunately. Look at the "Legal Events" section at the bottom of google patents tracker: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160279522A1/en
It went through initial examination, initial rejection, a revision, a second examination, and recently now finally appears to have been approved (hence the "notice of allowance" issued on 2020-10-21).
A Notice of Allowance is a document sent to a patent applicant from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) after a patent examiner has decided to issue the requested patent. The Notice of Allowance comes after the inventor has turned in a patent application and provided all information about the invention. This information includes the patent's description, design, drawings, or blueprints.
Since the Notice of Allowance shows the application is complete and meets all requirements, it is the final step in the long and complex patent application process. Your patent application has been fully reviewed and your invention has been given the green light for patenting. All that's left is to pay remaining fees and send any drawing corrections.
Thanks for tracking this down and providing details. Before posting my comment, I skimmed the original link and "DuckDuckGoed" the patent by name, viewing first links, but I only ever saw the...
Thanks for tracking this down and providing details. Before posting my comment, I skimmed the original link and "DuckDuckGoed" the patent by name, viewing first links, but I only ever saw the application, dated 2016, with no indication there were any further changes in its state. I guess I should've Googled it instead...
Definitely looks more dangerous / chilling now. Still not patented, though, and I wish the article included some of the details you just did (or even linked to Google's patent page).
While that's technically true, AFAIK at this point all that remains is for WB to submit any corrections and pay the nominal post-allowance fees (and any misc. ones they may have accrued), then the...
Still not patented, though
While that's technically true, AFAIK at this point all that remains is for WB to submit any corrections and pay the nominal post-allowance fees (and any misc. ones they may have accrued), then the patent will be formally granted. And I doubt that will be much of a hurdle for them.
I too wish the article had gone into more detail though.
I apologize, I didn't mean to imply you are at fault here. I assumed that you simply took the submission title from the title of the article. I'll make sure to make this distinction clear in the...
I apologize, I didn't mean to imply you are at fault here. I assumed that you simply took the submission title from the title of the article. I'll make sure to make this distinction clear in the future.
My gripe is only with journalists, because I'm getting tired of the real-world conversations with real people that follow the pattern of:
X: Did you know that ${something interesting or outrageous}?
Me: Wow, that's interesting/outrageous! I'd like to know more.
X: Here's an article I just saw. Me reading the article
Me: You know, I just read the article, and ${something interesting or outrageous} is not true. Here, look <points at the contents inside the article>. It's just a lie in the headline. Again.
You can probably revise it back, since it appears the patent was more than just applied for. See my reply: https://tild.es/uw7#comment-6527 The patent appears to have actually been approved...
You can probably revise it back, since it appears the patent was more than just applied for. See my reply: https://tild.es/uw7#comment-6527
The patent appears to have actually been approved ("notice of allowance" issued on 2020-10-21), so all that remains is for Warner Bros. to pay the remaining fees and send any corrections in before it's finalized.
Xcom 2 war of the chosen also did a nemesis system. They weren’t randomly generated, but they were possibly better because of it. Sidenote: I played through SoM a few years ago, and I thought the...
Xcom 2 war of the chosen also did a nemesis system. They weren’t randomly generated, but they were possibly better because of it.
Sidenote: I played through SoM a few years ago, and I thought the nemesis system was spectacular. I am not a game developer, but I didn’t see any obvious improvements they could make. Now I am playing SoW, and they improved every single aspect of the system somehow. It is so much deeper than it was in SoM.
If anyone has been waiting to play SoW because of the micro transactions, you will be pleased to know that they removed them, rebalanced the game, and never added them back in. Definitely worth playing. It has become one of my top games of all time.
Yep. They still have “multiplayer” in the form of vengeance missions for other players death and online fight pits for your war chief. You can disregard all of that. The only annoying thing I...
Yep. They still have “multiplayer” in the form of vengeance missions for other players death and online fight pits for your war chief. You can disregard all of that.
The only annoying thing I found was an ad in all the menus to get an exp boost for signing up for Warner brothers newsletter. I tried to sign up and the interface wouldn’t even let me select the option.
There was a post on this in /r/games that had good discussion in it, along with a good comment I wanted to share here, but I think the topic got deleted since I can't find it anywhere. Closest I...
There was a post on this in /r/games that had good discussion in it, along with a good comment I wanted to share here, but I think the topic got deleted since I can't find it anywhere. Closest I could come was this comment from a post on /r/pcgaming which linked to the same PC Invasion article as the post I was looking for:
They can only patent the method of how the nemesis system works, what they cannot do is patent the idea of the nemesis system. This means all someone has to do is simply create a different method to obtain the same result of the idea.
So I really don't buy that this patent is preventing anyone else from using a nemesis system in their own games.
A few games have replicated the system in one way or another, e.g. Watch Dogs: Legion. I don't know much of anything about patent law, but I'd wager this pending patent won't stop anyone from copying the general idea at all, even if it's accepted.
Really...so there’s the answer to the question that’s been burning up in the gaming world since it released: why aren’t other games using this mechanic? It’s so fresh and fun and yet it’s entirely absent...yet every game has map-revealing radio towers and other now cliche mechanics after popular games pioneered them.
Now we know I guess. God I dislike the rules that allow people to just hold ideas hostage. It always seems like the coolest ones have owners that don’t do much with them too.
Patent system is way outdated. These days it's basically just weaponry for big companies.
If you patent something as a small company that a big company wants, best case you get bought out. Worst case they steal it and throw an army of lawyers at you till you shut up about it.
Applied for a patent. Not patented. This turns the headline from informative into a bald-faced lie. Which is then also repeated in the opening paragraph.
I hate when journalists do this. A lot of people only skim headlines. Lying in a headline, even if the article corrects it, is just an act of mass epistemic poisoning.
Patents often take quite a while to be fully processed, so even the act of applying for one can prevent the use of the idea by others, since major competitors won't want to risk the patent eventually being approved and then getting sued by the patent holder if they copied the ideas in the mean time.
Not only that but it looks like the Nemesis system patent was more than just applied for, unfortunately. Look at the "Legal Events" section at the bottom of google patents tracker: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160279522A1/en
It went through initial examination, initial rejection, a revision, a second examination, and recently now finally appears to have been approved (hence the "notice of allowance" issued on 2020-10-21).
https://www.upcounsel.com/notice-of-allowance
Thanks for tracking this down and providing details. Before posting my comment, I skimmed the original link and "DuckDuckGoed" the patent by name, viewing first links, but I only ever saw the application, dated 2016, with no indication there were any further changes in its state. I guess I should've Googled it instead...
Definitely looks more dangerous / chilling now. Still not patented, though, and I wish the article included some of the details you just did (or even linked to Google's patent page).
While that's technically true, AFAIK at this point all that remains is for WB to submit any corrections and pay the nominal post-allowance fees (and any misc. ones they may have accrued), then the patent will be formally granted. And I doubt that will be much of a hurdle for them.
I too wish the article had gone into more detail though.
"DuckDuckWent"? :)
I apologize, I didn't mean to imply you are at fault here. I assumed that you simply took the submission title from the title of the article. I'll make sure to make this distinction clear in the future.
My gripe is only with journalists, because I'm getting tired of the real-world conversations with real people that follow the pattern of:
X: Did you know that ${something interesting or outrageous}?
Me: Wow, that's interesting/outrageous! I'd like to know more.
X: Here's an article I just saw.
Me reading the article
Me: You know, I just read the article, and ${something interesting or outrageous} is not true. Here, look <points at the contents inside the article>. It's just a lie in the headline. Again.
You can probably revise it back, since it appears the patent was more than just applied for. See my reply: https://tild.es/uw7#comment-6527
The patent appears to have actually been approved ("notice of allowance" issued on 2020-10-21), so all that remains is for Warner Bros. to pay the remaining fees and send any corrections in before it's finalized.
Xcom 2 war of the chosen also did a nemesis system. They weren’t randomly generated, but they were possibly better because of it.
Sidenote: I played through SoM a few years ago, and I thought the nemesis system was spectacular. I am not a game developer, but I didn’t see any obvious improvements they could make. Now I am playing SoW, and they improved every single aspect of the system somehow. It is so much deeper than it was in SoM.
If anyone has been waiting to play SoW because of the micro transactions, you will be pleased to know that they removed them, rebalanced the game, and never added them back in. Definitely worth playing. It has become one of my top games of all time.
Really? I played the first chapters and then walked away because of the multiplayer/microcurrency BS. I'll take another look at it.
Yep. They still have “multiplayer” in the form of vengeance missions for other players death and online fight pits for your war chief. You can disregard all of that.
The only annoying thing I found was an ad in all the menus to get an exp boost for signing up for Warner brothers newsletter. I tried to sign up and the interface wouldn’t even let me select the option.
There was a post on this in /r/games that had good discussion in it, along with a good comment I wanted to share here, but I think the topic got deleted since I can't find it anywhere. Closest I could come was this comment from a post on /r/pcgaming which linked to the same PC Invasion article as the post I was looking for:
A few games have replicated the system in one way or another, e.g. Watch Dogs: Legion. I don't know much of anything about patent law, but I'd wager this pending patent won't stop anyone from copying the general idea at all, even if it's accepted.