Judge by yourself.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...reverde.utopia
Disclamer - It just been shared, I got no impression on it!
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Judge by yourself.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...reverde.utopia
Disclamer - It just been shared, I got no impression on it!
Trying to charge people to use someone else's game? Not worth imo even IF the formatting was better than Mink's.
fixed that for youQuote:
Originally Posted by Band of Horses
Nice, glad to see someone is/was actually working on that. Making it a donation based might be better though, similar to the model munks using.
Charging money for beta software for a _free_ game that, belongs to someone else, is not a good idea. Releasing it as beta and asking people to help improve it via bug reports / testing and suggestions and asking people to donate money if they can is my suggestion (as well?).
Yup, prep the lubeQuote:
Originally Posted by khronosschoty
On second thought, we should have a free utopia app within a year or lessQuote:
Originally Posted by wingding
Why do you say that, if you do not mind me asking?Quote:
Originally Posted by wingding
Lawyers will obtain itQuote:
Originally Posted by khronosschoty
I doubt it! lol that would cost money.
I don't see it taking much more than a letter claiming $$k in damagesQuote:
Originally Posted by khronosschoty
That would cost money if you have a lawyers do it.
Hi, I made the app. Thanks for posting this, chalsdk.
Most of the motivation really was just wanting a better gaming experience for myself and the community. Logging in and doing basic tasks on a phone is really daunting, so this is aimed to help with a lot of that--it doesn't do everything, but it does most of the things you do during the day while you're at work or unable to get to a desktop. The app took me a little over a year to make in my spare time, so I don't think it's unreasonable to charge a little for it. I set the price to $1.99; reading the forums a year ago, I remember that was what the userbase said they'd be willing to pay, and that feels fair to me. I'm sorry you feel jilted for paying for an app for a free game. If creating the app was a trivial task, then I'd love to release it for free, but the truth of it is that this has taken months to create, and it'll take many more months to do all of the things I'd like it to do--not to mention the work needed to keep the app up-to-date with the game. If people do adopt the app, I'd be really interested in getting feedback and implement the features that the community wants.
I don't know if the owners of utopia are on the forums much, but I'd love to coordinate with them if they're interested. I played utopia back in the early 2000s when I was in high school, so this game will always have a fond place in my heart. I respect the hard work and dedication they've put into Utopia to keep it alive. I hope the app breathes some more life into the userbase-numbers.
I wonder if it will grab the attention of people just looking at strategy games. In any case, thank you for your efforts.Quote:
Originally Posted by joshmg
Should have run it by the developers before even publishing it, let alone charging for it. You're prolly in breach of some copyrights.
Ah well, we'll see soon enough when Bishop sees this thread. My guess is that he'll ask you to remove it from the store or make it free.
Great work on the app, I am glad one is out there now.
I do worry about the legality of it all as you didn't co-ordinate with the devs or at least Bishop
Lets gets things Right..
NOTHING in life is FREE!
We NEEDED the app for over a year now, and peaple have been *****ing about it!
And it shoud bring extra peaple to the Game, so the "Utopia Lords" risk nothing, as utopia is always borderline unplayerble on a phone in the first place!
They where NEVER going to fund money into making it, they made that perfektly clear!
If anything they shoud by happy! It will bring extra players!
However I agree that perhaps he shoud have talked with bishop and others first..But it might be able to save a fastly dying game, as soo many talked about!
If it shoud be free & live of donation can be argued.. In essens I agree with both stances. but perhaps donation had been better
id be seriously disappointed at bishop & devs if they would take that route.. thats been the ONLY thing whole community agrees on that we need a mobile app & the cost of developing the app was constantly brought up as an answer to the request.. if anything, this guy should be shown gratitude and put all possible effort to get this app running to full extent with all utilities possible..Quote:
Originally Posted by Cello
p.s. as for him charging money for it, i believe the cost was told to be like 50k$ or something? this guy asks for 2$ per user and thats 10k$ if we had 5k players and all were using it.. i dont see why would devs be grumpy about it, for getting something ppl ask for done without their effort nor money..
Hahaha typical Uto community, ***** about not having an app then *****es about having to pay 2 dollars for one that someone spent a year on creating in his own spare time for you guys. Great work hogs!! Glad to be part of the kingdom that helped you finish it off. Pretty cool to be part of the war that's featured in the screen shots too. But it will never be any good until it's in iOS format.
No one is really complaining about that he wants a few bucks for it. It's more of a concern if the creators of Utopia will go viking mode on him since he might charge for an IP that isnt his. Thats the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malficient
Anyways nice work! And i hope everything will go fine!
good job :P
and $1.99 is totally reasonable.
The thought is nice and a proper app is needed but its not that hard having a discussion with Bishop about all this so it could been done the proper way.
Myself I am aversed to pay for anything that I havent exactly tried our know from the begining its solid. So donations would been right step to take, just look at munk he seems to strive with the donations so far. :)
It's not so much an issue with 2 dollars, it's an issue with possibly copyright violations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malficient
Communicating this with Bishop or the dev's before publishing it would've been a better way.
I'm happy to have a conversation with the Utopia-devs if they're interested! It'd be cool to talk with them, actually. Like I said, I've played this game on and off since I was a kid, and the point of this app isn't to scrape money from the Utopia community. If the Utopia-devs don't like the situation of the app (which at the moment, is pure speculation of a few, and not evidenced by anything), then I'm absolutely willing to have a conversation with them, and do what's best for the community.
I'm disappointed that the community's initial response is borderline hostile. I'm surprised that you few chose copyright as your primary concern, instead of letting that kind of stuff be handled by the parties whose concern it actually is (Utopia's Dev's and mine). Regarding my perspective on copyright, the app integrates with utopia similarly to how uMunk does, and they've not taken issue with that, so I don't think there's an issue. Furthermore, the Utopia-devs have had discussions about apps interfacing with utopia on these very forums, and have not expressed any discontent with the concept. I also saw (nor see currently) anything in their rules^1 that forbids any actions that the app performs. Finally, and most importantly, their decisions are their own, and Utopia is theirs; I'm happy to comply with their needs. In my mind, I owe them respect and gratitude for maintaining a game for over 10 years; I do not wish to disrespect of subvert their wishes.
You're welcome to use the app, and you're also welcome to pretend it doesn't exist. I was hoping to do some good for you guys.
^1 - wiki.utopia-game.com/index.php?title=Game_Rules
josh:
Thanks for making the app. I'm sure android users will be happy. While it's not quite designed the way I would have done it, it does look both nice and useful.
I suspect, generally, you won't really run afoul of legal issues (well, maybe copyright but I suspect utopia can't be copyrighted). What you're doing, as I understand it, is just building a web browser with links that take people to specific places and change the way information is displayed to be more mobile friendly. There are plenty of (kosher) examples of that happening historically. That said, I think that the community generally prefers free services that they donate for over paid services -- particularly given the beta nature.
You're right though, the way it works is very similar to how stinger or munk work -- those two operate as web extensions that scrape data off the page for use outside of utopia (and to some extent, munk, utools, etc will also reformat the way the page is displayed, add links, etc) -- what you are doing is the same kind of scraping and reformatting of the page.
All that said, this is something I'll never use both because I use an iOS phone and because it doesn't appear to integrate with munk.
Thanks, Zauper.
Regarding uMunk integration: it does! Here's my reply to a similar question posted on reddit.
"If you enter your uMunk credentials within the "uMunk Sync" tab, then it enables uMunk syncing on every operation that you do within the app automatically. It also sends your province data as you access it (so, if you don't go into your Buildings-Tab, it won't send your survey). Everything is done behind the scenes without you doing anything other than entering your credentials. You can disable it by hitting the "Clear" button within the uMunk sync."
--
Also, if the android app does catch on, I'd be interested in making an iOS version. But that would also take a long time, but would be fun. I make iOS apps for a living, so it wouldn't be terribly hard to port it over. I know my KD mates are hounding me for one, haha. Just trying to figure out how to clone myself so I'd have enough time.
The issue isn't that he made the app, the issue is that he made it without the permissions of the owners of the copyright. Honestly he just needs permission from them and he is fine.
Is it copyrighted? I don't see a (c) anywhere which would normally indicate the presence of a copyright.Quote:
Originally Posted by Osaze
You certainly can't copyright the word 'utopia', so what would the copyright be for?
All that said, of course it would generally be recommended to get permission from the owners of the game before you build an app that generates revenue off of it, but again, think about angel. It's not like Brother Green had permission from mehul to build an application, he just did it and then put ads in it to get revenue for himself. I'm sure that if B&S don't like it, there are things they can do that make it hard/impossible for his app to function, but that doesn't make it illegal.
Josh -- does it also pull in the ability to do things like umunk autofill?
Thanks, Zauper. To answer your question: I don't know. I don't think so. I'm not sure what uMunk's autofill is, so there's a really good chance that it doesn't do it. ;) It just uploads intel, it doesn't download anything from outside the app--I didn't want to go into that realm of capability, because I think it starts to walk the line of giving an unfair advantage to users with the app vs those without.
When was the last time a dev posted in here anyways?
Great work.
I'm out of the app loop myself, but I do value a happy player base.
There's a time for legal mumbo jumbo and this ain't one of them. This is a hand up and the $2 fear is rediculous. I've put plenty of cash in the game through credits myself. Just because a handful of cheap asses would club an old lady for a dime doesn't mean the rest of us are whales. It's 2 f'n bucks.
If you use the munkbot extension, there are built-in tools (like the build calculator, sci filler-outer, and a tool on the war page that will fill in intel and offense necessary to break, based on your mods). Does it keep any of those tools around? Sounds like you probably drop 'em. In which case I'd rather just use his extension even if this were an option for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by joshmg
@ Strato - All signs point to the app creating wanting to help himself, not utopia.
Free apps create exposure, which was the #2 reason people wanted an app in the first place, behind actually having something that makes mobile playing nicer than it is. It doesn't matter what the price is, could have been $.20, it still seems like an attempt at making a little money off Utopia, which I disagree with in principle.
Zauper - idk, wasn't Myhtea named Utopia something before and a total rip off until had to change content and name?
It was originally named battlefields, after the old server. I don't know why it renamed ultimately, I hadn't heard the lawsuit rumor, but I also suspect that just a threat would be enough because it almost certainly doesn't make enough money to pay for a lawyer.
wait a sec, I am not a Munk user. His extension fills in proper troops to send on hits programmatically for you? That seems like cheating to me, both in speed to help avoid soldier blocks and things like that and in removing some human error which is part of what makes the game fun.
It does what you would do with data you feed it.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Utopian
ie get som, go to war room, select prov, click get def from bot, then auto fill
All of that sounds normal / fine to me minus auto populating the troops to hit with. Just my 2 cents.
Exactly this, on top of the fact that it's still in beta. If you want testers and lots of feedback, going the donation route is the best way. Ask money for it once you've got a finished product, and from what I can see in the app store the list of things that it doesn't do is longer than the list of what it does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Palem
"wait a sec, I am not a Munk user. His extension fills in proper troops to send on hits programmatically for you? That seems like cheating to me, both in speed to help avoid soldier blocks and things like that and in removing some human error which is part of what makes the game fun."
@2Utopian: Not sure who the subject of your pronoun was, but just to clear up the air, the app I made does not prefill anything.