Map Suggestions

Hello. This is a followup to http://dominating12.com/forum/?cmd=topic&act=view&id=93&page=29#post-35195 Here's the response I received from Nintendo about getting permission to make a map based on Zelda. [spoiler] Response By Email (06/16/2015 11:41 AM) Hi Susie, I appreciate your interest in Nintendo and all our video game products. To us, it represents a great sign of success and recognition of the Nintendo brand. We are grateful for all the requests we receive for permission to use Nintendo properties; however, we receive thousands of requests and do not have adequate staffing to review them all. Therefore, our general policy is to decline all such requests, no exceptions. I realize this isn’t what you wanted to hear and thank you for understanding. Although we are unable to grant permission, use of Nintendo properties without our formal permission may still be allowed depending on the circumstances. You are encouraged to seek your own legal counsel if you have any questions about whether your particular proposed use is permitted without Nintendo's authorization. This is not a comment on whether we believe your particular proposed use is permissible—Nintendo cannot provide legal advice. Sincerely, Nintendo of America Inc. Aydee Sterling _ Customer By CSS Web (06/14/2015 05:13 PM) To whom it may concern at Nintendo of America, For the website Dominating 12 (www.dominating12.com) I would like to design a map based on The Legend of Zelda series. As The Legend of Zelda is protected by copyright, I would like to ask permission to use the names and geographical features from Hyrule and other lands in the Legend of Zelda universe to create a map on which people can play an online game of "risk". The graphics for the map will be completely original. Here is an example of a fan made map made based on the popular HBO series "Game of Thrones" http://dominating12.com/image/map/36.large.jpg I'm not affiliated with dominating12.com. I am just a user there and a fan of Legend of Zelda and want to contribute a Zelda map. dominating12.com does not profit from the fan made maps. Kind regards, Susie Sahim [/spoiler] Let me know if you think this is fair use or not. Nintendo generally doesn't go after people for this sort of thing. They will go after you if you try to recreate one of their games. And even then it's a cease and desist. Though I'm not a lawyer. Thoughts?

Thanks for taking the time to contact them. You are right, we are not trying to rip off their creation, merely use the concept and not profit from it. If they do object in the future, we can simply remove it, because it is only the display of the recreated image they can object to. I think the key points in all this are "Non Profit" & "Non Defamation", where we don't make any money from using their map and we do not mar their good reputation or company image in what we create from it. All the info' you have supplied along with my response here, will stay on the forum for any formal reference in the future and as you can see, all the onus is on my decision. I have no problem in you making a draft of your proposed map here, but think you should clearly show which map you are basing it on, so there is no uncertainty or possible accusation of intent to deceive.

I think this means go for it, with in the back of the mind that it will be removed if Nintendo asks us - which they probably won't do if I understand the email. Just be sure to put somewhere on the map a sentence like: "Fan made map, not affilated with Nintendo" or something. They basically say something like: "Yeah, we have no time to bother, so we're not going to say yes because you abuse that later. But really, we don't care right now". yay!

That means that we can work with everything from Nintendo, as long as we provide disclaimers, then?

What is that? You want to make a Super Mario map?

Pokemon map?

Yup, Pokémon map. As far as I know there was interest at some point. I could try and do something based on the Kanto-Johto map, which is the easiest to adapt in my opinion.

Cool. Thanks so much Aeronautic and Matty. I guess I should start a thread once I have a draft then? Thanks again! I'm super excited.

There is definitely interest in this map, but please put a draft of your ideas here first and we can discuss it. Please also read the [url=http://www.dominating12.com/forum/?cmd=topic&id=589]DXII Guide to Map Making[/url] thoroughly before you make a draft.

Here is a very rough first draft of the Alexander the great idea. I used that map that I posted as a basis, but I filled in some gaps and altered a few things since it was Achaemenid satrapies and not really Alexander's empire. I stretched the borders here and there. But some of the territories are just TOO small. Especially since on my pdn I have the size as 1817x925. I can cut out the western sea bits that'll save 150pxls and the eastern kingdoms, that are awful small anyhow, and that'll save another 200pxls. It's just soooo wide. There won't be room for a mini-map. Lot's of small regions with lot's of borders. But I think with some rivers and a few judicious borders shifts, there'll at least be the potential to build larger, more defensible areas for deathmatch. And as it is, would be alright for a caps map. Again, extremely rough draft, just looking for approval to move ahead on it. [spoiler][img]http://i1154.photobucket.com/albums/p536/drewbrookover/Alexander%20the%20great%20upload_zps3rcos6yd.jpg~original[/img][/spoiler] Actual link to give a better overall view I think. http://s1154.photobucket.com/user/drewbrookover/media/Alexander%20the%20great%20upload_zps3rcos6yd.jpg.html

Curious, how many territories does it have? It has quite a lot of regions, and degenitely needs a minimap I think. Otherwise it'll be unclear what gets what. You can maybe place one in the bottom right and then just make the whole map taller to fit it. [b]Edit: [/b]around 70 territories. Hmmz, not that much.

If I knock out the eastern territories, I'm thinking around 60 territories. So a smallish map. I'd also like to find out a way to do a non-traditional bonus method (if possible, I know that might not gel with programming people lol) where region bonuses matter less than number of territory bonuses. Make it into a conquest style map. Which I think would reflect well on the theme and the (ancient) history of the region. Something like (2+x)/2=y where x is the number of territories and y is the bonus, rounded down. (although that's basically the system now I guess lol) Or something like for every 2 territories, plus 2 extra territories you get +1 bonus. So 4 territories would get you +1, 6 territories +2, 8 +3. Maybe have each region worth only +1 bonus. Idk I know that's probably impossible, but it would be fun :)

Zoinks, don't mind me, I've been looking at a TON of historical greco-roman-persian maps from the south east europe/central asia region. And if this Alexander the great map doesn't pan out, which idk if it will there's just a lot of inherent problems to overcome with the concept itself, I do think it would be fun/awesome if the site had a Trojan war map. If Alexander the great gets voted down I think I'll pursue it. Or if someone else wants to take it up, I'll leave these here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Homeric_Greece-en.svg http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/ashp/NEWhp252/portnov/crazymap.gif http://winefolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ancient-greek-wine-regions-map1.jpg (the wine region map basically takes care of everything you'd need for the achaean side of things. A wine map for cripes sake...)

Hey, I was thinking about the game maps lately, and I was wondering if a middle earth (Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit) map could be possible? I don't know about permission or anything but I was thinking that if a westeros map was already allowed, a middle earth (lotr) could be cool too. I'm sorry if this has already been suggested and denied, but I can't be bothered to go through 463 messages to see if a middle earth map has already been suggested. (SORRY!) Finally, [b]if[/b] it is possible I already found 2 maps for risk & middle earth; 1. I realize that this map belongs to a company already but it'd still be a good base to work on: [url]http://forums.wesnoth.org/download/file.php?id=47109&mode=view[/url] 2. I did a google for "middle earth map risk". It worked: [url]http://www.boardgamebeast.com/images/conquerclub2.jpg[/url]

It has been suggested several times before, but LOTR in general is not very nice when it comes to IP (intellectual property). Nevertheless, a project was once started, but was put on hold: http://www.dominating12.com/forum/?cmd=topic&id=713