Arokhslair.net

The BOD forums are now not viewable if you are not logged in. There has been some copyright claims put in which frankly is bullshit but I can't be arsed with the hassle so they are now not visible anymore. If you are an existing user you can still view the forum but public will no longer be able to. I'll explain why below:-

I'm sorry but I'm not putting up with threats and harassment over a game. This guy is claiming that one of our forum members pirated Blade of Darkness from a Chinese game and then added viruses then distributed it throughout the rest of the world and has been doing so for the last 19 years. I know the accused forum member is only 25 so how can a 6 year old take a game, translate it into various languages and then sell it to a publisher? Everyone knows that BOD was marketed as Blade of Darkness in the USA and Severance: Blade of Darkness in EU and was developed by Rebel Act Studios through the publisher Codemasters. It was distributed in China under the name Dark Blade, this guy is now claiming copyright and accuses this site of distributing the game illegally. This is untrue, the game is NOT hosted on this site at all.

All we are is a forum that has fans that talk about the game. This crazy guy is sending threatening emails, and harassing me wanting me to delete the accused member's posts. I've been through all of his posts and none have any links to pirated content and he hasn't done anything wrong. It seems to be a personal vendetta between those two people and he wants our member removed from the internet.

So as I've said above, this is just a game forum. I don't get paid for this and harassment and threats to sue me, letters from lawyers is all something I can do without. So to keep him off my back this is why I made the forum private. If I get any more hassle the (BOD) forum may have to go. I can understand if members want to set another forum up elsewhere.

I'll leave this open for comment.

Edit:

The guy who claimed copyright infringement now seems happy that I've assured him there's no pirated copies of BOD on this site and I've made the forum inaccessible to non registered users. He was bothered about links to forum posts here that were posted on another site. He failed to show screenshots of this which I asked for on several occasions. So now any links to here that he's unhappy about will not be visible any more. If he had provided evidence then I would have just removed them but he didn't other than send me increasing threatening emails.

I've also done some checks on the games copyright. Codemasters did own it originally but their copyright has expired so it is possible that someone else can claim it. It was available on gog.com until this copyright expired and now is unavailable. I don't know what goes on in China but I'd guess it's easy and cheap to buy it out. So let's say he does own the copyright to dark blade but that's only in China. Everywhere else it's known either as severance or blade of darkness and copyright in EU and USA is in limbo / considered abandonware. I'm no expert on these things but if someone is please comment.

Let's hope that's the last of it.

Edit 2:

Well it appears not, he's still relentlessly emailing me and his emails are in broken English. He still claims that he owned Rebel Act Studios and developed the game on his own and it was only ever sold in China and in Spain. He claims that one of our members stole the game and then sold it which is entirely untrue. Please bear in mind he said this was 19 years ago which would make our forum member 6 years old at the time.

What did happen was Rebel Act Studios based in Spain (now defunct) made the game and selected Codemasters as the publisher. They then authorised it to be sold in China under the name "Dark Blade" and that company who distributed it in China went out of business in 2003. This guy has set up a new company with the same name, bought the rebel act studios domain name then registered the game as "Dark Edge" which was originally "Dark Blade" and then claims he made the whole thing and our forum member is selling it illegally with viruses attached. No-one is selling the game now. It was being sold on GOG.com up until 2013 which is when Codemaster's copyright expired. So no-one owns the game now except maybe for China. He's basically took an abandonware game and claimed it as his own and then tried to sue any website that has any content related to the original game.

Furthermore looking at the guy's age he would have been 12 years old when he supposedly developed this game. I am sick to death of being pestered by this guy. Even though he said he was satisfied he still insists the member should be deleted along with anyone else who made mods for the game.

He wants to sue me but how can he sue a website that has nothing to do with his game apart from he does not like a few of our members. I've just added him to my block list so I'll get no more emails from him as it's a pointless argument. I've also blocked China as a whole from accessing this site at all. Sorry but that's just tough shit. I've whitelisted IP ranges of known members in both the Drakan and BOD community.

Pretty sure (100%) this is just scare tactics to try squeeze money out of no where (don't give in to his bullshit).

Since no full game is being hosted anywhere on this site, only mods and forum posts and that no one really knows who the true IP owner is (which i think would be any of the original Rebel Act members or the original publisher) this one guy from china, got nothing.

It's just false claims. so don't worry.

I agree with Blackbeard. No need to worry, especially when forum doesn't have uploaded BoD. Mods and other stuff is redirected to external links. IMHO Because it is only game and all modding stuff should be make as hobby, I ask all members of the Arokh's Lair to not argue and provoke other guys on the internet in terms of copied mods, piracy etc. It really is not worth it and can do things worse, genuine members know the truth who made mods, fan content etc.There are websites such as ModDB or Github where is author mentioned. In terms of selling illegally game abroad only actual owner of BoD should care(if he still exists).

Thanks guys but after what happened to two of the members from the bod community here I'm edging in caution with this Chinese guy. He's clearly a psychopath who even went as far as tracking down home address and phone numbers to harass further. Don't need that shit.

To correct any confusion it was me that posted above I just used the admin login which I tend to do for forum related announcements.

well, looks like you got a case against him instead then, contact police and inform them of a stalker.

True but you have no chance against China, unfortunately there's not much you can do. I could contact his ISP though if that does any good.

perhaps.

I contacted Codemasters about this as well, they confirmed the below:-

Thank you for submitting your recent request to Codemasters Customer Services concerning Severance: Blade of Darkness.

Severance: Blade of Darkness was developed by Rebel Act Studios and published by Codemasters.

Kind regards
***
Codemasters Customer Services

We already know that though but yeah if this guy wants to try anything Codemasters said they would help.

oh nice, good to hear.

I do remember a user who posted a link to a Russian download site (Rampage?) on the old forum, back when there was no other way to get the game. But then GoG had it. Then it disappeared from GoG. And now we're back to not having a way of buying it. Well, it looks like there's used copies available at least.

yeah and thats a shame, the game could do with a remaster to make it work 100% on new OS's.

Or better yet, do what they did with 'Chronicles of Riddick' and make a sequel on a new engine and bring the OG to the new engine in a complete package with gore, swords and shadows.

Reporting it to police may be a good call. They will probably do nothing but they can tell you what to do really in such situation/s.

And contacting ISP may give you some insight in what they are thinking and maybe they can or will do something.

Unfortunately the police won't be able to do anything as no crime has actually been committed (although you could class it as harrassment) and it's international. Only thing you can really do is complain to his ISP which would have been the next thing to do. But with it being China I suspect they don't always play by the rules (a lot of ISP's are probably into spamming, fraud etc and are as untrustworthy as their customers) so I doubt they would do anything.

All BoD forums are now not visible until you log in if anyone is wondering where they have gone.