MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

[Shawn Zipay]

A browser-based, Chinese-developed MMO, Aurora Blade, is in some hot water tonight after it was discovered that many of the game's assets may have come from other games. The two major titles that the MMO has allegedly taken assets from are World of Warcraft and Ragnarok Online.

IGG, the game's publishers for the Western regions issued this statement on the Aurora Blade forums:

Many forum members have posted threads regarding similarity betwen Aurora Blade, and other third party games

Note:
We would like to explain that SkyUnion(IGG) is not responsible for the developing of the game, that is any character, artwork and graphic is developed by another company and this game is HOSTED by IGG.

Any thread or post containing information about other games that including screenshots, game info or any other information will be deleted, as its against the forum rules.We will also take actions against members that will repeat breaking the forum rules.Therefore we have to ban members according to the severity.This may lead to a permanent ban from the forum.

Please take note of the warning!

While it is apparent that a number of the figures are indeed quite similar, it doesn't appear as though anything is a direct rip of a particular asset. We'll certainly have more news as the story develops.

Source (Images)

[CptainCrunch]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

Oh yeah, theyre all toast. Lawsuit city here they come.

I also like the blurb on the forums. "We have nothing to do with it and no talking about it either!"

Crunch

[jesus]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

Lol I used to play on a ragnarok online private server

[Idaeus]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

Hmmm talk about lack of inspiration... I can see why they don't want discussions going on about it on the forums though.

[FPS[SONIC]]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

That's pretty blatant copying ... notice that they actually took the time to redraw the art.

There's some legal "wiggle room" here though and they may not be guilty of stealing assets, but more likely guilty of reverse engineering the game and diluting the brand equity of the original title.

[jesus]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

After looking through the list of monsters I've noticed that almost all the monsters are copies from ragnarok online. They didn't even make any effort to change their "race". The ice monsters in RO are now the ice monsters in that game lol

and the animations are identical, too lol that's pretty sad. even the skills for the classes, and the weapons are similar to RO. The character sprites are exact copies, too.

[Idaeus]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

So basically the game is gonna suck because they haven't made an effort with it...

[CptainCrunch]

Re: MMO Accused of Stealing Assets from WoW

So basically the game is gonna suck because they haven't made an effort with it...

Well, yes, unless you like RO and want to play it uder a different name with some WOW elements mixed in.

So if you played WOW and RO then youve played this game.

Crunch