Help contacting Vampyr Coders/Vladislaus?

[tashology]

Hello!



I don't know how many of you will remember but there was a programmer, or team rather, for RPG Maker VX. The programmer was called Vladislaus and the group was Vampyr Coders.



They made a number of different scripts such as an action battle system as well as an incredibly detailed MMORPG script. I recently re-discovered the MMORPG script, called Vampyr Net Gaming, and formulated a nice idea to make an online game with RPG Maker VX.



I had the idea that I would go on to sell the game to get money for server hosting as it can be very expensive. Then I read the bundled EULA which says it cannot be used commercially.



The EULA itself was in the "Server" folder leading me to think "does it mean I can't use the server software commercially or does it mean the whole script?"



I then went on a quest to try to track down and contact Vladislaus and the Vampyr Coders team. I tried two different email addresses, which both sent back an error sending message, I tried both websites supplied and when I discovered they were dead I navigated to Archive.org and viewed the website when it was running and could not find any new contact information.



Which leads me here, my last hope. I really don't want to give up on my project and I can't feasibly give the game away for free due to hosting expenses that will no doubt incur.



Does anyone know how I can contact Vladislaus or the Vampyr Coders team to obtain permission?



OR



Do people think that it is fully dead and they would not mind me using it commercially?



OR



Do you think the line from the EULA ("it cannot be used commercially") is referring to the server-side software or the scripts in full?



Obviously I want to do the right thing and get permission but all the people that were credited to this system have vanished off the face of the internet.



Sorry for the long post. I hope one of you can help.

[Zexion]

I'm not a legal expert, but in the past I've seen private servers of real mmorpg's get around the legal issues by way of "donations". If you're not opposed to the idea of the game being free, then you could charge with a guarantee that the money will only go to the cost of the server, and not profit for you. Like I said, not a legal expert, barely even a noob, but I would think that you could charge for the price of the server itself, not the product.

[ForeverZer0]

Or you could just look at this realistically and not charge, since there is rare chance of a commercial RPG Maker game succeeding, or even being finished. I hate to sound cynical, but it is highly unlikely. I wouldn't even worry about this stuff until you get a little further.

[Blizzard]

Zexion has a point. There is a free pokemon MMO that also runs on donations. And even though Nintendo owns the IP, they haven't shut it down. So that model with donations could work out for you.

[tashology]

Or you could just look at this realistically and not charge, since there is rare chance of a commercial RPG Maker game succeeding, or even being finished. I hate to sound cynical, but it is highly unlikely. I wouldn't even worry about this stuff until you get a little further.

I completely agree, I have such a bad record when it comes to making games - a million and one started, a million quit.
(The extra one is this game - for now.)

I'm not a legal expert, but in the past I've seen private servers of real mmorpg's get around the legal issues by way of "donations". If you're not opposed to the idea of the game being free, then you could charge with a guarantee that the money will only go to the cost of the server, and not profit for you. Like I said, not a legal expert, barely even a noob, but I would think that you could charge for the price of the server itself, not the product.

I wouldn't mind that idea. I have another idea that you guys might be able to help with.
I would do a free-to-play with the option to buy items in game using real money - would that be doing it commercially because the rules of the script are that you can't use the script commercially, I'd be using it but not gaining money from the script itself.

What do you all think? Is that feasible/correct?

[Zexion]

I'm not even really sure that you can do that. It just seems wrong that you are using the online script which prohibits commercial use and then sell in game items that you would otherwise not be able to sell.

[tashology]

Hmm, yeah.
See my thought was that it would be alright because I'm not selling the script, I'm merely using the script to sell virtual items.

But I'm not sure now.