Comments on: Asshats of Arrakis

By: Bassem B.

Bassem B. — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:50:06 +0000

@ChampionHyena: My first exposure to Dune was House Atreides… or House Harkonnen… and since I hadn’t read the original material yet, I enjoyed them a lot. At least now I can read Frank Herbert’s book as a step up.

By: NoNamePls

NoNamePls — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:26:01 +0000

Wasn’t there an aborted Dune MMO way back in 2002? Cryo is it?

By: Sanjassi

Sanjassi — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:33:01 +0000

I loved the first book and i *LOVED* the god emperor of dune. They other books? Hmmmm, kinda acceptable but nothing special.

The thing for companies to do in situations like this is to give limited permission to the people doing fan-things like this, if they are forced to admitt that they are aware of it. Like what T. Pratchett does for discworld mud. Using the “cease-and-decist” sledgehammer on small projects like the SL one just makes them look like assholes.

By: Capital-T-Tim

Capital-T-Tim — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:50:30 +0000

(I would’ve edited my previous post to append this bit, but I can’t, so:) The RPS I know and love would, I hope, prefer to address bad journalism about a game by providing better journalism, not by avoiding the game altogether!

By: Capital-T-Tim

Capital-T-Tim — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:44:55 +0000

I know the topic of this post is copyright-asshattery, and not RPS’s particular journalistic bent, but:

A while back, we made a Hivemind vow to steer clear of Second Life reportage, as it’s an MMO that so often suffers a ridiculously inflated, distorted profile in its press coverage, and we really don’t want to add to that.

I don’t get this. Second Life is a topic that is badly reported on, and therefore you’ve decided not to report on it at all? Maybe I’ve misunderstood your intention, but that’s just ridiculous.

By: MrDeVil_909

MrDeVil_909 — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:30:25 +0000

I really want to read those newer Dune books, but everyone says they are so bad….

They’re not that bad. I wouldn’t go buy them, but definitely worth picking up if you find them in the library.

People just love to be internet drama queens regarding their sacred cows.

By: hitnrun

hitnrun — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:26:04 +0000

This is like a driver who sees another driver run a stop sign and plows into him on the off chance he might manage to injure himself and win a settlement.

Dune is not a household name. It’s a franchise that needs cultivating or it will fall out of pop culture completely. Then what will these people milk?

By: Ysharros

Ysharros — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:57:57 +0000

Trident media are afraid that any Dune-related content they don’t own might be better than what they’ve done (and allowed to be written) in the name of that estate. They should be — wouldn’t be hard to be better than the “Dune in name only” pap they’ve published in the last decade or so.

By: Treesus

Treesus — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:05:32 +0000

I wish they had sent a similar cease and desist to Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. It would have done a lot more to protect the Dune licence from harm.

By: Chaz

Chaz — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:40:11 +0000

Strangly enough I was looking at this old Strafe Left cartoon featured in the “Revist an old Story” box. Which linked to an old forum topic about Northrop Grumman trying to squeeze money out of developers for featuring “their” planes in WWII sims.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/11/18/strafe-left-the-formative-years-4/

By: Grahame

Grahame — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:25:51 +0000

On Moddb there are more than a few teams attempting faithful recreations of a film or book universe.
To the best of my knowledge they don’t receive legal hassle.

By: ChampionHyena

ChampionHyena — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:53:20 +0000

@Weylund: I dunno, pretty much all the Hitchhiker’s books drove me up a friggin’ wall.

As for the topic at hand, I’m not sure how to feel. I’ve messed around with SL, and found it equal parts barren and wholly creepifying. This smacks of Trident overstepping the bounds of courtesy, but…