Question:
Isn't this technically illegal?
As far as i am aware, dont prima strategy pretty much hold the rights to produce strategy guides and sell them?
Cryptic, you might wanna go snag this guy

He's selling a 'guide to star trek online' =/
Probably taking the FREE info available on the forums from helpful players and using it to make his 'awesome' guide.
I smell legal issues
*Edited by WishStone - please do not drive custoemrs to such sites by posting their URL.
Comments
PS Mineria is in no way a Lawyer, legal advisor or anything similar.
Heh, we need to point the "OMG, I level too easy/fast" posters to this guy.
If he uses screenshots in it, there may possibly be copyright issues if he has not got the rights to use those, but producing a guide to something does not require permission at all, only if one wants to call it an 'official' guide, which was invariably what Prima marketed their stuff as.
I could write a guide to how to drive a Ford Mustang if I wanted, I wouldn't need Ford's permission to do that, unless I called it 'The Official Ford guide to driving the Mustang'
Al
i smell a tattle tale...
As in, he's profitting.
SALE of a strategy guide for a game has to be authorised by the holder of the copyright over said game, as far as i am aware.
which is why you see free stuff all the time, and mostly only Prima strategy guides
Yes, im a tattle-tale, woop-de-do.
No, im a star trek fan. And i find it morally questionable to be profiting out of information that was probably stolen from these forums in the first place, considering there are guides freely avaialable in the forums anyway.
He/she is no better than the gold sellers.
Regardless, this was not meant to be a discussion :P Posted it for a dev/Cryptic rep to see and raise it with their law department.
Worse yet, this guy may be in trouble with CBS...
I just noticed that. He is using a LOT of cryptics assets there.
The logo, the icons, the graphics for his 'cover' and advertisements.
Come on Cryptic, time to go get you some free money. Sue his TRIBBLE :P
edit: and hes offering 50% commishion for people that host said banner too...
Yeah. Thats not good
Yup, that's why I mentioned it. But how do we know for sure that he has not got said permission? Probably hasn't I'm guessing, but that is just a guess.
In any case, 29 bucks for what is probably no better a guide than you or I could offer with a quick collation of the advice freely available on the forums is almost certainly a waste of money. But then again, if someone wants to buy it, good luck to the guy so long as he isn't infringing any copyright.
Al
You are kidding right?
Hate to break it to you , but Prima isn't developing a guide for this game. We can save why for another thread. Matter of fact beyond this forum and the few guides you can buy from Killer Guides there are almost next to no fan sites for STO or content on the web to support it.
Quite frankly I am in full support for anyone who brings any content to STO for the public be it a fan site of a paying guide.
A Prima guide, I'd buy, if it was printed that is. An online guide from someone who doesn't even offer a sample of that guide, definitely not.
i think it's a legal gray area, as long as your using original artwork. not sure about screenshots either, or video.
but lifting a graphic from a website for a profit is illegal.
Cryptic probably does have some legal grounds to get the owners of the site into a court for nicking the name and some art, so do CBS for the name as well.
Have you read the kids terms and conditions?! friggin funny!!! here is part of it...
Visitor downloads information from this site at this own risk. Website makes no warranty that downloads are free of corrupting computer codes, including, but not limited to, viruses and worm
Que up for PvP because you level up twice as fast doing PvP!
Not for the game itself as it's pretty straight forward.
BUT, I can see people being interested in a guide for the Talent Trees.
The problem with the current trees is quite frankly they are misleading in terms of what they do or how they exactly work.
With no respecs currently available I can see some players interest in this.
But, a dedicated fan site (which btw none exist atm) would solve that above problem I'm sure for free.
It might be illegal.
I had a IP conversation with my legal council in 2008. It boils down to fair use, and its a bit irritating to figure out.
The safest thing is to get the IP holder's written permission. Otherwise, you take your chances.
You think that's bad? How about;
'Due to refund abuse the buyer can only issue for a refund after a month from the date of purchase. This is to prevent buyers from exploiting the system by buying the guide and instantly asking for a refund'
I am always sceptical of this sort of website and the offers promted as I fear issues like the one I quote appear to be hiding something else like; 'I don't want you to ask for a refund within the time limit that your local consumer rights says you can because this is a scam!' or 'That's right folks, once the money has cleared for the first month, I'm closing the site and doing a runner!'
Of course, I am not trying to say that in this case there is any wrongdoing. Scepticism has served me well in the past and I see no reason to change the habit.
A cousin of mine did the french MSG1 official guide back in the days, and I must say I was quite impressed at the level of communication he had to put up with Konami, he actually played the game much less than I thought he would (several times the whole game, but not that many times all things considered). Most of his value intell came from Konami themselves.
Which is in total contrast with cheap online paid "leveling guides" with no value associated to them besides the time it took to compile the free information. Then again, websites do it for free (well, usually not free per-se, but hey I can live with adds).
But the question that really sparks my interest here... why no fansite on STO? It's a strange lack. Is it because of a lack of documentation from Cryptic? A lack of interest from players --for instance did the guys at STO-intell throw the towel in? A lack of need? I know I'd like info on skills. What up with that?
You might want to check out http://www.sto-intel.org. They have some really helpful information.
I saw an ad for this thing too on Facebook.
I can't understand why anyone would *want* to pay for a guide/walkthrough when fleet membership and reading or asking these forums is free. Plus pie-in-the-sky promises and "order it now or the price will be increased next week" hard sell ...
Who the heck is this "Admiral Will C." character? I suspect it's a Chinese hacker who only wants your money.
I level fairly easy and many others prolly hit VA in just a month of play. In fact I've bought Duke Nukem 3D and Return to Castle Wolfenstein in the past, no guides for those and I did okay.
*Edited by WishStone - do NOT drive customers to such sites by posting the URL!