Evidyon – No Man’s Land game features
Free and Open Source
Evidyon – No Man’s Land its a free-to-play and open source 3D Mmorpg, this higly addictive game have all you want from a commercial game; fast-paced PVP; lot of contents, Guilds, Dungeons, Geosids, Partys, and more than 60 lvls to explore!Licensed under GPLv3 , it allows you to create and distribute your own online game for free! We have already released the Evidyon : No Man’s Land source code so you can start developing your game right now, you will be able to sell game items and charge a fee to play in your server. We made this project with educational purposes, however we have costs to keep the official server alive, website domain and hosting rentals and advertising campaigns etc… please visit our shop!First, I would like to say that I am very interested in encouraging developers to make new versions of Evidyon and, yes, even profit from hosting the game and creating a great experience for players. It is not my intention to limit you in this way; however, consider the amount of work that went into producing Evidyon and you’ll understand why there are conditions on what you can do.As stated in various locations (including everywhere in the source code) Evidyon is licensed to you under the GPL. Jointly, Joe Muller, Erich Gluk, and Karl Gluk assert copyright over all of the source code and content. This means the following:
FromNovell.comIn US copyright law, a copyright owner of an original work is theonly one with the right to make or license derivative works based upon a previously copyrighted work. A derivative work is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. US copyright law stipulates that a work will only be considered an infringing derivative work if it is substantially similar to the copyrighted work, and if the copyright holder did not authorize the derivative.
By releasing this content under the GPL, we have exerted our rights to “license derivative works,” given some set of conditions. In order to use the source code or models, you have to agree to be bound by the terms of the license. So what are those terms?
- Nothing you anything you add or modify can be proprietary (you must make open-source all changes to the game)
- Source code and source media must be provided alongside the compiled game
- Include along with your distribution the terms of the GPLv3
- There is no warranty of any kind
There are a number of things you must and must not do in order to comply with these terms and the fact that Evidyon is copyrighted. While the following is not exhaustive list, I’ll try to spell out some examples.You cannot claim to have made Evidyon, claim to have ‘ownership’ of Evidyon, copyright the name Evidyon or any part of the game, or file for a patent or trademark based on Evidyon.The following example is absolutely false, is forbidden by the terms of the GPL and is just plain offensive.
I am going to publish this game. and copyright any products and icons ideas I make.
this game is now MINE
Changing the name “Hogwarts” to “Graycastle” and introducing a few new characters doesn’t mean that you own the Harry Potter series. I don’t think I need to say any more about this.You can charge players to play on a game server you host
Yep! You could download a copy of Evidyon, host an unmodified server and charge people a monthly fee to play on it. No problems there, as long as you let them know that they can get the complete source code to the game.You must provide all changes to the game’s source code or content for free
If you read the statement of US copyright law on derivative works, it is apparent that anything you do with the game can be considered a “derivative work” and, as a broad umbrella statement, if you’re in doubt about whether you have to release something you’ve made to be incorporated in the game, the default answer is “yes, you must release it under the GPL”.At first glance, this seems to mean that it would be difficult to make money hosting a server, since this term means that anyone could download your copy of the game, start up their own server and compete with you. By some interpretations of the GPL, this is true. However, as I explain next, I don’t intend this to be the case with Evidyon.You don’t have to release game-files, media, server databases, log files, or anything that is 100% new but works with Evidyon’s engine
This is parallel to a topic in the open-source vs. free software debate. Linux, like Evidyon, is licensed under the GPL. By many interpretations, including my own, software the runs on Linux does not need to be open source or use the GPL in order to comply with Linux’s license.Similarly, new content you create to use with the Evidyon engine in your own version of the game (maps, character models, textures, sounds) does not need to be released under the GPL or made public.Look at tools like Open Office (GPL document editor) and GIMP (GPL image editor). These do not assert ownership of the content created with those tools–if you write something in Open Office or draw something in GIMP, that content is your own. With Evidyon, the database the server makes to store character & game data falls in that “100% new” category so you can keep that secret.This means that almost everything that makes your edition of this game unique–the content–is your own. Just to be clear, though, the same interpretation does not apply the the code. The code that runs the game is a single entity. Even 100% new features you add to the software itself are still bound by the GPL and must be publicly re-released for everyone to enjoy.If you want to be sure you won’t accidentally violate the GPL, there’s a really easy way to do itGet a DropBox account, make a publicly-accessible DropBox folder, and only work on your game inside of that DropBox folder. Then, with each release, all you need to do is provide a link to the public web-interface of this DropBox folder to stay legit with the terms of the GPL. Since DropBox synchronizes automatically, you will never have to worry about it being out of date!In fact, when you recompile the game players will be able to get the latest copy from that folder so you can even use it as a distribution channel.“I gave the Volucris model some new clothes. Do I have to release my model?”Yes“I changed the GUI to look more futuristic, do I have to release the image?”Yep“I took the map, modified the drop rate, gave it some new ground textures, changed the names of stuff etc. etc. Do I have to release my changes?”Affirmative. If your game file has any relationship whatsoever to the original game file, it’s a derivative work.“I purchased some items from 3drt to add to my game… do I have to release those?”Nope! In fact, it would be in violation of your agreement with them to do so. That’s new content that doesn’t derive from Evidyon.Be aware that this does introduce some caveats. Should you buy armor models (for example) you can’t put them on our original Evidyon avatar meshes, since that would require you to release those meshes for free under terms of the GPL (thanks Qubodup). As long as you keep custom and original content separate, there should be no problems.“I modified the code to add an item merchant and a new player class….”Those are modifications to Evidyon’s source code, and you need to make those changes available for others.But wait, the GPL doesn’t say anything about charging to distribute derivative works–how come I have to give my stuff away for free?This addition is thanks to the anonymous comment below. I’ll just quote the post since he/she explained it well:
Note that GPL does not say anything about price. If you make a derivative work you may well charge a fee for it if you want to. If you distribute the work to someone (for free or for a price), you are obliged to give them the source for free (or for a reasonable price covering only the medium/postage). However, the person you charge is free to make further copies, either for free or for a price, so in practice it’s not feasible to charge for GPL-licensed works.
There you have it folks! Hopefully this guide is complete enough to answer all the questions I’ve been receiving. Feel free to post if anything isn’t clear, and I’ll update with more information as necessary.
Skills
Evidyon has a extensive skill system. Tons of skills and spells are available, defensive, protective, curative, speed modifiers, area spells, buffs and magic, ranged attacks…The skills and spells are class-based, you need to gain experience levels in order to unlock them.
Guilds
Evidyon supports Guild system, with Guild vs Guild events like the fight to dominate the Geosids. A player can found a guild by entering ingame commands and invite their friends to join the guild. The players in your guild will appear with green name and you can also chat with them at your guild chat channel.
Groups
Evidyon supports parties of up to 8 characters at a time.
Party commands: /lead opens you for /join which joins you to a nearby leader; parties are democratic, so if A leads B and B leads C, ABC are now a single party. /close stops you from accepting joins. /leave removes you from your party. /kick kicks out the nearest party member (again, democratic: anybody can kick anybody).
EXP for monster kills is shared in a 5 level range, but you have to be nearby your party members to get credit for their kill.
If you’re nearby a party member and he kills a player, you also get blamed (in terms of alignment) for the kill.
Alignment and PvP
If you are the aggressor (i.e. you attack a person who hasn’t done damage to you recently) the damage the player who is being attacked is reduced based on your difference in level. This effect only lasts until the player who is attacked fights back. If you are not the aggressor in a fight, you cannot lose alignment–so defending yourself is consequence-free.You cannot log off if you are engaged in combat.If you are level 3 or lower, you will never drop any items when you die.
If you are level 5 or lower, you cannot be PKed unless you fight back.
If you are level 7 or lower, you will not drop any equipped items when you die.All players who hit another good player before they die are considered killers, regardless of who actually dealt the final blow.A PK is defined as being a killer of a player with a non-evil (i.e. neutral or better) alignment. You cannot PK an evil player. Killing evil players does not count against you in any way.
Alignment System
You are allowed one consequence-free pk each 24 hours. If you go 24 hours killing only one person, you will gain a point of alignment.Every person you kill within a 24 hour period of your last PK will decrease your alignment by an increasing amount. Let me give an example: You kill a player. Ten minutes later you kill again and lose 1 point of alignment. Four hours later you kill again and lose 2 points. Ten hours later = 3 points. You wait 24 hours after that last kill, and the counter resets.For every day you go only killing 1 person, you will gain 4 points of alignment. Inactive characters (not played for more than a few days) gain at a slower rate.
Bonuses & Penalties:
– Good characters drop fewer items, evil characters drop more items.
– The square will not protect an evil character.
– Evil characters spawn in the swamp. For those of you that know the map, the columns have changed to make this place more accessible.
Storage Merchant:
The guy standing on the square is a Storage Merchant. Click on him and you’ll see two lists: on the right, items in storage; on the left, items carried (does not include equipped items). All of the Characters on a single Account share the same Storage space.
Geosids:
The big crystals. Drop an item in the circle around one to sacrifice the item and charge the geosid. When the charge reaches 0, something good happens.
Bazaar:
You can access the Bazaar via “Alishandra” on the town square. You can list your own items for sale and buy the items of others. Your first couple listings are free, but if you want to list more items concurrently, each one will cost you a listing fee. The listing fee increases quickly depending on how many items you already have listed. If there are more than 20 items in a category, the listing will automatically refresh every 30 seconds to display a new set of items.
Screenshot:
To take a screenshot, press F5 (a bindable key). The picture will be saved as a .png to your My Pictures/Evidyon folder.
Stacked Items:
Right-click to split a stack of items in half. Click stackable items to combine them again.
