[Ravenhearth]

Elex - is everything just stolen?!

[Morgannin09]

Elex - is everything just stolen?!

By this circumstantial evidence, I think we can also accuse Piranha Bytes of copying S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

1. Apocalyptic event resulting in landscape being ravaged, radiation making areas uninhabitable, nature being changed in unpredictable ways, terrible mutations to human and animal life

2. New materials previously unheard of to science that offer special abilities to humans, but can be incredibly dangerous as well

3. Factions develop which have varying relationships with each other, including a faction of outlaws/bandits and a faction of zealots

4. Incredible new technologies being developed owing to the miraculous new developments that defy conventional science

Seriously, take a good read of the Rustwalker premise on the guy's website and all I can say is it sounds like an interesting read, possibly, but there is almost no common ground between them.

"Rustwalker directly confronts prominent social themes such as race, gender, feminism, equality, oppression, elitism and power. With intriguing characters of various races and backgrounds, strong female leads, and empowered characters with disabilities, the story is as inclusive as it is socially challenging. As opposed to playing it safe, Rustwalker faces controversial issues directly and provokes the reader to question and analyze their own social belief systems."

Pretty sure Piranha Bytes is not making this game to make a stand on today's social issues. Nor are they making a game involving sexy cat people.

[Bild: Cats-promoFINAL2.jpg]

[Smaloki]

In case anyone's interested, I've added some subtitles to the second gameplay video (well, most of it's actually just annotations that summarize the important information). Took me a few hours, but it's finally done... the subs aren't available right away though, they need to be reviewed (afaik subs can be approved by the community alone, without any involvement of the video owner).

If you want to check them out, just open the options (little cog icon), click on "Subtitles/CC", then select "Add subtitles/CC", then "English"... and you should be able to see them.

[Bamfy]

Seriously, take a good read of the Rustwalker premise on the guy's website and all I can say is it sounds like an interesting read, possibly, but there is almost no common ground between them

You must be joking. The meteor, the 4 factions, the whole elex thing, emotions withdrawal. To many similar points neh? "But wait, elex has no cat people" well, nobody is stupid enough to rip off a story completly. But as we all know PB games, expect some ancient race or evil race that replaces the cat people.(lizard men R1,G2). Some twists here and there and you have a new story.

Btw, while I do believe stalker to be one of the best survival/post-apocaliptic games, by circumstantial evidence, elex isn't a stalker rip off. But it sure is a Rustwalker rip off.

[foobar]

I looked at the Rustwalker website and don't see too many similarities, to be honest. There are 4 factions, yes, but their description sounds different from the ones that Elex has. Other than that, there's not a lot to go on (at least by looking at rustwalker.com). The story description is vague and imprecise. It talks only about design goals, not what actually happens. The "Starfall" event is described with merely two sentences. It doesn't even mention a meteor, just some dust falling from the sky. The "Celestial Age" only has one sentence more (maybe a Kickstarter stretch goal ), so there's not a lot to go on either.

I'm not saying there's no way it's plagiarized. But despite the lack of information on both projects, for every similarity you find, there's another discrepancy. Attributing the former to plagiarism and interpreting the latter as an attempt to avoid making it all too obvious seems like "guilty until proven innocent" to me.

There is the distinct possibility that is simply a coincident. If you look at the elements in question, they're not exactly that original to begin with. It's not difficult to imagine different people coming up with these ideas independently from each other.

Let's take some examples of Elex and/or Rustwalker setting elements:

• Something falling from the skies, changing the world? We had that with the dinosaurs (at least, it's one theory about what happened to them). Or with the 2004 movie "Post Impact". Or the 1998 movie "Deep Impact". Or the 1951 movie "When Worlds Collide". Which is based on a novel of the same name from 1933. All of which predate both Elex and Rustwalker. And those are just a few examples of a very popular theme in entertainment.
• A faction of fanatics? Do I really have to list all the books and films where we have a group of people who think they are the Chosen People, waging a Holy War against Evil, when they themselves are actually somewhat of a problem? Or do I just point to the Crusades?
• What about a faction of people concerned about their purity? The peaceful natives/nature dudes? The elitist worshippers of power? Never been done before, I'm certain.
• A rare fictional substance with fantastic properties? Aside from Gothic 1 itself, we have NZT-48 in Limitless (2011), unobtanium in Avatar (2009), eezo in Mass Effect (2007), scrith in Ringworld (1970), the spice in Dune (1965) or cavonite in the 1901 novel "The First Men in the Moon" by H.G. Wells. Again, just a few examples of so many.
• Substance-induced loss of emotions (which I couldn't find on rustwalker.com, btw.)? We had that in the movie Equilibrium from 2002.
• Mutations that bestow superhuman abilities? How many comic book superheroes do I need to list?

And the list goes on. I can't think of anything truly original. In either setting. So who stole what from whom, exactly?

The only thing you could potentially argue is that the combination of all of these elements is unique. At least, I can't think of any precedent for these settings of the top off my hat. But if you do that, you must look at the entire combination of factors. The ones that are similar and the ones that are different. And then we've come full circle because there are also a lot of differences. It's two different combinations.

At the end of the day, sorting this out will likely be impossible to do. Even in a court of law, should it ever come to that. I think both parties would be better served by taking the high road. Just tell yourself that imitation is the highest form of flattery and move on. Adding friction to the process will only hobble everyone. Do your thing, and let it stand for itself.

[Ravenhearth]

And the next video (News):

[Video]

[The Ore Baron]

My previous post on this topic has been (understandably) deleted, so I won't repeat myself. I'll just note that the comic in question is hardly what I'd consider a worthwhile read.

That being said, I don't believe PB is guilty of plagiarism. Despite what Bamfy thinks, the similarities between the comic and ELEX are all derived from pre-existing fiction-writing tropes, and I am honestly amazed at the arrogance of anyone daring to claim these were their original ideas.

In case anyone's interested, I've added some subtitles to the second gameplay video (well, most of it's actually just annotations that summarize the important information). Took me a few hours, but it's finally done...

Thank you, Smaloki. Much appreciated!

EDIT:
Also, here's some food for thought.
Would PB be willing to give Morgannin an early copy of the game? He could produce a short preview of the game in English, similar to what this German guy has done. Maybe even have Björn on Skype, participating in a stream and answering questions? I think he speaks English.
Morg's an established let's player, surely he'd qualify as a reviewer for community purposes.
Morgannin, what do you think?

[Morgannin09]

You must be joking. The meteor, the 4 factions, the whole elex thing, emotions withdrawal. To many similar points neh? "But wait, elex has no cat people" well, nobody is stupid enough to rip off a story completly. But as we all know PB games, expect some ancient race or evil race that replaces the cat people.(lizard men R1,G2). Some twists here and there and you have a new story.

Btw, while I do believe stalker to be one of the best survival/post-apocaliptic games, by circumstantial evidence, elex isn't a stalker rip off. But it sure is a Rustwalker rip off.

1. Post-apocalypse settings are not a new idea, so he can't claim that PB came up with that idea because of him.
2. Four factions? Based on my reading on the website, the 'four' factions in Rustwalker don't have a single analog in Elex. Not to mention, one of the 'factions' literally just works for another, making them essentially the same group.
3. This isn't a race of cat people. It's literally two cats that suddenly became people. And lizardmen in fantasy games is not a novel idea either, it's been in everything from D&D to Ultima and plenty of sci-fi as well.
4. Rustwalker takes place on Earth, Elex invented a new planet (that, of course, might as well be earth but avoids continuity errors completely)
4. Where in Rustwalker does it mention anything about a new substance that humans can consume like a drug? What about emotions or withdrawal? I've read across the website and haven't seen anything.
5. Finally, this novel literally has less than 80 people following it on FaceBook and a whole 2 on Twitter. I find it really hard to believe this ever came up on PB's radar while they were brainstorming, unless their concept meetings literally involve Googling obscure unreleased novels for something to copy.

Also, here's some food for thought.Would PB be willing to give Morgannin an early copy of the game? He could produce a short preview of the game in English, similar to what this German guy has done. Maybe even have Björn on Skype, participating in a stream and answering questions? I think he speaks English.
Morg's an established let's player, surely he'd qualify as a reviewer for community purposes.
Morgannin, what do you think?

I don't think I have a chance. Gronkh has about 5 million subscribers, I have 1400. It would be pretty awesome to get a preview peak of the game, but they'd be better off going to real publications for English previews. I'm also not anywhere qualified as a journalist, so asking him questions would probably be awkward and unenlightening

[The Ore Baron]

I don't think I have a chance. Gronkh has about 5 million subscribers, I have 1400. It would be pretty awesome to get a preview peak of the game, but they'd be better off going to real publications for English previews. I'm also not anywhere qualified as a journalist, so asking him questions would probably be awkward and unenlightened

Eh, don't sell yourself too short, I'm sure you'd do good, based on your earlier analysis videos and the questions you post on the 'Ask PB' thread. You know their earlier games well, and you care about their new one, so that already makes you more qualified than most other reviewers. I don't know who this Gronkh is, but I'm guessing he was picked as an early reviewer because of his popularity, not because he cares much for Elex or PB.
And I don't think subscribers mean much in this case, considering how there are literally five English-speaking people with any interest in Elex. If anything, giving you an early copy would make for good advertising, as those five people can suddenly become 1400 potential buyers. I don't see any other let's players lining up to review it, anyway.
I think it's worth a shot, but I'm not sure how we could proceed with contacting PB about this.

[Morgannin09]

Not trying to dispute or sound humble, but I can think of a load of logistical reasons why I wouldn't be a confident bet for a sponsored video or even free publicity. Most importantly, I'm a small channel who has never done a sponsored agreement and have no financial liability in my channel since I don't make money from it, so they have little assurance that I would honor any kind of NDA agreements or anything like that and might spoil big things or make their game look bad and potentially lose them sales. I know I'm better than that but they just can't take that risk.

[The Ore Baron]

Yeah, maybe you're right.
It was just a thought

[Morgannin09]

Believe me, I would jump at the chance of an early preview. I just don't think we have the clout to negotiate that with Nordic

[Ravenhearth]

After the first three parts of his elex preview, Gronkh now has released the fourth video. As before Björn Pankratz from Piranha Bytes is giving him company. And like the first ones, the new video also is around 40 minutes long. This time the two discover a world heart, among other things. (News)

[Video]

[Ravenhearth]

I stitched together around 20 screenshots from the newest video to get an almost complete image of the world map. (News)

Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)

[Bild: 76.png]

[Ravenhearth]

[Video]

[Grimmwulf]

I started watching the first video and enjoyed it, but will restrain myself from watching any further. Want to experience the world for the first time on my own.

Incidentally, I like how grim the protagonist looks. Wonder if anything in the game will affect his appearance, like in Risen 3.

[rotator]

Lots of improvements so far. Character faces and facial animation are kind of amateurish and the stepping shadows are still there, but overall it looks very promising. The inventory is a bit dull, albeit much better than the one in R2/3.

A couple of days ago I've accidentally looked into the Steam discussions about Elex. Man, I hope the devs are avoiding that place, crying babies everywhere (why no female lead, why no auto regeneration, etc.)...

[Morgannin09]

Lots of improvements so far. Character faces and facial animation are kind of amateurish and the stepping shadows are still there, but overall it looks very promising.

I read somewhere (forget where, probably in the German section) that the facial animations are not completed yet. Dunno about the shadows, smoothing that sort of thing can be pretty difficult.

[Ravenhearth]

The website Cultured Vultures has release a short preview about Elex. In it, the editor describes the setting of the game and compares it to Bioshock. She concludes her impression as follows:

Put simply, ELEX is an auspicious sci-fi RPG from an experienced studio set in a stunning – and seamless – open world full of characters, creatures, and quests.

Furthermore the preview is mentioning that Elex won't get any paid DLC, but only a free expansion or a proper sequel, if any. Since the preview has been shared by Piranha Bytes and the official Elex page on Facebook, it's safe to assume the information is correct.

News with link to the preview

[The Ore Baron]

Elex won't get any paid DLC

I, for one, hope PB starts a global trend with this.
I wish the industry would move from DLCs to proper expansion packs.