Halt! Who goes there?

[TheArsenal]

Name:
David James

Online Name:
TheArsenal, here at least.

Location:
Hermosa Beach - small beach town just south of Los Angeles

Gender:
Male

Occupation:
Contractual Law for a major hotel chain (Which chain? The first one that pops into your head when you think "international hotel". Yep ... that's the one)

Family:
Married, no kids as of yet.

Hobbies:
Watching, playing, thinking and reading about soccer. Write for an on-line satirical newspaper. And lately, and importantly: This Game.

Favorite Book:
"Grapes of Wrath", "The Portrait of Dorian Gray and Other Short Stories".

Favorite Movies:
"Brazil", "Fight Club", "Godfather II"

Favorite Food:
Mexican, if its super spicy

Favorite Locations:
Munich
Las Vegas

One wish:
A big lottery win

Civ History:
You're looking at it: CTP, CTP2, CTP2 + Mods

[Locutus]

Hey, TheArsenal, do you happen to know a guy from your home town called Joe Rumsey? If so, tell him to visit this site again some day

[seanas]

Name:
sean

Online Name:
seanas

Location:
london, altho ex-australia

Gender:
Male - no real surprise there

Occupation:
mobile phone researcher

Family:
engaged, but the lovely fiancee lives on the other side of the world

Hobbies:
gaming, football (in all its manifestations), cricket (watching), time wasting

Favorite Book:
ballard, PKD, banks (iain m), latour, deleuze+guattari

Favorite Movies:
"once upon a time in china", "river's edge", anything by jean-luc godard

Favorite Food:
wine, beer, pasta, or anything with tofu (yep, i'm vego)

Favorite Locations:
london, melbourne, berlin, lille. anywhere but brisbane

Civ History:
played Civ1 on a _way_ old mac from release til late last year; played Civ, risk, etc on board game; misspent youth wargaming (yep, with real lead figures)

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Locutus
Hey, TheArsenal, do you happen to know a guy from your home town called Joe Rumsey? If so, tell him to visit this site again some day

Actually no. But Hermosa's not a big place. If I ever run into him, I'll send him this way.

[Locutus]

Hmm, almost weird that you don't know him: he's a football (soccer) fan, just like you (assuming both your profiles are accurate)... Don't you guys have a football club over there, where all the football fans go?

[Dinner]

If he saidhe liked football then are you sure he didn't mean American football?

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Locutus
Don't you guys have a football club over there, where all the football fans go?

Nope. Nothing of the kind. Being a hardcore soccer (football) fan in America is hard lonely work, but I'm glad to do it.

[Immortal Wombat]

Maybe theArsenal is Mr Ogre's DL, and afraid to let on in case we bombard him with SLIC questions

[hexagonian]

Yeah, c'mon Joe, your disguises aren't fooling us...

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Yeah, c'mon Joe, your disguises aren't fooling us...

Not sure which I should be more insulted by: that you think I'm a DL, or that you think I'm a DL dumb enough to use the same hometown and interests as before.

[Peter Triggs]

Locutus:

If so, tell him to visit this site again some day

That's a nice idea but Joe would probably be prevented by his contractual obligations to Activision from telling us anything new about the game.

IW and Hex: LOL. Better be careful what you say. Remember, TheArsenal is a lawyer. Speaking of which ...

TheArsenal: Any chance of a free legal opinion on my initial point?

[Immortal Wombat]

Wouldn't Joe still be able to release "fan-made" SLIC code though?

[Peter Triggs]

IW: I don't know. What I was thinking of was that a couple of months ago people on Civ3 General were complaining about the Firaxians not turning up and telling them stuff. Some bloke posted something like "I'm a software engineer and it's in my contract that if I mention anything about my company's products without their authorization, it could cost me $20,000." I was just wondering if this sort of thing is standard legal procedure in the US.

[Locutus]

Richard didn't have a problem with it...

Then again, when it comes to stuff from the alpha-testing period, I tend to play safe as well. I can think of better ways to spend my time than in court...

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
IW: I don't know. What I was thinking of was that a couple of months ago people on Civ3 General were complaining about the Firaxians not turning up and telling them stuff. Some bloke posted something like "I'm a software engineer and it's in my contract that if I mention anything about my company's products without their authorization, it could cost me $20,000." I was just wondering if this sort of thing is standard legal procedure in the US.

I will purely speculate. In no way am I opining on a specific situation, company, or industry, and knowing nothing about these companies/industries, would not be qualified in any way to do so.

That said ...

Well there's no question that there are standard confidentiality agreements that disallow an individual from speaking on the product "off the record" [without sanctioned approval]. This is used largely to protect certain intellectual property rights and specifics on the company's "system" [ information that may or may not be specifically protected by law, but nevertheless deal with the internal mechanisms of the company - anything from how they gather information to implement new products to the process they use to roll these products out]. Further, as a rule, companies with anything worth protecting in a competitive environment have a understood air of confidentiality even when not specifically spelled out. What one hears in the office, stays in the office. Lastly, I have no idea how the game industry is regulated, but it is a consumer product. Anything presented in a public forum (especially one such as this, where it is in writing and archived forever) by a individual presenting himself in a official capacity, may be construed, in some cases, as official advice. A company has to protect itself, and the consumer, from the consequences of a product misused due to such circumstances.