iOS MMORPG Accused of Stealing Torchlight Assets [EGLS Statement]

Armed Heroes developer EGLS will “modify some parts” of the game, according to an official statement (below) released today.

Armed Heroes is no longer available on the App Store, but the company hopes to restore it soon.

Official Statement from EGLS Creator of Armed Heroes Online

In recent several days, there are lots of controversial discussions about Armed Heroes Online. We believe it should be necessary to introduce Armed Heroes Online to who may have never played the game so to help understand what kind of game it is before going further discussion.

Armed Heroes Online is exclusively oriented to iOS/Android mobile devices. Due to the performance gap between PC and mobile devices, assets from PC games do not go for mobile devices. We did great efforts to do each modeling, mapping, bone construction and action by our own on our self-developed 3D engine.  Otherwise, we are unable to display each scene of Armed Heroes Online so great on mobile devices.

Besides, Armed Heroes Online is fully a MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. The core gameplay is items farming based on energy system. Also players are provided with various other gameplays as complement including PVP melee combat, clan battle, guild war, tower defense style dungeons, avatar competition, etc. We devoted great efforts to realize smooth operations on phones/pads’ touch screen, and to increase connections between players through in-game online chat/share/competition system. There, basically, the game core mechanism is largely different from PC console games. There is similarity between generic games since world view of game developers, and graphic style or compositions are easily influenced by other successful generic games. But what decides whether a game is of fun or not ultimately depends on many things mainly like its basic framework, gameplay and game control. Here we do hope people can at least trial run our game for once before giving comments, good or bad ones all welcomed.

We do note that the recent controversial discussions about Armed Heroes Online had brought harm to our company’s reputation and worse got our players confused and upset, which is not what we expect to see. As a professional game developer, EGLS has been always dedicating our every effort to bring out better game experience for our players. Players always come first. There, we prefer to modify some parts of Armed Heroes Online where have caused those disputes rather than go on arguing. As long as this carves out a way out of angry disputes, it will be definitely worth our efforts.

At last, we want to make clear, if necessary, that we would like to submit the documents, files and other materials related to the game developing to Apple to prove the originalities of the game and the efforts we devoted into the game developing.

We will focus on the update of Armed Heroes Online in the following months and will get it back to the App store as soon as we can, hoping you will spare a moment to give a look upon its back.

—

Runic Games President Travis Baldree responded to my email.

We’ve received notification that Apple got our request, and that they are contacting the company.

We have observed only models/textures, tilesets, and sounds at this point. I don’t think the gameplay is actually terribly similar.

Original Story

An online role-playing game for iOS may have stolen assets from Runic Game’s Torchlight, according to the company’s president Travis Baldree’s findings last Friday.

After watching the trailer (above)  for Beijing-based developer EGLS Technology’s Armed Heroes — which has launched in the Canadian App Store, but is awaiting approval for the U.S. –, Baldree found character models that resemble those found in Torchlight. He posted two pictures as evidence, which can be found here and here. After examining the application file for the game, Baldree found familiar audio files, including the misspellings Runic Games never fixed (e.g. “mechdwarddeath1.wave” when it was supposed to be mechdwarfdeath1.wave), and posted them on the TouchArcade forums.

A response posted on the TouchArcade forums, issued by user “Serena zhang” — who can be found in this press release as EGLS Technology’s marketing specialist — denies the claims of stolen assets. “The judgment is simply untenable,” the post reads. The post claims both Runic Games and EGLS Technology borrow inspiration from Blizzard’s hugely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, and that both Torchlight and Armed Heroes’ character models are similar, but not direct copies.

The post then explains that games of the “same type compete with and learn from each other’s game designs, functions and other settings.” A list of skills from Torchlight and Diablo 2 are included for comparison.

Speaking to PCGamer, Baldree explained due to Torchlight’s open nature for mods, the texture and audio files are raw. “Our terms of use for the SDK and game content of course prohibit using those assets for monetary gain.”

Baldree has filed a takedown notice to Apple, and as of this writing, is awaiting a response.

I’ve contacted both Baldree and EGLS Technology for comment, and will update this story when I hear back.

Source: Twitter, Touch Arcade Forums [1] [2], PC Gamer

Official Statement from EGLS Creator of Armed Heroes Online

 

In recent several days, there are lots of controversial discussions about Armed Heroes Online. We believe it should be necessary to introduce Armed Heroes Online to who may have never played the game so to help understand what kind of game it is before going further discussion.

 

Armed Heroes Online is exclusively oriented to iOS/Android mobile devices. Due to the performance gap between PC and mobile devices, assets from PC games do not go for mobile devices. We did great efforts to do each modeling, mapping, bone construction and action by our own on our self-developed 3D engine.  Otherwise, we are unable to display each scene of Armed Heroes Online so great on mobile devices. 

 

Besides, Armed Heroes Online is fully a MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game. The core gameplay is items farming based on energy system. Also players are provided with various other gameplays as complement including PVP melee combat, clan battle, guild war, tower defense style dungeons, avatar competition, etc. We devoted great efforts to realize smooth operations on phones/pads’ touch screen, and to increase connections between players through in-game online chat/share/competition system. There, basically, the game core mechanism is largely different from PC console games. There is similarity between generic games since world view of game developers, and graphic style or compositions are easily influenced by other successful generic games. But what decides whether a game is of fun or not ultimately depends on many things mainly like its basic framework, gameplay and game control. Here we do hope people can at least trial run our game for once before giving comments, good or bad ones all welcomed.

 

We do note that the recent controversial discussions about Armed Heroes Online had brought harm to our company’s reputation and worse got our players confused and upset, which is not what we expect to see. As a professional game developer, EGLS has been always dedicating our every effort to bring out better game experience for our players. Players always come first. There, we prefer to modify some parts of Armed Heroes Online where have caused those disputes rather than go on arguing. As long as this carves out a way out of angry disputes, it will be definitely worth our efforts.

 

At last, we want to make clear, if necessary, that we would like to submit the documents, files and other materials related to the game developing to Apple to prove the originalities of the game and the efforts we devoted into the game developing.

 

We will focus on the update of Armed Heroes Online in the following months and will get it back to the App store as soon as we can, hoping you will spare a moment to give a look upon its back.