This is exactly why they need to specify in the EULA the exact definition of a character generation system. I wouldn’t consider being able to swap non-RL armors to be fundamentally differently than swapping non-RL weapons and wouldn’t consider either to be generating a character. If they really call that generating a character then the product is useless for player characters for a large portion of game genres out there.
Exactly that! In the current form all of RL content is basically useless for indie developers or small teams. Why? Because it severely restricts the stories you can create. Every time the player can choose something we are in danger of viloating the EULA.
So I coulnd’t even give the player a choice e.g. to select a quest reward. Selecting an armor set, a pair of sunglasses or a weapon? Not even if the assets to add to your character are made by yourself. As long as the base char is RL content it is not allowed. And why is a weapon different? We keep hearing this here in forum posts, but technically there is no difference. And there is nothing about weapons in the EULA. Weapon, sunglasses, armor. All the same from a technical point of view.
It’s specified in this way so developers don’t circumvent it by finding loopholes. If the player can change the looks of their characters arbitrarily without it being part of the gameplay loop it’s a character generation system. And then you need an Enterprise license.
The idea behind this is that developers don’t buy assets once from the Reallusion stores and then sell them again and again as expensive cosmetic DLCs to players while the original creators don’t see any penny from these sales.
No, weapons are usually switchable via an action command or menu, like in any generic first person shooter. You don’t need a character generation menu for this.
Sorry, but no. To achieve that you could simply forbid every kind of reselling. Either directly or by some kind of in-game currency. With the current EULA you forbid every char generation system. Any game even remotely connected to an RPG is not possible that way with RL content.
So weapons are ok to switch by a menu but not armor? And when does that menu cross from a menu to choose equipment into a ‘character generator’ menu exactly? So you’re telling me RL is able to dictate how my self-created content is accessed, managed, and presented in my game?
But that’s the way Reallusion decided to do it.
3D RPGs are so big undertakings that such developers definitely should have the budget for an Enterprise license.
We are talking only about content from Reallusion and their stores.
So, you see where the problem is. A complete non-modifiable RL character with minimum accessories + our own modifiable content in a character generation system / gameplay should be okay by what you literally just said, but you keep insisting it’s not?
Uhm, so let’s have Pete_RL answer these questions, please. I apologize, you speak with authority, but the more you say, the less I think you are.
(also, please don’t presume to know what undertaking cRPGs are and how indies should budget for them, thank you)
This doesn’t make much sense. I clearly said, that the EULA doesn’t allow that.
Not true. You’re literally saying on here that just because the character base is RL Content, they can control what we add to it visually regardless of who owns the additional content, even if we aren’t modifying the base whatsoever. And that they can tell us how our game flow should work. Swapping weapons is fine but not armor. Hotkeys are fine, some menus are fine, but not others, without any guidance on what crosses the line. But since none of that is actually part of the licensing, they can (and have in other threads) change their minds and change the very random rules at any time.
Exactly, they can prevent you to use the base character RL Content in a character generator in any form whatsoever until you pay for the Enterprise license.
Except swapping weapons and armor isn’t a character generator. Here’s a direct quote from Pete on the old forums about weapons. I don’t see how it could apply to weapons and not armor.
He’s not taking about amor? He wrote a similar thing I mentioned above about switching weapons via an action button or menu:
However, this is completely different than selecting weapons in a game outside of a character creation system. For example, it is common to press 1, 2 or 3 to select a particular weapon in game. This is not an in-game character creation system so there would be no problem using Reallusion content for this.
So, if you switch armor by pressing 1,2,3,… you’ll have no problem. Placing armor visually on a RL mesh in an amor selection menu is more problematic.
Sophus, found a quote by you as well. See why we are getting frustrated by all this yet? And as far as the armor vs weapon debate, neither are specified in the EULA and both serve the same purpose in most cases so it’s reasonable to assume the restrictions apply to both the same. His quote about using hotkeys doesn’t nullify his earlier quote about using a selection screen and in fact a lot of games use both. I really don’t see how their EULA can possibly dictate my usage of custom content that is not part of the base mesh, will never become part of the base mesh, and was never touched by a RL tool.
@bsgrooms Yeah, an inventory system without the RL base mesh. I don’t know if you know how Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild handles this. They have two kind of menus for inventory, one where Link is visible with all his gear an you can customize him like you want with amor pieces, weapons and so on. This is definitely a character generation system that would need an Enterprise license.
And then there is a quick selection menu, where you can flip through the items. No character mesh is visible here. This is totally fine without an Enterprise license.
I have no idea why displaying the base mesh or not would change how it’s classified. The functionality is the same so if one is a generator, both are. And vise-versa. But if RL actually states that this is accurate, at least it’s easy to work around, just throw up a dummy instead of the real mesh. At that point no RL content would be involved so there’s no issues.
Yes, just do it without the RL content, that should be fine.
I wouldn’t take Sophus’ word on this. Let’s see if we get an answer from Pete. 
Armor is usally ccCloth to make it move with the body, so in that sense it’s different from weapons, which are simply attached props, so they are in another content category, outside cc***, which makes them changeable.
If the armor is an attached prop (possible but it wouldn’t work well, I think), then it would be changeable.