Is Furcadia Being Sued?, Rumor Confirmed FALSE Options

[Tarquin Lightfoot]

I overheard a roumer that Furcadia is being sued. If so, for what? I havn't seen anything breaking International law here.

[Celes Chere#SM]

I overheard a roumer that Furcadia is being sued. If so, for what? I havn't seen anything breaking International law here.

Actually Furcadia is not bound by International Law per se....but by the laws of the Country/State/Etc. they are based in....which is Texas.

As to that rumor,haven't heard a thing about it.

[Tarket]

*deposits two pennies in the slot*

I'm sure that the administrators can give a more definitive answer, but there are always threats and rumors swirling around in chats among the players regarding Furcadia.

My initial reaction to hearing such things: it takes time and money to sue, and even assuming that an actual adult thought they had grounds to do so (as opposed to a blowhard making idle threats), what kinds of damages would they get? The folks that run this place aren't rivaling Bill Gates for richest person in the world. If it's over a Digo item, that's just small claims court. Otherwise, it's a free and private service and software client that people choose to use (including accepting the clearly worded terms of use). I doubt that, even if such a rumor were true, it would have any significant impact on the availability of the game.

[Tarquin Lightfoot]

Actually Furcadia is not bound by International Law per se....but by the laws of the Country/State/Etc. they are based in....which is Texas.

As to that rumor,haven't heard a thing about it.

Oh thats how its spelled! I just heard this rumor, and I posted here right away to be sure.

[Narnia]

From the Terms of Service:

XV. Remedies
You and Dragon's Eye agree that neither party will seek remedies for any breaches of this agreement or other disputes by filing suit in civil court, but will instead submit any such matters that arise to binding arbitration. Both parties agree to accept and abide by the decision made by the arbiter in such cases, and to equally split the payment of any fees charged by the arbiter, unless the arbiter should decide that the party at fault must pay the entire fee.

Unless it's a criminal law suit, it would be dismissed and taken to binding arbitration as all users agree too when signing up.

[Kamose]

I overheard a roumer that Furcadia is being sued. If so, for what? I havn't seen anything breaking International law here.

This rumor may have been caused by the earlier news that John "Jack" Thompson, a lawyer, is resuming his pursuit of online games that expose minors to violence and sexual content.

[Lo'Feld]

The whole minors thing is load of crap. Its up to the parents to monitor what their kids are doing. Seriously most parents never pay attention or give a flying ###### what their kids do online. If parents really cared they would seek methods to control what their children do, and there are methods and programs that do so. So a parent claiming they tried everything yet have nothing, they clearly didn't.

[Leah]

Interesting post.

I haven't heard anything about Furcadia being sued and I'm the office manger at Dragon's Eye Productions.

I checked with the rest of the staff and seems the rumor is false.

"The only thing we can be sued for is being so darn sexy."--Gar

[Youlanda]

Rumor is likely a spawn of this thread.

[Emerald Flame]

Just a rumor!

[Deja Greycloud]

Yes, as far as I know, Dragon's eye productions is....I know the guy personally who is sueing too...to be quite honest I have no clue how serious he is about it, but he claims he hired a lawyer and such....There was some kind of glitch with the Silver Sponsorships and a few furres got them for free, When DE foudn out about that they banned the furres for 3 months, one of them had a few Digos and got them taken off of his character and never got a refund for them, so he's sueing

[Kamose]

Yes, as far as I know, Dragon's eye productions is....I know the guy personally who is sueing too...to be quite honest I have no clue how serious he is about it, but he claims he hired a lawyer and such....There was some kind of glitch with the Silver Sponsorships and a few furres got them for free, When DE foudn out about that they banned the furres for 3 months, one of them had a few Digos and got them taken off of his character and never got a refund for them, so he's sueing

I trust Emerald Flame when she says that the lawsuit was just a rumor, but I suppose it's possible that if someone has hired a lawyer, no case has yet been filed.

The User Agreement, to which we all agreed when we installed Furcadia and created a character, says that such civil matters must be submitted to binding arbitration. Arbitration is often preferred over court, because it is considered cheaper and faster. (Plaintiffs tend to favor court, because there is a perception that they will not recover as much in arbitration.)

You and Dragon's Eye agree that neither party will seek remedies for any breaches of this agreement or other disputes by filing suit in civil court, but will instead submit any such matters that arise to binding arbitration. Both parties agree to accept and abide by the decision made by the arbiter in such cases, and to equally split the payment of any fees charged by the arbiter, unless the arbiter should decide that the party at fault must pay the entire fee.

[Felorin]

to be quite honest I have no clue how serious he is about it, but he claims he hired a lawyer and such....There was some kind of glitch with the Silver Sponsorships and a few furres got them for free, When DE foudn out about that they banned the furres for 3 months, one of them had a few Digos and got them taken off of his character and never got a refund for them, so he's sueing

For the record, when we had that glitch there were hundreds of people that rushed to our Digo Market pages and got the "free" Silver Sponsorships. We don't blame people for doing that, many people thought it was a special free giveaway rather than a bug on our server, and rumors quickly started circulating to that effect. What we did in the vast majority of cases was simply to remove those Silver Sponsorships that weren't paid for. I think we might have sent out a rose to people that got those to make up for the confusion, I'm not sure if that actually got done - I'd have to check with someone else here about that.

In 6 cases out of the hundreds of people that got the "free" sponsorships, they grabbed large numbers of them, transferred the DragonScales that came with them to other characters, used the DragonScales to get other Digo items, transferred those, etc. Of course we can track all that so attempting to hide it that way didn't help. I believe 5 of those 6 people got short suspensions for all that. The 6th one is a person who has a past history of stealing and scamming Digo items from other players, and he got a 3 month suspension. I'm not sure if that's the person Deja knows or someone else - some of the other 5 were initially told they might get 3 month suspensions as well.

I do know that one of those people has made some complaints about their other Digo items, and was referred to the right person to get extra time added or a refund, which I think they have by now. If they still have any unresolved issues about refunds, please encourage them to email bvsales@infire.com again and get it straightened out.

As for lawsuits - anybody who's upset can easily say to their friends "I hired a lawyer and have sued Dragon's Eye Productions". They might even like the reactions it gets them - SAYING things doesn't cost any money. If someone had actually sued us, though, we would have been informed of the lawsuit. To date, nobody has ever filed notice with Dragon's Eye Productions that there's a lawsuit against us in all the years we've been running the company. (You can actually see Dragon's Eye listed in the credits on Ultima Underworld 2, from back in the early 90s.) If we are ever sued, I imagine it'll be over more than a dispute over refunding a few Digo items. Not many people would pay a lawyer hundreds or thousands of dollars to try and recover 50 bucks from us. So I think this is yet another rumor started by someone blowing off a little steam.

[Deja Greycloud]

That's what I'm saying, I had no clue what exactly was going on....He (as in the guy who is claiming he is going to sue) kept on exaggerating the fact that he already had a SS and never got one to begin with and whatever....I am just saying what he had told everyone that came across him....I'm not saying i believe the fact that he is going to suer, cause to be honest I know how much time and energy and money it takes to do that, and like I said I know this guy personally he has not the time nor money to even try...But then again I haven't seen him in a few weeks either

[Tarquin Lightfoot]

THANKYOU ALL! Thanks for debunkting a nother myth.