ProjectMoon Megathread - Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, Limbus Company, etc.

[Gondola Enjoyer]

Listen, Mr. Ji-Hoon, I will gladly contribute to your warchest. On one condition, and here's a hint, it starts with an "erl" and ends with a "king"....

Shitposting aside, this is a huge pain in the ass. I wonder how these two authors were convinced to do something so perplexingly retarded- I imagine they were convinced they'd be able to extract settlement money or royalties, so it's worth a shot. Wonderlab hardly matters, and the creator of that was already known for being mentally unstable. Limbus Company can't exactly "continue on" without holding the rights to Leviathan, though, and Leviathan was a pretty great work at that.

PM already had to deal with Mimi and her bullshit in regards to the Servant of Wrath being in LoR, and her wanting it removed. They managed to keep the rights for it to stay in the game, but Wonderlab went into limbo, so I imagine the same thing is going to happen with Leviathan, where the characters in Limbus will stay as they are, and they might do an event or get someone else to make background material that's basically Leviathan: But Legally Distinct to keep the backstories similar enough.

 

[Knifeguncat]

Coming back here to post that the official EN TL is out, and it’s…

Spoiler: Official EN Announcement

[Notice: Regarding cessation of publicization for the comic parts of Leviathan and Copyright Disputes]

Hello, this is Kim Jihoon, Director at Project Moon.

I am here to inform you regarding the cessation of publicization of the comic parts of Leviathan.

Around December of 2023, we received a Certificate of Contents letter from the artist of WonderLab and the artist of Leviathan.

It was delivered to us via the PM User Association(Game Consumer Society), a group with whom we had been in legal conflict until recently. In summary, it stated that Project Moon should forfeit all rights for WonderLab and Leviathan comics, including our copyright.

To be more specific, it was a final notice that directed us to withdraw all forms of bestowment, consent, and agreement of our rights and authorities regarding WonderLab and Leviathan.

Moreover, each artist has registered themselves to the Korea Copyright Commission, without any prior consultation with Project Moon, as the copyright holder of each comic.

After the first Certificate of Contents, we exchanged three responses regarding its content. However, after we sent them our conversation and work records, their law firm did not give us any response, nor did they take any of the measures requested by Project Moon.

Later, the 'Game Consumer Society' and 'WonderLab' filed a civil copyright suit against Project Moon.

We will proceed with the copyright conflict suit to clarify the vague state of the copyright conflict; therefore, the comic parts of Leviathan will no longer be publicized.

I decided that writing this notice became necessary because I believed that a proactive response was needed to the Certificate of Contents and their unilateral decision to register the copyrighted material to the Korea Copyright Commission.

I would like to inform you that we will proceed with a copyright suit to have WonderLab and Leviathan recognized as 'works made for hire' under Project Moon.

The contents below are small but detailed information that I can share explaining the context of the circumstances.

Please be aware that the following content may be of significant length.

One of the points made in the Certificate of Contents states as follows: because Project Moon did not directly participate in the creation of the comics, the works belonged solely to each artist, and it is unjust for Project Moon to exercise any right over them.

However, over the duration of the Comics' serialization, their contracts with Project Moon were in the form of contractual employment. The contract also states that Project Moon would compensate them in monthly salaries. As long as they were receiving salaries from Project Moon, they would be working as Project Moon's employees, creating comics as works made for hire.

This information was clearly specified in the recruitment post for Leviathan comic artists. It is also clear that they were informed of this detail beforehand.

2021.05.28 [프로젝트문 세계관기반 웹툰 연재 작가 모집(Recruiting artists for serialized webcomic set in Project Moon's world)] - projectmoon.postype.com/post/9941572

We also have records of direct participation and feedback, such as planning and review, from Project Moon's staff and myself in creating the comic.

Based on the contract, they worked on the comic as an employee of the company, and the company paid them salaries exceeding 3 million KRW monthly regardless of the comic's serialization status as per the terms of the contract.

Also, over the course of Leviathan's serialization, they received the identical percentage of bonuses that the employees of our development team received.

In other words, both artists created the comic as Project Moon's staff under an employment relationship, and they have been paid, as stipulated in their contracts, as Project Moon's employees.

I intend to take legal action, as I find it unacceptable that they claim to be the sole copyright owners of the comics and are demanding that Project Moon relinquish all associated rights over the works.

In a separate issue, Leviathan's artist posted online that they received a unilateral decision and notice from Project Moon that the serialization of Leviathan would be ceased.

The following is my response to that claim. Contrary to what was said, the artist contacted Project Moon, saying that they no longer believed that they could continue with the serialization of Leviathan. We accepted this and urgently shifted the series to a form of a web novel serialization instead as we were developing Limbus Company. We have reached an agreement with the artist based on our respect for them that, to make sure that they receive as little fallout as possible from this process, Project Moon would make a notice taking the majority of the blame when it came to the cessation of serialization. The artist has expressed gratitude for that decision, the contents of which are still in the records. While there were inadequacies in our preparation for Leviathan, we would like to clarify that we have not made a unilateral decision and notice to the artist that the serialization of Leviathan would be ceased. The records of this conversation will be submitted to the court in the process.

WonderLab's artist mentioned that they heard the news that we had made a request not to make Leviathan 'PC' as WonderLab was. We gave them a response regarding this claim around August of last year in our email exchange with the artist of WonderLab. Below is an excerpt from our email exchange in August of 2023.

-----------------
I would like to carefully address your statement: 'I heard that my style was too distinct, and did not match the direction that the company wished to go in. I also heard that the company(Project Moon) has requested future comics to be 'less PC'.'

It must have been very distressing and disturbing as an artist to hear something like that, though I am not certain how or where you may have heard that suggestion from.
If you would allow me to make a careful guess, back when we were discussing the direction for WonderLab, we had agreed, per your request, to not specify or reveal the genders of each character featured in WonderLab. We decided, however, that characters would need a description and depiction of gender in our subsequent works. It was because while we tried our utmost to ensure that narratives or treatments of characters did not vary depending on their gender, it was rare for us to not specify a character's gender. That is why we considered specifying each character's gender in our next project, but our intention may have been incorrectly relayed in the process.

---------------------

We have records of planning and discussing details about Abnormalities featured in WonderLab as well.

Back in 2020, when our company was operating at a smaller scale, our work feedback was conducted via a group chat on Kakao Talk; the records of work and conversation still remain. We intend to submit the entirety of its contents to court as well.

I sincerely apologize to our fans for causing them concern due to non-game related issues such as copyright.

We refrained from directly addressing the artists' online posts as long as we could in hopes of resolving this misunderstanding some day. However, when we recevied the Certificate of Contents instructing us to forfeit all rights regarding those materials, we decided that a response was necessary.

Project Moon will actively meet this copyright dispute, and will take appropriate measures upon its conclusion.

Link to Announcement
Archive
Also archiving the KakaoTalk groupchat with Mimi about Wonderlab and Discord conversations with the Leviathan artist screnshots.

OFC the faggots are trying to misdirect it into “um PM is super problematic for wanting explicit genders going forward” and “lol KJH posting discord screenshots” (ignoring the fact the screenshots are clearly showing LOR’s artist designed the Ring characters in Leviathan, providing evidence that the designs aren’t the Leviathan artist’s unlike like she claims). Complained PM was being silent last time, and now complaining PM is being “too noisy” lol

It's even more dickish, since the Project Moon Users Association who the artists are working with, purposefully started shit now right after the livestream announcement.

Super fucking scummy of PMUA to post the announcement at exactly midnight KRT on the 1 year anniversary of Vellmori’s BS. It’s so transparent they’re grifting this time and it’s madness people didn’t immediately have suspicions when the first post had a goddamn Paypal link.

Shitposting aside, this is a huge pain in the ass. I wonder how these two authors were convinced to do something so perplexingly retarded- I imagine they were convinced they'd be able to extract settlement money or royalties, so it's worth a shot. Wonderlab hardly matters, and the creator of that was already known for being mentally unstable. Limbus Company can't exactly "continue on" without holding the rights to Leviathan, though, and Leviathan was a pretty great work at that.

Mimi already was tarnishing the Wonderlab Abnos by trying to [REDACT] any PM lore roughly a few months into the Vellmori incident. It's not a surprise that she genuinely thinks she owns the copyright as a "fanwork" despite it being created under contract with PM.

 

[Sulla]

I really hope this ai pills PM, TAD

 

[Gondola Enjoyer]

I really hope this ai pills PM, TAD

They're gonna shove NaiGa back into the cheese mines and make him draw everything in Limbus plus all supplemental material.

 

[ProfDongs]

Didn't have time to watch the stream but saw a picture of a time table. 8/8 for Warp Event, Erlking in August, UI update August/September, WN September, Devyat Association North September, Zwei West October, Dream Ending October. Erlking will have his mount.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

8/8 for Warp Event

I see what you did there.

 

[Absolute-Despair]

Erlking bros, we won

I really hope this ai pills PM, TAD

Total Angela Victory

 

[Finger Pistols]

Screenshots from the livestream:

Spoiler: EGO/ID for the Warp event

Spoiler: WILDHUNT HEATHCLIFF

Spoiler: Walpurgis "ding ding ding" night

Spoiler: Other Assosiations

Timeline for the content:

Edit: I found it interesting how WH Heathcliff now has an eyepatch after the events of Wuthering Heights. I wonder if he'll be aware that he's being pulled from his reality and if he'll remember [REDACTED].

 

[Tibbs]

Went through the livesteam and took captures of the main talking points that were discussed, there are a lot of images behind the spoiler tags and the images were quickly grabbed to get this out, my apoligies for the inconvenience and the poor quality

The first batch of images are for information regarding Limbus Company

Spoiler

The stream starts with acknowledging that content updates have been infrequent the last few months due to the simultaniuos release of Walpurgisnacht and Mirror Dungeon 4, mostly because they wanted to get it out alongside the irl day of Walpurgisnacht

Next they showed off some teasers on upcoming event Murder on the Warp Express, with a new 3* Faust, 2* Heathcliff, an undisclosed EGO to be shown in a teaser video on August 2nd. Also shown was a teaser video for the event and discussing how the combat will be centred arround chain battles previously used in RR4, how that there wont be a mini mirror dungeon like in the previous events but a new theme pack will be added to the regular mirror dungeon

They then disclosed that the chain battle system will become the standard going forward, that they dont want sinners deaths to be seen as much as a loss as it is now

A teaser was shown for the upcoming Erlking ID, that its gimmick will be able to resurect dead teammates

Teasers for the next Walpurgisnacht, the event and releases will be themed around Lob Corp, IDs for Grave of Butterflys Sinclair (?) and Red Eyes Ryoshu, as well as an undisclosed EGO and 2 announcers

Future association themed released were discussed, with the next batches being Devyat Association North and Zwei Association West

Finally, an Improved Window UI was shown off, an upcoming sign in bonus was shown and a splash screen of the next chapter

TLDR: teasers for content between now and Chapter 7, including Murder on the Warp Express, Walpurgisnacht, new association themed IDs and a new sign in event

The second batch of images are for information regarding Project Moon

Spoiler

Kim Jihoon starts off by stating he feels the company is at the upper limit that he can manage when it comes to be able to work with the individuals of the company without seeing them as just numbers on a spreadsheet, and so will not be looking to hire any new employees for the forseeable future. He also discusses that he would prefer that the company remain smaller and not be beholden to other larger companies/ third parties, and that currently the company is financially stable and the longer fiscal goal is to ensure the company can survive a long time by retaining customer loyalty to pay their way rather than trying to go for large cash injections by nickel and dimeing the playerbase/fans

Kim then goes back to an earlier point in the stream that he wants to limit the amount of dead weeks in the game as possible while also maintaining the same quality in story and visuals in a reasonable timeframe. He also states he wishes to do more update streams like this but is worried in the longrun about too many peaks behind the curtain like this will ruin some of the charm of the game and that update streams like these can become negatively recieved if PM starts missing deadlines on content releases similar to the first year of the games release.
A mention was made about the possibility of new projects however such goals arent feasible yet with the size of the team and any new projects would only be at an idea stage for the moment

The discussion then shifts to irl events Project Moon will be attending aswell as a desire to attend events in western countries in the future

The stream closes out with Kim reafirming their wish to maintain the quality of their product while also improving the timeframe on their content releases and updates, and a final wish to bring good news to the comunity on Project Moons 8th Anniversary on November 18th

As a bonus at the end of the stream an x1300 Lunacy bundle was delivered to all plaayers of the game

EDIT; late, gay and abnoxious formating, my apologies again

 

[Sulla]

Spoiler: Quote

IDs for Grave of Butterflys Sinclair (?)

That is clearly yi sang, friend

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

The stream closes out with Kim reafirming their wish to maintain the quality of their product while also improving the timeframe on their content releases and updates, and a final wish to bring good news to the comunity on Project Moons 8th Anniversary on November 18th

You forgot to mention he said he'll do video game and mukbang streams if the company goes under, that way he'll at least have ramen to eat.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

They then disclosed that the chain battle system will become the standard going forward, that they dont want sinners deaths to be seen as much as a loss as it is now

A teaser was shown for the upcoming Erlking ID, that its gimmick will be able to resurect dead teammates

The idea of acceptable deaths would be more inline with the settings more but I can't see it happening well. The main issue is that action economy wise, it's hard to accept a death because it would remove 1/6 of your attacks, buffs/debuffs/status and resource generation. The only way to make it work is that the action penalty goes away after a turn so that you aren't handicapped the rest of the fight or doing the switch immediately which gives you a unit with 0 SP that won't benefit you as much.

Also having enemies with instant kill "you die" attacks is just aggravating game design. At least bosses it might be cool once, but on regular enemies it will be awful.

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

The idea of acceptable deaths would be more inline with the settings more but I can't see it happening well. The main issue is that action economy wise, it's hard to accept a death because it would remove 1/6 of your attacks, buffs/debuffs/status and resource generation. The only way to make it work is that the action penalty goes away after a turn so that you aren't handicapped the rest of the fight or doing the switch immediately which gives you a unit with 0 SP that won't benefit you as much.

Yeah, it could be really useless or annoying, but with something like a +30 sp buff for reinforcing units and them getting the action slots of the unit they are replacing it should be fine. Not to mention keeping the thing from RR4 where you get EGO resources when a unit dies.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Yeah, it could be really useless or annoying, but with something like a +30 sp buff for reinforcing units and them getting the action slots of the unit they are replacing it should be fine. Not to mention keeping the thing from RR4 where you get EGO resources when a unit dies.

Another big issue is the SP drop from character death. More than a year after release and we have only 2 negative coin characters. Getting an ally killed without being able to avoid it followed by failing basic clashes because the coin system being rigged will be very unfun.

 

[Gondola Enjoyer]

It's kinda wacky that they use RR4 as an example of sinner deaths being interesting, because I think 99% of people who got good clears did it without being even close to losing anyone. I only lost one character because I got greedy with resources and thought I should save them for later because I didn't even realize I was on the final fight. Kinda feels like he wants to push it more for lore reasons than actual gameplay reasons, since the sinners get mollywhopped by everything repeatedly in story fights, so they want the gameplay to incorporate that.

A much better gameplay option would be some kind of tag system, where every X turns you can pay resources to tag out a sinner and replace them with someone else who inherits action slots. Or even some kind of assist system where you pay big money to have a character do a skill or EGO from the backline without swapping in on a long cooldown. There are absolutely shit characters you want to keep in the team for their nice support skills, like Mariachi Sinclair or base Rodya. I don't like either option of them being forced in through my sinners getting instakilled by some shit, or me having to run backliners with nonsensical support skills just because they're good onfield.

 

[Sulla]

IMO, its a great thing for them to experiment with these extended party mechanics. Makes team building way more interesting than "stack whatever debuff". Actually, now that I'm thinking more about it. This is just a better more streamlined version of how ruina did multi floor fights.

The logical end of this system is that at some point we will have something equivalent to the reverb assembly reception where we select 2 separate parties of 6 to simultaneously deal with something.

Also it is quite frankly bad design that so many characters perform better solo than with a team.
My hope is that uptie 5 (I predict we will get it at the end of season 5) will make all of the archetypes more complimentary like the BL team is.

 

[ProfDongs]

Finally got caught up on the livestream.

The most soulful business discussion in a longtime.

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

PM posted the teaser for the new Faust 000 on their teaser.

Spoiler: teaser image

I've seen people calling her and Heath Sweepers, but honestly Faust looks more like the Pupeteer and the director called them machine humans so I highly doubt their sweepers. Looking at their animations they seem to be Burn IDs which doesn't fit with either, but just judging by their dialogue and appearance my current guess is that they're supposed to represent the third party that has been attacking WARP trains and turning their passangers into monsters, and honestly they're look reminds me of Rosespanner so my current guess is these IDs represent members of an anti-W corp revolutionary group that mimics the Puppeteer.

 

[Sulla]

the director called them machine humans

Isn't that literally what sweepers are?
They cant be related to jae heon since he's dead/ a book.

if anything they are from the gaze office

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

Isn't that literally what sweepers are?
They cant be related to jae heon since he's dead/ a book.

if anything they are from the gaze office

Sweepers are weird, I'm 90% sure that they're actual bodies are liquid contained in the suits, which is why they eat people by converting them into a liquid.
Also when I say related, it's me being polite and not calling them larpers. They larping as the puppet fucker.

But I guess they could be Gaze, if Molar can choose a new gimmick why can't Gaze.