Is it legal or permitted

[Arley McFarley]

Hello,

I'm not too well versed in the legal aspects of emulator projects, so I wanted some advice from the developer team.

Would it be legal or permitted to use the EQEmu and EQ zones and models to create a different game? I don't mean a game for retail sale, but just an alternative game to play using existing data.

I have been working up a plan for a game, based on some novels I'm fond of, and I've been thinking the interface and zones from EQ, using EQEmu, would be fun to use. It would require resetting zone points so that some zones take you to completely different zones than normal game play... for example, grouping many of the desert zones from Luclin with old world desert zones to make a huge desert.

I expect I'll have much work to do on the project, even with the emulator and existing EQ data, to make it what I envision.

At any rate, what are the legal ramifications, if any?
Would anyone object?

Thanks,
Arley