Copyright question, or will I get sued?

[FaythNihlus]

I'm not sure exactly which section to put this in but..
I'm planning on making a little free-to-play, 2D isometric fan-made Star Wars Roleplaying Game. Nothing major, just a little game with lots of explore, mainly focused on character interactions and developing a story and your character based on your interactions with other players in the game.

Now I've obviously considered the obvious, 'will I get sued?'. I've recently heard that Disney bought out the rights to Star Wars from LucasArts. But I know that there's plenty of Star Wars fan-made content out there which is perfectly legal to have around as long as it's not raking in profits. Stuff like YouTube shorts, fan-art and Star Wars mods for games like Freespace or X3 are fine because they're not making any money.
There's even another browser based SW RPG called Star Wars Combine which is F2P and has legally operated for many years now.

I'm just wondering if I would encounter any legal problems if me and some friends started making this game in our free time.
What do you guys think?

[elix]

I am not a lawyer, do not depend on me for legal advice!

However, if you embark on this project, you need to do two things:

1) Realize that the Disney Corporation can and will crush you at any time if you become a problem or a threat.

2) Decide whether you want to contact them and try to negotiate informal tolerance of your project as long as you promise that it's not for profit and is just fan-work. You may have a decent experience and they find you're harmless, but you also announce your presence to the beast this way, and it's not guaranteed to go well.

[djjkxbox360]

You know you can contact companies? Email Disney/LucasArts and ask them you're thinking about making a fan-made game, they can't sue you if you're just asking if you can do it

[FaythNihlus]

Thanks for the advice.
I've actually emailed them I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience in these matters.

Like I said, I'm fairly sure they're cool as long as you ask, because Star Wars Combine is a game not involved with LucasArts or Disney and they don't have any legal problems with the franchise.

[Chryseus]

If you're making it free just release it anonymously, use a free web host and get someone else to register a domain for you,
They can't sue you if they can't find you.

[frankpetrov]

Can also name it something else and just say it's inspired by Star Wars.

[GiGaBiTe]

Generally the way stuff like this works is that they'll send you a cease and desist letter first, and if you don't comply, they start litigation.

[TeaBird]

[QUOTE=FrankPetrov;43239290]Can also name it something else and just say it's inspired by Star Wars.[/QUOTE]

This. The name Star Wars is copyrighted so use something else like Star Battle for example.