I went ahead and sent a message via email to Buka, using the address provided by Nike-it. If I'm lucky, I'll get some kind of contact information for the dev team from Aperion. If not, at least I might be able to convince someone to look into releasing the Reloaded expansion outside of the Russian Federation.
And yes, you are correct. In theory, I don't see any problem "borrowing" certain features from the Reloaded expansion to be used in a public community mod for the original 7.62 game. Some might argue about ownership rights issues, but as a developer myself I would have to disagree.
If the Reloaded expansion had been released to additional markets, then it could be considered a problem because using features from that expansion in a mod for the original game might mean people purchase less copies of the expansion in order to use the mods. But in this case, where the expansion is not available to most of the gaming market, using features from that expansion will have zero negative effects on sales.
In fact, once gamers try out some of the features in such a mod, their interest in the expansion might be increased even further. This means that if/when the expansion is finally released to the US/UK market, the number of prospective buyers will have increased therefore increasing their profit potential. It's a Win-Win for everyone.
I had read a post somewhere else on the internet that some of the community over at the Strategy First forums were already doing a public community translation of the Reloaded expansion, and were 2/3 done with it at the time of that post. But I can't seem to access the Strategy First forums, so it's impossible to find any further information out on that subject.
If you follow through with adding the maps from the Reloaded expansion into your mod, it could go one of two ways. Either nobody will say anything about it and you'll be free to continue using those features until someone says otherwise, or you'll be contacted by someone with ownership rights asking you to cease using their content.
If the second option does happen, at least you'll then have direct contact with someone immediately associated with the ownership rights and will therefore be able to request direct permission to use the content.
The only reason I can see anyone denying permission is if they do in fact plan to release a US/UK version of the expansion.
Good luck, hopefully my computer will be up and running again in time to see the additions myself. I'm looking forward to it, keep up the great work.
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