Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Zeether on September 07, 2016, 04:32:25 pm
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https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/09/07/870242/10165014/en/Interplay-Announces-Sale-of-Significant-IP-Portfolio-Wedbush-Securities-as-Strategic-Advisor.html
"Leading video game software developer" is a bit hypocritical...but it seems they're closing up shop and the IPs are going up for sale. Descent and Freespace are on the block.
I'd assume Deep Silver/Volition would be snapping up FS, and I'd love to see Descent go to Revival Studios (the guys making Overload) so then maybe they can make Overload a new Descent.
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I hope they make Johnny gat an admiral..
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i dunno if i read this article right but to me it sounds like the ip for freespace is for sale
https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/09/07/870242/10165014/en/Interplay-Announces-Sale-of-Significant-IP-Portfolio-Wedbush-Securities-as-Strategic-Advisor.html
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Last time the Freespace IP sold, it went for $5000. This sounds like we might be able to email the guy who's handling this & possibly Kickstart an effort to buy the rights & make a canon FS3 right here.
Hell, if I were to flip certain collectibles I've had in my possession since I was 13, I could generate that kind of cash and just make an offer. If the rights were to end up with someone here, the things the SCP crew and the campaign designers here could do would be almost unlimited. Thoughts?
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Oh no.. not this again.
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would be really interesting to see a canon freespace 3 game with updated graphics (this game even with all the overhauls still looks really dated)
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I don't believe the FS community at large is interested in making a "Canon FS3", as it would mean that all of the well-created campaigns and projects would suddenly become non-cannon. Worse, if some individual decided to buy the rights for themselves and create (or fund) their own sequel, it could sour everyone on the franchise.
The only reason I could see acquiring the rights as a good thing, is to prevent someone worse from getting their hands on it, like that Derek Smart guy, or perhaps to sell brand new copies of the original game. :)
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I don't believe the FS community at large is interested in making a "Canon FS3", as it would mean that all of the well-created campaigns and projects would suddenly become non-cannon. Worse, if some individual decided to buy the rights for themselves and create (or fund) their own sequel, it could sour everyone on the franchise.
The only reason I could see acquiring the rights as a good thing, is to prevent someone worse from getting their hands on it, like that Derek Smart guy, or perhaps to sell brand new copies of the original game. :)
If they're willing to accept the 2-3k I could drum up, I could at least make sure that current projects here would never run into problems with rightsholders, and Derek Smart could be told to get ****ed anytime he wants to make another run at us. Getting cuts of the Steam and GOG sales would be really nice as well, since most of that would be able to be funneled into things like paid voice talent for campaigns.
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would be really interesting to see a canon freespace 3 game with updated graphics (this game even with all the overhauls still looks really dated)
You're kidding, right? Name me one game other than Elite or Star Citizen that could possibly look better than FSO right now. The only thing that might look "dated" is the the nebula environment. A "canon freespace 3 game with updated graphics" really wouldn't look much different than what we have now. Blue Planet is probably the closest thing FS3 would come to right now in both story and fidelity.
Those of us that have been with the game since it came out don't really want FreeSpace 3 anymore, especially with Blue Planet for the continued story. Any FreeSpace game not made by Volition wouldn't be the same, and it would throw out everything the community has created, much like Disney's wiping of the EU for Star Wars.
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I'm not at all interested I buying the licence to FS in order to make FS3.
Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
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would be really interesting to see a canon freespace 3 game with updated graphics (this game even with all the overhauls still looks really dated)
You're kidding, right? Name me one game other than Elite or Star Citizen that could possibly look better than FSO right now. The only thing that might look "dated" is the the nebula environment. A "canon freespace 3 game with updated graphics" really wouldn't look much different than what we have now. Blue Planet is probably the closest thing FS3 would come to right now in both story and fidelity.
Those of us that have been with the game since it came out don't really want FreeSpace 3 anymore, especially with Blue Planet for the continued story. Any FreeSpace game not made by Volition wouldn't be the same, and it would throw out everything the community has created, much like Disney's wiping of the EU for Star Wars.
besides those games i can use plently that look better but they arn't space games and don't really apply.
this game's graphics are dated they look like 2009 to me at 1080p. though to be honest i think the thing that throws me off the most is not having a cockpit i hate the view for this game. (the story makes up for it though) also until we get an updated graphics api (vulkan or dx12 or even opengl 4) though i hope vulkan is getting worked on seeing it in play with doom was awesome. the game's graphics will always be dated the older api's can't do what the newer ones can (most of the time). also i just used freespace 3 as a example if someone from this community bought the rights they could make all the mods cannon, the ones that are possible to be cannon anyhow. getting rid of the restrictions another good reason, would most likely be the main reason why someone would be the rights at this point. sorry about my English while it is my main language i have issues with it still.
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You don't NEED super-awesome-high-definition-Vulcan graphics. That is one thing I'll never understand... the need for the bleeding-edge graphics when what is there is just fine, especially when it's a constant work-in-progress. Plus, there's actually a reason why DirectX was dropped in the first place. It's not happening.
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I'm not at all interested I buying the licence to FS in order to make FS3.
Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
Very much this.
this game's graphics are dated they look like 2009 to me at 1080p. though to be honest i think the thing that throws me off the most is not having a cockpit i hate the view for this game. (the story makes up for it though)
You know you can add cockpits, right?
also until we get an updated graphics api (vulkan or dx12 or even opengl 4) though i hope vulkan is getting worked on seeing it in play with doom was awesome. the game's graphics will always be dated the older api's can't do what the newer ones can (most of the time).
You clearly have no idea how graphics programming works.
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You don't NEED super-awesome-high-definition-Vulcan graphics. That is one thing I'll never understand... the need for the bleeding-edge graphics when what is there is just fine, especially when it's a constant work-in-progress. Plus, there's actually a reason why DirectX was dropped in the first place. It's not happening.
i know dx was dropped for a reason i put in dx12 as an example heck i even put in opengl 4 which is not as new. and i was just saying that the graphics will look outdated without them(mostly) also i said the thing that throws me off the most is havning no cockpit view or a decent 3rd person view (though 3rd person i wouldn't want anyhow)
its hard for me to explain my reason's but its not just the api's that make the game look outdated. its also all the low poly models and low res texures.
i think pbr was recently put in but again i don't think many people have made use of it yet.
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also until we get an updated graphics api (vulkan or dx12 or even openly 4) though i hope vulkan is getting worked on seeing it in play with doom was awesome. the game's graphics will always be dated the older api's can't do what the newer ones can (most of the time).
You clearly have no idea how graphics programming works.
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no but i hopefully will have an idea sometime next year as my classes will be touching upon them. but i do know that its better to go with newer api than forcing an older one to do what the newer one does(i most likely worded this wrong).
also where are these cockpit you say i can add i haven't found any. would make playing much better.
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i know dx was dropped again it was put in as an example. and i was just saying that the graphics will look outdated without them (mostly) also i said the thing that throws me off the most is havning no cockpit view or a decent 3rd person view (though 3rd person i wouldn't want anyhow)
As Ralwood stated, there are mods for (generic) cockpit views with gauges.
its hard for me to explain my reason's but its not just the api's that make the game look outdated. its also all the low poly models and low res texures.
i think pbr was recently put in but again i don't think many people have made use of it yet.
PBR was very recently put in, so recently that there's only a couple of ships that use them. Also, "all" the low-poly models? We don't want something that only people with super-1337 computers can run satisfactorily. There's more to creating game art than greebling the **** out of a too-thick cable. You obviously haven't played Blue Planet or Diaspora. Go ahead and say they're all low-poly then.
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PBR was very recently put in, so recently that there's only a couple of ships that use them. Also, "all" the low-poly models? We don't want something that only people with super-1337 computers can run satisfactorily. There's more to creating game art than greebling the **** out of a too-thick cable. You obviously haven't played Blue Planet or Diaspora. Go ahead and say they're all low-poly then.
ok i think your taking my high poly models to a little extreme u only need a beast if you want Star citizen style high poly which is really really high i think like 400k polys for one of the big ships. i mean what we have now is extremely low poly where people with $20 to $60 graphics card can run no prob. (i have tested with a gts 430 runs like a charm)
look at my specs in my sig nothing to brag about cost next to nothing for this type of rig with OLD hardware (atleast older than 3-5years anyhow might be wrong at the 5 year mark though)
also i think your getting way to defensive over really nothing i love the game just think the graphics could use more work i wish i could help in that department but i don't enjoy making textures or 3d models. and i'm just learning how to program and its really hard so i woudn't be helpful in that department either.
also i have played blue planet was awesome one of the best mods there is but yes some ships (when i played) where still low poly not extremly low but noticeable.
didn't really enjoy diaspara so can't say i gave it a second look.
also unless it was done this engine/game still runs in 32-bit which is why most of these ships get low poly or textures not because people need beast machines. (i know linux CAN build it in 64-bit but windows can't (unless u want to use cmake build last i heard)
wow i used also a lot would still love a link to the cockpit mods as i still can't seems to find them.
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Some ships being low poly has absolutely nothing to do with the game engine.
It has to do with the said ship not being built with more polies, because, frankly, it's not worth the effort to make them higher poly most of the time.
That's not going to change.
Cockpits do not make the game any better. It makes the game considerably worse. They obstruct field of vision.
Remove visible cockpits.
For the love of god do not go down the Star Citizen road of "immersion".
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Some ships being low poly has absolutely nothing to do with the game engine.
It has to do with the said ship not being built with more polies, because, frankly, it's not worth the effort to make them higher poly most of the time.
That's not going to change.
Cockpits do not make the game any better. It makes the game considerably worse. They obstruct field of vision.
Remove cockpits.
and i think that kinda sucks as i think everything should eventually get a higher poly version or better textures but again nothing i really can do but hope and dream
cockpit's in my op make the game feel better and i enjoy star citizen's cockpits... though mechwarrior 3 had best cockpit view ever even for a game that is not a space game.... and came out in 1995
anyhow my redownload to see if downloading everything fresh and updated will change my mind i havn't played in a while so maybe i'm just remembering outdated stuff that actaully got updates
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Cockpits do not make the game any better. It makes the game considerably worse. They obstruct field of vision.
Remove visible cockpits.
For the love of god do not go down the Star Citizen road of "immersion".
I generally don't like cockpits, however there's two solid reasons to have them, head-tracking & VR, and given we already support the 1st then a case can be made for well designed cockpits, e.g. Diaspora style
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also i think your getting way to defensive over really nothing i love the game just think the graphics could use more work i wish i could help in that department but i don't enjoy making textures or 3d models. and i'm just learning how to program and its really hard so i woudn't be helpful in that department either.
I'm not getting defensive. You're obsessed with having tens or hundreds of thousands of polygons PER MISSION because newer engines can probably do it. I mean, what's several gigabytes of extra RAM needed to play, right? It's not enough that the limits were bumped up years ago and we're to the point now that non x64 builds literally quit with insufficient RAM messages while playing Blue Planet or anything.
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I'm not at all interested I buying the licence to FS in order to make FS3.
Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
Seconded, also, would it pertain to the remaining rights, therefore making it possible to open source the entire game?
Now that would be really really awesome.
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I'm curious how this will affect Descent Underground actually
Then again, I also wonder if Descendant would pick up the IP for themselves now that they can
But damn, this is like a dream almost coming true. Imagine if Deep Silver actually decides to pick up Freespace! ****, I should start emailing them right now "HEY GET THIS DAMMIT"
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also i think your getting way to defensive over really nothing i love the game just think the graphics could use more work i wish i could help in that department but i don't enjoy making textures or 3d models. and i'm just learning how to program and its really hard so i woudn't be helpful in that department either.
I'm not getting defensive. You're obsessed with having tens or hundreds of thousands of polygons PER MISSION because newer engines can probably do it. I mean, what's several gigabytes of extra RAM needed to play, right?
wait how am i obsessed over have higher poly models.... i started this conversation with wanting a 3rd updated graphics game more as in the newer api and then it went on to the current one because u disagreed with wanting a 3rd game and then u attacked me wanting vulkan or dx12 or even opengl 4, because u think opengl 3 is good enough and then i stated that opengl was not able to do what vulkan or dx12 and possibly even opengl 4.
than it went to the higher poly models and textures. and i really only when that route because that is really the only way to increase graphics with the older api's from what little knowlege i have. which is not much.
more can be said but this conversation frustrates me as i can't really get my point across in text format now if we actually talked maybe i could but i have difficulties explaining things and the way i think so how about we just agree to disagree hmm.
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I'm not at all interested I buying the licence to FS in order to make FS3.
Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
Seconded, also, would it pertain to the remaining rights, therefore making it possible to open source the entire game?
Now that would be really really awesome.
i do believe if you buy the rights u get all rights even the one that would allow expansion of the open source policy as you now own the game/rights
heck i would do it just so that i could build a game with an entirly new engine either built from scratch or from another engine like unity or unreal.
though that is way out of my leguege 1 because i don't have that kinda doeh secound because i only know how to make simple windows in java and simple console applications in c++ (simple as in text adventure type stuff the non advanced kind )
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Nobody "attacked" you. If you take pointing out the fallacy of your arguments as attacks, you're not going to last long against the people that actually work on this project and have many years of experience. Your posts have been primarily MOAR POLIES PLZ. That's not how it works. You want a sequel with an all-powerful engine that really wouldn't show much more than what the current engine does now.
Also, double posts are unnecessary. You can add more than one quote to a reply.
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Nobody "attacked" you. If you take pointing out the fallacy of your arguments as attacks, you're not going to last long against the people that actually work on this project and have many years of experience. Your posts have been primarily MOAR POLIES PLZ. That's not how it works.
Also, double posts are unnecessary. You can add more than one quote to a reply.
fine you disagree not attacked.
also good to know i havn't managed to master the forumns as i am barely on them. generally just to check the test builds to see what they are implementing for new features and such i don't usually post because my typing skills are not even average.
also another reason why i think vulkan would be awesome to have is its faster than opengl on some hardware configs(mostly amd) dunno if it would be faster for this game/engine but you won't know till you try
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Personally I could support a Kickstart fund raiser to purchase FS IP so as to not run into problems in the future. Also I think the game looks fine but I would love to see multiplayer coop campaigns added down the road. Once HLP owns it another Kickstarter could be done to generate some funds so the right people could spend some quality time making the improvements.
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Last time the Freespace IP sold, it went for $5000. This sounds like we might be able to email the guy who's handling this & possibly Kickstart an effort to buy the rights & make a canon FS3 right here.
This myth really needs to die. What Interplay bought (for $7500, in fact) was Volition's remaining share of the residuals, i.e. their right to a portion of the revenue from future Freespace sales. Interplay always owned the Freespace IP, which is worth considerably more, which is why they were able to put it on GOG long before they bought those rights; they were merely consolidating the last little bit of it. Those residuals were of no use to anyone else on the planet, HLP included, so no we can't just chip in a few bob each and buy Freespace back.
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:v: are pretty tied down right now with a new game coming out, but space games are pretty big right now so I guess DS could buy it for their next project...
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Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
This. How valuable is this?
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i would attempt to support a kickstarter if one were put up don't have a income atm.
about to replay blue planet waiting on the enhanced graphics to finish downloading from the installer taking a really long time not even getting near dl speed (been running since before i started this discussion)
any other mods that go with blue planet ???
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Revival Productions or :v: could buy it
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Here are a couple of links regarding cockpits:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84459.0
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71151.0
I used to enjoy a cockpit view in games such as Crimson Skies and MechWarrior 3, but i have found that I don't use them as much any more when there is the option to turn them off. I just prefer to see more, especially on the lower third of the screen.
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It's interesting that Fallout is not on the list. That IP and the licensing fees it generates must be the only thing keeping Interplay alive these days.
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Last time the Freespace IP sold, it went for $5000. This sounds like we might be able to email the guy who's handling this & possibly Kickstart an effort to buy the rights & make a canon FS3 right here.
This myth really needs to die. What Interplay bought (for $7500, in fact) was Volition's remaining share of the residuals, i.e. their right to a portion of the revenue from future Freespace sales. Interplay always owned the Freespace IP, which is worth considerably more, which is why they were able to put it on GOG long before they bought those rights; they were merely consolidating the last little bit of it. Those residuals were of no use to anyone else on the planet, HLP included, so no we can't just chip in a few bob each and buy Freespace back.
In that case, I think the best we can hope for at this point is if the eventual buyer recognizes that most of the profits made from the IP are a result of the game's modding community. This kind of happened with Falcon 4.0 BMS, where the original IP was sold off and the new owner came to an agreement with the sim's modding community allowing them to continue development at the cost of adding a company logo in the splash screen. I don't see how something like that couldn't be worked out in this case.
Though I suppose it might be worth mentioning that the SCP is open source, while BMS is not. I'm not well versed in copyright laws and such, but I can foresee there being some issues in that regard.
Oh well. At least DS won't be getting his hands on it.
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It's interesting that Fallout is not on the list. That IP and the licensing fees it generates must be the only thing keeping Interplay alive these days.
Interplay hasn't owned Fallout in years.
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Anyone know how to get CD Projekt Red (makers of Witcher III and GoodOldGames) involved? If they owned the IP to these properties... Well, just look at what Bethesda did with Fallout.
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Last time the Freespace IP sold, it went for $5000. This sounds like we might be able to email the guy who's handling this & possibly Kickstart an effort to buy the rights & make a canon FS3 right here.
This myth really needs to die. What Interplay bought (for $7500, in fact) was Volition's remaining share of the residuals, i.e. their right to a portion of the revenue from future Freespace sales. Interplay always owned the Freespace IP, which is worth considerably more, which is why they were able to put it on GOG long before they bought those rights; they were merely consolidating the last little bit of it. Those residuals were of no use to anyone else on the planet, HLP included, so no we can't just chip in a few bob each and buy Freespace back.
In that case, I think the best we can hope for at this point is if the eventual buyer recognizes that most of the profits made from the IP are a result of the game's modding community. This kind of happened with Falcon 4.0 BMS, where the original IP was sold off and the new owner came to an agreement with the sim's modding community allowing them to continue development at the cost of adding a company logo in the splash screen. I don't see how something like that couldn't be worked out in this case.
Though I suppose it might be worth mentioning that the SCP is open source, while BMS is not. I'm not well versed in copyright laws and such, but I can foresee there being some issues in that regard.
Oh well. At least DS won't be getting his hands on it.
I'd bet the IP covers the story, characters, events, etc. and not necessarily the engine. My guess is that the biggest "worry" would be that some new IP owner would pop in and say we couldn't make FreeSpace related campaigns/missions/cutscenes/models/whatever anymore. But then that might be sticky ground legally given how FRED was released with the original game. Though, I'm not sure what the legal jargon involved would be.
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Last time the Freespace IP sold, it went for $5000. This sounds like we might be able to email the guy who's handling this & possibly Kickstart an effort to buy the rights & make a canon FS3 right here.
This myth really needs to die. What Interplay bought (for $7500, in fact) was Volition's remaining share of the residuals, i.e. their right to a portion of the revenue from future Freespace sales. Interplay always owned the Freespace IP, which is worth considerably more, which is why they were able to put it on GOG long before they bought those rights; they were merely consolidating the last little bit of it. Those residuals were of no use to anyone else on the planet, HLP included, so no we can't just chip in a few bob each and buy Freespace back.
In that case, I think the best we can hope for at this point is if the eventual buyer recognizes that most of the profits made from the IP are a result of the game's modding community. This kind of happened with Falcon 4.0 BMS, where the original IP was sold off and the new owner came to an agreement with the sim's modding community allowing them to continue development at the cost of adding a company logo in the splash screen. I don't see how something like that couldn't be worked out in this case.
Though I suppose it might be worth mentioning that the SCP is open source, while BMS is not. I'm not well versed in copyright laws and such, but I can foresee there being some issues in that regard.
Oh well. At least DS won't be getting his hands on it.
I'd bet the IP covers the story, characters, events, etc. and not necessarily the engine. My guess is that the biggest "worry" would be that some new IP owner would pop in and say we couldn't make FreeSpace related campaigns/missions/cutscenes/models/whatever anymore. But then that might be sticky ground legally given how FRED was released with the original game. Though, I'm not sure what the legal jargon involved would be.
I think we are safe regard whoever gets the IP, since there's no (to my knowledge) legal precedent to a released source code being retracted after so long by a new owner.
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Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
This. How valuable is this?
For one thing, it would allow us to release the engine under a proper open source license, which is a prerequisite to get it listed in various Linux distros default repositories. It would also allow us to properly use code released under GPL (something we cannot currently do), which would make a few features possible that we can't currently support (like, for example, h264 support for videos).
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Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
This. How valuable is this?
For one thing, it would allow us to release the engine under a proper open source license, which is a prerequisite to get it listed in various Linux distros default repositories. It would also allow us to properly use code released under GPL (something we cannot currently do), which would make a few features possible that we can't currently support (like, for example, h264 support for videos).
OK. Here's my $7. I've been saving for this for years. :)
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which would make a few features possible that we can't currently support (like, for example, h264 support for videos).
Last I heard, licensing wasn't a problem with that branch anymore.
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which would make a few features possible that we can't currently support (like, for example, h264 support for videos).
Last I heard, licensing wasn't a problem with that branch anymore.
The LGPL version of FFmpeg is sufficient for the new cutscene player but it requires custom built binaries which is the only thing that is still an issue with that branch. There are pre-built binaries but those use the GPL license so we can't use them. If we could release the source code under GPL (which would also cause a lot of legal trouble) we could simplify a lot of things.
For one thing, it would allow us to release the engine under a proper open source license, which is a prerequisite to get it listed in various Linux distros default repositories. It would also allow us to properly use code released under GPL (something we cannot currently do), which would make a few features possible that we can't currently support (like, for example, h264 support for videos).
Are we sure that the IP actually includes the source code? As far as I know that is still owned by Volition (according to the copyright statement in the source code).
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This is hardly suprising considering how little new, functioning buisness Interplay has had in recent years, not including the legal costs after going head-to-head with Bethesda (see below)...
But on the other hand, I cannot help but wonder if this will acctually produce results; the values of the IP can and might still be misjudged to either end. (Considering this forum, we might just overstate the value of the Freespace IP a bit)
It's interesting that Fallout is not on the list. That IP and the licensing fees it generates must be the only thing keeping Interplay alive these days.
Interplay hasn't owned Fallout in years.
Interplay used to have control of the IP up until a legal battle with Bethesda starting around the release of Fallout 3, when Interplay re-released the original two games as well as Fallout: Tactics as retail bundle called "Fallout Trilogy" is most regions. Which then lead the accusation of misleading advertisement and breach of contract by Bethesda. As part of the settlement the IP went 100% to Bethesda.
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I'm actually not sure anymore. Depends on what exactly :V:'s deliverables were, I suppose.
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I'm not at all interested I buying the licence to FS in order to make FS3.
Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
This. The whole thing would be a long shot to begin with, but getting control of Freespace to actually make it free to clear up all legal issues once and for all is a meaningful goal. I don't really expect that there's anyone who would screw with the SCP at this point, but there are definitely risks if someone more proactive got the IP.
(And then maybe, maybe once day it can be licensed out to a studio to do a proper FS3.)
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Forget FS3. If I had lottery money, I'd definitely buy the licence just to ensure there would be no FS3. Then I'd hire a bunch of people to do two things and two things only: Improve the engine and all the assets and the other thing, improve all the tools for more intuitive and snappy modding. And at the end, either sell the result as a "remaster" (like Homeworld), or better yet, just give it all out (after a good marketing stunt to get it as wide as possible).
IOW, the outlandish fantasy scenario does not include a studio publishing some idiotic sequel that will most assuredly disappoint in almost every level (story-wise, interface-wise, gameplay-wise, etc.) and basically burn out any outside interest in the series (just look at what the ending of Mass Effect 3 did to its community).
No, it would include the exact opposite: the groundwork for better modding, greater and better stories, interesting gameplay, etc. IOW, something that would improve the community.
But as far as I can tell, the price is nowhere near the "thousands of dollars" that some people brough up. It's way more. So it will probably be bought as a package by some big studio. Which will sit on top of it until some fan developer within it may convince the top suits to do "something" about it. And when that time comes, just hope it's not something stupid. Like FreeSpace 3.
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The absolute best thing we could do with the license, without a doubt, would simply be to start distributing FSO as an all-in-one install.
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Couldn't we even completely replace retail assets at that point? Maybe even offer them as a classic mod instead of the newer higher quality assets being the mod?
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Couldn't we even completely replace retail assets at that point? Maybe even offer them as a classic mod instead of the newer higher quality assets being the mod?
Um.. what's the difference?
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Ease of access to the big crowd out there, I guess. You just click "Install" and when you double click the game's icon, not only it's the new launcher by default, it's the mediavps2020 by default.
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I think Homeworld Remastered is kind of the gold standard for how to do this.
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Yeah wouldn't mind that.
Except there's a problem there.
Current FSO version and mediavps2014 is probably better than anything today's studios could come up with. Not because they couldn't, but because they wouldn't.
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Hello everyone,
I reached out to the seller of the IP and was informed that they are selling them in bulk only. http://imgur.com/a/6Zemd
I also received a pdf with the details of the sale that i cant attach as it is too large. If you are interested in seeing it i can upload it to google drive.
Edit: I have uploaded the PDF to Google Drive. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx7rn7kEXNCaYm11VzB0Y3FkZmc/view?usp=sharing
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If this is legit, then :v: need to get all over this. Shame the Descent IP is in a different bundle if I am interpreting this right!
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I think the sale is legit. I can reply back to the email and say that i am still interested to get an idea on the bidding process.
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Kinslayer, please email and find out. I will be very interested in pitching substantially into this.
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Okay, this is the third thread on this topic. Time for some merging.
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Alright i will reply to the email and will post when I receive new information.
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I don't get what Luis said. Why would FS3 be stupid?
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I don't get what Luis said. Why would FS3 be stupid?
Because it could never live up to expectations. Never. FS2's cliffhanger was just too good in terms of mystery building. It managed to elevate the Shivans into something truly godlike and incomprehensible. FS3 would completely obliterate it regarding all the things we actually know about the general direction it would have gone to.
I'd rather have the cliffhanger hanging and letting everyone run wild with their imaginations and creating all sorts of incredible stories, mods and campaigns in order to try to live up to that final FS2 moment, rather than have some stressed out writer trying to come up with an half-assed story on how humans and vasudans were able to find some "oracle" somewhere that gave them an "uber weapon" that would be delivered in "shivan hometown" and thus shivans be defeated forever and everyone would party hoorray.
That would be so stupid and anti-climatic that even I would probably lose any respect for the franchise and simply close my mind regarding this ip.
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I guess we'll have to agree to disagree there. I would love to play a Freespace 3; obviously though I would hope some work would go into it and it wouldn't be half-baked.
I've seen some here argue that because Blue Planet is such a good mod that others shouldn't bother trying to create other 'epic' scale campaigns and I disagree with that assertion.
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I've seen some here argue that because Blue Planet is such a good mod that others shouldn't bother trying to create other 'epic' scale campaigns and I disagree with that assertion.
Wait, who's making that argument? I saw people say that campaigns like Blue Planet are like having an FS3, and probably better than what any actual FS3 would have been, but I haven't seen anyone say that Blue Planet makes any other similar campaigns redundant.
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Just a few comments I've seen over the years.
Anyways, I respectfully disagree that just because FS2 was awesome (and it was) that FS should never be officially touched in the future.
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If they'd go out and sell IP separately I bet HLP would be flooding with "let's buy it out" threads. Or maybe not?
No, yes. It would be. And I'd be all into it myself.
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Okay, this is the third thread on this topic. Time for some merging.
This has got to be the most confusing merge I have ever witnessed
Where did the other threads even come from?
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Gen FS and Gaming
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I'd rather have the cliffhanger hanging and letting everyone run wild with their imaginations and creating all sorts of incredible stories, mods and campaigns in order to try to live up to that final FS2 moment, rather than have some stressed out writer trying to come up with an half-assed story...
I would agree with this if the rights were sold to someone not named Volition/Deep Silver. Because didn't Volition already have some sort of idea of where the story was headed? I'd rather have them finish what they started (and, yes, it can't live up to the expectations) than have us create something that "doesn't count" (and, of course, doesn't live up to expectations either). Either way, there is still room for imagination (most campains/mods don't deal with "FS3", right?).
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The closest thing that I would ever like to see to FS3, would require the following:
A - Licenses Acquired to prevent any Cease and Desist situations
B - Track down as many of the original :V: story and design artists as possible
C - Have them collaborate with the community's best campaign designers and modders (that are willing)
D - Based on this, create a campaign but make sure that everyone knows that it is just as non-canon as ST:R, BP, Derelict, or Inferno. That said, including nods to other campaigns would be a nice touch. In the same way that BP includes nods to ST:R.
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Because didn't Volition already have some sort of idea of where the story was headed?
Not really; an interview after the fact (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Interview_with_Jason_Scott#About_FreeSpace_2.27s_Ending_and_FreeSpace_3) revealed that there was basically no finished plan for FS3 and what little there was didn't sound that great.
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Forget FS3. If I had lottery money, I'd definitely buy the licence just to ensure there would be no FS3.
Exact my thoughts.
Actually, on this board, there is already a FreeSpace 3... the best part of this is, that you can choose which continuation you like more.
Blue Planet, Inferno, Derelict? Or all the other campaigns like Aftermath, Shadow Genesis etc.
There is your Freespace 3.
Because there is no official Freespace 3, you do not have a real sequel. Actually for me this is the best part of this whole game series, that you have the possibility to choose the story, that matches the most of your own thoughs after you saw the ending sequence.
But it is also intersting to see and to play other interpretations of this ending.
The revelation that Volition never had plans how to continue and to end the story from FS2 and that they never had a Freespace 3 in mind while writing the story ended all of my interest for an official sequel.
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You could just make BP canon and make another story after that? I dunno.
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You can, but the beauty is precisely that. You can do that on your own and never demand that others do the same. Someone else may well state that their canon is Inferno or whatever else their hearts desire. Perhaps it's Derelict? Perhaps it's Sync? Or anyone can build on top of Blue Planet. Why not?
It's the great FreeSpace imagination diaspora.
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The revelation that Volition never had plans how to continue and to end the story from FS2 and that they never had a Freespace 3 in mind while writing the story ended all of my interest for an official sequel.
Didn't some writers (or some other people) say there were plans to go to "Shivantown"?
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The revelation that Volition never had plans how to continue and to end the story from FS2 and that they never had a Freespace 3 in mind while writing the story ended all of my interest for an official sequel.
Didn't some writers (or some other people) say there were plans to go to "Shivantown"?
an interview after the fact (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Interview_with_Jason_Scott#About_FreeSpace_2.27s_Ending_and_FreeSpace_3) revealed that there was basically no finished plan for FS3 and what little there was didn't sound that great.
(hint: click on the link)
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If someone did buy the rights and declare that their campaign or their favourite campaign is now canon as a community we'd give that declaration the respect it deserves.
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....none?
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Precisely
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I don't think anyone, even :v:, could make FS3 better than BP team already did. :) Besides, given the current trends in games, it'd most likely turn out as one of the following:
1. Epic, grand scale MMO game to end all games, with a long development, lots of hype and no real depth once it gets released after all this (a number of recent "grand projects").
2. Dumb, arcade-y shooter designed for gamepad and console play, with no story worth mentioning (most older space sims).
3. "Retro" game looking and playing like Wing Commander 1, with great literary ambitions and not much else, including budget and development effort (too many indie games to count).
4. Cinematic FPS focused on multiplayer, with the ability to fly a few spacecraft over a small map (typical AAA stuff).
5. Boring, grindy trading sim with only "player-created story" and lots of procedural stuff (the usual modern way of doing space sims until Star Citizen started the "grand project" thing).
6. A multiplayer-only space shooter with controls slightly simplified from FS2 and lost of ways to squeeze money out of you (another popular genre these days).
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I'm going to buy the rights and JAD will become ultra-canon. :)
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Or is that ultra-cannon? :-P
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I don't think just because BP is so great (and I do like it though I don't find it perfect) that I wouldn't want to see Volition try to make FS3 if they could. They'd give it their best effort. Just because something is so good and may even be the pinnacle of its genre doesn't mean further projects in that vein should be forbidden.
Like others, I would be wary about some average joe buying this and making a campaign and declaring it FS3; but I'd be willing to give Volition a chance.
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Has there been any news regarding the bidding process yet?
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I did think of one possibility:
If "we" (the community here through a kickstarter or pooling of resources or whatever) "bought" these rights, could we retcon Silent Threat and declare Silent Threat: Reborn canon?
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No.
Whatever FS3 Volition might make would be nothing like BP, I don't even know why they're seen as mutually exclusive. BP's narrative aims are very different from the canonical stories.
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I've heard this name brought up in this thread and elsewhere but don't know much about him:
Who exactly is this "Derek Smart" and why is he bad and why would it be bad if he got the rights to FS (to make FS3)?
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I did think of one possibility:
If "we" (the community here through a kickstarter or pooling of resources or whatever) "bought" these rights, could we retcon Silent Threat and declare Silent Threat: Reborn canon?
Now I definitely could get behind that idea.
Now the big question is how much the IP is going for and what is in the bundle? Yeah, the bundle is probably too expensive for us to buy on our own, but there are other (maybe even larger) communities we could partner with. If we got enough money we'd just split up the IP between the respective communities.
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We would have to form a corporation to make the buy. I suggest a nonprofit group. The rights could be held and the IP open sourced. The company could make money through sale of game projects that are sold using the SCP - sort of like Unreal Engine. It would be a volunteer system.
Time is of the essence. We would have to nominate a council of members to spearhead the effort and coordinate it.
If I had the money I would donate it in exchange for shares. I don't, but I do have a tiny bit of time, and I could trade a couple hours per week to making this happen - IF anyone else wanted to H[e]LP. :) ;) lol
In case anyone's wondering, one of the big reasons I want this to happen is because I don't want anyone else making an FS3. I don't think anyone should make an official, canon FS3. I just don't see the need when we have so many amazing imaginings already.
The big challenge is the bulk buy will require a LOT of money. But we could try and Kickstarter it.
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I did think of one possibility:
If "we" (the community here through a kickstarter or pooling of resources or whatever) "bought" these rights, could we retcon Silent Threat and declare Silent Threat: Reborn canon?
We could declare it canon now, but what'd be the point? We're the only people playing these games, a declaration that what we as a community made is official and what the actual game developers made somehow doesn't count is vanity now and it'd be vanity then.
I've heard this name brought up in this thread and elsewhere but don't know much about him:
Who exactly is this "Derek Smart" and why is he bad and why would it be bad if he got the rights to FS (to make FS3)?
He was, perhaps still is, a game developer who wanted to buy the rights to Freespace in the mid 2000s and make FS3. He has a reputation as a developer of very bad, bug filled games and personally of being a very temperamental with a large, easily bruised ego. I don't know how valid any of that is though.
Full thread about it is here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=25162.0), at one point the man himself actually joins up.
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I'm not at all interested I buying the licence to FS in order to make FS3.
Buying it in order to remove any restrictions on the SCP on the other hand.....
this, and of course making sure no one else (like a certain 'smart') get his/her hands on it. Control, after all, has a worth of it's own.
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https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/773568956523225088?lang=de
"Right. So I should go buy the Freespace IP now then, right?"
- Derek Smart
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He might be trolling, though.
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He is. He stated that the rights are not even sold separately.
Also, imho, if we were to start raising funds, it could be more beneficial to just get someone dedicated to get the multiplayer right.
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I've heard this name brought up in this thread and elsewhere but don't know much about him:
Who exactly is this "Derek Smart" and why is he bad and why would it be bad if he got the rights to FS (to make FS3)?
He is reminiscing about back then:
https://mobile.twitter.com/dsmart/status/773577832886829056
The thread on another forum he links to will show you the time when this went down for if you want to hunt down the Derek Smart thread here on HLP.
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I don't think anyone, even :v:, could make FS3 better than BP team already did. :) Besides, given the current trends in games, it'd most likely turn out as one of the following:
1. Epic, grand scale MMO game to end all games, with a long development, lots of hype and no real depth once it gets released after all this (a number of recent "grand projects").
2. Dumb, arcade-y shooter designed for gamepad and console play, with no story worth mentioning (most older space sims).
3. "Retro" game looking and playing like Wing Commander 1, with great literary ambitions and not much else, including budget and development effort (too many indie games to count).
4. Cinematic FPS focused on multiplayer, with the ability to fly a few spacecraft over a small map (typical AAA stuff).
5. Boring, grindy trading sim with only "player-created story" and lots of procedural stuff (the usual modern way of doing space sims until Star Citizen started the "grand project" thing).
6. A multiplayer-only space shooter with controls slightly simplified from FS2 and lost of ways to squeeze money out of you (another popular genre these days).
This is pretty depressingly accurate, modern day game industry would definitely turn FS3 into something... significantly 'streamlined'.
I also agree with the things that Luis dias said. (Others have brought up good points too, just pretend I agree with those too!)
It's just the state of the industry. It takes millions of dollars to make a modern AAA game, so it needs to sell millions of copies to get a return of investment. A niche game that has at least 24 buttons just as basic gameplay functions but should be playable on a gamepad for the average joe, isn't really going to fly in sales predictions. Now Freespace has like a ****ton of redundant keys (you don't really need a targetting key to see who last ordered a hamburger) but even if you reduce it to just necessary keys it's a really tight fit on a gamepad. So inevitably somethings gotta give and options/features will end up cut, dumbing the game down.
And storywise, nobody is realistically going to give FS2 a proper official story successor. For volition, FS2 was clearly just another project they once worked on. Watching them trying to play their own game on stream was depressing, they couldn't figure out their own controls, and barely seemed to remember much of the game in general. They're not like a dedicated community fan base that has disected and thought about the game and its story for over 10 years. They'd need to come up with a story within roughly 2-3 years while developing a new game, which would likely more end up being a sort of reboot of the franchise because selling the idea of doing a sequel of a poorly sold game from 1999 to the sales department is... unlikely to succeed.
The shivantown story snippets seemed... pretty weak, and honestly doesn't hold a candle to the storyline being told in BP: WiH. On that subject, while BP is incredibly strong, its not a natural progression of the FS2 formula, and makes for a 'poor FS3' in that regard. But has never been intended to be that anyway. So I'm just repeating what lead writer Battuta has been stressing for years (even a few posts up). But that's part of the beauty of the modding community, exactly because nothing is canon post FS2, we've got campaigns that tell so many stories and explore so many different possible freespace subjects. With different writing styles, story telling methods, talking protagonists and silent ones.
I dont think HLP is realistically going to obtain the Freespace IP. There is most likely no way that the whole bundle of IP's is going to be in anyone's price range here (not even if we all bundle all our powers). But if we somehow magically did, the only thing I would really like to see out of it is the liberation of the restrictions that are currently on the engine. Possibly allowing people to create commercial products on the freespace engine? We've got people creating complete games with it as it is, for absolutely jack bollocks. Then I look at the steam greenlight and see talentless hacks make more money than all of the actually highly skilled an talented creators here combined, have ever made creating Freespace content and it kind of ircks me at times.
also
Derek smart
DEREK SMART
DEREK SMART
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Derek smart
DEREK SMART
DEREK SMART
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A niche game that has at least 24 buttons just as basic gameplay functions but should be playable on a gamepad for the average joe,
*Points to Elite Dangerous*
Mapping a space sim to controller is highly functional
It'd be easy enough to follow suit on that design and come out significantly on top
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Honestly, if we don't want to get shut down in a year or two like many other projects have seen happening before, we really ought to have the license.
I'd definitely chip in some money to make it happen, besides I've been modding and playing for years and am finally making some real progress, I don't want to get some C&D or get sued right when I'm about to release stuff. I'm really serious about this concern.
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A niche game that has at least 24 buttons just as basic gameplay functions but should be playable on a gamepad for the average joe,
*Points to Elite Dangerous*
Mapping a space sim to controller is highly functional
It'd be easy enough to follow suit on that design and come out significantly on top
Yeah okay, I didn't say that it isn't possible. The point I was making is that by doing that you'll probably going to have to make concessions and cut things out of the game to accommodate gamepads. Which will end up simplifying the game.
Elite dangerous 'only' uses half the keyboard? (I never played the game myself)
(https://i.imgur.com/0KwfPUR.jpg)
Freespace 2 uses the whole keyboard
(http://www.elisanet.fi/caz/targeting_energy.jpg)
(http://www.elisanet.fi/caz/flight_weapons.jpg)
Let me quote myself and change it a bit:
It's just the state of the industry. It takes millions of dollars to make a modern AAA game, so it needs to sell millions of copies to get a return of investment. A niche singleplayer game that has at least 24 buttons just as basic gameplay functions but should be playable on a gamepad for the average joe, and has no long term milking projection of microtransations, isn't really going to fly in sales predictions. Now Freespace has like a ****ton of redundant keys (you don't really need a targetting key to see who last ordered a hamburger) but even if you reduce it to just necessary keys it's a really tight fit on a gamepad. So inevitably somethings gotta give and options/features will end up cut, dumbing the game down.
(changes underlined)
On the subject of Elite. That's exactly the type of game that I would not want to see Freespace turn into. Freespace's strength is its narrative driven mission structure, Elite's is... not that.
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Honestly, if we don't want to get shut down in a year or two like many other projects have seen happening before, we really ought to have the license.
I'd definitely chip in some money to make it happen, besides I've been modding and playing for years and am finally making some real progress, I don't want to get some C&D or get sued right when I'm about to release stuff. I'm really serious about this concern.
We all realize that this IP bundle isn't just going to change hands for less than half a million, right?
And aren't a lot of these games still being sold on steam and gog.com? Wouldn't they involve royalities? Who would even start receiving these if the community as a collective buys this?
I dont want to be the one that rains all over the parade but it feels like there are way too many unknowns here and way too much optimism.
Also why would we be shut down? Other companies aren't shutting down modding.
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What? A lot of mods have been taken down by rights-holders. I expect whoever gets the licences will continue ignoring HLP, and really that's about the best we can hope for: a continuation of the status quo.
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With companies I specifically meant game companies. Like say, bethesda and valve and so forth.
Not rights holders cracking down on star wars and battlestar galactica stuff and the like because they threaten ip's.
Freespace based campaigns and things that aren't based on existing ip's really won't be in any danger of getting suddenly shut down...
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With companies I specifically meant game companies. Like say, bethesda and valve and so forth.
Not rights holders cracking down on star wars and battlestar galactica stuff and the like because they threaten ip's.
What, game companies like Nintendo (http://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders)?
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Freespace based campaigns and things that aren't based on existing ip's really won't be in any danger of getting suddenly shut down...
Well Wings of Dawn would survive, as would The Antagonist. But almost everything else in this community is a derivative work of someone else's IP.
We all realize that this IP bundle isn't just going to change hands for less than half a million, right?
It depends what exactly is in the bundle. From the PDF it looks like Freespace 2 is in the same bundle as Earthworm Jim, which, given that it is also a TV show, would almost certainly **** us over.
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What, game companies like Nintendo (http://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders)?
Yes, every game company is like nintendo. :doubt:
When I listed valve and bethesda as the examples, logically nintendo would be the next in line, known for their vibrant pc modding community and their relaxed attitude towards people using their IP's.
Well Wings of Dawn would survive, as would The Antagonist. But almost everything else in this community is a derivative work of someone else's IP.
The majority is Freespace's ip, made with the mission editor included with the retail release running on an incredibly heavily modified open source version of the original engine.
I'm no law expert, but it seems to me like a new owner of the freespace ip would be on really shaky grounds, legally, to shut this down.
And its not like we're making money off of this either.
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I doubt anyone would shut down the FS2 modding scene. It's a PR disaster for absolutely no gain. As you say, we make no money from it and add value to the IP by making it more likely people will want to buy and play FS2 again. The biggest risk is probably FS port. I can see someone deciding that it is harming sales of FS1 / Silent Threat.
They would actually legally have the right to do so for any mod using altered versions of any FS2 asset or based on the FS2 storyline. Again, FS port is a special case as they can actually provide a logical argument as to why it is harmful to their profits. Furthermore, even if they don't have the legal right, who is going to challenge a C&D? HLP couldn't get away with just ignoring it and doesn't have the cash to challenge it.
So although it is an unlikely possibility, it would be nice to own the Freespace rights so that we don't ever have to contend with that happening.
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What, game companies like Nintendo (http://www.polygon.com/2016/9/2/12770344/nintendo-slaps-metroid-2-remake-and-500-plus-fangames-with-takedown-orders)?
Yes, every game company is like nintendo. :doubt:
You say that like Valve isn't just as much of an exception to the norm.
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Derek smart
DEREK SMART
DEREK SMART
:jaw: why haven't I bought this....
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So although it is an unlikely possibility, it would be nice to own the Freespace rights so that we don't ever have to contend with that happening.
I wonder what it would cost just to pose a few questions regarding cost and how static those bundles are? Maybe specific items could be decoupled.
Asking, after all, is usually free. With "no" being the baseline answer a "yes" might be a welcome surprise.
And with crowdfunding being a thing, there might be a meager amount of options open to HLP.
(edit: ooh lol: only 149 of my posts survived over the years. :D )
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(edit: ooh lol: only 149 of my posts survived over the years. :D )
Actually, all 1020 of them are preserved, but since most of them fall into GenDisc, they're not counted towards your postcount.
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AdmiralRalwood, I'm not really interested in argueing with you, if all you are going to do is make snappy single sentence posts. Feel free to explain to me how you think valve is an exception to the norm. The norm being that most game companies don't go out of their way to actively shut mods down and in a lot of cases actually support mods to various degrees.
I doubt anyone would shut down the FS2 modding scene. It's a PR disaster for absolutely no gain. As you say, we make no money from it and add value to the IP by making it more likely people will want to buy and play FS2 again. The biggest risk is probably FS port. I can see someone deciding that it is harming sales of FS1 / Silent Threat.
They would actually legally have the right to do so for any mod using altered versions of any FS2 asset or based on the FS2 storyline. Again, FS port is a special case as they can actually provide a logical argument as to why it is harmful to their profits. Furthermore, even if they don't have the legal right, who is going to challenge a C&D? HLP couldn't get away with just ignoring it and doesn't have the cash to challenge it.
So although it is an unlikely possibility, it would be nice to own the Freespace rights so that we don't ever have to contend with that happening.
Yeah agreed with all that.
Alternatively another good senario would volition aquiring the rights, even if they don't do anything with it, it'd at least be almost a guarantee that the modding scene would be left alone.
Hey, for all we know, they could be making a bid at this very moment...
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AdmiralRalwood, I'm not really interested in argueing with you, if all you are going to do is make snappy single sentence posts.
I'm not really interested in arguing with you either, especially considering we don't seem to disagree on the basic premise that whoever ends up owning the FreeSpace IP is incredibly unlikely to spontaneously shut us down. I'm just confused at what appears to be an abnormally optimistic view of game companies that does not match my experience at all. When faced with fans remaking one of your games from scratch, in what could be considered direct competition with your own enhanced version, "the norm" is most certainly not to say, "Sure, go right ahead! In fact, we'll even let you put it on our storefront. Actually, let's go one step further and let you sell it on our storefront, so you guys get compensated for all your hard work."
Valve is incredibly nonstandard in that regard. I only mentioned Nintendo because they leapt to mind because of their recent crackdown on AM2R; they're far from the only example (http://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-masqueradebloodlines-fan-remake-shut-down-by-ccp-games/).
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I think we'd be less likely to get hit with a crackdown since everything we do is firmly in the 'mod' territory of requiring a purchase of the original game, rather than fan remakes.
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Yeah, what we do here is almost entirely in the vein of fan-created patches and custom mods/expansions, which have historically been perfectly safe from rights-holder actions. (Hell, even Nintendo allowed Project M to exist unmolested.). The fact that we not only encourage, but actively require, purchasing the original retail title in order to play the upgraded content puts us in a vey good place as far as I can see. The major difference between us and the likes of AM2R, or that big Pokemon project, or the Chrono Trigger thing a few years back, is that the latter were all offering either free complete remakes or full sequels of already-existing commercial properties that are actively being sold. While I personally believe that projects like this only benefit the original franchises by serving as free advertising and hype-generation, it's easy to see why companies take issue with them.
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I brought this up before and I'll ask again... What legal ground would someone have against a modding community that exists around officially released "modding" tools?
FRED is arguably the backbone of what we do here. It came with the game! And, as originally released, the only option was to make missions related to the Freespace IP. What's the legal argument against that?
Everything else we do is added on top thanks to the legally maintained SCP. Could the source code be legally closed now? How could a rights holder shut down what is very much not their code in many ways?
Then there's the DMTools. Weren't those also released by Volition?
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I'm not really interested in arguing with you either, especially considering we don't seem to disagree on the basic premise that whoever ends up owning the FreeSpace IP is incredibly unlikely to spontaneously shut us down. I'm just confused at what appears to be an abnormally optimistic view of game companies that does not match my experience at all.
Hah, I can't remember the last time I've been told that my view of the game industry/companies is 'abnormally optimistic'. It's usually the opposite.
Its just in my experience, the majority of game companies are generally pretty cool with mods, and if they provided any mod tools themselves with the game, it's literally supported and I've never heard any crack downs on remakes or whatnot with provided mod tools.
From what I can tell, 90% of all the crackdowns are generally from companies like nintendo that dont want any modding or ip infringment of any kind. Or rightholders of big franchises like BSG, Star wars etc. whereas a lot of games these days directly support modding through steams workshop.
When faced with fans remaking one of your games from scratch, in what could be considered direct competition with your own enhanced version, "the norm" is most certainly not to say, "Sure, go right ahead! In fact, we'll even let you put it on our storefront. Actually, let's go one step further and let you sell it on our storefront, so you guys get compensated for all your hard work."
Valve is incredibly nonstandard in that regard. I only mentioned Nintendo because they leapt to mind because of their recent crackdown on AM2R; they're far from the only example (http://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-masqueradebloodlines-fan-remake-shut-down-by-ccp-games/).
I'll absolutely give you that Valve is special in that regard. (I think its mostly because Valve is swimming in money and just doesn't give a ****. Also Gaben.)
But to me it feels like the perception that fans remaking a game from scratch getting cracked down on all the time, is skewed because of nintendo. A lot of fans seem to like remaking old nintendo classics because nintendo refuses to do it. And new games in nintendo franchises nowadays tend to have a dumb gimmick that negatively impacts the game in a way (like the recent star fox).
edit: I typed that and then only clicked that vampire masquerade link after.
Now, while I would like to point out that Activision is a ****ty evil money grubbing publisher, I can't deny your point. I may have to adjust my abnormally optimistic view on this a bit.
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I brought this up before and I'll ask again... What legal ground would someone have against a modding community that exists around officially released "modding" tools?
FRED is arguably the backbone of what we do here. It came with the game! And, as originally released, the only option was to make missions related to the Freespace IP. What's the legal argument against that?
Everything else we do is added on top thanks to the legally maintained SCP. Could the source code be legally closed now? How could a rights holder shut down what is very much not their code in many ways?
Then there's the DMTools. Weren't those also released by Volition?
Yeah I'm wondering about that too, volition released the engine as open source. Like half the engine (I assume, I have no clue) as we use it now, isn't even original code anymore. Even if you get the freespace IP, doesn't mean you'll somehow end up owning all the code that the SCP wrote. And how can you legally make something not open source anymore?
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The codebase is completely safe. It was :v:'s to open-source in the first place, and it's a completely separate entity than the actual FreeSpace IP.
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Even then.. how would an IP owner have an legal ground to stand on when saying "I'm sorry, but you can't make stories with FRED2, anymore."
Now i'm not saying the legal copyright system is full of rational thinking individuals... but following that through, a rational person might have a hard time arguing that we have to stop doing the same with FRED2_Open.
Worst case scenario, I think, is that the MediaVPs get put in a shaky spot with FSPort given that the issues surrounding upgrading [copying] old models. But even then, a rational thinking person can clearly see how little benefit that would be to any future use of the Freespace IP.
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I think this thread could use some form of realising that all the brainstorms happening in here are nowhere near close to reality.
To boot:
1. The ip pack will be absolutely off grounds for HLP's finantial capabilities. Except if one of you is a hidden billionaire. So forget it already.
2. There's 0% chance the buyers will ever hunt for HLP's content. It (a) is a PR disaster; (b) shatters a lot of reasons to buy the original game; (c) has slim grounds given the very existence of FRED; (d) there is no financed content in here; etc.
The only reason here is one of fear. There's no rational reason whatsoever.
Now, do carry on with your discussions on the details on how these things might or might not happening, but I'd advise everyone to realise these scenarios are mostly in fiction land, not reality.
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I suspect that if any company that acquires the IP decides to continue or reboot the franchise, they would choose to create or adapt an entirely different game engine rather than try to obtain the rights for the existing engine.
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That would probably kill off FSO modding faster than any possible legal issues, actually... depending on how modable the new engine would be.
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Worst case scenario, I think, is that the MediaVPs get put in a shaky spot with FSPort given that the issues surrounding upgrading [copying] old models. But even then, a rational thinking person can clearly see how little benefit that would be to any future use of the Freespace IP.
I tend to agree with this. It's very unlikely but it is possible, especially since the people in charge of finding IP violators and sending out C&D letters often have a history of making their own PR department headdesk. I'm pretty certain we'd be left alone. But owning the rights would removed the threat entirely (small as it is) and allow us to do other cool things.
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Realistically, whatever happens, we have effectively zero say in it. We are definitely not going to be able to realistically buy the rights, nor, frankly, would we have the resources to fight any kind of formal C&D process, rights and legal standing of such a process notwithstanding.
However, such a process is against the commercial interests of anyone who buys the rights to FS2, as whatever small revenue stream is still services from Steam and GoG sales is, at least in part (probably a large part) due to the community's maintenance of the game and the large storehouse of content that makes the game attractive to a certain kind of buyer.
That said, that logic ceases to apply if someone buys the rights in order to make a new Freespace game. Then a lot of things are suddenly on shaky ground commercially, and it's not inconceivable to think we could see some C&Ds issued, especially for things like the port and the MediaVPs.
Honestly, I think our best case scenario's are either Deep Silver buying it for Volition to work on one day, or someone buys it for one of the other properties in the bundle and ignores FS entirely (outside of the tiny Steam/GoG revenue).
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But my whole point is.. even if someone bought the rights to FS2 and intends to make FS3... how do they legally say "you cannot make missions with FRED, that mission editor that came with your legally purchased copy of FS2, anymore."?
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They can't stop anyone from making missions; they'd just stop people from being able to legally distribute them ("but missions don't contain assets," you might say: unless it's for a TC, it presumably still contains references to FreeSpace IP: the GTVA, Shivans, characters, technology, etc.). Any mods working with FreeSpace IP (especially FSPort and the MediaVPs) could likewise be targeted.
That said, at a certain point the references become either small enough or vague enough that they could just be considered references, but let's be real: nobody here has the disposable income to fight even a spurious lawsuit.
Again, though, the likelihood of whoever winds up with the IP doing anything to change the status quo is exceedingly unlikely. If they tried, it would just burn community goodwill with basically the only audience interested in any potential future products made with the IP, and any standalone projects not involving the FreeSpace IP would be completely unaffected; FSO development would continue, it would just make people less inclined to upgrade the original ships and weapons if the new rights-holders got spontaneously litigious.
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That's ridiculous. Missions *DON'T* contain Freespace2's assets and any referrals to them were *INCLUDED* by the retail Freespace2's FRED to be INCLUDED. Any post retail change merely augmented FRED's capabilities to deal with the engine and other non-retail content. To go nitpicky about this wouldn't fly in *any* court.
So it's not as if there's exceedingly unlikely. The chance this occurs is ZERO.
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That's ridiculous. Missions *DON'T* contain Freespace2's assets and any referrals to them were *INCLUDED* by the retail Freespace2's FRED to be INCLUDED. Any post retail change merely augmented FRED's capabilities to deal with the engine and other non-retail content. To go nitpicky about this wouldn't fly in *any* court.
So it's not as if there's exceedingly unlikely. The chance this occurs is ZERO.
Perhaps you should try reading what I actually said again:
nobody here has the disposable income to fight even a spurious lawsuit.
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That's ridiculous. Missions *DON'T* contain Freespace2's assets and any referrals to them were *INCLUDED* by the retail Freespace2's FRED to be INCLUDED. Any post retail change merely augmented FRED's capabilities to deal with the engine and other non-retail content. To go nitpicky about this wouldn't fly in *any* court.
Anything made in the FS2 universe uses IP that belongs to Interplay. There are all kinds of laws about that sort of thing.
As people keep pointing out to you there is very little chance they'd actually do anything, and actually winning a court case by anything except financial attrition is unlikely. But let's not deny reality and act like it's impossible. The actions of some corporate moron dumping his own company in the **** isn't exactly an unprecedented occurrence.
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Yeah this is ridiculous. Here we are, flamboyantly talking about buying Freespace 2's rights, but there's no money to answer a simple Cease and Desist letter. I give up, this is too dumb for me.
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Actually i do not see a problem with campaigns.
As you already stated, there was a mission editor bundled with Freespace 2.
So every campaign should be fine, without a problem.
AFAIK there could be a problem with the source code... with the discussion of "We can put it into GPL, if we had the rights" it seems, that this whole code is legally restricted? We can't expand it with new features like another movie player like we want, even it is noncommercial.
So it seems a different thing than the released source codes from ID Software Games.
So potentially all content that is above retail can be discussed.
Even i do not think that this is realistic... we talk here about 14 years already.
Some of the Projects here can be already taken down from their respective IP holders. EA for Wing Commander Saga, Warner Bros. for TBP, Disney for FotG and Universal for Diaspora. TBP is one of the Mods, that was released with 1.0 in a time, where there were not even a free available Source Code for Freespace 2. It was, as far as i know, created and released completely only with the possibilities Retail has given.
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Yeah this is ridiculous. Here we are, flamboyantly talking about buying Freespace 2's rights, but there's no money to answer a simple Cease and Desist letter. I give up, this is too dumb for me.
This paradox is easily resolved by noting that 'we' consists of two or more groups of people with independent opinions.
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A niche game that has at least 24 buttons just as basic gameplay functions but should be playable on a gamepad for the average joe,
*Points to Elite Dangerous*
Mapping a space sim to controller is highly functional
It'd be easy enough to follow suit on that design and come out significantly on top
Yeah okay, I didn't say that it isn't possible. The point I was making is that by doing that you'll probably going to have to make concessions and cut things out of the game to accommodate gamepads. Which will end up simplifying the game.
Elite dangerous 'only' uses half the keyboard? (I never played the game myself)
(https://i.imgur.com/0KwfPUR.jpg)
Freespace 2 uses the whole keyboard
(http://www.elisanet.fi/caz/targeting_energy.jpg)
(http://www.elisanet.fi/caz/flight_weapons.jpg)
Freespace has a lot of commands that are there for keyboard-only gameplay, or for stick without throttle gameplay, etc. With a dual stick gamepad and some functions grouped into radial menus it could snugly fit on a pad.
(BTW having at least the comms optionally assigned to a radial menu in FSopen would be great, I have a HOTAS mode almost completely dedicated to the comm menu)
A lot of stuff in Elite can be accessed by menus but also be configured with its own hotkey, a bit like in RTSes you can do everything with a mouse but you also have the option of keyboard hotkeys to speed everything up, most of these keys are unassigned by default (since you can use the menus) that's why it looks like it has so many less commands than freespace.
House of The Dying Sun does the same thing and it's more of a Freespace-like.
Of course while the flight engine throttle vs turning mechanic in Elite is something I'd like to see in Freespace (X-wing vs Tie Fighter had similar machanics), the general gameplay template is more or less the exact opposite of it, and sincerely I miss linear story based spacesim, having Freespace turned into another open world trade 'em up it's not something I want to see happen.
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People. What Interplay is offloading is the IP, not the actual game. If the HLP community creates a campaign with the character Bosch it's a breach of IP rights/license; if the character is called something else, everything's fine and dandy. The IP consists of the characters, storyline, logos, created assets, names, concepts, and of course the name Freespace (read: anything that can be copyrighted). Use any of that and you're screwed; if your work doesn't contain any of it you're good.
Yeah this is ridiculous.
Word.
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Yeah okay, I didn't say that it isn't possible. The point I was making is that by doing that you'll probably going to have to make concessions and cut things out of the game to accommodate gamepads. Which will end up simplifying the game.
Elite dangerous 'only' uses half the keyboard? (I never played the game myself)
Point I was making is that actually no, not many concessions would need to be made
Each button on the controller for Elite can be combined with any other button on the controller allowing for a massive amount of possibilities
Hell, the four main buttons on the right can combine with the D-Pad and instantly give you sixteen different outcomes, not to mention the D-Pad bringing it up to twenty
Then you've got the triggers and bumpers *which can also be combined*
Basically, no concessions need to be made
That and, well, I counted just how many things there are in Elite for mapping
There's a lot more than FreeSpace, but similar to FreeSpace... you don't need a lot of them to play the game
Either way, this discussion is a dead horse so my apologies for having brought it up
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Yeah Elite's control setup is excellently configurable and good at chording.
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To be 100% honest. If HLP picked up the rights any funds should be used to get the name out. Mabey even get a official remastered version of fs2 out with all the graphics and as a purchaseble download instead of the fs2 stock. The price dosent need to change either. FS2 has all the potential to be a legend like half life and other triple A titles and if it wasent for its obscurity it would have already done so (really it kinda has though actually, it has out of context refrences in destiny, dosen't matter how they got there, their there). The only other good thing would be voliton picking up the Ip and remastering mabey the hole series, with there popularity from Saint row it could bring more intrested into the freespace universe and possibly could kick start the generas return, (depending if they did a adaption to consoles and pc). Either way a offical Fs3 is simply not required. The ending was so sound, it had done something that no other game has done to date, and that is leaving with a ringing note that hammers itself at the community. Part of what makes fs2 so memorable, and arguably still the best space simulation game to data is because it has a amazing story, great gameplay, a adoring fan community that has gone above and beyound anything a offical company would do for free and that the story cannon leaves off on such a cliff hanger.
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But there is no way in hell we will get the rights so let's just stop fantasising about that already.
A little less unrealistically: what could we achieve with a cooperative rights-holder willing to talk to the modders in some capacity?
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Now that would be interesting. They could arguably release any restrictions on the code that we still have, they could also do a reboot of the franchise working with HLP and it could be a 50/50 split for revenue. Perhaps make some money for HLP and then we could either work out a new server for the website, get a offical and dedicated and easy to use/set up multiplayer host. And as I just said mabey kickstand a genera return. It's been to long since a good quality space sim game has been released. There are plenty of them out there but non really compare to FS2 in quality.
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Goober5000 made an interesting point to me earlier. He stated that if Deep Rising/Volition got a hold of this and did decide to make FS3 that it would be different than the FS3 they would have made back in 2000/2001 (assuming FS2 sold better then).
Do you think those games would be different. Hypothetically if Volition did decide to make FS3 today how do you see it being different than a FS3 that would have been made back then (or would it have been much different)?
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A little less unrealistically: what could we achieve with a cooperative rights-holder willing to talk to the modders in some capacity?
We are an obvious source to raid for expertise on modeling, even to some extent mission design and ship handling. Nobody knows how to make it feel FreeSpace quite like we do.
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Gosh I hope they don't try and turn it into another Elite/Star Citizen/Independence War/Freelancer.
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A little less unrealistically: what could we achieve with a cooperative rights-holder willing to talk to the modders in some capacity?
We are an obvious source to raid for expertise on modeling, even to some extent mission design and ship handling. Nobody knows how to make it feel FreeSpace quite like we do.
If the official BSG game makers were smart enough to realise that, I'd be ****ing disappointed if whoever bought the Freespace IP didn't consider it.
People. What Interplay is offloading is the IP, not the actual game. If the HLP community creates a campaign with the character Bosch it's a breach of IP rights/license; if the character is called something else, everything's fine and dandy. The IP consists of the characters, storyline, logos, created assets, names, concepts, and of course the name Freespace (read: anything that can be copyrighted). Use any of that and you're screwed; if your work doesn't contain any of it you're good.
Yeah this is ridiculous.
Word.
So you've basically just stated exactly what I, amongst others, were saying and then agreed with the one person who didn't seem to get it?
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We'll talk in a year to see who didn't "seem to get it".
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Gentlemen,
If we could focus: what news or information is present currently on the state of bidding, the process, etc? I read earlier int his thread it is being offered as a full bundle and not individually? Is this true? Is there a place where such information can be found?
This is of the utmost importance, as the current situation dictates consideration, facts and investigation of the bidding and sale process itself instead of conjecture on what happens after.
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If we could focus: what news or information is present currently on the state of bidding, the process, etc? I read earlier int his thread it is being offered as a full bundle and not individually? Is this true? Is there a place where such information can be found?
This (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By0hZJzkirJPYmlaRV9GTU5OTFk/view) is the PDF currently being sent out to people showing interest in the sale. You will note that there is no pricing information in there, it's just a general sort of overview over which licenses Interplay thinks can be converted into something usable in the mobile game space. There is, to my knowledge, no public information about the bidding process as a whole, but they have said that licenses will not be sold separately.
You will also note that they consider FS to be in the same tier of licenses as Descent, Earthworm Jim and MDK (I think those are probably the highest value ones in there for future development, but who even knows, maybe we'll all be playing Battle Chess next year).
This is of the utmost importance, as the current situation dictates consideration, facts and investigation of the bidding and sale process itself instead of conjecture on what happens after.
To start with, any bid entered by us would not be for the FS license, but for the whole package of licenses that they will bundle it with. Secondly, there is no public information about the valuation of any of these licenses; Presumably this includes ongoing revenue through GOG and Steam. To obtain more information, you will have to contact the agency organizing this whole thing (you can find this info on the internet).
That being said, I do not rate our chances of entering this very high. Even if we assume a low-ball estimate of 100k USD for the whole pack that would interest us, this would require us to raise somewhere in the region of 150k USD through kickstarter and the like (Including overhead costs incurred through kickstarter fees and the costs associated with hiring someone to act as our representative in these matters). I think that, as passionate as this community is, that's not really feasible.
(That being said, if we could create this campaign with the explicit goal of setting those licenses free, we could probably get support from others in this).
So, TL;DR: We don't have enough information to know whether or not a crowdfunding campaign could work, because Interplay and the people representing them haven't released them yet.
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The E: Thank you, this is the information I was looking for.
I have contacted the organization representative from my personal email address on details of the bidding process and how to apply.
While I do not have the resources ready (or indeed, anything anywhere near in that league), it is something that I think can be taken further and we can rally around as more details come to light.
Assuming I get a reply from Joe Morgan (the fellow responsible for this sale), I will publish it and will p lan from there. I think we need a separate focused thread on acquisition information first and foremost.
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Battle Chess was awesome come on.
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Battle Chess was awesome come on.
It was.
Kinda dubious whether a modern mobile game version of it would be though.
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Granted the value may have an opening bid, but it comes down to perceived value and who is out there looking to get those tier of titles that FS is with.
Just like any auction, if there aren't many bidders, or they have a limited range they can bid, it will still remain lower. There's a lot of negativity here, which I can
understand a realist approach, but how much are you going to be smashing your face into a wall if it ends up going for 3-20K and we didn't even try?
As for the other titles with FS as well, unless the contract in some way implies that you cannot remarket or resell the license, nothing says the new owner can't
offload those games via another auction or privately, kickstarter, whatever, after the fact, and everyone gets what they want.
and for the record, I played a lot of Battle Chess as a kid.
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This brochure is focused hard on selling these IPs to burn on mobile titles, that's probably not a good sign.
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1. The ip pack will be absolutely off grounds for HLP's finantial capabilities. Except if one of you is a hidden billionaire. So forget it already.
What if Donald Trump is secretly reading this forum? :p
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This brochure is focused hard on selling these IPs to burn on mobile titles, that's probably not a good sign.
Windmills-like strategy game on mobile. :P
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This brochure is focused hard on selling these IPs to burn on mobile titles, that's probably not a good sign.
The reasoning on profitability it's using also appears to be a few years behind the curve, which given that it's Interplay doesn't surprise me at all.
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1. The ip pack will be absolutely off grounds for HLP's finantial capabilities. Except if one of you is a hidden billionaire. So forget it already.
What if Donald Trump is secretly reading this forum? :p
FreeSpace is gonna be YUUGE?
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As I said earlier, if the bundle that Freespace is being sold in also includes Earthworm Jim, then we haven't got a hope in hell of raising the money we'd need.
On its own, I think an estimate of 100k is in the right ballpark for FS2. That's completely beyond the abilities of HLP to raise. We could try raising the money with the idea to make the game freely available but we'd need to know what contract exists with Steam and GOG.
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There's always the nuclear option in asking the overall gaming community to chip in, Kickstarter style. The frustration that people feel about IPs getting bought and 'ruined' or otherwise wasted should help in that. At least it would make an interesting situation of gamers vs. uncaring publisher.
I really don't look forward to the alternative though, seeing some half-hearted 'Freespace' phone game that's merely a bad clone of what is the biggest grossing/selling title on the market, full of stupid microtransactions and spending money to unlock better ships, or even a 'full' retail game where, despite taking all the hard work the community did or some proprietary engine, its basically cloning what's popular on the market today with all the 'modern writing', for lack of better terms. I'd like Freespace to be safe from all this IP milking behavior.
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I can see Earthworm Jim on the iPhone. Battle Chess likewise. Descent? Heck, Descent would do decently (ar ar ar) on many platforms.
I can't see FreeSpace on anything mobile. It just doesn't have enough name recognition to be leveraged into phones, so the idea of taking its name and making a stupid ass game for a 3.5 inch screen doesn't fly. There's enough **** as it is on the app stores.
The only platforms it could eventually go into is either the pc or consoles. The worst scenario is an arcade style KILL DA SHIVA fighter simulator with 4 keys to press. And I'd actually be ok with that stuff.
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I'm not saying we're going to see Freespaceville, for the reasons Luis has laid out, but that the IP seems quite likely to end up in the hands of a mobile dev.
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As I said earlier, if the bundle that Freespace is being sold in also includes Earthworm Jim, then we haven't got a hope in hell of raising the money we'd need.
On its own, I think an estimate of 100k is in the right ballpark for FS2. That's completely beyond the abilities of HLP to raise. We could try raising the money with the idea to make the game freely available but we'd need to know what contract exists with Steam and GOG.
100k seems really high? They just got "the rest of the rights" in 2013 for 7500. I mean I guess they could have had 92.5k worth of previous rights, but it still seems a bit high to me.
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That's pretty much what happened, the $7500 was for a minor part of the IP.
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How about if whoever bought the rights to the story IP, instead created an RTS based on it.
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Actually i am surprised that Freespace is in the same tier as Earthworm Jim at all.
I mean.. i can't remember that Freespace is a so well-known and strong IP. As far as i know, both games were very unsuccessful at the market.
If you ask people about space-simulations, the first answer you get is Freelancer, than Wing Commander or X-Wing/TIE-Fighter and after that maybe you hear something about Freespace, maybe even after the X-games.
It is completely different to Earthworm Jim with its iconic characters or Descent for the ground-breaking introduction of the 6-DOF genre.
But nevertheless, i am able to imagine a Freespace game for Mobile. Anyone played StrikeWing?
It is a good playable mobile space combat game. This would also work within the Freespace universe.
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Actually i am surprised that Freespace is in the same tier as Earthworm Jim at all.
I mean.. i can't remember that Freespace is a so well-known and strong IP. As far as i know, both games were very unsuccessful at the market.
Whenever a site writes an article about spacesims, FreeSpace will be mentioned in the article itself or its comments. It is a regular guest in "best spacesims" or "best games" lists, so there's definitely some recognition there.
It also generates revenue through GOG and Steam (According to SteamSpy, both FS1 and FS2 sold about 20000 copies on Steam; this equates to about 140k USD in revenue)
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Actually i am surprised that Freespace is in the same tier as Earthworm Jim at all.
I mean.. i can't remember that Freespace is a so well-known and strong IP. As far as i know, both games were very unsuccessful at the market.
Whenever a site writes an article about spacesims, FreeSpace will be mentioned in the article itself or its comments. It is a regular guest in "best spacesims" or "best games" lists, so there's definitely some recognition there.
Yeah i know that, but regardless of the press, within players this game was always very unknown.
Freespace is also mentioned in nearly every "Best games no one has ever played" list :).
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Freespace got some recognition due to being the successor of sorts to decent. It was really the only space sim I even knew about. X-wing/tie fighter series too I guess, never played them though. Wanted them when I was younger, but didn't have a joystick then. I started to hear about freelancer from players in FS2, but even when I went looking I couldn't find anything about it. Still to this day I know next to nothing about it.
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I have received a reply from Wedbush. The current sale is for the entire portfolio catalogue. Not even individual leagues, but the entire thing.
I have requested more information on the auction process and time scales.
I believe if we run a kickstarter to bring all of Interplay's IPs into the public domain, it will have a very good chance of success. If nobody volunteers, I will plan to run this; however I am not sure how viable it would be given I live in Dubai.
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It's certainly worth a shot. And by all means, step up and see how far you can take this. Try contacting other game industry folks with connections as well; you never know who might be able to help you organize, publicize, or lawyer...ize.
Heck, if you get this rolling, you will at the very least deserve a new custom title. :D
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Problem with a kickstarter is going to be, what if we raise the money we ask for but then get outbid by someone else?
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Then it all gets refunded?
You don't have to pay the money on a failed bid...
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He means what if the Kickstarter reaches the threshold and the money is paid out, but some other party bids more than Kickstarter raised.
In that case, I would suggest refunding all backers, less Kickstarter fees. Backers should understand that they are assuming a certain degree of risk.
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Yeah, that's what I figured we'd have to do. But if there was a way to get the fees waived, it might be worth looking into.
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I've started up a new thread for specific auction information here:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92557.msg1830006;topicseen#msg1830006
The long and short of it is that the bidding ends on the 27th of September. That is very little time to raise a kickstarter for this, but would it be worth a shot?
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This is a stupid idea unless you have any industry experts with a good idea of what might be bid to run it.
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If you don't get it there's no harm in trying. Singh man my respect.
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Well there sort of is harm if we give Kickstarter tens of thousands in fees to make a bid that never had a chance to succeed.
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The problem is more that we would have to come up with an amount large enough to win the bid, convince whoever runs the show to accept said bid, then run a successful kickstarter for that amount plus all the fees involved.
There are so many ifs involved in this that it is unlikely that this attempt will succeed, especially against other bidders willing to fork over money right now.
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(updating the other thread as well)
I have received an official invitation to bid for the IP. Unfortunately due to the time frames involved, an Indiegogo or Kickstarter campaign would be very difficult, since they would payout later than Oct 17th, which is when the company requires for this entire thing to be closed. There is also the very good chance that Interplay can simply outright refuse to sell the entire rights should we make a bid.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0moObeV64NAQWJwcDZWc20tazQ/view?usp=sharing
I am going to attempt to make a bid anyway. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the sources of where I'm getting funding from, it makes things a bit complicated in regards to what I can do with it over the long term, since I would need to recoup the initial cost. It is very likely under such an arrangement that the goal would be to put these games on steam or Good Old Games in some form at a reasonable price and gradually recoup the initial cost that way. However that is assuming such a bid be successful, which is likely to not be. We shall see.
If anyone wishes to help, I need a firm commitment towards this. I cannot place a bid, then should it by some grace of Cthulhu become successful, not have the funds available at all. I cannot however ask for help morally without pointing out the fact that any initial costings (especially for legal fees, contract courier costs, etc) would be recouped and putting things into open domain may not work immediately to that.
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You're going to need to spread the word about this elsewhere if you want help.. Any forums dedicated to any of the IPs being sold might help. Also any general gaming forums.
Tough to get it all pulled together on such short notice though. I know Huggybaby (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=5458) was into SEO last time we were talking, and you could see if hip63 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=5822) has more connections over at OpenPlanes forums etc etc (hip63 put together the Installer DVD, very professional looking, user-friendly deal, and as close as we've gotten to a retail-quality installer for FSO by a long shot - Google hip63 SCP DVD if you haven't seen it already).
Too bad we don't have like 2-3 months to prepare, then I think that even if we failed to win the bid, we'd have a lot of positive attention just from the effort to make it succeed. Which would be awesome. :onecandreamright:
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(Hell, even Nintendo allowed Project M to exist unmolested.).
Since this is no longer the case (PMDev was forced to disband after receiving a legal threat from Nintendo), I want to point out that (essentially) the shutdown of Project M was the turning point for Nintendo ignoring mods to C&Ding them. Fortunately they only seem to pay attention to released fangames and mods as opposed to those in development, whether because of resources or intentional.
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Wow.
Even if I could contribute, by the time I actually opened up the necessary accounts and the like, I'd be damn well broke and it would have all gone to waste, lost in a battle to a richer rival by then.
Well my worthless cents' worth, I damn well do support the idea of someone buying the FS IP for the sole purpose of keeping it free/libre forever, or at the very least for some of the reasons the SCP coders have stated, but this world isn't a freedom fantasyland... recouping costs is more than clear enough...
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For what it is worth, I have placed my bid in.
0% chance of success, but it was an exercise worth trying.
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For what little it's worth, you did a good job Singh.
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For what it is worth, I have placed my bid in.
0% chance of success, but it was an exercise worth trying.
No success without at least trying, eh? Thank you Singh! Would have loved to see some crowdfunding action here but I guess the deadline was just to class for this kind of action.
Just wondering, would this deal cover the rights for distribution of FS1 and FS2? I don't think it did when THQ bought and sold the IP since the publisher/distributor of the FS games has always been Interplay.
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People here have been worried about Derek Smart hypothetically getting these rights.
On another thought, what if Chris Roberts hypothetically decided to buy the rights and try his hand at Freespace?
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On another thought, what if Chris Roberts hypothetically decided to buy the rights and try his hand at Freespace?
Good gods no !
This gets about as many nopes as Smart.
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In all actual honesty I would be much more scared if Derek got it because I can definitely see him suing us out of spite.
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On another thought, what if Chris Roberts hypothetically decided to buy the rights and try his hand at Freespace?
Good gods no !
This gets about as many nopes as Smart.
Why doesn't HLP start a Kickstarter and sell JPG Spaceships to fund it? Would have a hundred Million in no time, right ? ;-)
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In all actual honesty I would be much more scared if Derek got it because I can definitely see him suing us out of spite.
I think current derek wouldn't. He seems to have mellowed out a lot.
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In all actual honesty I would be much more scared if Derek got it because I can definitely see him suing us out of spite.
Kinda like the Donald Trump of the PC gaming industry then?
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As anticipated, my bid attempt failed. No real surprises there.
However, unsure who were the successful parties. We'll have to find out in the next couple of weeks I believe.
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Gamasutra probably would be the most likely to know.
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Hey Singh, it was worth a shot, the fact that you actually had a chance to try, that to me does at least mean something.
Probably me being cynical, but no matter who is the big name who gets the rights now, I don't see how any of them can be trusted that easily. Gaming is just so corporatised to the max nowadays.
Going off on a hypothetical tangent here, I don't know what would, say e.g. a Chinese or Korean buyer do with those rights, but if it went to another US company like Bethesda (FNV > FO4 in my opinion) or GBX (umm ok the whole HW:R situation, I don't know and am too lazy to think too much about it, plus I'm a terrible HW player) or EA (omg NFS 2015 felt so damn empty at the end! 8-gear cars with horrible ratios and a VERY frustrating car handling model) or Squeenix (ZOMG DXMD INGAME STORE etc etc etc) some other bigshot... ughhh :banghead:
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If they were smart they'd do some other spin-off, hiring both :v: and some modders here to contribute. You can call it FS3 without it being a sequel involving all teh answeres!!11elevenone.
Example, another situation entirely in which the Shivans either don't play a part, or they're just part of another plot which doesn't involve another incursion. Say, a small group of Shivans that can cause major havoc, [see FS1], and let's also say a terrorist group managed to manipulate an isolated group of Shivan survivors, and it just happens to coincidentally raise support for a politician's position who is getting reelected, now is it coincidence, or is the politician in league? Opponents to the politician disappear mysteriously. But then in the end, it's actually said politician's opponent doing it, to make the opposition look corrupt! No one is ever prepared for Spanish Inquisition Grammar Inquisition Inception whatever, you get the idea.
Yeah, scatter brained idea, but Batts would be able to do something amazing with it, and :v: would have the resources to make it polished (the community could too, but RL gets in the way so it'd be a long time..)
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So it's the 17th (here, at least.. barely... ;) )... when do we find out who won? ;)
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So it's the 17th (here, at least.. barely... ;) )... when do we find out who won? ;)
Or lost, depending on whether or not their purchase nets them in the black or red