Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Meatball on March 16, 2012, 08:57:27 pm
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Something on my mind...
I read something about Freespace was published in a magazine of some sort and this was thx to Hard Light Productions and your work, I wonder how many active members we have on Hard Light now modders, fredders etc, etc, and will the game ever again be revived by game companies?
A lot of work have been put in to Open Source, graphics, effects, campaigns.. Would this game ever be revived to such extent that you could actually play multiplayer again by just refreshing it?
Not a lot of space shooters are out there, I've seen some new ones, and they get terrible ratings from IGN and I check them out and they truly are awful.
Freespace in my opinion, easily the best Space Shooter ever made. Still works great today since it seemed to an easily modded game. We now have graphics thats up there with todays best, except for a minor issues that hinders us to do better like Planets can only exists as an image. But we saw a prototype (if i may call it that) of flying on a planets surface in War in Heaven act 1. I thought it was pretty awesome and could probably be improved.
All this said. I love this game to death and it's one of my favorites of all time. I love space shooters, sci-fi and especially large fleet battles. EVE is the most popular Space Flying Game out there I believe, but it's completely different from Freespace and it's not even a fraction as energetic and does not give me the adrenalin or feeling of battle nor war.
Freespace does, and I would love to see it in stores again with a title like "Freespace Open" and its renewed and completed but/and still people could access this page for fanstuff, fanmade campaigns and everything we are givin it now.
I think it is very underrated because people hear it's an old game from 1999 and automatically thinks it's bad. Sure graphics like that could turn people off but that is not a problem anymore. But people still decline just because it's old.
Perhaps you guys are happy with a free mod but that was not my point, namely money doesn't seem to be such an interests that, I don't know. But I just want it to be more published and recognized and stores is one way.
Just speakin of my mind here.. And I would appreciate some replies :)
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Multi works atm, and it doesn't take a lot of players (3-8) to make it truly enjoyable, so you can basically get the full retail FS2 experience with the 2012 graphics right now.
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I tried get the multi workin. But no one online which was my point.
Guess you haft to find some friends to play with which is one problem I have. I don't know any friends whom knew of this nor played it.
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It is legally impossible to sell FreeSpace open.
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And if you want to try and get a multiplayer game going, I highly suggest hopping on the HLP IRC channel (should be a link at the top of the site), since that seems to be the best way to find interested people.
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As I said. The publish and advertisment would be more important than actually selling it.
And why would it be illigal? You mean for you guys? What if Volition Inc or now it's THQ, decided to sell it again? Or is that whats impossible? They own the game... They could cut a deal.
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I will try that Mongoose thx :)
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As I said. The publish and advertisment would be more important than actually selling it.
And why would it be illigal? You mean for you guys? What if Volition Inc or now it's THQ, decided to sell it again? Or is that whats impossible? They own the game... They could cut a deal.
The conditions of the source code release preclude any form of commercial venture.
Volition Inc is and always has been Volition Inc. Volition's publisher when it made FreeSpace was Interplay. Volition's publisher is now THQ. Interplay owns the FreeSpace IP, and so Volition cannot use it or control it.
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Because someone will ask:
"Can we get the IP from Interplay?"
Someone tried, we didnt want them too, no one will raise the money, because no publisher wants to distro a space shooter.
/thread
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Publishers are so 1990s. We have the Internet :P
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Fads come and go. I think there will be a point in the future where space sims make a come back.
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This is true, and I'm not sure why so many think they'll never see the kinds of games they liked in stores ever again. Everybody used to make military flight sims, after all, and there were good ones and bad ones. Heck, some of those DOS games were more sophisticated than modern games in many aspects.
The world is full of programmers and independent studios that do their own thing, and could give less than half a damn about the musings of the big guys. There are indeed many new or newer space games in recent years that are everything from strategy to first person combat (as in flight or "arcade" simulators, not shooters). Who cares about wheter or not a large publisher releases a game or not? What you want is out there, somewhere, whether it be an open, free project like FSO or Starshatter, or games to come like Infinity. You have no shortage of options, people!
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For a long time, it looked like big stompy mech action was dead too.
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Because someone will ask:
"Can we get the IP from Interplay?"
Someone tried, we didnt want them too, no one will raise the money, because no publisher wants to distro a space shooter.
/thread
That's only because nobody has started a kickstarter yet for a space shooter...
Hey look, they asked for money to do a point and click adventure... Point and Click Adventure! (Monkey Island, Sierra games etc), only 400k and they raised over 3 mil? ;)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure
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i would guess that for every successful kickstarter (and isn't this the only one?) there are at least 1000 failed ones. honestly i'm amazed that this one was successful. i guess fanboyism packs a stronger punch than i ever thought. and i wonder how ironclad these pledges are. are they all locked in, or can tons of them balk when the time comes to actually pay it out?
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You hand over your credit card details when you pledge so I guess you could cancel your card to avoid paying up. :P Aside from that though, I don't think there's anyway to back out once you've pledged. According to Rich Burlew, the OOTS kickstarter lost approx 0.32% of their total pledge value "due to irresolvable processing errors or the like", admittedly which he also classified as a "shockingly low" result.
And while not every kickstarter succeeds, double fine is far from the only successful one (http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/most-funded)
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Kickstarter would be a very nice way to raise money. If this now is needed. But more importantly, lets say we try to raise money on Kickstarter, I believe a good video from someone who represents Hard-Light Productions can get a lot of backers. If you now succed and get a lot of money for Hard-Light Productions and Freespace and Space Shooters future, what will you do with the money and spend it on? Right now Hard-light is doing pretty good as a fan service, I think hard-light productions shows the biggest of fan service for a game in the history of games. What more games have fan service that did what Hard Light Productions did and still doing?
So yea big question, right now in my eyes Hard-Light is doing fine as a fan service. With money, what could you guys do? I wish for the revival of this game and maybe have one of those online advertisements that usually pop up on most sites sides.
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A necessary first step for any such effort is to get a simple, one-click installer that actually works and plays nice with routinely updated content.
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^
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Yeah, I guess we have to do that, since we can't exactly force retards to become clever enough to follow simple-ass tutorials...
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hip63 did some nice installers... that fixes the WinDOwS side of things, anyways...
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A necessary first step for any such effort is to get a simple, one-click installer that actually works and plays nice with routinely updated content.
:nervous:
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Yeah, I guess we have to do that, since we can't exactly force retards to become clever enough to follow simple-ass tutorials...
People are lazy. If they have to put any work into something, they'll go do something else. Honestly, I would have thought you guys would have done it much, MUCH sooner.
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Not only that, but there are certain quirks to the FS_Open mod system that can confuse even those who DO put in the time to read through the tutorials. (Something like ST:R's usage of the otherwise obscure "primarylist" entry is a prime example.) There's also the matter of convenience for those of us who know the mod system inside and out: it's far easier to have things update for you than to have to unzip a half-dozen downloads.
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I still can't figure out how to install or troubleshoot FSPort (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-psyboom.gif)
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Wat (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=76733.msg1523950#msg1523950)?
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Wat (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=76733.msg1523950#msg1523950)?
I'm not sure you understood me, maybe you should read my post again.
If you have trouble understanding the subtle nuances of my statement, please post again and I will give you a simple, step-by-step explanation of everything it means, including, if necessary, the concept of 'humor'.
FSPort is absolutely horrible to troubleshoot, and I've just given up on it. I run a lot of tech support for FSOpen on other websites, but when FreeSpace Port comes up in a problem report I just tell them to skip it, it's not worth the hassle.
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Ah
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FSPort is absolutely horrible to troubleshoot, and I've just given up on it.
Why FSPort in particular?
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A necessary first step for any such effort is to get a simple, one-click installer that actually works and plays nice with routinely updated content.
I think this would help greatly in getting newcomers to give FSO a try. I can see why it would be a lot of work, though.
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hip63 did some nice installers... that fixes the WinDOwS side of things, anyways...
Just that hip's installers were all offline installer and usually after he released one, a new build / a new set of MediaVPs / new something was released and anyone wanting to get a working, up to date and recommended installation had to download stuff manually.
FSPort is absolutely horrible to troubleshoot, and I've just given up on it.
Why FSPort in particular?
A few things that come to mind.
1) Because of the neverending support for FS2, the shinier parts have been separated into the FSPort MediaVP, but it isn't made clear enough that you'd really need to have the regularass MediaVPs installed as well. And hopefully to a directory that FSPort assumes them to be in.
2) The friggin numbering system:
FSPort 3.3.
FSPort MediaVPs 3.6.13.
The above files need the 3.6.12 MediaVPs.
All of the above is recommended to be run on FSO 3.6.14 (RC).
Not that version numbers affect the functionality or that anyone could demand that the SCP, the FSU and the FSPort posse keep their version numbers synchronized, but dude. Even I'm scared of this number jungle.
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FSPort is absolutely horrible to troubleshoot, and I've just given up on it.
Why FSPort in particular?
I think it's the dependencies that bog down troubleshooting in particular. Blue Planet has gotten almost as bad. BP also has another horrible issue in that it's now unable to run on any builds except dev branch builds with huge bugs.
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*sigh* Supporting FSPort isn't that hard.
1) Because of the neverending support for FS2, the shinier parts have been separated into the FSPort MediaVP, but it isn't made clear enough that you'd really need to have the regularass MediaVPs installed as well. And hopefully to a directory that FSPort assumes them to be in.
Delete, move, or rename your current FSPort and FSPort MediaVP directories. Unpack the zip packages into your 'games/freespace2/fsport' and 'games/freespace2/fsport-mediavps' directories. Then select either of those folders from the MOD tab of the Launcher.
If you are using the FSPort Media VPs, be sure that you have the official FreeSpace 2 3.6.12 MediaVPs installed in 'mediavps_3612' and you're using FSO 3.6.12 Final or newer.
Yeah, that's from the release thread. Pretty clear the MedaVPs are needed...
2) The friggin numbering system:
FSPort 3.3.
FSPort MediaVPs 3.6.13.
The above files need the 3.6.12 MediaVPs.
All of the above is recommended to be run on FSO 3.6.14 (RC).
Not that version numbers affect the functionality or that anyone could demand that the SCP, the FSU and the FSPort posse keep their version numbers synchronized, but dude. Even I'm scared of this number jungle.
Seriously? As one offering support you'll almost never see those numbers (save for the SCP version). If you get to the point of needing to check for the correct version, you should be looking at checksums which will be pretty clear, pretty quickly. All the checksums are in the release thread.
No, I suspect the reason is that over the years it has gotten a (well deserved) reputation for being a buggy mess, and at this point it doesn't matter how cleaned up it gets.. people keep telling others that it's a buggy mess. I've tried to clean it up, but frankly my hands are tied in more ways than one. (How many FSPort support requests have you gotten recently? I'm genuinly curious, because I think it's gone down.)
Sure the dependencies are numerous. But it's not that. Interesting that you mention BP's issues though, Battuta. I'll be watching to see how much support that gets despite having similar dependency issues.
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Sure the dependencies are numerous. But it's not that. Interesting that you mention BP's issues though, Battuta. I'll be watching to see how much support that gets despite having similar dependency issues.
The BP issues have only arisen with the recent update, which I wasn't involved with. It's certainly gotten me a little perplexed.
I think you have to remember that when we suggest someone play FreeSpace, we're effectively making a sell. And when they ask 'this looks amazing, how do I play?' we have to say 'Well, to start with FreeSpace 1, please install FreeSpace 2 Open 3.6.14 RC5, install the 3.6.12 MediaVPs to a folder called mediavps_3612 (DON'T CHANGE THE NAME), install FreeSpace Port 3.3, install FreeSpace Port MediaVPs 3.6.13, install Silent Threat Reborn, CHECK ALL YOUR FOLDER NAMES, now download Launcher 5.5g oh that doesn't work well get WXLauncher, now go to the Mod tab and select 'FreeSpace Port MediaVPs', no, not FreeSpace Port, FreeSpace Port MediaVPs, now please check all the following command line options, NO DON'T USE THE BUILD THAT ENDS IN D'
Then they roll their eyes and say 'Is there an installer that will at least get me all these files?'
And we say 'no'.
That's a tough sell.
No, I suspect the reason is that over the years it has gotten a (well deserved) reputation for being a buggy mess, and at this point it doesn't matter how cleaned up it gets.. people keep telling others that it's a buggy mess. I've tried to clean it up, but frankly my hands are tied in more ways than one. (How many FSPort support requests have you gotten recently? I'm genuinly curious, because I think it's gone down.)
Most of the support requests I handle are on a different forum.
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Meh, half that is stuff FSPort doesn't control. You can't blame FSPort for that, especially the lack of an installer.
All I'm saying is that I've worked my backside off to clean up FSPort as much as Galemp and Goober will let me. And no thanks to anyone else (save Zacam and MatthTheGeek who actually helped test things) it's more bug free than it's ever been.
If people don't want to install everything needed, then I say screw em. They can try to get retail FS1 to work instead. What's the saying I hear thrown around all the time to say that FSPort is terrible and retail FS1 should be played instead?
And if you guys don't want to support FSPort then don't. But stop complaining about it all the time like you actually want to support it. All your complaining won't fix things.
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I absolutely believe you and I'm grateful for your work. I'm not blaming FSPort for anything; this is an illustration of a general problem with FreeSpace mods. I'm saying that we need a reliable, effective one-click install solution so that people's work can be better appreciated.
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Would a new entry in Mod.ini be possible / help with dependencies. What I am thinking is:
[multimod]
primarylist = ;
secondarylist = blueplanet,mediavps_3612;
ModName = "Blue Planet WiH1";
Under this system when the user launcher selects, for example, WiH part 2 (obviously once it is released) it not only reads for folder names like now it also reads any mod.ini files it finds under ...\Freespace 2\<folder names> for the same primary/secondary list mod names, then when it finds a mod.ini with the requested Modname it reads back for the folder name and creates the -mod <folder name> switch that it already does.
It might make it easier to deal with newbies, especially if the Debug Log file records the ModName value. by placing the "Do Not Change" part inside a file it reduces the chances of said newbies causing problems because they can use unexpected folder names and not break things (someone will play with the mod.ini i know but i imagine it would be much fewer than the number who have issues with getting the folder name right) and by recording the information in the log it would still allow everyone trying to fix issues to know which mod is involved.
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Launcher Point: Agreed with Batts. An Steam style interface would be cool. Defaults to a news tab. Has a 'Play' Tab. Under the Play tab, you can select which mods you want, which are all preconfigured. For example, if you select FSPort, it should run FSPort, and the end user should never give a damn about folder directory names. If a component is missing when the user clicks on FSPort, it will give the option to download it with a brief description of what is. If someone does want to mess with directory names, then they can click mod properties next to it's name in the list. A 'store' like page will be available for users to download new mods, that will install on their own, manage their own dependencies by either finding them in the users directory, or suggesting a download. An 'advanced' tab should be available. Here the user can select if they want to try nightlies or test builds. Otherwise, it defaults to the latest official release.
The Kickstarter thing: I'm not saying I am for this, but someone needs to communicate with Interplay from the very beginning. They may not be thrilled to one day see a kickstarter spring up claiming it's raising money to buy their IP. They may not want to sell it. They may only sell under certain conditions, gleaming a portion of the profit. It would be wise to get some money before contacting them, to show that you mean business, but be prepared for it to be far more complex than "I has the monies now give me the IP".
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wxLauncher was supposed to be able to do much of what you suggest. I really have no idea why development has stalled so much. Is it just a lack of coders?
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wxLauncher was supposed to be able to do much of what you suggest. I really have no idea why development has stalled so much. Is it just a lack of coders?
More or less. A lack of coders with time would be a better way to put it.
jg18 has done a wonderful job of cleaning up wxLauncher and making it work on OS X. Unfortunately, he has (school) work to do (i.e., making computing better with research).
When I haven't been drowning in work, I haven't had the inclination to do much coding in my spare time (and at this point I am the reason that wxLauncher is still pending 0.9.0).
kkmic has caught a life (wife and child).
As for the "steam style interface" (be careful with that phrase; it can get you a lot of flak from certain members of this community), please see the wxLauncher 2.0 thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=69016.0).
Also, the new installer that Goober has been working on (for longer than I have been working on wxLauncher) is supposed to help a great deal in that direction. Though why Goober didn't actually say that above, I don't know, we will have to ask him.
There was also some work on getting FSO into Desura, though. I have no idea how that went or is currently going, considering what they did with Diaspora.
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Yeah, I personally lost pretty much any interest in the ModDB after that nonsense. I'll have to see about spending more time on the launcher once Diaspora R1 is done.
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What'd they do with Diaspora? I either forgot or never learned...
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What'd they do with Diaspora? I either forgot or never learned...
Deleted all the BSG mods on ModDB, including Diaspora, without warning.
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:ModDB=rodent: Well, that's bloody nice of them. :(
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They didn't really have a choice. Whoever owns the BSG IP handed ModDB and Cease And Desist. Of course they could have given more time for mods to comply, but in the end, the real dicks aren't ModDB.
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It's the fact that they didn't bother to inform us, and the attitude of the admins on ModDB when I complained that it was unprofessional to do so, and the fact that months later they still haven't bothered to replace the boilerplate message they replaced Diaspora with, that made me lose any interest in them.
There are a lot of other FS2 mods and TCs that involve the IP of big TV or film companies. I don't want to work hard on getting FS2_Open into Desura only to suddenly find users are complaining it doesn't work because they've suddenly and unceremoniously pulled the plug. If others want to, that's their business.
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Does that mean the Desura thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=73443.0) should get unstickied from the General FS forum?
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Might as well...
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Well I was never largely involved with it. Like I said, if someone else wants to do it, I have no problem. I just don't want to waste my time setting things up for people who might undo all my hard work and not even bother to tell me.
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It's cool that so many of the active community leaders are in this thread considering this issue. I completely agree with the 'hard sell' angle. As soon as I start explaining to my friends how to get FSO and the cool mods up and running it gets difficult to convince them it's worth trying. Now I personally used the installer doodad that used to be in favour - the one that goes and downloads all the stuff. But it seems various bits of it don't install properly or don't quite work right.
Is that installer 'FreespaceOpenInstaller.exe' no longer the best starting point?
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It has not been working properly for like, ages now. Years, really. What you need to follow is here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=78710.0).
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Thanks, that's very helpful.
Honestly though everything seems like it's been working fine having used the installer as the start point then gone and grabbed stuff when it didn't work properly. I have the right versions of all the FSO stuff as far as I can see and the various mods (with updates when I find them in their threads) have all worked fine thusfar. Maybe I've just been lucky and should reinstall according to that thread.
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It has not been working properly for like, ages now. Years, really. What you need to follow is here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=78710.0).
It's been working fine for most of that time, after someone (Goober maybe?) tweaked it. I'm not sure of its current status, though.
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The new version is in progress. Based on the comments in this thread, I'm going to do my best to finish it (at least the beta version) this weekend.
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I can't wait to try it! :nod:
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They didn't really have a choice. Whoever owns the BSG IP handed ModDB and Cease And Desist. Of course they could have given more time for mods to comply, but in the end, the real dicks aren't ModDB.
IIRC they complained about one particular BSG mod, not all of the BSG mods. And I don't remember it ever being established whether it was an old-fashioned "cease and desist", a DMCA takedown, or what.
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All I can say is that I never received any concrete information on why.
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For a long time, it looked like big stompy mech action was dead too.
I'm not sure that's a great example, since it IS dead. Remember that incredible Mechwarrior 5 trailer with the delightful phrase 'in-game footage' on the bottom? That will never happen now: The old, and petty, legal battle that hamstrung the previous games reared its ridiculous head, and now, instead of gripping, mission-based immersive game with top notch visuals, we're going to get a multiplayer only, free-to-play game with lowest-common denominator mechanics.
All because a few robots happened to look like a few other robots from a japanese IP that's ABSURDLY protective of its image, never mind that THEY'RE not using the designs any more either.
Gets me good and mad!
On topic: Yes, in general most genres are cyclic. the iPad gave adventure games, even old, retired properties, a second wind, and kickstarter has opened a lot of doors to niche genres and titles. Hopefully enough of those projects will put out finished products that it becomes feasable to have a game that is tailored to a certain customer base, but doesn't have to look like a surefire commercial blockbuster, to get good funding.
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Hey, just wanted to post to let you know that I'm a Mechwarrior fan ever since 2 and I've grown up with the series (and playing Battletech, too), and I think Mechwarrior Online looks fantastic. Your post sounds like a knee-jerk response based on very little information, particularly the 'top-notch visuals' and 'lowest common denominator mechanics' bits - it's running on CryEngine 3 and the gameplay mechanics are more complex than any past MechWarrior title.
Hell, the best MechWarrior game released yet in terms of raw gameplay - Living Legends - is multiplayer only.
What's more, the shift from MechWarrior single player to MechWarrior Online was motivated by the fact that they couldn't find a publisher, not legal issues.
Might want to learn a little about what you're angry about before you go full bore on the gettin' mad front. And you're completely ignoring Hawken as well.
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Indeed. The Devs respond pretty well to the community in MWO, and they pay a great deal of attention to canon in terms of the tabletop game (which I admittedly don't play) and the lore.
Outside of MWO, there's also MechWarrior Tactics, a TBS based on the Battletech franchise. While not a sim, it shows that there is interest.
If you look away from Battletech, there's the indie Mech-based FPS/Sim (Hawken) and a Mech game on another franchise (Reign of Thunder).
EDIT: Also, there's Mechwarrior Tactical Command with an awesome trailer featuring the Timberwolf, Panther, and Atlas. Not sure if active, though.
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The demonstrated rage serves little purpose, it changes nothing in the world, demonstrates significant ignorance of what is happening and only serves to any significant extent to troll those who navigate the communities involved. Advice from someone who has gone through the rage at the drop of a hat phase (Microsoft was my favourite rage target from about 10 until about 25) cool down, all venting does is prove you to be an ass, and the ppl laughing... well lets just say for the most part they are not laughing with you.
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Not only all of that, but blaming the owners of the Macross franchise (and others) for protecting their own intellectual property (which, at least for Macross, is still very much in use), when the original BattleTech artists were the ones who stole those designs in the first place, seems very silly.
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Not only all of that, but blaming the owners of the Macross franchise (and others) for protecting their own intellectual property (which, at least for Macross, is still very much in use), when the original BattleTech artists were the ones who stole those designs in the first place, seems very silly.
That would make sense except for the fact the original Battletech artists, y'know, licensed them, and Harmony Gold pulled the license in what can easily be construed as violation of contract. Which is in turn one of the reasons why Harmony Gold managed to alienate the Japanese licenseholders, resulting in difficulties making further imports from the Macross series.
There's plenty of legit reasons to be annoyed with Harmony Gold from both sides of the situation, and pretending otherwise suggests you don't have much of a grounding in what happened.
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I don't think the lawsuit(s) are as clear cut as you make them out to be. My understanding is that a 3rd company (TCI) produced images of mechs and then licensed those images to both FASA and Harmony Gold, even though they may not have had the rights to do so.
This link seems to have a fairly complete overview of the whole shenanigans, it seems to agree with other opinions I've seen.
http://www.terrania.us/journal/2009/09/harmony-gold-vs-battletech-second.html
This is probably most relevant:
We may never know whether TCI actually did have the rights to sell those mecha designs or not, because in 1997 a FASA representative posted to Usenet that the case had been settled out of court and dismissed. As one condition of the settlement, FASA was not permitted to talk about the settlement.
(ninja'd by NGTM-1R!)
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Not only all of that, but blaming the owners of the Macross franchise (and others) for protecting their own intellectual property (which, at least for Macross, is still very much in use), when the original BattleTech artists were the ones who stole those designs in the first place, seems very silly.
No, the designs weren't stolen, and Harmony Gold actually are huge assholes about everything, Battletech related or no. They're IP squatters of a kind (plus they financed a probably racist TV show in apartheid south africa, woo)
For example, you seem to think that Harmony Gold owns the Macross franchise. In fact, Harmony Gold was licensed the right to distribute Macross internationally by the real creators )(Studio Nue) and another group (Tatsunoko), and they promptly hacked it up into whatever weird thing Robotech is, i don't even know. They failed as a business and cling to life only because of continued revenue from Robotech. They're fundamentally parasitic middlemen.
You don't know anything about giant robot licensing fights! A shameful display
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Not only all of that, but blaming the owners of the Macross franchise (and others) for protecting their own intellectual property (which, at least for Macross, is still very much in use), when the original BattleTech artists were the ones who stole those designs in the first place, seems very silly.
No, the designs weren't stolen, and Harmony Gold actually are huge assholes about everything, Battletech related or no. They're IP squatters of a kind (plus they financed a probably racist TV show in apartheid south africa, woo)
For example, you seem to think that Harmony Gold owns the Macross franchise. In fact, Harmony Gold was licensed the right to distribute Macross internationally by the real creators )(Studio Nue) and another group (Tatsunoko), and they promptly hacked it up into whatever weird thing Robotech is, i don't even know. They failed as a business and cling to life only because of continued revenue from Robotech. They're fundamentally parasitic middlemen.
You don't know anything about giant robot licensing fights! A shameful display
I'm fully aware that Harmony Gold had nothing to do with the creation of Macross, but I honestly didn't know that they were the ones who caused the whole mess, and not the original Japanese production companies. The bits and pieces I'd heard about the whole issue made it seem like the BattleTech guys had cribbed some robot designs from Japanese cartoons, hoping no one would notice, and then got burned when someone did notice. Huh. I knew Harmony Gold was one big SNAFU that inspired tons of nerd-rage, but I guess they had their hands in more nonsense than I knew.
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Say waht you will, but Robotech has a kick-ass musical score. Far better then the original.
And, back on topic, did you know Angry Joe mentioend in a recent interview Freespace 2 as one of his most beloved games of all time?
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/me puts HG into the same box as interplay
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That actually sounds about right.
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Geez, I had no idea my post would stir up anyone - allow me to apologize for expressing a woefully under informed opinion. It was very much 'off the cuff', and yeah, I got much less excited when MWO was announced, after looking forward to something more like 2 or 3. Since at least some of this conversation was in response to me, I shall reply -
@ NG & niff, it's not so much the legal blame that got me annoyed; I certainly don't dispute a company's right to protect IP, what gets me is that its a long standing legal dispute that never seems to get settled, one way or the other. You're right, it IS complicated (I oversimplified), and to have such an issue interfere with a project - well, who wouldn't be annoyed?
@ battuda: I was under the impression that the lack of interested publishers was due to the same legal/ ownership grey area issues. Again, it's very confusing.
I though LL Was the only mech product to use a crytek engine? Apparently not, and that is good news. I do like living legends - Just the same, is it so wrong to hope for a return to slightly-cheesy space drama? I really am more of a single player gamer; I can't help but feel left out when a franchise goes multi only... Especially if its not how the project started.
Anyway, yeah. I'm an ass. I shall go now and be one with my humiliation.
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No worries, I was probably a bit too harsh. I'd love to see another single player Battletech title too, but I have high hopes for MWO.
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We're probably going to need to make another Hard Light Irregulars guild/clan/company when MWO comes out, judging by all the Mechwarrior fans on here.
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We need to make another Hard Light Irregulars for MWO.
if my system will run the game chalk me up for the suicidal recon mech pilot just as liable to charge the Atlas as run away from it
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For a long time, it looked like big stompy mech action was dead too.
Hasnt Mech Warrior been revived and new game is being released?
Yeah, I guess we have to do that, since we can't exactly force retards to become clever enough to follow simple-ass tutorials...
People are lazy. If they have to put any work into something, they'll go do something else. Honestly, I would have thought you guys would have done it much, MUCH sooner.
Those "retards" are possible new members to the Community. You should treat them better. It's already ignorant enough to say the tutorial is simple.
There is always MANY more people who plays games, then makes games. (including people who do small time work with games)
Majority of games have a simple installation. Double Click the DVD Drive, Window pops up, "Install?" YES.
They are tons and tons of free to play games out there. Many browser games, a lot of them is not in the same class as this project. BUT, people are both lazy and afraid to mess with installers that dont say "Next,next,Install"
If we really want to have a lot of new members, the website should be obvious with how to get the game, (which is most important) and it should be as easy as possible for the user.
Most people who don't get the installation guides and still tries are people whom already played this during their childhood or when the game was released and popular.
Rest, don't mess around with weird installers if the game is not interesting enough. Space Shooters are already pretty dead out there. So don't make it worse.
So simple. Make the website easy to understand for first-timers. They don't want to be part of forum, they don't want to help at first site if they didn't know the game in the past. They want to try the "old space shooter game" which has been greatly improved. If they like what the experienced, they will join the forums and start chatting if interested which many does. And if we told them on the sidelines that many more campaigns exist as those that exists in the installer, they will definitely join the forums.
And make the download sequence, and install sequence easy, and the mod easy.
I think the current installer is great and easy to use. I don't remember if the Installer is up-to-date but that would be great if you keep it up-to-date.
I DON'T think It's easy to find out how to download this or where. Many links are dead and threads sends you to another one thread and to another and to another one. To Download and Install, there should be a big button on the website in your face that says it. And that takes you to the links to download it with high-speed servers. Don't recall if you guys use torrents, since this is free, torrents should be no problem. (Pretty sure it's already up on torrents tho, but something more official should be uploaded)
And that gives you the Installer. And oh yea, I think I recall the Installer to download directly from servers correct? That's awesome. And then you have it! Easy.
When they got to try it and tried the campaigns on the Installer, they prob want to get back for more campaigns.
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Say waht you will, but Robotech has a kick-ass musical score. Far better then the original.
I have heard this so called soundtrack and the VA for Minmei(not Minmay, I'm a books fan myself and think this animated THING that they sprung from is an abomination), anyway, the VA for Minmei could barely hold a tune and had about the energy of a rock. I recall a LOT of voice crackage during her performances. Frontier, on the other hand, has several glorious examples of what happens when you give Yoko Kanno the task of writing pop songs.
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I think the current installer is great and easy to use. I don't remember if the Installer is up-to-date but that would be great if you keep it up-to-date.
The installer has been out of date for years now. A new one is been remade by Goober5000. Don't recommend the old installer to anyone, as they will only get a corrupted install and that will only bring us more support nightmare.
I DON'T think It's easy to find out how to download this or where. Many links are dead and threads sends you to another one thread and to another and to another one.
If you have found dead links, you should tell us which and where so we can fix them.