[Flipside]

I'd say the demo is the best idea. The Beta has closed now, so we do need to be looking seriously at what we are going to do about this.

In all fairness, GoG seem to be doing a pretty good deal, and frankly, I'd like to be able to go onto a few forums and advertise the GoG deal AND the SCP together, but I'd feel awkward doing that if we were sort of flying in their faces.

[Mars]

If someone can throw a demo package together, preferably under 1GB, and distribute it in common formats (Windows installer) that would rock. It should be pretty easy to, if time consuming. I'd do it, but my 80GB hard drive is currently at 79, and Freespace is not installed. Goober did a FSdemo for SCP a while back, throw in the necessary models (I think all the models but the Hatshepsut are now hi-polied), the textures (normal maps, glow maps, and all), tables and table mods (they'd need to be modified a bit), shaders, redone music, ect...


Then we can take the retail data off of the installer, maybe include a "where can I get FS2" link in it, we can become (finally) fully legit AND advertise ourselves more than ever before (with no fear of repercussions)

I think one thing that's always held our population in check is that we don't really want to advertise ourselves because distributing the retail data is of questionable legality.

[Akalabeth Angel]

If someone can throw a demo package together (preferably under 1GB) and we take the retail data off of the installer, maybe include a "where can I get FS2" link in it, we can become (finally) fully legit AND advertise ourselves more than ever before (with no fear of repercussions)

      Hmmn, even with all of the new mediavps, we're still distributing sounds and main halls etcetera which belong to interplay and are not open source am I rght? Of course, the obvious answer to that is to simply make a new main hall (ie the mission style one) and include some homebrewed interface art or whatnot.

       Though the music may be impossible to get around. Unless the demo used some of Darius' or Inferno's tracks or whatnot (though I think some of the BP ones are ripped from other games)

[Flipside]

Well, any sound resources that were released with the demo should be usable, so I  guess we'd have to check through that.

[chief1983]

Yeah, wouldn't the demo essentially be just using the original demo VPs and not the retail ones?

[eliex]

I think some of the demo music is the same though . . .

[chief1983]

That doesn't matter.  It was in the demo, so it's free.  Same with Doom, just because the first act of Doom was in the full game doesn't mean you can't distribute the shareware version anymore.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

If anyone needs the demo for comparison let me know I still have it on my file server.   

[Mars]

Anyone else up for this? I have some time coming up after I knock a couple more essays off my plate. Next Monday I can start doing this if no one else claims it.

**** with it... can I claim the demo SCP? I need something to do.

[Aardwolf]

I made a topic about stuff in the demo vps that wasn't in retail. I think it was in either this board or FreeSpace Modding.

[Mars]

Yup, you did. Right here.

I think though, that it might be easier to start out with the actual demo, rather than Goobers modded version of the campagin and the retail files.

[teds22]

I see that Freespace 2 is being sold @ gog.com, does anyone know what's changed from the retail version of FS2?  The supposedly made them compatible with XP and Vista, but I don't know what else has changed.

[Mongoose]

By all accounts, it's exactly the same as the retail version of the game patched to 1.02 with the CD requirement removed.  The SCP should be able to run just fine on it once it's installed.  I just got into the site's beta the other day, and it looks like they have a great product going for them; not only can you back up your original download as much as you want, but you can also re-download what you've already purchased so long as you continue to have an account on the site.  All of that for $6 sounds like a hell of a deal to me.  I think Turey plans to remove the retail version of the game from his installer as soon as the site leaves beta, since there won't be any excuse for people not to purchase it after that.

(I merged your post into this thread, since they're both about the same topic.  Tweaked the thread title a bit, too.)

[chief1983]

We should ask HOTU to take theirs down too probably.  And Kara to update his FAQ

[Goober5000]

I think though, that it might be easier to start out with the actual demo, rather than Goobers modded version of the campagin and the retail files.

My version of the demo is compatible with with FS2 retail and doesn't require any additional mods.  It's just cleaned up and bug-fixed.  It could probably even run with the demo EXE, although I haven't tried.

So, unless you're even more fastidious than I am (which is rather unlikely), I'd recommend starting off with the cleaned up version.

[karajorma]

We should ask HOTU to take theirs down too probably.  And Kara to update his FAQ

Barring yet another gremlin attack I'll try to update the FAQ this evening to reflect the situation.

[Mars]

So, unless you're even more fastidious than I am (which is rather unlikely), I'd recommend starting off with the cleaned up version.

Good point, and one well taken.

Definitely starting with yours.