[Gunteen6]

OKAY, i come back here after just a couple of months, and can't find the installer. i find it again, only to find you cannot get FS2 from it. I go searching around, and its no longer free??

The friends clause was removed?!
i didn't agree to that EULA! i agreed to the original EULA, not this modified one!
They never said that it could be changed without telling us, and i can find no record of this happening!


WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS GONE??

[General Battuta]

You need some clarification, my friend. The EULA never allowed widescale distribution on the Internet in the place of retail sales. The only reason the game was ever distributed for free was because it was abandonware.

FS2/FS1 are now available on GoodOldGames for the reasonable sum of $6, without DRM or restriction. It would be incredibly unethical to maintain free downloads, especially when the reason FS2 never got a sequel was because the game didn't sell well in the first place.

Man up and support the franchise. We were lucky to ever have free downloads, but now we have the privilege of being able to buy legitimate copies and keep the FS2 flame burning.

Put your flamesuit on - tolerance for this kind of entitlement is low.

[Spoon]

Oh yes, last time I admitted that I downloaded the game people started saying nice things like "I wish you would die in your sleep".
Better prepare yourself Gunteen6, nice people here turn into Demons when you mention 'free' 'freespace 2' and 'download' in one post.

[Herra Tohtori]

They never said that it could be changed without telling us, and i can find no record of this happening!

Yes they did.

This software product, FreeSpace 2 (the "Software"), is
intended solely for your personal noncommercial home entertainment
use. You may not decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the
Software, except as permitted by law. Interplay Productions and
Volition, Inc. retain all rights and title in the Software including
all intellectual property rights embodied therein and derivatives
thereof.  You are granted a revocable, nonassignable limited license
to create derivative works of this Software solely for your own
personal noncommercial home entertainment use and may publicly
display such derivative works to the extent specifically
authorized by Interplay in writing. A copy of this authorization, if
any, will be provided on Interplay's World Wide Web site, located at
http://www.interplay.com, or by contacting the legal department of
Interplay Productions in the US at (949) 553-6655. The Software,
including, without limitation, all code, data structures, characters,
images, sounds, text, screens, game play, derivative works and all
other elements of the Software may not be copied (except as provided
below), resold, rented, leased, distributed (electronically or
otherwise), used on pay-per-play, coin-op or other for-charge basis,
or for any commercial purpose. You may make copies of the Software
for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use and to give to
friends and acquaintances on a no cost noncommercial basis. This
limited right to copy the Software expressly excludes any copying or
distribution of the Software on a commercial basis, including,
without limitation, bundling the product with any other product or
service and any give away of the Software in connection with another
product or service. Any permissions granted herein are provided on a
temporary basis and can be withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any
time. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

Modem and Network Play. If the Software contains modem or network
play, you may play the Software via modem transmission with another
person or persons directly without transmission through a third party
service or indirectly through a third party service only if such
service is an authorized licensee of Interplay. For the purposes of
this license, a third party service refers to any third party service
which provides a connection between two or more users of the
Software, manages, organizes, or facilitates game play, translates
protocols, or otherwise provides a service which commercially
exploits the Software, but does not include a third party service
which merely provides a telephonic connection (and nothing more) for
modem or network play. Authorized licensee services are listed on
the Interplay Productions World Wide Web Site located at
http://www.interplay.com. This limited right to transmit the Software
expressly excludes any transmission of the Software or any data
streams thereof on a commercial basis, including, without limitation,
transmitting the Software by way of a commercial service (excepting
those specific commercial services licensed by Interplay) which
translates the protocols or manages or organizes game play sessions.
If you would like information about obtaining a pay-for-play or
commercial license to the Software, please contact Interplay
Productions in the US at +(949) 553-6655.  Nothing in this paragraph
is intended to prevent you from downloading the Software from
Interplay's Web site or from commercial service providers authorized
by Interplay to provide the Software to you.

Acceptance of License Terms. By downloading or acquiring and then
retaining this Software, you assent to the terms and restrictions of
this limited license. If you acquired the Software and do not accept
the terms of this limited license, you must return the Software
together with all packaging, manuals and other material contained
therein to the store where you acquired the Software for a full
refund and if you downloaded the Software, you must delete it.

Trademark and copyright (c) 1999 Volition, Inc.  All rights reserved.

The current EULA does not have the friends clause in it, and no one really ever thought it granted permission to distribute the game in the internet in the first place.

The game was sort of distributed on a very hush-hush basis because acquiring a legitimate copy was nearly impossible. This is no longer the case, so it became unnecessary to break copyright laws to keep the community going. Throwing a hissy fit will only serve to ridicule yourself...

[The E]

Also, gunteen, if you had made the effort to look around a bit instead of starting to whine immediately, you would have noticed that you are not the first one to ask these questions. You would also have noticed that the installer had some problems in the past, which have been fixed only recently.

Oh, and you know what's beautiful about EULAs instead of regular contracts? They contain clauses such as "This EULA may be superceded by newer versions". And since the last versions of the EULA did not contain the "friends clause", you are **** out of luck. You may find this enlightening.

[Gunteen6]

Personally i think its hilarious that you think that i jumped on here immediately and whined. i did research, i did look around, i found no record anywhere.
I read that EULA head to toe.
quite frankly i'm rather let down, this group is not the group i thought it once was.

whatever, i still have my copy installed, i just figured i would get something else other than a flame war.

[General Battuta]

Apparently you didn't read the EULA, since you believed it couldn't be changed when in fact it can.

If by 'no longer the group they were', you mean 'now able to support FreeSpace 2 instead of letting it slowly die', then yes. GoodOldGames is the best thing to happen to FS2 since the source code release.

[Gunteen6]

I put the gun down, I suggest you do the same, sir. 

[Mongoose]

In other words, no matter what your impression may have been, this community was never gung-ho about the free distribution of the game in the first place.  It was simply something we viewed as a necessary evil in order to provide new members with some feasible way of obtaining the game.  The announcement that GOG would be offering the game for sale at such a cheap price was meant with much rejoicing around here, as we once again had a means of supporting the original creators and publisher.  As soon as GOG came out of beta, we happily ditched the download links.

[Gunteen6]

Okay! I get it! I got it after the first flame! PUT THE AXE DOWN!
Holy crap people! back off!

[General Battuta]

Just some data for the curious, now that gunteen has been enlightened:

After reviewing some hard data, I'm willing to wager that GoodOldGames has drawn more people into the FS2 community than the FSO Installer ever did. I believe FS2 is one of their top sellers, given that it's been in their 'top sellers' list every week I've visited the site. And with several thousand user reviews and a 5-star average rating, it's clearly doing pretty well!

In fact I believe it probably sells better than any game except Fallout over there...

[da1edwin]

So buying the game from GOG does get money back to Volition/Interplay?

I'm just curious. I don't need to buy it from GOG, because I have originals of both Freespace and Freespace 2. (We had Silent Threat lying around somewhere, but I can't find it.) Originals meaning the original retail packaging. I was initially looking for Descent in a game store somewhere, saw Descent: Freespace: The Great War and thought it was similar, then played it and realized it was a totally different game. Then I got FS2 as soon as it came out. I still can't believe it sold so poorly.

[Hades]

Then I got FS2 as soon as it came out. I still can't believe it sold so poorly.

The reason that it sold so poorly is because Interplay didn't put ads out for the game, so many people didn't know that it actually existed.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Don't worry gunteen, some people are more concerned with laying down the law rather than trying to be diplomatic and accomodating to new and returning users. Don't take it personally. Some people in the past certainly were gung ho about free distribution but the community as a whole tends to think of the www.gog.com site as a good thing.

[Droid803]

I don't think of GOG as a good thing because I have less money I can spend whenever I want than that panhandler down the street. (Read: I can't procure $6 without very good reason.)

Hence why I keep retail files on my external, just in case I ever need to reformat. Has already paid off once.

[gavilatius]

free download freespace!... just kidding, well if your going to get it for free (and there are places that are secret squirrel) but the EULA can kiss my butt. period.

[Javito1986]

Freespace 2 and Fallout 2 are the best selling games on GoG by far. Not really sure which one is ontop though but I would guess Fallout 2 is the absolute best seller, if only because of Fallout 3's recent release.

GoG is a great website and honestly... HONESTLY, if you can't produce $6... I mean, I hate to judge, but just the fact that you're posting on a computer and playing Freespace 2 means you're not living in a shanty town lacking all electricity and a source of clean water. It's important to financially support the developers of Freespace.

I haven't made use of the GoG service myself since I happily own the retail discs I purchased in 2000 or so but it's a great service nonetheless. Incidentally, a little known fact about GoG is that it's run by CDProject, the Polish gaming company that developed The Witcher, and they're a good group of guys to be sure.

free download freespace!... just kidding, well if your going to get it for free (and there are places that are secret squirrel) but the EULA can kiss my butt. period.

Hey now, none of that. This is a legitimate website, we'll have no such talk about those seedy 'places'!

[Droid803]

Oh, I can produce $6 for something I need, hell, I can get $600 for a laptop, but for a game, I'd have to use money I find on the street.

What I'm saying is I'm not granted money to spend on just anything I want, particularly over the internet.

[Mongoose]

So buying the game from GOG does get money back to Volition/Interplay?

Yup, or at least to Interplay, and I'd imagine that still has some sort of royalty payment going on.  Interplay directly negotiated with GOG to make their games available there in the first place.

[karajorma]

What I'm saying is I'm not granted money to spend on just anything I want, particularly over the internet.

The perils of a happy marriage?