[Luis Dias]

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.

[Trivial Psychic]

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.

[mjn.mixael]

That would probably kill off FSO modding faster than any possible legal issues, actually... depending on how modable the new engine would be.

[karajorma]

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.

[Black Wolf]

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).

[mjn.mixael]

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."?

[AdmiralRalwood]

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.

[Luis Dias]

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.

[AdmiralRalwood]

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.

[karajorma]

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. 

[Luis Dias]

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.

[Deepstar]

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.

[Phantom Hoover]

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.

[Det. Bullock]

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)


Freespace 2 uses the whole keyboard

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.

[Selectah]

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.

[deathfun]

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

[Phantom Hoover]

Yeah Elite's control setup is excellently configurable and good at chording.

[Admiral-Sabree]

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.

[Phantom Hoover]

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?

[Admiral-Sabree]

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.