Well shit.

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/17/0533221&tid=206

"To quote Derek: 'I have FULL intentions of getting this license. If I DO get it, you and your teenny leetle friends on your Ferrous Oxide project, are effectively, shutdown because I don't piss around when it comes to IP properties'."



If someone ever asks me what a fate worse than death is for a game franchise, I'll point to this situation.
 
Well, I am a law abiding citizen (I've never had so much as a parking violation or a speeding ticket. I even used to work for the police). Honestly, though, nearly all legitimate games allow for MODS. If the so-called Dr. Smart wants to elliminate that option, it may be time for our own sort of Boston Tea Party.

If he is not willing to be reasonable, he will reap rebellion.

There is plenty of precedence for legal fan created MODS. Let him talk big. I actually do my research, and I'm certain we could overturn such a decision, with the proper support. I'm sure Mr. Smart has angered his fair share of lawyers, as well. If he wants litigation, I think we could rangle up some help for free, just to let Mr. Smart know that he is not superior to the rest of the human race.

I may get flamed for saying this, but I will not be terrorized, nor will I stand by and watch other people be intimidated by someone who seems a little inflated beyond his actual bounds. He may talk big, but nothing real will come of it. He talks big about his games, and look at the results. Don't be troubled by his school yard bully routine.
Sphynx
 
To be fair, that was after the HLP posters invaded the Avault forum just to yell at him. I've seen those posts and Kazan was acting like an idiot. I'm sure if people act mature that he'll focus on getting his game out rather than going after some stupid kids.
 
All the online gaming community's problems are caused by little kids. I'm still trying to make amends for all I did at that age.
 
hmmmmmmmmm

*scratches his chin a bit*

Considering the code was released by the original developers of Freespace 2, it's going to be pretty damn hard to take that off the internet, especially when it was legitimately released. Going back to say "that legitimate release is now illegal, stop that!" might be a bit hard. Plus it's all over the net. Plus the Saga programmers aren't doing this for a living, nor are they doing for pay. Plus that mission building utility released with the game, I think it's name is FRED, was intentionally make for fans to build missions through the game engine. Now that will be illegal too? Hmmmm.

Also, the Saga mod has nothing to do with the actual Freespace universe. No characters, plots, ships, weapons, etc etc etc. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It's total Wing Commander. That means forcing the team to take down ships, characters, fighters, missiles, energy beams, etc etc because it's a violation to the copyright of the established Freespace science-fiction universe, would be as pointless as "Cocksucker" Kucinich's bid for the US Presidency.

I don't think I can say any further, so maybe Tolwyn can.
 
Psyche,
I think you have done an excellent job of laying out some of the points that would make any litegation by Mr. Smart a mere waste of his money. As you said, Freespace 2, (which he would not own, merely the rights to any future releases) was designed for Mods. It would be like someone buying WC and telling everyone that they can no longer use joysticks, but must play with the keyboard alone. There is nothing to worry about. However, good old D.S. never stops to amaze me... I actually feel sorry for the guy.
Sphynx
 
psych said:
I don't think I can say any further, so maybe Tolwyn can.

Ineed, I can :)

The Source Code is Copyright of Volition, Inc -- not Interplay, Inc

So he cannot close the project even if he did acquire the rights - all he could do is prevent us from distributing any media files that were created by the artists/designers for FS2 - any community create file can be distributed. Wing Commander Saga still contains 5% of original Freespace data, which can be easily recreated by the hands of WC Saga team.

End Of Story.
 
Something I thought of, this guy lives off publicity, thats what he will be looking for if he decides not to allow modding of FS3, if he is ignored he'll maybe change his decision, with this guy it seems like you have to play a very sneaky psycological game

just my two cents, dont bite my head off
 
he *may* do it basically unmodable. Looking at his work up-to-date I highly doubt that anyone wants to mod any of his games though :mad:

What counts however is that he CAN'T force us to cancell our mod :)
 
Everything Derek Smart has created has been rather horrible. His Battlecrusier "games" if you can call them that are all rather... bad.

Derek Smart is just talking out the side of his mouth, the guy slaps his name on the front of pieces of festering garbage that he calls masterpieces. He's probably the biggest self righteous piece of trash in the video game industry.
 
I feel offended. I'm getting sick that this freespace-hate is even flamed
on by the admins of this webpage. This will sooner or later damage the
reputation of our mod. I'm really beginning to feel sabotated here.

Taste is different, either someone like freespace or not, that's his own
business. But starting fights all over again and insulting people, just
because they like freespace is really not necessary IMO. (Of course same
goes for the other way around too).

Beside being a wing-commander fan for many years, I also enjoyed
playing freespace (and there weren't not much alternatives these days),
and because of that I have a little problems with things like that poll or
some open letters with the intro "Dear freespace-jerks".

This insult a lot of people (like myself) which never been involved in your
private wars about different opinions.

Therefore I would appretiate it, if this would come to an end now.

Regards

Starman©
 
See, the thing of it is, in order to post your inane please-think-of-the-children rant at this point, you've clearly had to ignore half a dozen posts by your own people who clearly get the very obvious joke. It's not the jokes that make the communities look bad - it's the people who make the overtly conscious choice to take them seriously and act offended (over a video game...).
 
I'm fully aware of the fact, that we are only talking about a video-game. That
is the main-reason why I not even dare to post anything in all of this crappy
fight-treads, they are simply not worth it to post there (because people fight over
something, that is not existing in real life anyway), and I have other things
to worry about.

What I'm talking about are pointless insults (and believe it, it has really left the
borders of a joke), taken from these fights to the public, in this case Freespace.
And again, my only concern is, that this will have a negative effect on our
reputation, because we are dependend on freespace, and freespace made this
mod even possible in the first place, which is a good thing, because we have a
chance to give the community a new push, saying "WC is not dead yet".

The community will not survive the next decade with making polls about
"what was the best confed-fighter" or reworking statistic-tables all over again.

And this is the reason, why all of this worry me so much. Because WC-Saga has
affected me in real-life the last 16 month (at least 20 hours a week), and I don't want to see that dangered.

And just on a side-note, I give a shit on "derek whateverhisnameis". I don't even
know the guy and his obviously crappy games. As Tolwyn stated, it has no effect
on us.

All I ask, is to keep the insults on freespace-users and the game to a minimum (of
course there are some idiots too, which place on this planet has no idiots ?), even
because not everyone understands it the right way, as you stated above (I have a hard time myself, because english is not my native language). If you or anyone
else stumple accross some freespace-idiots, make it personell, or even ignore
them, then they will loose their interest for themselve.

And now let's settle this, I have no interest to continue on this topic. I have a mod
to build :)
 
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