Free Allegiance Forums

But $#@! Minnesota. I hate all those $#@!s. With a strong $#@!ing passion.

I've never met not one chill person from Minnesota. Well, there was my one friend but she was the only exception. Everyone else has been $#@!ing mental.

lol jealousy is ugly.

Dark_Sponge wrote:QUOTE (Dark_Sponge @ Aug 10 2010, 12:16 PM) If Allegiance was abandonware this might be an issue, but when a game's source code is released to the public it means they've given up on it.


Makes sense to me.

Open source does not mean free use, public domain, or given up. See the GPL, Freespace 2, or Alien vs Predator 1 for reference. MS can still own the rights to the game, artwork, storyline, and everything else -- and probably does.

Point by point:

Seymor wrote:QUOTE (Seymor @ Aug 7 2010, 06:22 PM) ASGS messed up the running through steam unless you're clever about it, which I'm not.

They fixed that right around when BFBC2 came out, due to so many games having a 'launcher' exe and a 'game' exe. Steam now correctly detects ASGS is a launcher and waits for Allegiance.exe appropriatly.

badp wrote:QUOTE (badp @ Aug 8 2010, 09:34 AM) 1. Make shortcut to ASGSClient
2. Rename as required
3. Add Non-Steam Game
4. ...
5. "Osa_Eris is playing PENIS PENIS PENIS!"

Bingo.

Imago wrote:QUOTE (Imago @ Aug 10 2010, 09:32 AM) We're not on Gamespy server lists for the same reason We're not on Steam lists - we're not an official organization. Tigereye needs to square this away or allow someone else in the community to create an organization registered with a state / country and make our primary presence appear from said organization. TE would be the logical person to do this as he is currently the owner of the alleg.net domain and that is our primary freeallegiance.org.


THIS IS ALL THE SAME REASON WHY WE DONT HAVE:

A GameSpy SDK (free)
A GoDaddy OpenSource SSL Certificate (free)
A Class 3 Code Signing Certificate ($)


THANKS TIGEREYE

We're not on Steam ( ) and likely can't integrate with Gamespy (not that I can think of a single reason why anyone would want to) not because we're not a legal and proper organization, but because we do not legally own the code. Microsoft owns the code, and per the license agreement we cannot bind it with Steam or any Steam-Like-Objects (see Scope of Rights, paragraph 2).

Edmond wrote:QUOTE (Edmond @ Aug 10 2010, 11:36 PM) Open source does not mean free use, public domain, or given up. See the GPL, Freespace 2, or Alien vs Predator 1 for reference. MS can still own the rights to the game, artwork, storyline, and everything else -- and probably does.

Correct. MS retains the right to snap up every code modification we've committed to the game and release the game under their flag again, with no warning nor reimbursement to anyone who has committed changes (as I read it, I could be wrong about this interpretation).

EDIT: As an afterthought, probably the most important reason we can't integrate with Steam or Gamespy or Xfire or whatever would be because their services directly compete with a Microsoft product: Games for Windows: Live. Having said that, there is perhaps a non-zero chance we could shim in under that umbrella, but us being on steam (assuming Valve would even let us given the circumstances) would only last for as long as it took for MS Legal to catch wind of it.

Aeris hits the nail on the head. We've got away with a lot over the years mostly by flying under the legal radar.

The only digital distribution services we can consider are GfWL or the rumoured Win8 App Store. And that would mean handing direct control back to MS to a greater or smaller extent. If you think TE is obstructive to code changes I think you'd find yourself hitting a brick wall hard under MS ownership.

Personally I think that we do need to return to MS, the benefits will outweigh the downsides. But if people want to push this there should be consideration from all sides.

why would we return to ms? would that mean we could no longer edit cores?

Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ Aug 11 2010, 09:10 AM) why would we return to ms? would that mean we could no longer edit cores?

Much greater exposure would be the main reason.

I have no idea whether such a thing would be even possible though, and under what terms.

i dont know why ms would bother trying to advertise some game that is 10 years old, or even go through the trouble of snatching everything up. It would probably cost more to pay people to write something to the effect of "lol all ur base belong to us" and shutting us down than they would make with this game. Alleg has survived solely because its free. If MS tries to charge for it nobody will buy it, so I dont see any profit motive for them

Profit denial is worth it to them. Gotta make sure people understand you respect the license agreement or @#(! goes pear shaped in a hurry.

Also, there's more than one way to make money with a game. Our internal add for the academy on the countdown screen springs to mind. And all that empty real-estate in-base. And banner ads. And data mining. Microtransactions for customizable cosmetics. The list goes on.

Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ Aug 11 2010, 09:25 AM) i dont know why ms would bother trying to advertise some game that is 10 years old, or even go through the trouble of snatching everything up. It would probably cost more to pay people to write something to the effect of "lol all ur base belong to us" and shutting us down than they would make with this game. Alleg has survived solely because its free. If MS tries to charge for it nobody will buy it, so I dont see any profit motive for them

Because it'd be an easy thing for them to bung onto an app store with essentially no cost. It'd work in terms of "Look how many games we have on GfWL, we have free games and everything".