Free Allegiance Forums

All moot!

There is no way you're going to put this broken piece of crap on steam. It would require a complete overhaul and all the devs, who no longer develop btw, know this.

That being said, you have to rebuild first which renders all this talk about licensing and copyright of this mess of code, moot points.

Wasp wrote:QUOTE (Wasp @ Mar 26 2015, 04:00 PM) All moot!

There is no way you're going to put this broken piece of crap on steam. It would require a complete overhaul and all the devs, who no longer develop btw, know this.

That being said, you have to rebuild first which renders all this talk about licensing and copyright of this mess of code, moot points.

1. Who are you?

2. I see the account is from 2003....but you never post,so please revert to #1.

3. There are plenty of games being played that are way more "broken" than this.

cashto wrote:QUOTE (cashto @ Mar 26 2015, 08:15 PM) ICE and AMT would probably be considered separate works from the Allegiance game. You would retain ownership, but not ownership of maps, cores, etc. created with the use of those tools. I don't think there you would have any say as whether those maps, cores, etc. could be sold, as there was no end-user license agreement or contract in place limiting the use of AMT and ICE at the time.

Maps and cores would be in the same boat -- separate works. PCore has gone through a lot of hands since MS1.25, and we might have an issue there. I don't worry about P1 or P32, and CC was a collaborative work, but they're all based on DN and we never did get Noir's permission to fork, did we? In theory he could show up and demand us to take down his or any core based on it.

yeah I remember back then, that at one time, I was tempted to add some end-user license to ICE and AMT because Noir was tempted to start a business with Dark Nebulae (DN). Back then I think someone said that the 'output' of such tools can't fall under any restriction. I don't know if it's true or not. It's like if MS wanted to prohibit someone to sell or earn money from a Word document or an Excel document for instance, or Adobe for a pdf, etc. Some said that cores & maps aren't really like Word or Excel documents but just parts of the 'game' itself and should be treated like code. It's not very clear where the 'line' is and if a licence can be as "contagious" as that or not.

Well it's a very minor concern anyway. As long as no one try to make profit from the current code or the cores/maps I won't have any issue here.

BTW Kage, in case it hasn't been said enough:

ICE is the @#(! dawg. You did a great job with that and thanks for all your hard work for this community!

KGJV wrote:QUOTE (KGJV @ Mar 26 2015, 01:47 PM) Back then I think someone said that the 'output' of such tools can't fall under any restriction. I don't know if it's true or not. It's like if MS wanted to prohibit someone to sell or earn money from a Word document or an Excel document for instance, or Adobe for a pdf, etc.

I think they were wrong. As a content author, you have the choice of selling the code, giving it away, or licensing it. And you can be as specific as you want in the license.

If they wanted to, Microsoft could release a version of Word that could only be used for noncommercial purposes, but then nobody would buy it.

QUOTE Some said that cores & maps aren't really like Word or Excel documents but just parts of the 'game' itself and should be treated like code. It's not very clear where the 'line' is and if a licence can be as "contagious" as that or not.[/quote]

You're right, it's not very clear. Every core we have is at least under the MSR-SSLA since they are derivative works of the original. And you're right, it could be said they are integral parts of the game and not something that can be separated out.

The law is what's on paper, and the law is also what the courts do. Since I'm not a lawyer, I won't make any prediction of that latter part. If we really wanted to know what arguments would prevail, we'd have to hire a lawyer.

cashto wrote:QUOTE (cashto @ Mar 25 2015, 05:10 PM) BTW, in the unexpected event that we can get Allegiance relicensed, we need to scrub the game and remove any other intellectual property that we don't know for certain that we own or have rights to, before we can put it on Steam.

I'm looking at you, Sobe lizards faction. Also I know the Phoenix models came from somewhere, we'll need to look at that license to make sure there is no noncommercial use clause or anything else that could cause a problem.

Anything else? Ambient noises? Images? Code contributions that didn't come from FAO?

I know the Technoflux AB-Cannon sound isn't original. I've heard it first used as torpedo fire from starships in Star Trek flash games. Whether or not those sounds are public domain or part of the vast library that every movie ever draws from, or if those sounds are owned by Paramount, or created by Vex Xiang (the author of those flash games) I don't know.

everywhere116 wrote:QUOTE (everywhere116 @ Mar 27 2015, 05:17 AM) I know the Technoflux AB-Cannon sound isn't original. I've heard it first used as torpedo fire from starships in Star Trek flash games. Whether or not those sounds are public domain or part of the vast library that every movie ever draws from, or if those sounds are owned by Paramount, or created by Vex Xiang (the author of those flash games) I don't know.

Actually i believe it's an original alleg file that the dev scrapped.
So is the TF SB firing sound, along with the mini firing sound.

FWIW any and all contributions I've ever made (mostly maps and the Belters Bases textures) can be used by anyone freely. Not sure that helps but there you go

This thread is lacking what every thread discussing this over the years (and there have been many) has lacked: Focus and follow-through.

Everybody has ideas, myself included, but few will do anything about it. I'm guilty of this as much as anybody, but that's irrelevant. What's relevant is that the following ideas require a reality check:

1. Porting Alleg to a new engine.
2. Getting the rights from MS.
3. Developing an "Allegiance 2" knock-off.

#1: This would require a massive amount of dev work. It'd require time, money, dedication, and skill. This community may at one point have been able to provide all of those, but the pulse I get from the current incarnation of the community indicates this is no longer true. So scratch it -- don't even bother talking about it, IMO. May as well be planning a trip to the moon.

#2: MS is a giant corporation with a gazillion rights to a gazillion properties. They have 0 motivation to speak with this community. They have 0 motivation to release the rights/sell the rights. Talking to us costs them money, so they won't put a lot of effort into holding an actual conversation with us. Giving up the rights makes them no money, so why on earth would they do it? Selling the rights might work -- if we had a few million bucks to make it worth their while. Anybody got a few million laying around? No? Then stop worrying about it.

#3: See #1. It'd be awesome if we had some hotshot, upstart game developer set up an indie studio and start making an Alleg knock-off, but I don't think we do. So I think it's a bit of a daydream. Nothing wrong with daydreaming, just as long as you snap out of it at some point

So anyway, that negativity aside, I think there ARE some possible avenues you/we could pursue that might actually work.

1. Let's Play: Pay some Let's Player to do a video or two on Alleg. For instance, I watch a dude named Scott Manley on YouTube. He often plays games much older than Alleg and gets tens of thousands of views on each of his videos. Do a little fund raiser, then reach out to him and offer $500 to play Alleg and maybe not hate on it too much. The most he can do is say no.

2. Kickstarter: Put together a WELL-PRODUCED Kickstarter without @#(!ty late 90's fan art or typo-filled rants on how great Alleg is and you might get a a few thousand bucks. I would highly recommend that the community pay a professional to create advertising art, marketing copy, etc., for something like this. I admire the effort many of you (myself included in years past) has put into creating art and trying to advertise this game, but the majority of it looks like total amateur hour and it only harms us. Yeah yeah, you pirated a copy of Photoshop CS3 -- but you suck at it. Pook was pretty good, everybody else is terrible. Accept it, own it, and find a way to pay somebody who knows what they're doing.

Mean Bacon is mean, I know. It'll be OK.

3. Twitch/Let's Plays of our own: Similar to #1, but we do it ourselves for free. My only advice here would be to get somebody who is GOOD ON CAMERA to do this. Getting one of our more "interesting" community members producing media will, again, only hurt us. You need somebody with great speaking skills, charisma, wit, and humor. I know that Twitch/Let's Plays are super tough to break into these days with so much saturation, but it's an idea. Whoever did this would also have to consistently produce content. Creating 2-3 videos and then leaving the channel abandoned won't do a damn thing. It'd need to be a persistent undertaking with the mindset of "I will do this until it succeeds" and NOT "I will do this until it fails."

Anyway, I'm well aware I'm not helping matters by only offering more ideas. But I think ya'll need to at least recognize it. If you TRULY want to get this game back out there, it's going to take persistent, hard work. Quality work. It's an uphill battle when your product is a 15 year old game that doesn't earn you any income and never will. Not an impossible task, but it's a nut nobody's been able to crack in 15 years. Good luck to ya'll, but I say cut the horse@#(! and DO SOMETHING.

Bacon

Did you read the thread?

Go back and read at least Cashto's posts.

You've been busy wooing Mrs Bacon and missed some stuff obviously given your conjectures. A surprising amount of it is incorrect and I'm not just talking about djole's (not sure of the name) efforts mentioned all the time.

The Let's play idea under various guises has been mentioned numerous times over the years. They only lack someone to do it. You seem to have all the qualifications including being a DINK family. Meaning a strong chance you can handle costs the community doesn't cover.

If you don't sign up I'd understand given your experiences with the landing page and your once stated hope the game dies so many of us can play another game together.

I've turned down several chances myself to do some task. Dome's latest offer was changing the MOTD on a regular basis. This was in response to my post in the vein of small things can help retain newbies. In my case the reasons are different but the end results probably the same. Thanks but no.

edit apparently just thinking the words doesn't make them show up on the screen.