An open letter regarding release of a ToEE Editor

Money talks.

Atari and Troika are companies and are in the business to make Money. Be realistic. The modding community(Livonya), and others have put a tremendous amount of time and effort into this game. It didn't cost Atari or Troika a dime, but if word gets around this is a really good game now and sales increase, then they make out. I know there are songwriter/artists who wont release their work for any reason. I'm sure there are game writers who feel the same way. It's interesting.

 

Not true, I know I for one, am not content.
The unfortunate thing is that we, as a small number of consumers, have no way to pressure Troika or Atari to release said tools.
So we are left with the ardious task of reverse engineering things, to create our own tools.

-Firestrand

 

I suspect that IF Troika and Atari ever got to the point that there was no good reason to hang onto their material, they might show some co-operation. Artist/songwriters, musicians, etc, don't usually give away copyrighted material free of charge. To say, well, your are not using it so you should give it to us for free is kind of unrealistic. As long as there is no money involved and no lawyers, everything is cool. Play the hand you are dealt, and wait and see what happens.

 

I posted this in another thread that maybe Co8 has some leverage with the upcoming 4.0.0 patch/mod. I'm not sure about the additional content (such as adding children) but if a comprehensive mod was made strictly fixing what is there (like 3.0.4), I think Co8 could maybe use that as a bargaining tool to get the WorldEd. Atari only stands to gain from the hard work here...hell, they could approve these fixes and re-release ToEE Gold or something and re-coup tons of money potentially. I know this for a fact...3.0.4 was a great beginning. Had ToEE been released in 3.0.4 condition, sales would've been MUCH greater. I'll post on the Atari forums to try and get some attention...

 

Well we can always try the persistence tack. Take a look at the credits page for Atari. Find email addresses for people like the producer, etc. Then email them a polite letter with a few links to the work being done.

-Firestrand

 

I imagine that point has already come. Originally, I believe, Troika and Atari were thinking that if ToEE was a hit they would develop other modules based on it, so they probably wanted to keep the editor themselves just in case. However, given the state the game was released in and the poor reaction to it, that idea seemed to be scrapped. Given that Troika is no more, the only thing the engine can do for anyone there is the off chance that they might be able to sell it to someone – but is there much of a market for an old engine that hasn't shown much financial gain? The other possability is that Atari would want to do something with it, but I doubt that too. If they did, they would probably have gotten Troika to build something for them rather than get a team of people who had no experience with the engine. Also, I don't think it made enough money for them to want to make a sequel.

After a year and a half we haven't heard even any hints or rumors of anyone using the engine, and now the developers are closing shop. Unless there's some sort of legal warangling involved, I can't think of a plausible reason why they wouldn't release it. And as someone said above, asking around at the RPGcodex or NMA would probably be your best bet to contaccting Troika.

 

"Odin" was the screen name of Tim Cain on various boards (read in an interview)...not sure if its the same one, however

 

Not everything is cash, even in the corporate world. Sometimes promotional content is released as to ensure ... future cash. We may only hope that ATARI and WOTC might be willing to make a wee sacrifice where TOEE is concerned if they see a way to cash on that goodwill in future. Question is, can we make them feel the taste?