Regarding Ted's Thread on the Atari Boards

I hope I'm not blowing the lid off something big here, (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry), but Ted, you may want to consider deleting your announcement thread over at Atari.

I'm of the opinion (based on some hard-bought experience, I'd like to think) that "no one's the wiser" is the best way to keep things. If we don't tell anyone what's going on, then, well, no one will know what's going on. If we do tell them, then they might decide to bitch about it. Remember the "user agreement" prior to installation. Technically, what you're asking / declaring is a no-no. Practically, its no big deal.

Again, sorry for the mumbo-jumbo talk. Please carry on with your normal activities, everyone.

"Double Agent Devil-Domonater, out." ( Thanks for that little gem, Agetian.)

 

Thanks for the heads-up, but if its a "don't ask - don't tell" policy, then my friend is definitely out. Thats a bugger. BUT he feels so guilty about his position that he is willing to design maps etc from scratch - doesn't really help though, because I would like to get us all working on one specific module and turn out something really well crafted, but of course it has to be a module every one has reasonable access to.

I would have thought that as long as you weren't selling the mod and weren't bringing in other proprietary material, and acknowedging the copyrighted stuff you were using, you'd be fine. My previous experience of modding was with Star Wars games (watching from the sidelines and being a forum troll) and LucasArts have copyright notices you can include with your mods (and guidelines to be followed) so you always know where you stand legally. I was hoping Atari might have something similar.

 

It's actually quite interesting that Atari has neither allowed, nor forbidden the modding of ToEE openly. The game was released without an editor, and apparently Troika was put into a position that they were not allowed to release an official editor for it, so it's logical to think that Atari didn't want ToEE to be modded in the first place (or just plain didn't care about it, but that's debatable). It may have to do with a D&D license or something else, I'm not a lawyer so I don't personally know what it is exactly that prevents us from getting access to the official toolset (but I received an e-mail from Leon, one of the Troika members, that official toolset can't be released because Atari has prohibited it).

Currently Atari takes an "ignore everything" position on ToEE modding - they don't support it but they don't prohibit it openly, too. Therefore, I don't think that someone will actually care about what we do here, as long as we don't sell anything that's ToEE-based (mods, tools, etc.).

However, I have a certain proof (it's not mere words, it's personal experience, including the fact that I used to correspond with Leon) that Atari watches over Co8 activity from time to time, and people at Atari are well aware of what's happening with their games. They just plain don't care (since we don't do anything strictly illegal that would actually harm Atari's business, and all we really do is increase the popularity of their game that would have been long dead, if it hadn't been for modders at Co8), and it's actually a positive thing for us since I'm afraid that if they DID care about it, we would have been closed quite long ago.

Basically, we have to know our limits. Whether you post something at the Atari community forums or not - it actually changes nothing. I used to post some quite direct threads there some time ago (back when I wanted to find out the exact reason why Troika/Atari don't release an official toolset) and no one cared about it. That's how it works.

I hope that made sense.
- Agetian

 

Good input, guys. I find it particularly interesting that Atari has got moles here, but I suppose that's not entirely unexpected. Think about it - ToEE may be as good as dead, but it does remain an official title of Atari's, its "officially" supported (though not realistically), and it may still generate some moderate revenue. That being the case, they're going to jealously guard that income, as businesses aren't in the "business" of having an easy-come, easy-go attitude, at least not businesses that stay in business. So I think Agetian's take is dead-on - they don't particularly care what we do to ToEE as long as we don't divert any of their remaining profit stream or create some kind of major hassle for them. Thus the monitoring, to make sure that's not happening.

Considering all this, I still think its best that we try to fly under the radar as much as possible. Its kind of a wink-wink at them, wink-wink at us situation. They know we're here and what we're doing, and we know that they know we're here and what we're doing, and they probably know that we know that they know. Its like an informal handshake took place is some back room. (Ha, that sounds dirty, doesn't it?) But putting declarations of intent up for public consumption on their boards might jeopardize that, in my view, as it sort of violates the tacit understanding. I don't suppose Slim or whoever is going to weigh in with any type of green-light declaration, so what's the point?

This isn't a swipe at you by any means, Ted. I undertstand your desire to bring your artist friend on board and ease his fears, but I don't think its likely that anyone there is going to say anything to make him feel better.

BTW, what your proposing sounds very, very exciting. :thumbsup:

 

Thanks for all the feedback guys. The last thing I want to do is bring unwanted attention to us if that is a negative, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect that (from the module perspective, which is what my friend is worried about) the module is almost certainly covered under the d20 Open Gaming License, since the old modules are being freely distributed now (as Foil pointed out on the other forums). Thats good enough for me, and hopefully for my friend.

Exactly. As we know, there are no plans for any other turn-based stuff (afaik, I should say) so its this or, as Gaear put it, play Dungeon Seige. I mean, I am happy to write my own stuff, I have plenty of ideas (and could always do Edwin's plots if necessary, I really like those) but by bringing in an old module, its something I think we all want to see and it gives everybody a chance to contribute cause so many of us have the old modules.

I think in years to come you may regret telling us that But all I want for now is someone who can make maps of the quality we currently have. They're just straight 2d paintings, jpgs actually. My mate certainly can, I took a BG box over to show him what I had in mind and he glanced at the screenshots and casually said, "o I can do it more photorealistic than that". He's not kidding either, he really is a top notch artist.

 

I agree. Ummm feel like churning out some tables, chairs, pallets, gibbets, iron maidens and anything else you think you might find in a standard dungeon room? Thanks to Agetian its easy enough to stick em in. :wave: :gotmyatte

 

Sometimes reusing smaller objects like chairs, tables, etc. can be made a lot easier using a 2D tool called IETME. It's a tool that was originally written for Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate, etc.) but it works with BMP files so it'll do for pretty much anything (it can easily be adapted to work with the ToEEWB splitter/recombiner). It allows you to cut a certain 2D object from a bitmap and store it in a prefab palette, and afterwards you can add as many of those prefabs as you want onto a 2D bitmap. Also, we could copy a lot of stuff from other similar games (like BG, for example), and modify them (resize, etc.) to meet our needs. It's a pretty cool tool, but I'm not sure where to download it right now since the official site (www.teambg.com) went under long ago, and I'm not sure if there are any mirrors available by now. Anyway - tell me if you can't find it and I'll try to find it on one of my CDs (actually I was a beta-tester of IETME )

- Agetian

 

Good idea. Though if we are gonna undertake a major module, I would say we shouldn't use other proprietary stuff. The waters are murky enough as it is. For little fiddling (like a lot of what I am doing atm, which is using sounds / pix off the net) its fine.

 

Good point, Shiningted. Anyway, the tool may be handy since we can find a lot of free stuff available in the Internet that can be re-used without having to work with complex 3D stuff all the time.

- Agetian