Animosity ("Freestrife")

[printz]

Well... Doesn't the copyright still belong to the individual designers and programmers (even if the company disbanded), no matter if dead or alive? Or not?

[esselfortium]

Not necessarily. Depending on their contract with the company, everything they created for the game was likely considered a 'work for hire', in which case the copyright was assigned to the company itself as soon as it was created.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Gez said:

The FBI sending Predator drones to murder you in your sleep.

At least they're kind enough to do it while we're asleep.

[Gez]

Sodaholic said:

I want to clarify the reason I want to have the mission objectives identical (not storywise, gameplayiwse instead) is to maintain compatibility with both the vanilla/chocolate engine, and also manage to support theoretical mods as well.

I don't think it's a good idea to worry that much about it. First, there are like four mods out there. Secondly, Strife mods will either feature their own dialogue or no convo NPCs at all.

[Cire]

Cool, looking forward to this!

[printz]

esselfortium said:

Not necessarily. Depending on their contract with the company, everything they created for the game was likely considered a 'work for hire', in which case the copyright was assigned to the company itself as soon as it was created.

Well, I guess everything's settled. There's that rule that several decades need to pass after the demise of the author, before it becomes public domain. The author here is the two companies. If they didn't leave the rights to anyone else, then Strife shall remain copyright Velocity and Rogue, and after roughly 60 years it will become public domain for sure (IANAL). I hope I live to see that day.

[Quasar]

There is a chance that Moses Ma, the founder and CEO of Velocity, is the actual rights holder. I have been in contact with him, but it was in regard to information I was seeking about Morey Goldstein and the issue of licensing was not brought up. However, he is still around and quite active in the San Fran area so if somebody wanted to look him up and see if he knows the licensing status or could sign off on a free release of the assets legally, he'd definitely be the first guy to ask. He seemed reasonably friendly and probably wouldn't go into a blind rage just for having been asked.

[Death Egg]

Quasar said:

There is a chance that Moses Ma, the founder and CEO of Velocity, is the actual rights holder. I have been in contact with him, but it was in regard to information I was seeking about Morey Goldstein and the issue of licensing was not brought up. However, he is still around and quite active in the San Fran area so if somebody wanted to look him up and see if he knows the licensing status or could sign off on a free release of the assets legally, he'd definitely be the first guy to ask. He seemed reasonably friendly and probably wouldn't go into a blind rage just for having been asked.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. No reason to make all the assets for a free version if we can just get the original into the public domain.

[printz]

TrueDude said:

Actually, that's not a bad idea. No reason to make all the assets for a free version if we can just get the original into the public domain.

If he really wants to give away his IP, that is.

[Death Egg]

printz said:

If he really wants to give away his IP, that is.

Yeah... But to find out we'll have to get a hold of him first and ask him. I would try to, but I'm not exactly the most sociable person...

[Death Egg]

Anybody try contacting him yet and seeing what he had to say? Don't want the project dying for absolutely no reason...

Also, going to use the name Avoozl suggested, if he doesn't release the assets.

[Eponasoft]

You could call it "Animosity". :) It's similar in meaning to "Strife".

[Death Egg]

Eponasoft said:

You could call it "Animosity". :) It's similar in meaning to "Strife".

Actually... Yeah, I like this name better. Cataclysm isn't used as the name of any games, but it's the subtitle of at least a few, most notably a WoW extension. By comparison, I've never heard of a game called Animosity.

[Cire]

Has there been any progress on Animosity yet?

[printz]

It's weird, wiktionary indeed says that animosity means "violent hatred leading to active opposition; active enmity; energetic dislike" but the word itself sounds very weak.

[Gez]

I kinda liked my suggestion of "Struggle" above.

[Death Egg]

Cire said:

Has there been any progress on Animosity yet?

No, not yet. Marnetmar said he was working on a basic outline but I'm not sure how far he's gotten on it.

[scaled]

Welcome to the hell that is Orphaned Works.

I'm with hte poster's idea of having identical mission goals (even if the script is different.) So if you stripped the story out you'd still get the same concepts (including a quest that intentionally leads to a game over if you don't talk to an NPC and realize picking up the widget is a bad idea.)


The problem, as mentioned in another thread, is the strife maps have to link together well enough that they transition pretty seamlessly, so there's the problem there that freedom doesn't have.

I would place the priorities at sketching a general story flow (Area 1 is going to be a TOWN, TOWN connects to REBEL BASE and OPPRESSIVE CITADEL. OPPRESSIVE CITADEL opens up into OVERGROWN WILDERNESS after END OF ACT ONE. etc etc.) An outline would be nessicary so mappers would all be on the same page (you'd have to have at least some communication between mapprs so they can talk to eachother for the sake of making exits/transitions that make sense.)

Yet we don't need word for word cutscene for cutscene stuff til later. I'd guess priority after making sure maps line up is putting all the quest hooks in place so they line up with how strife does things.

Which would be after deciding what the theme for each map is, but could theoretically go before getting new NPC sprites (could sub in freedoom sprites til originals are made. Hell, given freedoom's license and intent we could recycle freedoom assets to an extent.)

Guess all this is a long way of saying having people agree on mapping would be important.

As for story/setting. I like steampunk. Could even go into lovecraftian-esque mythos. IE kill the cyborg bosses and you get Things Man was Not Meant To Know popping out of them/getting summoned by their deaths to try wiping out a threat to their invasion.

Another advantage of going steampunk is you can go for Mad Science (frankenstien being a prominent example, or isle of dr monroe's manimals) that doesn't really have to conform to 'real.'

As for The Artifact. Given it acted as key and weapon I dunno. It also figured heavy in The Order's iconography (their banners and logos and such.... plus it looked like a styalized flame.) Maybe with a bit of time I could think of something but right now I'm drawing a blank.

Edit: Emailed Moses Ma asking at the current rights status to the Velocity Product Catalouge and if there was any chance at seeing steam releases. Figured ask if everything will go back on sale before asking 'hey can i has freeez stufffz???????'

[Death Egg]

scaled said:

Welcome to the hell that is Orphaned Works.

Um, I didn't say I gave up on it, I just... wasn't doing anything. That and I was waiting on Sodaholic to make a pallete for this before getting into working on it some more.

As for story/setting. I like steampunk. Could even go into lovecraftian-esque mythos. IE kill the cyborg bosses and you get Things Man was Not Meant To Know popping out of them/getting summoned by their deaths to try wiping out a threat to their invasion.

It's funny because this is almost exactly what I had in mind too.

Edit: Emailed Moses Ma asking at the current rights status to the Velocity Product Catalouge and if there was any chance at seeing steam releases. Figured ask if everything will go back on sale before asking 'hey can i has freeez stufffz???????'

THIS was the biggest reason I wasn't doing anything. I wanted to make sure a bunch of work wasn't done for nothing, if the main wad could just be given out for free.

[Gez]

Death Egg said:

Um, I didn't say I gave up on it, I just... wasn't doing anything.

He wasn't talking about your project, but about Strife.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works

[scaled]

Exactly. Sorry if i was unclear. No word yet from Mr Ma, and i don't expect any til Monday at the soonest (honestly not expecting anything til next month or later.) Hoping he has the rights as head of the company that made the game.

Email address isn't all that hard to find just a quick google and it was like the second or third entry as part of a PDF doc.

Would suggest several people send emails, all polite all well worded (or at least as formal as possable) asking what the rights deposition to strife is and what current plans are if any.

[AkiraZXE]

I would not suggest that. In my experience, a single concise and polite email will do fine, even if it takes a few days for him to get back to you. Bogging him down with multiple emails will likely make him ignore all of them. The only time another message might be necessary is if you don't get a reply in a few weeks. Emphasis on might.

[Enjay]

Gez said:

I kinda liked my suggestion of "Struggle" above.

Mein Kampf? ;)

[smilerb]

I have played about with the FreeStrif iwad on Delta Touch and these are my tweets:-

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/SmilerB9/status/1642338262659260417

 

 

[Walter confetti]

Uh, thanks for necrobumping i guess? I didn't even recalled this project!

[Timilyo80]

Bruh, I discovered this zombie topic right after reading the topic about why free-hexen is a bad idea.
Let's just say I got really confused really fast...

[Biz!]

smilerb is fucking legendary responding to an 11 year old post about playing a wad to advertise their twitter on doomworld.

[Death Egg]

Yeah I just thought there should be a free version for each IWAD at the time, it's more worth just making a new game if someone really wanted to do something like Strife. Doom and Heretic at least have map packs that can be used with free IWAD variants. There's like five Strife mapsets in existence or something, maybe less, idk I don't play them. If someone wants to lock this thread that'd be cool.