|
#4010133 - 09/15/14 05:40 PM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 13,341
Col. Gibbon
A nobody
|
A nobody
Veteran
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 13,341
|
Hi Allen. Interesting idea, but it would cost a shed load of money, and we have nothing finished which could be packaged into a saleable product. Also our community has dwindled, which means finishing off everything needed to make a finished game. The only way to go is to make a full download available. I've been reading about Abandonware, and it turns out nothing is leagaly Abandonware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbandonwareAn interesting quote from the end of this artical, which is relevent to our situation:
Support by source code release
Main article: List of commercial video games with later released source code
The problem of missing technical support for a software can be most effectively solved when the source code becomes available. Therefore several companies decided to release the source code specifically to allow the user communities to provide further technical software support (bug fixes, compatibility adaptions etc.) themselves,[56][57] e.g. by community patches or source ports to new computing platforms.
Id Software and 3D Realms are early proponents in this practice, releasing the source code for the game engines of some older titles under a free software license (but not the actual game content, such as levels or textures). Also Falcon 4.0's lead designer Kevin Klemmick argued in 2011 that availability of the source code of his software for the community was a good thing:
I honestly think this [source code release] should be standard procedure for companies that decide not to continue to support a code base.
—Kevin Klemmick, interviewed by Bertolone, Giorgio (2011-03-12). "Interview with Kevin Klemmick - Lead Software Engineer for Falcon 4.0". Cleared-To-Engage. Archived from the original on 2011-03-18. Retrieved 2014-08-31.
The chilling effect of drawing a possible lawsuit can discourage release of source code. Efforts to persuade IBM to release OS/2 as open source software were ignored[58] since some of the code was co-developed by Microsoft.
Nevertheless, several notable examples of successfully opened commercial software exist, for instance, the web browser Netscape Communicator, which was released by Netscape Communications on March 31, 1998.[59] The development was continued under the umbrella of the Mozilla Foundation and Netscape Communicator became the basis of several browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox.[60]
Another important example for open sourced general software is the office suite StarOffice which was released by Sun Microsystems in October 2000 as OpenOffice.org[61] and is in continued development as LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice.
There are also many examples in the video game domain: Revolution Software released their game Beneath a Steel Sky as freeware and gave the engine's source code to the authors of ScummVM to add support for the game. Other examples are Myth II,[62] Call to Power II[63] and Microsoft's Allegiance[57] which were released to allow the community to continue the support.
Last edited by Col. Gibbon; 09/15/14 05:43 PM.
Supports EAW 1.29.exe, Drop in and Play Technology.  1.29 download
|
|
|
#4010277 - 09/15/14 09:49 PM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 1,506
Brit44 'Aldo'
Every Human is Unique
|
Every Human is Unique
Member
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 1,506
|
It does not cost a shed load of money. I am not saying to reprint the disks, I am saying to remake a master copy. You would include EAW 1.2, which is done, stable and complete. If Atari still has an unmolested copy of the code, you could fix the 8 bit, 7212 error if you wanted, but that is not necessary since DOS Box and Win8 allow it to run. Then you need to finalize (drop the features that are not ready) one or two versions of your code work. Then Atari could offer it as an inexpensive download.
PESE sells on GOG for $5 and on sale for as little as $1. I did not charge Nordic Games anything, and I was allowed to keep my source code changes. Though I was required to sign a 5 year NDA, but that was mainly for access to the PEA source. In the end, the only cost to Nordic and GOG is server space. It's unfortunate that people would rather pirate a copy then spend $1.
It couldn't hurt to ask Tony and the rest if they have any objections to signing a release allowing Atari to publish there work. If there were no objections (I have no objection, even if Atari wants the source), then you could have a discussion with Atari.
"Who is John Gault"
|
|
|
#4010390 - 09/16/14 09:26 AM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
MrJelly
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
Montagnac, L'Herault, France
|
I am not overly concerned with the concept of Atari releasing a version for example 1.40 which has my intellectual property in the code. What would be a big bother is their release of theatres such as SPAW for a fee, as these contain work from several modders. In line with this am thinking of making a basic 1.40 release with a "Default_planes" folder containing only the default skins and FMs and an "ETO_basic" folder with a single planeset. I would include the "DirSetExeManager" program as the file manager. That would set things up so that other scenarios can be downloaded free from us or Sandbagger's.
Fly EAW online at GameRanger: GameRanger SiteFaceBook Pages UAW 160 downloadsEAW ClubMark Twain: I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.I am now of an age at which I no longer need to suffer fools gladly
|
|
|
#4010393 - 09/16/14 09:47 AM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
MrJelly
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
Montagnac, L'Herault, France
|
Fly EAW online at GameRanger: GameRanger SiteFaceBook Pages UAW 160 downloadsEAW ClubMark Twain: I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.I am now of an age at which I no longer need to suffer fools gladly
|
|
|
#4010485 - 09/16/14 02:38 PM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 1,506
Brit44 'Aldo'
Every Human is Unique
|
Every Human is Unique
Member
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 1,506
|
Jon, I've not had a reply from Atari yet. I suppose they are having to find out what the game was! I would expect a week or so while Atari checks out who you and the other modders/code group are and if your work could generate new sales. It would help them to decide if you included a summary of who you are, what you have done with the game and where they should look to view your work. Tony, What would be a big bother is their release of theaters such as SPAW for a fee, as these contain work from several modders. It depends how you view the fee. The reality of the fee is that purchaser if paying for EAW 1.2. The modders work is already available for free, and that does not need to change. It's included in any new version as a free bonus. Having as much as possible working together in one download would be a benefit to new players. It could also be considered a baseline install for people looking to re-install EAW and wondering what mods they want to start with. I don't pretend to know what Atari would require, but Nordic needed an email giving permission or proof that the author has the work offered freely for any use. The words "you can use it as you wish" are a release of copyright. I had to sign an NDA because I had access to the company's server. "who is John Gault"
|
|
|
#4010967 - 09/17/14 03:37 PM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 13,341
Col. Gibbon
A nobody
|
A nobody
Veteran
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 13,341
|
The offical reply to my question. Greetings! Unfortunately, we no longer provide support for this title. Sincerely, Atari Customer Support http://support.atari.com/
Supports EAW 1.29.exe, Drop in and Play Technology. 1.29 download
|
|
|
#4011076 - 09/17/14 07:58 PM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
MrJelly
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
Montagnac, L'Herault, France
|
...and then I had another idea. I have not used it much, but Ralf set-up the "Savedata" folder as the default folder for files. I extracted all the "snd" and "wsd" files from the eight CDFs that contained them, and put them in the "Savedata" folder. Then I compiled a 140 exe which no longer referenced these CDFs, and shifted them into a folder called "HIDE". The exe works. I heard the speech in flight, the explosions, and the briefing text in career missions.  The "HIDE" folder is not needed, the "Savedata" folder is 82.5MB and when 7-zipped it is 58 MB so there is some space saving in terms of downloads.
Fly EAW online at GameRanger: GameRanger SiteFaceBook Pages UAW 160 downloadsEAW ClubMark Twain: I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.I am now of an age at which I no longer need to suffer fools gladly
|
|
|
#4011085 - 09/17/14 08:25 PM
Re: Legal EAW Full Game Downloads
[Re: Col. Gibbon]
|
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
MrJelly
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 12,497
Montagnac, L'Herault, France
|
... and then I realised that the files in "cockpits.cdf" as the files in are not used by the 1.40 exe, so I made another which does not reference it. I have packed the entire 212 MB folder in a 117 MB 7-zip file. It is on its way to OneDrive If you run it you get a working 1.40 folder, apart from putting in your "eaw.ini" if you have one. An extension of this would be to have a very large "Savedata" folder containing the default files and no CDF files It would make an even smaller download as the files in the CDFs are not compressed, so they take up more space than they need.
Fly EAW online at GameRanger: GameRanger SiteFaceBook Pages UAW 160 downloadsEAW ClubMark Twain: I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.I am now of an age at which I no longer need to suffer fools gladly
|
|
|
|
