Indie adventure announcement: A Tale of Two Kingdo

[Radiant]

You might want to try and reach the original artists, and see if they object to their work being made available to the public (e.g. to use in other games, or failing that, for use as wallpapers). That way, their (assumedly great) art won't go to waste.
 

[Guest]

Here is a copy of the e-mail I received in Jan 2006 from SFLAH.


Date:    Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:27:22 -0200
From:   "Igorrr" <contact@sflah.com>
Subject:   Re: SFLAH

sorry if this dissapoints you, but basically, yes the last update on the page was also around the last active stroke in the project. I am the only one working on it and sometimes when I find time I play around, but there is no serious progress.

SFLAH had 3 different teams restarting and stopping. It is still there and it would really hurt me to accept that it's practically dead, but in some way I am still hoping that I find the time and people to finally work it and finish SFLAH.

I believe my first approach would be to actively join up in Project Katrina again and if successful there ask team members to move on to SFLAH. I am happy to hear that there are people still interested in SFLAH and if there is anyone who would like to pick up the pieces and continue on it is free to do so ;-)

best regards

Andreas "Igorrr"


>Hi,
>
>Just wondering if the development for SFLAH is still
>going on, since the website http://sflah.com has not
>been updated since 2004. So, is this game project
>still active?
>
>Looking forward to hearing any news about this game.
>
>
>Best regards

[Corsair5]

Well, that's to be expected. Fangames are dropping like flies ever since Sierra fired off it's little missile at KQIX, then pulled it back before impact.

[lazygamer]

The only fangames that have anything to worry about are the ones that are creating a continuation of a commerical series(such as IA's KQ3 remake or SQ7). Anything that has died and is not a continuation of a commerical series, has died for some other reason besides fear of cease and desist.

I know SFLAH was having problems well before Sierra started hassling KQ9.

[Radiant]

Anything that has died and is not a continuation of a commerical series, has died for some other reason besides fear of cease and desist.
 

Exactly. To my knowledge, no game has ever been cease-and-desisted except shortly before a release (KQ9) or some time after they released. Of course, given the fact that 90% of fangames never reach the point of release, it's not worth the effort to send legal people after them.

Closed down, to my knowledge, are QfG4.5 and Quest for Orgy (both for "inappropriate" humor and adult situations), Garfield Mutant Lasagna (don't mess with Hollywood), Hugo Remake (author request) and one or two Monkey Island clones. Interestingly, KQ2 1/4 has not been shut down, nor has Zak McKracken II, Maniac Mansion Deluxe, and several other Monkey Island clones. I suppose law is a fickle mistress.
 

[Reish Vedaur]

All law is subjective, to put it in clearer terms.

[Corsair5]

That's because LucasArts, unlike Sierra, has money. It has to do with being able to crank out bad games and still have people eat them up because they're Star Wars.

[Reish Vedaur]

Kinda like anime games.

[lazygamer]

Exactly. To my knowledge, no game has ever been cease-and-desisted except shortly before a release (KQ9) or some time after they released. Of course, given the fact that 90% of fangames never reach the point of release, it's not worth the effort to send legal people after them.

Closed down, to my knowledge, are QfG4.5 and Quest for Orgy (both for "inappropriate" humor and adult situations), Garfield Mutant Lasagna (don't mess with Hollywood), Hugo Remake (author request) and one or two Monkey Island clones. Interestingly, KQ2 1/4 has not been shut down, nor has Zak McKracken II, Maniac Mansion Deluxe, and several other Monkey Island clones. I suppose law is a fickle mistress.

Nor has Space Quest 0 or Space Quest 3.5, even though both have been finished for quite awhile!

Damn you mean Attack of the Mutant Lasgana was shut down? When was this? I still managed to easily get a copy(but eh I thought it was 100% legal at the time ).

[Radiant]

Nor has Space Quest 0 or Space Quest 3.5, even though both have been finished for quite awhile!

Damn you mean Attack of the Mutant Lasgana was shut down? When was this? I still managed to easily get a copy(but eh I thought it was 100% legal at the time ).

SQ3.5? You mean TLC, right? I believe a reasonable premise would be that Vivendi is not going after any AGI games. After all, in this age, it's hard to claim that a fangame in blocky 160x200 with 16-color graphics would cause a significant loss of sales. Similarly, it appears to be the case that Lucas only goes after people using their "active" trademarks (MI, Indy, Star Wars), not Maniac or Zak. It's quite possible that most people working at Lucas don't even know who Zak is any more.

Btw Vivendi owns Sierra and they have money too, it's not just Lucas; both appear to have an employee who occasionally reads adventure-related message boards.

Garfield AOTML was shut down about a month after its release. That's because its author made the mistake of contacting United Pictures Syndicate (if that's their name) and asking them what they thought of the game. The game is still easily found, but this has made distributing the patch rather difficult. Shame, too; that game captured the feel of the comics far better than the movie did.
 

[lazygamer]

SQ3.5? You mean TLC, right? I believe a reasonable premise would be that Vivendi is not going after any AGI games. After all, in this age, it's hard to claim that a fangame in blocky 160x200 with 16-color graphics would cause a significant loss of sales. Similarly, it appears to be the case that Lucas only goes after people using their "active" trademarks (MI, Indy, Star Wars), not Maniac or Zak. It's quite possible that most people working at Lucas don't even know who Zak is any more.

Yes I do mean TLC. Well I doubt it's about loss of sales it's about copyright infringement. I've heard before that if a company doesn't defend it's copyright it weakens it's ownership of it. Now it would be nice if these companies could simply give permission to any fangames deserving of it(doesn't make the brand look bad), but they are too arrogant, apathetic or lazy to do so. Yet they aren't so lazy or apathetic when their copyright is being infringed.

Ok but eh Vivendi did give permission to KQ9(only after a fan uproar) and Tierra, so I can't quite condemn them.



Damn you mean theres a patch for Mutant Lasanga?! Any serious showstopping bugs I must worry about?

[Corsair5]

So let me get this straight. If I tried to sell a QFG sequel right now, I would probably get sued for less because of QFG4.5 and stuff?

[Radiant]

Yep, if you don't defend a copyright or trademark it gets weakened. I'm not really sure how that translates into court, the simple fact is that a billion-dollar company can out-court you no matter what. That said, I'm not really sure what they could actually do about a fangame that refuses to stop, other than ask your webhost to kick you out. They can't sue you to claim your profits, because there aren't any. They can't sue you for loss of their profits since they're not selling anything (and unless you're doing a straight remake, it may be argued that you're advertising). And there's the parody clause, for some fangames (such as, arguably, QfG4.5). If you don't live in the US it gets even more confusing as to what kind of law might apply.

Oh and yes, there is a patch for GAOTML which fixes a number of crashes and hangs that can occur halfway through the game. I have been unable to complete the game without it (and unable to obtain the patch).
 

[p]

Ya'll always talk about sierra/VU and lucasarts as if it was a bad thing they are protecting their copyright.  I personally don't blame them one bit.

If you were Porsche Inc, and some fanboy in Kansas decided he wanted to make his 2.5 cyl '67 stationwagon look like an authentic porsche, wouldn't you want to stop him?   I mean, everyone will see his crappy-ass stationwagon and think porsche is responsible.  To put it into context: If people could somehow clone this stationwagon for free, eventually there'd be enough crappy-ass faux porsche's on the streets, that porsche's reputation as a high-end auto manufacturer would be tarnished.

Besides, many of the game writers refuse to play these fan remakes as they don't like people messing with their story.  

Bottom line is, ya'll complain about it because you want a crappy-ass* station wagon that reminds you of a porsche.  And you only want it because it's free.  For shame!

*subjective term used loosely

[Reish Vedaur]

Actually, that's not against copyright law at all.  The Porsche thing would be a patent issue in that light, and patents protect against making profit with or beginning commercial production of intellectual properties by anyone other than its creator or whomever the creator has signed a contract with to allow such.  Anyone who wants to design a car that looks identical to another would be well within their rights to do so in a patent sense so long as they never sold it.  However, it IS against the law to design or alter a car to change it's make, model or engine type in certain ways which elude me because I have never studied word-one about cars.

However, if you wanted to make your own Segway from scratch, you could do so without legal reprocussion.  In fact, someone did, and it works fine.