Slashdot Mirror
LucasArts Embraces Game Mod Community
An anonymous reader writes "LucasArts has taken a great step in promoting the modification of their titles and supporting the communities that love them! According to this press release, LucasArts has teamed up with LFNetwork to open LucasFiles.com. The site is dedicated to all files that fall in the LucasArts realm." Given competing games like Neverwinter Nights, which have a phenomenal amount of user-created add-ons, this is a very smart move for LucasArts.
NEW WEB SITE FOR POSTING OF LUCASARTS INSPIRED GAME MODS LAUNCHED BY LFNETWORK.COM FAN SITE
Officially Sanctioned Site, www.lucasfiles.com, Offers Fans Location to Create and Post Modifications of LucasArts Titles
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- December 11, 2002 -- Fans who create game modifications (mods) based upon characters and elements in titles by LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC can now post their works on the Internet at LucasFiles, which can be found at www.lucasfiles.com. The new site, created by Lucas Fan Network (LFN), www.lfnetwork.com, an independent collection of web sites dedicated to LucasArts and its games, is an exclusive and sanctioned online location offering a variety of mods inspired by LucasArts titles. The LucasFiles database also hosts unique fan produced content, levels, and an array of other media.
"LucasArts is grateful to the Lucas Fan Network, whose enthusiastic and very dedicated members have created a distinctive online destination for fans of our games to showcase and share their creations with others," says Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts. "The fan community is incredibly important to LucasArts and this site will provide them with a variety of ways to continue to celebrate their passion for the company and its games."
About LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC is a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide. Based in San Rafael, Calif., as well as on the Internet at www.lucasarts.com, LucasArts is one of five companies in the Lucas group which include Lucasfilm Ltd., Lucas Digital Ltd. LLC, Lucas Licensing Ltd., and Lucas Online. Lucasfilm is one of the leading film and entertainment companies in the world. Lucasfilm's businesses include George Lucas' film and television production and distribution activities. Lucas Digital, which consists of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound, provides visual effects and audio post-production services to the entertainment industry. Lucas Licensing is responsible for the merchandising of all Lucasfilm's film and television properties. Lucas Online is a digital destination for entertainment, education, reference and e-commerce for Lucasfilm's intellectual properties and business units.
Very smart indeed! Just think about how successful Counter-Strike is. Sierra/Valve doesn't make anything from Counter-Strike but they make boat-loads from the Half-Life game that you need to run Counter-Strike.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
And the first and highly game mod will be a re-skin for Jar-Jar Binks so he doesn't look like a walking poop-stain!
:)
No. of downloads: 8732
Rated: 10 stars
Description: Highly requested! Jar-Jar replaced with a baywatch babe!
This is not a troll, this is a pleade for it to be done
-Foxxz
Monkey Island, Full Throttle, LOOM, these are the games I want mods for.
Well that's one way to be the best.
Sex - Find It
The only current game that I can imagine there are fan files for is the Galactic Battlegrounds, an average real-time strategy. Unless LucasArts prepares to release a strong single-player roleplaying game or strategy (single- or multi-player), I see absolutely no reason for them to have a mod community. Why single player, you may ask? Because in the world of RPGs, modding can affect characters in a profound way and can be considered cheating.
Conspiracy theory of the day: Lucasarts puts up a "fan community" site to garner lots of good karma in order to offset the hit it will take when it serves more legal papers to ScummVM (a Lucasarts adventure game interpreter), who just days ago produced another release...
SWG is being developped by Sony Online Entertainment/Verant Interactive, not LucasArts.
/rant off. sorry.
You may remember SoE/VI from the craptacular service they give on Everquest. You'd think that on a company that's pulling $2million+/month profits they'd be able to afford a better support staff.....
But yeah. SWG isn't LucasArts.... For LucasArts... somebody tell me where I can get a nudie mod for Jedi Knight II? Oh yeah... I wanna shoot at naked clones of Jengo Fett....
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Now if Lucasarts can finally start making good games, that'll help to.
(For anyone who doesn't know, ScummVM is a replacement .exe for old games like Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island; it uses antialiased graphics and hardware MIDI to dramatically improve the picture and sound, and runs on any platform SDL does - unlike the old .exe's that come with the games, which struggle to run on modern machines. LucasArts seem to have mistaken ScummVM with an abandonware site...)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
NWN, great concept...poor execution.
Until they fix the camera angle, I'm sticking with EQ. Above all I need to be able to play w/o contracting chronic nack/back injuries from trying to see what's 15 feet in front of my character all day.
No, Bioware did not deliver on this one folks. They highly restricted the user environment, and there is very little customizability in the game at all(except hot-swappable keys which have been around almost a decade).
Game mods have been been a huge benefit to gamers(Half-life being the best example). But it's going to be someone else that runs with the fantasy genre.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
And you'd lose
I mean he's ignored the fans for how long?
But surely this will be the one true mod site. As in, 'If you don't want to play by our rules (No killing Jar^2) or else..
Why Slashdot is under attack
From http://www.lucasfiles.com/submission.php:
/usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/lucasfiles.com/httpdocs /ssi/right.php on line 10
You hereby grant to LF Network the royalty-free, non-exclusive, transferable right and license to use and exploit all rights in copyright in and to Your Posted Material throughout the universe in all forms of media, whether now known or later developed or created. Accordingly, among other rights, LF Network may reproduce, modify, publish, translate, distribute, sell, perform, and display Your Posted Material alone or as part of other works in any form, media or technology.
Furthermore, the terms of submission incorporate by reference Attachment A, which reads:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: latest() in
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
I love moddable games. EU2 and HOI from strategyfirst and paradox are the most moddable games I have ever seen. I have been playing games for 20 years and these would be my top 1 and 2. Coming in #3 would be nethack(rogue). These 3 would probably be the top 3 best games I have ever seen, as well as the top 3 most moddable. Coincedence?
They've done it before, see. This article shows how they at Lucasart have appropriated users works Url.
Why Slashdot is under attack
Just wait and see what good ol' Georgie's lawyers will say when someone takes Jedi Knight 2 and creates Dirty Wookie Lovin' involving a few dancing blue women, Princess Leia in her sail barge outfit, and one well-endowed Wookie...
2million+/month: profits or revenue?
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
what ever happened to the -great- starwars themed Doom Total Conversion mods for Doom and Doom II?
one of 'em had you going around inside the friggin death star! it was great.
so was the Aliens Total Conversion mod for that matter. scary as fuck with the sound clips.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda wanted a site for geek news that facilitated user discussion about recent important events in the free software world.
Modifications of Slashdot's intrinsic features began to crop up. Rusty Foster's Scoop project turned into Kuro5hin, a site for green party members and graduate students. A bunch of Nuke-based software turned up to, such as PostNuke.
Game mods are just like weblog software -- they facilitate community building. There's a great community of LucasArts gamers consisting of developers, game mod creators, artists, musicians, and gamers. In relation, there's a great community of weblog sites like Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Metafilter, and Monolinux.
Don't overlook the often overlooked. Give some credit to Rob and other webloggers. That's my message, basically.
Thanks for reading.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
I'm totally modding my PC now so I can play burned LucasArts games!
Oh, wait.
That green slime had it coming.
I think the first thing I will do is write a mod to remove the Dewbacks and have a large Ewok celebration everytime I blow up a deathstar. Some things you just shouldn't touch.
Long live the original trilogy, the way it should be.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
If this Officially Sanctioned site follows Lucas Arts policy in any way it will be up for grabs once you post. If they borrow from your idea, you won't get anything for it. Sure you might get bragging rights, but that's about it.
Take a look at the Submission Release (.DOC) that you must submit when applying for an Art Position ( FX ARTIST 2 ) with the company.
For those without Word or Open Office:
2. I understand and acknowledge that because of LEC's position (i) it receives numerous submissions of artwork and music from third parties, and (ii) it is constantly developing in-house ideas, formats, stories, concepts, artwork, music, and the like, and that many such submissions and/or developments heretofore or hereafter received and/or developed by LEC may be similar to or identical to those contained in my Submission. I understand and agree that LEC's use of material containing elements similar to or identical with protectible property contained in the Material shall not obligate LEC to me in any manner if LEC shall have developed or obtained such material either heretofore or hereafter independently or exclusively from sources other than from me.
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
Games mod YOU!
The starwar's fans will get their collective butts kicked. Though I do admit that a swarm of x-wings could be fairly irritating, photon torpedos travel at warp speeds. Ouch.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Green party and grad students? Ack, what am I then?
This is one of those things that was on my "Never going to happen" list. After that Episode I DVD debacle, I thought George Lucas was as dumb as a bag of bricks (to this day, no one I know owns the Episode I DVD). It turns out I may have been mistaken.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
somebody tell me where I can get a nudie mod for Jedi Knight II? Oh yeah... I wanna shoot at naked clones of Jengo Fett....
Jengo Fett????
I sense a great disturbance in the force, and i believe it's eminating from a large horde of Natalie Portman fans who are about to vocally let you know the error of your ways!
where does this leave the rest of the mod community? i love meg!
In Soviet Russia, THE GAME MODIFIES YOU! I am not using too many caps.
Mod this crap down. I'm browsing at 2 and shouldn't have to read trolls, especially this, which seems to have been moderated as 'Interesting'. Hope that gets picked up in metamod.
Lucas Art is and always has been waaay over-protective of it's property. They are the most lawsuit-happy company ever. They're just gathering everyone up into one place so it's easier to gas 'em
And someone will write a Shaper Diplomat mod that allows you to convince the operator of the Enterprise that you really both have the same interests and that you should cooperate all while firmly positioning that dagger in their back.
Fortuna Miner's Democracy forever.
If not all sentients are human, couldn't it be possible that not all humans are sentient either?
The starwar's fans will get their collective butts kicked. Though I do admit that a swarm of x-wings could be fairly irritating, photon torpedos travel at warp speeds. Ouch.
shut the fuck up.
Hopefully this means good things for jk2. Something for gunners and ctf players would be really nice.
Lions and tigers and x-wings...oh my! Sleep with the light on kid...yo' mama will be around in the morning to check on you.
A lot of their files were found to be in the "open" already. Granted mostly to collectors and not gamers though.
This could be a cool thing just so long as the lucas guys started to release bonus packs kinda like the Unreal guys, that and if it hasn't already happend a new big fluffy pack(aka bfp3) for jedi knight 2 if there isn't already one......
Of course, my first mod will be to introduce an "Enterprise NNC 1701" class starship and sort out those Usenet arguments once and for all.
Yeah, that was a funny usenet thread
And someone will write a Shaper Diplomat mod that allows you to convince the operator of the Enterprise that you really both have the same interests and that you should cooperate all while firmly positioning that dagger in their back.
You too, you need to shut the fuck up.
Even though you had the good sense not to participate in the Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer discussion, you still contributed to the overall thread. Therefore, I'm afraid that I must also advise you to shut the fuck up.
Why would Lucas Arts pass this out? Can anyone out there tell me how difficult it would really be to make a 1942 esque mmorpg out of Jedi Knight, X-wing series (and follow-ups) and all the other Star Wars games they have released? I can see they don't have the expertise with dealing with a huge number of simultaneous users and running the servers for it, would that really be an issue for them? Finally why can't "universe" games run on a distributed network of servers where anyone can design their own region of space and have it inserted (perhaps based on network geography so if you stay close to home you have more of an advantage)?
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
You're looking at it the wrong way.
It was 2million+/month in shut the fuck up.
It's a little know fact that in the original script it wasn't Lions and Tigers and Bears - oh my! It was Shut and The Fuck and Up - oh my! Yes, I'm sorry but you are yet another one who needs to shut the fuck up.
Personally I'd much rather play D&D with a good dungeon master than EverQuest, so I like NWN. I don't see why the camera angle is such a big deal; I can see more than far enough to cast a fireball without toasting the rest of the party. And I really don't get the "little customizability" comment - I can customize the whole damn game!
It's not EverQuest, and you don't have to like it, but NWN already has about 1800 published mods. Clearly a lot of people think it's a good game for modding.
But not by lucasarts, by whatever copyright they might step on.
New maps, more wookies, flying yodas, etc will probably be tolerated. How would they feel about Jedi Starfighter being turned into a Star Trek game?
But if someone did something like a total conversion mod, say about Dragonball Z or the such, and they gave it some name like Bid for Power, and it was really really cool - much better than any official DBZ game ever created - FUNimation would send out cease and decist orders.
This is a good step, but the modding communities options are still extremely limited.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Slashdot users need to understand who Eric Krout is, and a visit to one of the sites that he mentions in the parent post (Kuro5hin) is most instructive. For a period of several months, he crapflooded the site incessantly, and was so abusive that he ended up altering various site policies (i.e., mojo accumulation for comments on diary entries.) Rusty Foster, the admin of Kuro5hin who often found himself on the receiving end of attacks from Eric Krout, showed admirable restraint in not cancelling his accounts. Most admins I know would have cancelled them in a heartbeat. Here's why:
Check out his diary. Note that the last entry in it, titled "We Win, You Fucking Losers", admits to perpetrating a "reign of terror" at Kuro5hin. Also instructive his the diary of his alternate account, Christian Roberts, in which he refers to himself as "the ultimate troll" and "Kuro5hin's best user." (Sound familiar?) Among his other alternative accounts was the lovely I Fucked Your Girlfriend.
Eric Krout seemed harmless enough when he came to Kuro5hin, but that didn't last very long. Soon he was posting self-absorbed diary entries several times a day, then he started attacking regulars in their diaries, then he started spamming the submissions queue and crapflooding the diaries section, and finally he ended up posting what can only be described as sheer hate. Eric Krout didn't hesitate to tell you what he thought of "faggots" and "niggers" and all of these other groups that apparently do not sit well with him.
Eric Krout is a racist, a sexist, and a homophobe, but beneath all that, all you need to know is this: Eric Krout is an obsessive loser who spends every waking minute of his spare time crapflooding weblogs. As it happens, Slashdot is his current target. Don't take my word for it, follow the links and read for yourself (if you're so inclined.) But moderating this moron up or playing his silly little games is only going to prolong his stay. In the interest of keeping the signal-to-noise ratio here high, I submit that we would all be better off by cutting his visit short.
A Slashdot AND Kuro5hin regular.
I may be alone, but I really liked that game. At first I didn't, but then I bought a cheap steering wheel with pedals and it was great (I think all racing games suck without a steering wheel).
Anyways, I didn't see anything for Racer at the new mod site. Maybe it's time I make the time for it. It was never an 'open' game, but there is very often a way...given persistence. Sometimes all you need is a laid-off engineer. Hmm, like me.
I'd start with figuring out how to add pods (kinda like the car models you can add to 'Need For Speed'). Then tracks and other fun stuff.
What is the subject of comparison? LucasArts has only two upcoming RPGs, one is an MMORPG and the other was co-developed by Bioware, maker of Neverwinter Nights.
I'm sure LucasArts' EULAs will say they own any mod content just like Bioware's do, so I don't see the big deal. It's just venture investment.
Uh huh.
That's why LucasArts hounded these guys right? "LucasFiles" seems little more than a vehicle to pimp all the latest LucasArts Star Wars games to me.. go to "LucasArts Classics" there ("Convince yourself that the 90s really were cool"), and the most they're willing to offer you is "Self-running and playable demos for DOS and Windows".. oops, looks like they haven't even managed to put those up.
What nonsense. Nobody is going to be buying a new copy of the PC (mmm, pc speaker) Maniac Mansion, nor the VGA version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, anytime in the forseeable future. If they really give a damn about 'community' at all, why not just give a link to ScummVM instead? What revenue could conceivably be lost at this point?
The rather gleeful-sounding anonymous coward who submitted this sounds an awful lot like a LucasArts marketdroid to me
I actually bought a stack of those old adventure games *because* of ScummVM. I had played a few of them (Maniac, Monkey Island, Zak McCracken) growing up, but didn't realize how many more of those great games there were.
I bought (just a few months ago) both Indiana Jones games, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, a Monkey Island or two, Loom, and I don't remember what all else. But the point is I bought them BECAUSE of ScummVM, and I wish LucasArts would just GET IT and leave the ScummVM folks alone. They're not stealing IP. They're not hurting profits. They're actually contributing to sales of older games. Why are they still being hounded?
Ah, well-- enough ranting. Glad to see the ScummVM folks are sick of waiting for LucasArts to make up its mind, and have gone ahead with the latest release of ScummVM without their permission. Good work, guys!!
Bot~!
Isn't the parent more of a "funny"?
Obviously what's called for here are some high definition Star Trek Mods.
Just imagine Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty and Uhura all flying around in an enterprise-skinned millenium falcon. It'll take the concept of nerd-to-nerd combat and make it a high artform:
JARJAR_85
Mesa no lika vulcans.
KIRK_237
Set Phasors to kill.
On another note, surely LucasArts realise that their new MMORPG universe will be 95% populated by naked Natalie Portmans.
Neverwinter Nights has had very little in the way of add-ons.
;)
Neverwinter Nights is a toolset. The included campaign, which is arguably excellent, is included solely as an example of what can be done with the toolset.
Now that I'm done nitpicking, look at Half-Life. In computer standards, Half-Life is what the ancient Aztecs played on their huge carved stone computers.
The funny thing is, people are still buying it. Why? Aside from lower hardware requirements than current games, and the stability of years of patching..
Mods.
Mods sell games. Mods make crappy games sell a lot better, and they make great games sell for ridiculously long lengths of time.
You can pick up a copy of Half-Life, and be getting a number of games for the price of one. Things like TFC and Counter-Strike have the same, if not better, quality of other games you'd see on the shelves.
If you have broadband or patience, there's a slew of other high-quality mods out there - Firearms, Day of Defeat, Action HL..
Six games for the price of one so far? Not bad. Very not bad.
There's probably tons more nowadays, too. I should really install Half-Life again.
At length, mods == good. Mods == "Hey, this game is boring. Let's go get a mod and convince everyone we know to buy the game and download the mod, too."
You know what the gaming community really needs? Some real-time strategy and strategy dedicated server binaries. EVERYTHING is FPS. A game company releases a RTS, they put up their own "company" servers only and/or peer to peer. Lame. I'm the game server admin for a US national ISP. I have a dedicated subnet with a dedicated OC3 with a bunch of dedicated boxes used only for games. And they're all FPS, because that's all that's out there. Boring. How about a dedicated binary for Galactic Battlegrounds or something George?
You know who you remind me of?
5 -11&res=l
8 -02&res=l
6 -23&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-0
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-0
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-0
Wow. The similarities are frightening.
If not all sentients are human, couldn't it be possible that not all humans are sentient either?
- Why don't you download my mod?
- I have no reason to download your mod, but I do have many players.
- Why do you have many players?
- I learned how to win players from Bioware. Why don't you download me?
- Are all things are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always are not always you need to know you learned from Bioware?
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
Just writing to let those interested know that while LucasArts put out the press release, and supports the site, LucasFiles was conceived and created by, and is and will be maintained by the LucasArts fan community. They didn't make it, they don't run it, and for the most part they don't dictate what we choose to and choose not to post.
Yes, we have been talking to them along the way, and bits of the site was made in a way that would suit the notorious Lucas Legal (most importantly the disclaimers you agree to when uploading and downloading a file). That "little bit" aside, it's our site.
That doesn't mean they can't decide how they're going to promote it. Their press release and the small blurb on the main page of LucasArts.com says that it's "home to mods of LucasArts games," but that's not the limit of the scope of LucasFiles.
In addition to mods, we can also host full-on fangames that don't require, say, Jedi Outcast, to run. Odds are we could host fan games that aren't even related to Star Wars (probably not fan games of the sequel-knockoff variety, I'm talking original stuff)... And, we're also working to reach into the depths of our hard drives and long abandonned file download areas to find some classic stuff that was formerly hard to get your hands on (for instance, old promos and demos relating to Sam & Max hit the road, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, the Monkey Island series etc etc etc as well as some Lucas titles that are "classics" for entirely different reasons... like Force Commander and Yoda Stories ).
Anyway, by limiting LucasFiles to "another Mod site" or claiming it is LucasArts's own site, made in an attempt to woo you into not noticing some other evil, for one you're wrong, and for two you're really pigeonholeing something the fan community's been after for quite some time. Its amazing to see LucasArts as excited about it as we are (and they are).
Jake
designer, lfnetwork.com
webmaster, mixnmojo.com
check out www.xwaupgrade.com .....very nice work
..in much the same way MS embraces Java, I imagine. Once the mod community stops representing a potential source of profit for LA (2 years after the game's released? 3?), the mod community will be getting a little thing I like to call "the shaft".
p2p-MMORPG with streaming (usermade) content...I've been saying I want one for years now...the closest yet is "Second Reality"...but that's not p2p AFAIK :(
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
...right there...no, a little more to the left...that's it!
Now fetch my slippers and get back to cleaning your room.
See image: link
LucasArts attitude towards fan developers (who are probably its best customers) is astonishingly short-minded and sometimes insulting.
I'm thinking particularly of their shutting down the Star Wars Modelling Alliance, a fan site devoted to developing (surprisingly good) models of Star Wars characters and creatures. The sheer amount of creative work that came out of people using those models was astonishing. In additional to publishing a lot of great freeware models the site would also post some of the "pictures" and "films" that people had made, etc.. Some were complete gems - one that sticks out particularly in my mind involved a few ATSTs rampaging around urban London.
Perhaps there is someone associated with the site here that knows better, but I was always under the impression that their persistent and long-lasting "hardware difficulties" which started shortly after E1 came out boiled down to letters from the legal department at LucasFilm.
It is a real pity that existing law is structured such that market-regulation can be used to crush non-market creativity.
This is in contradiction with the nwn famous (and infamous) eula. And probably with the licenses of other games the mods are made off.
Soon on El Stupido channel:
Better than catfights in the mud, lawyers fight throughout the universe in all forms of mud !!!
Women Embrace Case Mod Community: pimpled teenagers and graphic artists with too much free time rejoice. Slashdotters glad to see Thinkgeek's "Chicks dig Case Mods" banner ad finally come to fruition.
"p2p stabbing is such a vast, untapped market"
Just thought I post a reference to an interesting NWN development. This is a modular memetic based AI architecture that has been promoted by a lot of the NWN sites. It allows priority based dormant and active behaviors as well as dynamica binding to callbacks and improved inter-NPC communication. It even simulates multithreading, multitasking, and auto-resumes behaviors. (It supports automatic preemption and resumption.) There's complete documentation, over 80 active developers and example modules.
Hompage: http://www.summermeat.net/memeticai/
Articles: http://www.nwnbuilders.com/
Overall, it's a perfect place to start tinkering with AI on your own private simlulation server.
Yeah, baby! I was going to write something about collecting all the cool DarkForces MODs (which I still have on a couple of 3.5" disks somewhere)... and I really hope they will do this. But then I discovered a link to this site: http://darkforces.jediknightii.net. This is almost too cool to be true. Hope, they will do a great job. And why not re-creating DFII / Jedi Knight as a MOD for Jedi Knight II? The graphics of DFII/JK really sucked. Guess, it was too early for using real 3D, back then. But now... Hmmmm, storm troopers...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
Yes, LFN is a group of fans. LFN is not LucasArts. Still shady, but its probably better that six fans who dont give a crap about "owning" your idea now "own" it instead of it being owned by LucasArts.
I know that praising any of Micro$oft's products on /. is flamebait but...
The creators ofAge of Mythology have been very good at implementing tools and utilites for fans to create their own scenarios and campaigns. This is somewhat of a surprise from Micro$oft, who isn't exactly a big supporter of anything that gives their users much room for freedom or input in their software, (I assume that it saves them money for fans to devolop certain parts of the game in this instance without giving them enough freedom to truly modify it), but I'm surprised that it's easier to customize than Blizzard's WCIII. With Ensamble promoting fan websites by handing out "fan site web kits" I've found it very easy to find about 4 or 5 websites that offer quality custom single player scenarios for download. Some of the best campaigns I played for Age of Empires II were written by fans, many of them even rivaled Ensamble in quality. What's ironic is that I'm actually enjoying a Micro$oft because it's so easy to implement user modifications into.
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
FIVE million a month in revenue.
This is great news, but it's not quite a surprise for some people, especially those involved with the UT Troopers UT2003 mod. They've been at it publically for a few months now, ever since UT2003 has been on the shelves, and Lucas has given them their blessing. http://www.ut2003troopers.co.uk/ for more information.
That language is in there to help them not get sued just because someone has and submits a similar idea. Granted, it can be used to justify stealing, but it tends not to be. The number of lawsuits out there about this kind of thing is surprisingly small, when you think about it - and I would use that number to gauge the amount of content stolen.
Now that would be cool! Disturbing, but cool.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
I'm not an artist, but I've done low-budget/no-budget film and video (no, not pr0n damn it!), and some of the disclaimers/releases/whatever that I or my team-mates have received have sounded a lot like that.
So is this Lucas being evil (ha, you'll be telling me that Disney is evil next), or is this more or less standard boiler-plate in the art world?
Cthulhu Barata Nikto
Very soon after NWN came out a camera hack was released that allows full camera control, and if I'm not mistaken people have been working on artwork for skies and ceilings since then. At the very least though, all it takes is one download for full camera control.
5 mil revenue, 2 mil is profit. And that's *just* from EQ.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
If this Officially Sanctioned site follows Lucas Arts policy in any way it will be up for grabs once you post. If they borrow from your idea, you won't get anything for it.
And?
If you create a derivative work based on and requiring use of a LucasArts game, shouldn't LucasArts be the one that stands to benefit financially because of it?
This seems like a pretty standard and harmless working arrangement to me.
can put the hamster in the microwave!
- Health, Fitness, and Weight Loss News
Docta!
This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the
power of computers:
Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct
the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a
minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The
results are that one should eat each day:
1/2 chicken
1 egg
1 glass of skim milk
27 heads of lettuce.
-- Rev. Adrian Melott
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...