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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.
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
(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.
Until they fix the camera angle...
There are plenty of user made mods that free the camera, along with tons of other mods that expand and extend the game. The _usermade_ Pool of Radiance mod is better than the recent standalone game!
This is exactly the kind of thing that makes NWN great, and probably why LucasArts is so interested.
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
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
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......
Perhaps if you kept track of the development lists, and/or read the news over the past few months, you'd realize that scummvm has maintained contact with lucasarts and wouldn't post such a sensationalist post.
:)... but try and convince LucasArts to still let commercial distribution in a package of other software, such as a Linux distribution. This is required to ensure we are at least DFSG and OSD compliant.
The following is taken from the June 25th news posting (yes, almost 6 months ago):
"Their message requesting the removal of the site is based on the presumption that we are distributing LucasArts own engine on this site. Of course, ScummVM is a fully original work based equally on reverse engineering and original decoding work by many different people in the community, so this request doesn't really affect us."
Later, in their October 17th, State of the Scumm address:
The main issue at the moment is their requirement for a 'non-profit' clause. We need to push this clause to prevent any -direct- profit from being made by selling ScummVM itself (seriously, who would want to anyway? geez
"Hopefully I can knock some sense into them, and convince them that there's nothing wrong with this, otherwise this whole negotiation period - and it's being going on for months - will be pretty pointless. Basically, we need to have their permission to use an Artistic-license style clause."
Finally, in their December 7th update:
"To date, LucasArts has not been able to give us any firm complaints regarding ScummVM, besides some vague claims that if they didn't enforce these conditions on us, it would effectively give up their rights to their own Intellectual Property. We do not believe this, there certainly have not been any documented cases of the GPL leading to such a challenge in the past..."
At least pretend like you're writing a balanced reply.
Actually, we havn't heard a single word from LucasArts legal in two weeks (besides a promise two weeks ago that I would get a phonecall first thing that monday. I didn't so it was time for another release :)
- Ender
Leader Type Person,
ScummVM
In Soviet Russia you get hung for using soviet russia jokes becuase they are old as hell almost as bad as natalie pr0tman and beowulf jokes, my god give it a rest already
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!!
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
You can find just about every mod, hack, and expansion on NWVault.