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Lincolns Mullet

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  1. This reminds me of the recent attempt at modding Warcraft III to be a new Starcraft. I will point you to the modders website so you can all read some of the discussion on the front page regarding the mod, how they believe they are skirting IP laws, and Blizzard's stance on the project. http://www.blizzplanet.com/content/560/ What I gathered from the site is, if a "prequel" to X-Com was made, it would be violating IP laws. It wouldn't be any different than titling it "X-Com 4" or something. Since Atari owns the IP, they could technically send the team a Cease and Desist order if they really wanted to protect their IP. One way they believe to be skirting IP laws is by requiring the original Warcraft III disks in order to play this "mod". Since X-Com is so old I'm not sure how that would work for this project. In any case, just some more info to chew on. They seem to be going forward with it until, and IF, Blizzard tells them to stop. Colonisation could conceivably move forward in the same fashion, and would need to be released as a free game.
  2. Be wary of publishers. They are like hawks after delicious eggs. If this team were to be picked up by Atari, for example, a contract would be signed that would likely go like this: You have one year to complete the project. We get 60% of the profits (or more) and you'll be funded with $400,000. You will be required to meet milestones each month (likely, per week). If you don't meet them to our standards, we'll rip the rug out from under you at any time and hand it over to another team to finish. Have a good day. However, the more complete this game is before officially showing it off, the better. If you can create a working, fun demo to show off to Atari it may pay off. Or they may wave a legal wand at you and try to claim it is their property, I don't know. If you were to switch gears and make it a non X-com game, you could shop the demo out to any publisher and see who bites. Since it's running off the X-Com franchise, your first and only customer needs to be Atari. If they aren't interested, then you'll have to switch it over to an original IP so you can do what you want with it (make it free or publish it). It'd be great if Atari would be interested but I'm really unclear about fans creating games with an IP that is already copyrighted, and then shopping it to the owner of the IP. Atari may look at it and say, "Hey, looks great and they've already done a lot of the work, let's give them a contract." The thing with publishers is, if there is money to be made, they'll pay attention.
  3. Yeah, if it becomes a constant problem I'll try and re-install and just stick to XcomUtil. I actually like the "smoothed" graphics the 2xSAI brings, even though they seemed blurry at first but if I can't play the game for very long at a time it won't be worth it.
  4. No, I haven't done any editing, I've only used XComUtil and Mok's 2xSAI file (Which has really helped my eyesight! hah). I'm not sure how or why the non-researched items showed up, I wish they didn't because they not only get equipped on my soldiers all those heavy plasma's take up a lot of space.
  5. Hey everyone, just checked out this great project. As a long-time fan, count me as one who has been salivating for a "real" new X-Com. Just to introduce myself, my name is Tim and I have experience working on three professional game titles (Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War, Titan Quest). My primary experience was in design. I was part of a team that created the story-based scenarios for the campaigns using a proprietary in-game editor. I'd create the maps, objectives, drop down buildings and units and of course make sure it was a fun (and balanced) experience. I also did a lot of QA, primarily on my own work and those of my co-workers. I'd love to be able to contribute some how to this project. My time is pretty limited though between school, work and fiance so I'm not sure how much help I could be other than testing current builds for bugs. Also, I believe even using "XCom" without the hyphen would still be considered copywrite infringement. It is the same reason a company couldn't name itself "Micro Soft" or "Micro-Soft". If it were taken up legally I'm pretty sure the courts would side with the owners of the IP as "Micro-Soft", for example, is clearly trying to capitalize on Microsoft's name. If you don't plan on selling it I'm not sure how much of fuss Atari could make over it (they own the X-Com IP right?). I imagine they could come after that as well if they wanted to. Imagine if they were working on a new X-Com game to sell that is similar to concept of "XCom", and "XCom" is released for free and is a great game (let's just say, it ends up being a better game). Then Atari may get upset and claim it's losing sales to a game that is playing off the X-Com name. Not trying to be the boogeyman, but if this is a serious project it'd probably behoove you to look into it and make sure what, if any, legal ramifications there are. Worst-case scenario you change the name of the game, all the aliens and weapons, etc. and modify the story a bit so nothing can be directly "linked" to X-Com. In the end, while we'd all love a true X-Com prequel/update/sequel, etc. I think we'd still take a carbon copy of "XCom" than nothing at all.
  6. Ok, one of the saves is posted. Begins right at the start of the base defense mission. Oh and I finally beat it just now by doing something I don't normally do during tactical battles, and that's saving every other turn. Since the crash does seem random, I eventually stumbled my way through the mission. GAME_1.zip
  7. Was searching for this topic as I'm currently having the same problem, but it's only really bothering me on my first base defense mission. I have a save just before the base defense so I'm going to try running that one and see how it goes. It's a pretty crippling bug as I've only come close to finishing the mission one time out of at least 10-15 tries.
  8. Yep, that's what I'm talking about. A single, in-game editor designed from the ground up to help amateur modders. I used to do amateur and professional design with SSSI's editors (Empire Earth, Rise and Fall) which were in-game and WYSIWYG. Made it very easy to create entire campaigns by yourself. For X-Com, a big part of playing the game for the first time was the discovery of it all. Everything about the aliens was foreign. You had no idea how many there were, what technology they had, what you could ultimately research, etc. Seeing a Chryssalid for the first time and thinking, "WTF is that thing??" So having the ability to create total conversions, or near to them, would allow us to have new experiences that we simply can't have anymore with X-Com.
  9. I think you guys aren't mentioning the single most important thing that would make a new X-Com live on forever: a full fledged editor. Ideally I think most of us would be happy with X-Com: EU updated to a new graphics engine, some tweaks and some new additions to the gameplay but fundamentally remain the same. Having an editor that would allow you to change the text, story, weapons, graphics, etc. would allow us to create entirely new mods and even total conversions. Imagine being able to play the game all over again with new techs, new story, new research, etc.
  10. Glad to have found this thread, and nice fix! I was worried I wasn't going to be able to play Xcom with this utility.
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