New Nexuiz: Continuing debate

[tundramagi]

When we last met, the debate had started to heat up, but the thread had reached an apparent three (3) page maximum and had to be locked.

Here were are, again, tonight, for requium for a debate.

The last six comments, so you can recall:

some-guy said...

AFAIK, unless the permission to use Darkplaces and any other data was obtained from everyone that has contributions in Nexuiz/Darkplaces, then ConsoleNexuiz isn't legal. Obviously this doesn't apply to any re-written code.

Samual said...

I think I retract what I said earlier, I too agree with C.Brutail -- I can understand that it would be difficult to change names now, but honestly... I think it's in the best interest of both IllFonic and the Nexuiz community to have IllFonic's Nexuiz be named something else (More specifically, with a slight variation of Nexuiz). Everyone here agrees that this is one of the biggest issues of this whole thing, and it would be far easier to change it than to face the problems which are caused by allowing the games to share the same name. I personally will not stand for our game (Nexuiz) being forced to change names, and considering your game isn't even released yet I don't understand how it would be too much of a problem.

Aleator said...

I submit to that.

Tundramagi said...

Everyone that committed to SVN darkplaces assigned their copyright to, I think, LH, as a condition for their commit access. So, no, no legal problem there.

As for the data, I heard the IllFonic did ask the authors and did get a license for the data.
No legal issue there.

As for Name. They're not going to change it.
The darkplaces engine basically /IS/ nexuiz,
just like the unreal engine /WAS/ Unreal the game. This is what is known when you say Unreal or Nexuiz (the level of quality each represents).
This is why they went with the name.

As for the market: it's the console players who are the market/audiance here, not US. It doesn't matter what we want: we're not the people they're going to sell their game, Nexuiz, to. They've allready said that they will not contribute back Artwork and will not contribute back Source Code. No, we are a bunch of freeloaders freeloading on a videogame. It had to end some day.

We basically have to change the name of our gpl nexuiz.
I suggest Nexuiz:Depreciated , but translated into german so it sounds germanish. German is... a dark tounge. Makes everything sound strenghtful.

It was good while it lasted.
I just hope that maybe tzork and Div0 get some money out of this since they contributed so much, I doubt that will happen though. The contract was allready signed without them, so obviously they aren't needed from a legal standpoint and thusly aren't an obstacle that needs money poured upon it to go away.

What is the future? Well likely Div0 will continue to have a intensive job not related to nexuiz so won't have time to do much work on _difficult_ programming problems/features in nexuiz. Tzork is probably pissed at all this stuff happening w/o him knowing about it either and everyone else has allready stated that they don't want to work on a superceded project.

Nexuiz:Depreciated is dead.
Long live non-freeloader-nexuiz (aka: Nexuiz) that will help put the food on the table of people who slave away for 2 months straight for 12 hours a day and expect some much deserved return on investment for that work.

You know, I had a dream, and it must have been a dream, where I worked on maps for something like 14 hours per day, constantly, and then released them ... just to piss off people. And I did this for free. Obviously it was a dream because the website that I remeber releasing them on... cat ... cat something something cat... doesn't resolve.

And, you know, during that long dream, man it went on for _years_... (in that dream I remeber being in some school or college too... crazy, dumb fuck like me being in college, and yall can attest to how dumb I ... or was that a dream too) I remeber talking to this four letter phantom "Div0" and he would talk about these features, and they would appear in Nexuiz:Depreciated suddenly, and I got the impression that he was ALWAYS working on this stuff, like 24/7 for WAY more that 2 months.

And I remeber like mad free GPL shit being ammassed like crazy, some 3rd party, some in SVN Nexuiz:Depreciated itself. Like, I could have sworn I released like 40 something maps, but they all sucked, and these other peeps released like a tone of good maps, that were good, and all these programmers and 3d artists made new things like vehicles and multi colored blood and textures... lots of stuff.

I must have been in a coma, long ass dream. But anyway in the dream these people who slaved away for like 12 hours a day or more sometimes ... they just released this stuff as GPL.

And they didn't say "yall taking food from my mouth".

I dunno, crazy. Well glad I woke up.

Kedhrin Said:

C.Brutail wrote:Kedhrin, I suggest you and your fellow developers to start a real conversation with us. As you can see, Vermeulen doesn't really communicate with us, so it'd be nice to know the story from square one: who are you really, how'd you came up with the idea of forking Nexuiz to PS3, etc. etc. It would be realy nice to have a personal introduction from all the major developers at Illfonic. You know, we're all friends here, and we've always done open discussions about everything, even if there were some major arguments, that made developers and players leave the scene. What I'm trying to say, that trust and straightness are the major column of our community. I'm sorry to have to say this, but untill you're not straight with us, you won't earn our respect and trust, and in the end you'll only gain hate.

I don't think you've realised yet: AlienTrap is NOT developing this game now for years. At least it's not the same AT that released Nexuiz 1.0.
The developers, that you name as AlienTrap, is really THE NEXUIZ COMMUNITY.

Also, one really aching point: You're talking about respect and homage to Nexuiz by porting and creating a new game on PS3. Still, you start to refer the original game as GPL Nexuiz, and the new one as simply Nexuiz.

WRONG.

It's we who Nexuiz is. Not Illfonic's Commercial Nexuiz.

I think the whole Nexuiz community would agree with every move you make, if you'd start the homage with NOT STEALING THE NAME.
A crazy, ideal and naive idea from me: if you do care about us, let us to decide the title of Illfonic's Nexuiz. The original players, developers. It would be an honor for us, and a big reputation gain for You. As you can see, we have pretty enough creative minds. If you lend us this opportunity, we promise we won't let you down!
Think about it! Press releases inform the whole world, that you, IllFonic, the proud owner of the Nexuiz name let the original community to decide about a title of your new game, showing your respect to us, while we give the same for you! This would be the most awesome market move!
Similar how id software handled the scandal that the source code of Quake leaked out, and a lonely developer ported it to Linux. Instead of sueing him, they have merged his code, and made it official.

I can already see the covers of online newspapers: "IllFonic is walking in the shoes of John Carmack".

Do you need more attetion than this?

What about forwarding this idea to your marketing management?

Thanks for your feedback. I'm sorry you want to see it that way. But we are a company. We try to maintain personal exposure and put it out there when necessary. Our team acts very independent, very creative and are a group of intelligent guys. But, I am not going to put my team in here to defend themselves and our company decisions. There are very confidential things in our situation I cannot disclose. This post was good, you had good ideas but I cannot comment on us acting on them.

Unfortunately, I have nothing else to say on this thread. I've responded in a professional format, way more personal than I usually do in a public forum these days trying to connect with. Unfortunately, I will not listen to demands or snappy comments. I will keep you guys updated, soon we'll have official IllFonic forums up (not hosted on this site) for Nexuiz concerns as well. We are very excited, and I know you guys will be excited too once you see what we are doing in more depth after GDC 2010.

Thank You

C.Brutail Said:

At least I tried.

[Rad Ished]

I'd like to wake up now please, can i go back to Monday?

[FruitieX]

FruitieX says:

Nice try, C.Brutail.

[Mirio]

Our team acts very independent, very creative and are a group of intelligent guys.

Wheres your own FPS? WHERE?

This post was good, you had good ideas but I cannot comment on us acting on them.

Polite version of: Stfu , i don't give a shit about you guys.

I will keep you guys updated, soon we'll have official IllFonic forums up (not hosted on this site) for Nexuiz concerns as well.

Thanks god.

We are very excited, and I know you guys will be excited too once you see what we are doing in more depth after GDC 2010.

Yup , can't wait for 2.5.3 / 2.6

Money makes me crazy
Money makes me lazy
I'll sell myself

[cortez]

that Kedhrin guy mostly ignores the community. he says he works in a independt studio, but acts like a mayor studio boss.
Every criticism will be constantly ignored by him.
He doesnt want to start a conversation, he just want to convince us to play the console nexuiz.

My main problem is that Vermeulen suddenly poped up and acts like he and a few other guys developed nexuiz over the years. It was always the community. the community made nexuiz what it is today. Ok, vermeulen created the idea nexuiz, but does that give him the right to decide about the future of nexuiz after 4 years of absents?
They said it supports Alientrap but alientrap is basicly vermeulen, who developes a commercial XBLA game. So where is the nexuiz community?

oh and pubilcity looks different:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/71 ... -this-year

Just a one miinute video from a bot match on a aweful map

[Aleator]

People, people, people... don't you get it by now? Taking the name was part of the agreement, which means that they payed for it, which in turn means that they'll not change it, no matter. C.Brutail had a good idea (thanks BTW) but it didn't work because the things I just mentioned.

Someone said that the Dark Places = Nexuiz. Well, that's completely wrong. Nexuiz is a gathering of a lot of things, such as: engine, maps, gameplay, models, story and many more others. You can take DP and make 10 more games. That doesn't mean they are all the same and that they are equal to the engine they're all based on. Counter Strike was a mod of Half Life, but it didn't have anything in common with Half Life, even though they had the same engine.

About the name GPL Nexuiz, how it was called by the guys at illfonic, I just want to say: who the hell knows what GPL means?? We do, but do you think that 16 year olds do? They're also too lazy to look it up and understand what it means, so it will remain *unknown_acronym* Nexuiz. If it was up to me, I'd call it Original Nexuiz, just to be clear that this is the first Nexuiz and not the console one. Take that illfonic!

Anyway, we're all blaming illfonic, but that's just because the Alien Trap leaders didn't show up. 'cause if you think about it, the Alien Trap leaders are the only ones to blame. Illfonic is just a company that bought a product and that wants to make money out of it.

But seriously, consider the name Original Nexuiz. it doesn't sound cool, but it states something. So, it's either this, or we give it a completely different name. If we give it a name like Nexuiz: The Sound of War (although that sounds so cool - just came up with it), people will say: "look it's the crappy free version of the real Nexuiz". And why will it look crappy? Thats simple: because you can change the level of special effects in the game and people will play it on low details (because of the crappy video card) and say that it doesn't look as cool as the console version. Well, of course, because the console is made especially for 3D games, that's why it can display high level special effects! But they don't realize that and dump the PC version. Anyway, I think that no one that buys the console version is gonna play the PC version, so I don't see what's the advantage for the community in this deal.

[Aleator]

Just realized now: they even took the logo!!!
So it was a package deal, they sold everything.

[halogene]

Code: Select all

<LordHavoc> locked that topic at Kedhrin's request
<Samual> -.-
* Vermeulen kilépett (Ping timeout: 364 seconds)
<Samual> Seriously?
<LordHavoc> yes
<LordHavoc> he said it's the top result on google and looks like it will never end
<Samual> Meh I think i'm --- Meh.
<LordHavoc> he doesn't mind people making other topics for it, just that one is becoming too much of a headache for him
<Samual> Tell him to come to this channel, clearly you're talking to him from somewhere.
<tZork> so now he gets to moderate gpl nexuiz forrum?


DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE TO REMOVE THIS!

Wait- what? I can't believe I am reading this. Now Kedhrin starts moderating this forum because of bad press to his commercial project, while there is actually a very sophisticated discussion going on, without flame wars and caps lockers? Is this so-called GPL Nexuiz already becoming inconvenient? I can't believe this. Just for the record, anyone who doesn't know me may be assured that I am actually boiling with rage at the moment. What about other topics that may criticize Illfonic or Kedhrin? What about freedom of speech? Nothing in that thread was illegal.

+1 to C.Brutail btw, I have to say you really had a great idea about us suggesting a name for them. Sadly, this gesture of this community's spirit to compromise was rejected.

I start to feel that forking is the way to go, really.

[Aleator]

I start to feel that forking is the way to go, really.

I would take it upon myself to do the forking, but I'm not that experienced. Someone which has been with the project for a few years should do it.

I offer my support.

[Zico]

I think I will still write my planned rewiew about Nexuiz (THE Nexuiz). And I think I will also address this debate. Players deserve to know about this whole deal and all it's hidden secrets before the active threads will be silenced.
Everything - reaction of the community, reaction of the "new owners", the logo-deal, the name-deal - everything.