IllFonic's Nexuiz

[lda17h]

Hi,

i am sure that much good can come out of this collaboration, too.. But even after the first heated debates calmed down somewhat i still find it unfortunate to use the exact same name. Think of the outrage that ensued when some corporation tried to trademark the "linux" name (you can read a summary on the wikipedia linux page).. The main difference to the nexuiz case was that at that time the project inventor and leader didn't like it either. At that time contributors and developers both went to court to protect the name and won. Imagine Linus had announced to the linux crowd that Sun Microsystems licensed their code (in a similar way as it happened with nexuiz, i.e. cleared with authors and replaced if not) and would release "Linux", a proprietary Unix OS :D He would probably have been killed ;D

Many open source projects are emotional beasts. People attach good feelings with a name. It means something. Nexuiz is known (albeit not too widely) as an open source project. It's simply not a good idea to just take the exact same name and latch it onto a closed source, proprietary product, even if it shares code and properties with the open source one.

As soon as you release an open source project and it gains some momentum, there's no such thing as a single "owner" anymore. It has become something bigger than that. Quite frankly I'm a bit surprised that you (or maybe only Lee) didn't foresee the ongoing discussion and outrage..

[C.Brutail]

I still don't understand why you locked this thread for a third party's request. I thought this is our forum.
Also, Illfonic has to accept the bad criticism too.

Just my two cents...

[LordHavoc]

I still don't understand why you locked this thread for a third party's request. I thought this is our forum.
Also, Illfonic has to accept the bad criticism too.

Just my two cents...

I was personally annoyed by the thread's direction and wanted people to cool down for a day before continuing discussion, but was not going to act on this, then I got the request (and my IRC comments were incorrect as to the reason they wanted it locked, but no matter, history is history).

So it was not solely at their request, but also my own annoyance.

I look forward to more constructive discussion on the topic, and have no plans to interfere again.

[C.Brutail]

Ok, so what was the reason they wanted it to be locked?
Oh, and please, don't come with the "sorry I can't talk about it" bullshit.
Please, at least you could be honest with us.

[parasti]

Please change the name. This hijacking of the name is what upsets people the most, you could turn it around by doing this one thing.

[LordHavoc]

Ok, so what was the reason they wanted it to be locked?
Oh, and please, don't come with the "sorry I can't talk about it" bullshit.
Please, at least you could be honest with us.

I am being honest, I was told this thread was grabbing all attention on search results, distracting from the announcements, and to please lock it.

This combined with my annoyance resulted in me locking it.

There is no deeper reason to it.

I also tire of the subject of why this thread was locked, unlocked by someone so you could post, and then locked again, and I hope no one bothers me about why I unlocked it now, there is nothing more to say about it for my part.

I would prefer to stay on the appropriate topic of the future of both Nexuiz games.

[C.Brutail]

I am being honest, I was told this thread was grabbing all attention on search results, distracting from the announcements, and to please lock it.

And? Like I've said before, they must accept the bad criticism too. This was pure censorship.
If Kedhrin woudn't replied in the elitist way he did, things might have turned out other ways. I also don't understand how could he take my invitation as a direct insult to open discussion.
Also, as I'm a moderator, there's no need for anybody to lock/unlock a topic for me so I can post.

So, you want to talk about the future of the two games? Ok, let's talk. What we recieved yet are half promises. "We can't disclose..." "we can't tell yet..." "there's possibility..."

This is called holding out a carrot with us.
Me don't like it. And I'm certain lot other's don't either.
Talking about one thing is one thing. Actually accomplishing promises is another one. We are really afraid and sceptical that Illfonic's Nexuiz site won't advertise Nexuiz in an equal way. That'll hurt Nexuiz for sure.

[Silica Gel: Do Not Eat]

It is my belief that this upcoming game will benefit the community, and I enjoy working on it and playing it.

I am sure we will see some positive effects. but at what cost?

On the positive we will probably see some improvements to game engine.
We may get a few more newbs to frag.
The console version does look cool and I am interested on how it turns out.

From the negative side, we have effectively had our brand watered down
The Nexuiz brand was built up by years of word of mouth , dozens of fan and clan pages, numerous articles,and links from download sites.

Potential loss of contributors, I hope this does not happen , but I think it will. There are some bad feelings on how this whole thing was handled

The true version of Nexuiz is just a footnote on the nexuiz.com domain.

Forum censorship, if a forum topic is critical of Illfonic and is high on google search results it gets locked.

Confusion of having two games with the exact same name.

Trust is lost, I do not believe Alientrap has Nexuiz's best interest at heart. It appears that Alientrap is more interested in building it's presence as console game developer than
doing what is best for the Nexuiz community.

What is truly sad is that this all could have been avoided

[Irritant]

I am being honest, I was told this thread was grabbing all attention on search results, distracting from the announcements, and to please lock it.

Well, if you think this is grabbing too much attention, it's nothing compared to what might happen should the community's grievances reach Slashdot or some other major site, and I think the odds of that are highly likely. I too am a little surprised that you and Lee did not have the foresight to not realize what the reaction would be here and abroad. The damage is done, it's really up to Illfonic and AlienTrap to repair it. Now I know that Illfonic's mindset is "we paid for the license, so we will do as we please, too bad for you", because that is precisely what Kenhdrin has posted here. Their rigidness is very corporate, cold, and heavy handed. They certainly aren't going to earn the respect of the community with this approach.

More advice - change the name. This wouldn't solve all of the contention, but it would solve 90% of it. Change it to Nexuiz Warzone, Nexuiz Championship, Nexuiz Battlezone, or something derivative like that, and you still have the Nexuiz name you paid for, and there is no confusion and bad feelings. Please don't tell people that is not an option, because everybody knows it is, Illfonic just doesn't feel they have to do it. Titles change names all the time. Perhaps they should wake up and smell the bad publicity brewing ahead.

[Lee_Stricklin]

Here's a cool title:

The Nexuiz: Peace Through Conflict

It explains the game's story and sounds cool. It's been said several times over that the game's art style could help explain a backstory on how the Nexuiz began and interest some of the PC crowd because of it.