I Am Leaving CA

[BaNa]

[cue snobby generic european voice]
Pah, you americans and your cult of legality...
[/cue]



I would be more afraid of NWA man. If they find out you have been infringing on they name, there will be HELL to pay.

[Ashnal]

Sad to see you go Zerggin, you were a really great asset to the CA team.

I guess this means I better advance my modeling skills and start cranking out some models ^_^

[Pxtl]

Speaking of the problem of content replacement, is there a wiki page for the current status of CA's model replacements? It would be a good starting point for modellers looking for a random project.

[Saktoth]

Really sad.

Realistically, if you owned TA its not illegal to have it on your PC and mod it. The legal grey area is distribution, which you arent really involved in.

Im really starting to think it would be simpler to make a mod from the other direction (IE, from scratch) than to keep working to purge OTA content. Lichos '20 models' is totally incorrect, we have hundreds that need to go.

[SinbadEV]

think it would be simpler to make a mod from the other direction (IE, from scratch)

I have lot's of crazy ideas... as do many people around the forums... a fresh project with the level of development CA had would be very cool...

[Uniquecrash5]

Dude... don't do that.

I'm not sure if you'll remember me (heck I don't know if any of you will) but I was a Cavedoggie. A 'YardDog back in the day, one of the guys that ran the official TA online service, the BoneYards. I was one of the last guys to leave TA, and after quite a while - I was the first tester ever assigned to the project too.

It fills me with unspeakable joy to see it still alive and what's more, evolving, even now.

So I want, no, need to tell you this: They don't care. TA was utterly off Infogrames's (eventually "Atari's") radar by the time they shut down Cavedog in the first place (trust me, I was there). What's more, they will never care for the simple reason that you're not making any money off the project, so they can't make any money off you.

And now, with Supreme Commander out there they will never do anything with the TA property, ever. The slimmest chance of that has been completely crushed.

You may well have other reasons for easing off your work here, I don't know, but if you're quitting solely because you think you might get sued: I beg of you.

Please. Don't.

[lurker]

AA will never die; don't worry about that.

[Uniquecrash5]

AA will never die; don't worry about that.

Not worried about development stopping - you guys are clearly insane.

[SpikedHelmet]

S44 is in the clear except that some of their weapons and units could be questionable if the companies that made that hardware is still around - remember how Counterstrike had to rename all their guns?

There's a slight difference. Counterstrike used company production assigned nomenclature in its weapons (for instance Beretta being a company name, as well as Colt, etc).

Names we use (and that were used in WW2) are government-assigned designations and endorsed nicknames. "Panzerkampfwagen Tiger" means nothing more than "Tiger Tank" and is not copyrighted (although the company that designed it, Porsche, is still around).

IW is committed to ensuring all it's produced work is original, or from appropriately licensed sources.

Wow, this reads like a really cheesy "homestyle" commercial espousing a manufacturer's "traditional values".

(in summary: NooooOoo! Don't go zerggin! We need you for pretty explosions!)

Hush fool, he's not leaving Sprign, he's leaving CA! He even said he'll probably work on S44 and IW! You idiot!

All legality and insistances that Atari doesn't give a damn aside, there's also the basic fact that working on such a blatant infringement of someone else's work is pretty much taboo in the games industry, particularly the open-source development community (many of whom have a really negative and condascending opinion of Spring as a whole).

a fresh project with the level of development CA had would be very cool...

Im really starting to think it would be simpler to make a mod from the other direction (IE, from scratch) than to keep working to purge OTA content. Lichos '20 models' is totally incorrect, we have hundreds that need to go.

Let me give you guys a bit of advice, seeing as how Spring: 1944 has been there. When Spring was first released we made the decision to port Axis & Allies: Total Annihilation to this engine. After a few months of struggling to make everything work and the reality of how much it would take to purge all TA content out (as much to create content specifically geared towards Spring's superior capabilities as remove copyright infringement) we decided we'd do exactly that -- start from scratch.

Work went a lot more smoothly this time around and we were able to concentrate on things we probably wouldn't have dreamed of before.

So I'd really suggest you seriously consider taking the "from scratch" route. Salvage all salvagable assets (art, coding, etc) from CA, and start designing a new game. It'll be much more rewarding for you and result in a much more professional game.

...but leave Zerg alone! He's ours now! /runs

[Beherith]

only 20 models until he can return then ^^

I dont know if this is relevant, but arent most of the sounds TA content as well?

[adin_panther]

Dude... don't do that.

I'm not sure if you'll remember me (heck I don't know if any of you will) but I was a Cavedoggie. A 'YardDog back in the day, one of the guys that ran the official TA online service, the BoneYards. I was one of the last guys to leave TA, and after quite a while - I was the first tester ever assigned to the project too.

It fills me with unspeakable joy to see it still alive and what's more, evolving, even now.

So I want, no, need to tell you this: They don't care. TA was utterly off Infogrames's (eventually "Atari's") radar by the time they shut down Cavedog in the first place (trust me, I was there). What's more, they will never care for the simple reason that you're not making any money off the project, so they can't make any money off you.

And now, with Supreme Commander out there they will never do anything with the TA property, ever. The slimmest chance of that has been completely crushed.

You may well have other reasons for easing off your work here, I don't know, but if you're quitting solely because you think you might get sued: I beg of you.

Please. Don't.

Listen to this man ! :O Glad to see someone finally brings in some common sense and facts.

[Wisse]

Is America scary or are Americans just scared by default?

Don't go deleting everything related with TA man. Yes you still have some alternatives, but it's just not that risky as you picture it and certainly not worth dropping half of the mods.

We're scaring potential players away with this "is it legal" topics. If nothing happened till now, nothing will. It's safe to say that spring is even helping promoting SupCom, although it doesn't show much because of our booming 1K community.

[TheFatController]

We're scaring potential players away with this "is it legal" topics.

I'm pretty sure this is intentional, what I honestly don't beleive is that smearing *A will result in more players playing alternate mods.

Note the phrasing here:

Anybody can still make suggestions to me about widgets, as long as they do it politely and as a Spring user, not a *A user.

The alternate mod crowd needs to stop with the 'us versus them' type stuff cause it's only damaging the community as a whole, and as far as I can tell noone working on an alternate mod thus far has ever made their objective to study *A and take the best aspects of the game and improve on the worst in order to make a new project that's better and will appeal to the existing player base of Spring - they take their loathing of *A so far that they deliberatley change the good parts to prove some kind of point.

Not to mention the whole issue of ego-driven modding (ie. asking 'how can we get people to play our mod' not 'why should people play our mod'.)

[adin_panther]

Very true, TFC. It's starting to get on my nerves anyhow. I wonder where Spring would be without OTA. Oh right. It would not exist.

That being said, i believe that trying to pull all this legal BS is certainly the wrong way. Bashing *A players or devs is even worse, cause both are doing alot for this project.

[KDR_11k]

The name did appear in a recent strategy statement though, it doesn't look like TA is completely off their radar anymore. Of course action is still very unlikely but it looks like Zerg wants to participate more in something he could put on his CV without getting weird looks from prospective employers ("You were involved in a project that ripped content from a commercial game?"). Also the issue with recognition among opensource developers is there, obviously it's not exactly a good idea to champion a game that works on the "abandonware" principle as a success for open source development, it looks more like MS was right with "opensourcers are out to steal your IP!"

[Uniquecrash5]

The name did appear in a recent strategy statement though, it doesn't look like TA is completely off their radar anymore

No kidding? Colour me stunned.

Got a linky? The googles, they do nothing.

[Pxtl]

The name did appear in a recent strategy statement though, it doesn't look like TA is completely off their radar anymore

No kidding? Colour me stunned.

Got a linky? The googles, they do nothing.

http://corporate.infogrames.com/infogra ... tegy_1.php

RELAUNCH OF PUBLISHING

In the Publishing area, the Group aims to modify its structure and to centralize the management of its franchise and intellectual property holdings. It will first focus on the largest market segments (consoles, PC, digital distribution and online business models), making full use of its resources. Giving new impetus to the publishing business will involve three complementary projects:

*
├óÔé¼┼ôATARI INSIDE": a gradual relaunch plan for the Group's historic franchises (Alone In the Dark, Neverwinter Nights, Test Drive, VRally, Baldur's Gate, Total Annihilation, etc.) and the enhancement of other intellectual property holdings with significant potential; in the course of the ordinary operation of its publishing business, the Group may also optimize its holdings by disposing of or acquiring intellectual properties.
*
├óÔé¼┼ôATARI OPEN TO THE WORLD": developing relationships with gaming communities, relying on independently designed product lines that provide opportunities for the creation of new original franchises. Under this strategy, in addition to its own products, Atari will work with many third-party development studios around the world, with all projects managed by its own production teams. In this connection, in-house production expertise may be optimized by the setting up of project management procedures and the addition of new talents.
*
├óÔé¼┼ôATARI OUT OF THE BOX": creation of new gaming experiences and positioning the Group on the basis of new business models, by developing online features for all key franchises, in-game advertising and business-to-business services (licensing out, exploitation of the Atari name, spin-offs, etc.). The development of online functionalities will require a reevaluation of in-house resources in order to identify areas that need to be strengthened or opened up.

[Ironfire]

then most of the content used in spring is "ilegal"?

[imbaczek]

most in terms of player base, yes.

[SeanHeron]

Even leaving the likelihood of legal action (or not) aside, the fact is, as KDR pointed out, not being legally free to distribute is a big inhibition both for adoption/distribution and for contribution, in some circles - ie especially Linux users (which, may I add, do not exactly have a plethora of RTS titles available that run natively).

So arguing that debating "the legal stuff" is potentially scaring away players, entirely ignores a different fact - that Spring's most played "mod" being illegal to distribute, has been, is and will continue to be (hopefully not for too much longer) an off turner for many potential players.

Regards
Sean
[Edit for clarity/readability+ PS]
P.S. To make it clear, I don't mean to say with this that people devving or playing the *A's are doing something "bad" - just trying to make clear the benefits that having a well played freeware or (in my view even better) open source mod/game would have.