Status of the D3 code/copyright

Feedback for the Outrage Entertainment D3 dev team members - bug reports, patch issues, your raves (or rants).
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Dakatsu
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Post by Dakatsu »

Okay, is this negotiation thing not working as in they don't budge no matter what, or it would take lots of money to get the game rights?
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Duper
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Post by Duper »

Valin can answer this better than I, but I'm pretty sure this is a principle thing and not a money thing. Now if you through a LOT of money (and I'm talking an obscene amount) that might do the trick, but still maybe not. Descent was created somewhat outta spite so I think it holds a very special place in Matt's and Mike's hearts.
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Post by zbriggs »

As I have stated many times before, Mike Kulas and Matt Toschlog own the development rights as Parallax. Interplay owns the publishing rights. Haven't development rights doesn't do a spit worth of good without the publishing rights. And you will under no conditions get Interplay to caugh them up.

I got this \"Mike Kulas and Matt Toschlog own the development rights as Parallax.\" directly from Matt Toschlog. And when I did get to talk to the former CEO of Interplay and the former staff it was confirmed.
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Nosferatu
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Post by Nosferatu »

I could swear there was some kind of legal definition of an \"Abandoned work\".

Interplay is not in the best of shape financially right now and if they go completely under, wouldnt Descent become an abandoned work, possibly allowing reverse engineering/compiling when that happens?
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CDN_Merlin
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Post by CDN_Merlin »

I think the rights stay for 10 years.
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Duper
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Post by Duper »

Then we still have a wait ahead of us. D3 isn't 10 yet. :\\
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Alcatraz
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Post by Alcatraz »

not to good with copyrights, but i did find this. thought it was interesting.
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d3jake
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Post by d3jake »

Booyah! THat means all we have to do is wait about four more years and we can finally get to it! I'm hoping that there will be a D3 community left...
Blackhole
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Post by Blackhole »

If someone wanted to make an entirely new descent game, they wouldn't want to work off of the D3 engine, its too old and out of date. It'd be easier just to make a new engine.

Of course, just making improvements to the D3 source code is another matter entirely.
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Duper
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Post by Duper »

Black hole..

welcome. This is actually more about copyrights and whether or not another Descent game (by title) can legally be made.

That's pretty much not going to happen.

Where the D3 engine is concerned, we only wish to get the source so we can fix some problems ourselves (instead of waiting 4 years for someone else...) and maybe mod something by those so inclined. :)
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Moon
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Post by Moon »

Burlyman wrote:Descent has its design problems...like overpowered missiles in multiplayer.
Overpowered in terms of what? Speed? Destructive power? Cause I disagree.

You know, I've modified the Stadium port in D3 to include all weapons in the game (after all the host can disallow any he doesn't like) and we've been playing this on LAN parties with Megas and Black Sharks and noone was in any real trouble. The Afterburner does help a lot evading those
Moon's Descendarium - THE single-player guide to Descent 1-3

Maintainer of The 'official' Descent 3 FAQ

Coming soon to a domain near you
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NUMBERZero
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Post by NUMBERZero »

Whew! 3 year revive, but it has been 10 years since D3 was released, so where's the code?
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Aus-RED-5
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Post by Aus-RED-5 »

Posted Sat Oct 24, 2009
Kevin Bentley wrote:If/when the owners of D3 code ever agree to release the source I'm going to encourage them to do so under a GPL license so there won't be as much duplication of effort. I'm normally not a fan of GPL, but in this case I can see the benefits.
viewtopic.php?t=16059
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Duper
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Post by Duper »

Thanks Red. perfect cross link.

yeah, Interplay probably won't let their end of it go. They're so strapped for cash right now, they'll use what they can, where they can to generate revenue.
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NUMBERZero
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Post by NUMBERZero »

You can miss a lot if you don't check this forum thuroughly. I don't really even know Kevin.

Here's a plan, spam the owners of the code with 1000 emails saying \"Your time is up! Hand it over!\" jk

But I do say that we need to do something big to get their attention. I'd bet that they just don't know that we exist. It seems like every time someone tries to send them an email, they get no reply. As to what \"big\" would be, I have no idea.
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Aus-RED-5
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Post by Aus-RED-5 »

Kevin is one of the devs from Descent 3.

If possible, he'd be the one to \"get their attention\". ;)
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