FMs to be distributed exclusively through Eidos? (LOOK OUT! IT'S A PRANK!) - by Gingerbread Man
Gestalt on 2/4/2005 at 15:34
If it is for real and the distribution thing can't be worked out, I'm not sure whether I'll go back to Morrowind or do something Dark Mod related. I can't think of much that'd kill the T3 editing community faster and more effectively than this would.
Fallen+Keeper on 2/4/2005 at 15:36
I find this news so stupid and cheap that initially I ignored it pronto. But since the fucking April Fool day is over and GBM continues his comedy, I gave it another glance. 140 posts? It needed time. Simply, this is a big joke, so big that it can't last just one day. Their creators have to continue otherwise they would loose their face and the entire setup would fall into pieces. Let's continue the comedy then.
Unless EIDOS really became a pathetic, cheap group of beggars. :ebil: In that case, that company is a just one big failure and must go out of business, now. I don't want to see any other Thief games, anyway.
Moghedian on 2/4/2005 at 15:41
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Well, no response as of yet, and I doubt GBM or the rest of the mods would hold this over our heads as an April Fools joke after the day has passed...so...
(
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1237594#post1237594) He might have reason to wait until Monday ... or else he's just waiting until Eido's offices will reopen. :sweat:
Either way it's annoying.
OrbWeaver on 2/4/2005 at 16:07
Quote Posted by sparhawk
If their business plan is to make this as posted by GBM it still makes sense. You must lok at this form their point of view, not from yours.
If their business plan is to make
their own addon and sell it, then yes it makes sense. But the "letter" from Eidos suggests that they want the fan community to produce the addons (for free) so that Eidos can sell them, which is just not going to happen. Would you be willing to invest time in the Dark Mod if you had to ask ID to approve and distribute it, for their own profit?
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Hmmm ... I don't know if I'm particularly fond of the "notice and care" of a investors interest. After all, their notion of "notice and care" would most likely be VERY different then than one from a Thief fan.
I think you misunderstand the phrase - I was suggesting that Thief is such a small part of the Eidos business that investors would not be interested in the small amount of money that
might (but probably wouldn't) be able to be made by selling FMs.
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Which obvoiusly is 1) a wrong analogy and 2) you only see this form the fan's point of view. Fomr the investors point of view it indeed make sense to assume that the value is diminished by freely available FM distribution. Why should one buy an addon for money if they can download a host of more or less quality missions?
I was referring to the value of the
game, not the value of the addon. If Eidos wanted to make and sell their own addon pack, then again, this would make sense. However GBM's post does not suggest that this is what they want to do. Instead, they want to use the fan community as slave labour to create addons which Eidos can sell, while forbidding that same fan community from sharing work amongst themselves. This does not make sense any way you look at it.
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The question is not if it causes bad feeling in some obscure fan community, the question is how much is the percentage of sales losses in relation to the sales that can be gained by locking it down.
If the "obscure fan community" is the one producing the free content for Eidos to sell, then it matters very much if there is a bad feeling. Bad feeling = no FMs = nothing for Eidos to put in their addon pack = no money. Again, I think you are considering the situation where Eidos produce their own extra missions, which is possible but very unlikely (for a start they no longer employ any of the Thief mission designers).
On top of all this, there is still the fact that 1) there is nothing on the Eidos forums about this, 2) Davison Lipsor appears to be a made-up name (although it is of course
possible that it is real), and 3) there has not been one single, straight denial of an April Fool's prank by GBM or any other admin. Surely if you wanted to announce something this important, you would be very quick to clear up any confusion?
Komag on 2/4/2005 at 16:31
:rolleyes:
Lo Vaquero on 2/4/2005 at 16:38
Quote Posted by Komag
:rolleyes:
Exactly my Gilded friend... :tsktsk:
demagogue on 2/4/2005 at 18:27
sigh, I left yesterday expecting to come back today and find out whether this is the real deal or not.
Making an ass out of you and me and assuming it's real:
Now I feel like our lawyerly talk about the EULA and copyright violations gave Eidos ideas...
I'm still a little curious, though, since I thought the punchline of that whole discussion is that, without a EULA, the T3Editor release comes with an implied license to freely distribute FMs.
I mean, from a legal pov (it seems to me in my admittedly biased opinion right now) that there would be no *point* in distributing an editor *without* an implied license to distribute FMs; Dromed was distributed with such a license, the community has a strongly justified expectation of such a license...
Anyway, there's a strong enough case here that it might put the burden on Eidos to distribute the editor with the *reservation* that FMs could only be distributed thru Eidos, without which the implied license holds.
That previous EULA discussion also makes me wonder just how strong Eidos's copyright control is over FMs. The caselaw is more ambivalent than one might think, actually, esp since no single FM map will be identical to any T3 map, and would be even weaker if custom meshes & AI were used. Except for these aesthetic elements at most, what is Eidos's copyright actually covering in an FM? Just because a doc is made through Word or a picture thru PaintShop doesn't give Microsoft or [whoever makes photoshop] IP rights in them.
All this just leaves a big :p in my stomach...
SneaksieDave on 2/4/2005 at 18:32
Damnit spar, you're making me participate in this silly farce. Have mercy.
Quote Posted by sparhawk
As seems to be the nature of the T3 files you would have to distribute the assets with the maps.
You can distribute just a UNR if you want - nothing but geometry.
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Well. The problem is, that these other ways would be illegal then.
Yep. And? :ebil:
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These loveable pranksters are just getting the maximum mileage out of this thing, and the fuel is your continuing worrying.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet right now they are devising a way to make it look "official."
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A joke is fine but this is causing the community a LOT of undue upset.
Right! That's what I mean - I really hope this
prank doesn't backfire, turning people angry, and away. How many would-be FM authors have already stopped by, read this "news", said "you know what? I've had it with that game, screw it," and left, never to return? Good job, there! It could ultimately damage the potential for good T3 FM editing and if that were to happen, it was a dumbass thing to do. As far as I'm concerned, even if it was true (which it's not), who cares?
It doesn't change anything (except perhaps TTLG and hosting methods). I think not enough people are realizing that (in the fantasy that this is). Wow, Thief goes underground? Imagine that. :p Good luck suing an email address.
It's really one of the phenomena of human nature that no matter how many times people have April Fool's pranks pulled on them, they still choose to believe them. Go figure.
Edit: And if nothing else, this serves to put an issue out there and into the minds of the greedy, so that perhaps it WILL be an issue some day. Smart move. Can of Worms = Opened.
Renzatic on 2/4/2005 at 18:54
Quote Posted by Sneaksiedave
Right! That's what I mean - I really hope this prank doesn't backfire, turning people angry, and away. How many would-be FM authors have already stopped by, read this "news", said "you know what? I've had it with that game, screw it," and left, never to return? Good job, there! It could ultimately damage the potential for good T3 FM editing and if that were to happen, it was a dumbass thing to do.
Which is the main reason why I figured that, if it is a joke, they would've nipped it as quickly as possible. On April 1st it was tasteless but funny, on April 2nd it's simply not funny anymore....and I think the mods would realise this.
I wasn't worried about it before, but now I am getting a bit perturbed.
TrodKnee on 2/4/2005 at 19:02
This "joke" has succeeded in convincing me to look elsewhere to fulfill my modding desires. It seems pretty clear at this point that the Thief3 modding community was stillborn. There is no way to distribute FMs, if you could distribute them it may or may not be illegal, and frankly at this time I'm not sure that there are more than a handful of gamers alive who could possibly give a damn. I had planned on hacking at the editor a little more this weekend, but now I have no intention of wasting my time. To be honest, it probably would have been a waste of time regardless of this hilarious joke.
Fake straw or not, this camel's back is broken.
