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Topic: NEWS: Ghosts of the Precursors is coming! (Read 26014 times)
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bum783
Zebranky food
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Posts: 19
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The reason I think it was passive aggressive is because he knew that project wasn’t from a developer. He knew it was abandoned a while ago. Referencing it now in reply to my comment expressing the fans passion for a real sequel felt like he was referencing the fans failure. . Almost as if to say we need him. BUT I’ll admit that’s just my opinion on a very small comment. One that is derived from years of seeing Frogboy argue with fans in forums.
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Zanthius
Enlightened
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Posts: 941
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I find Star Control 3 also only being an attempt at continueing the story of Star Control 2.
There are so many integrated stories in SC2:
Where are the Rainbow Worlds? Where did the Precursors go? What is the Ultron? How can you fix the Ultron? What happened to the Syreen homeworld? How can you get the Sun Device? How can you free the Chmmr? Where is the Arilou hiding? Where did the Androsynth go? Where did the Orz come from? Where can you find the Taalo shield? How can you get a Dnyarri? Where is the Vux beast? How can you start the Yehat rebellion?
It doesn't matter what you do first, but you need to complete most of these pathways before you can complete the game. This is what makes SC2 so rich. There are so many integrated stories.
Any worthy sequel would need to have an equal amount of integrated stories, or richness. And it wouldn't be fair to just continue on the stories from SC2. You would need to come up with completely new and original stories. That is more or less what Paul Reiche III did when he invented SC2.
Also, that you get payed for the location of Rainbow Worlds, and that their locations form a pattern on the map. That is really deep mind-boggling stuff. Makes me think of the proposed bible code:
The Bible code (Hebrew: הצופן התנ"כי, hatzofen hatanachi), also known as the Torah code, is a purported set of secret messages encoded within the Hebrew text of the Torah. This hidden code has been described as a method by which specific letters from the text can be selected to reveal an otherwise obscured message. Although Bible codes have been postulated and studied for centuries, the subject has been popularized in modern times by Michael Drosnin's book The Bible Code and the movie The Omega Code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code
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« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 11:10:39 am by Zanthius »
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bum783
Zebranky food
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Posts: 19
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The reason I think it was passive aggressive is because he knew that project wasn’t from a developer. He knew it was abandoned a while ago. Referencing it now in reply to my comment expressing the fans passion for a real sequel felt like he was referencing the fans failure. . Almost as if to say we need him. BUT I’ll admit that’s just my opinion on a very small comment. One that is derived from years of seeing Frogboy argue with fans in forums.
Not everyone is familiar with Project 6014, after all it was an incomplete fan project from 2011 with its last beta release in 2012. Honestly I'm surprised he even heard of it all things considered. It's been effectively dead for 5 years. Than why on earth would he think that a 5 year dead project would satisfy my "fans want a sequel" comment. If the only response is gonna be about a fan developed project that died 5 years ago as being the true sequel people wanted, than just don't bother commenting at all. Its not like I was saying anything controversial that required a reply. Before all this legal stuff it was believed that Stardock wasnt creating a true sequel because Fred and Paul might. If this legal dispute ends with Paul and Fred unable to legally create a true sequel, than I hope Stardock would, because if they dont the fans will lose out on something we have waited for since that damn kid asked about the Mark II
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« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 05:47:04 pm by bum783 »
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bum783
Zebranky food
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Posts: 19
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If Stardock really wants to make me happy they will buy the rights to Xenosaga and finish that story too. LOL
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Krulle
Enlightened
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Posts: 1117
*Hurghi*! Krulle is *spitting* again!
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It already seems as if they're marketing it as continuation of The Ur-Quan Masters. From the creators of Star Control 2.
This way, the Trademark is mentioned. But it is factual, hence a fair use of the trademark, IMHO.
They seem to have switched over, hence the changes in their original blog posts.
If they wish to remain daring, a judge may even decide, that "Continueing the story directly from Star Control 2." could be factual and fair use as well. But that'll be again leaning very close to the allegations brought forward by Stardock , so this would again be pushing it. But even then, the UQM fans here would not mind an additional line explicitly stating, that this game has no further affiliation to the trademark "Star Control" and the trademarkowner "Stardock", nor to the upcoming Star Control (TM) game Origins.
Would be quite a lot of information to keep together, and I fear that not all games-sites would leave the disclaimers in their publication.
And I must say, I am impressed by Frogboy's will to keep facing us here. And I wish to thank him once again for doing so.
And we have Fwiffo's ( Fred and/or Paul in the IRC chats) promise that the new game will explain why the bridge turned purple, IF we're willing to spend the credits for that....
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rosepatel
*Many bubbles*
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Posts: 157
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The thing about it is that these proceedings will have zero impact on Origins or Ghosts. I mean, it already has had an impact on Origins. It won't feature any stories or characters from the original game. Initially Stardock said this was out of respect, but looking at the times that Paul and Fred refused to license that stuff to them, and the lawsuit, Stardock will likely never be able to make a game that features anything from the original games. (To be fair, they do own the derivative copyrights in Star Control 3, so maybe you'll see the Vyro-Ingo if you remember them.)
Nothing can stop P&F from making Ghosts if they actually want to.
They just need to work out the trademark stuff out before-hand if they want to promote it as "Star Control". Or they could take a hit to their pride and call it a sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters.
Agreed. Ghosts of the Precursors will come out one way or another, under some name. If they can prove the Trademark expired, maybe it will be Star Control. If not, Stardock will own the name.
But one important note to add -- it might not even be called a sequel to the Ur-Quan Masters.
Because Stardock is trying to claim the name "The Ur-Quan Masters".
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« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 10:00:45 pm by rosepatel »
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Elestan
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 431
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The thing about it is that these proceedings will have zero impact on Origins or Ghosts. Nothing can stop P&F from making Ghosts if they actually want to. Well, there's some potential danger if Stardock were to prevail in getting "The Ur-Quan Masters" trademark.
Note that their Q&A page has added the following:
Q: Why did Stardock trademark Ur-Quan Masters?
A: Our actions continue to be in the interest of protecting Star Control and our ability to create and share more Star Control assets to the community in the future (including releasing the source code of Star Control III, which we own, as well as future Star Control Origins and content) without fear that Paul and Fred would claim that we are creating "confusion" by doing so. As background: Stardock always had the common law trademark to Ur-Quan Masters. It's the sub-title to Star Control II after all and was, by Paul and Fred's admission, available in commerce on GOG even before Stardock was involved. Of all the issues in this case, I think this has the greatest chance of making it blow up and get really messy, if Stardock tries to push it. First, I'll note that this trademark has not yet been granted. Stardock's application was rejected due to errors in the form, and Paul R. has filed a competing registration for the same mark.
Moreover, I think Stardock's claim to "THE UR-QUAN MASTERS" has a lot of potential vulnerabilities. To name just a few:
- Trademarks require continued use in commerce. Even if "THE UR-QUAN MASTERS" had been fully registered when SC2 came out, there's a strong argument that it would have lapsed in the early 2000s. That certainly also applies to whatever common law trademark they might claim.
- The argument that Atari's GoG sales qualify is going to run into the problem that Atari acknowledged that it didn't have the right to put them up on GoG in the first place due to the expiry of its license with Paul.
- Trademarks can't allow anyone to contest their use, but the open-source project has been using this name since 2002, without being contested. The first hit for the phrase in any web search in the last decade would take you to the open-source project, not anything controlled by Atari or Stardock.
- Trademarks can't be speculatively registered. If Stardock wants to register "THE UR-QUAN MASTERS", it's going to have to show that it actually plans to use that phrase to market a game that it sells or is planning to sell. This means that it needs to either put the Ur-Quan in SC:Origins, or win a rights battle with Paul over SC2.
- Unlike "Star Control", a name with "Ur-Quan" in it is using material that Paul R. can make a copyright claim against.
- Common law trademarks are usually designated with (TM), but this was never done for this phrase.
But even if the claim is weak, it could get tied up in court for a long time, with the potential to injunct the release of any new properties that mention "THE UR-QUAN MASTERS".
So, my worry here is that Stardock is trying to assert that they not only own the "Star Control" trademark, but that they also still have the right to use the SC2 characters and universe. And I understand why they would want to be able to do that; if they can't use the SC2 universe, the value of the "Star Control" trademark is greatly reduced. But to pull that off, their lawyer is going to need to find a way around Paul's contract language, and that could drag into an Eternal Conflict.
I hope that this registration is just legal maneuvering for position/leverage on Stardock's part. I think it would be a dumb move for them to push it, because it'll clearly make them into the bad guy, they'll have a weak hand, and it's a fight that Paul R. could not step back from.
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« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 11:00:39 pm by Elestan »
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Mormont
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 253
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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I would like to apologize to people here, including Frogboy, if some of my past posts were overly aggressive. I generally try to avoid picking fights with people online, but I probably got carried away in the past couple weeks.
If I post on the legal conflict in the future, I will do it with less hostility and be less confrontational.
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« Last Edit: March 03, 2018, 07:13:24 pm by Mormont »
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