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Topic: NEWS: Ghosts of the Precursors is coming! (Read 21406 times)
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Krulle
Enlightened
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Gender: 
Posts: 1115
*Hurghi*! Krulle is *spitting* again!
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TfB is continueing on Skylanders and whatever.
Just temporarily with a decreased input from Fred and Paul.
They are doing this independently, as already announced in their very first blog post (which was published on the day SC2 got published 25 years ago).
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Zanthius
Enlightened
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Posts: 941
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They are so experienced now that I doubt it will be much of a problem to do it more or less by themselves.
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Zelnik
Zebranky food
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Posts: 16
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Where can we go to support these gentlemen?
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Frogboy
*Many bubbles*
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Posts: 231
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If I find anything out, I'll pass it on.
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Krulle
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*Hurghi*! Krulle is *spitting* again!
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FYI: a PoNaF forum post about an intrview of FF and PR3 on "Ghosts of the Precursors"m here
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Frogboy
*Many bubbles*
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Posts: 231
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They did SC2 all by themselves, except for some music. So.... Of course they CAN. Anyway: in one of the linked articles from theri twitter: [...] it will contain races from the predecessor game, such as Ur-Quan, Precursors, Super-Melee, Umgah, and more. Who here ever knew the Super-Melee are a race?
Well except for the art, alien design, animation and much of the writing.
Star Control II had some legends on it. A few examples:
Greg Johnson, who designed Starflight was on the project.
Iain McCaig worked on the game who later on went to design Darth Maul, Princess Amidala, characters for Harry Potter, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.
Erol Otus who created the Zoq-Fot-Pik and is very well known for his work in fantasy and D&D.
Kyle Balda worked on the animation in Star Control II and went on to lead the animation on Monsters Inc. and most recently directed the Minions movies.
None of this takes away from Paul and Fred. But I think it is fair to say that Star Control II's awesomeness was the result of a nexus of awesome talent. Truly lightning in a bottle.
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Frogboy
*Many bubbles*
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Posts: 231
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Since I’m the one who created the topic here announcing Ghosts it should be self evident that Stardock supports Ghosts.
And has been stated elsewhere, many times, Stardock isn’t and won’t be using the aliens from SC2.
However, since Ghosts is happening and the IP in SC2 is messy, there needs to be a real live agreement that puts the old Accolade agreement to bed.
We are baffled by the post they made. Our position on SC hasn’t changed. And our support for Ghosts is public knowledge.
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Krulle
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*Hurghi*! Krulle is *spitting* again!
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This was not meant as critique to anyone. Just an update.
Thanks for commenting, though.
I do NOT know anything about the stuff going on, about licnse or no-license agreements, and I honestly only care marginally.
I'll see how it plays out, and it may well be that in the aftermath of renaming/buy-outs/bankruptcies the whole mess bcame even less clear, and that somewhere down the line someone sold more rights than he owned or had right to sell himself, believing that no-one will ever notice due to the old software behind these rights (seen it happen before).
Or that the creators have been led to believe they own the idea/creation, but not the name and distribution rights, but in the contract fine print, the distributor/publisher has the right to sell those IP elements too, without consulting the creators again.... (seen that too)
Bankruptcies do not make the mess clearer.
Therefore the issue who put the stuff on steam and earns a part of th sale fee may be very relevant, but I'll leave that to the owners of the IP and the ones who honestly believe they do on the rights to sort oit the mess among themselves.
That's also what we have judges and a judicial system for. With that old stuff, finding the relevant proofs and contracts may be difficult, but usually it is doable.
I hope for all sides, that you can come to an agreement without requiring the service of judges, due to the time-effort and costs involved.
We'll hear about it, or not, but I do wish all sides concernd to come a satisfactory solution for all.
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Stardrake
Zebranky food
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Posts: 35
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Well, this is a surprise... and from what it looks like, it's a surprise to Brad as well.
I would say that there were a few things I've seen in the SC:O marketing that I did think were a bit... presumptuous... but I'd assumed that they had been agreed on with FF&PR3 in the name of making the brand as a whole stronger for everyone. Apparently that isn't the case, since that's basically the third point that FF & PR3 made.
The key point, and one in which the two sides seem to be arguing past each other, is this:
"Stardock now seems to think that not only can they use our aliens, ships and narrative without our permission, but thinks that we cannot make a sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters without their permission -- this is where we got really, really angry."
Brad is basically saying "You have our permission, go ahead!", while FF and PR3 are saying they shouldn't NEED permission. This seems like a fairly technical point, but in the murky world of IP law and business, the distinction between permission being granted and not needing permission in the first place could actually be a literal gamebreaker for GotP. As supportive as Brad is, permission is something that can potentially be withdrawn, if something happens to Stardock that means that Brad is no longer in charge of Stardock's side of the IP - a hypothetical new holder of Stardock's side of the IP could, in theory, withdraw permission and issue a cease and desist on GotP, or even if FF & PR3's permission to make GotP is future-proofed, a hypothetical future owner of the Stardock side of the IP might be able to freeze FF & PR3 out of doing anything else with their universe afterwards. Such uncertainty in the status of the IP might be making it difficult for FF & PR3 to get investors and other backers for their project.
The other issues FF & PR3 raise are essentially symptoms of this: Stardock releasing Star Control 1, 2, and Kessari Quadrant without permission, and putting the Ur-Quan Masters and Kessari Quadrant universes in their diagram, is essentially demonstrating to potential backers that the exact status of the Ur-Quan Masters IP is not fully resolved, and therefore that the risk that a future holder of the Stardock side of the IP might pull the plug remains.
The cleanest resolution is probably for Stardock to formally transfer all rights to the Ur-Quan Masters universe (which includes Kessari Quadrant, since it uses IP from Ur-Quan Masters) to FF & PR3, while retaining the right to make Star Control games in universes unrelated to the Ur-Quan Masters universe (which might require removing references to the Androsynth in the backstory as well). This would have the effect of resolving the other points FF and PR3 raise in their favour, because after such a transfer, Stardock would not be able to publish the first three games or to include the Ur-Quan Masters universe on diagrams without having permission from FF & PR3 (although they might be able to ask for such permission as part of the agreement). It would probably still require some lawyers to make sure that the agreement actually says what both sides want it to say, but that could be more along the lines of hammering out the terms of an *alliance party* rather than great battles.
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