gametechmods
Robot Arena => Discussion => Topic started by: HurricaneAndrew on June 23, 2009, 03:01:09 AM
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I saw this...
...unless of course he sends them a huge check alongside his complaint letter.
in another thread, and I also saw the thread that moonbear started about the source code, and got to thinking about something. How much money do you think it would take to buy the official and legal rights to RA2 from Atari?
I'm thinking that possibly have our best modders (and anyone else willing to pitch in) get together and maybe buy the rights to RA2. That way we would get the source code, along with everything else that would be needed.
This idea maybe totally insane, because they may want millions for it. But if they could care less about it anymore (which it sounds like they really don't), then they might be willing to let it go cheap.
Just an idea...
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I saw this...
in another thread, and I also saw the thread that moonbear started about the source code, and got to thinking about something. How much money do you think it would take to buy the official and legal rights to RA2 from Atari?
I'm thinking that possibly have our best modders (and anyone else willing to pitch in) get together and maybe buy the rights to RA2. That way we would get the source code, along with everything else that would be needed.
This idea maybe totally insane, because they may want millions for it. But if they could care less about it anymore (which it sounds like they really don't), then they might be willing to let it go cheap.
Just an idea...
Or instead of owning the rights to a worthless franchise like RA2 without a community of game developers/publishers, we could merely request the source code to their obviously broken and outdated havoc physics engine as well as the RA2 executable... which would be released for free.
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is the game even in production anymore ? or even for sale form the producer ? the game was only licensed in selected areas of the globe which is why many people cant get hold of the demo off internet sites (I know Australia cant)
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is the game even in production anymore ? or even for sale form the producer ? the game was only licensed in selected areas of the globe which is why many people cant get hold of the demo off internet sites (I know Australia cant)
No, I don't believe it is still in production. Which is one of the reasons that I think that Atari would let go of the rights to it pretty cheap.
Technically, if we owned the rights to RA2 then we could market DSL (if we wanted to) and there would be no one else to have to give a share of the money to. We would own the namesake of Robot Arena and could eventually make Robot Arena 3.
Really, I think that our modders would be proud to see DSL hit the market as an actual game.
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No, I don't believe it is still in production. Which is one of the reasons that I think that Atari would let go of the rights to it pretty cheap.
Technically, if we owned the rights to RA2 then we could market DSL (if we wanted to) and there would be no one else to have to give a share of the money to. We would own the namesake of Robot Arena and could eventually make Robot Arena 3.
Really, I think that our modders would be proud to see DSL hit the market as an actual game.
Do you realize how much what you are saying would cost...? and who would legally be defined as the owner? The modders? They would need to register and license a business/company name before even considering buying RA2, let alone marketing DSL... It would take a ridiculous amount of resource, a ridiculous amount of money, and a ridiculous amount of labor...
You would have to get the game legally certified for content, rated, and then you would have to hire and work through a distributor if you wanted the game to hit the shelves... You'd have to pay for decent advertising if you wanted to see any profit from the countless hours of labor you'd need to put in to make a game worth buying, else no one would know about it except the limited fan base RA2 has...
I agree the modders have done amazing things with RA2, DSL is better than the original... But making a full fledged game for profit based off of something that is already being distributed for free isn't going to happen. DSL was made for the community by the community because they wanted to give back, I doubt the modders want to repackage DSL for profit after DSL being free for so long...
Also you can still buy RA2 off of the official website for download, it doesn't matter if it's in production or not, it doesn't cost them more than a dime to host that content and if they can turn a profit of 20$ to keep RA2 alive as long as they can they will...
Releasing the source to what faithful fanbase they have left would not put a dent in their profit, but at the same time would give us everything the community needs to further enhancement of RA2.
Just don't see why in the world a measley forum like this would need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the rights to a game owned by a nationally renowned gigantic corporation just to obtain the source which should've been released for free in the first place...
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like I said before infogames only had a license to distribute it within selected regions, if the DSL team were to sell it it would have to be online and if you buy you get access to the download on the file
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While this is a great idea, i still think it's going to be very, very expensive.
We could ask for how much they would be willing to sell the official rights to us...
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While this is a great idea, i still think it's going to be very, very expensive.
We could ask for how much they would be willing to sell the official rights to us...
The only point of having the rights would be if modders wanted to sell future installments of DSL packaged with RA2 for a profit... If Atari released the source to RA2, we would be able to do just as much with the game as if we had bought the rights... Except usually companies release the source for FREE.
Once again, let me repeat my main point... BUYING the rights to the game will not enable us further in terms of MODDING the game, it will only give modders who decide to develop further installations of RA2 the chance to sell their work for profit, that's it. It's not like they'll give us some magical RA2 developer's kit with a nice GUI along with the game if we buy the rights...
Let me clarify my post once more, in extremely simple wording; The SOURCE to the game would be free, and would let us mod every aspect of it, including the havoc engine. The RIGHTS cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the only advantage to that is that we would also be able to sell whatever people developed in terms of Robot Arena for profit.
But sure, if close-minded members like Naryar want to spout their nonsensical claims and opinions, go ahead... why not take a high school class of standard business first....
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While it would be cool if we, the community owned the distribution rights, I don't think that's very feasible (unless some of you are very wealthy). In a world where we did have the money to buy the rights to the game under the Game Tech Mods corporation (which we would need to form to severely reduce financial liabilities), it would be great to develop versions of this game for WiiWare, iPhone app store, and/or Xbox Live Arcade. From what I understand, those venues are great for smalltime developers.
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It would be incredibly hard to accurately port RA2 to other consoles, to the point where the modders of the forum might as well be developing a new game... And even so, RA2 is an intricate, accurate, precision-based game where you need the steady control of the mouse...
Most "smalltime" developers come up with a simple, yet out of the box revolutionary idea. Look at world of goo, simple enough but an amazingly fun and addictive game... Sadly we don't have an idea like that.
EDIT: After rereading HurricaneAndrew's posts, I have come to the conclusion that he doesn't realize a lot of game developers release the source to their old broken games after they've had a good run, as a favor to the community...
Jedi Academy's multiplayer source was released years ago, and JKA put a 10x bigger dent in PC gaming than RA2...
Countless Valve games use the source engine, which is opensource...
The source code of Quake 3 was released, and quake 3 was a HUGE hit for many years.
So yes, expecting Atari to release the source for a broken down pos game like RA2 isn't asking much, despite what you think...
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it takes thousands and thousands of dollars to even make a prototype version of dsl on the market. And the fact that people probably wont buy it. Battlebots is airing on a channel that you have to buy so then it would be even harder to advertise and/or to get people to buy it. Then the legal issues of using the name dsl because there is a type of internet connection that already has rights to the name. If we do find the money for the rights to ra2 then we did that for pretty much nothing.
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HAs anyone actually contacted Atari? It We should at least know if they're willing to give us the source before we get into a huge debate about this. It really just depends on weather the game counts as abandonware or not.
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They deleted their official forums, they're not producing the game anymore and there is no update on the site since forever, excepted the redirect to GTM's. Yes, i call that a game forgotten by it's company.
Paying for the source code, Havok engine and .exe would be the idea.
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C33: ACAMS did contact them quite a LOOOONG while ago and it took them 2 or so YEARS to come up with a negative answer for him...
I really need to start learning that C++ because im already intrested in it, I just cant get my lazy @$$ up and do something about it.
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Honestly, I think I can help....
Now, where is that Physics thing I had....
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i think there is another problem : RA2 is based on the Havock motor engine in an old version of this framework (where to find it ?) and maybe an old version of the c++ Microsoft Fundation classes . So, even if we had the source, it is not said that we should be able to compile them. So one should 'rewrite' part of the source code to be compatible with the free version of the havock engine. This is a big amount of work and i don't know if many people can do it but Serge . His opinion should be interesting here.
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I say we rewrite it with another physics engine...
Endorphin?
http://www.naturalmotion.com/endorphin.htm
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Yeah, Serge possibly could do something about it, but too bad he is not around. If i ever catch him on Steam, ill let him know to check this out.
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it would probably be better to use a different physics engine and completely make the .exe from scratch. I think it should use files other than .gmfs. maybe something simpler so people can mod it easily. like the 3d files from sketchup or some other cad program.
edit: if the whole community pitches in what they can it will be done in no time.
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I think if we are gonna buy it, maybe non-modders should buy it for the modders as a gift, because the modders do most the work
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or we could make it from scratch or mod another game that has already released their source(quake3)
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or we could make it from scratch or mod another game that has already released their source(quake3)
So basically, you don't want to play RA2 anymore. :P
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no i would stil play ra2. ra3 would just use a diff engine(it does need a better engine)
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Okay, first of all I guess no one read my posts because they are still spouting ridiculous bull crap about something they know nothing about.
Suggesting that we "buy" the source and rights to ra2 is the dumbest thing I've ever heard... you'd be putting thousands of dollars into what would basically be a shot-in-the-dark, considering there are no real developers here, only a few modders and others who have experience with C++ and py, etc...
Also system32, endorphin is not an opensource engine. We would have to PAY naturalmotion to use their endorphin engine, which was made SPECIFICALLY for the ease of animators in terms of complex scenes with realistic human animation and movement while using euphoria...
Let me put it into perspective for you... How long did it take DSL to complete? Alright, now multiply that by one hundred times, and you'd pretty much have how long it would take to develop a new RA3 game...
Unless you're going to be building the game off of the havok engine, which I doubt anyone wants to do in the first place because it is such a broken pos...
Honestly I'm at a loss of words, you people have no common knowledge of how business works or what kind of effort it would take to make a game, it's kind of pathetic.
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Okay, first of all I guess no one read my posts because they are still spouting ridiculous bull crap about something they know nothing about.
Suggesting that we "buy" the source and rights to ra2 is the dumbest thing I've ever heard... you'd be putting thousands of dollars into what would basically be a shot-in-the-dark, considering there are no real developers here, only a few modders and others who have experience with C++ and py, etc...
Also system32, endorphin is not an opensource engine. We would have to PAY naturalmotion to use their endorphin engine, which was made SPECIFICALLY for the ease of animators in terms of complex scenes with realistic human animation and movement while using euphoria...
Let me put it into perspective for you... How long did it take DSL to complete? Alright, now multiply that by one hundred times, and you'd pretty much have how long it would take to develop a new RA3 game...
Unless you're going to be building the game off of the havoc engine, which I doubt anyone wants to do in the first place because it is such a broken pos...
Honestly I'm at a loss of words, you people have no common knowledge of how business works or what kind of effort it would take to make a game, it's kind of pathetic.
You clearly have no idea what youre talking about, you fool. It would only take 83 times as long. sh**tauute product of a rusted coffee can and the broken body of a cappibara..
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You are right moonbear, my bad... it is not... NOT... NOTTTTTTTTTT 100 times, but 83 times. The people in this thread are rapahs, they don't understand business...
Also, philetbabe had a good point as well, you should read it because it is one of the few good points in this thread... what if the RA2 source isn't compatible with the free version of the havok engine?
Honestly, you guys are suggesting we pay for something that should've been released for free in the first place.
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no im suggesting we use quake 3 engine. pretty good graphix and super easy to mod. look at q3rally. its a racing game made from quake!
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no im suggesting we use quake 3 engine. pretty good graphix and super easy to mod. look at q3rally. its a racing game made from quake!
Wow roboman do you not understand copyright? We would be issued cease and desist letters if we made a clone "RA3" game in the quake3 engine. Everything concerning "robot arena" is ATARI's intellectual property, you can't use it for whatever the heck you want...
We could use the quake3 engine to make a robot arena-type game and call it something like "DSL" with no robot arena attached, but that would still take a ridiculous amount of effort... and it also wouldn't cost any money or require the rights to the game, which is the opposite of what this thread suggests we do...
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Tank, you just dont GRUB GI GA LEP CHIC CIC-GET it. These people are great at what they do, and I'm sure they know their limitations. You know, like hhhhHHHOW tah do ittah... aaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHaaaaa.... I'm tired
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oookay^^
it would be better if it didnt cost any money.
atari/infrogrames probly arnt gonna relese the source unless a biiiiiig check is handed to them.
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robo, do some research on google... countless of abandonware games (like ra2) have had their source released for free by the developer/publisher... Asking Atari to do the same isn't asking for much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games look at all the games that are open source or have released their source over the years... this isn't even a complete list, Quake 3 isn't on there as well as a few other ones I know from memory, like JKA...
EDIT: honestly guys lurk more... you are coming up with your half-assed ideas based on speculation, our best bet to get the source would be to make an online petition requesting it from infogrames...
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Do you realize how much what you are saying would cost...? and who would legally be defined as the owner? The modders? They would need to register and license a business/company name before even considering buying RA2, let alone marketing DSL... It would take a ridiculous amount of resource, a ridiculous amount of money, and a ridiculous amount of labor...
You would have to get the game legally certified for content, rated, and then you would have to hire and work through a distributor if you wanted the game to hit the shelves... You'd have to pay for decent advertising if you wanted to see any profit from the countless hours of labor you'd need to put in to make a game worth buying, else no one would know about it except the limited fan base RA2 has...
I agree the modders have done amazing things with RA2, DSL is better than the original... But making a full fledged game for profit based off of something that is already being distributed for free isn't going to happen. DSL was made for the community by the community because they wanted to give back, I doubt the modders want to repackage DSL for profit after DSL being free for so long...
Also you can still buy RA2 off of the official website for download, it doesn't matter if it's in production or not, it doesn't cost them more than a dime to host that content and if they can turn a profit of 20$ to keep RA2 alive as long as they can they will...
Releasing the source to what faithful fanbase they have left would not put a dent in their profit, but at the same time would give us everything the community needs to further enhancement of RA2.
Just don't see why in the world a measley forum like this would need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the rights to a game owned by a nationally renowned gigantic corporation just to obtain the source which should've been released for free in the first place...
I want everbody still suggesting we buy the rights to RA2 to read this post again. Paying money for rights to a game is useless, when you stand to make nothing in return. If someone were to come up with any ideas on how having the rights over the source code would benefit us in any way, please share. All the rights allow us to do at this point is call ourselves the "official" forums, and basically distribute and market the RA2 franchise.
In order to buy the rights I think you're able to not be affiliated with a company, but any startup company would require years upon years of work, followed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of private investing. And for what? Releasing a now out-dated game into a market around 5-7 years down the road? RA2 DSL neither has the demographics to support a company, nor does it have any ground-breaking graphical/gameplay features that would make it appeal to a large-scale audience.
Also, you can't just phone up Atari/Infogrames and say "Hi, I would like to buy the rights to the Robot Arena franchise!" It just dosen't work like that. Any aquisition is a long, messy, drawn-out process that creates stress on both sides, and includes massive legal bills by the end of it.
I know I'm completely shooting down your idea, HA, but it's just not practical for us, or even Atari/Infogrames. Tankcat's proposal that we request that they just simply release the source code makes much more sense for everyone.
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Nice to see that someone else understands that.
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I know I'm completely shooting down your idea, HA, but it's just not practical for us, or even Atari/Infogrames. Tankcat's proposal that we request that they just simply release the source code makes much more sense for everyone.
That's what this thread was all about anyway. Just to figure out if it was even possible.
You have all made good points, but I still feel that Atari isn't going to just hand over the source code without making some profit. Atari just doesn't work like that, they are greedy.
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That's what this thread was all about anyway. Just to figure out if it was even possible.
You have all made good points, but I still feel that Atari isn't going to just hand over the source code without making some profit. Atari just doesn't work like that, they are greedy.
How do you know how Atari works, you are assuming to much... Lucasarts is a major corporation and they released the source to their multiplayer JKA engine.
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How do you know how Atari works, you are assuming to much... Lucasarts is a major corporation and they released the source to their multiplayer JKA engine.
So? Just because they did it doesn't mean Atari will.
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So? Just because they did it doesn't mean Atari will.
Wow HurricaneAndrew, that is the first time I've laughed out loud at someone's comment out of sheer disbelief.
Okay, so you're saying because we don't KNOW if we can get Atari to release the source code, that we should automatically jump on the idea of BUYING the whole ROBOT ARENA FRANCHISE? WHAT A GOOD IDEA, YOU WIN CAKE AND SO MANY OTHER THINGS I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO LIST! YOU OWN THE UNIVERSE NOW, CONGRATULATIONS
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The first step in any of this is contacting Atari. That in itself is a battle, just ask Goose or ACAMS.
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You know what, tankcat? I'm sick of you're know-it-all attitude... go f--k yourself.
The point of the thread was to get a good discussion going. I didn't seriously think that an online community would actually get together and buy the rights to a $10k+ game.
But I am serious, however, about buying the source code. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAND IT OVER WITHOUT GAINING ANYTHING! Especially with the followers it still has. Most PC games die completely after a couple years. That is why they become freeware. This game has lived past it's expectancy, and I'm sure that Atari knows that. So as I said before, they aren't going to just give it away.
Edit: Haven't you ever heard of the saying "Money talks, bulls--t walks"?
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But I am serious, however, about buying the source code. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAND IT OVER WITHOUT GAINING ANYTHING!
What makes you think that Atari is completely unwilling to give away the source code for free? Why do you assume that they are a bunch of greedy bastards? Do you have prior experience with them doing something similar?
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You know what, tankcat? I'm sick of you're know-it-all attitude... go f--k yourself.
The point of the thread was to get a good discussion going. I didn't seriously think that an online community would actually get together and buy the rights to a $10k+ game.
But I am serious, however, about buying the source code. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAND IT OVER WITHOUT GAINING ANYTHING! Especially with the followers it still has. Most PC games die completely after a couple years. That is why they become freeware. This game has lived past it's expectancy, and I'm sure that Atari knows that. So as I said before, they aren't going to just give it away.
Edit: Haven't you ever heard of the saying "Money talks, bulls--t walks"?
Are you an idiot? Jedi Academy was released in 2003, and there are still LITERALLY hundreds of servers online today. Why was the source released to that if it was still such a popular game, when it was still making a decent profit? Because the developer thought it right to reward their faithful community for keeping a great game alive for so long... RA2 has almost NO servers online, except for the few strays that pop up from time to time. You don't know sh** about gaming or business, and it's obvious from your arrogance. And please, you call 200-300 active members a following? You are such an idiot, I can't even begin to state how ridiculously wrong you are...
Point is, the source for this game should've been released YEARS ago, RA2's peak of interest has already come and gone... if you're going to beat a dead horse, at least do it right... damn. I'd like to see YOU buy the source out of your own pocket, maybe then you could at least contribute something positive to this forum...
Oh, and for the record, this game IS dead. Every copy being circulated is either the pirated version or the DSL full converted version...
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hmmm is there anyway to decompile the .exe? that might work better.
edit: i found two things that might help.
http://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/DeCompilation
the best thing on that site is http://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/ExeToC
and here is a diff one
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Debuggers-Decompilers-Dissasemblers/WDASM.shtml
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it could be something to investigate, i just downloaded a multipurpose extractor and tried but the process stopped half way through with an error message also found this on a website
you can only decompile a normal .exe file to assembly code and not to the original source
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I guess everyone is an idiot to tankcat
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it could be something to investigate, i just downloaded a multipurpose extractor and tried but the process stopped half way through with an error message also found this on a website
well if serge or anybody else can understand assembly it might be easier to make the source from scratch using the info and data from the assembly that comes out of it.
example(kinda):you only know 75% of a word. it is much easier to figure it out then when you know 0% of that word.
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hmmm is there anyway to decompile the .exe? that might work better.
Not without butchering it. The source code is what's needed.
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The first step in any of this is contacting Atari. That in itself is a battle, just ask Goose or ACAMS.
Atari is (has not been) not very cooperative:
1. Goose, ACAMS, myself, and several others have tried contacting them, but there's been no serious effort for dialogue from them(AFAIK).
2. They must certainly know that there are many who would like to take RA2 to a higher level:
a. DSL is a major manifestation of a collective effort to progress RA2, upto the limit of exe surgery. b. Atari wiped out certain sections of the old official forum that were focused on (or at least included) 'modifications and designs' for the game, wherein was some input on surgically/internally 'moding' RA2. So at least they read these ideas for furthering the game. c. In one thread, ACAMS set up there certain coders (EffE, Serge, Goose,[for C++], and CB and I [for Python]) were conversing about real content changes for RA2. My point is that they must have known that there were/are people who would really like to take RA2 to a higher level. So here's another manifestation to them of this desire to progress RA2.So if they had any interest in RA2 today, then by now you'd think they would/could know our interest is there. But...IMHO, I think that RA2 is not important anymore to them, nor the community by default. So I don't think anyone at Atari is even paying attention to RA2 these days. It would not hurt them in the least to release the source code, but why would they bother??? They've milked this bottle dry, and now discarded it and moved on to others...
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im not even reading the tankcat BS, but in about 2-3 years id be willing to buy the source, unless I die or i have a major knee/arm operation, I (hope) will just buy it, thanks to baseball. This game means too much to me, and if its source is not released by then, why not?
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ok so that means we are gonna have to use a different source or make it from scratch.
So who is up to it other than me?
edit: inf. is kinda right about not releasing the source. atari wont get any more money out of it. So why cant they just give it away?
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I guess everyone is an idiot to tankcat
Yeah, I guess so. His statemnt does nothing but reinforce the truth of my "know-it-all attitude" comment.
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Listen to mad... he seems to be the only one making sense in this thread, along with philetbabe, jeffery and R0B0SH4RK...
And inf how do you propose to buy the source from atari? Call them up on their help hotline and ask to buy the source? Email them at corporate@atari.com and ask to buy the source?
They'll laugh in your face, it's not worth their time unless you're going to pay more than it's worth, which would probably be a 6 or 7 figure sum. (that's 100,000 to 9,999,999, since I don't think you're very bright, inf.)
By the time your "career" takes off, they'll probably have purged whatever harddrive they had the source on to begin with... It doesn't matter to them, why the heck would they care...
Stop trying to come up with half-assed ideas and join the cause of getting them to release the source for free, talking about buying the rights is so pathetic and makes you look foolish...
EDIT: And to all the people making side comments on what I say without actually reading it (HA, inf, pys), people like you are the reason things don't get done, and are most likely the reason we'll never work together to obtain the source.
Yeah, I guess so. His statemnt does nothing but reinforce the truth of my "know-it-all attitude" comment.
And who's the one with the know-it-all attitude? You're the one who apparently knows that "THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAND IT OVER WITHOUT GAINING ANYTHING!".
Stop being a hypocrite and actually contribute to the thread, I gave my two cents based on FACT without being disrespectful until the "kiddies" decided to try and turn it into a flame war... You attacked me with your sh** off the wall opinions about how business works, I'm afraid you have it backwards friend...
Also a little research (15 seconds of research) shows me that Gabriel Interactive is the developer, has anyone tried contacting them for the source...? And by anyone, I mean mad or another admin... if someone like roboman tries to contact them we'll never get the source....
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Wow roboman do you not understand copyright? We would be issued cease and desist letters if we made a clone "RA3" game in the quake3 engine. Everything concerning "robot arena" is ATARI's intellectual property, you can't use it for whatever the heck you want...
We could use the quake3 engine to make a robot arena-type game and call it something like "DSL" with no robot arena attached, but that would still take a ridiculous amount of effort... and it also wouldn't cost any money or require the rights to the game, which is the opposite of what this thread suggests we do...
If anyone wanted to make a new version of this game using a open source engine would be the best idea. Quake 3 engine might be good - im not a coder i have no idea but its definitely better than buying the RA2 game.
You dont have to call the game RA3 and even if you do i doubt anything will happen. Robot Fights, Arena Of Robots, Robotic Arena. Any stupid name will work.
Selling it is not viable. Modders have a inherent problem that they lose interest and arent real coders. Unless you make a real company and hire people you wont be able to finish or sell it.
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If anyone wanted to make a new version of this game using a open source engine would be the best idea. Quake 3 engine might be good - im not a coder i have no idea but its definitely better than buying the RA2 game.
You dont have to call the game RA3 and even if you do i doubt anything will happen. Robot Fights, Arena Of Robots, Robotic Arena. Any stupid name will work.
Selling it is not viable. Modders have a inherent problem that they lose interest and arent real coders. Unless you make a real company and hire people you wont be able to finish or sell it.
Exactly, plus if the modders wanted to remake ra2 in an opensource engine, they probably would've begun to do so by now...
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Back in the days of the old forum... oh, about 2 years ago. The concept of forum members designing and coding a new robot combat game from scratch was tossed around. There was a ton of debate, a billion suggestions... A few of the members actually started working on the code... and then it just fizzled off. There was a ton of initial effort put into it.
Believe it or not, the biggest thing was that the members wanted to figure out a good name for the game. Heck, they were trying harder to name it than actually contribute to make it. It was pretty lame. If any of you make a thread of "what should we name our upcoming robot combat game?" Acams will kill you... he seriously will.
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Back in the days of the old forum... oh, about 2 years ago. The concept of forum members designing and coding a new robot combat game from scratch was tossed around. There was a ton of debate, a billion suggestions... A few of the members actually started working on the code... and then it just fizzled off. There was a ton of initial effort put into it.
Believe it or not, the biggest thing was that the members wanted to figure out a good name for the game. Heck, they were trying harder to name it than actually contribute to make it. It was pretty lame. If any of you make a thread of "what should we name our upcoming robot combat game?" Acams will kill you... he seriously will.
That's unfortunate, I would've liked to have seen what results that would've brought about...
As for this thread, everyone who agrees on "buying" the source should do a quick google search and lurk more...
Chances are we'll get the source through the efforts of highly respected members on this site, who at least know how to type correctly and sincerely (R0B0SH4RK, mad, admins, etc...)
I'd gladly type up a formal e-mail and send it to whomever it may concern, my guess is either infogrames or gabriel interactive...
But seriously, everyone who is hard pressed to buy the source (which won't happen) welcome to reality... gpl and opensource games aren't a rare occurrence, stop acting like Atari is some evil corporation that isn't releasing it because they expect a big check... they just don't give a damn because as mad put it, they've milked this bottle for all it's worth and moved on...
Only way we can get a response from them is to make a fuss about it, and by we I mean members who know what they're talking about. Sorry inf, HA, pys.
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That's unfortunate, I would've liked to have seen what results that would've brought about...
My memory of it is pretty faded (i blame the beer)... But the last things I remember about it was that one of the coders had made a basic 3d environment for the bots... a collision engine... and some basic code. Wasn't pretty, but I will admit, I was pretty excited when I saw some actual screenshots of the work. It felt like they were really serious about making it all come together. But, this stuff takes time and effort... I think people just got burnt out with the initial work load. Without money as a motivator, it has to be a true labor of love to pull off that amount of work.
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I've had legal run-ins with Atari in the past, they aren't going to sell you a damn thing. They will probably laugh at you... er not "probably", they WILL. Atari stopped being the easy-going "have fun and smoke weed all the time" game company it was in the 70's a LONG time ago.
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I've had legal run-ins with Atari in the past, they aren't going to sell you a damn thing. They will probably laugh at you... er not "probably", they WILL. Atari stopped being the easy-going "have fun and smoke weed all the time" game company it was in the 70's a LONG time ago.
They probably would laugh at us for requesting to "buy" the source, even I laugh at that sh**... However, requesting they release the source to whatever fanbase they have left is a shot in the dark, but at least it's something instead of nothing... Besides, the game was published by infogrames, not atari... atari just bought infogrames, but I think we should contact infogrames.
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Here is some contact info for Gabriel Group
Michael Root- President
michael@insidegabriel.com
Duane Nelson- VP of Business Development
duane@insidegabriel.com
Ray Sup- Producer
ray@insidegabriel.com
Dana Root- Creative Director
dana@insidegabriel.com
Mailing address
407 N. Fulton St., suite 301
Indianapolis, IN, 46202
Phone
317-423-8750
There. No more excuses. If you guys are serious about getting the source code, contact these guys in a professional way. DO NOT mention dollar amounts. If they want money, they'll ask for it. If they cannot contractually release the source, they may at least be able to point you to the right person to contact at Atari.
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Just reinforcing Jeffery's point, if anyone here does decide to contact them, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE BRING UP DOLLAR AMOUNTS. Please, it's just not the way any business is conducted. Instead, write out a nice, formal request explaining a) why we would like said code, and b) exactly what we want. If we offer to buy anything at any time, we'll go nowhere, I can guarantee it.
Also, from my understanding, it was Infogrames that purchased Atari, and Infogrames that released RA2, so if one was to contact anyone, I'm assuming one would want to contact Infogrames.
EDIT: Nevermind my last point. Jeffery posted stuff concerning Gabriel Interactive, which makes much more sense.
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Frezal, comes through...
TC, cut back on the cutting down. Topic only.
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Has anyone started working on a letter yet?
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i personally think a different engine is better. so not me!
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i personally think a different engine is better. so not me!
roboman, I don't think you realize how much work that would take... It most likely took gabriel interactive, a staff of professional developers, at least a year to complete RA2 on paid contract. How do you suggest that a forum with 3 or 4 programmers who know what they're talking about do the same...?
also I'll type up the letter right now...
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Am I the only one that thinks a 2D version would be easier?
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ummmm me thinks they have like 12 of them on some online game sites.
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2D is easier, but I doubt it would be as fun.
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2d is not easier. It is easier to code, but the amount of time you would have to spend drawing sprites would be ridiculous...
Anyways here is the letter.
Michael Roots,
I am contacting you on behalf of the gametechmods community, concerning the source of Robot Arena 2.
In the past, many have tried to contact Atari-Infogrames with no avail, and as the years move forward, it appears we will most likely never get a response.
Many at the gametechmods community consider Robot Arena 2 abandonware because of the lack of support on the main Robot Arena 2 website, and the lack of response from Atari-Infogrames.
Although Robot Arena 2's commercial success was limited, the community at gametechmods is still very well alive and continues development on Robot Arena 2 to this day.
However, without the source we are not able to edit core game mechanics or take Robot Arena 2 to the next level, which has always been a dream of the community.
We would like to request that Gabriel Interactive release the source for Robot Arena 2, if legally able to do so.
If Gabriel Interactive is legally not able to do so, we would very much appreciate if you or another employee could point us in the right direction.
Thanks for your time,
The gametechmod's community
Any proofread or edit would be appreciated, I didn't spend much time on it so anyone who can contribute, please do.
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Depends on how it's done.
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The letter is fine it is short sweet and to the point. I am crossing my fingers hoping that this will work. If not this letter then the next because this really is the only way for us to get the source.
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That letter is professional, straight to the point, and contains good grammar. It looks good to go, to me.
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Alright, it's sent
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ok and if they dont respond?
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If they dont respond then he will have to try again odds are it will probably take more then one letter.
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but have a lot of people sign it.
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Or something along those lines but right now the only thing we can do is wait for a reply, and if we do not get one then we try another tactic.
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like name it something totally different and use the Unity engine instead.
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I dont know if i would be that drastic just because they dont reply to one letter. Not to mention that the easiest way to obtain the source would be just to ask for it rather creating a whole new game. The game is abandon ware and i think if we go about asking them the right way they will give us the source. But we really just have to wait to see if the reply or not and then go from there.
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like name it something totally different and use the Unity engine instead.
Nobody's stopping you from doing that right now.
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Nobody's stopping you from doing that right now.
Yeah seriously roboman, it seems like you want to bring down the morale of the whole "obtaining the source" objective. If you really want the game done in a different engine, start learning how to do it yourself...
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I am going to have to agree with tankcat on this one the whole point of this is to obtain the source, and not make the game in a different engine.
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Yeah seriously roboman, it seems like you want to bring down the morale of the whole "obtaining the source" objective. If you really want the game done in a different engine, start learning how to do it yourself...
already am
taking a couple game making courses in about a week and doing tons of stuff with unity.
anybody who wants to help can. just pm me and ill send you a link to the trail version.
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already am
taking a couple game making courses in about a week and doing tons of stuff with unity.
anybody who wants to help can. just pm me and ill send you a link to the trail version.
Wait, so have you ever made a 3D game before?
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Hi there,
I read a couple of the first pages of this thread only, so I may say something stupid / repeat what others have said.
I don't want to burst your little bubble here, but RA2 is a VERY old game, especially in terms of libraries it uses. Let's take the Havok engine. It's based on a build made for 3ds mx VERSION 4.2. Right now we're at version 12.0. The game is programmed in Visual C++ 6.0, which is an old compiler, and porting it to any modern Microsoft C++ compiler / g++ would require loads of work. RA2 uses DirectX, which also is a waste, since it makes it very unportable (in practice only to the xbox).
Our best bet is to write our own game. I think it should mainly be programmed in Python, with the CPU intensive parts in C++. If we want it to be truly portable and open-source, we should also use ODE, the Open Dynamics Engine. It may not give +10 leet points in terms of cloth physics, etc, but it's enough for us. And if we don't like it, we can always fix it :3. Oh, and World of Goo uses ODE.
Yes, it will take a sh**load of time and work, but if we get a big enough team (mainly programmers and 3d/2d graphics artists) it's something we can achieve. Yes, there was some sort of effort to create such a game, led by eFFe and me, but it failed miserably because of our n00bness and wrong choice of programming language (strict C++ with some scripts in python). I'll try to get in touch with effe and talk about starting the project again.
Time will show what these efforts will lead to.
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Can you make a bot exchange since goose is too lazy?
He has been promising for over a year and no results yet.
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A'ight. I'll work on it, even if I am lazy, too :P.
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I would, even as lazy as I am......but I ain't got tha smartz enough.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_(software)
What if we all worked together and made an entirely new game? It isn't as if I have alot to do. I am sure that with the level of experience here we could come up with something. Above is a link describing an open-source physics engine we could use. I don't know much, but I believe we are all extremely intelligent and passionate about seeing the "IDEA" of a new robot arena "type" of game brought into reality. I am not looking for a quick resolve. There is no quick result when designing a game, but I am willing to do what it takes. I am one. Are there more? I have been playing with the idea of making an indie game for a while. Bringing the gaming community back to it's roots. Back where it all began......AH nostalgia! Seriously think about it and let's discuss this further. I don't want to just blow it off because of the "I don't wanna do the work." people out there.
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There is already a thread about making another game on this forum, although it hasn't made it too far yet.
https://gametechmods.com/forums/showthread.php?t=672 (https://gametechmods.com/forums/showthread.php?t=672)