Crimson Echoes

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

See I was hoping you wouldn't continue this argument and just drop it. Now look what you've done. EvilNESS covered one angle, I'll cover the other.

Actual companies don't give two damns about code-theft, blues. Most companies don't HAVE unique code, it's just old code assembled in a new way. It's the Havok engine how many times over in every game? You think that every company is going to use the same engine in a unique way every time?

Ever wonder why the character models in Bionic Commando and X-Men Origins: Wolverine move in, essentially, the EXACT same way? Why they look so similar in motion and pose that they could be the identical model, reskinned?

Code is borrowed, recycled, reused over and over. Choice bits of code are given to publishers sometimes to be disseminated, too- I've played the middleman between a company and Nintendo trying to work out a minor motion bug. Even the Consoles have recycled code that's shared between companies.

Fair enough. I had that fed to me as an academic discussion, but it would require decompiling code anyway to find your own decompiled code in there, so it's not surprising that it's just academic.

And when I speak of "decompiling," Nik, what I mean is if someone were to take a program written by a competing company, run it through special software to reduce it back to the source code, and then take that source code to use in their own project without permission. NO code is original; that's why it's there. It provides a structure that allows instructions to be performed by the machine. What I'm talking about is if someone wrote a program before you to, say, play music, and you're going to write your own program to do the same thing, so you decompile their code, steal their engine for your own project, and then paint it up a bit differently without giving credit.

Which relates to this scenario not at all, since you're currently USING your shit and not letting it sit for 8 god damn years.

But IF somebody did it, hey, it's your right to get pissed off if one of your sprites shows up in a game. Now, if you were designing your game in something other then RPGcreator I'm sure that I'd call you a game designer, but right now you're more something more of a... tweaker. Yeah, that's a good word. You're playing a game that's about making games, essentially. [PS It's okay, being a game designer is a really shitty job. Don't aspire to it.]

Edit: And I think he'd be incredibly pissed of someone made an Atomic Robo game without his permission and started profiting off it because that's a stupid example all together. You clearly lack any idea of what 'fanfiction' means and are confusing it with 'ripping off'.

http://fanfiction.net <-- There's fanfiction here.

I don't think "16 Bit Theatre" would be anything but idea theft.

Nik, buddy, you're not giving me enough credit. At all. I'm writing my games all from scratch using tools that I've written myself and have developed a version 0.1 of a scripting language of my own design that will be interpreted in code that I will write myself. If I wanted to use RPG Maker or some crap, I could have probably been done with several of my projects by now. I'm not even using XNA.

Putting that aside, unless a Robo game would somehow interfere with Brian's own projects and were not distributed for free, he'd probably be less pissed than if someone started publishing comics using Robo or a thinly-disguised copy. Obviously, it's always better to ask permission before embarking.

I'll continue this later, but I have an appointment I need to get to for my classes.

Okay, I'm home now.

I know the difference between fanfiction and ripping something off, but I think it's just best at this point to point out that I agree with most of what you've said and this entire argument is probably because I'm still crappy at expressing myself. You've actually expressed a lot of my points better than I was able to.




Basically, a lot of my viewpoint boils down to this: there is a lot of untapped talent out there. I'd like to think I'm a part of it. There was a point where I was hoping to do fan-games of my own, and I know the excitement behind it. On the other hand, I realized that it's more trouble than it's worth and that I could express my talent with my own original work. I did dabble a bit in ROM hacking and RPG Maker, but I never got very far with any of it, mostly because it was tedious and restrictive and all sorts of other stuff. I'm sure there are programmers out there who are stunningly brilliant, but as I said, I find that doing fan games is misguided. I find it misguided because I realized I was misguided. Hacking a game is not going to net you a job. All the major work is already done for you. Maybe if you do a piece of original work, it's not going to make you famous, but at the same time, it shows a lot more of your abilities. It shows you can program an engine. It shows you can write an original story. It shows you can write new music. It shows you can design an interface and characters and items and a whole world from nothing. It shows you can do graphics well enough to express all that stuff.

That's why I call these people misguided at best. They really don't understand what employers want to see or what shows their skills. If you can show someone a fully-formed original game, they are going to see what you, or you and your team, are really capable of. It's overall a much better reflection on you to do your own work.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Mike McC

No, it really is not. The paragraph works EXACTLY the same way. It says nothing of why fangames are bad; it says everything of why hype for any game in general is bad. It is not a well constructed argument.

Oh bull.

Yes you can say 'just cause the original creator made it doesn't mean it's going to be good' but a guy who made three games before that were great is some pretty good legs to stand on compared to, "Some fans nobody's ever heard of are making a game hacking the original game's ROM and writing it themselves and since the first game - by completely different game designers - was good it probably will be!"

[Mike McC]

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

Oh bull.

Yes you can say 'just cause the original creator made it doesn't mean it's going to be good' but a guy who made three games before that were great is some pretty good legs to stand on compared to, "Some fans nobody's ever heard of are making a game hacking the original game's ROM and writing it themselves and since the first game - by completely different game designers - was good it probably will be!"

You have completely missed the point of those statements.

I just used Bayonetta as it was a fresh example in my head. Would you like me to come up with some more examples? I can certainly try.

[Mirai Gen]

Maybe if you hadn't picked an awful example it would have been more clear?

The point was that fangames have no legs to stand on, so they keep going "Hey! Chrono Trigger, wooo, you like CT right? Well then like this!" Since it's made by fans and not by any actual game developer there's nothing there other than the spirit of the old game and the hope the fangame developers know what they're doing. And he's right - I just don't see the harm.

You compared hype built by a fancommunity to hype built by a respected game developer.

[Mike McC]

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

You compared hype built by a fancommunity to hype built by a respected game developer.

Respected developers can still fail spectacularly, and many times do. Fan communities and projects can produce things like "There Will Be Brawl". There is no immutable reason to give one group any more merit, there is only a bias.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Mike McC

Respected developers can still fail spectacularly, and many times do. Fan communities and projects can produce things like "There Will Be Brawl". There is no immutable reason to give one group any more merit, there is only a bias.

I dunno about that. Respected developers have at least gained some respect for something or another! We're being vague but, these developers tend to be run by professionals that are good at making games. Even if we take the industry as a whole, you'd probably have about 10% of games ever that are playable or better.

Fans and modding communities on the other hand take the Sperm Approach to making games. Which is kind of like how Koei makes games, except there's more fans.

[Sporticus]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Not until it's released it won't. Which was why I said hype period. You know, the period in which they hype up a game. Because it is an extended duration of time, that being what I meant by period, during which the game is not being actually experienced in any tangible way, but instead only enough that people might get excited for it, which is what hype is. As opposed to choosing the words in my posts completely at random.

Fans can be just as responsible for hype as the creators. When someone sends me a Youtube link talking about how awesome something looks, they are trying to build hype just the same as the creators are by putting that video up.

I'd probably still assume that the story would be complete and utter ass, but I'd think that the game creators were less lazy with the game itself, so there is that in their favor.

I've played this and it's nowhere near as good as you build it up to be. Part of the reason is that Sonic feels like he's out of control in a bad way.

You'll note the inclusion of such key words as "majority" and "most" in all my posts. It allows for outliers such as these. Not to say I've played this though. I'm not really interested in it.

Yes, because when you watch a trailer of a game before it's released and think it looks awesome, regardless of whether it's a fan game or not, you totally aren't judging a book on its cover. Totally.

So, what I'm getting is that Noncon just has a bug up his bum about people "having the balls" to make fan games.

Non, you remember when Sarah Palin was tagged as VP? You remember how, in her first speech, she denounced Hilary Clinton for LOOSING THE ELECTION? You're doing the same thing.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Sporticus

So, what I'm getting is that Noncon just has a bug up his bum about people "having the balls" to make fan games.

Non, you remember when Sarah Palin was tagged as VP? You remember how, in her first speech, she denounced Hilary Clinton for LOOSING THE ELECTION? You're doing the same thing.

That... That doesn't make any sense. Please make more sense.

[Yumil]

If you want to make a fangame to show how much you love the original, don't try to do a remake, rewrite, or anything like that. If you do any of that, you honestly think too much of yourself to make anything good. Why do you think you can do a better job than the original's creator...it just seems wrong to me.

No, if you want to do a fangame, make something original. Use your own characters, your own art, your own music, and your own story. The gameplay can be similar(gameplay isn't part of the copywrite:o), just as long as everything else is different. Throw in references fans of the original would get, and they'll know it's a homage.

Heck, look at Rosenkruez, it's got Mega Mans gameplay, throws references not only to Megaman but other games, and isn't using any Megaman resources(sure, some are close, but for the most part it's an original game). Rosenkruez is a true fan game.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

You compared hype built by a fancommunity to hype built by a respected game developer.