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An extremely fanciful thought....
shadow boxer
The Finger Painter & Master Ranter
in Babylon 5
ITF requires (as far as I am aware ) :
a) the ex seirra IP
b) a team of perhaps 30 people (wages)
c) two years
d) an infrastucture budget ('puters,office space etc)
We've seen what passion and love build....
Why not take that a step further....
Why couldn't ITF become an internet community project.... not for profit.
As soon as you introduce the concept of a charitable kind of organization you take the real dollars out of the equation. It is so much easier to chisel things out of a company when it becomes an issue of community rather than dollars..... if you plan to not make any money from the project then you are genuinely are doing something for personal and community reasons. No-one can accuse you of trying to shaft your suppliers or anyone else for that matter.
It also makes things like a bunch of crappy old, use free sound and movie clips of much less value.... how can you negotiate a huge sum when there will never be any profit coming from the product made from them ? ( That in itself is so delicious I can taste it myself )
Its all very 'Cyber-community' and a little hard to grasp for some but really we are building a kind of on-line hall for us all to hang out in. A youth project on-line ( pardon the old geezers in here including myself ). All very novel and suprisingly easy to sell with novelty of the concept.... " Game unites youth" .... "Positive outcome from gaming " etc etc etc.
We've seen how much Faith we can generate here..... lets build the game with it.... if we extract the game from the corporate world.....(atleast as much as we can..) suddenly it is much easier to do...
What we need to get is a working budget.... something to by salt, lemons and tequila with to power up the Vorlons..... then get stuck into some companies regarding sponsorship....
If we package it right and sell it as a brand new kind of online concept then we have half a chance. The single biggest difficulty is finding the cold hard cash to feed the actual development crew.... porsche parts, diapers etc cost money and there is no escaping that....
Sucking Dell or someone into donating product in lieu of exposure is easy in comparison.
Another great thing about this kind of approach is if there is a multitude of companies involved, they all become little "shareholders"..... none with the power to SCREW US AROUND..... (smoothes his hair down and adjusts his lapels ).
In short we need a slick PR team and our own legions to push the cause.
Input folks.....
a) the ex seirra IP
b) a team of perhaps 30 people (wages)
c) two years
d) an infrastucture budget ('puters,office space etc)
We've seen what passion and love build....
Why not take that a step further....
Why couldn't ITF become an internet community project.... not for profit.
As soon as you introduce the concept of a charitable kind of organization you take the real dollars out of the equation. It is so much easier to chisel things out of a company when it becomes an issue of community rather than dollars..... if you plan to not make any money from the project then you are genuinely are doing something for personal and community reasons. No-one can accuse you of trying to shaft your suppliers or anyone else for that matter.
It also makes things like a bunch of crappy old, use free sound and movie clips of much less value.... how can you negotiate a huge sum when there will never be any profit coming from the product made from them ? ( That in itself is so delicious I can taste it myself )
Its all very 'Cyber-community' and a little hard to grasp for some but really we are building a kind of on-line hall for us all to hang out in. A youth project on-line ( pardon the old geezers in here including myself ). All very novel and suprisingly easy to sell with novelty of the concept.... " Game unites youth" .... "Positive outcome from gaming " etc etc etc.
We've seen how much Faith we can generate here..... lets build the game with it.... if we extract the game from the corporate world.....(atleast as much as we can..) suddenly it is much easier to do...
What we need to get is a working budget.... something to by salt, lemons and tequila with to power up the Vorlons..... then get stuck into some companies regarding sponsorship....
If we package it right and sell it as a brand new kind of online concept then we have half a chance. The single biggest difficulty is finding the cold hard cash to feed the actual development crew.... porsche parts, diapers etc cost money and there is no escaping that....
Sucking Dell or someone into donating product in lieu of exposure is easy in comparison.
Another great thing about this kind of approach is if there is a multitude of companies involved, they all become little "shareholders"..... none with the power to SCREW US AROUND..... (smoothes his hair down and adjusts his lapels ).
In short we need a slick PR team and our own legions to push the cause.
Input folks.....
Comments
BTW, we'd be the ones doing everything but the movies, right? If yer saying we should raise the money to get real live devs to do this, I think this project is already doomed.
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"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
Also, if I were a Sierra exec. (shudder), I would not care who bought the IP, profit or not. No matter who made the game, if it were made, it would make me look bad. If we were dealing with rational, thinking people, the game never would have been canceled in the first place.
Community software projects probably work better when the program is simpler or more modular. Something like this... you probably need the resources of a big company.
Nick
P.S. If I am wrong, somebody _please_ correct me, and quick.
Concerning the Sierra movie stuff: the devs always said they may have to start from scratch and it looks like we have to as well. Besides, movies make a game not. We could create our own movies using the excellent models already made. There is also the chance that once sufficient progress is made that JMS may rally support among the cast themselves. However, the game will have to be very close to complete at that point and looking very good to boot. That will be our toughest goal but even if we don't succeed in it, the main consequence ItF's intent was the shaming of the sim genre in terms of the game itself and that should be our primary objective also. The cast will help us or we will do with out but if we are really here to create the best damn game of all time, we should not let absence of them stop us!
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"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 06-26-2001).]
I do like the idea of calling it an 'Internet Community Project'! Its all the rage these days.
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
if you've had any experience with dear ole Eddy deBono you'd know where I'm going with this
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"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
I'm not sure how much time I could commit at this point, but I'd love to help in any capacity I could.
Z
[b]You still need nearly 1.5 million for the IP and models. Sierra isn't just going to give it away, WB isn't just going to overlook their license, and Netter isn't just going to allow their meshes to flow free.[/b][/quote]
Gah! the voice of reason,
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..And so it Begins
[b]
Gah! the voice of reason,
[/b][/quote]
Sad but true... if you are thinking of a from scratch project, take a look at [url="http://mods.firstones.com/ifh"]http://mods.firstones.com/ifh[/url] or [url="http://mods.firstones.com/b5fsf"]http://mods.firstones.com/b5fsf[/url] .
but thats exactly why I'm pushing the not for profit angle... there is no point in having a licence for a game if there are no developers out there who want to do it....
Even given the LOTR gear.... ITF is not a direct result from such things.... can you imagine that there will be a pilot amongst the Ranger characters who will feature ? I doubt it.
There simply isnt a commercial ( take note of that word modders ), space sim based on Babylon Five.
I don't think there is anyone of sane fiscal mind out there who wants to pick up this project. Rick and Randy's valiant efforts are testament to this. It seems the only way that ITF is go ahead is via this kind of community idea. ( No offence... no-one takes risks these days )
Going this way gives us alot of leverage..... if we make no money from the project... how can they ask for extortionate sums for the IP/licence etc when no-one makes any money from it in the end ?
If they deny us, when we take this approach.. they have two options when responding.... be painted as heartless bastards and get bad press.... or come up with someone who IS going to make money from that particular licence....
We could even say..... " Give us the gear and you can have a royalty off whatever we do sell..."
It just take a good slimy diplomat to chisel it out of them... cry poor.... push it the right way.. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
Jerry Doyle.. JMS... whomever we can get on side is a bonus....
we can still be professional in production... pay production staff.... but it requires alot of fundraising by us..... competing for "the most funds raised" is maybe a good incentive....
it is possible... and it requires more time and sacrifice from all of us.... its time that the fair weather first ones become real ones.. the lurkers come out of thier shadows with their dukats.. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
Remeber also I offered the idea of a Pay first, get the game later idea.... you pay your ticket price and then wait for the product..... and also have a NO refund policy... so it really is a faith issue...
the real killer is that the whole team would have to hedge thier bets.... I doubt we could raise a complete budget straight off the bat.. so the whole project would continue as it has.. piecemeal....
we have to flatten a mountian bucketful by bucketful...
but it can be done...
there is always a way round...
ITF could become a legal charitable organization.... then the financial legalities basically dissapear.... a base donation could be the asking price of a boxed game.... for individuals.... for companies it sould be goods.. services.. or cold hard much appreciated cash..
Even if we were to fail again.... the Devs get a little cash... the odd bit of hardware... Firstones would no doubt have a strong online presesence and paid up bandwidth for a while...
I'm not in the US so I cant explore this option too well.... sombody should...
please... more devils advocates... lets work this through...
I also don't think trying to work at Sierra's level is an option either. Like Haz said, we are not dealing with thinking rational people but arrogant morons. They are not going to give a flying whoozits unless you can scrape together the absolute value equivalent of the national debt.
Warner Brother's or Netter Digital also isn't gonna give us the time of day. I mean think about it. If you were a mega conglomerate like WB and saw, what would look like to you, a pathetic attempt by a dorky group of greesy haired, acne ridden, pimply face nerds still crying over the loss of their game -- would you be inclined to care all that much?
The fact is, any models, movies, and interface ItF will ever have will be what WE, the community, make ourselves. Maybe if we get far enough support may be rallied and WB, ND, and the rest of the cast and crew of B5 might chip in but otherwise we're on our own and the last chance for ItF.
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"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 06-26-2001).]
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time. But teach a man to BE a fish, and he can eat himself."
--Dennis Miller, Dennis Miller Live
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 06-27-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Faylorn (edited 06-27-2001).]
I think we need to ask ourselves, will the current freeware projects and mods be enough to satisfy our appetites? Are we all content putting our efforts behind IFH and B5FSF, which are both worthy projects, if not, we need to start focussing on getting our message out and finding someone to make a B5 game, or we could take one last stab at ITF, in the form of a freeware project. At this time I'm for the latter. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
shadow boxer has a unique proposition and who knows what kind of unique arrangements could be worked out with WB. If WB or Netter are so concerned, why are there so many mods and freeware projects allowed to be produced? I'm assuming that its because no money is involved, well thats how we would have to handle ITF. As for Sierra, I'm all for putting the pressure on them, sorry, I'm still very bitter, especially lately. They got off way to easy and now its time for them to do the only descent act left, that is, donate the IP to our cause. Yeah right! Although, we do have some leverage, we are a formidable community. Heh! Heh! Heh! [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
On the other hand, this is a monumental task and the odds are pretty slim, not even the great S14 was sucessful. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this and I'm not saying we should do this but I think it is certainly worthy of discussion. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
we need to know if WB/Netter and all the other players will even consider what we are doing. I'm going to write a letter....
unless of course a Vorlon or two decides to tell me not to... here's your chance to stop me if you wish fellas....
otherwise I am going to make approaches as a complete outsider and see what happens...
Incidentally... this is not to say that Netters work is in any way bad.. but I've seen some of the so called "amateur built" models.... and maybe I'm wrong but I think Netters models would be built for TV/Movies.... most game models are low poly 3DS Max files.... whatever the case may be... I'm not sure that we'd even have to purchase Netters work.... I have no idea of the legal or contratual agreements between WB and Netter...
Anyways....
I'll wait a day or two then I'm going to contact WB somehow.... and make some sort of start or maybe only a copy of ITF's death certificate.
There is a lot of planning ahead to be done here guys!
Oh and another thing, Netter Digital is gone... show how do we approach what was that entity?
Plus shadow boxer is right.... those Netter models would be too large to use for a game. We just need to approach all the modellers who have created B5 ships over the past few years, like Nadab Goksu and Kier Darby etc... their work is just fantastic. If we approach them, I'm sure we could come to an arrangement!
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
[This message has been edited by Falcon1 (edited 06-27-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Falcon1 (edited 06-27-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Falcon1 (edited 06-27-2001).]
[b]I hate to say it, but ITF is dead.[/b][/quote]
We should wait until a company is prepared to commit itself to make a B5 game.
Babylon 5 deserves the best game possible. We cannot do that (despite all our good intentions) here.
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Live long and.. um..
Have a Beer!
[b]we need to know if WB/Netter... [/b][/quote]
That may be difficult. Netter has been out of business for the better part of a year.
We should wait until a company is prepared to commit itself to make a B5 game.
Babylon 5 deserves the best game possible. We cannot do that (despite all our good intentions) here.
[/quote]
The problem is, that if another company picks up the licence for B5, it will most likely to produce a cheap Freespace 2 rip off (ok its a good game but it doesnt compare to ITF).
Take the Starship Troopers game that was released last year and compare it to the original game concept (which was cancelled) to see what I mean.
Worf
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"Playing computer and video games doesnt create murderers and terrorists....cancelling computer and video games creates them." -Me-
Join the fight for freedom at [url="http://www.newrepublic.de"]http://www.newrepublic.de[/url] and [url="http://www.isd-imperium.co.uk"]http://www.isd-imperium.co.uk[/url]
[This message has been edited by WORF (edited 06-27-2001).]
A written agreement from Havas giving permission to use "any recoverable assets" from the ITF project would be a nice thing to have - perhaps less costly too ( less costly than buying the IP). I’m not sure that anyone is around at Sierra anymore that had anything at all to do with ITF decisions. Maybe this could help – maybe not.
Still, one would need the probably expensive WB interactive license. Of course, if one had the written agreement from Havas it may make WB a little bit more interested in talking.
IMHO this entire discussion is hugely pie in the sky, but I respect the way you guys don’t take “no” for an answer. You want what you want – and that’s all there is to it. I also respect your willingness to think outside of the box, and willingness to entertain daffy ideas. You just never know when that kind of antic will pay off.
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
we have a "You're mad and unlikely to sucseed but I'm not going to stop you" from a Vorlon.
Time to go look for some contact details then.... or perhaps someone would be kind enough to point me at the appropriate place inside Havas/Seirra ?
And where the hell do I start at WB ?
Structure : to make this a professional project there has to be two very separate entites working towards this goal.
One : Firstones Collective - the guys on the ground... the ones who go out and recruit, scavenge and fundraise. These guys are basically us.... we attack both private individual gamers... and corporations and businesses alike.... we whack up posters in the local gaming dens.... suck all our friends into donating.... ( perhaps whatever they donate is a rebate off the box price of the game )
And seeing as we would be building a database of people who want the game by actually donating we suddenly have proof of real support for the game. With any luck it will snowball. Another huge boon of the "pay now play later" scheme would be having the name of the supporter in six point type on the ACTUAL box the game comes in.
How much kudos is that worth amongst gamers ?
"See, right there.... thats me... I helped these guys build this friggin awesome game. "
The gaming dens and shops themselves might like to become sponsors or supporters themselves.... ( and we guarantee them sales of the game through them if they support us ), we can promote those businesses who support us on this website and focus our spending through them for other titles... basically we turn this whole campaign into a lot of mutual backscratching.
Bigger companies could also be targetted.... like I suggested earlier.... make a pitch to Dell or IBM or whomever.... maybe Voodoo or Matrox or other hardware people.... these guys could donate cashola or hardware.... (the box art could carry a fly leaf or fold out bearing all thier logos and thier involvment level or type.
we have absolutely nothing to lose...
The other side of the coin is the guys who actually get to spend it on getting the game made... a new crew of Vorlons... or maybe just the old ones in spankin new encounter suits.
INPUT INPUT INPUT folks.... lets do it.
Flipping back to the actual developer team... allthough a distributed team is hard to manage it would be cheaper... maybe it will never come to that. perhaps we may get sufficent funding to drive the whole schmeer properly.... and I guess that is something to aim for...
as long as we take no shit... maintain the upmost in proffesionalism and seriousness in our manner and refuse to take "no" for an answer then we could get there.
We need to make sure that our image and our direction is unified, we will have to have a very strong structure to our efforts... nothing will lead to failure faster than a mottley and half arsed approach. Everyone we share this project with must see us as driven and potent people with passion for what we want.
If we have that. The rest is much much easier.
please.. someone else take the floor.... and I hope to Valen we get a chatroom active here... it would be an invaulable tool for this sort of discussion.
[b]imagine if lets say a chain of software retail outlets like " Electronic Boutique" was to get hold of this.... we feed thier PR staff with "Supporting real gamers" rhetoric..... give them some instant hardcore gamers cred by letting them sponsor us... and EB has countless stores throughout Auz... I have no idea about the US but lets say a comparable chain in the US with 300 stores .... suddenly a few million shekels starts to shrink in terms of acheivability.
Flipping back to the actual developer team... allthough a distributed team is hard to manage it would be cheaper... maybe it will never come to that. perhaps we may get sufficent funding to drive the whole schmeer properly.... and I guess that is something to aim for...
as long as we take no shit... maintain the upmost in proffesionalism and seriousness in our manner and refuse to take "no" for an answer then we could get there.
We need to make sure that our image and our direction is unified, we will have to have a very strong structure to our efforts... nothing will lead to failure faster than a mottley and half arsed approach. Everyone we share this project with must see us as driven and potent people with passion for what we want.
If we have that. The rest is much much easier.
please.. someone else take the floor.... and I hope to Valen we get a chatroom active here... it would be an invaulable tool for this sort of discussion.[/b][/quote]
EB have 40% of the UK gaming market. They're big, but they're not nice! I've worked their, and their attitude to gamers isn't really that good. The companies image is very uptight, everything has to be completely formal, and very stiff. I mean that may not stand against us, but their image is very stiff for a company that is selling fun leisure products. They also own Game, another chain, but they have a much better attitude to gamers. They're much more relaxed and have much 'cooler' attitude. But then again, who are we to choose??? Whatever gets us publicity we'll have to take. We may even have to dance with the devil here.
In order to get the development team up and running, we need of list of peopl willing to commit, with their skills, and a list of their hardware and software, so we know what people's capabilites are.
Professionalism will be of the utmost priority! I think most forums don't come across as being serious... just a place where people gather to have banter really... from a corporate point of view. So I think we'll have to call the project something and set up a seperate webpage for it, but of course linking into Firstones, as an affiliate.
A unified approach is crucial. Without one we will flounder.
I think to start we should come up with a title for the project, do a mock up plan/strategy, set up a beta website, and with the team in place, start talking to WB and whoever we can attract to this project.
I've kind of run out of ideas for the moment. I'll have a think about things, and see if I can add anything else to this.
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]