SoulStar, interest and pricing poll.

[alucardX]

It sucks that illegal distribution (note: "pirating" is a propaganda term) will cause the community as a whole to lose access to awesome games. I respect the wishes and choices of those in possession of these games and especially when it is someone that has freely and willingly given so much to the Jag community. It would be great to see this released as a very special set with numbered boxes, instructions, overlays and maybe a few extra goodies. Then someone else illegally distributing them can never truly be selling the real deal as collectors will note that theirs is officially numbered or whatever.

 

It would be great to have but if it isn't worth distributing to those that have the game then that's how it is.

[+CyranoJ]

Yep, everyone jump on the piracy comment and ignore the main part of my post in the opening line. 

 

God forbid anyone does some introspection.

[alucardX]

11 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

Yep, everyone jump on the piracy comment and ignore the main part of my post in the opening line. 

 

God forbid anyone does some introspection.

I didn't mean to take away from your main point and I do agree with it entirely.

[leech]

17 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

Only one component, the diminishing motivation due to the other issues is another. 

 

btw: for statistics: 100% of anything I've released as .abs or a CD image has been pirated, even the free stuff.  And there are recent posts on this very forum from people who are supporting one of the people responsible for this by purchasing from them.

That is where I get pissed off.  If you are going to pirate it, fine be a cheap ass.  If you are going to pirate it and distribute it.  Dick move.  If you are going to pirate it, then print your own copies of it and distribute it, that makes you a fucker that should be kicked in the nuts.  Only time I have supported such a thing was for Battlesphere, as I am not spending 1k+ for a game I likely will never have time to play.

 

Unfortunately that game has an artificial rarity placed on it.

 

Question though... how does one pirate free games?  Haha

[+CyranoJ]

5 minutes ago, leech said:

Question though... how does one pirate free games?  Haha

 

By putting them on CD-R (Using our own tool, ULS, just to take the piss even more) printing shitty boxes/sleeves and selling them on ebay for $30.

[leech]

9 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

 

By putting them on CD-R (Using our own tool, ULS, just to take the piss even more) printing shitty boxes/sleeves and selling them on ebay for $30.

Ah!  Yeah I tend to think that should be given a different name, and is 100% the most deplorable thing.  I always thought it crap when someone just packages up someone else's work.  The copy and distribute freely model is sadly how we had to get a lot of software back in the day, it wasn't available any other way.  But that was pre-internet. 

[PeterG]

9 hours ago, Tidus79001 said:

 

 

 All I am trying to say is a person should not don't tease that they have the ROM's or not release them after promising to do so as that is just toxic behavior and disrespectful to all others who would like to enjoy and celebrate those lost but recovered games that we all want to be able to experience for ourselves.

I don't quite get why you regard this as "teasing". Would you rather not want to know that a working copy of the game exist? This is a cool information even if the game itself will never be released. Some years ago I went to a Jagfest and was able to see a work in progress of it and play it with a trainer enabled, so I could play it for a long time and that was awesome.

 

Would I like to own it myself? Sure. But to call it toxic and disrespectful, when lots of information including videos of the otherwise unreachable levels is shared and very reasonable reasons are given why a release seems unlikely... really?

 

I'd rather try to take the positive aspects from that. There are lost games out there which we have only like ten second videos of. Soul Star could be just a corrupted copy floating on the net (which btw was already pretty cool to check out and try ways around the bugs back in the day). And now we are able to see even more of it ... That is a win even in its lost game state.

[leech]

10 minutes ago, PeterG said:

I don't quite get why you regard this as "teasing". Would you rather not want to know that a working copy of the game exist? This is a cool information even if the game itself will never be released. Some years ago I went to a Jagfest and was able to see a work in progress of it and play it with a trainer enabled, so I could play it for a long time and that was awesome.

 

Would I like to own it myself? Sure. But to call it toxic and disrespectful, when lots of information including videos of the otherwise unreachable levels is shared and very reasonable reasons are given why a release seems unlikely... really?

 

I'd rather try to take the positive aspects from that. There are lost games out there which we have only like ten second videos of. Soul Star could be just a corrupted copy floating on the net (which btw was already pretty cool to check out and try ways around the bugs back in the day). And now we are able to see even more of it ... That is a win even in its lost game state.

I don't know, I sort of disagree.  It would be like me saying "Hey, I found some old code on a disk, compiled it and it was AVP that runs at a full 60fps and is beautiful!  But I am never going to be able to release it and it will disappear when I kick the bucket!"  It is kind of a dick move.

[PeterG]

30 minutes ago, leech said:

I don't know, I sort of disagree.  It would be like me saying "Hey, I found some old code on a disk, compiled it and it was AVP that runs at a full 60fps and is beautiful!  But I am never going to be able to release it and it will disappear when I kick the bucket!"  It is kind of a dick move.

Sure you can disagree. It is also pretty easy to say that when you are not the one that might get sued by a company when releasing it. (Might be Disney now in your example.)

 

Also we do not have any information about what measures have or have not been taken to preserve what is there.

 

But the main point is that I don't get negativity. It's like trading stories around the fire, that's half the fun I take from this community for the last twenty years or so.

 

It's like I said above, I don't get why someone would rather not want to hear the story and instead resort to insults if they can't have what was found and somehow feel entitled to it. It completely ignores the worries of the people that would make it possible in the first place.

 

Would you risk your neck for some people on the net who simply want what you found and then finding that others profit from that on top of it? The dick move might be not to care about any of that as long as one gets what is desired.

[leech]

1 hour ago, PeterG said:

Sure you can disagree. It is also pretty easy to say that when you are not the one that might get sued by a company when releasing it. (Might be Disney now in your example.)

 

Also we do not have any information about what measures have or have not been taken to preserve what is there.

 

But the main point is that I don't get negativity. It's like trading stories around the fire, that's half the fun I take from this community for the last twenty years or so.

 

It's like I said above, I don't get why someone would rather not want to hear the story and instead resort to insults if they can't have what was found and somehow feel entitled to it. It completely ignores the worries of the people that would make it possible in the first place.

 

Would you risk your neck for some people on the net who simply want what you found and then finding that others profit from that on top of it? The dick move might be not to care about any of that as long as one gets what is desired.

Yeah, there is all of the IP vs copyright... the crappy thing is we are nearing 30 years for this stuff.  Owners of the IP don't give a crap about most of it.  then you have companies like Nintendo and Disney who have been known to sue or dmca people.  Then you have weird cases like EA, which will randomly block or is fine with remakes of say Ultima IV.

 

Then you have companies like Blizzard, which somehow believe that a racing game with guns is something they own and they will threaten to sue you if you also make a game with racing and guns...

[leech]

3 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

 

By putting them on CD-R (Using our own tool, ULS, just to take the piss even more) printing shitty boxes/sleeves and selling them on ebay for $30.

Ha, was thinking about this again...

 

Almost what Red Hat did... take all the work from others and put it behind their paywall...

[Austin]

12 hours ago, leech said:

Yeah, there is all of the IP vs copyright... the crappy thing is we are nearing 30 years for this stuff.  Owners of the IP don't give a crap about most of it.  then you have companies like Nintendo and Disney who have been known to sue or dmca people.  Then you have weird cases like EA, which will randomly block or is fine with remakes of say Ultima IV.

I really only feel the IP vs copyright issue is only relevant when you try to package and sell a game without a proper license. I mean, most of us aren't newcomers to the internet. A ROM or ISO can get shared with someone in private.. then that someone shares with another, and another, and another.. and eventually it gets hosted on emulation sites or archive.org, with the original owner being a mystery. No one's going to bat an eye at that or really care.

 

I do understand not releasing something like this version of Soulstar where further time and effort had to be applied to get it fully functional. It would be one thing if it was already found complete, but personal work had to go into this project and so there is more at stake when it comes to releasing it. With the crappy state of affairs when it comes to leeches profiting off others' hard work and the ridiculous Shelf Queens™ supporting that kind of behavior, I don't blame the folks involved for not putting it out there.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Austin

[alucardX]

13 hours ago, leech said:

Yeah, there is all of the IP vs copyright... the crappy thing is we are nearing 30 years for this stuff.  Owners of the IP don't give a crap about most of it.  then you have companies like Nintendo and Disney who have been known to sue or dmca people.  Then you have weird cases like EA, which will randomly block or is fine with remakes of say Ultima IV.

 

Then you have companies like Blizzard, which somehow believe that a racing game with guns is something they own and they will threaten to sue you if you also make a game with racing and guns...

You have a really great example here of why people aren't grappling with the copyright / trademark / patent concepts in real world situations.

 

Let me explain --

 

You keep calling it IP, or Intellectual Property. This is a term that has no true meaning in the most basic legal sense. It's thrown around as legal jargon but there is no "Intellectual Property" law. There are: Copyright, trademark and patent laws. Collectively this is what everyone likes to call "IP". Why is this harmful? Because when we need to communicate about what is going on and the problems it is causing we're not clear on what we're talking about.

 

You've illustrated with Blizzard a situation that sounds to me like them trying to assert a patent. This is it's own can of worms and we can talk for days about problems with the patent system. The one good thing is that the lifetime of a patent hasn't been extended over and over like copyright has so it is relatively short.

 

You're talking about EA, Nintendo and Disney. This could all be either trademark or copyright related. It is better to know what each infringement is rather than just say IP. You also mentioned the DMCA. If you're not familiar with the inner workings of that law then I'd read up on it. It has some provisions that are outright ridiculous as well as methods to help enforce copyright.

 

What makes this even worse (depending on the country in which you live) is that many copyright laws are being changed by international treaty. This is completely bypassing voters, citizens and allowing corporations by proxy to dictate what copyright laws should be. I'm sure they're trying to do the same with trademark and patent as well.

 

Boil this all down and it's a mess, but it is important to know what your rights are and what they aren't.

[guSTaw]

Maybe the publisher will be Atari, one less license... 😉 

[leech]

On 8/18/2023 at 9:14 AM, alucardX said:

You have a really great example here of why people aren't grappling with the copyright / trademark / patent concepts in real world situations.

 

Let me explain --

 

You keep calling it IP, or Intellectual Property. This is a term that has no true meaning in the most basic legal sense. It's thrown around as legal jargon but there is no "Intellectual Property" law. There are: Copyright, trademark and patent laws. Collectively this is what everyone likes to call "IP". Why is this harmful? Because when we need to communicate about what is going on and the problems it is causing we're not clear on what we're talking about.

 

You've illustrated with Blizzard a situation that sounds to me like them trying to assert a patent. This is it's own can of worms and we can talk for days about problems with the patent system. The one good thing is that the lifetime of a patent hasn't been extended over and over like copyright has so it is relatively short.

 

You're talking about EA, Nintendo and Disney. This could all be either trademark or copyright related. It is better to know what each infringement is rather than just say IP. You also mentioned the DMCA. If you're not familiar with the inner workings of that law then I'd read up on it. It has some provisions that are outright ridiculous as well as methods to help enforce copyright.

 

What makes this even worse (depending on the country in which you live) is that many copyright laws are being changed by international treaty. This is completely bypassing voters, citizens and allowing corporations by proxy to dictate what copyright laws should be. I'm sure they're trying to do the same with trademark and patent as well.

 

Boil this all down and it's a mess, but it is important to know what your rights are and what they aren't.

Haha, haven't we had this conversation elsewhere?  Yes, I am aware that IP is not a legal thing.  It is 'corp speak'.  Just like EULAs are shady 'contracts' that are required to be agreed to use the software you just purchased / downloaded... that the company can, at any time, decide to update.  But EULAs also are not legally binding (depending on who you ask).

 

But when you work at a company, they always refer to things as 'our Intellectual Property!'  The fun one is software patents that are BS.  It is legitimately the equivalent of someone trying to patent a chapter in a book.  You can copyright a chapter... you shouldn't be able to patent it.  For gaming, like you can't make a Mario game because it is Trademarked.  But yes, IP is an umbrella term.

 

The game I am referring to that Blizzard threatened is called Motor Rock.  Basically a game like Rock N Roll Racing, a game Blizzard made 30 years ago...

 

As if they own 'game where you race around a track and can get power ups with a rock soundtrack.'  Pretty ridiculous.

Edit: funny enough, I have had the conversation about IP with co-workers who do think that IP is a separate legal thing.  It also kind of includes corporate secret sauce. 

Edited August 20, 2023 by leech

[+Biff Burgertime]

11 hours ago, leech said:

The game I am referring to that Blizzard threatened is called Motor Rock.  Basically a game like Rock N Roll Racing, a game Blizzard made 30 years ago...

First time I've heard of this game, and wow. The gameplay looks like the result of asking an AI to clone Rock n' Roll Racing in Unity with modern assets or something.

 

 

Interesting how much shittier and cheaper-looking it gets when switched to the first-person view @ 11 mins.

[walter_J64bit]

Soulstar runs under BigPEmu very well I might add!

[Atari8man2004]

Soulstar runs under BigPEmu very well I might add!

 

That's lovely - I have the Jaguar game drive and like to know what there going to do with SoulStar.  I don't have the Jaguar CD unit and will never pay over a grand to play just one game.  A digital download would be great.     But this thread started in 2016 looks like SoulStar is dead in the water. Long live the Jaguar.

[Atari8man2004]

On 8/28/2023 at 7:21 AM, walter_J64bit said:

Soulstar runs under BigPEmu very well I might add!

 

 

That's lovely - I have the Jaguar game drive and like to know what there going to do with SoulStar.  I don't have the Jaguar CD unit and will never pay over a grand to play just one game.  A digital download would be great.     But this thread started in 2016 looks like SoulStar is dead in the water. Long live the Jaguar.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Atari8man2004