1 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Norah wrote:
Zammy wrote:

Lets talk like that when we actually have a game running and is not good.

That's what I have been saying: I'll have to wait and see, if anything happens to the IP at all to begin with.
In one way money does matter: if you're getting money for what you do (developing, GMing), that means you can spend your worktime on the game.

Yeap, I was referring to GMs. I think we can have good GMs without money. Art and programming might not be that good though as usually the quality people have lots of real work but I think they can always chip in to help out.

Sorry to edit again but there can be volunteer donation, so the money can go to developers for example. Just an idea that will probably have problems but as I said, everything could be solved.

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2 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

So, lets not start saying how open Seed will never be so good until we do not see it. Lets talk like that when we actually have a game running and is not good. As I said now, we wait.

TommBombadil wrote:

Hey
I have to chip in on this wink
Its so cool to see the forum still alive and kicking wink (Sorry I have been absent)
Im sure if the IP get oppended, we are some that will do some work to see Seed just to see YOU and Seed running again!
I know that Hatetank and I (and others) might have all the graphics some where wink
I would love to see the "My" Canyon and Hatetanks Steambath filled with love stories and sleezy diplomates!!
Great to se the our baby is still breathing.... who knows maybe she will crawl or walk one day wink

Tom

I am just an enthusiast, I have no idea how to make a 3d mmorpg. But people learn. So you can count on me.  I think you can count on most people here even if only for  playing and testing the game (bug reporting and suggestions.)

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3 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

That's assuming a paid crew would have no passion tongue. Maybe you are right. Lets see it does not matter because I believe money does not matter.

There's also the matter of a sort of guarantee of minimum level of skill and quality, passion cannot guarantee that (as *I* have seen in other games where players run the RP tongue). This could also be monitored. There could be a quality thing that you can submit for feedback for example, solutions can be devised. A way to say that you did not like certain event.

I'd rather not see 'events' at all (too artificial), but more like it was in Seed: you just RP and so do the GMs, and some of the time you don't even know if a character is a GM or dev or not. Me too, but there are 100 registered users here not 5000, sad To have something to demand when you pay is different, I agree.

If GMs come from the community... this one? Not many of us would have the time and not all would want to. From a broader community who flock to the game after it becomes open source? I am sure there will be enough people to run events. Even having 10 ppl that are storytelling regularly you will have a pretty decent constant storyline.

Ok, I am not saying that Seed open will be better than  a payed one. I am just saying that you want something it will never be, and you will never be satisfied with something that will be close. It will maybe slowly develop (btw if we see not game projects in the open-source they actually develop faster than closed source, and better eventually.) but it will have a constant growing. It will not fail because of no commercial success. (Ok, we will have maybe unstable and laggy server but this are just problems that can be fixed.)

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4 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Oluf wrote:

Wrathe I guess most of us got the "oh it wont be as good" attitude because seed was, for many of us, the best online game(i would personally go as far as to put it on my top 3, both online and offline) we ever played. That combined with the fact that all of us on this site no doubt noticed what a few bad rp'ers can do to a game like that. It needs to be supervised/GM'ed by someone who is getting paid (and thus can get fired if they aint doing a good job wink )

However you may be right that we have simply gotten used to hang around on our site and irc channel and talk about the good old days and therefore have become like a bunch of old men talking about how the young kids of today have gotten it all wrong smile

Even if we were able to put it up on a private server with the last online build of the game then i doubt i would play it for long. The great thing about seed was that we saw it develop in the direction the playerbase wanted it. Want to customize a chimbot? Give the devs 1-2 weeks and its in-game. Want to grow a tree? Give em a week and its there. I doubt that would be doable with only volunteer work. Part of the problem would be time, and dedicated from the people involved....but for a project such as this i doubt that would be that big of a problem. The second part of quality.... We all know how much crap can be found on the internet, no doubt the quality of a privately run seed world would drop.

Cheers smile

I can agree that the quality of the commercial version will be better run but does not mean that a open-source would be a bad one. It seems that everyone here has the assumption that exactlly the people that worked on the game can make such a thing. You cannot create RP events? You cannot monitor which GM is doing good job or not? Or you less creative than the people in RuneStone? You have the assumption that "X" WoW player will invade your game. No, it will not happen. There will always be bad seeds but you will uproot them. I personally can run good RP stories, or at least decent. I think I can distinguish between a bad GM and a good one. And I can say when there is something not good in the game.  We will never have the same Seed, but we can have something similar with also the same quality of role-playing inside.

Sorry if this post sounds frustrated or pushy but this attitude is strange for me.

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5 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Wheri wrote:

Yes, I meant paid GM's. And seeing as GM's in an RP-centric game would not only see to it that the game stays cheater-less, everyone plays by the rules or at least the LA, and save players from nasty bugs, but also monitor RP quality and sometimes interfere with gameworld's reactions, as pen-and-paper GM's would, I don't really think it's possible to keep a contingent of fan-GM's without leaking a lot of valuable plot information to the playerbase, which is bad.

You are assuming a lot here. Plus paying that many GMs is not viable. And second, people that are payed do not have that strong incentive to make good RP, passion is much stronger one.  I am sure volunteers will make more exciting events than a payed crew! (As I have seen it in EVE online.) And "spilling" for plots is something that even payed GMs cannot guarantee.

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6 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

GMs can be provided by free from the community. There are just going to be MGM smile Masters of the game masters. (hehe) That supervise for certain rules.

That is in case you are referring to payed GMs. If not, I do not see what is the problem.

This thread evolved to 3 different threads I think smile Maybe we should seperate them into:
Open source RP-centric mmorpg, how and can it be?
Commercial one and its problems,
and can Seed be open-source.

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7 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Well, demand and supply. If there was really that much viable space for RP-centric mmorpg there would be one. I agree that, ok, such game could be kept commercially afloat but it will never reach big player base. I doubt such game can reach player base bigger than 10k people. And so that is why publishers are not so interested in such game. I guess the time for such game will come eventually.

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8 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Well, I guess people have different opinions. I think it can be done not any worse.  Actually even better because the people that play the game will make it. But different people different opinions.

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9 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Yeah, sad

Well as I said, we are here. And we will wait.

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10 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

I use the word "open" in a general meaning.. The story,game play, and art might be very selective. Being open does not mean that course of development will change. It means that it will be small baby steps with a lot of iterations. There are going to be selected a few that will have general veto saying. People will contribute but it will be included only if there is general community approval. I am 100% there will be no killing of rats. (although sounds fun , hehe, *caugh* anyway) Yes. We will invite all the people back to the project to devote as much time as they can to it (if they want of course).  I hope I am getting my message correct. The project would work as total(or somewhat) democracy, plus if something goes really wrong, it is open source. You can go into different branch and split the project (as long you have some community approval again.)

(Neither is mine but we are trying to cope with it big_smile )

Sorry for another edit.

The main problem I see is the art. As the art has very specific feeling in SEED, if you do not have the same people working behind it it will generally change its feeling.  I am not an art guy so I just assume there will be a problem. That is in the case that we want SEED to look exactlly as it looked.

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11 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

I am sorry. But it gives such impression from the previous posts. Excuse me.

Anyway, i will keep an eye of the developments here. If we get to a point where something must be codded I am happy to help with all I can. smile

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12 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Nuala wrote:

Erm.. We are for most of us here from 2 full years big_smile
And I must admit that I, as a long time seed Fangirl, would like above all being able to get seed IP back, but not only to make it open source (wich would be neat) but most of all to let the former RGD getting back their baby. Because to me, Seed is not only some code hidden somwhere in a safe but it's also RGD and AD work, because we played together, laughed together and cried (a lot) together.

Yes but this is impossible. Same people might also be involved in the open-source project but as we saw, Seed will not feed developers mouths. So it needs to be made on volunteer base. Seed will never be what it was when it was commercial product, but it can at least become something close, (or at least something as in the moment we have nothing runnin', we are just feeling sorry for ourselves smile but anyway, until the franchise is not common we cannot do anything that is Seed. We are few but passionate.

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13 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

kroll wrote:

Hi guys

It breaks my heart. Seriously. It does.

Here's the situation: The IP rights do not lie with ØI: They were the initial investors in Runestone, and the ones that helped us getting started. The primary investors (in terms of amount of money) were a couple of danish business angels (read: wealthy guys). These guys lost a lot of money on the whole Runestone business, but decided to buy the IP rights from the bankrupt company, to at least have that lottery ticket to sit on.

I cannot disclose their identity, nor the amount of money they lost, nor the price they paid for the IP rights.

Would they be interested in selling it ? Yes, if the price is right.
Would they be interested in allowing non-commercial use of it ? maybe. I'm trying to open a discussion with them on this, but to them, I am still a guy who lost them a lot of money, which makes it a little difficult. On the other hand, I realize that I'm probably the only one that can make it happen.

It is ugly business there but I have hopes and maybe you will be able to get back the game to the community at least. You will be surprised what a community can make with no real developing cost.

kroll wrote:

As for commercial viability of Seed, as such: I hate to say it, but the numbers don't add up.
How ever much impressing it is that even after two years, there is still a community of volonteers, the community is much, much too small to make financial sense. Even just renting servers would not be covered by this size of community, not to mention pay etc as needed by the devs. This is not counting the costs needed to just get the damn thing up and running again.

Such type of game will never ever have real commercial success! A game with target group at RP people is a very small and tiny target group. As such I am suggesting not making it commercial again but open volunteer creation. Paying just for server by donation is how we can at least keep it running. It will be slow but it will be steady grow of the game. Passion is something very strong and can move mountains.

kroll wrote:

So why am I interested in being allowed to use the IP for non-profit ? because maybe something like the stuff Hatetank has put up can be put in place in a slightly more interactive version. I will make no promises mind, but this *is* something on my mind.
Legalities must be sorted first, as Hatetank says.

Good luck! We have fingers crossed. In the meantime we will be here. Waiting.

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14 Reply by Zammy

(10 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Thank you.

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15 Reply by Zammy

(10 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Can we have update on this thread? smile

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16 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Maybe we can sign a contract with the owners that we will not use the franchise for commercial use.  Something in this term. sad Maybe we need legal advise. But I think MUD can easily be created and needs no art as such. Let see first who owns it and get into contact with them. Step by step.

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17 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

What about a MUD?

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18 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

I think that if it is built only from the community it will not lose anything! It will be slow but steady grow. Just saying "Ok, we cant buy back the franchise lets just say how cool it was and that's it! .'

Ok, maybe you are right. Anyway, just enthusiasm is not enough i guess

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19 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Hmm.... well that is a lot of copyright.  And who is the publisher that owns it? Has anybody contacted them? As I know Seed did not have real publisher or I am wrong? Who actually owns the rights to the game?

I do not understand much from copyrights but this seems to be too strong. Have someone actually asked them what we can use from the game? As it seems to harsh to sue us if the game looks like theirs for example... and is not worth suing in the first time actually ,if you think in economical terms, as they will not get any money form us as we do not have any in the first place. (just musing)

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20 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Well, maybe we can do something different. Start negotiation price that is payable by community donation to buy back to rights of it. Of course that is wasted money sad Of course we can always rename everything in the game and have absolutely the same look,feeling and game play. People can have rights only over names and logos not over game play and graphics feel. smile I think that as mmorpg is very,very complex project we might start with rewriting the universe and then doing a normal adventure/quest type of game. (The game felt like one anyway.)

I am surprised that after 2 years there are so much active people connected with SEED.
It is a nice surprise for me.

Do we have any active game projects in the S33D universe? (to be legal)

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21 Reply by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

I think that this is a game that can rise as a phoenix if put open source! I wonder why they have not done so. It seems that this game can build very strong community and slowly but steadily grow.

Do you know if they are expecting to sell it somewhere in the future?!

It is strange because I think this is unsellable. sad

Anyway, as I have not played the game. Do we have enough concept material as what the game had to feel like and play like? I think such a game can be started from scratch again at some point in the future open-source of course so it does not have real development cost.

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22 Reply by Zammy

(72 replies, posted in Sava's Garden)

Hello everyone. Shame that I had no possibility to play SEED at the time it got released. I was waiting for the game to mature but it died in birth. sad

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23 Topic by Zammy

(59 replies, posted in Floatbed Dreams)

Hello everyone. I am computer science student and a game dev enthusiast. I was wondering if RuneStone let the code of the game open? And if not do we have contact with anyone from this studio?

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