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Game News Fargo being serious about crowdfunding Wasteland 2

nihil

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People are getting excited because Fargo produced a good game made by Pavlish 25 years ago?

No. I think people are getting excited about the promise to make a real attempt at replicating the Wasteland experience, including skill based gameplay and turn-based combat. Let's hope he's got it in him. At least he wants to try.
 

SoupNazi

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Yachmenev @Yachmenev55 · Open
@BrianFargo Just be as old school as you can and I will throw my money at you!

Brian Fargo @BrianFargo Close
@Yachmenev55 Don't worry. This game will have those ingredients that made the first one shine with lots of additional atmosphere.
 

commie

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So all it took was some pledges and suddenly in a few days the entire Wasteland development team reforms...JVC fuck off from C&C and get back to M&M! Chris Jones, where's my new Tex Murphy you bastard? Lawrence Holland, I want a new Tie Fighter!

Fuck it man, lets get the word out and reform LGS and SSI Gold Box team while we're fucking at it!

YEEEAHHHAHHH!!!!!!
 

HanoverF

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If it does stay true to the original Wasteland I wonder how many people who fund it because it was the precursor to Fallout 3 will be upset it looks like Etrian Odyssey.
 

jazzotron

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So all it took was some pledges and suddenly in a few days the entire Wasteland development team reforms...JVC fuck off from C&C and get back to M&M! Chris Jones, where's my new Tex Murphy you bastard? Lawrence Holland, I want a new Tie Fighter!

Fuck it man, lets get the word out and reform LGS and SSI Gold Box team while we're fucking at it!

YEEEAHHHAHHH!!!!!!

If only... *sigh*

Although in this day and age, expect raep. (Later Tex games were FPP - not that far a move to FPS...)
 

Grim Monk

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A minor thing to keep in mind:

It looks like InXile probably doesn't own the rights to the original game, only to the name Wasteland.
June 13, 2003: Brian Fargo and his new game company, inXile, acquire the rights to Wasteland with the United States Patent Office. Soon after, Mr. Fargo shows up at Snake Squeezins to ask for comments about the game from its loyal fans. He notes the reason he didn't get the rights sooner was that Electronic Arts was sitting on them. When they expired, Konami grabbed it for use with their Yu-Gi-Oh series, but they were kind enough to let him have the trademark back. And the new Wasteland will be "darker in nature than the first one," and touts that it will be "very much an old school RPG that uses the skill systems, open ended nature of design, and puts the player into a world that is not black and white but shades of grey." Soon after joining Squeezins, he bails out as others were cross-posting his posts to other forums, and I guess he didn't like that.
Link: http://wasteland.rockdud.net/wasteland.html

This was the case with Fargo's 2004 "Bards Tale", and to quote Wikipedia...
Although touted in early promotional materials as a remake of the classic Bard's Tale series, InXile Entertainment never had any rights to the trademarks of the original Bard's Tale — those rights are still owned by Electronic Arts. This meant that InXile was not legally allowed to use any of the plot, characters or locations featured in the original trilogy.
 

Grim Monk

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Checking http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp

inexile own all the wasteland rights. There are no registrations for Wasteland currently owned by EA.

So did Fargo buy EA's Copyright of the original?

EA allowed the trademark for the name to lapse, it was bought by Konami for Yu-Gi-Oh but not used.
Later Brian Fargo bought the name from Konami.

That's all I could find out, unless Brian bought it (or has a personal licence from his days at Interplay), EA still has the Copyright.

If so, that means that EA can't make another Wasteland game (probably not even resell the original), because Inxile holds the "name rights"
But Inxile can't use any of the plot of the original, as that's covered by EA's copyright.



It would be a similar situation to System Shock.

EA owns the System Shock name trademark, but the game's copyright was owned by Looking Glass.

That's why System Shock is not sold, and the lack of a System Shock 3.
 

Jaesun

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Checking http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp

inexile own all the wasteland rights. There are no registrations for Wasteland currently owned by EA.

So did Fargo buy EA's Copyright of the original?

EA allowed the trademark for the name to lapse, it was bought by Konami for Yu-Gi-Oh but not used.
Later Brian Fargo bought the name from Konami.

That's all I could find out, unless Brian bought it (or has a personal licence from his days at Interplay) EA still has the Copyright.

If so, that means that EA can't make another Wasteland game (probably not even resell the original), because Inxile holds the "name rights"
But Inxile can't use any of the plot of the original, as that's covered by EA's copyright.

If I am reading it correctly, "Wasteland" is entirely owned by Inexile to make any video games with that name etc etc.

If you look up Bards Tale, The Bard's Tale is still owned by EA. Bard's Tale is owned by Inexile, thus they could not many any references at all to The Bards Tale.


It would be a similar situation to System Shock:

In the case of System Shock, some Banking Company owns the rights to it, after LGS went out of business. I do not know the entire specifics. I am not a Copyright Lawyer heh.
 

Grim Monk

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In the case of System Shock, some Banking Company owns the rights to it, after LGS went out of business. I do not know the entire specifics.

You :p yourself posted an article on it a while back, that's how I knew about it:
Link: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/why-we-will-never-get-a-system-shock-3.61799/
The original story: http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/713030/the-lost-history-of-system-shock/

I do not know the entire specifics. I am not a Copyright Lawyer heh.


I'm not a lawyer either.

Anyway, I may be wrong about EA and the Wasteland rights.
It was just a possibility that should be mentioned...
 

Jaesun

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Anyway, I may be wrong about EA and the Wasteland rights.
It was just a possibility that should be mentioned...

After what they had to carefully avoid with Bard's Tale, I'd be pretty certain they already did their homework on having all the rights to Wasteland (and it looks like it). And they know more about this crap than we do. heh
 

Grim Monk

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Okay, back on topic.

What worries me also about Wasteland 2, is that the atmosphere of the original had really wacky elements.
In a way, it is far closer to TSR's Gamma World then Fallout ever came.

I'm unsure of how they can keep that atmosphere with improved graphics.

The minimalist style of the original helped when fighting stuff like:
38.gif
20.gif
16.gif
8.gif
6.gif


You feel when like your fighting this:
show-water.phtml

Source: http://index.rpg.net/display-covers.phtml?mainid=2047

How do you go about translating this feel to isometric...
 

commie

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So now it has come to whining that replacing some low res barely colour static images will break 'immershun'...

Why do you people even want remakes? Just play the original 7 times! Wasteland is not Gamma World just as 99.9% of computer RPG's based on tabletop worlds are not 100% true to the art style or layout of the worlds described in the books they are based on. I don't see people howling that PS:T is not true to the material it is based on or FG.

Can't wait for Garriott to announce a remake of Ultima 1 and people to start whining that it's not going to be CGA.
 

Skittles

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Well, graphics serve a function--they're the manifestation of the game's mechanics. The old graphics support the old mechanics well.

If the graphics are made better, it's either to better support the mechanics or they're being created for the sake of better graphics alone.

The latter is retarded, especially on a game with a small budget, and probably doesn't need to be addressed.

The former implies that they're going to fuck with the game's mechanics, like the new JA game. It updated the graphics to support RTS mechanics. For people who want an old franchise revived, they don't want to see that kind of overhaul of the core mechanics. Isn't that the point of sequels? Refinement of the same rather than complete retooling? If a company's going to build a completely new game, use an original IP, for God's sake.

I don't think I share the exact concerns of @GrimMonk, but I think the resistance to new graphics has a basis. Nobody's saying it has to be identical to be good, but if they try to animate enemies like that, it's likely that 1) it'll look retarded, 2) they'll cut the more difficult to animate (and fun) enemy types, or 3) it'll cost them a lot of time and money that they either don't have or should be using to design other parts of the game.
 

Grim Monk

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The problem is not that I don't like "high concept graphics and production values".
The worrying aspect is that it might just end up looking silly...

Wasteland had even more "far out" (i.e. soft) sci fi aspects then Fallout did:
The Gamma World'ish Robots.
The Agricultural Center (15 foot carrots, 8 foot corn, Harry the Bunny Master...)
The Temple of Blood.
Ect, ect...

Stuff like this might work when its mostly in your imagination, but it's hard to represent in detail without looking stupid...
 

Jaesun

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https://twitter.com/#!/BrianFargo/status/171013680434130944/photo/1

Some OLD concept art they did on a much older Wasteland remake project a couple years ago. And a new quote:


Daniel Holmes @JonasCalhoun · Details
@BrianFargo I just started playing Wasteland again a bit ago. And now I hear about this! Any idea when the kickstarter page will be live?

18 Feb Brian Fargo @BrianFargo · Details
@JonasCalhoun We hope to get it live in the next 2-3 weeks. We are thinking through the tiers and making a video.
 

DwarvenFood

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He notes the reason he didn't get the rights sooner was that Electronic Arts was sitting on them. When they expired, Konami grabbed it for use with their Yu-Gi-Oh series, but they were kind enough to let him have the trademark back.

And there I was, hoping on a Yu-Gi-Oh / Wasteland crossover game.
 

Grim Monk

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Daniel Holmes
Any thought to re-releasing the old WL game, no updates, just straight as is? Or do you not own it? (EA?) Package with DOSBox?
Brian Fargo
This is complicated but possible.... I'll look into that later.
Daniel Holmes
I have some ideas from a technical perspective on how to do it (and multi-platform, and mobile)...
Brian Fargo
It's a legal issue not technical. Would be great for new gamers to experience Wasteland.
Daniel Holmes
Agreed. I was hoping it wasn't a legal issue. I imagine things are tangled. Good luck, I really hope you can do it!
Link: https://twitter.com/#!/BrianFargo/status/171391146126360577



So it looks like EA is still holding at least some of the rights the old game...
 

Jaesun

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So it looks like EA is still holding at least some of the rights the old game...

I think this is more a case of Wasteland made and produced by EA is still EA's property (and can't be sold by inexile), however they can continue to make a Wasteland 2 without any repercussions or limits from EA. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
 

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