[Meksilon]

Alright. Anyone want to help me with creating a 2D point-and-click adventure game? How about a fan-made Monkey Island 3? Don't get me wrong, CMI is a great game (not as a sequel, but a good game in its own right). It will be fun.

I need:

Background artist.
Character/sprite artist/animation.
Music artist.
And a sound effects-guy.

Backgrounds should be scanned. Anyhow if interested drop me a line. You can email me directly at [email protected] (remove all numbers from the email address).

[RLacey]

Hi Meksilon. It's nice to see that you have some ideas for a game.

However, before you get your hopes up, do please bear in mind that people are normally unwilling to join a project before they know anything about it, so further information on any work you have done might be useful.

Oh, and do keep us updated if this goes anywhere ...

[Maquisard]

Plus, Lucas Arts is unfriendly towards fangames which use its characters and names. I wonder, if its not for profit, can they legaly forbid you to make it?

[Zygomaticus]

Originally Posted by Mares

Plus, Lucas Arts is unfriendly towards fangames which use its characters and names. I wonder, if its not for profit, can they legaly forbid you to make it?

If you use their names (Guybrush Threepwood, Elaine Marley, etc.), I think they can.

[Meksilon]

I'm not worried about LucasArts. The game will not be produced in sections. It will just be delivered when complete. If the LucasArts bullies don't like it, well that's tough because they do not have a say in the matter.

I don't hear all the Star-Wars fans getting hit over the head for producing their stuff.

[Zygomaticus]

The thing I've found that went wrong with some of the fan projects I've heard that were closed is they overpublicized before they had anything. If you just get down and dirty, make the game, and throw it out on the internet, then I don't think they'll have much to do. But if you publicize it, or get people talking about it before it's done, chances are, they'll hear of it, and chances are, they'll ask you to stop, and chances are --

They'll courtmarshall you!!

NOOOOOOO!

[Simo Sakari Aaltonen]

This is, alas, an ill-omened project on many levels.

Your bravado is ill-informed and immature. No serious project leader would totally ignore the copyrights to the property they intend to work on, and no serious artist would work for such a leader. Were you even planning to include a disclaimer stating whose property Monkey Island is?

If this sounds harsh, Meksilon, I want you to know that I have nothing against you as a person - I don't even know you, after all. My criticism is aimed completely at what you have said, not who you are as a human being. I just really think you should reconsider the attitude you're going about things with.

Incidentally, why would someone have to be a guy in order to work on sound effects?

[Maquisard]

Weeell, "sound effects gal" isn't a very common term, after all.

As for his attitude, maybe he will have such a disclaimer, but it really wouldn't change the way about how Lucas-Arts feels about fan projects. So the idea of finishing the game, and then releasing it (w/ a disclaimer, mind you) is good.

[Meksilon]

Originally Posted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen

This is, alas, an ill-omened project on many levels.

Your bravado is ill-informed and immature. No serious project leader would totally ignore the copyrights to the property they intend to work on, and no serious artist would work for such a leader. Were you even planning to include a disclaimer stating whose property Monkey Island is?

Nup. Really, maybe 1 single line, nothing fancy.

If this sounds harsh, Meksilon, I want you to know that I have nothing against you as a person - I don't even know you, after all. My criticism is aimed completely at what you have said, not who you are as a human being. I just really think you should reconsider the attitude you're going about things with.

Incidentally, why would someone have to be a guy in order to work on sound effects?

That's how they'll be credited. I can happily have a female sound-effects guy.

Credits...
...
Sound-effects guys:
Amanda "Bull's Eye" Smith
Greg "Nosepeg" Lions

OR

Credits...
...
Sound-effects guy: Amanda "Bull's Eye" Smith

If you don't like it, tough. I'm not interested in being PC obsessed. Gosh, looks to me like you're just itching for an argument or something. Who cares if it breaches copyright? Not me. LEC can't do a darn thing, not unless they can prove that they have been defamed in some way and have lost business due to the game - which I might add would probably have exactly the opposite effect.

So leave the bitching to LEC. I'm sure they're not interested in defaming themselves by attempting to sue some idiot who made a fan game.

That said, if you'd like to help your opportunity is now. EMAIL ME!

[DaveGilbert]

Originally Posted by Meksilon

So leave the bitching to LEC. I'm sure they're not interested in defaming themselves by attempting to sue some idiot who made a fan game.

Actually, yes they are. They've already shut down a few fan projects. So be wary.

And not to discourage you. The reason why folks seem to be "itching for an argument" is because we've seen posts like yours many, many times. Nobody knows you, who you are, or even what you can accomplish. Have you written a game before? Have you ever written anything before? The best way to be taken seriously is to do some serious work. You have to sell yourself. Calling yourself an idiot is not the way to go.

[Maquisard]

lol!

While on subject, I recently had an idea for a game, and no, I'm not being sarcastic! The idea is a very inconspicous way to use Lucas Arts properties. If you remember (this is a very obscure quote, I only know it because I replayed DOTT recently), Hoagie has an option to tell Washington: "I loved So and So in the movie 'Secret of Monkey Island'." I thought, wow, I should make an adventure game about a character by the name of So and So (not the actual name, I don't remember it), who is a washed up ageing actor, with the rugged good looks of Guybrush from MI2, who is an alcoholic, and also jealous of a certain young actor by the name of Dominic Armato, who stole the role he had made famous. A revenge game? A road to redemption? You decide!

[Meksilon]

Look, LucasArts EMAILED Steve and had him stop FOMI2, they mailed Matt and made him stop his fan-MI4. But they did not sue for what had already been made (and let's face it Steve was dumb enough to put "Original story by Ron Gilbert" in his FOMI credits). I have some excellent ideas I do not wish to disclose, but I tell you it will be worth finding them out eventually.

In both cases these were 1-man jobs. Now if I were to do a 1-man job expect some very primitive background art, and plagiarized midis. If you like you can go to my primitive, abandoned previous-homepage http://www.spidermsn.vze.com/ (hey it's not my fault Microsoft closed MSN Chat - they never even once complained to me that I was breeching their copyright, even though I offered edited versions of their OCX's). In fact I'd even talked to ... emailed someone who used to be in the development of the client (now she's involved with MSN Messenger).

[Zygomaticus]

And now I really want to work for you.

[Simo Sakari Aaltonen]

Yeah, this is what I was referring to. Meksilon:

1. You have no respect for Ron Gilbert and yet you expect smarter people who grasp the fact that without Ron there would be no Monkey Islands to work for you.
2. You call giving credit where it is due dumb.
3. You have gotten into trouble before for breaching a copyright (at least you were honest about that).

You see no problem here?

For your information:

A) If you breach a copyright, you've already broken the law. No warning from the copyright owner is necessary for them to take whatever action against you the law allows, and you'd deserve it too for being willfully ignorant. Every one of us is responsible for learning about copyrights and then avoiding breaking them, and you are no exception.

B) Everyone has great ideas. That's no qualification for a project leader. If you want people to trust you and sacrifice their time for your project, you'll have to demonstrate that you can actually bring ideas to fruition. That's where 99% of people with great ideas fall by the wayside, and that's just life.

C) You're really flaunting your disregard for copyrights and that is just not cool (either ignoring copyrights or flaunting that fact). As you can see, I am not a moderator. I have no official say on this matter, so I can only state an opinion: you'd be wise to learn from the example set by AGDI Interactive (http://www.agdinteractive.com/). They have a respect for the material they are remaking, and that goes partway towards explaining the fact that fans of Sierra have a respect for them. (That they make great games helps too.)

Finally, just for the record: I can't for the life of me imagine myself wanting to play another Monkey Island 3 if it was not done by Ron Gilbert. I certainly am not interested in playing one done by someone who couldn't care less what Ron's contribution to that game series and adventure gaming in general has been.

Just my two cents.

P.S. Moderators: please let me know if I'm being out of line...

[Wormsie]

I don't think you are out of line, at least, don't worry. But I'm no mod.

And the whole idea is uncool. Look at your first post. It's so lame, that only somebody with an obsession for MI would join the project. You've got to advertise better, man!

[Meksilon]

I respect Ron Gilbert more than to use his name in a fan game, if that's what you mean. By putting "Original Story By Ron Gilbert" you are asserting that he wrote the game story, which is untrue, ergo you should be upset at Steve - not me. I may as well put "Original Background Art By Bill Tiller". If Bill still works for Stormfront - which is probably unlikely - then I still have his company email address.

Secondly, you'll find my MSN Chat program did not function as a bot or a script, something that Microsoft was fighting, so as far as they were concerned all it was was a deterrent. That also removed all their ads, but hey that's not worth crying over since most of us use the hosts file or a dns management program (like dns kong) to remove them anyway. I only heard positive stuff about my (primitive, poorly coded) program from Microsoft Staff/Ex-Microsoft Staff - as I said they certainly didn't complain.

So don't tell me I disrespect either Ron or Copyrights. Furthermore, if you would really like to claim illegality please site the applicable law(s) under the Australian Law. As I previously stated, I'm confident that there would be no such illegal matter. That would be criminal. Copyrights are not a criminal case in this instance, it would be civil - which is not breaking the law it's the legal term for pissing someone off.

[Meksilon]

In fact why don't I just outline what I believe? I believe in individual's rights before the rights of corporations. I believe that we should be legally allowed (AT LEAST) the following rights in regards to all forms of software (regardless of EULA's):

* The right to make back-up copies.
* The right to edit (hack) the program.
* The right to distribute the hack to other owners of the game. An example might be GoSierra which is a program designed to hack old Sierra games so that they can run with music and sound on faster PCs. The program (although it wasn't written by Sierra) was even given full recognition by Sierra themselves by hosting the file (though they stopped doing that now).
* The right to install the program an unlimited number of times on an unlimited number of PCs (only one copy of the program will be run at one time).

Now if that's disrespecting copyright, so be it. But I do not advocate redistribution ("pirating") of the program itself. Though we are told by both the music and software industries that this is stealing - it is not. It is merely a breach of copyright, but in this case it would be a violation of the rights of the copyright owners. So I'm quite happy to stay within the rights I have defined for myself above.

As far as gaming goes, and fan games: I believe that anyone should be allowed to make a game of their choosing about anything using any character names (plagiarized or not) and publish it under any title - if it is free.

PS: The definition of a hack is basically to simplify code - or to remove some junk, like for instance me opening up monkey4.exe and noping out the check that makes me have the CD in the drive. This is for two reasons, first I don't want to have to put my CDs in just to play the damn game (I believe my rights are more important than that) and 2. I have 2 drives, 1-DVD, 1-CD-RW, and the game expects me to put it into a specific one (whichever one is in the registry) - which I do not want to have to remember. Since EMI will let me play from back-up CDs anyway this isn't even opening up the possibility for piracy, which is already there.

[m0ds]

This reminds me. I want to shoot an alternative Terminator 3.

[Meksilon]

Originally Posted by m0ds

This reminds me. I want to shoot an alternative Terminator 3.

It would have been nicer if that mind-numbing experience had never been shot.

Daniel

[Toefur]

I would like to apply for the position of background artist.