Consider open sourcing IC

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Malakai
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Consider open sourcing IC

Post by Malakai »

I've got yet another person on my bbs that wants to ressurect the infinity complex project. There are just too many people that want to fix it, to just let it go down the path its going = nowhere.

A lady asked me the other day "How much do you think Rick would sell the rights for IC?" I said "I have no idea." and she continued on about how she would hire a programmer to get the game fixed, if need be. I didn't know what to tell her to offer you ... $200, $500, $700, $1000, $1500.... who knows.

I don't know how much you've got invested in IC, Rick, but please consider open sourcing it or selling off the rights and source to it. Many people want it to see the light of day again.

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dspain
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by dspain »

Malakai wrote:I've got yet another person on my bbs that wants to ressurect the infinity complex project. There are just too many people that want to fix it, to just let it go down the path its going = nowhere.

A lady asked me the other day "How much do you think Rick would sell the rights for IC?" I said "I have no idea." and she continued on about how she would hire a programmer to get the game fixed, if need be. I didn't know what to tell her to offer you ... $200, $500, $700, $1000, $1500.... who knows.

I don't know how much you've got invested in IC, Rick, but please consider open sourcing it or selling off the rights and source to it. Many people want it to see the light of day again.
if you find any of the old bbs's that ran IC on mbbs 4/5 the source came with it cause thats how modules worked back then.

i found 3-4 with some old stuff like that but they want a kings ransom for it.

i just bought richcomm that was originally ran by nick sletnar for the wwbt channel 12 nbc television affiliate in richmond,virginia.
they put some money in that bastard, majormud,tele-arena,fw, and like 20 other high priced modules all running wg 3.12 when it went offline in 2000
with it also was mbbs 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 6.12, 6.25, wg1, wg2, wg 3.0d, wg 3.0n, then 3.12, i wasl ike whoa.
got it all including the really fast 486 it all ran on, LOL

its being sent UPS ground should have it in 3-5 days, im interesting to see what all modules they ran on the mbbs 4 and 5, im hoping its some of the ones we been wanting to port over.

if rick owns em i wont be able to send em out but atleast we'll have a place to play them.

few other guys have IC i been working on, im hoping to convert it to NT and find where ricks was crashing and iron it out, then send it to him so he can reoffer it to yall again.

Malakai
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Post by Malakai »

Have you got a copy (unregistered) of autowars? I keep seeing references to that game but never played it in the past. Would like to check it out

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dspain
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Post by dspain »

Malakai wrote:Have you got a copy (unregistered) of autowars? I keep seeing references to that game but never played it in the past. Would like to check it out
name dont ring a bell, ill check it out.

Malakai
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Post by Malakai »

I think I remember seeing it on one of the bbses I use to log on but never played it, but a few references in general web searches over the last few months show that autowars may have actually been a really popular mbbs game at one time, probably before mutants, crossroads, lord, etc..

Malakai
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by Malakai »

I am still searching for Dragon's Keep BBS. I actually found someone that worked at one of the companies that owned it and he's trying to track it down. So far, I've found out that its exchanged hands atleast three times and went from probably the largest north-florida bbses to an internet provider.

I highly doubt it's still being used as an ISP. It's probably laying around in a storage box somewhere, if it wasn't trashed.

Dragon's Keep probably had every MBBS module ever made from the late 80s to around 96.

I'm not sure how their IC was setup, because they did have a DMA server and was connected to several gamenets. It's possible they could have been using an older mbbs and dma server for IC and a few others. I know they had it available when they upgraded to worldgroup 1 or 2.

However they had it set up, they didn't lose their games when they upgraded.
dspain wrote: i just bought richcomm that was originally ran by nick sletnar for the wwbt channel 12 nbc television affiliate in richmond,virginia.
they put some money in that bastard, majormud,tele-arena,fw, and like 20 other high priced modules all running wg 3.12 when it went offline in 2000
with it also was mbbs 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 6.12, 6.25, wg1, wg2, wg 3.0d, wg 3.0n, then 3.12, i wasl ike whoa.
got it all including the really fast 486 it all ran on, LOL

its being sent UPS ground should have it in 3-5 days, im interesting to see what all modules they ran on the mbbs 4 and 5, im hoping its some of the ones we been wanting to port over.

if rick owns em i wont be able to send em out but atleast we'll have a place to play them.

few other guys have IC i been working on, im hoping to convert it to NT and find where ricks was crashing and iron it out, then send it to him so he can reoffer it to yall again.

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Toyduck
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by Toyduck »

Malakai wrote:
However they had it set up, they didn't lose their games when they upgraded.
dspain wrote:
if rick owns em i wont be able to send em out but atleast we'll have a place to play them.

few other guys have IC i been working on, im hoping to convert it to NT and find where ricks was crashing and iron it out, then send it to him so he can reoffer it to yall again.
Just as a side note, I found the source and .exe to The Major BBS version 2.2 that was released by Tim Styrker to the public domain on the Web last night. It's still available for d/l. You would have to have a Breakthru Card to actually use it for more than 2 users though (and Breakthru library) if you wanted to recompile it. It runs off a floppy...:)

Don

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dspain
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by dspain »

Toyduck wrote:
Malakai wrote:
However they had it set up, they didn't lose their games when they upgraded.
dspain wrote:
if rick owns em i wont be able to send em out but atleast we'll have a place to play them.

few other guys have IC i been working on, im hoping to convert it to NT and find where ricks was crashing and iron it out, then send it to him so he can reoffer it to yall again.
Just as a side note, I found the source and .exe to The Major BBS version 2.2 that was released by Tim Styrker to the public domain on the Web last night. It's still available for d/l. You would have to have a Breakthru Card to actually use it for more than 2 users though (and Breakthru library) if you wanted to recompile it. It runs off a floppy...:)

Don
yeah i got that 2.2 of mbbs too, its quite interesting in how far it came after seeing that.

frcorey
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by frcorey »

Toyduck wrote:
Malakai wrote:
However they had it set up, they didn't lose their games when they upgraded.
dspain wrote:
if rick owns em i wont be able to send em out but atleast we'll have a place to play them.

few other guys have IC i been working on, im hoping to convert it to NT and find where ricks was crashing and iron it out, then send it to him so he can reoffer it to yall again.
Just as a side note, I found the source and .exe to The Major BBS version 2.2 that was released by Tim Styrker to the public domain on the Web last night. It's still available for d/l. You would have to have a Breakthru Card to actually use it for more than 2 users though (and Breakthru library) if you wanted to recompile it. It runs off a floppy...:)

Don
I wish I still have my 5.1 floppys. I traded it away years ago thou and forgot who I traded it too.

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Toyduck
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by Toyduck »

frcorey wrote:
I wish I still have my 5.1 floppys. I traded it away years ago thou and forgot who I traded it too.
I still have mine... I just don't know if the disks are any good, I need to get a 5" drive out and install it. I tried my 6.25 floppies, and one of them are bad. Floppy's are not forever..:)

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dspain
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Re: Consider open sourcing IC

Post by dspain »

Toyduck wrote:
frcorey wrote:
I wish I still have my 5.1 floppys. I traded it away years ago thou and forgot who I traded it too.
I still have mine... I just don't know if the disks are any good, I need to get a 5" drive out and install it. I tried my 6.25 floppies, and one of them are bad. Floppy's are not forever..:)
yeah but in reality it would be for decoration, who would use a mbbs v5 system anymore?

i get emails all the time people wanting mbbs5 stuff im like why.
i have a pretty good idea why they want mbbs5 modules, cause then they would have the sources.

no ico, no majortcp/ip just a plain jane bbs for dial up.

could you imagine how ruined the wg community would be if each module out there came with its source code?

would be almost as bad as synchronet.

i mean i like the synchro software, was even better when i bought it back in 1995 for 500 bux. but now, hell i think theres a synchronet bbs in like every 5 homes in america

destroys the integrity of a good standard userbase.

anything you put on synchronet the next guy can get for next to nothing.
what are door games now likr 5-15 bux?

atleast with worldgroup you have the ability to design a custom enviroment for users/clients/partners,etc..

im not saying some legacy wg stuff should be lowered in price, but if its made freely available like synchronet is the community will go to shit.

hell when TTI bought gcomm look at the decline in sales,sysops,bbs's
and took a bigger hit when they folded.

gcomm.com forums would get hundreds if not thousands of posts a day.
the posts declined in 1998 and stopped in 2004.

while everyone may disagree that wg should be free/commercial i know one thing, it has stood the tests of time and even today people WANT to find wg stuff even if it means spending money.

goto a synchrnet forum and offer a synchronet specific door game and charge for it, you'll get more flames than positive feedback.

doormud? fell
ambroshia? fell

why do ya think synchronet went freeware in the first place? not making any money. but imagine if he released synchronet like it is today back when majorbbs/wildcat and all were piping good, he would have made a killing.

Questman
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Post by Questman »

I can't open source it.

And, Dan, like I've told you dozens of times before, just because games were distributed with source code does not mean you can acquire (legally or illegally) copies of the game and take it and make it your own.

You're going to get sued and/or arrested one of these days doing that.

If someone took ancient IC code and made something from it, they'd definitely have charges filed by me.

frcorey
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Post by frcorey »

Questman wrote:I can't open source it.

And, Dan, like I've told you dozens of times before, just because games were distributed with source code does not mean you can acquire (legally or illegally) copies of the game and take it and make it your own.

You're going to get sued and/or arrested one of these days doing that.

If someone took ancient IC code and made something from it, they'd definitely have charges filed by me.
so who owns the Kyrandia code and story?
can I make a custom game just for my system?

Questman
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Post by Questman »

frcorey wrote: so who owns the Kyrandia code and story?
can I make a custom game just for my system?
You, if you are a licensed SysOp, can modify the game, sure.

Kyrandia is a pickle. Obviously, it was a Galacticomm game. It SHOULD be owned by Metropolis at the moment (they owned the last flavor of the Entertainment Edition) but there's that weird situation with Westwood Studios who basically stole the descriptions and name .. and some of the game elements.. they were, I think, licensed SysOps and took the license to mean they could do what they want with it.. basically because they had more money they bullied Galacticomm... and they were complete a-holes in a couple of interviews... they're not good people. I'm sure if someone did anything with Kyrandia legitimately they'd try to out-money them..

Disgusting, but there it is. That's America for you - it doesn't matter who's right, it just matters who has more money. More money trumps more right.

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