Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods What older game should be done as a Mod ?

Hi, just thought when I see what modders can do in gaming world, what would be a game that should be "rebuild" with the D:OS Engine.

I got more than one:

The old Forgotten Realms series
Pool of Radiance
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness

Das Schwarze Auge: Die Nordland-Trilogie
D&D Temple of elemental evil
Arcanum: Of Steamworks
Ultima (IV-VII)

Dunno if thats possible, also Baldurs gate 1/2 and Planescape Torment, Divine divinity, Beyound Divinty would be nice in new clothes.


I know thats also a big copyright issue, so just thoughts immo.
A poll would be coll but i think the forum does not support this, at least could not find the function.

Lets hear your thoughts on this, maybe also with suggestions of other games that would be nice to convert.

Greetz
Schnitzelbrain

Update: Added the suggestions from later posts

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

D:OS and that game have a similiar type of feel I think.

I'd love to see any Ultima (IV-VII).
Ultima IX completely redone with the original storyline and open world exploration, since there's no way it could be worse than the Ultima IX we got.

Arcanum is also something I'd like to see.

I myself am a big fan of Das Schwarze Auge ( the Dark Eye) series
But the most logical thing would be to do Divnie Divnity and Beyond Divinity, even if I do remember playing them, it would be much nicer if they get redone in this decade, as for the dark eye let the ppl from dark eye do it in their own editors.

oh God...

How about the one's that actually give you permission? So start sending emails.

There is a good reason why no developer has been able to remake a copyrighted work without some sort of agreement with the license holders.

Just because something is free doesn't change that very good reason.

Unless you are totally ok with wasting hundreds of hours to lose everything you created just because the license holder sent a cease and desist template letter they have stored for this very occassion.

Even if you refuse to stop working on it, Larian, Steam and anyother big hosts will remove your threads/links/works before you know whats hit you.

I know it's just thoughts at the moment but I'm pretty sure there is intend behind the question.

I do understand that but how it comes that games like Morrowind are being redone also > Skywind. Same goes for Morrowblivion and that Oblivion redone in Skyrim I forgot the name. But you do have a point.

Atari Adventure.

Fan made mods work differently to commercial projects, especially those concerning 'abandonware' (aka - original title is no longer sold, but copyright of Trademarks / content persists).

Check out:

http://www.u5lazarus.com/

http://u6project.com/


Both are fully fledged mods for the Dungeon Siege engine that expand, rework but contain all the original content of Ultima V - VI. And Garriot loved them.


I'm fairly sure that if you could make an Ultima VII / Serpent Isle mod, and include all the cool bits [graphics, flags etc], you would be promoted to Internet Divinity and the world would love you. Offers of children, panties thrown at dawn and so on.


p.s.

Don't forget the pirate in the woods, and fix that damn insanity pipes quest so Cas isn't crazy forever! Shamino too!

Aleroth and Divinity 2 locations in general shouldn't be very hard to make. And that's what I hope some talented and able people will realise some day and execute it. Now that I think, only the Fjords (and other dragon-intended locations) would be a tad bit difficult to traverse without dragon powers.

I myself see no point in redoing games which are more then playable by todays standards(Divinity 2), ancient games should be redone in order to be played by todays standards of playable game.

You can make anything you want, why make something that already excist.

Right... Garriot loved them, and what would have happen if he didn't? Do you happen to know if the modders asked him if they could do a mod based on his work?

Funny how you and a lot of people think commercial or money making makes a huge difference in copyright infringement, the money part usually comes into play when settlements and compensations are made to the owner.

Anything that has expired copyrights (abandon ware means nothing), is royalty free (no copyrights required) or has come into agreement with the original owner (permissions) is Fair Game, feel free to do whatever then.

Seriously if I need to explain why taking someone's work without the owners content/blessing is wrong or if you disagree with this statement just go smash your head into a wall until you get it.

You basically disregarded copyrights, just because you disagree or ain't making money.

Before you start lecturing, realize that (indeed, infamously) Garriott doesn't own the TM / rights to the Ultima series. Origin Games does, and that's owned by EA.

Electronic Arts has allowed numerous fan games to release, free of charge, including remakes of their existing games. However, they have never GRANTED permission for these games, as that would imply some legal relationship that they cannot afford to see exist. So fan games exist in a sort of å µrey area? neither actively encouraged nor purposefully destroyed. That is a big difference over some other game studios, who guard their intellectual property from even their own fans...

For all intents and purposes, EA owns everything having to do with the Ultima franchise, except the character of Lord British, which is retained by Richard Garriott. This includes all of the game titles, artwork, music, characters, descriptions, etc. Copyright law is difficult to sort through, because it does provide rights for advertising, review, and fair use, which can be extremely confusing.

http://lycaeum.ultimacodex.com/fan-games/


Modding the D:OS engine to do a remake of Ultima VII would fall under the T&C of the two mods I linked - because you're using someone else's engine.

On the other hand, if you're merely porting / providing a 'working platform' to allow old games to work on a system, you'd follow the route of something like the Exult project, where you require the original source files from disk (*ahem*). GOG games still carries it.

That said, Exult is no longer being developed, suffers from game breaking bugs, and probably doesn't play nice with Windows 8. Ultima IV-VI are still available (GoG again), however neither Lazarus nor the U6 project have been impacted.

So, Ultima VII & Serpent Isle would be a grey area - however, re-imgagining it under the D:OS engine would more than likely be perfectly ok.



No, I did quite the opposite. Next time - instead of arguing, how's about five mins of research, eh?

I'm not a lawyer but IN PRACTICE no one would care(or care enough to actually sue you) if you made a Witcher remake or a Dragon Age remake or whatever, as long as you are not making money from it.

We all know that some companies won't pursue fan base projects based on their titles, thanks for clearing up the obvious.

Doesn't changed the fact that is still under the discretion of the Copyright owner, they may change their minds at any time and shut down the whole thing, change of heart so to say. Also they won't take kindly for any profits off the project either.

Definitely a bad idea to waste time on such mods, why risk it? Why be so desperate to ride of the back of another title than to come up with something original? You can make similar themes/gameplays why do you insist on the exact same characters/stories, etc.?

You are encouraging people to work on something that is a "grey area" as if the term itself isn't bad. Many businesses are not OK with grey areas, eBay for example doesn't allow grey area items. I've had the pleasure of selling perfectly legal items that ebay did not deem fit due to grey area.

I've also done Anime reviews on YouTube, No adds no profits, with a Fair Usage disclaimer, under fair usage law I was allowed to review something and put in highly editted clips of the anime. However that did not stop the Japanese companies from flagging my reviews off YouTube within a week, I recieved 3 strikes my YouTube account was terminated, YouTube decided I didn't own the copyrights so my arguement was null. They don't care about "fair usage".

You are also going way too deep in that Ultima shit, which I don't care enough to research, so no thanks, don't need to bring one specific title to a copyright argument. If thats the case I can point out the lotr mod that got wiped with a C&D letter, or any other similar case.

oh for me this is easy.

Planescape Torment.

that game always needed a sequel anyway.

you know, rather than whinging at someone about hypothetical copyright infringement, why not assume they would just ask the owners if they could go ahead with the project?

would hardly be the first time.

no, you're a bloody nanny. I bet you constantly feel the need to berate people for even THINKING of doing something outside the box.

get a life.

Both MERP / and the earlier MEMod have a particular issue in that they're using derivative works, names, locations which happen to be owned by Warner Bros / the Tolkien estate (with their own nested issues of copyright). Added to this is the fact that an LOTR MMORPG was licensed at the same time, which is optioned until 2017 (see here) then they were obviously going to run into issues.

Any fool could have instantly worked that one out.


This isn't the same as singular games, for obvious reasons.* Garriott himself has an Ultima-esque MMO in the works ( Shroud of the Avatar) but a single player (or even, *swoon* co-op Ultima VII) wouldn't infringe on it, and EA show no interest in the series barring milking it into casual "social" Facebook fodder.


It's pretty clear you've not played Lazarus, U6 project or Ultima VII, so I'll let you off with a mere shrug and a "stick to Final Fantasy" [note: remakes of FF's will also get shot down instantly, fyi]. Stick to youtube & anime - here's the EFF's guide to avoiding / challenging DMCAs.




Btw, many people love Ultima for good reason.


*I mentioned GoG for a reason - GoG can be a cheap way for companies to maintain TM options / commercial defense without having to worry about innocent modders, but I digress and you're too happy wallowing to see the reasons why this is a good thing.

This. Awesome game, would love for it to be coop as well.

Its not as easy to make up a new storyline as some of you might think, trust me I tried it, managed to squeeze up max 1h of gameplay, I could have made go kill this and go bring that stuff, but they are only time buyers.
My point is that its better doing something that is already proven but too old to be played by todays standards and legal or grayzoned. I am not sure but I doubt that Larian guys would have any problem if some1 redid their game in their own editor for their own fans. With that logic best choice would be to redo Divine Divinity or Beyond Divinity. Just if there is some1 willing to even do it, if there are no people willing to make teams for doing big mods there is not point to this conversation.