In which we are thankful that Ultima is an EA property
Dear fans...suck it! Regards, Ubi.
Because if Origin Systems had been purchased instead by Ubisoft, this entire site and every fan project and patch on it would have been stopped dead in their collective tracks a long time ago.
Seriously…RavenShield 2.0 was one hell of a promising mod, promising to tax the Rainbow Six 3 engine to the max and deliver a better and more enjoyable experience of the game than had ever been seen before! (For those of you keeping track, there’s something like that for a certain Ultima title as well.)
But no…Ubisoft will tolerate no fan contributions to its games, and has demonstrated a brutal consistency in closing down every fan project of this nature. Why they do this beggars the imagination; a mod like this would move copies of an otherwise-dated seven year-old game, which would at least mean free advertising for the IP (if not a little more money in Ubisoft’s coffers).
I definitly wouldn’t be doing a fan project if Ultima belonged to anyone but EA. I think the Ultima and Wing Commander community has been very lucky that EA has kept such an open mind on all the fan projects.
BTW, Ubisoft don`t make rpg`s. And you know what? After all also Vivendi gave a permission to make fan 3d sequel to King`s Quest (2 episodes from 5 already have made). Lucas Arts also very tolerate to mod community. LA eventually resurrected Monkey Island!
Lucas Arts did indeed resurrect Monkey Island, but that can hardly be called a fan mod, even if they are using ScummVM as part of the package they’re shipping now.
And it would also be fair to say that Lucas Arts are mod-tolerant now. This has not always been the case in the past.
Sergorn pointed out that Vivendi did cause some trouble for the King’s Quest remakes, although it has since relented. That’s good too, since obviously Silver Lining is pretty damn cool. But I mean…c’mon, they wouldn’t have had issues had King’s Quest been an EA property. EA only really seems to get prickly about these things when they use original game assets (music, for example); remixed assets — even ones that very closely emulate the original — are permitted.
Actually Ubi-Soft are reportedly working on a as-of-yet unanouced RPG. And they also hold the Might&Magic IP… I wouldn’t want to be doing a M&M with them holding the IP. Gone are the time when a M&M fan effort impressed NWC so much the officially released it.
You’re right about the Silver Lining though, altough this one had serious trouble with Vivendi/Activition.
As for LucasArts they’ve actually killed some fan projects in the past as well. So Meh.
There was troubles with KQ sequel but that VGA remakes had no serious troubles with Vivendi. And after all it`s OK. And what fan projects LA have killed? There is HD pack for first jedi knight, some guy also porting JK1 to Academy engine. Dark forces remake still in work. LA didn`t forbid KOTOR2 restoration pack, so it is already complete. And so much activity in star wars modding community. *sigh* I wish that for Star Trek
I’m a bit late to modding community news, but I seem to recall that LucasArts was in the habit of killing off mods a while ago…mostly due to the fact that the mods were using e.g. traditional Star Wars sound effects.
It’s rather like what I said about EA: EA will allow a lot to go on as far as modding goes, but the minute a mod team starts using assets taken directly from an EA IP, that’s when the lawyers will step in and ruin things. It’s…difficult to make a Star Wars mod without using at least the sound assets that we all know and love from Star Wars, and that has gotten modders into trouble in the past. I can recall discussion of at least two separate mods for NWN, for example (I used to sing with some of the developers of that game), that got canned for this reason, though I don’t know the names of the mods themselves.
LucasArts have shut down a few adventure games projects in the past, including a couple of Monkey Island fangames, and an Indiana Jones one.
Im surprised people haven’t mentioned Bioware, since were discussing mod friendliness.
BioWare falls under the EA banner now. And a bunch of their previous stuff was published by Atari. I’m not sure of what Atari’s stance is on such things. This is really more if a discussion about publishers than about individual dev companies.
FWIW, there were a few NWN mods that got canned, but not by BioWare proper.