19 replies to this topic

[Terefor]

Is this forum/game dead?

[Jeru]

"On hold" until further notice.

[Radagast]

The Last Alliance and 0 AD will both be using the same game engine. As 0 AD has a larger dedicated team and far more community interest (in terms of forum activity), TLA is mothballed until the 0 AD reaches a manageable level of development. If anyone else has taken a look at the pre-alpha release, they will know that it may be a while. Personally I am still stoked over even that much development- I wasn't expecting a release for some time yet!

[Aldandil]

I tried, but it's hard to keep the forum alive all by myself. Personally, I'm 100x more interested in Last Alliance, but 0 A.D. looks cool as well. I'm sad that even the work on the planning, ideas, and concept art for Last Alliance has stopped. Isn't the engine far enough along that the developers can start deciding what units, heroes, and buildings each faction should have, and stuff like that?


Anyway, the sooner 0 A.D. gets to an alpha release, the sooner the Last Alliance work can begin, and the less chance of a fatal loss of developer interest.

Edited by Aldandil, 28 April 2010 - 08:42 PM.

[Ykkrosh]

Aldandil, on Apr 28 2010, 09:40 PM, said:

Isn't the engine far enough along that the developers can start deciding what units, heroes, and buildings each faction should have, and stuff like that?

As far as I can tell, there are no longer any developers - the loss of interest has already been fatal. (And if anyone wanted to be a developer and restart work on TLA, I'd probably want to encourage them to choose an original concept rather than basing it on work owned by people who actively defend its copyright...)

[Radagast]

I thought that there is a fair degree of development already in place, at least for the First Age. Look at the features page; there are unit rosters for at least four civilizations.
I think that it would be a good idea to start a forum subcategory specifically for community contribution- concept art, proposed game mechanics, and reminders of potentially useful bits of Ardic (is there an adjective for Tolkien's world?) lore would probably all be useful to our pending development team, and it would keep us interested in the meantime.

[Aldandil]

I suppose the genitive of Arda would be *Ardo, since it's Quenya.

I can't say Ykkrosh's post makes me happy.



By the way, Tolkien Enterprises does not own the First Age, the Second Age, or books such as The Silmarillion and War of the Jewels. Those are still the intellectual property of the Tolkien Estate (presumably the man's family), a completely separate group of people who are not on a mission to eliminate fan projects. Tolkien Enterprises only owns the Lord of the Rings, and probably the Hobbit. So there's no reason not to at least make First Age and Second Age Middle-Earth mods of 0 A.D.

Edited by Aldandil, 02 May 2010 - 08:19 PM.

[Ykkrosh]

Radagast, on Apr 30 2010, 02:14 AM, said:

I think that it would be a good idea to start a forum subcategory specifically for community contribution- concept art, proposed game mechanics, and reminders of potentially useful bits of Ardic (is there an adjective for Tolkien's world?) lore would probably all be useful to our pending development team, and it would keep us interested in the meantime.

Feel free to use this forum for that kind of thing . I think currently TLA is basically the same as any other mod concept - lots of discussion about design, some concept art, no activity from current WFG members, and a few interested people in the community but nobody doing any serious work on it. If you (or anyone else) wants to resurrect it, I think it should be approached like any other new mod (though potentially making use of any information that's already published) - get a leader, get a clear vision and plan, generate interest and try to build a community of developers who can do the design and art and sound and scripting and so on. There's plenty of work that could already be done on top of the current 0 A.D. engine.

It's very hard to make a game/mod development team work (demonstrated by TLA's eventual failure to do so), but probably not impossible (demonstrated by 0 A.D.'s not having failed yet)

Aldandil, on May 1 2010, 09:16 PM, said:

Those are still the intellectual property of the Tolkien Estate (presumably the man's family), a completely separate group of people who are not on a mission to eliminate fan projects.

Their attorney says things like "Any such dissemination [of fan-fiction] is liable to legal action and the Tolkien Estate does not hesitate to take such action in appropriate cases. It follows from this that any writer of Tolkien-based fan fiction who distributes his/her work, whether via the internet or traditional methods, will make him or herself liable to legal action". Maybe they wouldn't really mind much, but I don't personally like the risk of having years of work shut down (as with Halogen) because some organisation decides it conflicts with their future commercial licensing operations and issues a cease-and-desist that would be too expensive to fight.

[Aldandil]

So... all fan-fiction and fan-art in the world, for any copywrited anything, is illegal, even if you only make it for personal amusement and never show anyone? And the Tolkien Estate also are against fans just as much as the Tolkien Enterprises? My mistake then.

I do not understand this attitude, though. These lawyers give the impression they are angry that anyone even discusses what they have read or ever mentions it by name.

Edited by Aldandil, 02 May 2010 - 11:30 PM.

[Ykkrosh]

It's not as simple as being illegal - a court could decide that it's not derivative work (a generic fantasy setting with orcs and elves should be fine), or that it's fair use (or the equivalent concept in other countries, where there is one), etc, if you choose to fight it that far. And the Tolkien Estate probably don't mind a low level of non-commercial interest, but they're not going to rule out the possibility of taking legal action in any cases.

It introduces a lot of uncertainty - the original TLA developers apparently discussed it a lot and thought it was worth the risk, but I'd want to be much more careful myself before putting years of work into a project and make sure nobody can reasonably dispute my right to be working on it. Just something to be aware of

[MrBlack103]

I hate Lawers . Oh, and laws. Hey, I hate the entire "copyright" concept

Why don't they understand that as long as it's a non-profit thing, it's doing nothing to undermine them? The only thing which could possibly happen with TLA is that it detracts from LotR (or The Hobbit in years to come) game sales, simply because it's free. Even if that did happen, it's their fault for being paid game-developers who can't compete with largely unpaid ones. To me, it's completely logical - let the fans do what they want as long as they don't profit financially.

Tolkien Enterprises (and to a lesser extent Estate) should aspire to be more like LucasFilm ( ). They let the fans do practically anything. INCLUDING STUFF THEY PROFIT FROM! (Google "One Man Star Wars" if you don't believe me).

Feel free to go ahead and pick my argument apart like a brain surgeon

Edited by MrBlack103, 08 May 2010 - 12:02 PM.

[Radagast]

I thought that Professor Tolkien's grand vision (as related in the letter used as the preface to The Fellowship of the Ring) was that he was merely providing the base mythology and that others were to be inspired to create the music, art, and all other elements of a culture! We are not allowed to do what Tolkien wanted of us?! Ridiculous- where does Christopher stand on this issue?

[chess007_phoenix_clan]

In order to avoid lawsuits why not try:

a) contacting Christopher Tolkien in a written letter explaining everything including the respect and Honor we all have for his father and his fathers great works. Also including the fact that no one is trying to make any money off of this.

It's worth a shot. I can do some research to try and find a good address. I'm sure someone could draft a moving persuasive professional letter.

Renaming everything to something vague. For example, rather than having "middle earth" why not have "faraway land" ? Rather than hobbits, have "magic tiny peoples". One could do this for every name, creature, place etc. Of course the names could be better than what I came up with, but my main point is they can be vague in order to view legal action. Consider how many fantasy games have Wizards, Trolls etc. in them.

c) Host everything in a country that doesn't care, perhaps Norway? For example, DCSS decryption is technically illegal in the U.S.A. as it violates the DMCA. It circumvents dvd content scrambling so that people who run Linux can view dvd's. But its still in use and commonly downloaded to Linux boxes. See for more background information:

http://en.wikipedia....n_Lech_Johansen

What work specifically has been done on this project so far? Considering all of the potential legal hassles it makes perfect sense that some people may have bailed out of the project. However, what happened to all the work that had already been done? If most people have decided to bail out, why not release what is done to the internet, perhaps someone will pick it up.

Some may know me as qaz123tfg from Age of Kings Heaven. I know project management can be a pain but it is possible. I am a member of the Phoenix Clan and worked extensively on their stats mod. I would be glad to help out as far as ideas and documentation for this project -- and in any other way possible.

Perhaps after 0 AD is released and people see how great it turned out, they will be inspired to join this project again.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Ah, I think I remember you. Been awhile since I've been over there at AoK Heaven.

I don't think there is much other then some plans and concept art for TLA. It was put on hold due to no one having time to work on it. I do think something more generic would probably be much safer and still allow individual users to make LOTR scenarios. It might work better as a mod. (Remember, 0 A.D. will let you change just about anything). By the way, I don't think that contacting Christopher Tolkien will due any good at all.

[chess007_phoenix_clan]

Seems to me like it would work well as a mod too.

[Aldandil]

I thought it was put on hold due to 0 A.D. not being near enough completion to know what the game engine would be capable of or how the game would be structured, let alone to start programing it.

And as for being a mod... wasn't that what it was always going to be? A mod of 0 A.D.?


As for Generic Middle-Earth Rip-off #7564... blech, count me out. I find all such "settings" to be depressingly dull, colorless, and lifeless. They lack the flavor of Middle-Earth that makes me love Tolkien's work, and have nothing whatsoever of their own to attract me. If there won't be a TLA mod, then a generic copy wouldn't interest me at all.

Edited by Aldandil, 11 July 2010 - 03:19 AM.

[Jeru]

Once there was talk of making a page that explained what TLA was about, why it was put on hold and where it's headed in the future.

I am in the process of rebuilding the WFG/0 A.D. website and would very much like to receive info on this topic from anyone who knows about it (even 2-3 paragraphs is fine).

[Radboud]

Is it ok if I e-mail one of the (former) team members?

[feneur]

Radboud, on Oct 7 2010, 07:14 PM, said:

Is it ok if I e-mail one of the (former) team members?

Why not? If they've got their address posted publicly I think they should be ok with getting emails Just make sure to be polite and explain who you are and why you contact them (That said, their email address may not be updated, so don't get too surprised/angry if you don't get an answer.)

[Radboud]

Thanks, I thought I'd ask before doing so. I'll keep it friendly.