Question about Birth of the Federation 2
Moderators: thunderchero, Iceman
Question about Birth of the Federation 2
Althought I very much enjoy UDM III Im looking forward to play BOTF 2 but I realized that there are many projects under that name. Can you tell me which one is better? Preferably one which has the dominion as playable race.
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Malvoisin
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There are already recent threads about Star Trek Supremacy and Birth of the Empires where you can find some information about them. Nevertheless since there are just two of them, try them both. Remember though all current downloadable versions are (pre-)alpha versions which means they are not complete.
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JeanNYGUARD
- Lieutenant-Junior Grade
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Wraith
Im a long time BOTF player... amoung the longest... I bought BOTF the day it came out
...
I can tell you BOTF2 is Star Trek Supremacy ... www.startreksupremacy.com
Birth Of The Empires (BOTE) is no longer a BOTF2 project ... they informed that they stopped that and changed all the content to avoid licensing problems. Some people think its still BOTF2, which its not anymore. I visited their forums today... not much going on there. There is a BOTE Star Trek mod being developed... but the game needs to be completed first. Then the process of modding everything can proceed.
Personally I believe the true BOTF2 is Star Trek Supremacy. Its a amazing game. Feels so smooth and energetic. The game is in Alpha state but theres alot of stability and functionability. Out of all the games I have ever played Star Trek Supremacy is beyond the best... even though it hasnt yet been completed. The creator of Star Trek Supremacy Mike Strobel has did a amazing and incredible job.
Stick to Star Trek Supremacy.
Im a long time BOTF player... amoung the longest... I bought BOTF the day it came out
... I can tell you BOTF2 is Star Trek Supremacy ... www.startreksupremacy.com
Birth Of The Empires (BOTE) is no longer a BOTF2 project ... they informed that they stopped that and changed all the content to avoid licensing problems. Some people think its still BOTF2, which its not anymore. I visited their forums today... not much going on there. There is a BOTE Star Trek mod being developed... but the game needs to be completed first. Then the process of modding everything can proceed.
Personally I believe the true BOTF2 is Star Trek Supremacy. Its a amazing game. Feels so smooth and energetic. The game is in Alpha state but theres alot of stability and functionability. Out of all the games I have ever played Star Trek Supremacy is beyond the best... even though it hasnt yet been completed. The creator of Star Trek Supremacy Mike Strobel has did a amazing and incredible job.
Stick to Star Trek Supremacy.
Last edited by JeanNYGUARD on Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Malvoisin
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Jean, once and for all, if you keep telling your story about us wanting to sell the game, I'll personally kick your ass, understood?
Maybe that's your conviction but then label it so. It reads like if we made a likewise statement. If you want, say IMO, but you'll get me enraged every time you don't..
Again, although I explained it like a hundred times to you, this game is unsellable even if we wanted to cause nearly all of the artwork is done by hundreds of BotE-unrelated artists all over the web who had done their stuff for personal uses and demand hundreds or thousands of dollars in advance for commercial use...each pic! That would translate into near millions as needed seed money, who in the world would ever lend us that money...
If that's not a convincing argument enough, I don't know. The whole thing was not driven by money issues but by the simple difference between US copyright and continental european droit d'auteur. I suggest you look that up in your dictionary before jumping to conclusions next time so quickly. Mike's always safe doing trek since all his copyright automatically belong to the trek copyright owners, i.e. Paramount. This is a speciality of US copyright. In Europe (UK excluded) this autotransfer is not possible since transferring copyrights are not possible at all, even if you want to give them away for free. That is the main reason why a high-level Warhammer 40K fan film called Damnatus got busted two years ago, because it was made in Germany, not the US. See here for a short sum up of the story: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... snafu.html .
I hope I'm able to convince you some time. I can't believe someone can be so resistant to reason for such a long time
. Btw. there is something going on here at our forums http://sirpustekuchen.si.funpic.de/phpBB3/ . I don't know where you were looking at..
Maybe that's your conviction but then label it so. It reads like if we made a likewise statement. If you want, say IMO, but you'll get me enraged every time you don't..
Again, although I explained it like a hundred times to you, this game is unsellable even if we wanted to cause nearly all of the artwork is done by hundreds of BotE-unrelated artists all over the web who had done their stuff for personal uses and demand hundreds or thousands of dollars in advance for commercial use...each pic! That would translate into near millions as needed seed money, who in the world would ever lend us that money...
If that's not a convincing argument enough, I don't know. The whole thing was not driven by money issues but by the simple difference between US copyright and continental european droit d'auteur. I suggest you look that up in your dictionary before jumping to conclusions next time so quickly. Mike's always safe doing trek since all his copyright automatically belong to the trek copyright owners, i.e. Paramount. This is a speciality of US copyright. In Europe (UK excluded) this autotransfer is not possible since transferring copyrights are not possible at all, even if you want to give them away for free. That is the main reason why a high-level Warhammer 40K fan film called Damnatus got busted two years ago, because it was made in Germany, not the US. See here for a short sum up of the story: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... snafu.html .
I hope I'm able to convince you some time. I can't believe someone can be so resistant to reason for such a long time
. Btw. there is something going on here at our forums http://sirpustekuchen.si.funpic.de/phpBB3/ . I don't know where you were looking at..-
JeanNYGUARD
- Lieutenant-Junior Grade
- Posts: 52
- Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:00 am
Mal
Kicking my ass wouldnt be a good idea... I have a military hand to hand combat background lol
Second. I thought you switched making A Trek game to a Non Trek game so you can sell the title. I heard of the copyright issue as well but I though that was another reason why you switched. I apologize if I incorrectly posted it.
You should of made a US Contact... who could claim temporary ownership over BOTE, but in either case I dont think CBS, or any corporation would bring you to court. Ive dealt with people in the industry and frankly they dont care. I bet even if you sell your title you wont hear from them. You could see their concern about Star Trek just by the way they treated the fan community. Plus their have been over a hundred Star Trek gaming projects that have been around since 2000... not one of em has even heard from Activision, Bethesda, etc. I did a project myself... and consulted with Paromounts / Activisions Division Manager Harry Lang, who really didnt care... he just informed that we shouldnt sell the titles for money.
Anyway I will correct my post.
Kicking my ass wouldnt be a good idea... I have a military hand to hand combat background lol
Second. I thought you switched making A Trek game to a Non Trek game so you can sell the title. I heard of the copyright issue as well but I though that was another reason why you switched. I apologize if I incorrectly posted it.
You should of made a US Contact... who could claim temporary ownership over BOTE, but in either case I dont think CBS, or any corporation would bring you to court. Ive dealt with people in the industry and frankly they dont care. I bet even if you sell your title you wont hear from them. You could see their concern about Star Trek just by the way they treated the fan community. Plus their have been over a hundred Star Trek gaming projects that have been around since 2000... not one of em has even heard from Activision, Bethesda, etc. I did a project myself... and consulted with Paromounts / Activisions Division Manager Harry Lang, who really didnt care... he just informed that we shouldnt sell the titles for money.
Anyway I will correct my post.
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Weirdness
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Birth of the Empires Trek Total Conversion Mod
Overview
Birth of the Empires, also known as "BotE", is a game being developed by a group of Germans, led by SirPustekuchen. SirPustekuchen started his project in January 2004 and went public in August 2006. BotE is a downloadable game that was originally intended as a spiritual successor to BotF. Recent fears over legalities, however, has meant that the Trek content was removed from the official version hosted by SirPustekuchen. The original game now features completely new game content. The game is highly moddable however, and a Star Trek mod will be the first total conversion mod of the game. This may sound like a strange system, but it will help to reduce or avoid many legal issues.
From what I read about BOTE, Someone DID apparently care, and Mal and others were forced to change all content to AVOID legal action. Can you verify this Mal?
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Malvoisin
- Lieutenant-Commander
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yes, me .
no, there was nothing like that. Where did you read that? I don't want myths and rumours fly around.
It was really just me informing myself about legal aspects of fan-created games (there's a really nice article over at gamedev.net: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... hichPage=1 and further: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html ). What got me started back then one year ago, was a copyright dispute between the official german Star Trek Fan Club (www.ostfc.de) and a rather large fan-driven trek community site (www.treknews.de). The story can be read here: http://syfyportal.com/news424065.html . Basically it was about some "unlicensed" downloads worth near 60000€.
That got me interested. Well I found out that legally all continental european fan works involving new story lines and campaigns set in a licensed universe like Star Trek are virtually intolerable by any of these licensers if they get known. Hence the Damnatus example from above where a complete film was disallowed by the Warhammer40K company to be shown for free due to exactly these copyright limitations in Europe. So they do care. This holds mostly for wider-known or potentially wider-known projects like a film or a game. Not so much for just a 3D model of a ship or a fanfic story or a mod which is basically just a zip file with various text and other files but they aren't served in a package with the game so they don't count as a full game with copyright status, more like a series of lower-level 3D models and fanfic).
Then ST:Conquest came out. A game that many fans who heard first about it, associated with botf2 (which resulted in cases of disappointment as you can read in various reviews and pages on the web). Some guys even started to complain at Bethesda's official boards about our game and fan games/mods in general being way better and more high-quality than their commercial games. Now that was bad publicity and we were right in the middle of it. It was that incident that eventually caused the change.
When you take a look at how Paramount treated trek fans, well it ain't that bad when you're American like the former Star Trek New Voyages (now phase2project) guys with their successful fan films. They even got a silent verbal agreement with Paramount (note: not a written permission which if they didn't care would not have been much to ask for). That coincides with my findings. Under US copyright you can even do major things like films and games with licensed content since legal departments of all major companies know the same as I do and tell their bosses it's no big deal if they continue using the licensed universe. I'm pretty sure if the US copyright system was the same as ours, STNV wouldn't have existed but that's just my opinion.
Nevertheless, to clear this whole thing up, we still plan to contact them personally. Harry Lang is sadly no longer doing the job at Paramount but we'll see. It will happen as soon as the new version comes out.
In short, everyone living in the US can (more or less) safely mod our game the way he wants, at least it wouldn't be clear right from the start that the use of licensed stuff would not be (silently) permitted. Of course they might turn a blind eye on you. But remember how quick Star Trek Supremacy got on Gamespot.com . Once there, they cannot turn a blind eye on you unless the game developer is living in the US, so the copyrights will always belong to them and Mike for example could never sue Paramount for using stuff or stories he developed first (which is possible under German law, it's called a double-deadlock-situation, no one can do/release anything related to the new work without the permission of the other).
Giving away ownership will never be an option. The way with modding the game by US trek fans is way easier and does not involve nebulous moves and agreements.
Glad you corrected it. I was just remembering our conversation from over here: http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewto ... 1&start=30 . That's why I reacted a little harsh. I skipped military service, maybe it would really not be a good idea to try kicking your ass
.no, there was nothing like that. Where did you read that? I don't want myths and rumours fly around
. It was really just me informing myself about legal aspects of fan-created games (there's a really nice article over at gamedev.net: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums ... hichPage=1 and further: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html ). What got me started back then one year ago, was a copyright dispute between the official german Star Trek Fan Club (www.ostfc.de) and a rather large fan-driven trek community site (www.treknews.de). The story can be read here: http://syfyportal.com/news424065.html . Basically it was about some "unlicensed" downloads worth near 60000€.
That got me interested. Well I found out that legally all continental european fan works involving new story lines and campaigns set in a licensed universe like Star Trek are virtually intolerable by any of these licensers if they get known. Hence the Damnatus example from above where a complete film was disallowed by the Warhammer40K company to be shown for free due to exactly these copyright limitations in Europe. So they do care. This holds mostly for wider-known or potentially wider-known projects like a film or a game. Not so much for just a 3D model of a ship or a fanfic story or a mod which is basically just a zip file with various text and other files but they aren't served in a package with the game so they don't count as a full game with copyright status, more like a series of lower-level 3D models and fanfic).
Then ST:Conquest came out. A game that many fans who heard first about it, associated with botf2 (which resulted in cases of disappointment as you can read in various reviews and pages on the web). Some guys even started to complain at Bethesda's official boards about our game and fan games/mods in general being way better and more high-quality than their commercial games. Now that was bad publicity and we were right in the middle of it. It was that incident that eventually caused the change.
When you take a look at how Paramount treated trek fans, well it ain't that bad when you're American like the former Star Trek New Voyages (now phase2project) guys with their successful fan films. They even got a silent verbal agreement with Paramount (note: not a written permission which if they didn't care would not have been much to ask for). That coincides with my findings. Under US copyright you can even do major things like films and games with licensed content since legal departments of all major companies know the same as I do and tell their bosses it's no big deal if they continue using the licensed universe. I'm pretty sure if the US copyright system was the same as ours, STNV wouldn't have existed but that's just my opinion.
Nevertheless, to clear this whole thing up, we still plan to contact them personally. Harry Lang is sadly no longer doing the job at Paramount but we'll see. It will happen as soon as the new version comes out.
In short, everyone living in the US can (more or less) safely mod our game the way he wants, at least it wouldn't be clear right from the start that the use of licensed stuff would not be (silently) permitted. Of course they might turn a blind eye on you. But remember how quick Star Trek Supremacy got on Gamespot.com . Once there, they cannot turn a blind eye on you unless the game developer is living in the US, so the copyrights will always belong to them and Mike for example could never sue Paramount for using stuff or stories he developed first (which is possible under German law, it's called a double-deadlock-situation, no one can do/release anything related to the new work without the permission of the other).
Giving away ownership will never be an option. The way with modding the game by US trek fans is way easier and does not involve nebulous moves and agreements.
Glad you corrected it. I was just remembering our conversation from over here: http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewto ... 1&start=30 . That's why I reacted a little harsh
. I skipped military service, maybe it would really not be a good idea to try kicking your ass -
Weirdness
- Lieutenant-Junior Grade
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- Location: Shilo, Mantioba, Canuckistan
I edited my post with a quote from here:
http://star-trek-games.com/index.php?op ... &Itemid=59
So removing Trek was just a precaution then... I stand corrected
http://star-trek-games.com/index.php?op ... &Itemid=59
So removing Trek was just a precaution then... I stand corrected
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JeanNYGUARD
- Lieutenant-Junior Grade
- Posts: 52
- Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:00 am
Wow ... didnt know German law is that strict.
Well I stand corrected. I apologize for the confusion.
Too bad you guys have to deal with all that craziness.
Anyway hopefully you guys get approval to do it... and we can have another BOTF 2 title. The more the merrier .
BTW... do you guys have a working AI for BOTE? Is so how long did it take for yous to make?
Well I stand corrected. I apologize for the confusion.
Too bad you guys have to deal with all that craziness.
Anyway hopefully you guys get approval to do it... and we can have another BOTF 2 title. The more the merrier
. BTW... do you guys have a working AI for BOTE? Is so how long did it take for yous to make?
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Malvoisin
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yeah we have. It did take several months to complete it, working more or less full-time on it, two coders. I can understand Mike taking more time with this. Our programmers were both still studying at college at that time which means they had a bit more spare time to take care of it and time is what you need most when coding AI routines .
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JeanNYGUARD
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Malvoisin
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depending on how complicated (which hopefully translates into flexible and brainy) you wanna program the AI, yes. It also heavily depends on time a person has per day to code. It's not a thing to do by the other day.
Since BotE is half-opensource (whatever that means) and the Civ4 AI is also open-source, he can at least have a look how others have programmed standard AI routines. I'd need to look how many code lines our AI has, I believe some 5k so it's 8-10% of the whole code which has taken 5 years to code which pretty accurately translate into 6 months of pure AI coding. Of course this BotE-related-only. I don't know how many code lines the Supremacy AI will have in the end. No one knows right now.
Since BotE is half-opensource (whatever that means
) and the Civ4 AI is also open-source, he can at least have a look how others have programmed standard AI routines. I'd need to look how many code lines our AI has, I believe some 5k so it's 8-10% of the whole code which has taken 5 years to code which pretty accurately translate into 6 months of pure AI coding. Of course this BotE-related-only. I don't know how many code lines the Supremacy AI will have in the end. No one knows right now.