Kilroyfx found, alive and well!

[kilroyfx]

I thought about that, and I weighed it against the overall experience of the game.  I have considered making a tiny change to the logo like FRON SOFTWARE, but
the truth is I don't think there is a problem unless you are making $$$ but I am not a lawyer. Is FROM software still around??  My original intent was to really make
the KF game I was working on to seem like a lost KF game ..... but not get sued :)

[Holy_Diver]

Still around??? What what? From' is amongst the creme of the crop of Japanese studios/publishers.

In my opinion From' is one of only a few Japanese studios still turning out solid games, like back in the day... versus games that just take your money, show you an opening video, feed you derivative repetitive crap that hardly requires feedback from the player / plays like everything else under the sun and wouldn't qualify as easy mode if you were an 8yo in oh, let's say 1996.


PS: Calling it "Fron" is still (and more so) impersonation. Just to even cover your bases you'd have to modify your video very deliberately to say something like Sword of Moonlight / (c) From Software, etc. A splash screen with a technology is standard. But you just can't throw up a company name without context, or you appear to be the company, which is essentially identity theft.

[Holy_Diver]

**Shrug** technically the game is made by from software :P

Im pretty sure the SOM logo that it auto inserts into the game exe has their copyright on it too.

Nope... technically the game is made by you et al. Sword of Moonlight is made by From' ...there is a world of difference.

[kilroyfx]

Ha, You know I'm just joking.....I play a lot of their games.  And I agree about KF when it first came out was such a breakthrough rpg.  I think it affected a lot of players on a personal level but as far as keeping the game "legal" and owning all the digital assets for commercial use I really do not have whole knowledge on that.  I really don't feel comfortable even speculating because I have been wrong before, but it seems you have put a lot more thought into this and you are very passionate about Kings Field and a game you are designing. Thats great.  You seem like a very smart guy, and I wouldn't mind sharing ideas with you....:)

Again, If anyone wants access to any of my digital assets, library etc...they are welcome to it :) Even the techniques I used to create these assets. I have found the interface in SOM very limiting and there are some tricks I have used with autoit3 to maximize the use of SOM.  There is a limit to how many objects you can have on a map, how many commands you can have in the event windows and sometimes this is a shock when you have already designed your characters or maps to be a certain size....

[Holy_Diver]

Well you just don't really get the situation here. We're really cutting into a company's intellectual property territory, which is very untested grounds.

No company afaik has ever made an RPG maker etc. like "tool" that actually endorses making games based on a particular set of IP (namely KF) ...and further more KF as a franchise is pretty much in a sort of limbo, though I just can't imagine FS not pulling out a KFV for the PS3.

But anyway, it's a grey area between licensing and public domain. Something you'd never see happen in the states. Even Agetec is somewhat paranoid about SoM taking off, even though technically Atlus seems to be winning licenses for KF like games now.


Most of what I'm saying is just common sense. But I also don't want to see this community unnecessarily soiling any waters between any of the parties inadvertently involved. I am planning to remake SOM even, and I hope there will be a cordial (rather than adversarial) relationship with From' regarding these activities. Because I would like to establish a precedent/bridge between commercial entities and more or less public domain type appropriation of legacy assets. Such is the case we have here.

[dmpdesign]

Well my game is going to be called king's field, whether or not its legal.  If From doesnt like it they need only tell me and I can change it, but for now, it is what it is.

Im making no money from the game, so if they want to try to prosecute me then whatever, go for it and take the 5 dollars i have to my name.

Im not on the agetec or from boards, so I dont really feel too bad about saying it here.  If they didnt want a kings field game made from a 'kings field making tool' then they were stupid to release it.

I figure best case scenario they would at least see that people still love their game, worst case scenario I remove DD from its download links until I change the title and repost it.  I have had it up on here for a year now calling it kings field and havent heard a word.  I have even attempted contact directly to from software and agetec and neither have responded...so hell with them. 

Im not condoning anyone following in my footsteps, but im certainly not going to give anyone a hard time about it either.  We are all here making a game with a 10 year old foreign piece of software because the companies who made it originally either dont have the effort or the skill to make new versions themselves.  I cant help it today's games bore me to death or never get released in the states.  If from made a KF game I would be the first person to buy it, i bought demons souls on import praying for it to be like KF, it wasnt, so after I beat it, it went up on ebay to wait again for the next dissappointment.

SOM is a learning step for me, I may make another game with it, but probably not.  I want to move on to making better stuff with better tools, on systems that are state of the art and something i can make money with.  I figure with it I will do the best I can to make a game I enjoy, if DD gets shit canned by From after I release then its fine, at least I got to build a game the way i wanted it for a change.

I am really looking forward to working with the xbox game making tools...hopefully by this time next year I will have something for you all to see that you can actually download for a real system and not have to worry about all the bugs and hardware support for using the SOM tool hehe.

OK, well I spent enough time blabbing about nearly nothing ( I cant even remember why i started this post?).

[Hguols]

Kilroyfx,
I had to integrate many "work arounds" with my involvements in SoM.

Since you mention the placement limit, my workaround with that was to copy my items to the objects folder, and objects to the items folder.

This made for some strange items, but it made for more of a "you can place 768 things" rather than 512 objects and 256 items...

In your SoM constructions, have you run into latter map errors?  

I've noticed (whether its a high end or low end PC) that the first map runs best.  The 2nd and 3rd maps (warped to from the starting map) run ok.  The 4th map (going from 1st to 2nd to 3rd) has the occasional lag.  The 5th or 6th map might freeze and fatal error out.

Probably why my latter project works better than the earlier.

One main map, and all the other maps branch from it.  That way I never reach higher than a 2nd map on a detailed warp hierarchy.

Oh, and if I could please get whatever custom models you have, I would much appreciate it.  ^_^
__________________________________________

HolyDiver, I was under the impression that Agetec wasn't to worried about Sword of Moonlight.  A few months after I made Diadem of Maunstraut, I got an e-mail from Mark Johnson of Agetec saying it was really nice to play a King's Field-esqe game that he wasn't involved with.  

Then he asked me why his health was mysteriously decreasing when he loaded his game, and I told him to take off whatever Sonneillon equipment he was using.  ^_^

Atlas and Agetec have about as much to do with Sword of Moonlight as they do with Final Fantasy.  They could probably care less what we do with it.  This is From's baby, and if there are any dealings, it will be with them.

Then again, like Todd said, what did they expect in making the software like they did?  They had to have seen a potential empire and slew of games that would arise from this... 

Todd, I know what I've said to you in the past, (don't use the King's Field name!  Those From Software guys will sneak up behind you and give you a vasectomy!)  but I'm going to tell you to just go for it man. 

King's Field Dark Destiny, I'm sure, will go down in history.

[kilroyfx]

Yeah, I have not experienced the 3rd and 4th hierarchy problems, because I only went 2 levels deep. The objects and
items work around is a good trick. I only noticed the limit when I was making a forest ( I wrote a forest builder that would
build a forest on an empty map0 and it would crash when I reached the object limit.

As far as models, just let me know who/where to send them and what format. Also if you send me a picture I am pretty
good at building custom models in Maya. I try to make them match the kingsfield environment.  I have a very crude unfinished
project that you might want to check out it has a working telescope, a huge clock, and some other stuff like a dark basement
with a functioning light switch and magic mirror....:) I uploaded it to Todd.  Most was built with some tools I wrote in autoit3
which you are welcome to as well....not too hard to understand.

I made those videos, and my project to create some inspiration with the KF's game, because I was inspired when I saw "Diadem of Maunstraut" and couldn't believe that KF was still alive. I really like the idea of making levels and short games that people can share to re-live the whole KF experience. I have some cool ideas for puzzles, more advanced ideas to create simple AI, but in a way that is easy for the programmer.

[Holy_Diver]

Like I've said. I totally agree your game should be King's Field, and it's good you made a game directly in the KF line to set a precedent of sorts. Agetec can suck on a sock until you get DD on Wal-mart shelves, at which case Agetec might have a right to ask you to change things. It would technically depend on the wording of their license agreement with From'. Which might be pretty broad, because I think I read Agetec employees talking about wanting to make a KF game independent of FS before. Worst case scenario you might have to look into hosting the game on a server outside Agetec's licensing "jurisdiction" however far it reaches outside the US.

Edited: You should have every right to sell DD afaik. I'm actually interested in SoM because it's a license to make KF games / latch on to that legacy for publicity purposes. Imo it's much easier to make a game from scratch than a SoM game (but then I'm very/fairly broadly skilled I suppose)

PS: I don't know anything about Agetec, except Todd got a threat or two about using the KF name prominently or otherwise. I think Sword of Moonlight should be in the title somewhere just to be straight about things. But beyond that Agetec is stepping out of bounds under the circumstances. In my view both Todd and Agetec hold KF licenses, though it's possible Todd's does not apply in the US, but Todd is not trying to get his game in US stores, and the internet is technically not the US (or need not be)

[Holy_Diver]

Can you make a thread outlining precisely what you've (Kilroy) done towards "extending" the functionality of SoM??

Like what good to som is autoit? Are you just making macros for the editors? Or more? I notice it has source code on the website. Please, follow up in a new thread

BTW: How could you make a "light switch"? The lighting model is completely static (obviously)