AQ2World.com

Hiya Black Monk!

Killer first post I must say, you go ahead and 'preach' to us some more now you hear?

But Monk, you've spent all these hours making the map for rq3, and its so "nice" that people convert it over to aq2, doesn't that also mean you accomplished something ? Alot of people love the work and play it.

I just don't see the problem. If people like your work, isn't that the point when your not trying to earn money ? People wouldn't bother converting stuff if it was shit, now would they ? Id be happy. Id think "wow they actually bothered doing that with my stuff, I must have created something special"

No the point is if we want to see their work we should play RQ3 to see it, even tho RQ3 stinks like 4 week old milk.
Monks got a big huge chip on his shoulder against you euros since you made AQ2 TNG and wouldnt use his AQ2 ETE, now you're paying the price with his vengeant copyright attitude.

Not because he is a yank, because TNG is better, fact.

Flunx wrote:Woot! Aq2world got 3 new members! And BlackMonk is still "active".
I just hope people will read your long post, because it was a good one.
Guess it's too late for Vermin to ask for permission.

But seriously. This might end up for the better. Maybe someone on this forum with some photoshop skills will actually make some skins now.

Yeah, I thought I made an account on aq2world years ago. But I couldn't find any old posts and the names I tried weren't valid accounts, so maybe it was on some older, other messageboard that was replaced.

FooQ wrote:No the point is if we want to see their work we should play RQ3 to see it, even tho RQ3 stinks like 4 week old milk.
Monks got a big huge chip on his shoulder against you euros since you made AQ2 TNG and wouldnt use his AQ2 ETE, now you're paying the price with his vengeant copyright attitude.

You're just jealous, is all! I blame that on the rampant east vs. west AQ2 scene in Australia warping your mind. And the poor kiwis, why won't anyone think of the kiwis?!?

Anyway, to address this, let me come right out and state it:

I think that AQ:ETE is/was a better version of Action Quake 2 than AQ:TNG. However, whenever I tried to promote it more often than not I got a poor response because, sadly, I was from the US and was trying to pimp ETE over the "european" TNG. I thought that ETE vs. TNG should be judged on the merits of the features and gameplay, but, again, more often than not my nationality came up as a reason to bash ETE.

It was odd.

Naw, I didn't mind that Europeans preferred TNG. US-based competition play required ETE for official matches. Most of the US used ETE. My main goal was to try and pimp out ETE because I thought it offered more features than TNG. Much of my dismay was that 1) no one knew about ETE, 2) people thought that TNG was the "official" or "only" version of AQ2, and 3) I saw people requesting features be added to TNG that already existed in ETE.

Such is life.

If I REALLY had a chip on my shoulder about Europeans and TNG in specific, would I have:

1) recruited TNG's coders (JBravo, Slicer, Freud did some work too?) to work on RQ3?
2) asked for some TNG features to be included in RQ3?
3) have tried to help out AQ:TNG and AQ:Millennium before it by sharing some exploit/cheat fixes and trying to at least work with Deathwatch and Igor (later custodian of AQ:TNG)?

You may feel free to contact JBravo, Slicer, Freud (if you can find him), Deathwatch, and Igor if you want to confirm anything I'm claiming here. They may remember the specifics differently but I've had good working relationships with all of them. I even spent time with Deathwatch and Slicer trying to pin down a "kick someone crashes the server" bug in AQ:Millennium, if they even remember that.

If I really disliked you crazy euros, would I have ever wanted to associate with TTI or Makro or scum like Lognoreng?!? (/waves to Log) Or would I have gone with a distinctly North American-centered team for RQ3? Coders... Elder, Blaze, NiceAss. Mappers... Centurion, Johnny Rocket, Hexydes, God Incorporated, etc. Modelers/animators... Cloud, Birdman, Sonic128, etc.

The opportunity was certainly there for me to do a whole 'no euros!' route for RQ3, if I really disliked Europeans.

But no, I whole-heartedly welcomed you godless hippies!

Monk wrote: If I REALLY had a chip on my shoulder about Europeans and TNG in specific, would I have:

1) recruited TNG's coders (JBravo, Slicer, Freud did some work too?) to work on RQ3?
2) asked for some TNG features to be included in RQ3?
3) have tried to help out AQ:TNG and AQ:Millennium before it by sharing some exploit/cheat fixes and trying to at least work with Deathwatch and Igor (later custodian of AQ:TNG)?

Ok, so this is just too amusing to me to pass up. The cynical answers to these questions are:

1) yes, to steal TNG's coders to try and kill it off
2) yes, because TNG is superior and I had to steal features
3) yes, to give them false information to try and SABOTAGE them!

Anyway, for those who are curious about TNG's lineage, going from memory...

-AQ2 is made and released
-Virus destroys AQ2 coder's work
-AQ2 is remade (.92?)
-AQ2 is mostly abandoned (1.0c, unreleased 1.1B2) for work on AHL
-Clan GENO recreates AQ2's gameplay to fix bugs, names it Axshun
-After a fight, ATeam makes GENO's code (after some changes) the official version (1.5, 1.51, 1.52, unreleased 1.53)
-[somewhere in here one of the AQ:ETE coders, Hal9000, contributes some fix for AQ2 which makes it into the official code]
-AQ2 1.52 source is released
-[40+ AQ2 variants start popping up]
-PG BUND's Edition variant is made, adds all kinda crap, is German-made, at the time Germany had a HUGE AQ2 community (now it's dead?)
-PG BUND's Edition more popularly known as AQ:Edition, goes through some revisions, source is opened, used as the base for several other AQ2 variants
-AQ:Igor's Edition is based on PG BUND's Edition, denoted by version numbers like 1.23i4
-Igor eventually takes over stewardship of PG Bund's Edition, releases 1.24 (?) and 1.25 (?), memory is hazy.
-AQ:JBravo Edition is based on PG BUND's Edition
-I hook JB up with Hal9k who gives JB some Q2 tips for his AQ2 variant
-Deathwatch and Slicer make AQ:Millennium and/or Action Quake 2000, I think name was changed to Millennium after I pointed out that at least one other AQ2 project was named Action2000.
-DW and Slicer work on AQ:Millennium (one version was ever released?), unsure of the codebase, might have been straight AQ 1.52
-AQ:Millennium implodes, scrapped. DW snags JB and along with Slicer start over using the PG BUND's Edition codebase.
-AQ:TNG is born, gets revised, updated, etc. You know this bit.
-Igor joins AQ:TNG's team and starts merging his AQ:Edition work into TNG, stuff like some irc server or something, I can't recall exactly.
-Igor sets up a SourceForge site for AQ:TNG

That's the last I know about TNG. As far as I recall, after it went on SourceForge, TNG pretty much died for active development. I think Igor tinkered around for a bit but not much happened? That was years ago, though, so who knows.

'owzat, eh? Informative for anyone curious about TNG? I hope so.

Hahaha you are a community all by yourself mate.

Yeah, I'll say that I'm sorry over here too. I didn't know that the original .pak where I got the RQ3 items was being distributed without a permission so I just edited the skins and re-distributed it. Luckily I posted my stuff on aq2zone.com forums too where they said that they haven't given the permission to do this. So like I promised on that forum I have removed the RQ3 items and also notified the admins of aq2suomi.com forum where the models were originally distributed so I guess it's only a matter of time before the original thread is deleted.

I'll also post some of my personal opinions about ripping stuff. Well to begin with I don't know the law considering copyrights so well but my general image of it is that almost everything considering ripping skins, sounds, models etc. is illegal. But at least my ethics say that when you rip something from newer games for something as old as AQ2, it doesn't affect the original game and most likely no one cares at least if you give credits for the original author. The effects are usually one-sided in the way that it's just positive for AQ2 because it gets new stuff which refreshes the game for some people, whereas the game where the stuff was ripped off from stays most likely unaffected.

But the story is different with something like RQ3. Why? Well simply because, even if there is no money involved, these games are heavily related. RQ3 tries to be that something in Quake3 what AQ2 is in Quake2, the most kickass mod of the game and RQ3 even tries to do this with the exactly same concept as AQ2. Thus it's possible that ripping something from RQ3 to AQ2 might affect things like RQ3's popularity in a negative way.

Well, here's the way copyright laws work in the USA USA USA !!!

If you create something, you AUTOMATICALLY get copyright on that. Meaning, under US law, if you make something, you're protected under law as the original content creator.

So let's say Vermin makes a new skin for the ripped-off RQ3 handcannon. Well, sure, the HC might be ripped off, but the new skin/texture he made is an original work. If someone then ripped off his skin and used it in their game or tried to claim the work as their own, Vermin would have legal recourse provided he could prove that he made it first and the work was ripped off without permission. Though I guess in that case the guy who ripped it off would have to prove he had permission in his defense.

Anyway, this is different than a trademark, which must be registered with a state or federal government agency (I think). You pay $ to say, "I own the name Reaction Quake 3" and then when someone tries to use it, you can show that you "claimed" it and sue them for stealing your name. Now this particular example opens up a whole can of worms; for instance, id Software would probably sue my pants off for using THEIR trademark without permission of "Quake 3" in my trademark. Plus, trademarks only really work in a single domain, i.e. someone could name their trash pickup service, "Reaction Quake 3" and I'd have no recourse since they aren't a direct competitor or involved in my product or livelihood.

Now, to complicate things even more, I believe there's ANOTHER type of "copyright" as well. There's the implied/automatic one you get as soon as you create something and there's another one that you can register with some government agency (for $) which somehow gives you more(?) rights under the law for the thing you copyright. Or something.

It's been a while since I've looked into this so my knowledge is not too great. That, plus I'm not a copyright lawyer (though Johnny Rocket, mapper for RQ3, is a contract lawyer, is that close enough?)

And don't even ask about patent law in the US.

Now I know in Europe things are way different and I don't know if your intellectual property (IP) laws have been united by the EU or are still per-country. And of course the enforcement of US copyright is pretty difficult depending on which country the infringer is in... and would probably be not worth the $$$ it would take to try and bring legal action against someone, for instance, ripping off the RQ3 weapons and putting them in an AQ2 pak.

But, like I said, I know it would be useless to be all, 'omg im gunna sue u!' about this so I figure the best approach is to explain why that's 'bad' in our eyes and our feelings on it.

Vermin wrote:But the story is different with something like RQ3. Why? Well simply because, even if there is no money involved, these games are heavily related. RQ3 tries to be that something in Quake3 what AQ2 is in Quake2, the most kickass mod of the game and RQ3 even tries to do this with the exactly same concept as AQ2. Thus it's possible that ripping something from RQ3 to AQ2 might affect things like RQ3's popularity in a negative way.

And now see, that's kind of my take on it, personally. If we were, say, Western Quake 3 or Urban Terror, I don't know that we'd be as annoyed at it. Well, ok, if we were the Urban Terror guys we'd be screaming and stuff, but what can ya do (/wave to Oswald, old Action Quake Map Depot head!)

But since RQ3 IS so similar to AQ2, I think it hurts more than it helps as a "tribute" to us especially when we're nearing completion on a new release. i.e. 'why should I download Reaction if I can get all their guns and stuff in AQ2 already?'

Hey, you know what's damn tasty? Linguini and clam sauce, is what.

wtf is aq2:ete

I remember us having ETE... until we got TNG

stop fucking responding to yourself, man you yanks love to talk.

It's our god-given right and duty to talk! USA USA USA!

Anyway, I need to get the AQ:ETE site mirrored somewhere again. I turned off the machine it was running on. Doh.