KickStarter Free Stars: Children of Infinity - upcoming Star Control 2 sequel from original creator Fred Ford

[MRY]

The Ur-Quan Masters HD Project is a free, vastly superior experience. Did we mention it's free? Fans have been dedicated to improving UQM for 15 years and it is awesome! Hopefully Star Control I and III will also become available for free in the near future.

I am 100% behind this sentiment, and the sale of SCII seemed super weird to me, but I feel like King Solomon might draw some inferences about whose baby it is from this position...

 

[Cosmic Bane]

I'm going to offer the counsel of despair here -- this morning I was struck with the sickening thought that the announcement of Ghost of the Precursors, a game with nothing but a title to it, may have been part of the IP struggle, rather than the precipitating cause of that struggle, as often happens in Hollywood for instance...

Wow so insightful especially after it's already been posted by me twice already. Obviously they don't just so happen to declare a game 20+ years later right after stardock does by coincidence.

That doesn't mean there won't be a game if they win the rights but both of those ideas are so nebulous as to be laughable.

 

[Cael]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...rds-erupts-in-the-messy-world-of-star-control

Then there's a bit of needle:

"The tone of their blog posts is similar to the kind of correspondence they had with us since the announcement of their Ur-Quan Masters successor, vague, full of demands and without any documentation," Wardell said.

"With all due respect to Paul and Fred, they really should talk to competent legal counsel instead of making blog posts."

I am surprised that all of the Stardock fanbois didn't pick up on this. But then again, that's what defines fanbois, I guess.

The Stardock guy is a defensive dick who cannot take questioning and doubt, and goes on passive-aggressive attacks the second anyone stop praising him. I have very little doubt that he at the very least helped fan the flames of the disagreement with his baiting and then claimed innocence and hurt when Paul and Fred went public with the spat. This is judging from his posts here about the topic and about his game.

As it stands, it seems that Stardock is not the innocent victim in all this, but has an active part in creating the anger and the explosive accusations being thrown at them. It would be interesting to see what the outcome woud be, but I doubt it would be what those of us who are not fanbois want. Stardock is a fairly big company when compared to two individuals, after all. As I said before, I would no longer support Stardock in any way, shape or form, and the more I see of them, the more I think of them as another EA.

 

[Infinitron]

Stardock is a fairly big company when compared to two individuals, after all.

lol

Do you know what those two individuals have been doing for the past 6 years? I wouldn't be surprised if they could actually afford to buy Stardock or at least a good chunk of it. And that's part of what makes this so weird.

 

[Cael]

Stardock is a fairly big company when compared to two individuals, after all.

lol

Do you know what those two individuals have been doing for the past 6 years? I wouldn't be surprised if they could actually afford to buy Stardock or at least a good chunk of it.

Don't know, don't really care. It is obvious with the number of posts here by that Stardock guy with his passive-aggressive trolling flamebaits and the fanbois squeeeing over them like they were cooing over a babyt that Stardock has a wider influence reach than Fred and Paul, and that is likely to be decisive in a a war of business competition. Just look at EA's reach and how successful they are despite being the arrogant, IP-killing jerks they are.

 

[Infinitron]

Haha okay.

I will say that there is another reason for you (particularly you) to be more positive towards Stardock and its CEO Brad Wardell, but I'll let you discover that yourself.

 

[Cael]

Haha okay.

I will say that there is another (possibly very persuasive) reason for you to be more positive towards Stardock and its CEO Brad Wardell, but I'll let you discover that yourself.

Considering that it is a game company and not Stardock becoming the CEO of the world and laying down laws, I very much doubt that I have to be more positive towards Stardock for any reason whatsoever. Even before this thing blew up, I have had my doubts about Stardock as I saw them ripping off the SC IP just for the profit motive and nothing else. That does not inspire me to like them more under any circumstance, but I was willing to wait and see what sort of game they would produce, until that guy started with his needling trolling and flamebaiting. I am glad that I am not the only one to have picked up on his crap over the fanbois squeeing.

 

[Infinitron]

In other news, the Star Control games are now back on GOG.

Latest update on Stardock forums: https://forums.starcontrol.com/486284

Update 12/5/2017:

Dealing with the sales and distribution of 20+ year old DOS games is an unusual way to spend a Tuesday afternoon. Nevertheless...

Atari had transferred to Stardock a signed agreement between Atari's President and GOG that we assumed was the agreement. Paul and Fred claimed they were the ones who had set up the agreement and upon verification with GOG, we instructed them to terminate this agreement which they have which we appreciate.

The games are now correctly transferred to Stardock and we will continue to ensue that Fred and Paul receive royalty payments for the games per the publishing agreement. We apologize if anyone was inconvenienced.

Old IP can be messy to deal with. The best way to deal with that is to have the parties talk to each other (as opposed to making public Internet posts) and work something out. We remain committed to dealing with this situation with as much restraint and gentleness as possible.

This is unclearly worded. I assume the final "they" in the second paragraph refers to GOG, not Paul & Fred?

 

[Frogboy]

You know, for all the drama I am part of in the industry, I feel like I should get paid or something.

Stardock is a fairly big company when compared to two individuals, after all.

lol

Do you know what those two individuals have been doing for the past 6 years? I wouldn't be surprised if they could actually afford to buy Stardock or at least a good chunk of it. And that's part of what makes this so weird.

I take it you didn't know Stardock offered to transfer the Star Control IP to Paul and Fred in 2013 at our cost in the hopes that they'd make a new game. They declined.

 

[Makabb]

Man i LOVED the song 'the sound of silence' by paul and fred

 

[Makabb]

We've decided to stop selling our old games, because:

1. We think it's necessary to 'clear the decks' to help resolve our definitely-not-harmonious, until-recently-private, months-long conflict with Brad Wardell and his lawyers at Stardock.
2. The urqan masters HD project s a free, vastly superior experience. Did we mention it's free? Fans have been dedicated to improving UQM for 15 years and it is awesome! Hopefully Star Control I and III will also become available for free in the near future..

Why was it okay to sell the games on GoG, but not on Steam or elsewhere?

The simple answer is because we have had our own direct distribution agreement with GOG since 2011 and no agreement with Stardock or Steam or anyone else. If you're into details, here goes:

• In April 2011, we learned that Star Control I, II and III had been re-published on Good Old Games (GOG) — a big surprise since the games hadn’t been sold for years and no one had contacted us for permission to do so.
• We reached out to GOG who said our games had been offered to them by Atari as part of a large batch of older Atari products. We then contacted Atari to let them know that we were the original authors and owners of the copyright to the games and that we had not given permission for them to republish our work. Atari checked with its lawyers and wrote back confirming our claims, apologizing to everyone for the mistake and informing GOG to remove the games from sale and pay any royalties earned to us.
• Instead we suggested a way that GOG could continue to sell our games. GOG signed separate, independent contracts with: Atari to license the Star Control trademark, and us to license the rights to the games themselves. GOG has been selling the games and paying us directly ever since.
• In October of this year, history repeated itself when Stardock began selling our games on Steam and elsewhere (even bundled with theirs), again without getting our permission. This time we couldn't come to an agreement, so we asked that Stardock stop bundling and selling the games. They refused, so we've decided to end our 2011 distribution agreement with GOG as a first step to having the games pulled down.

https://dogarandkazon.squarespace.com/

 

[Cael]

https://dogarandkazon.squarespace.com/

So, Stardock basically lied to us about the timelines and gave us snippets here and there that bolsters their claim but didn't give us the full picture because that would reveal their deception?

Well, colour me unsurprised...

 

[Cael]

*a deleted post*

The sad part is, I was actually not that adverse towards Stardock initially. I actually liked GalCiv2 and played it quite a bit. The single player campaign was absolute and complete garbage, but the fluff on the techs and the races were pretty entertaining, and I was modding it for my own personal consumption and fun in the random map games.

And then I ran into that Stardock idiot here, and then found out about what they were doing with SC, and then this blew up.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The sad part is, I was actually not that adverse towards Stardock initially. I actually liked GalCiv2 and played it quite a bit. The single player campaign was absolute and complete garbage, but the fluff on the techs and the races were pretty entertaining, and I was modding it for my own personal consumption and fun in the random map games.

And then I ran into that Stardock idiot here, and then found out about what they were doing with SC, and then this blew up.

'That Stardock idiot' is not the only idiot posting in this thread.

Stardock is a fairly big company when compared to two individuals, after all.

lol

Do you know what those two individuals have been doing for the past 6 years? I wouldn't be surprised if they could actually afford to buy Stardock or at least a good chunk of it.

Don't know, don't really care.

Willful ignorance is the bane of meaningful discussion.

We may not have *all* the facts here, but at least we try to have them, unlike you.

 

[Cael]

Willful ignorance is the bane of meaningful discussion.

We may not have *all* the facts here, but at least we try to have them, unlike you.

Perhaps you would like to post the rest of my post, cat, because I actually iterated why it was irrelevant.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Also, just noticed this one now:

The Ur-Quan Masters HD project s a free, vastly superior experience. Did we mention it's free? Fans have been dedicated to improving UQM for 15 years and it is awesome! Hopefully Star Control I and III will also become available for free in the near future..

This, supposedly coming from Fred and Paul, is a slap in the face.

This is the original Star Control II:

Despite pixellated graphics, it's still a nice-looking game, with a heavy emphasis on vibrant colors.

This is the HD re-make of Ur-Quan Masters:

No soul, no style. Feels like it was cooked together in Flash. Or Unity.

To be fair, the HD mod does a few clever things (like how other ship turn in space instead of always facing upwards) but IMO it's not worth bothering with.



EDIT:

Willful ignorance is the bane of meaningful discussion.

We may not have *all* the facts here, but at least we try to have them, unlike you.

Perhaps you would like to post the rest of my post, cat, because I actually iterated why it was irrelevant.

Thank you for proving my point, moron.

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO YEP THE URQUAN MASRERS IS WORTHLESS NOT WORTH ANYTHING

FUCK THEM IN THERE DIRTY ASSHOLES FOR GIVING US FREE STAR CONTROL 2 WHCIH PLAYS JUSR FUCKING FINE AND LOOKS DECENT

FUCKING CUNTS IF THEY DONT SHUT UP ILL GIVE THEM A FREE FUCKING GAME AND SEE HOW THEY LIKE IT

 

[Cosmic Bane]

Complaining that Ur Quan Masters' graphics are not good enough

Every time I think Unbearable Cuck's mind tank can't go any more off, I am proven wrong.

 

[Infinitron]

Unkillable Cat just thinks the HD mod looks bad. Paul & Fred apparently disagree, but it's also possible they never looked that closely at it, but just heard about an UQM HD mod and said "Yeah, download that, it must be even better than regular UQM".

 

[LESS T_T]

Oh... now Stardock's own Origins is removed from Steam, as well as The Ur-Quan Masters and Kessari Quadrant:

Origins: https://store.steampowered.com/app/271260/

The Ur-Quan Masters: https://store.steampowered.com/app/358920/

Kessari Quadrant: https://store.steampowered.com/app/358930/

edit: Nah, Origins is back. Probably they (Valve?) made a mistake while taking down the old games.

 

[Cosmic Bane]

Unkillable Cat just thinks the HD mod looks bad. Paul & Fred apparently disagree, but it's also possible they never looked that closely at it, but just heard about an UQM HD mod and said "Yeah, download that, it must be even better than regular UQM".

How can a sphere model be worse than am indistinct 2d bitmap from 25 years ago? It is just nonsensical.

 

[Makabb]

 

[Infinitron]

Oh... now Stardock's own Origins is removed from Steam, as well as The Ur-Quan Masters and Kessari Quadrant:

Origins: https://store.steampowered.com/app/271260/

The Ur-Quan Masters: https://store.steampowered.com/app/358920/

Kessari Quadrant: https://store.steampowered.com/app/358930/

edit: Nah, Origins is back. Probably they (Valve?) made a mistake while taking down the old games.

Removed from GOG again as well after it was already returned. WTF is this tug of war.

 

[Makabb]

Removed from GOG again as well after it was already returned. WTF is this tug of war.

Must be a free marketing campaign for new Star Control which is going pretty well so far.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Two millennial dumbfucks that don't even know what Star Control is