Petition CA for MTW source code?

[oz_wwjd]

I'd still go with the petition. As had been said they can only say no. I'd start one myself but I'm not exactly the best petition writer,and have no idea where to lodge such a petition. How knows, If we get enough names we might be suprised..

[Wytchfynder]

I've noticed EA giving away their C&C & Red Alert game for free, and that got a big thumbs up from the EA players. I've also noticed that the Cossacks game has been released in a w7 playable netbook version for a small price. With so many people using netbooks it could be a money spinner to do the same thing for mtw1.

EA gave away stuff for free to celebrate 10 years so CA could do the same and give away mtw1 or stw.
If not, they could still make money doing a w7 netbook version like the Cossacks guys have done.

[sharpshooter]

I'm curious - has anyone approached CA directly?

I'd be surprised if they answered here. Some years ago a group of friends entered into discussions with Bullfrog/EA over a game called Dungeonkeeper (great game!). EA were not interested, but the talks kept going inconclusively until EA folded Bullfrog and discontinued RTS games. Now I hear EA are releasing the source code to a Chinese development agency. The point is that EA would only deal with a corporate identity in which they had a stake, with licences, NDA's, and payments etc.

IMHO if someone did approach CA/Sega it would be important to sell it on the benefits to CA, and those benefits should contain figures representing cash. Simply saying you have the will to do it and the present set up is crap won't cut it.

In short, I think you'd need to give them a proposal that the business people there could understand. Their developers and designers would have no say in the matter. Such a proposal would need to identify the issues, show the solutions, and, importantly, show where the gain for CA is, especially in terms of sales/cash etc. Good will isn't a line on the profit and loss account, despite the fact we all know it matters tremendously for their product. They do, however, count PR for something.

That said, I'm voting "yes" in the poll, and would definitely pay cash for the results.

[drone]

Without a contract I seriously doubt CA would just release source. I would imagine very few people can actually play the game out of the box on 1 year-old systems, so it surprises me that CA wouldn't hire GoG to rework it. Or update it themselves and release on Steam. From a business standpoint, this would be preferable since a patch or source release would be free, a download via GoG or Steam could bring in some revenue. For 5-10 bucks/pounds/euros/whatever, I'm sure many would re-purchase just to have a working version.

[sharpshooter]

I want to say I think it would be great if community developers got access to the source code. It's how to go about it that's the issue.

Firstly, it's a business decision that will be taken by business people. So, whatever is proposed to them has to have a business case. The developers probably won't be consulted, unless about technical and game design issues.

So, a 2 page proposal would probably do - with a nice cover sheet, an executive summary at the front, and headed up as something like "Proposal to increase saleability of MTW through releasing source code to developer community".

All/most of the things that should go into the proposal have been covered in this post. It just needs to be gathered together, and presented in a document that can be circulated amongst the relevant CA/Sega business people.

It will need to make a business case, and cover costs, risks, mitigation of risks and next steps.

A business case is:
- increase sales life of existing title with no investment
- increase customer satisfaction through solving existing technical issues
- increase brand loyalty by engaging with committed gamer community
- create brand advocates through release of source code (here you can give the examples of EA releasing Red Alert source code, and how the gamer community loved them for it).

This is the kind of language they speak - I deal with them all the time.

Then they'll want to know about costs, risks etc.

Costs:
- minimal: administrative resources needed to manage gamer community engagement
- value of gamer developers investment of time worth £125,000
- (you can quantify this - e.g 5 x developers @ £60 per hour for around 50 days)
- QA (Testing) of release candidate: 2 x testers for 5 days = say, £5,000

Risks
- loss of source code (someone might post it on the internet, just because they can)
- competitor gains access to source code (and hence game design)
- developers sell their own version of the game
- errors in redeveloped product damage brand value

Mitigation of Risks
- each instance of the source code uniquely identifiable
- each instance of source code kept on secure server/pc with individual log in
- signed NDA and contract allowing suing of those in breach
- developer QA and internal QA

For a business person, the thought of 50 versions of their source code scattered over an unquantifiable number of computers, with lots of access to all kinds of people - that is their worst nightmare.

They'll worry - "hey, what if these guys start selling the damn thing on the sly themselves? What if they sell it to someone in China/Russia/India"

They'll also worry - "is this going to give away our game design for the whole series? What if a competitor gets a hold of it?"

These are all legitimate concerns, and simple exhortation, or waving aside of risks etc. is not going to cut it.

Participants in the project:
Now they'll want to know who they're dealing with. A list of the people who will be involved in this project, what their skill set is and why they're qualified to do the work, etc. Brief, but this must be covered.

Next Steps
- response to the proposal
- meet with developer community
- agree procedures and contractual arrangements
- agree sign off procedure (of course they'll want to check what you've done before putting it out to sale)

Someone with a bit of skill with Word, and the commitment to put together the case could probably do this in a few hours. Ideally it should go as pdf. A real coup would also be having a powerpoint presentation - so the thing can be presented on a screen in 5 minutes.

Yes, formatting, graphics, presentation etc. is all important. The more professional you look, and the more you look like you understand their point of view the more influence your proposal will have.

The executive summary is essential because the top business people, the actual decision makers, won't read a long or even medium document. They want it in a nutshell, and a 90 second read is ideal for them.

Next steps for the MTW community:
The final issue is - is there a group of 5 or 6 gamers on this community who would commit to doing this? Go on, put your hands up! :D. That's much more important than voting in a poll.

[oz_wwjd]

Seeing no-one has put there hands up so far,maybe it would be a good idea to see about contacting a few of the major mod designers and see if they'd be interested? Or approach GOG about contacting Sega to see if they can acquire it and redo the code for modern systems? Just a thought

[Togakure]

sharpshooter I'm just becoming aware of this thread but I wanted to acknowledge your fine post and advice. Anyone looking to forward this initiative would do well to consider what you have written. Well done, and thank you.

[edyzmedieval]

I'm echoing Togakure's words, Sharpshooter has given us a very good account on how to proceed. I'm tinkering with his words, thinking over what could be done.

[edyzmedieval]

Our beloved Medieval Total War is reaching the 10th year of it's existence next year in 2012, and with that I was wondering perhaps a formatted e-mail with Sharpshooter's arguments on behalf of the Org community would be in order?

The aim would be rather a quick fix of the stringent video card/issues rather than the source code, which will not be given unless payment is made.

[Trapped in Samsara]

- value of gamer developers investment of time worth £125,000

Hi

Not looking to rain on anybody's parade, but does the MTW fanbase have people with the skills and time to make use of the sourcecode, were CA/SEGA to make it available?

I'd love it to be so.

Best regards
Victor

Sapere aude
Horace

[caravel]

Yes, I admire sharpshooter's intentions but on the whole, the proposal comes across as a very naive one.

There are basically two ways that source code could be released as follows:

1) The source would be GPL'd - this means it would be made "open source" and released under a free licence (i.e. the GNU LGPL or a similar license) for anyone to use within the restrictions of that free licence. Not as fantastic as it may seem https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...le_source_code

2) CA/SEGA would release the source code under a NDA to a company that specialises in revamping old games (i.e. "good old games"), they would not just release it to a group of fans.

The first method is the preferable one as the game will be essentially "free". That would be a wonderful thing for the ailing MTW community. Aside from making the obvious needed fixes for Windows 7/Vista and newer graphics hardware, it would also allow ports to MAC OSX and UNIX/Linux platforms. This would be the preferred option, but I'd bet money that it will never happen.

The second method seems more realistic and I'm uncertain as to why it hasn't happened. An agreement has already been made (old news) with Feral Interactive and they are now supplying a ported MAC OSX version of RTW. So it looks like NDAs are on the table if the conditions are favourable. A similar agreement could easily be made with good old games to do STW and MTW, but either gog are not interested/have not approached CA or either party don't like what's on offer. I would wager that gog are not interested:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt.....-Vote-for-it!

http://www.gog.com/en/wanted/

System Shock 2 is very much in demand with 15090 votes. MTW is divided up as follows:

Medieval Total War: 12
Medieval Total War Gold: 264
Medieval Total War VI: 221

Total: 497

Bad? Well it's worse.....


Medieval II Kingdoms: 161
Medieval II: 190

Total: 351


Rome: 212
Rome BI: 164
Rome Alex: 159

Total: 535

So... apparently there is more interest in "good old games" selling RTW (a game that actually runs on modern hardware :facepalm:) than there is in MTW... a game that will not run properly for most of us...


But it's not all bad...

Shogun Total War: 458
Shogun Total War MI: 281
Shogun Total War WE: 344

Total: 1083

Still well into the blue zone though and 14000 or so votes behond SS2...


So realistically this is not going to happen. SS2 is a cult game that was never really surpassed, the fanbase is understandable, the company folded and the series ended there. MTW is a wholly different thing, it had a sequel and the series continued - newer titles were released and still are. This is probably part of the reason why there's so little support. It's a shame, but there it is.

[edyzmedieval]

Wow, talk about support for SS2.

Open source it will never be released, but perhaps we will have some chances with the group of dedicated modders who provided the superb work for MTW so far. Names such as VikingHorde, BKB, WesW, Axalon and Cegorach spring to mind. But it's all volunteer work, again, and lots of work.

[caravel]

Open source it will never be released

Yes, realistically it's never likely to be released under any FOSS licence.

but perhaps we will have some chances with the group of dedicated modders who provided the superb work for MTW so far. Names such as VikingHorde, BKB, WesW, Axalon and Cegorach spring to mind. But it's all volunteer work, again, and lots of work.

As I said before, SEGA/CA are unlikely to release the source under an NDA unless it's to a reputable software developer/publisher. They are highly unlikely to just release it to a group of fans. Of those you mention, two seem to be inactive and as far as we are aware, all are modders, not professional C/C++ software/game developers.

To release to a reputable software developer/publisher there would need to be demand and monetary incentives. i.e. a company like good old games would have to approach CA, not the other way around. As there is next to no demand for this game at good old games (when compared with i.e. system shock 2), then I'm afraid it's not going to happen.

[PershsNhpios]

Isn't it time brothers, that this was brought to the attention of the forum and staff at large?

Stickied in the Entrance Hall perhaps, if this is a serious effort on behalf of the Org?

At the moment, only a very small number of our brothers are involved, and the population outside this Hall is largely ignorant of the discussion - which means that this is not really an Org petition.

With enough names and enthusiasm, you could even start your own renovation company and approach CA as a business!

[Myth]

The source code for MTW is second in importance (to me) only to the Thief 2: The Metal Age source. I would do unspeakable things to obtain them.

[caravel]

The source code for MTW is second in importance (to me) only to the Thief 2: The Metal Age source. I would do unspeakable things to obtain them.

I see, are you a programmer?

Getting very offtopic here but - yes. AFAIK SS2 uses the same engine as Thief, with a lot of enhancements and Thief 2 was based on the SS2 engine (collectively the Dark Engine). This could mean that a source release involve all three due to the shared codebase and age. The Thief/2/SS2 (Looking Glass) communities needs to put all their effort behind a SS2 or Thief 2 source code release - rather than voting for it on good old games or otherwise dividing their efforts.

[atheniandp]

This would be a worthy petition.

[Nikodil]

But I don't think anybody on the Org, that still plays MTW, that could be bothered to put effort into anything, and that has the time and patience, even has the skills to work with coding for games so mechanically complex, such as Medieval: Total War's engine, is around and willing to edit some code just to make MTW that tiny fraction better.

I could be wrong however... Someone out there, that enjoys playing MTW, that has plenty of time and patience, that can be determined enough, and has the skill requirements for coding a game so mechanically complex might rock up here at the Org tomorrow... But what are the chances of that, eh?

Old but interesting thread. Anyone still interested in an open-source clone? I mean, how hard can it be, it's not rocket science.

[drone]

I'm still hoping for a Steam/GoG update and release, although I would love to see the source if they did release it. I don't know much about DirectX/3D, but I would have a blast going through the gameplay mechanics code, there are lots of hardcoded items I would like to make configurable.

If Valve got the rights to fix it up, they might even produce a Linux version. That would be pure win.

[Nikodil]

I was thinking more in terms of a rewrite. I've been working on a battle engine for an iPad game. It's similar but a bit different to MTW. I just did an experiment writing a lua script that loaded one of the maps from MTW, and it turned out to be not that hard. There's no doubt that a complete rewrite is a lot of work, but on the other hand it's far from impossible. Here's a screen of the map:

[drone]

Looks pretty nice!

The IP rights issue might be a bit of a problem. But if my guess is correct, the game rights are in limbo between CA, Sega, and Activision and none of them would be sure if they could properly sue to stop a redo!

[Stazi]

Any kind of source code (original or rewritten) would be great. I was always dreaming about MTW with full 3D modable graphics but unchanged mechanics and current risk type strategic map. Ok, maybe a small changes here and there (like cavalry charge mechanic, armor functionality, removing limits in provinces, units, events, etc.).

@Nikodil Could you tell anything more about your iPad game?

[Nikodil]

@drone Interesting observation. Also, a decision to sue would primarily be an economic one. And besides, I don't see anything in the license agreement that prevents me form writing some lua scripts that access and display the media files from a valid install.

@Stazi It's here https://itunes.apple.com/app/id442916628, I'm currently working on a map editor and other improvements.

[edit]

Got some basic tree rendering working.

[Stazi]

Got some basic tree rendering working.

Nice. This game looks really promising. Are you going to add full campaign mode?

btw The only online store I've found that sells MTW has listed SEGA as publisher. The funny thing is that MTW is still 2nd best selling strategy game in this store . It's a mystery to me why this store can sell MTW while others can't?

[drone]

btw The only online store I've found that sells MTW has listed SEGA as publisher. The funny thing is that MTW is still 2nd best selling strategy game in this store . It's a mystery to me why this store can sell MTW while others can't?

MTW Gold came out of the Eras release, right? Sega bought CA in 2005, Eras was 2006 if I remember correctly. Activision released MTW:Battle Collection in 2004, which might be the same thing as Gold, can't remember about the patch status. This is one reason why I think we are doomed regarding MTW source, I don't think Sega has the rights to it, my guess is Activision does. Sega probably just owns the rights to sell the game, and that's it. Probably the same with STW. So unless Activison and Sega (and maybe even EA from the STW days) agree on it, STW and MTW will not get source released or given to Valve or GoG for modernization.

As an aside, Sold Out Games (where I got my DVD version of STW Gold) is run by the Mastertronic guys which got absorbed into Sega decades ago. What an incestuous line of work...

[Nikodil]

Nice. This game looks really promising. Are you going to add full campaign mode?

There's still a lot to be done with the battle mode, and I'm focusing on that. But yes, campaign mode is further down the road.

btw, for anyone interested, the source is on GitHub.

[Martok]

Nice work, Nikodil! I look forward to seeing what else you come up with.

MTW Gold came out of the Eras release, right? Sega bought CA in 2005, Eras was 2006 if I remember correctly. Activision released MTW:Battle Collection in 2004, which might be the same thing as Gold, can't remember about the patch status. This is one reason why I think we are doomed regarding MTW source, I don't think Sega has the rights to it, my guess is Activision does. Sega probably just owns the rights to sell the game, and that's it. Probably the same with STW. So unless Activison and Sega (and maybe even EA from the STW days) agree on it, STW and MTW will not get source released or given to Valve or GoG for modernization.

Cripes, I didn't even think of that. The possibility that Sega owns only the right to sell STW & MTW/VI -- and not the source code itself -- never occurred to me.

You're right in that it would explain things, though. I've long wondered why neither game was available for sale on Steam (or even better, GOG) -- goodness knows both titles would sell well enough! -- but I think you've hit the nail on the head as to the reason.

[edyzmedieval]

It just hit me MTW has turned 11 years old, since it was released in September 2002. A great piece of work.

[caravel]

I reckon we'll get the source code sometime around September 2022...

[AntiDamascus]

I'm not even sure if they still use parts of it in the new engine.