Freecraft Project Canceled

Message

chizu · Post by **chizu** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 5:26 am

Blizzard has told the freecraft project to stop. And so they did. (see http://happypenguin.org/ for more.)

My question is...
To Devs:
Will freecraft remain in portage?

To Others:
Do you think freecraft should remain in portage?

I for one believe that we as a community have the freedom to develop freecraft and Blizzard is infringing on our rights, just to stop a non-existant threat.

[edit]
The freecraft project may yet be alive. A group of people have decided to fork the project. Head over to irc.freenode.org:#shadowconflict for more info.
[/edit]

maKKus · Post by **maKKus** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 6:26 am

I usually buy and play Playstation games, recently I've bought more and more linux supported games:
UT2003
Neverwinter Nights
Quake 3 Arena
Mindrover

and planning to buy Majesty

I was thinking about buying Warcraft III, because it seems to work with winex. Well they won't feel it but from now on I never ever buy blizzard games

DuF · Post by **DuF** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:27 am

Winex is the worst solution to play games under linux and I've never buy blizzard games because of their bad mentality !
I prefer put my money in LGP, idsoftware.... in real linux games.

hook · Post by **hook** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:45 am

i'm definetly for freecraft to stay in portage and as a project!!
freecraft is a great engine, and i'm not going to let it die away just because blizzard said so ...already posted a not-too-flamy mail to blizzard

YOU HEAR BLIZZARD? YOU'RE NEVER TAKE US ALIVE!!!!!

catzooka · Post by **catzooka** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 12:32 pm

i really cannot understand why blizzard feels the need to force the freecraft project to discontinue. afterall iirc, it is based upon or similar to the ealier warcraft engine, which is long outdated by the newest warcraft3 engine and i doubt that blizzard would suffer any signficant damage from the freecraft project, since their sales of warcraft itself is minimal and dwarfed by their sales of warcraft3 (unless of course im getting everything upside down and warcraft sales dwarf warcraft3 sales even though you have to look hard everywhere to find a copy of warcraft -- i don't think so) in any case, i really can't understand what blizzard is thinking. but cheers to the freecraft team for having done such a good job with freecraft

hook · Post by **hook** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 1:08 pm

Deftochino wrote:i really cannot understand why blizzard feels the need to force the freecraft project to discontinue. afterall iirc, it is based upon or similar to the ealier warcraft engine, which is long outdated by the newest warcraft3 engine and i doubt that blizzard would suffer any signficant damage from the freecraft project, since their sales of warcraft itself is minimal and dwarfed by their sales of warcraft3 (unless of course im getting everything upside down and warcraft sales dwarf warcraft3 sales even though you have to look hard everywhere to find a copy of warcraft -- i don't think so) in any case, i really can't understand what blizzard is thinking. but cheers to the freecraft team for having done such a good job with freecraft

i was thinking more in the way: how do you think these guys ripped a binary-only engine and made it open-source? do you seriously believe they read binary and understand how it works? i mean, noone does!! ...i also wrote this in my letter to blizzard

IWBCMAN · Post by **IWBCMAN** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 1:21 pm

well I believe Blizzard is ownd by Vivendi and of course for these folks open-source=piracy=p2p=anti-ip=pro-terrorist etc...maybe Blizzard had little say in the manner......

catzooka · Post by **catzooka** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 2:05 pm

@ hook:

yeah, i definitly agree with you here. converting binary numbers into decimal numbers is one thing, reading, understanding, and translating an entire engine from binary into source is practically impossible. im glad you took the initiative to send blizzard an email telling them so, though i think they'll be too arrogant to read it and even consider it. but in any case, you're right and they're wrong

@ IWBCMAN:

i don't think it really matters who is responsible. in any case its a shame that they feel the need to force a open-source project to discontinue, just because it may have a few similarities to a product they barely sell anymore. but thanks for pointing us to vivendia, maybe they deserve one of hook's e-mails as well

EDIT:

by the way, the freecraft project is not going to die anytime soon according to a comment posted by one of the developers of the freecraft project on happypenguin.org (Linux Game Tome). it seems that there will be a fork of the freecraft project under the name "Project Inferno." here's the comment posted on the Linux Game Tome:

We havent given up posted by diablod3 @ 65.114.190.126 on Jun 21 2003 7:41 AM
The official fork of freecraft, Project Inferno, has just started up, and Im the lead developer. Ive taken most of the development team with me. Join us on #projectinferno on irc.freenode.net

Good Luck!!!

boltronics · Post by **boltronics** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 2:38 pm

Lets keep it in portage.

I too sent Blizzard a letter describing my disappointment. I purchased Warcraft 3 and it was alright, but I too won't be purchasing any more Blizzard titles.

zhenlin · Post by **zhenlin** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:05 pm

I think it's probably something to do with the fact that it could be a Trademark Infringment (R) or a Patent Infringement.

Also, note that

Where can I send suggestions for games?

We appreciate the time and energy people put into making suggestions for our current and future games. Our company policy, however, prevents us from accepting for review any unsolicited ideas. Often in our industry, an idea being submitted will be identical or similar to one already used by other companies, or already being independently developed by or for a company. Therefore, Blizzard Entertainment® has adopted the unalterable policy of refusing to accept or look at any unsolicited submissions or ideas. You can post your suggestions to our Suggestions Forum.

Strangely,

Can I register a domain names containing some portion of your product names such as "star-craft.com" or "war-craft.com?"

Blizzard Entertainment® does not condone the use of our product names in other domain names. We are concerned that such use could cause confusion for our customers who may assume that the domain is associated with Blizzard Entertainment®.

They allow that kind of Trademark Infringement.

They are deathly afraid of overly similiar concepts. Unless they already own it.

I wonder whether they should sue EA for the similiar look-and-feel of the command interface of C&C Generals and WarCraft III.

BaronVonOwn · Post by **BaronVonOwn** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:22 pm

Blizzard makes good games, but they're not a good company like id, because of shenanigans like this (although naming the project Freecraft wasn't very smart...)

They're extreme Microsoft lackeys (purely DirectX, they even run Windows 2000 / IIS for their web server), and they've even invoked the DMCA once. So the only thing I respect about Blizzard is their game-making abilities.

And to answer your question- yes, I think it should be left in Portage unless Blizz tells Gentoo to take it out.

zhenlin · Post by **zhenlin** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:40 pm

Actually, they're not extreme Microsoft worshippers, they have always had a Mac version for every StarCraft and WarCraft game they produced. I have no idea what 3D interface/library/protocol they use though.

But then again, the Microsoft Mactopia developers are Mac fanatics too.

Uranus · Post by **Uranus** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 6:48 pm

dude, this is so wrong and they know it

chizu · Post by **chizu** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 7:03 pm

Well, to follow up on my original post, there is now an effort to revive the quickly shutdown freecraft project.

The name is changed and warcraft2 support will be removed in an effort to keep vivendi off our backs, and to provide an even better game. Check out #projectinferno on irc.freenode.org to see how its going.

kosamae · Post by **kosamae** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 7:51 pm

Hey, I say we try to DOS attack Blizzard.com at 9PM EST (2AM GMT) tonight. They can probably handle some seroius bandwith so its probably not worth the effort, but I'll send all the computers on my LAN to it, and sit there and clear my cache and reload the page over and over for a little while.

Maybe I should just file this one under my useless ideas when you don't have a life file...

HolyCoitus · Post by **HolyCoitus** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:09 pm

Blizzard has annoying policies for everything... I've gotten used to it, and am just not going to buy any more of their products nor let any of my gaming friends consider doing it either. They make good games, but they have the worst support and policies ever conceived.

Halanegri · Post by **Halanegri** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 12:33 am

kosamae wrote:Hey, I say we try to DOS attack Blizzard.com at 9PM EST (2AM GMT) tonight. They can probably handle some seroius bandwith so its probably not worth the effort, but I'll send all the computers on my LAN to it, and sit there and clear my cache and reload the page over and over for a little while.

Maybe I should just file this one under my useless ideas when you don't have a life file...

Revenge is stupid and premature.

boltronics · Post by **boltronics** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 1:15 am

Stradegy games of this sort was not Blizzard's idea. They stole it from Westwood's Dune 2.

They're extreme Microsoft lackeys (purely DirectX, they even run Windows 2000 / IIS for their web server), and they've even invoked the DMCA once. So the only thing I respect about Blizzard is their game-making abilities.

Actually, they're not extreme Microsoft worshippers, they have always had a Mac version for every StarCraft and WarCraft game they produced. I have no idea what 3D interface/library/protocol they use though.

From what I have read in the forums on the Transgaming site, I believe the games (at least Warcraft 3 anyway) can run on the PC in OpenGL (as well as DirectX). Transgaming supports the DirectX method though, and in Windows it seems to be the default method.

gentooJunkie · Post by **gentooJunkie** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 2:21 am

This sucks! I've always really liked Blizzard games, and have purchased two. I was very displeased when they needlessly invoked the DMCA to sue a group that was actually helping them, and harming them in no way. They just like saw an opportunity where they could sue, so they did. Now they needlessly shut down a simple open source project because the last part of its name is the same as one of their game series. Using trademark infringement as an excuse at that. Just plain evil. I was looking foreward to World of Warcraft and all, but not now, I'm through with Blizzard, never buying Blizzard products again.

velvetunderground · Post by **velvetunderground** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 3:46 am

heh... well you could preach to the choir.. or try to see the other side of the picture. they probably received many emails regarding [blizzard's] progress on freecraft. a game with warcraft 2 inspiration and the ability to read and utilize the mpq files and even name inspired can certainly have expected to have not been liked by blizzard.. even if it is open source and it wasn't competing in the same market.

it's unfortunate.. but surely understandable

[edit] oh yea... world of warcraft will have linux binaries released for it

[/edit]

boltronics · Post by **boltronics** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 4:00 am

I guess FreeCraft was seen as at least a minor threat (and a growing one at that). After all, my understanding is that FreeCraft is basically a clone of the entire Warcraft 2 engine - not just a compatibility layer. Perhaps this was not widely understood (at least in Blizzard's opinion) and they wanted to avoid unnecessary confusion (should gameplay slightly differ)?

Presumably, with a bit of extra work you could pull out screen grabs of the graphics of Warcraft 3 and slap them on the same engine. You wouldn't get the ability to change 3D views as you do in W3 with the scroll wheel, but I don't think too many people would miss that feature.

Would this be possible? Could FreeCraft really be so scary?

velvetunderground · Post by **velvetunderground** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 4:10 am

heh.. it's not necessarily about being threatening. if you own a copyright to something.. even if you're a fortune 500 company.. you'd like to protect that. open source still has to respect the conduct of closed source.

hook · Post by **hook** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 5:57 am

ok, let's get back to the name thing:
freecraft too similar to star/warcraft? ...get real, no WC/SC player would confuse those two!
also, even M$ didn't complain that OpenOffice.org and StarOffice were too familiar to M$ Office ...or even explorer vs. konqueror, norton commander vs. midnight commander, lindows vs. windows, for crying out loud ...do i have to check everytime if my child's name is too similar to a guy's that works in a SW company?!?! ...come on!!!!

hook · Post by **hook** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 5:57 am

sorry, dupe ...please ignore

puddpunk · Post by **puddpunk** » Sun Jun 22, 2003 8:28 am

kosamae wrote:Hey, I say we try to DOS attack Blizzard.com at 9PM EST (2AM GMT) tonight. They can probably handle some seroius bandwith so its probably not worth the effort, but I'll send all the computers on my LAN to it, and sit there and clear my cache and reload the page over and over for a little while.

Maybe I should just file this one under my useless ideas when you don't have a life file...

Watch out, they'll throw a lawsuit at YOU!

P.S. Why can't Freecraft change it's name to an obligatory Opensource recursive acronym? Binf? Binf is not freecraft?

Freecraft Project Canceled

Freecraft Project Canceled

definitly not nice at all...

Re: definitly not nice at all...

i agree...