Mishar wrote...
ehye_khandee wrote...
iD software is not encumbered by a licensed product, they OWN all the rights to the product they gave away, this makes a HUGE difference; they won't get sued-silly by doing this, but Bioware would have to either get Hasbro to agree, or be sued. Hasbro licenses D&D every couple years, to give away D&D free would diminish the value of those future licenses (and face it NWN is darned good so very hard to compete with).
Yes, I agree, but hasbro hasn't any right on nwn engine, so at least it could be released anyway.
It would take a great deal of work to remove D&D from the engine, all the rules are D&D based, all the attack rolls, damage, feats - all of it D&D. This means someone has to put up that money first, even if Bioware wanted to 'give it away'. You do realize, Bioware also makes money licensing the software as it did with Witcher (and THEY created their own custom mechanics for their games built around the aurora engine). If they give the engine away, it will reduce maybe even eliminate any commercial value it would have to other companies. So again, it would be shooting themselves in the foot. NOTE the game is still selling, meaning all the parties are making money and so are unlikely to step in a direction that may inhibit that (they have what you call a FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY to the owners).
Mishar wrote...
Open office is a ALL VOLUNTEER PROJECT AND NOT FOR PROFIT it does not operate in the same world financially as do commercial efforts. In this case, free software would mean no money for the authors.
Sun (and Oracle after acquisition) started and financed Openoffice project because, starting from community efforts, could sell StarOffice, the office suite based on Openoffice. So it means no money for the community and money for the sponsor: the same in theory could be done for nwn. Sun wouldn't have started the Openoffice project if they couldn't take money from it.
I very closely followed the release of Open Office. You may fail to understand that SUN used Open Office to fire a shot across Microsoft's bow so to speak. Releasing it in that way meant that more than just Star Office users would be using the same formats and thus they had a crack at making theirs' the standard rather than MS' buggy formats. The community took up working at the code. Who would you propose (company wise) would put up money for the release of aurora? What company would benefit from it and exactly how would they benefit?
Mishar wrote...
Free means NO MONEY, so yes, if it made so much as ONE PENNY as commercially sold software it WOULD make more.
The WHY NOT is outlined above and in my previous post. NWN1 is making money, companies are in this for money, free does not make the company money.
Just a counter-example: do you know Ryzom? It's released under free software license (http://en.wikipedia....m#Free_software), but you have to pay for playing it, as for World of Warcraft, for example. Anyway, there is an infinity number of free software and free software-based succesful commercial project, just put an eye on Ubuntu's and Mozilla's foundation revenues on Wikipedia. Maybe english language is confusing in this point, because there isn't distinction between "free" as in freedom and "free" in the sense of "no money".
You may have noticed that with the world economy tanking the pay-to-play model is largely going down in flames. They even made DDO free to play you know. As it is, we are all free to play nwn as is for no fees.
NO, there is a FINITE number of free software projects. FINITE, not 'infinity' nor 'infinite'. I am very well aware of linux (been using it since 1989 or so) as well as many other free softwares, they are based on a very different model than nwn was. I am not at all confused here about the meaning of free, freedom, etc.. I'm just telling you those projects are very different animals. Most were BUILT FROM THE START BY VOLUNTEERS AND GIVEN FREELY TO THE COMMUNITY TO COPY FREELY AND FOR NO MONETARY EXCHANGE.
Mishar wrote...
Ergo the choice is clear. Giving it away for free would 'diminish the license value' something the owner of D&D is diametrically opposed to doing. Everyone already knows the D&D name, unlike iD, Hasbro does not seek the 'free publicity', just the license money.
Yes, I think that this is the main obstacle. Maybe D&D system could be forked in some way by community, but here we're entering in the fields of rights, patents, intellectual properties, and an expert is needed for saying if it is possible or not.
Your arguements are without merit and going nowhere.
Come on, we're not children anymore, we can discuss about videogames and compare our different opinions without being so aggressive, don't you think?
I am not being aggressive, I'm trying to tell you there are threads and threads and threads of people suggesting this and the bottom line is
1) D&D is a licensed trademarked property, fork it? HA, Hasbro has no interest in doing so, why would they? It would only dilute their market and cost them future profits.
2) NWN is very very deeply coded with D&D rules it would take a large amount of time and effort to extricate one from the other, who would pay for this and what benefit would Bioware see from such an action?
Unless you can show some clear reasoning why they should, where the money comes from, etc., you do not have a winning proposition here, you have only 'wishful thinking'.
GOOGLE this topic and see how many threads there have been, read and digest those discussions, maybe you'll come up with some angle that would work, but I've known many to try and none have convinced me, and obviously none have convinced Hasbro, Bioware nor EA.
Lots of luck tho. I'm not advising anyone to hold their breath on this one.
One note, I _have_ been in on deals involving the D&D license in the past, I know for a fact - having negotiated contracts with the owners of D&D that they hold the property very closely. I've been involved in computer industry contracting as well, and I don't see any angle by which you would entice Bioware to let this puppy loose, I believe it very likely they are utterly powerless to do so due to contractual obligations.
Neither you nor I are privvy to the exact details of the nwn/D&D license, but I've seen and negotiated enough of these contracts in my lifetime of working in this industry to say, I'm more likely to spontaneously morph into a dragon than I am to see nwn released as open source.
Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA
