Open Machines?
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Hello.
I'm sure that the project is still alive. Maybe someone hibernated it for a while...
...but yes, I've came here to find out whether OpenMachines is still alive or not too. And I hope it is, too.Maybe one day, OpenMachines will be so popular amongst all the RTS games that it'll receive enough fame its predecessor deserved. Who knows? Maybe some'll even make mod-making software so you could make mods where the biggest unit is called "Collossus"?
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I tried three times and I cant access it. Are you sure it's online?
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Well, the sourceforge is. But you might not be able to access it somehow.
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@Encrypted said:
Hello.
I'm sure that the project is still alive. Maybe someone hibernated it for a while...
...but yes, I've came here to find out whether OpenMachines is still alive or not too. And I hope it is, too.Maybe one day, OpenMachines will be so popular amongst all the RTS games that it'll receive enough fame its predecessor deserved. Who knows? Maybe some'll even make mod-making software so you could make mods where the biggest unit is called "Collossus"?
Hello, a group of us started developing a prototype for OpenMachines, but we put it on hold for a couple of reasons. We were working with the Spring RTS engine, but we wanted to look into alternative platforms that may better suit our needs. Also, we’ve started investigating the legal status of the Machines IP rights. We want to ensure that there won’t be any consequences for using the IP before investing our time and effort into the project.
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Is anyone still running the youtube channel?
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I still have access to it, but we are not currently using it.
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I know some people think the channel is dead, perhaps an announcment could be made notifying people that it isn't dead, but rather, ahm, "asleep" for lack of a better term.
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Like Bilal said, it's kind of on hold. Doesn't mean we're not interested in the project anymore. At least I'm still motivated to continue working on the project.
Hope you'll continue supporting us in the future, even though the project is on hold for now. :)
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Well, good to hear a word from the developers. Hopefully someone could do new voices for the ol' machines, like Grunt, Gorilla, Warlord...
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My life will be complete when I hear that totaly freaky "Warlord Online" message once more, outside of WFW.
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Well, I've tested myself out in "voice-acting", if I can call it like that, and it turns out that my voice kinda fits to the Warlord's menacing voice...
...if I had a better mic, though...
Well, after all, I would like to help with voice-acting. All the machines in the original game has unique voices alongside with some replies, so it kinda is voice-acting.
Any suggestions which mic shoul' I buy (type and eventually name + link)?
Oh, also, I'm tryin' to voice-act for fun, and I also want to test myself out. My friend's got pretty decent software alongside with a great microphone, but he's livin' in Germany, so I don't think I'm going to use his mic anyway. He can convert most of my records to a decent robotized voice, though.
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Good to hear this project is not completly cancelled. But if you want somebody's support (not only the financial one) you need to start working on it again. No one supports halted projects.
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@Encrypted Can you do the voices of the sully Engineers and the Locators as well? xD
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@StonerHate said:
@Encrypted Can you do the voices of the silly Engineers and the Locators as well? xD
I might be able to. But it'll happen only if everyone wants me to do it.
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@StonerHate said:
sully
Oops. Seems like I accidentally used the wrong adjective. Not because I meant to use SILLY, but because I thought "sully" meant something wholly different... Well. Learned something new then ^^
And that would be awesome. You got my vote ;)
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Thanks for the vote. And, well, sully is a verb... I've just found it out.
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Okay. What's the fastest way to get up to speed? :)
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@Judas said:
Okay. What's the fastest way to get up to speed? :)
We were looking into making an open source recreation of Machines, and we started working on a prototype using SpringRTS, but then we started to look into other engines to use and had halted development. We're also trying to find who currently holds the rights to the Machines IP before making a final decision of what to do next.
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Ah.
- Acclaim Entertainment was the owner of the distribution rights. Nothing else.
- Charybdis Limited was the owner of the IP rights
- Charybdis was owned 75% by Hit & Run Music Publishing at time of liquidation.
- That makes them the current owner, probably?
Hit & Run Music Publishing Limited
25 Ives Street London SW3 2ND United Kingdom
+44 20 7590 2600(I'm not going to call. No, I'm going to send them... a letter)
- Try to acquire the rights nicely? Symbolic sum? They probably forgot about the game entirely.
- We're not making any money so we're not 'morally evil'
- It's a 16 year old game. There simply isn't money to be had by any party. There is no victim, there is no value.
- If there is some third party that wants to acquire the rights from Hit & Run, it wouldnt be cleber to kill of the hardcore fanbase of the game. Truly.
- We just change the name
- If we already have implemented a lot of goodness, we can remove the offending material and create new ones. But at least we already have other things in place (Maps, AI etc etc).
What I'm saying is that we should run with it and deal with the challenges along the way. Progress in development above all. The legal stuff we can worry about when it's a thing to worry about. Otherwise it's waste of time.
Continued! I'm all for the Unity 5 Engine (Or any other engine that's the 'best', even though it's not purely an RTS-engine). For one reason: Every year, there are thousands of kids (on insanely good computers) that try their hand on pc-game development. What engine do they use to start learning? Probably Unity 5. It's free, it insanely good.
Using one of the newest and best engines out there would be a sound business idea (even though this isn't business) simply because there are so many people with knowledge out there and many more that want to acquire knowledge about this engine for future careers. That's valuable. We supply them with the resources and watch magic happen.
Those are my thoughts 'n arguments. I invite your criticism.
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I am interested in working with issues along the way, however we want to call a couple more sources, which will be done soon. And it is not 100% decided if this is to be a commercial or non-commercial project.
Moving on, while I've used Unity for a long time, I don't think it would be fit as an engine for a Machines game because it does not work well with the developer when implementing modding tools. Also, as a personal opinion, I think the scripting method in Unity can get very unorganized.
I've been most interested in Unreal 4 (which became free in February) especially because of map making tools. Not only this, but with their new Unreal Tournament game, they've been creating lots of documentation on creating your own content for the game, using he Unreal editor. So I'm heavily leaning toward this engine because of the modding tools, and with a community like WFW I think that's very important.
We can do a more extensive comparison later today when I have time.
So if people want to get started, probably the best ways to begin would be for us decide on an engine, and go from there with getting used to it, working on art assets, etc.
