KQ9 is no more

[splat44]

Actuall, I wouldn't give up with those petitions just yet!

Remember, when TLS won with petitions regarding Vivendi?

There still some hope however due to the following reasons:

According to a moderator at TLS games, heard that the original KQ creator "Ken Williams" already sign those petitions.

Therefore, get those petitions in and let those goons at activision know that enough is enough!

[mkennedy]

Actuall, I wouldn't give up with those petitions just yet!

Remember, when TLS won with petitions regarding Vivendi?

There still some hope however due to the following reasons:

According to a moderator at TLS games, heard that the original KQ creator "Ken Williams" already sign those petitions.

Therefore, get those petitions in and let those goons at activision know that enough is enough!

It's probably going to take more than just him signing the petition to get Activision to change their mind, I mean for all they know it could just be some other bloke who just happens to have the name "Ken Williams" who signed it. Now if Ken and Roberta Williams personally wrote a letter to Activision  on behalf of the TSL team that gave approval of the game then the company may be willing to change their minds, or at least go back to the negotiating table.

[blueskirt]

Now if Ken and Roberta Williams personally wrote a letter to Activision  on behalf of the TSL team that gave approval of the game then the company may be willing to change their minds, or at least go back to the negotiating table.

I don't think so. All Activision care is protecting the profitability of the KQ's brand. I don't think they'd change their mind no matter who would back up TSL.

For the petition, as if the rather low number of people who signed it in the wake of the announcement wasn't a sign of failure, I doubt Activision would be open to discussion even if it reached its target number. And forget boycott already, there's not enough KQ fan for it to work, even if there was, gamers are completly spineless when it comes to boycott and ~65% of all Activision's profits comes from WoW and you're not gonna stop these folks from playing that game.

TSL has 2 chances of survival:
Activision would need to get a new CEO that would like to relaunch these old franchizes and use TSL as a diving board to promote it as several people in this thread pointed out.

Instead of trying to convince activision with petition, it's TSL you should try to convince to rework their game, no matter how difficult that would be.

But even if that were to happen, I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By now they've probably forgotten about it and are thinking about their next projects. You should do the same. TSL was not the first KQ fangame project out there and it won't be the last either.

[Julanar]

It's probably going to take more than just him signing the petition to get Activision to change their mind, I mean for all they know it could just be some other bloke who just happens to have the name "Ken Williams" who signed it. Now if Ken and Roberta Williams personally wrote a letter to Activision  on behalf of the TSL team that gave approval of the game then the company may be willing to change their minds, or at least go back to the negotiating table.

I'm the person who wrote to Ken Williams and I can assure you that it was THE Ken Williams who answered me. He said that he'd like to get involved in saving the game. According to his blog (www.kensblog.com, which is where I got his e-mail address), he and Roberta support fan-made games.

Here's the link to the petition if you'd like to sign it.

There is also a physical petition to back it up, in the form of a letter-writing campaign, so if you'd like to do more, go to the official website.

I know that a lot of you are skeptical about petitions, but I don't see how they can possibly HURT a cause. It also wouldn't hurt to BOYCOTT ACTIVISION, which many of us "spineless" gamers are actually doing.

Finally, some of you seem to be a bit confused about the TSL community's views and intentions, so you might want to check out our existing forums. Based on what I've read there, the programmers are honest people who stuck to Vivendi's agreement and had no way of knowing that it would eventually be bought by a less agreeable company.

I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By now they've probably forgotten about it and are thinking about their next projects.

You could not be more wrong.

[blueskirt]

I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By now they've probably forgotten about it and are thinking about their next projects.

You could not be more wrong.

Oh, my bad. I hate it when I badly word what I want to say and people use it to pull my arguments apart.

But even if that were to happen, I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By then they'd have probably forgotten about it and working on their next projects.

As for the "spineless" thing, I didn't want to offend you or anyone who's actually boycotting Activision, I was just making a remark on video games boycott movements in general. It's perfectly feasible for someone to completly boycott a company, but how many boycotters will remain at the end of the year, when Starcraft 2 and the next WoW addon will come out? Most gamers are fickle like that. Me the first, for years I hated Eidos and if I look at my bookshelves, there's more titles published by Eidos in it than any other companies.

[splat44]

Now if Ken and Roberta Williams personally wrote a letter to Activision  on behalf of the TSL team that gave approval of the game then the company may be willing to change their minds, or at least go back to the negotiating table.

I don't think so. All Activision care is protecting the profitability of the KQ's brand. I don't think they'd change their mind no matter who would back up TSL.

For the petition, as if the rather low number of people who signed it in the wake of the announcement wasn't a sign of failure, I doubt Activision would be open to discussion even if it reached its target number. And forget boycott already, there's not enough KQ fan for it to work, even if there was, gamers are completly spineless when it comes to boycott and ~65% of all Activision's profits comes from WoW and you're not gonna stop these folks from playing that game.

TSL has 2 chances of survival:
Activision would need to get a new CEO that would like to relaunch these old franchizes and use TSL as a diving board to promote it as several people in this thread pointed out.

Instead of trying to convince activision with petition, it's TSL you should try to convince to rework their game, no matter how difficult that would be.

But even if that were to happen, I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By now they've probably forgotten about it and are thinking about their next projects. You should do the same. TSL was not the first KQ fangame project out there and it won't be the last either.

Regarding your notion on the little number of petitions to convince Activision, it too early to express!
Look the number of petitions sent to convince Vivendi, those number must have huge for TLS to win before.

I guest that time will tell.

By the way, Julanar, thank you for contacting Ken William. At least we know the "Williams" support fan-made games!

Updated on March 9:

I just came TSL and someone suggested that game's information goes to shareholders from activision so they can put motion on table!

I thought, this one of the best suggestion for getting activision attention!
So perhaps, TSL can sent game's information on all gamer's magazines especially the ones dealing on corporate's finances for shareholders to digest?

Would you say?

[Mr Flibble]

A media furore is just about the only remedial action I can think of.

[InCreator]

This is idiotic.

For non-commercial game, why the hell would you need to beg anyone?

Just torrent it out - P2P and other similar distribution networks are WAY bigger and better spreaded than official ones - and just let internet magic do its job.

OR, turn it bootleg. Change name here and there, maybe mask with "in parallel dimension..." storyline and whoa, you can sell it.

[Danman]

Well on this topic I honestly think it is better to either stick to Original stuff.
Or change a remake so much it is not really related to the original.

Nobody can stop you from making a game if is named something else.
Like if I make leisure suit larry. Just change it to Leisure Charlie.
I could of never ever heard of leisure suit larry before.

Look anybody can make whatever game they want. They cant prove that it is related to the original if it is remade. Unless you like copied their sprites.


PS. torrents get around like anything. Like InCreator says.

[TandyLion]

When it comes to the "Why make sequels/remakes at all.." argument. Fans remake and make fan sequels to games they love for many of the same reasons that the big companies used to make sequels to their games.

Should Monkey Island have stopped after the first game? Or Quest for Glory? There is something great about these games that people crave to see more of it.

Its a shame situations like these occur. Thankfully for all the Indy fans, Lucasarts seems more relaxed on this nowadays.

[blueskirt]

Just torrent it out

Torrent is not an option because their real names were all over their game and website, and since they negociated with Vivendi and Activision, it's not far fetched to suppose Activision knows who they are and where they live. If they ignore the C&D and torrented their game at this point, lawyers won't just send letters, they'll knock on their doors. SQ7 had the same problem and so does FOY.

I always wondered why the people at AGDI insisted so much on being anonymous back in the days, I think we know why now.

[Danman]

Things leak though.

[Mr Flibble]

It's not an acceptable legal defence to shrug and say "I dunno, I didn't upload it! Did you? No? Well then it's a mystery forever! Case dismissed?"

[GarageGothic]

It's not an acceptable legal defence to shrug and say "I dunno, I didn't upload it! Did you? No? Well then it's a mystery forever! Case dismissed?"

Add an .nfo file in Russian with some fancy ASCII art and say your backup servers were hacked before the C&D arrived?

[splat44]

I just came from TSL forum!

They're suggesting fans to complete a survey which is completely free and email adress is not require!

Give it a try!

http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=c18124e2-bb26-4626-a0d7-e5a8d0621065

This survey results will make known to activision according to TSL

[Layabout]

Now if Ken and Roberta Williams personally wrote a letter to Activision  on behalf of the TSL team that gave approval of the game then the company may be willing to change their minds, or at least go back to the negotiating table.

I don't think so. All Activision care is protecting the profitability of the KQ's brand. I don't think they'd change their mind no matter who would back up TSL.

For the petition, as if the rather low number of people who signed it in the wake of the announcement wasn't a sign of failure, I doubt Activision would be open to discussion even if it reached its target number. And forget boycott already, there's not enough KQ fan for it to work, even if there was, gamers are completly spineless when it comes to boycott and ~65% of all Activision's profits comes from WoW and you're not gonna stop these folks from playing that game.

TSL has 2 chances of survival:
Activision would need to get a new CEO that would like to relaunch these old franchizes and use TSL as a diving board to promote it as several people in this thread pointed out.

Instead of trying to convince activision with petition, it's TSL you should try to convince to rework their game, no matter how difficult that would be.

But even if that were to happen, I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By now they've probably forgotten about it and are thinking about their next projects. You should do the same. TSL was not the first KQ fangame project out there and it won't be the last either.

Regarding your notion on the little number of petitions to convince Activision, it too early to express!
Look the number of petitions sent to convince Vivendi, those number must have huge for TLS to win before.

I guest that time will tell.

By the way, Julanar, thank you for contacting Ken William. At least we know the "Williams" support fan-made games!

Updated on March 9:

I just came TSL and someone suggested that game's information goes to shareholders from activision so they can put motion on table!

I thought, this one of the best suggestion for getting activision attention!
So perhaps, TSL can sent game's information on all gamer's magazines especially the ones dealing on corporate's finances for shareholders to digest?

Would you say?

Pfft. Shareholders are interested in one thing. Moar profit!!11!! They will not get this from TSL. All they see is a sub-par product that is using characters from one of their IPs. I'd say they should announce that someone hacked into their svn and released the game through a torrent. At least that way people could play the game.

(just noticed GarageGothic said the same thing. Blame the Russians, good move :p )

Activision from an outsiders perspective seem to be a pretty narrow minded company. From all the hoohaa with Infinity Ward over royalties and what not, to the Double Fine fiasco, there seems to be too much focus on money and not enough focus on supporting the gaming community. But that is ok I suppose, since they publish games that I am not interested in playing (with the exception of MW2). There has to be at least one publisher interested in making very generic mainstream games to please the console boners.

[Radiant]

It's not an acceptable legal defence to shrug and say "I dunno, I didn't upload it! Did you? No? Well then it's a mystery forever! Case dismissed?"

That is acceptable only if you can afford to spend more money on lawyers than the IP owner.

[splat44]

Now if Ken and Roberta Williams personally wrote a letter to Activision  on behalf of the TSL team that gave approval of the game then the company may be willing to change their minds, or at least go back to the negotiating table.

I don't think so. All Activision care is protecting the profitability of the KQ's brand. I don't think they'd change their mind no matter who would back up TSL.

For the petition, as if the rather low number of people who signed it in the wake of the announcement wasn't a sign of failure, I doubt Activision would be open to discussion even if it reached its target number. And forget boycott already, there's not enough KQ fan for it to work, even if there was, gamers are completly spineless when it comes to boycott and ~65% of all Activision's profits comes from WoW and you're not gonna stop these folks from playing that game.

TSL has 2 chances of survival:
Activision would need to get a new CEO that would like to relaunch these old franchizes and use TSL as a diving board to promote it as several people in this thread pointed out.

Instead of trying to convince activision with petition, it's TSL you should try to convince to rework their game, no matter how difficult that would be.

But even if that were to happen, I doubt the TSL team would revive it. By now they've probably forgotten about it and are thinking about their next projects. You should do the same. TSL was not the first KQ fangame project out there and it won't be the last either.

Regarding your notion on the little number of petitions to convince Activision, it too early to express!
Look the number of petitions sent to convince Vivendi, those number must have huge for TLS to win before.

I guest that time will tell.

By the way, Julanar, thank you for contacting Ken William. At least we know the "Williams" support fan-made games!

Updated on March 9:

I just came TSL and someone suggested that game's information goes to shareholders from activision so they can put motion on table!

I thought, this one of the best suggestion for getting activision attention!
So perhaps, TSL can sent game's information on all gamer's magazines especially the ones dealing on corporate's finances for shareholders to digest?

Would you say?

Pfft. Shareholders are interested in one thing. Moar profit!!11!! They will not get this from TSL. All they see is a sub-par product that is using characters from one of their IPs. I'd say they should announce that someone hacked into their svn and released the game through a torrent. At least that way people could play the game.

(just noticed GarageGothic said the same thing. Blame the Russians, good move :p )

Activision from an outsiders perspective seem to be a pretty narrow minded company. From all the hoohaa with Infinity Ward over royalties and what not, to the Double Fine fiasco, there seems to be too much focus on money and not enough focus on supporting the gaming community. But that is ok I suppose, since they publish games that I am not interested in playing (with the exception of MW2). There has to be at least one publisher interested in making very generic mainstream games to please the console boners.

Shareholders think about more profits?
Well that won't happen with current CEO!

Take the following Activision's CEO comment by taking fun out of computer game making:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6226758.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Before investors can expect profits, they need to consider having this CEO fire!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Yes, fun games can only come from angry people.

[Erpy]

Apparantly that quote was pulled of its context although seeing that his business ideas are controversial to say the least, I don't think a lot of gaming sites will go out of their way to clarify the issue. As impopular as Kotick may be with gamers and as damaging as his views are to game development as a creative venture, I think he treats his shareholders well. The whole "more profits, less creativity"-thing is the reason why he's so controversial.

Kotick being replaced will not reverse TSL's C&D, since I doubt Bob Kotick signed it himself.