TOP TEN REASONS WHY PLANESHIFT SHOULD SWITCH TO FREEWARE

[^HaWk^]

Planeshift should switch to a freeware commercial project for the following reasons:

- The development period will last almost 10 years, and the quality will not probably be the \"state of the art\" , cause creating an online world isn\'t a thing that you can do on your spare time I think..
- If it comes out to be an high quality thing someone will surely modify a bit the sourcecode and resell the game as its own, screwing up the entire project.
- It will be an heaven for lamers that exploit game bugs to get advantages or to mess up the server
- It would be really difficult to get a sponsor and/or a quality in-game support
- If it needs so much time to develop I don\'t think that updates will be so frequent..
- Having a little more money would improve the whole thing because it could be based on a 3D engine a little better than CrystalSpace opensource (which is anyway optimum as a free engine but not so good for professional purposes I think), and if developers get paid, the development speeds up  

(..maybe there are other four, but these are the ones that really matter   )

Here is now what I mean as \"freeware commercial project\". I mean that the final product should be freeware to customers but gaming providers, who would host it, will have to pay a license for it, and then they will make revenues from banners thanks to the boost of visitors on their website (for example by forcing to click somewhere before registering into the game or downloading the client),  always assuming  that the whole thing will be an high quality game of course.

[David_HD]

Well, I always thought it would just be the main team running the server. I suppose others could as well, but it\'d be a different game. I see no reason it couldn\'t be GPL\'d, and money made off of advertising or whatever.

And no-one could take it and \"make a few changes to the source and sell it.\" First, that\'s usually in violation of the GPL, or else that case really doesn\'t matter. Second, all the art and whatnot are all copyright their original creators. Someone would have to come up with a whole new set of artwork to distribute a game that didn\'t have these game developers\' blessing. Third, if someone DID somehow get around those obsticles, I don\'t see that it would hurt this game at all; who would play a game that costs money, if there\'s a free version of pretty much exactly the same thing?

I guess if the other retail version was significantly worse and had a great marketing department? It worked for Microsoft...

[^HaWk^]

Reply to David_HD :

>Well, I always thought it would just be the main team
>running the server. I suppose others could as well, but
>it\'d be a different game.

Why? If they get some high quality server for free, like those ones used for some UO shards, where\'s the problem?..

>I see no reason it couldn\'t be GPL\'d, and money made
>off of advertising or whatever.

Yes but it will remain an heaven for lamers that exploit game bugs to get advantages or to mess up the server, and will be also easy for someone to repack the whole game as its own in country such as Korea, or others far away, for instance, they would just need a pair of graphics to make artwork and no one will ever discover them.

Anyway I think that the only one which made money in opensource was Linux because of enterprises like Redhat, Debian, Slackware, etc. , but it\'s very hard to make money, and then speed up work, update the game frequently and get good servers, in this way.

 

[boonet]

they would just need a pair of graphics to make artwork and no one will ever discover them

Well, actually this couldn\'t be farther from the truth: the biggest part of development of a game, once engine/network/DB problems have a solution, is the development of contents. I assure you that just a couple of graphics would never be able to fill up a whole world with building, monsters, props, etc... in a realistic time, at least. Most of our effort, at the moment, is targeted to the creation of a large community of graphic developers, able to provide the vast amount of graphical contents needed. Not to account of the fact that 3d models need to be created along a pipeline that is strictly built around the code of the game.

S

[Strata]

well my game is going to be much better ^_^

[David_HD]

Originally posted by ^HaWk^

>Well, I always thought it would just be the main team
>running the server. I suppose others could as well, but
>it\'d be a different game.

Why? If they get some high quality server for free, like those ones used for some UO shards, where\'s the problem?..

No problem, really, if someone starts another server. I was just saying that even with the same world, it will basically be a different game since it will have an entirely different set of characters and GMs.

>I see no reason it couldn\'t be GPL\'d, and money made
>off of advertising or whatever.

Yes but it will remain an heaven for lamers that exploit game bugs to get advantages or to mess up the server, and will be also easy for someone to repack the whole game as its own in country such as Korea, or others far away, for instance, they would just need a pair of graphics to make artwork and no one will ever discover them.

Okay, I don\'t see why it \"will remain an heaven for lamers that exploit game bugs to get advantages or to mess up the server\" any more than it would if it was \"freeware\" or even if it was sold under terms similar to those most commercial games use.

As for someone \"repacking the whole game\": if it was GPL\'d, that would be perfectly legal. And why not? The thing is, they\'d still have to give this team the credit for the code, and they\'d have to release any of their changes to the code, which this team could use if they wanted and ultimately make a better game. Also, though boonet already mentioned this, the developement of content for a game such as this is not a trivial matter. Even if it was, it wouldn\'t be true that \"no one would ever discover them.\" If they release the source, it should be reasonably obvious. If not, first it\'s illegal, and second there are ways to determine whether an executable is from the same source as another, or even slightly altered source.

Anyway I think that the only one which made money in opensource was Linux because of enterprises like Redhat, Debian, Slackware, etc. , but it\'s very hard to make money, and then speed up work, update the game frequently and get good servers, in this way.

The goal wouldn\'t be to turn a profit, though, it would be to simply break even.

[Vengeance]

Hawk,

I disagree with almost all of your reasons for conversion to another type of project, and I also disagree with your logic of moving it to what you are calling \"Freeware\", so I\'m not even really sure how to start responding to your post.  I\'ll try though:

1. I disagree with the 10 yr timeline, and I have no idea on what you are basing that.  Another year or two seems realistic, but not 10.

2. Modifying the code and reselling it is impossible because the artistic content of the game is copyrighted to the PS team.

3. We are specifically designing the game to protect against \"lamers\" and hacks.

4. We will cross the in-game support bridge when we get there.  According to you, we have 10 years to figure that out, right?

5. We are updating PS on a daily basis at the moment, and in general Open Source projects release upgrades and patches much more quickly than commercial software.

6. \"Having more money\" is insane.  Where is that money going to come from, in your mind?  Commercial graphics engines can cost upwards of $100K, and NO projects use those engines unmodified.  Crystal Space is not at some of their levels in all areas, but Crystal Space continues to improve as well.  Right now, our 3d engine is not our limiting factor, and we have no ability to raise that kind of money under any circumstance.

7. Making the game free, but paid for by hosting companies, who get paid through advertising is also just a total non-starter strategy.  Much of the dot-com collapse was companies failing who had advertising-driven revenue models.  Banner ads are almost totally ineffective and forced click-through models are not valued by advertisers because they want people who are interested in their products.  If you were to spend 20 minutes investigating this topic yourself, you would see the impracticality of what you suggest.

This project is going to continue with the current free and open business model for the foreseeable future.  It is why our artists and coders and Settings people ALL want and like to contribute.  It is why our fans support the game.  And it is why this will ultimately be successful.

- Vengeance

[David_HD]

Hear, hear!

The developement team isn\'t in it for the money, they want something to play with (as a project...). That\'s the spirit of the best free software/open source projects.  

[MatzeB]

@Hawk:
Think again what you really want. The things you state here aren\'t possible. Commercial freeware? Why do you think aren\'t commercial games free? It\'s just not possible to get enough money with these licenses to providers to pay developers or a good support team. If you want that PAY for a commercial product. But don\'t expect something for free. Free software IS always LATE, but that doesn\'t mean it is worse. It\'s just not a consume only thing! Freedom normally isn\'t the easiest way, but it\'s worth it!

We\'re going the OpenSource way, which means that you often have to help yourslef instead of support (BUT other users have the same problems and lots can be solved by looking into boards/mailing lists or freaks that can fix bugs in the sourcecode). People probably will be able to produce cheats but that\'s true for each game so in the end you have to trust people that play with you.
Another reason why most of us don\'t want to go commercial is that we\'re doing this for fun, for learning or because we want a game. As soon as we go commercial we\'ll be faced with lots of different problems (legal stuff, how to sell it, we can\'t build an office with people spread accross the world...). This means the development won\'t be as fun as before and I personally would leave directly.