Was SoMI: Special Edition really an improvement on the original after all?

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

Well, it's a simple rule of life that everything DIYed is always cheaper than when you pay to get it already pre-made for you.

So making a game a $xx million dollars is cheaper than buying it in the store for $50,-? I see a flaw there.

Also, your interpretation of copyright laws is seriously flawed, but I wont be said if you get a massive penalty one day for it.
Sure, I pirate stuff too (music, they don't sell my kind here, and the DL services have aweful DRM) but not videogames, I always buy those...

[Gman5852]

Originally Posted by GuruGuru214

See, the thing about the Telltale engine is that while great, it's quite different from the original SCUMM engine. Even the Curse version of the SCUMM engine is a big departure from the original used in Secret. The Curse engine took the original 9 verbs and changed them into 3 context-dependent verbs. While that worked out great for Curse, it also means that the verb coin would never work in a true Secret or MI2 remake. For example: the verbs push, pull, use, open, close, and pick up were all consolidated into the hand icon, which would automatically provide the necessary verb depending on the situation. Now remember the safe puzzle, where push and pull were both necessary to unlock the safe? Or the rock catapult on Monkey Island?

And the puzzle underwater would be WAAAAYYYY too easy with 3 verbs(yet it was still easy but clever very clever)

[Uzrname]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

So making a game a $xx million dollars is cheaper than buying it in the store for $50,-? I see a flaw there.

If you made it, and if you like what you made - absolutely. Don't forget that if you made the game investing millions, then it should at least be as profitable to bring you back billions.

Or not. If you're a millionaire already and just like building games for yourself, right, Mr. Gates? =)

Also, your interpretation of copyright laws is seriously flawed, but I wont be said if you get a massive penalty one day for it.

For what? Misinterpreting copyright laws? Am I actually saying copyrights are BS? Am I saying that I don't follow them? Am I propagandizing sites to download TTG games for free? Do I even know they exist?

That's a capital N and an o.

EDIT: if this http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/...ead.php?t=6356 can be considered as rules, then please point to me what exactly did I say/do wrong. No, really.

Sure, I pirate stuff too (music, they don't sell my kind here, and the DL services have aweful DRM) but not videogames, I always buy those...

"Yeah, sure, I stole stuff. I didn't kill no one in the process, thou. So, I'm innocent." That's how you sound when you say it =)

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

Don't forget that if you made the game investing millions, then it should at least be as profitable to bring you back billions.

I don't think games make that much money, not even CoD:MW2. And that was, what, $260 million dollar or something to make? (It doesn't quite show does it, but whatever).

Or not. If you're a millionaire already and just like building games for yourself, right, Mr. Gates? =)

I don't think you realise how expensive it is to make a videogame.

Am I actually saying copyrights are BS?

Pretty much.
"It's posted on the internet... thus... it's free to use however you like!"
Yup, doesn't work that way...

[Olaus Petrus]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

lol
You still got half of it wrong.

My example of forced sales wasn't to say that they are wrong, it was on the contrary to show you how companies can make easy cash, and btw I accept this method as one of "scrubbing" potential customers.

Both LA (in the past) and TTG have done some great games and I, for one, never pirated any of them. But I did regret buying MISE and think that it's absolutely normal for this game to get pirated because it's not worth even 10$ of its price.

And this is where the brouhaha started.

If it's not worth half of it, then why bother even playing the pirated version? Around here 10€ is less than the cost of two good pints of beer (you can get two pints of shitty lager for cheaper though). So, 10€ is really almost nothing for a game. I could buy even shitty game for that price, if some aspect of it would amuse me. Personally I did like SE, so I didn't think that it was waste of money, although Tales was much better investment of my money.

[Uzrname]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

I don't think you realise how expensive it is to make a videogame.

If someone is worth playing it, then it's worth making. Nuff said.

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

Pretty much.
"It's posted on the internet... thus... it's free to use however you like!"
Yup, doesn't work that way...

Example 1:
a) you come to a website,
b) the website is not part of any larger domain group that is itself copyrighted,
c) it doesn't say anywhere on the website its material is copyrighted,
d) it posts stuff usually prone to be "stolen".
Question: if, under these conditions, you take something from the website, repost it as yours, copyright it and sell it, are you breaking the law?
Answer: no.

Example 2:
a) you come to a website that says its material is copyrighted
b) you do the same thing
Question: are you breaking the law?
Answer: yes.

Question: how is this saying that copyrights are BS?

[Uzrname]

Originally Posted by Olaus Petrus

If it's not worth half of it, then why bother even playing the pirated version? Around here 10€ is less than the cost of two good pints of beer (you can get two pints of shitty lager for cheaper though). So, 10€ is really almost nothing for a game. I could buy even shitty game for that price, if some aspect of it would amuse me. Personally I did like SE, so I didn't think that it was waste of money, although Tales was much better investment of my money.

Oh, did I mention that I also brew beer from sugar and yeast? Sugar = 1.49$ a pack in Canada, yeast = 50¢ a pack. Water... bah, I'll get some from a puddle and boil =)

Seriously though, I bought the game. I played it. It was half-way okay, the other half being "unfinished". That's the impression it gave me. Then someone comes in this thread and says: "Damn those haters! They don't know what they're talking about. This game is dynamite!" I protest and here we are, seven hours later, me vs everybody vs piracy being wrong.

And now you're forcing me to say that beer is expensive in Europe too.

[Olaus Petrus]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

If someone is worth playing it, then it's worth making. Nuff said.


Example 1:
a) you come to a website,
b) the website is not part of any larger domain group that is itself copyrighted,
c) it doesn't say anywhere on the website its material is copyrighted,
d) it posts stuff usually prone to be "stolen".
Question: if, under these conditions, you take something from the website, repost it as yours, copyright it and sell it, are you breaking the law?
Answer: no.

Example 2:
a) you come to a website that says its material is copyrighted
b) you do the same thing
Question: are you breaking the law?
Answer: yes.

Question: how is this saying that copyrights are BS?

Around here you become owner of the intellectual property immediately when you create it. For example if I take photo and put it to my own homepage, then it's my copyrighted intellectual material no matter if I put copyright symbol to it or not. Sure anyone can download it for their personal use if they want, but they can't legally distribute it etc.

[Uzrname]

Originally Posted by Olaus Petrus

Around here you become owner of the intellectual property immedaitely when you create it. For example if I take photo and put it to my own homepage, then it's my copyrighted intellectual material no matter if I put copyright symbol to it or not. Sure anyone can download it for their personal use if they want, but they can't legally distribute it etc.

If you're talking about this forum, Facebook, MSN Live or any other service provider, then yes. Because it becomes part of free distribution for non-commercial rights property. Whether you put the © sign on it or not.

I was talking about your own domains. For example you created a website on some bigger server that has no parent providers. Then you posted your pic there. Then I came, saved it, posted it on eBay for 5 bucks. Now if I do the same thing but take it from your Facebook account, for example, this be considered as copyright infringement. What is there so hard to understand? It's not even a topic subj, it's just how copyright legal mumbo-jumbo works on internet.

I am a music artist myself, I create electronic music using FLStudio, CuBase, Reason, etc. And I used to sell my stuff (now I don't) until I joined the freesound community, where you are obliged to say your tracks goodbye if you post them there. I did it with a couple of tunes, then someone came and took samples from one of it, remixed it into something I hated, and put back. That was the story, ever since I don't do that anymore.

That is to say that if you see a person telling you how copyrights work on the internet, it doesn't mean that they are against them.

[Olaus Petrus]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

If you're talking about this forum, Facebook, MSN Live or any other service provider, then yes. Because it becomes part of free distribution for non-commercial rights property. Whether you put the © sign on it or not.

I was talking about your own domains. For example you created a website on some bigger server that has no parent providers. Then you posted your pic there. Then I came, saved it, posted it on eBay for 5 bucks.

Now if I do the same thing but take it from your Facebook account, for example, this be considered as copyright infringement.

What is there so hard to understand? And btw, it's not even a topic subj, it's just how copyright legal mumbo-jumbo works on internet.

Nope, I checked the law book. It's my property even if it's in my private site, server doesn't affect to it (unless I agree to give away my copyright to owner of the server). That's how the copyright laws work around here, you just can't take other person's private photographs and drawings and use those commerically without legal consequences. It's a different matter if I care about such things and enforce my copyright.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Uzrname

I joined the freesound community, where you are obliged to say your tracks goodbye if you post them there.

Well, sounds like a site where you only post music if you allow them to be downloaded ("free" kind of gives it away). It's not the same on a personal site, with the © or without it. Unless specifically mentioned it's free to use ("stock") you cannot take it and make profit.

If you want to predict about copyright laws, learn it yourself first.

[DonCopal]

Originally Posted by Important-Looking Pirate

preferred the original. why remake a classic? the words "lazy" and "money" come to mind...

Lazy? Then why would they make the game in the 1st place?

I know the majority of the posters on this forum already owned SOMI, but do you realize how much easier (and cheaper) it is to access the game? I am very happy that LucasArts made the remake.

And why do people always have problems with companies making money? Let's face it, LucasArts is a business, and their goal is to sell games and to make money just like the local Deli. All products, such as Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, etc. were produced to make money. So? Because of LucasArts being "bloodthirsty for money," we end up with two masterpieces of games. As stated in the whole Piracy debate, why would any company be motivated to make a product if they gain no capital? You see, profits make the world go round.

[Avistew]

As soon as you create something and put it online, it's copyrighted, and your property. Putting "copyright" on the webpage does little, except maybe convince stealers they'd better not steal this specific content.

However, I think the point you're getting at is that it can be hard to prove it's yours. And that's true. However, if the person mails the content to themselves in a sealed envelope prior to posting it, for instance, then they can prove it.

The problem becomes, will people bother to do that? Most people won't. It is still illegal to use their content, but it's harder for them to prove you did. Just like it's always illegal to shoplift, but if there are no cameras it's harder for the store to prove you did it.

Doesn't make it right just because you might be able to get away with it, though.

[Little Writer]

And then you get all kinds of privacy laws where the right of observation of such behaviour is fought.

Instead of cavemen who bash each other's heads in, we've become white collars sueing each other's asses off. That's civilization for ya Makes you wish that sometimes people would just hit you and get it over with.


Now, back on topic: it all depends what you understand under "improvement". Better graphics and sound will always be an improvement in my book. I'll gladly buy any game remake done in the same vein (if it's an old game I already own, or one I've been dying to get but never found a copy of). Remakes like this got me back into the King's Quest series, one which I've always abhorred. And the Quest for Glory 2 remake actually inspired me to play the third game (though I gave up on it because it became too tedious).

Sure, individual people, and thus artists as well, all have their individual style. Concepts are created, discussed, approved. I don't think these guys simply slapped a doodle on there and called it a day. They're still creating things I can only dream of doing myself, so I'll always applaud them for that; sure, I might not like all of it for the full 100%, but so what? I don't have a problem getting over myself and moving on.

[Avistew]

On topic: I didn't buy it, so I can't give my opinion on how it is, but I can tell you why I didn't buy it: you couldn't play the old game with the voices (and I didn't like the graphics of the new one).

In other words, I wouldn't have played the new one because I thought it looked weird, and the old one being exactly the same, not with added voices, I didn't need to re-buy it.

I would have bought it if it had been old graphics + voices.

[Chyron8472]

On Topic: I've already said that I voted "about the same" because in some ways it's better, and in some ways it's not.

About piracy: I think that, while legal rights to IP's are decisively more clear, we'll never actually come to agreement about the moral implications about such things.

On the one hand, if a person or business created an intellectual property and copyrighted it, then it is theirs and they are well within their rights to be monetarily compensated (in other words, get money) for the sale, use, or distribution of it.

On the other hand, there are times when it would seem that the price of said merchandise had been set at a value that is by far and away as higher than would seem reasonable. For example, I personally think that it is ridiculous beyond words that a retail copy of the latest version of Photoshop is ~$600, or for a copy of MS Office is ~$400. Now, I know why they charge this much. It is because such software is popular and many a corporation will pay those prices because it is still cheaper than paying for the time spent teaching employees how to use different software. To the average consumer, however, those prices are ludicrous (which is why I have Corel Paint Shop Pro, WordPerfect X2, Word 2000 and OpenOffice.)

While it's just a cop-out for some to say "if it's on the internet, it's free" in an effort to justify their use of software piracy, I won't deny that I too have personally acquired pirated software when I felt that the publisher was charging exorbitant prices, or wanted to try out the full version of software before deciding whether or not to buy it, or else only needed to use certain software for one task only and one time only, and did therefore not feel the need to pay $50 for one simple task that I could find no decent freeware to accomplish.

Also, I used to have the argument in favor of piracy that sometimes a version of software becomes so old that it becomes difficult to find, especially at a reasonable price. While this might still be the case in some respects (ie. original copies of old console games), I would say that in this day and age with so much business on the net, if you can't find something for a reasonable price, you probably aren't looking hard enough. (ie. I found a retail copy of CMI on overstock.com at $25 for someone on these forums who was asking about it.)

EDIT: I bought SMI:SE from Steam, and it being my only Steam game as well as I hate to have Steam running in my system tray without it closing after I quit playing, I then acquired a torrented cracked copy of SMI:SE which does not use Steam, though I already have a legit purchased one.

Is that piracy? If you say "yes," and that I should only use software in the condition that it was sold to me, then feel free to have that opinion, but I'm still going to use it and not run Steam.

[Avistew]

Well, to be honest, you don't have to be a pirate to get free versions. Like, I could buy Illustrator for... a lot of money, or get Inkscape for free, legally. Not the same program, sure, but it gets the work done as far as I'm concerned.

I agree about prices being ridiculous at times. For instance, I bought a pocket book 10 years ago that cost €17. It was an omnibus edition of a trilogy.
Yesterday I thought "hey, I'll buy the first two books (didn't like the third one) for my Sony Reader" (so, e-book version).

Looked for them, could only find the first one. For €17.50. Yeah, 50 cents more than the whole trilogy as a pocket book, and under the price was "original price 19.50" by which they meant that when it was released (20 years ago, by the way), the first edition of the book cost that (or rather the equivalent in Francs).

Now, I don't think that a book that was released 20 years ago should be sold as an ebook for pretty much the same price as the first edition, big-sized copy, when I could buy the pocket version for 5 bucks. It does not make any sense, and I didn't buy it as a result.

When books are first released, I can see the ebook selling for the same price - 2 bucks: that's how much they spend for printing costs, so that's how much less it should cost.
But when the paperpack version is out, the ebook shouldn't cost more than the pocket version. It just shouldn't.

Anyways, if people price these things so high, they shouldn't wonder why people don't buy them. But that in no way justifies pirating a copy.
(However, since I own the paper version of the book, I've been typing it myself, which I figure is perfectly legal as long as I don't distribute it. I would hate to have to do that for every book though, so I'm glad English-language ebooks are priced more reasonably than the French ones).

[Chyron8472]

Avistew, on the subject of books, I have bought the entire book series of Harry Potter (US edition) in hardcover. Since Rowling refuses to release said series in ebook, I downloaded a torrented copy of them in PDF format and used Calibre to convert it for use on my wife's Kindle2. Again, is this piracy? I'm not going to type it out all myself, especially since I don't have a scanner and someone else already did that... and I do own paper copies of the books. So then if it is piracy, I don't care. Rowling should make it available for ebook, and then I would consider not doing it.

Also, I do own the first 3 Inheritance Cycle (Eragon) books in hardcover, and did also buy Eldest (the 2nd in the series), which I'm currently reading, in ebook because the PDF versions downloadable via torrent all sucked as far as formatting when converted to ebook with Calibre. However said Eldest ebook only costs $7 on Amazon.

EDIT: Plus, I use Python scripts on a regular basis to break the DRM on any ebook I buy from Amazon so that I can change the Title and Author listed on Home menu of my Kindle, so that it will sort better in the case of book series' that don't have the series' name in the book title or have a long author name that reduces the viewable length of book titles. Is this piracy? Again, if it is, I don't care. I did buy the books legitimately, and so therefore feel within my right to organize it how I wish.

[AlmostApollo]

You don't miss out on the text box jokes on the 360 (which I played it on). You could bring up a little menu with the choices and they changed the menu just for the parrot scene. I don't know how anyone could be upset with the SE, really, considering it had the old one, too. It also brought quite a few new people into the world of MI. Always a good thing.

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by HumpsMcLovin

You don't miss out on the text box jokes on the 360 (which I played it on). You could bring up a little menu with the choices and they changed the menu just for the parrot scene. I don't know how anyone could be upset with the SE, really, considering it had the old one, too. It also brought quite a few new people into the world of MI. Always a good thing.

Agreed. However fail LA was at some things regarding updating the game, getting more new fans of the MI series, or adventure games in general, is always a plus.