rec.autos.simulators

I was in the store the other day buying a full-registered Quake and
some guy came up to me and told me he could crack open the shareware
cd for me, no charge. Sure I was tempted - and to that extent I agree
that "the bastard lives in all of us". But whether we let that bastard
out or not is entirely up to us - and so I went to the cashier and
paid for Quake.

Joe

---Jim Sokoloff

Well, I agree with this. But in many ways it still provides the same
things. I think my Quake analogy is valid. As we speak I'm downloading
about 10 MBs of free Quake levels (which I'll play on GLQuake on the
3dfx <g>). This despite the fact that commercial levels are also
avialable.

In fact, I'd argue that since there's some possibility of making a
profit in Quake design skills - if you can get to a high enough
quality level in game design - causes in general a more active
development of addons, both free and commercial. Nothing generates
more activity in an art form than the mere *possibility* of making
some bucks if you get really good.

Joe

(Joe) Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 23:09:05 GMT Message-ID:

Again I must say this is nonsense, a paranoid fantasy. Look at Quake. I
can buy commercial addon levels at the store. And yet that hasn't stopped
the proliferation of free addons I can download from the net.

If you really wanted to promote sharing I'd reccomend getting on
Papyrus/Sierra's back for not using open standards and encouraging addons
the way ID does. That would be far more beneficial than criticizing those
who have managed to create something useful despite Papyrus' opposition to
addons for their sims.

Joe

<

I don't know if this will be a company-wide trend, but Sierra recently
made the change to encouraging third party programs enhancing their
football games (not that people weren't doing that already...) and also
according to their website plan the same thing with the upcoming release
of their baseball game.  Who knows, their racing sims could possibly be
next.

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Jason Nichols-Commissioner

SportSim Football League:

http://www.shreve.net/~taylorj/Football/

SSFL Information Center:

http://members.aol.com/jn141414/ssfl.html
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I was told by Papyrus that if a track add-on was made available, that
it would be at "little, or no-charge to the user."

Best Regards,

Marc

Marc J. Nelson
Sim Racing News - USA

: >That's the real frightening part.  I remember when the internet was
: >"almost" free of all the commerical garbage we now have to wade through
: >each moment on the net.  I remember the great "free" spirit of programs,
: >patches, utilities for linux.  When Win95 first came out most of the
: >best utilities were provided in the same manner, sharing for "free" in
: >the old community spirit of the internet.   Guess, I'm just getting old.
: >;-)

: Again I must say this is nonsense, a paranoid fantasy. Look at Quake.
: I can buy commercial addon levels at the store. And yet that hasn't
: stopped the proliferation of free addons I can download from the net.

: If you really wanted to promote sharing I'd reccomend getting on
: Papyrus/Sierra's back for not using open standards and encouraging
: addons the way ID does. That would be far more beneficial than
: criticizing those who have managed to create something useful despite
: Papyrus' opposition to addons for their sims.

Oh my god, David Noonan is more than likely sitting back laughing his
head off.  Now whether this is from amu***t at all of this "bickering"
that is now spewing forth in r.a.s. or out of pure hysteria, I don't know.

I don't give a damn whether anybody charges for anything or if
everything is free or whether there is an even mix of both.  However,
one has to be blind not see a difference between the net as it is now
and the way it was 8 (even 2 years ago).  I'm not even making a value
judgement.  I'm just stating fact.  

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

: In fact, I'd argue that since there's some possibility of making a
: profit in Quake design skills - if you can get to a high enough
: quality level in game design - causes in general a more active
: development of addons, both free and commercial. Nothing generates
: more activity in an art form than the mere *possibility* of making
: some bucks if you get really good.

I don't know if this is always true.  While I agree that it is nice to
be compensated for ones efforts, that isn't the real reward.  Especially
when you are talking about "art".  The mere "creation" is the real
reward.  I am thinking about the linux community and how a whole port of
the complex unix system was made to the pc by people who worked together
and shared their knowledge openly.  And to the best of my knowledge all
of this work was done for free.  I am totally blown away when I think of
the man hours and hard labor put into the linux project.  Yeh some
people made some money off of it.  Selling CD-Rom versions and books.
But the people who made it happen and are still working on it are doing
it for nothing but "love" and the satisfaction of a job well done.
Anything else that comes their way is just gravy!

Real art is generated by the heart, not the wallet.  We are all familiar
with the "starving artist"! ;-)

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Rusty Wallace Miller Lite stock car, awsome when opened up!
GO#2!

        Mullins Motorsports Inc.
        http://www.***tron.com/~ddmj

Hi Jim,

By "objection to addons" I just meant their failure to provide track
and car file formats and specs, the way ID does for their games.

Apparently ID even has interfaces to C compilers to generate truly
original software with the Quake engine. I wouldn't be surprised if
ID's long range plan is to extend their engine to eventally be the
core of many different types of games, not just "Quake like". (As one
example, there's an Enterprise NCC 1701-D map you can download that
features many Star Trek like effects, including working transporters,
turbolifts, etc.)

ID's been making a FORTUNE with the "open" philosophy for years, ever
since the original Doom. When a racing sim developer is finally going
to see the light and cash in I cannot tell you.

Joe

  Standing alone, your last statement is true. However, in the context
to the statements preceding it, it is more than false.  
  More art is created for pleasure with no thought of financial gain
than is ever created with an eye toward remuneration. That's a fact.

  Hobbyist?  I can assure you that commercial success and financial
independence are NOT the prerequisites for the making of viable art.
In fact, in some genres commercialization is the art of Business
only. Look at recording artists, now there's a fully funded genre
inhabitated by a great many "artists" who couldn't play or write
a song to save their lives. Who hasn't walked into a nightclub and
walked out saying, "Man, why are these guys playing this dive?"
  This goes for any discipline. There are programmers out there ,
hobbyists by your definition, who can code the pants off a great
many published Developers.

    I see no connection between the creation of art and money, short
the tools to accomplish it. Real value isn't getting paid for it.
It's a smile, a thank you , applause. If the motivation to create
art is from monetary gain then I submit that the art made from
such an onus belongs in the art of "business".

regards,]
greg
Gavel

Sure but people gotta eat and have shelter. If you can't make money
the art form necesarily stays in the hobbyist realm, because no one
can fully dedicate themselves to it.

True, but as I say even the "starving artist" must eat sometime. In
fact this is a big reason there are so few artists in general in North
America, because there are so many people who do not believe that art
is something worth paying for, something with real value.

Joe

Joe

(Joe) Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 19:11:55 GMT Message-ID:

Joe

<

You are right about them being slow to do that.   They basically stopped
all internal improvement of their football sim for like 2-3 years while
hackers where eventually able to decipher their code and make independant
improvements to the sim.  Now for whatever reason they are taking the
opposite approach and encouraging third party utilities for their football
sim and are making their upcoming baseball sim "very configurable" through
the use of an .INI file.  I say it's a great trend for Sierra after far
too long going in the opposite direction.  I said a few months back that
eventually $ierra would have a negative effect on Papy, now I can only say
if Sierra's recent changes are a positive trend then maybe the positive
effect will make it to Papy in the same manner.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Jason Nichols-Commissioner

SportSim Football League:

http://www.shreve.net/~taylorj/Football/

SSFL Information Center:

http://members.aol.com/jn141414/ssfl.html
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Except flight sims...they seem to 'see' the light.

Marc

Nicely put, Gavel.  Let he who is without the un-registered
copy of pkunzip cast the first stone!