a few Q's about next release

[SilentThief]

theres been a lil' talk about some new media (art/sounds) that come with the next release. This makes me think there's a new release in the works. So, if there is let me throw in my 2 cents:

first off, with the new sounds idea, I had made a female voice deathcry. This works for monsters but you can only choose 1 for your players. there should be the designers ability to select more than 1 for players (races might sound different dying also...).

Second, who is doing the developing? Manikus? Tarlanon? NE1? The reason this matters is even if I don't have access to my laptop (GRRRR!!!) I still have my notes from the guide that are about what kinds of scripts and features that we should add.

and last, of course; is when can we look forward to the next release?

Lurking somewhere in the forum...
SilentThief

[manikus]

Thanks for the interest.

The new art may or may not be part of the next release- some art is going to be removed from the release so that only 640 res art is part of it. All art that is copyrighted will be replaced by 1.0 so there will indeed be some new art by that release. Most of the new art will be in separate downloads for people if they so choose...

As to your points:
1- This is a good idea. When I get time, I'll add it to the feature requests at Sourceforge unless you want to.
2- Tarlanon is working on code and I'm fussing about art.
You can always post ideas here, or add them to the tracker over Sourveforge.
3- Tarlanon will have to answer that one. I know that bugs are getting squashed...but that's it.

[SilentThief]

Originally posted by manikus: The new art may or may not be part of the next release- some art is going to be removed from the release so that only 640 res art is part of it. All art that is copyrighted will be replaced by 1.0 so there will indeed be some new art by that release. Most of the new art will be in separate downloads for people if they so choose...

So, is this a media contest??? more curious than anything...

Originally posted by manikus: You can always post ideas here, or add them to the tracker over Sourceforge.

Ok, so Tarlanon does keep up with things here?? (not that much has gone on lately )

Originally posted by manikus: Thanks for the interest.

Yer welcome, and as always thanks for answering and putting up with my lurky-ness.

SilentThief

[manikus]

It's not a contest, just what has to be done. If anyone wants to help out, they can send art to me and Tarlanon and I will look it over to make sure it's what 'we' need and if it is, it'll probably make it into the artpack. But, it's got to be done, so I'm working on it.

I have a new default treasure pic and am putting the finishing touches on a new default camp pic. There is a new default wall set for 1024 and backdrops.

I still need sprites and a bigpic and a title pic. I put a list together in the Yahoo list, for anything I might be forgetting here.

[Steve McDonald]

Has anyone made any inquiries with the copyright owners about using their artwork with DC?

It seems to me that since we are talking fairly low resolutions (eg 640x480), since most of the "standard" TSR fantasy art that was used in the Gold Box games is fairly old, and since no-one makes any money from DC or DC designs, there is a reasonable chance that the artists (or Wizards of the Coast, if they are the current copyright holders - I don't know) would allow their work to be used, if asked. It might also be arguable that use in DC games constitutes "fair use" of copyright work since it usually uses only a small portion of the whole work, at low resolution, and not for profit. That is especially so, given the apparent lack of popularity of DC.

While I admire artists' ability to create 3d images etc, I personally love the old (and new) fantasy art of the likes of Caldwell, Elmore, Parkinson and Stawicki, and I feel that one can lose some of that "Gold Box" feeling if that style of art is not available.

Steve

[manikus]

The FRUA community has faced the same issue in the past, so I had a headstart on who to email and the what not.

First of all, the copyright issue is very complicated. Some of the work is copyright of the artists, some SSI and some TSR. The artists- we would have to pay them money. SSI- they were bought by Mindscape who was bought by Ubisoft. Ubisoft retains the copyright for some of the art (not retained by the artist) and will not allow it's use. TSR- they were bought by WotC who was bought by Hasbro. Hasbro has a no tolerance policy for copyrighted materials and images.

So, what does this mean to DC? It really means two things: 1)feel free to use whatever you want in your design and credit who you can. If the big companies were to take notice (and that is a big, big if) they will send you a cease and desist order. If the artist notices they will do whatever it is that they do~ ask for money, give their blessing, nothing, depends on the artist. 2) For the Official artwork, I'm not going to use any artwork other than what I explicitly have permission to use because I don't want DC to ever have to worry about this issue.

Some random thoughts on this topic:
I have used copyrighted images in my designs and have uploaded tons of copyrighted art in DC format. I will continue to do this, b/c I can pull it if asked and if I were to get in trouble, it would only be me getting in trouble. Do I think I will get in trouble? No. But, Hasbro has sued people over making fan games for Transformers and Ubisoft has been involved with lawsuits over web copyright infringements.

Nearly all of the small pic and big pic art in FRUA is a low res version of printed art. I have contacted several artists that did not have web sites with clear usage policy. The answer has always been no (either flat out or they don't hold the copyright) or yes if I were to pay them some amount. If anyone wants to send me money via paypal, I will use it to get some art for DC, but short of that I don't see me getting any art that way. (I would love to scrape some funds together to use some of the work of Keith Parkinson )

Fair use doesn't really apply to a game, unless it's educational. On the other hand, if the designer mentions that the copyrights are held by so-and-so AND they are not trying to get any money for what they are doing; the worst that will ever happen is that you get an email asking you to take down your art/design. Even George Lucas doesn't do more than this.

As a reminder: there are several yahoo groups for DC art based on copyrighted materials. There is a Star Wars group, a Wheel of Time group, a Song of Ice and Fire group and a World of Darkness group. In the Dungeoncraft forum there is a whole section devoted to superhero art.

Sorry to ramble on so long, but I haven't had any caffeine yet this morning- I need that to help focus my thoughts.

[Uatu]

Hmm... Larry Elmore is my personal favorite artist; perhaps I should just use him as the campaign god of art Wish I could draw like he can, but that's a tough line to aspire to!

Ed

[manikus]

I have to say that Elmore is number two, with Richard Kane Ferguson a close third (he does mostly art for Magic and other card games).

[Uatu]

Hmm - never heard of Ferguson (never played Magic, after all), but will check him out... Who is number one, in your book? [img]smile.gif[/img]

(Elmore apparently has painting workshops occasionally these days! You do need to send portfolios for him to look over if you want to obtain a spot... )