Yes, and hopefully we'll have survived to then to play it, especially with the cities on hydraulic legs and their long battle for natural resources.
It's Sonic, so like all other borrowed IP, we're legally obligated to at the very least not sell it; the game will be available as a free ISO+MP3 and/or BIN/Cue (undecided) download. If we were to make a physical collectible release, we would need to charge at least a minimal amount for production, but I'm not terribly clear on the legal details in regard to whether or not we can be touched if the game is also still available as a free download and therefore you don't have to buy anything. I wouldn't cite precedence because in any other case, it could be that it just didn't draw enough of the right (wrong?) kind of attention, or something was just different enough about the nature of that project that caused the rightsholders not to care as much. We'd also need to find material producers that wouldn't have a problem with touching this As for the prospect of an "EXE", distributing the game on any other platform would take a whole lot more work, since it would need to be "ported"(remade) in a similar manner as the 2013 Android/iOS releases, which is sort of like building a whole new game but with a design template.; the assets are useful, but they'd need to be converted, and the code is only useful for reference since it's written in M68000 assembly and is therefore not portable, plus it makes use of special features of the Genesis that are not present on other platforms and would have to be simulated. If we were to do this, we'd use HCGE, but it's not something I'd count on. Anything other than PC would be available only through "homebrew" methods; this isn't something that can be distributed through official "app store"-like channels As for SEGA, I wrote about that a little on my Sonic DS ports page: This also partially explains the state of the leak in terms of some of its content and what looks "complete". I'd have been in control of the presentation and therefore able to to target what I knew was ready to be seen ...
Nice to see the progress that has being made. Curiosity killed this cat though and I grabbed that download. Definitely not the final product will be like obviously, CD music is nice though. I look forward to the day I'm able to play the final... or 6.0 or maybe even the ' Ultimate ' release of Sonic Megamix, before I'm married with kids or something like that. :v:
I have to say I grabbed the offical download, but I have to say my motovation was from wanting to see not just the progress on it, but an intereste in content in development. I even saved the maps Valve Accidently Leaked for HL2 and HLS
You'll have to forgive my almost complete naivety regarding how the business end of the industry works, but how could that be different from paying any other developer for any other video game ever made ever? Assumedly an official version would be running on the Retro Engine (if not pardon my ignorance) so there wouldn't be any snafus regarding the usage of the original code. If you legally can't shed any light on this though, I understand. You men are doing god's work anyway, official or not. I'm beyond excited to play when it's all done but more than willing to wait for it to take all the time it needs. I've been waiting 17 years for the next real Sonic game since I first played Sonic 3K as a kid and I'll be able to manage another one or two or three. I wish I could buy you all a round when it's out (or a coke if there's anyone in Team Megamix that doesn't drink).
Presumably one of the reasons would be the fact there's been a bunch of people working on it, without any sort of legal binding, that'd all need to be consulted and agree on in order for the game to be legally published; either that or scrub the contributions of anyone who doesn't play ball. ... Stealth just said this, in fact :P
I probably just glazed over that statement. The optimist in me would want to believe that everyone that's pitched in would be down for an official release but I guess it's true you can't just assume that. Oh well, it's kind of a non-issue anyway since Sega's not playing ball.
In response, I have to say this- you could have chosen a better example; as "professional-looking" as we want Megamix to be, it still doesn't always follow standardized development procedure. Ex: 1) There is an aspect of the special Stage that was done "for the hell of it" and never intended for the release version (and is, in fact, the reason that the leaked build was on FTP in the first place) 2) There is a Titlecard that was added as an inside joke and not meant to be used 3) The existing COZ3 layout is POC and would not have existed if it hadn't been my intention to use it in a private presentation It's like having a part of our personal lives exposed, so you can see how this might be, at minimum, extremely annoying You're making a few incorrect assumptions: 1) That all contributors are still present or that I can easily contact them all 2) That they all [redacted] 3) That all contributors would easily agree to exactly the same deal 4) That the total number of contributors for a project of this type and the fact that they have never done business with any of them wouldn't be overwhelming to SEGA 5) That SEGA would want to pay for a project of this type that wasn't even theirs from the start what it's actually worth (and I'm not talking sentimental or ego value, I'm talking true industry work value, which, in fact, would be significantly greater than Sonic 1 and 2 combined) 6) That SEGA, or any other business their size, could easily risk trusting something so highly-developed without them or even spending the time try to find out and subsequently arguing the details 7) That SEGA [redacted] In the first place, we're not talking about introductions, project outlines, early discussions, and co-development; we're talking existing project, existing team, and taking responsibility for something you haven't been watching and guiding and therefore can't possibly know. We're also talking [redacted] Not to mention the "Quality Assurance" process that I also brought up in the same post. SEGA, like most video game companies, employs (an) entirely separate QA team(s) (which have come to be known colloquially as "beta testers"), from which they assign each member to play specific portions of the game into the ground repeatedly and over a long period of time in a targeted and deliberate attempt to cause something to go wrong and figure out how exactly to make it go wrong on-command so that it can be communicated to the developers, and who are also relatively highly paid. They expect this group to be the one to find all of the mistakes and other issues while the developers themselves are rushed to the finish, and they aren't going to change that system for anything. By the time it's finished, Megamix is going to be a complete QA nightmare. Assuming they couldn't convince us to scale it back (and they couldn't), that's more time and resources for them to look forward to putting into it On point 5, before anyone potentially says anything, it doesn't matter that we're already doing this for free. Firstly, if you don't charge what you're worth just once, you either probably won't ever get it, or you at least won't be taken seriously, maybe even by the person you're technically offering an enormous discount to. I have a friend who can testify to this, but I have to assume he wouldn't want me sharing details. Second, it seems to be the general consensus that SEGA would stand to make a lot of money on this, and a lot of time, effort, and resources went (and will still go) into developing this game, so I think I can safely speak for the entire team, past and present, when I say that if anyone stands to profit from this, we want to see our share Also, if SEGA wanted another retro type Sonic game right now, and one that was in any way from me on top of that, Taxman and I would already be working on one [Hint: we're not] In a way, it makes perfect sense that you'd say that. In another, I can't help but find it ridiculous and insulting that you didn't even speculate that it might use HCGE, which I mentioned and linked in the same post you responded to :/ If you begin by assuming that there's no problem with the rest of the assets in the first place, I don't see how there could be, anyway [redacted] I do appreciate this part I did, and with you having explicitly made that other point for me, I can say that I'm pretty confident that for many reasons, if we did push the project to SEGA, when it's all done, it probably wouldn't be Megamix anymore
Hey Stealth, you said you approached SEGA about making this 'official', out of curiousity have you approached them with other...I'd have to go with "original" Sonic projects/concepts, for lack of a better word? Or was it just Megamix and you didn't try again after that?
Oh sweet, E02 is Headcanon Game Engine now? I kinda gave up on E02 a while back (too complicated for me for a hobby) but it's awesome nonetheless. When are you going to make something with it?
Actually, I said that I wanted to but didn't get to Technically, I already answered that question in my previous post :P Thanks! I plan to make a few smaller ones soon-ish, but I don't know when the first major one will begin. There are still several utility enhancements that are high-priority, too Related to both subjects (HCGE and Megamix progress), I'm actually looking at another potential contract (unrelated to either SEGA or HCGE) that could possibly start as soon as next month, and which will have me tied up for several months. It's not impossible that I may be able to randomly poke at other things during that time (especially considering that I have reverted to once again being "just a fan" in regard to SEGA), but I will be heavily focused on the contract work until it's over
Here's some unsolicited advice since I've run into a very similar situation in a totally different IP. When you're involved in any official capacity with a large company's IP, you don't want to have -anything- to do with anything that could even in the most absurdly superficial way be construed as a challenge to the intellectual property's integrity. You may see eye-to-eye with certain portions of said company but these things are huge entities and often don't always agree with themselves (See Konami's recent 180' and cancellation of Metal Gear Remake). tl;dr don't do anything that you don't have explicit written permission to. It can and probably will come back and bite you in the ass in future. Potentially even from a completely different company you're trying to do business with pointing and saying "but look what you did with _____'s IP _____!@!!!@" edit: I want to be a little more specific of the details in my case, but NDAs and such. Sorry bub.
I'm sorry, but in all of the hub-bub of the reveal, I think we all overlooked the fact that Stealth has a time machine. :v: Anyway, I've downloaded the release and am messing around with it just to see. I'm aware it's not finished and wasn't intended to be released in this kind of fashion (What kind of leak is, really?), but I've an interest in seeing how Megamix evolved from what was once a very simple palette hack (And basic layout to Sunny Shores Zone--then Sunset Hill Zone) into the beast that it is now. In a lot of ways, one can view it as a visual representation as to how far the hacking scene and whatnot has come. I say, bring on the awesome. I'll wait as long as it takes.
There's been a lot of hoorah between Mr. Lange and Stealth. I'd like to first offer my appreciation and gratitude to the project. Since grabbing it from the simple days of a Sonic 1 hack, all the way to playing it on a PSP and then further seeing sneak peeks at real life events when given the honour to do so. But without going into a tremendous heated argument and debate, I can't help but agree with a multitude of Mr. Lange's points made. I may be speaking from, what is essentially, the same side (a public's eye); but I honestly find it somewhere fragile and often very cautious to speak about Megamix as an entity in itself within the community. Often because of what has become the standard "We're still making it, stop fucking asking". And I'd like to flower that phrase up and make it less blunt or explicit but often is the case where, as it has been for at least over a year where the public eye (again as far as I could see), HAS kept quiet. There are numerous huge fans of Sonic Megamix as well that of the work of Stealth that simply keep quiet and wait. We wait. We have, we will, and we are honestly very appreciative of anything we get. I completely sympathise as a fellow developer myself about obligations for hobby projects and such. Your points are valid regarding opinions of others and such. The analogy made regarding the "crowd at a concert" stands true however. The less an audience hears of an event, and the more fear that is induced into them upon questioning only brings about a negative aura surrounding the project. I really don't think this project needs any more drama than it already has had in it's past I'm trying my best to keep it short, so I'll end by simply saying that you guys have made fantastic work. There are a lot of people that honestly regard you guys highly (despite how much you may not want this). And that even though the suggestions of "weekly updates" in my eyes seems over the top, extreme or anything. But believe myself as just a single random guy out in the UK that when there wasn't an update for over a year I genuinely questioned it's stability, but restrained myself in fear of asking. I wouldn't be making my voice felt now if it wasn't for another high profile member of the community such as Mr. Lange, making some valid points. But guys, honestly. Thank you and I'm excited for any further news be it sooner or later.
Sorry for stepping on your toes by glossing over so many details you brought up, was checking up on the thread and writing that post in the midst of getting ready to go out.
Thanks. I know enough to be worried about it, and I also know that with a company like this, different branches and even departments within a single branch are as entities unto themselves. Most people won't understand this due to the PR face, but that's just another department too That's actually another reason I didn't even want to go public with any Megamix stuff again until release. I think one thing that's saved us is just that it's not a remake project, followed immediately by the fact that I hadn't ever had an official relationship with SEGA until recently. That's what worries me now, even though I don't think there's anything inherent to that fact that makes it technically different from a legal perspective. It's just how and why you'd want to argue it, as far as I know. It'd have to be more about whether or not they want the bad press at this point Oh, I totally get it. It's like [redacted] I still want to set out/reiterate that- 1) Regardless of who we are and what we want from this project, we are not developing this game professionally, and therefore it can not be viewed as an example of professional development 2) As previously stated, there are elements of the leaked build that are not a true part of the development process and only exist because of our personal and private behavior and other aspects of our lives that we did not intend to share 3) There is nothing in this build that is truly indicative of our thought process or any true coherent process of development; it's just content, and there is no visible trail of evolution of any kind 4) Aside from previously-mentioned things that were never actually a part of the real development process, There is no significant content in this build that you either haven't seen previously or will not see in the final build. That's not how our process has worked or is working, and if there's some reason that you think you know different than that, you don't 5) If you really think that you have to "conduct research", you can still wait to do it until after the final version is done. This archive isn't going anywhere The majority of "the hacking scene" has absolutely nothing to do with this, so attributing credit to "the scene" severely diminishes our own personal accomplishments. Some of the knowledge and skill applied to Megamix predates and in some cases can be considered responsible for some of the advancement of "the scene", and we've used very few resources that weren't in-whole or at least in major part self-developed Compliment appreciated :P
Ah, I didn't mean to seem like I was diminishing the efforts. Far from that, actually. My apologies if it sounded that way.
I...well.. yeah, I just said what I think of that Thanks! :P No problem, then! Also, hi Mr. Lange! Respect and appreciation, since I didn't get around to saying it :P
Heck, even salaried composers release unofficial remixes of their stuff every so often (in Japan the modus operandi is the rights belong to the company, not the composer). Fan stuff should be fine, unless it really gets ahead of itself and can be mistaken for an actual product (Hayter lending his voiceover talent to MG:Remake for example) And historically SEGA seems to have been more kosher about Sonic fan stuff compared to their other IPs. It's when money or other tangible recompense comes into play that it instantly raises a lot of red flags. Of course, when the IP holder for whatever reason specifically flat out says 'no' or 'stop' that's also completely different story from the above.
yo stealth I just wanna throw this out there and say that the tone you're using, specifically towards LordOfSquad, comes off as condescending, pretentious, and completely unnecessary. I understand you have more knowledge than these guys do about "the biz" and it can be annoying when you see normies talking about stuff they don't know about, and thank you for shedding light on the logistics behind getting this shit made, but you really don't have to be a jerk. Taxman has taken the best route possible and says very little about this stuff to avoid sounding like anything other than a professional, which he's done well. Every time he speaks, people listen, and every response to a question he gives makes the asker feel important for asking the question, where as it seems like you're saying "don't fucking talk to me if you don't know what the fuck you're saying" when people are just asking questions so they CAN know. Rather than quote your entire response to LordOfSquad, I highlighted a few key parts. It does make perfect sense that he would say that. The Retro Engine, to us, the audience, is basically the go to classic Sonic engine. If you find it ridiculous and insulting that he didn't think to speculate about some other engine, even after he already said "pardon my ignorance", then you gotta get off your high horse. This is the big one. You should appreciate everything he's said/asked. The way he has asked you questions and has taken a genuine interest in what you're doing should be incredibly gratifying to you and you should be humbled by the fact that people are interested. So he doesn't know the technical/business side of making video games, does this give you the right to get annoyed when he asks some pretty simple questions? Why should anyone bother asking questions or giving a shit about what you're doing if this is the way you're gonna respond to them? Dude, this is the internet, he could've said "boy this is the fucking gayest shit I ever seen and I seen a lotta gay ass shit" and then proceeded to tell you to kill yourself and that your family's gay, but instead he actually gives a shit and wants to know how your job works and how you do what you do. Again, this is the internet, you can't exactly read the way someone else is saying something, but the way you responded to him came off as incredibly jerky.
