Project proposal - fan/community feedback

General discussion relating to the Transfusion project.

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MusoSpuso
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Project proposal - fan/community feedback

Post by MusoSpuso »

Long time Blood fan, casual lurker of Transfusion for about 3-4 years here. Former senior manager of IT department for a large internet company and owner and president of a real estate investing firm--the relevance of which will become clear later.

First off, I want to say that I have the utmost respect and admiration for Transfusion. This post is in no way intended to influence the direction, purpose or goals for Transfusion in any way shape or form.

What I am proposing is this:

The creation of an updated Blood, including all expansion packs, with full multi-player capability using a current generation distribution (Steam) and development (possibly Source) platform.

This satisfies one simple goal I, and from what I can tell, the rest of you, have had since the realization that there will likely be no Blood 3: To play Blood, both single and multi-player, with fully modern graphics and physics technology.

Corollary benefit: Renewed and increased enthusiasm for the Blood IP leading to increased possibility of Blood 3.

What I can offer: Project management, investment capital, legal & business structure organization.

Three basic things that would be necessary to make this project successful:

1) Moral support of Transfusion community and Blood fanbase at large.
2) Any material, logistical, capital or expertise support you would want to offer.
3) Blessing of current IP owner--which I understand TF already has

Thoughts, opinions?
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zZaRDoZz
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

Are you saying that the already existing Bloodsource project should be co-opted by transfusion?
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DustyStyx
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Post by DustyStyx »

MusoSpuso, welcome to the forums.

As I understand it, Atari still owns the publish rights to Blood and has recently employed those rights by allowing GoG.com to sell digital copies of Blood on their behalf.

Just to clarify any questions about what IP rights Transfusion has on Blood... it doesn't. Transfusion (qBlood at the time) was given a quitclaim right to use and distribute the Blood media with our interpretation of Blood. Having permission to use and distribute the media files is a different beast than having control over the Intellectual Property. In fact, Atari was very clear that they wanted to maintain any IP they had over Blood by asking us to change the name of our project to something that didn't include the term "Blood" in it.

Transfusion is a fan made project with the goal of replicating Blood and offer the community a modding recourse that will always be open source.

I fear what you are offering is misplaced. If you want to go about recreating Blood, or bringing about a Blood III, and selling it in a commercial venue, it would have to be through official communications between whom you represent and Atari for a publishing agreement, and possibly Warner Brothers/Monolith for any IP rights they still maintain.

It's quite possible that you will be met with success, if the right amount of money is involved. WB recently canceled the Blood TM, which would indicate that they are not particular interested in perusing the title.
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Tchernobog
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Post by Tchernobog »

This suggestion seems to be fully unattainable, no matter how well intentioned. As Dusty has already elaborated, at the moment such a venture would be illegal and I personally doubt that the rights suggestion could be cleared up by the efforts or fortunes of just one man. Furthermore, it changes the whole goal and spirit of the project.

That itself could in the end cause more harm for the project than good. Just look at what happened to Nexuiz after LordHavoc allowed it to be used for commercial purposes. It fractured the community behind it. This could happen to Transfusion just as easily. I would know that I would be a lot less supportive of the project if this suggestion as is currently proposed was implemented.

Plus, as has already been discussed, many people around here are not that big on Steam, and I think it would be a huge folly to abandon the free software power of DarkPlaces for an engine which has only just got a proper OpenGL layer this year (Source). This project is dependant on the contributions of many contributors, so unless you want to scrap all the work that has already been done you would have to contact all of them and ask for their permission to use it in a commercial venture.

Sorry, but I am afraid this idea seems to be a no-go.
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zZaRDoZz
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Post by zZaRDoZz »

MusoPuso:
Corollary benefit: Renewed and increased enthusiasm for the Blood IP leading to increased possibility of Blood 3.
I'm pretty sure the OP is saying that Transfusion using steam for distribution and source for the engine would reignite commercial viability of a Blood3.
I don't believe MusoPuso 's proposing making Blood3 via transfusion- although referring to resources as "investment capital" might be a tad confusing. The desire to use an open source platform is completely understandable, while walking away from + years of coding to start over again seems perilous to me. The payoff for doing so would have to be enormous.
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DustyStyx
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Post by DustyStyx »

Yeah, but that's really not our place. At one time, we did have a Spanish gaming magazine that wanted to distribute Transfusion with their monthly CD and we thought that was fine; as we felt that it was basically like offering shareware on CD. Steam itself might be akin to that situation, but we don't own the copyright to Blood, anything as official as offering Transfusion on Steam/Source would have to come through Atari as they are the publishers, and there is defiantly money involved with Steam.

If MusoPuso wanted to offer financial backing to promote Transfusion and it's long established goals, that can be done without Steam. Willis already does that by paying for our website. A project with the right exposure and a little backing can get a lot done. Just look at what Mark Shuttleworth has done with the success of Ubuntu in the Linux community. However MusoPuso would have to realize that we have never been in this to turn a profit. Transfusion isn't a fully GPL product and isn't commercially viable. Its GPL engine core is basically a mechanism that runs the side show of props that are still owned by Atari, with Atari's permission.
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