Thanks.

Without getting into spoilers about the upcoming Ars documentary, what killed Elemental was a concept known as memory fragmentation.

Remember how you could design everything in that game? You could even have children that would inherit your traits. Well that was all done through a very complex memory manager since we only had 2GB of memory to work with.

But the way Windows works is that you when malloc, you only get the largest contiguous piece of memory back. So even if you have a gibabyte of memory and request just 100M, if the largest contiguous piece of memory is only 40M the game will crash.

The original game was essentially Master of Magic was unit design and quests and dynasties. But because we didn't understand why the game kept randomly crashing, more and more systems get being pulled out in a desperate attempt to solve the problem -- and it wasn't solved.

It wasn't until after release that the problem was discovered and understood as basically unsolveable. So Fallen Enchantress toned down unit design, removed dynasties and other features but at least it worked. FE: LH further refined on it. But to this day, the engine still has the issue which is why, despite millions spent, that engine came to its end leaving Stardock with a huge gap in great games.

So GalCiv III ended up having to be made with an all new engine (64-bit this time) but it meant that the game and the engine had to be made simultaneously. Not fun. Though with Elemental, what ultimately killed it was the engine underneath. I kid you not when I say I think about that game every single day. If you look at a picture of me from 2009 and then one from end of 2010, I look very different. It aged me probably 10 years and I'll probably never fully recover.

On the other hand, if it weren't for Elemental, Stardock wouldn't have invested in the formation of Oxide which developed Nitrous which is the most amazing technology I've ever worked with which is what Star Control uses.

If you play the fleet combat part of Star Control: Origins, it's super fun right now and will run even on my Surface Pro 4.


We remain optimistic that something will be worked out that everyone will be happy with. There is just too much potential for a win-win here.

Right, but if their claims are true then Stardock shouldn't be doing things like bundling them with their own game and changing the names the classic games are sold under. They have a right to be unhappy with deals being made without their involvement. I very much doubt it's about money, it's more likely about their IP being hijacked. I don't know their claims are true, but I think if they are then they are being entirely reasonable.

Did they ever even leave? I've been checking on and off all day, and the pages were still up each time.
If they were gone at all, it must have been a "blink and you'll miss it" time frame. :P

So now that the technical issues have supposedly been solved with a new 64bit engine (and gamers tend to have a lot more RAM as well). What are the chances of getting a sequel to Elemental that pulls all the original ideas back into and goes from there?

Also any chance of founder's getting the option to get the game on GOG rather than Steam for future games (or even changing the Star Control one?)? Thanks.

I did not notice, thanks for the heads-up about that, Brad.

EDIT: assuming they even ever left

As you stated if. They have shown no proof that they are.

The names were changed to separate Star Control 3 from the Ur-Quan universe so it would be easier for Paul and Fred to make a sequel to Ur-Quan Masters.

Edit:
It would be nice if GOG updated their previous statement or made a new one on whether the games are being removed or not.

Cool. Now I just hope things work out to get Ghosts of the Precursors here

You keep beating this dead horse...give it up.
The way they described it isn't how most agreements work. Let's imagine you have a student loan and the lender goes under. You are not off scot-free. Your agreement transfers to the party who buys the remnants. Same here. If one company has an asset, such as a distribution deal and is bought out, the agreement usually transfers to the new owners. As long as the new owners live up to the existing arrangement (pay royalties, etc), it continues.

All this "if it's true" stuff clearly isn't. The way they describe it doesn't sound as if they know what they are talking about.

I'm trying to work out how you do badly misunderstood what I was saying. Where did you get the idea they claimed the agreement didn't transfer? They said it expired, that's a whole different thing. And I'm not beating a dead horse, I have no reason to believe either party here not being privy top the documentation.

the fact that if the persons who got the game onto GOG had an agreement with the actual owners of the game to actually put it up on here there wouldnt be any issues period but the fact is that there was no agreement and the owners want to take it down to put it under a new name to be resold unless the persons cant give evidence that they're the owners of the game then the people claiming to own the game in the first place cant do anything but there is no evidence supporting their claims so by right the real owners have and have means necessary to take the games down

Since the games remain on GOG, I can only assume that some headway has been made. Hopefully everything gets settled out and work on two great projects: Ghosts of the Precursors and Star Control Origins, can continue.

After reading up on Elemental: War of Magic, I remember the bad press at the time, and I though Stardock giving away the sequel was the perfect customer friendly response. If anything, Painted_Doll's response has only made me love Stardock more, as a developer and publisher, since I completely forgot about the rocky start of the Elemental universe.

Also, I hope somebody on GOG makes a thread when that Ars technica documentary comes out. I always find it interesting to find out what goes on behind the scenes of game development.

You linked the posts...
First they said it expired, then thy said they had a new agreement with Atari. So Stardock bought Atari's interest. So why wouldn't Stardock have the same legal rights Atari had?

But every 5th post you seem to be chastising Stardock over it. The fact is if Stardock has distribution rights, be it through Accolade or Atari, then Fred and Paul don't have much of a say except cashing their royalty checks.

Let's put it this way...
"It’s our opinion that Atari’s rights to publish our earlier games terminated over a decade before the auction" doesn't sound like much of a legal statement at all. And we have responses from Stardock about signed agreements in their possession that sound far more official than two programmer's "legal opinions".

And even with Brad explaining it in a fair bit of detail, you seem to be ignoring what he has to say on the matter. Fact is the games have not been removed and are now listed with the publisher being Stardock. That should settle the matter...

This milking of old franchises just disgusts me by now.
Beamdog and Stardock don't seem to be able to make anything of value of their own.

They didn't say they had a new agreement with Atari, what they said was they both had separate agreements with GOG. As far as I'm aware, they're claiming Stardock have the exact same rights as (they claim) Atari did.

That depends on the nature of the original contract. There may have been some kind of conditional clause that allows them a say in further print runs or whatever (which I guess putting the game on Steam would count as).

I agree, "our opinion" doesn't sound very solid and with the games coming back up solely under Stardock I am leaning towards their story. Doesn't stop me from playing devil's advocate and trying to make sense of Fred and Paul's story.

I'm not ignoring it, I'm remaining neutral in terms of actual belief. It's no secret that I want Fred and Paul to be in the right, but it's not out of some hatred for Stardock (I'm not Painted_Doll). I just don't want developers that I like to have been lying, so for now I will assume that Fred and Paul are acting on good faith and genuinely believe they have these rights (whether they legally do or not).

Everything is an old franchise sequel reboot remake remaster whatever.
Mario. Zelda. Final Fantasy. Crash Bandicoot came back, even. Mega Man came back. Retro titles are also getting a renewed interest, possibly spurred by the ongoing AAA drama hotspots and their greedy monetization items.