Another fangasm of Sonic

[Jagos]

Link (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.236300-Sonic-Fan-Project-Gives-Sonic-4-a-Run-for-its-Money?page=1)

I know... I have high hopes for the hedgehog but I'll be damned if the fans aren't doing more with him than anyone else.

[Donomni]

That is too awesome-looking to be released(As in it will never be finished). It really is.

[bluestarultor]

This is exactly the kind of thing that's going to generate a C&D, then subsequently mountains of fans looking to the heavens and wailing like they never saw it coming.

Yeah, it looks good enough, but they're remaking old levels and using at least one character that's not theirs. The law's on the books, people.

I'm just going to finish this by saying if they'd just use their own character and put the same effort into it, they could make piles of money and avoid all the legal trouble and losing everything they've already done.



As much as I know people are going to want to tear me apart for saying this, I'm ceasing to have sympathy for these projects. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. These people have talent up the wazoo, and they're wasting it on projects that overall have a success rate of about zero. If they'd just put all of it into their own unique project, they could have something really great and reap the benefits of it.

[Kim]

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden showed me the error of my ways regarding fan games, but Blues is right in that this game is gonna get shut down harder than a fat kid hitting on his high school teacher.

[Magus]

The one thing I thought everybody would learn from Crimson Echoes being shut down was to not bother putting these things up on the web until they are completely finished.

Shows what I know.

[Aldurin]

This just makes me so disappointed to see that kind of awesomeness and then realize it will probably never happen . . .

[Pip Boy]

It makes me disappointed to see that obviously skilled programmers are wasting their time trying to resurrect a franchise they don't own only to be thanked by its owners in the form of having their project shut down by threats of lawsuit.

[bluestarultor]

It makes me disappointed to see that obviously skilled programmers are wasting their time trying to resurrect a franchise they don't own only to be thanked by its owners in the form of having their project shut down by threats of lawsuit.

This bothers me a bit, if only because it comes off as SEGA and businesses in general being the bad guys in in such situations like all the people who ever do fan games are doing the IP owners a favor somehow.

I mean I'm pretty sure it's not intentional, but that said attitude is so pervasive on a subconscious level truly concerns me.

[Kroze Gamegod]

Actually Sega LOVES the fangames community.
They don't care how many times Emerald Hill gets remade in countless fan made game engines.

Hell, Sega has spotlighted Tweaker's Sonic 1 Megamix at one point which is essentially a rom hack of Sonic 1 (Which is AWESOME! Srsly, go play it now!).

This won't get shut down at all... it will most likely be spotlighted by Ruby Eclipse on the Sega blog.

The only downside to this is, like most epic Sonic fan made games is it will take forever to get made and come out 6 years from now... much like Sonic Robo Blast 2 or Sonic: Time Attacked.

[bluestarultor]

Actually Sega LOVES the fangames community.
They don't care how many times Emerald Hill gets remade in countless fan made game engines.

Hell, Sega has spotlighted Tweaker's Sonic 1 Megamix at one point which is essentially a rom hack of Sonic 1 (Which is AWESOME! Srsly, go play it now!).

This won't get shut down at all... it will most likely be spotlighted by Ruby Eclipse on the Sega blog.

The only downside to this is, like most epic Sonic fan made games is it will take forever to get made and come out 6 years from now... much like Sonic Robo Blast 2 or Sonic: Time Attacked.

*did not know that*

In that case, this game may actually have a chance. I honestly don't know how I feel about that. It's never come up before. XD

Although if it does get shut down, I'm going to be the last person to be surprised.

[Jagos]

Yeah...

I would go on a rant about how Sega really seems to understand that fans will still do things just for the hell of it, but Kroze beat me to it.

So I'll just look at it one more time and hope that the makers go ahead and recreate S2.

Sometime in the next century. The game seems to be running just fine right now.

[Magus]

Yes, it is so horrible when some people make a fan game based on a series and releases it for free. Such horrible horrible people. Truly a crime against humanity.

The reason, Blues, that people consider it to be "a favor to the creator/publisher", or really, a favor to themselves or the fans of said series (as this is truly who they are doing it for), is that they have been churning out mostly pure shit with Sonic for the past several years. The greatest favor that could be done would be to euthanize the crapsacks in charge of the 3D games and put them out of their misery.

Yeah, whatever, it's against copyright law, I guess (if it is). Who cares? It's not unethical just because it's illegal. It's not some horrible thing to like something so much to imitate it, when it's not for monetary gain but pure love of the thing. It's the sincerest form of flattery.

You can rail against it for copyright reasons all you want but it's about as much an actual societal crime as fanfiction.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Actually if memory serves. Sega is fully aware of this game and have been since it's development. They've been monitoring it and most of if not all of Sonic Team is given this a thumbs up.

They are more likely to Support it at this stage in the game.

So this has the 50/50 chance of being the first fan game to get adopted by the company it belongs to.

As for the copy right complaints. It's actually in the green. They are showing all rights expect for it's development to Sega. And Sega is aware of it from what I read on their site a year ago.


EDIT: Never mind, someone beat me to it already.

[bluestarultor]

Yes, it is so horrible when some people make a fan game based on a series and releases it for free. Such horrible horrible people. Truly a crime against humanity.

The reason, Blues, that people consider it to be "a favor to the creator/publisher", or really, a favor to themselves or the fans of said series (as this is truly who they are doing it for), is that they have been churning out mostly pure shit with Sonic for the past several years. The greatest favor that could be done would be to euthanize the crapsacks in charge of the 3D games and put them out of their misery.

Yeah, whatever, it's against copyright law, I guess (if it is). Who cares? It's not unethical just because it's illegal. It's not some horrible thing to like something so much to imitate it, when it's not for monetary gain but pure love of the thing. It's the sincerest form of flattery.

You can rail against it for copyright reasons all you want but it's about as much an actual societal crime as fanfiction.

You know, I have nothing morally against fan games. I've made some pretty detailed plans for one or two of my own. The difference? I was smart enough to realize that despite them being well within my ability to make solo that it could turn into trouble.

See, that's what I take issue with the most. People go into making games thinking they'll slip it under the radar or that they have a right to or whatever. In a perfect world, that would be just peachy. We do not live in a perfect world.

The reality is that morality isn't so simple in this case. What usually happens is they get shut down and then there's a moral outcry over how bad those evil corporations are. I'm sorry, but if you go and bash your face into a beehive, you have no right to act surprised when they swarm out and sting you. People making fan games are like that, only they've had a line of people standing straight in front of them doing it, and then they sit there and say, "well, I'm just super-extra-special and it doesn't apply to me." Then they end up in the same place as everyone else before them. The idiocy of it all has expended its stores of my sympathy. As I said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.



Let me just reiterate that I'm not against fan games as a concept. If companies want to allow them to happen, power to them, everyone's happy. But companies aren't generally in that habit. Every time I hear about a new fan game, my vision goes red in advance of the inevitable crash and burn and whole song and dance all over again.

See, maybe the companies are being asses on a moral standpoint, but I find it objectionable that people are being retarded from a legal standpoint. You don't have to agree with the laws, but you're still expected to follow them. That is ethics. Ethics have a lot to do with legality. More than morality. Ethics are much more closely tied to law than you're giving them credit for. In fact, in a business sense, ethics are the entirety of the law and more. So yes, it is unethical to use someone else's IP. Amoral? Arguable. Unethical? Much less so. Because ethically speaking, you're not only using something that's not yours, but you're setting the owners up for bad publicity if they do anything about it, even though they have every right to do so.



So please, Magus, cool your jets. Morally, fan games are fine. Ethically, they are much less so. Legally, they generally are not. When two out of three factors are against something, I think I reserve the right to not be surprised when the inevitable happens and to hold it against people lining up for their turn through the merry-go-round circus that the Internet always turns these things into.

[Kerensky287]

Question.

What if this exact same preview of this exact same game had come out advertised as the next entry in the Sonic series? I mean, made by the Sonic team and everything?

In fact, let's bring up a hypothetical. What if the pair who made this game were to theoretically reveal themselves to be Sega employees? What would the reaction be then?

I mean, look at it. The animations are sloppy - when Sonic's running, there's no weight to his movements. The graphics are pretty, but a game can't run on eye candy. And for pete's sake, it's Green Hill Zone - identical to the original iteration. If the Sonic Team had released this, the reaction would've been more along the lines of "Look at it, such garbage, how dare they ruin my childhood, I could expect nothing more from the Sonic Team" because it's cool to hate on them.

But just because it's a fangame, people are going "Oh wow, look! People who actually understand the game I grew up with! Too bad it'll be C&D'd, I could expect nothing more from the Sonic Team."

I mean yeah, the last few billion sonic games (except some of the handheld ones, really) have been bad. But the fact is, people have this incredible ability to ignore obvious flaws in a work because it reminds them of something they did when they were younger - people see that gameplay, remember the shape and feel of the level, remember getting hit by that same fish in that same spot... and suddenly they don't notice the weird goddamn wobbling of the sign at the end of the level.

Plus, I mean, some company decides to make a remake and everyone yells at them for being money-grubbing whores. Some fanteam makes a remake and everyone praises them for being the true geniuses of the game industry.

Forgive me for exploding I guess. Nostalgia blindness is a bit of a sore spot for me. As for the Sonic Fan Remix itself, I couldn't possibly care less about whether it succeeds or fails.

EDIT FOR BELOW:

EDIT: Seriously that is one of the worst "They are just hating it because they think it makes them COOL to hate on it like COOL GUYS HATE" arguments ever

EDIT: Like it is one of the worst arguments in an inherently terrible genre of arguments.

This wasn't a "They hate it because they think it's cool to hate on it" argument, this was a "They have no ability to tell what is good or bad so they love what they remember loving as a kid and hate what everyone else hates" argument. I mean yes, I feel like a lot of people hate on Sonic Team because a lot of people hate on Sonic Team, but that wasn't my main point. The point is that fangames are always received far better than they would be if they had been made by professionals.

Why the hell can't anyone these days take a game on its own merits rather than applauding it for being indie, or condemning it for being a cash cow/rehash/etc?

[Kim]

Animations are better than Sonic 4's animations, but I'm not really bothered by the animations in either of them. Sonic re-releases the old games enough that I've stopped caring, but I will give this a chance simply because I don't mind updated versions of old games.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Question.

What if this exact same preview of this exact same game had come out advertised as the next entry in the Sonic series? I mean, made by the Sonic team and everything?

In fact, let's bring up a hypothetical. What if the pair who made this game were to theoretically reveal themselves to be Sega employees? What would the reaction be then?

I mean, look at it. The animations are sloppy - when Sonic's running, there's no weight to his movements. The graphics are pretty, but a game can't run on eye candy. And for pete's sake, it's Green Hill Zone - identical to the original iteration. If the Sonic Team had released this, the reaction would've been more along the lines of "Look at it, such garbage, how dare they ruin my childhood, I could expect nothing more from the Sonic Team" because it's cool to hate on them.

But just because it's a fangame, people are going "Oh wow, look! People who actually understand the game I grew up with! Too bad it'll be C&D'd, I could expect nothing more from the Sonic Team."

I mean yeah, the last few billion sonic games (except some of the handheld ones, really) have been bad. But the fact is, people have this incredible ability to ignore obvious flaws in a work because it reminds them of something they did when they were younger - people see that gameplay, remember the shape and feel of the level, remember getting hit by that same fish in that same spot... and suddenly they don't notice the weird goddamn wobbling of the sign at the end of the level.

Plus, I mean, some company decides to make a remake and everyone yells at them for being money-grubbing whores. Some fanteam makes a remake and everyone praises them for being the true geniuses of the game industry.

Forgive me for exploding I guess. Nostalgia blindness is a bit of a sore spot for me. As for the Sonic Fan Remix itself, I couldn't possibly care less about whether it succeeds or fails.
This is because it's being made by a group that may very well not know what they are doing. We see them as amateurs at best and praise them for making it look this good when we're expecting it to look like complete utter crap. ET levels of crap.

Mean while we bash Sega because we expect them to make something so perfect and pure that it'll leave us speechless with just its demo alone.

In short we praise fan games because our expectations of them are VERY low. While we bash Sega games because our expectations of them are too high.


EDIT: Plus you have to remember that this game is still in it's beta stage. It won't be done for another 2 to 3 years.

[Fifthfiend]

Question.

What if this exact same preview of this exact same game had come out advertised as the next entry in the Sonic series? I mean, made by the Sonic team and everything?

People would probably be pretty irritated is Sonic Team had released a deliberate, overt remake of a previous game, as the "next entry" in this series of games.

I don't really see what that's meant to prove, though.

EDIT: I'm going to go ahead and say that if they released this remake as a remake, fans would joysperg over it the way they joysperg over literally goddamn every somewhat-graphically-improved remake.

EDIT: Seriously that is one of the worst "They are just hating it because they think it makes them COOL to hate on it like COOL GUYS HATE" arguments ever

EDIT: Like it is one of the worst arguments in an inherently terrible genre of arguments.

[BitVyper]

I think the background there is kind of overdone, but everything still looks pretty cool. I'd rather they work on their sprites than have super detailed, animated backgrounds with all kinds of unnecessary action going on.

Edit: Okay, looking again, it's only really Eggman moving around in the background, but it still just seems weird and uneeded.

This is exactly the kind of thing that's going to generate a C&D, then subsequently mountains of fans looking to the heavens and wailing like they never saw it coming.

Yeah, it looks good enough, but they're remaking old levels and using at least one character that's not theirs. The law's on the books, people.

Are the like, twenty threads where this argument has been beaten to death and beyond not enough? I mean, no one was even talking about it.

[Fifthfiend]

19 year old characters belong in the public domain!

Information wants to be FREE!

[BitVyper]

19 year old characters belong in the public domain!

Information wants to be FREE!

Your TEETH are gonna be free in a second.

Edit: Wait no, I want to change that to "your MOM is public domain."

[Fifthfiend]

You can't handle the truth!

Edit: Wait no, I want to change that to "your MOM is public domain."

Yo mamma's like DRM

[BitVyper]

I'm sorry, all I hear is "wah wah, I'm too stoned to come up with my own characters. Being an unemployed hippy is SO HARD!"

Yo mamma's like DRM

YO mamma's like DFM

[bluestarultor]

I'm going to come right out and admit I jumped the gun on the topic, but that's just become my default reaction anytime "fan game" comes up. Just because this one might actually make it doesn't mean you need precognition to see how most of them are going to end up. It's easier to skip the months of building up hope and just jump to the ultimate reality.

To paraphrase Yahtzee: "I'm going to dash all your hopes right away and nip it in the bud. You're welcome."

It's easier to be pleasantly surprised at the exceptions, like the present topic, than it is to go Sonic Cycle on fan games, no pun intended.

[Magus]

There's actually more fan games that weren't C & D'd than there are that were C & D'd so your reactions seem unfounded. Like there's a shit ton of actual straight-up shitty 1-level "arcade games" using the Sonic IP, mods of the straight-up ROM readily available on dozens of sites, etc. C & D's are actually rare for a clearly non-profit amateur fangame and that is why people have a problem with them, not because they happen all the time.

In both the CT Remake case and the Crimson Echoes case, the projects were doing something which supposedly could hurt the company's bottom line. Obviously a remake of CT, even if released for free, with such stunning graphics would've made the DS "remake" (really just a port) crash and burn. Plus those guys kept talking about selling it as a Gamecube game back in the day, which was just illegal.

Crimson Echoes was kind of weird but maybe they thought it would affect sales of Chrono Cross ports or something zany like that. It was seriously just a romhack, there are zillions of those for CT so to bother C & D'ing it felt out of place and annoyed lots of people. People are pissed by things that hardly ever happen. If they happened all the time then it would be understandable for you to get mad that they were annoyed that it happened, but...they don't for these stupid little fangames. Heck, even when they do they usually work out some weird way to let it be released. The King's Quest IX project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Lining_%28video_game%29), for instance, was originally C and D'd but then the group worked with Sierra and changed the names and dropped the King's Quest name to make it more of an homage to King's Quest than an actual sequel, and everybody was just peachy with it. Squarenix didn't bother to even try that, although on the other hand the King's Quest IX crew was incredibly active in pursuing an agreement with the current holders of King's Quest to figure out a way to release it (probably because Activision ended up not having a leg to stand on since they'd changed so much as to make it pretty damn distinguishable from the KQ IP).

I feel what you are saying in that they are dumb for making a big deal out of a project that will probably not come to fruition, as those are always disappointing to people who actually keep track of them in anticipation. And they are dumb for not just finishing it and THEN releasing news of it so as to avoid C & D's entirely (since once it's out on the web, a C & D wouldn't stop its dissemination). But to look at it like a C and D is inevitable doesn't seem to be borne out by actual experience.

[BitVyper]

To paraphrase Yahtzee: "I'm going to dash all your hopes right away and nip it in the bud. You're welcome."

That's odd, 'cause your post sounded an awful lot more like another lecture about your views on copyright law as it relates to fangames. Which has had quite a few threads dedicated to it already, so I'm not entirely sure why "hey look, a cool Sonic fangame" had to be turned into another.

You didn't jump the gun because there was no gun.

[bluestarultor]

I'm just going to step out of this discussion by saying that I don't classify most ROM hacks and other petty things under my "rage" category. Those don't get shut down because they're not worth shutting down. Just the big stuff.


And on my copyright lecturing, yeah, that's in there, too. I won't deny it. While I'm not for the current system by any means, there is a legality issue which interlaces with everything else. Nothing's in a bubble.



That said, I already apologized for my outburst, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

[Jagos]

In other news (http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/index.html)

Let's hope Sonic 4 can do great as well (http://www.sonicthehedgehog4.com/us/)

[Kim]

I'm just going to step out of this discussion by saying that I don't classify most ROM hacks and other petty things under my "rage" category. Those don't get shut down because they're not worth shutting down. Just the big stuff.

Crimson Echoes.

[Fifthfiend]

YO mamma's like DFM

Yo mamma's like DFM's comics.

There's actually more fan games that weren't C & D'd than there are that were C & D'd so your reactions seem unfounded. Like there's a shit ton of actual straight-up shitty 1-level "arcade games" using the Sonic IP, mods of the straight-up ROM readily available on dozens of sites, etc. C & D's are actually rare for a clearly non-profit amateur fangame and that is why people have a problem with them, not because they happen all the time.

The killer is fangames are probably more likely to get C&D'd the more they look like interesting / well produced, potentially satisfying gaming experiences which generate a lot of enthusiasm.

[Jagos]

Non, while I agree, we're not looking for another fight here. Let's just focus on the Sonic, alright?

[Kim]

Non, while I agree, we're not looking for another fight here.

Maybe you aren't.

Let's just focus on the Sonic, alright?

Okeedokee.

A few complaints about the fan game's trailer. There's no noise for when you blow up enemies. The sound effect for the screeching halt is too loud and seems a bit grating on the ears. The visuals are very busy, and one might argue that they're too busy, making it hard to focus.

[bluestarultor]

I really don't appreciate the baiting, Non.


Also, I'm going to have to disagree on some of the points. I do agree that the skidding sound is off, but I think the multi-parallax background is just fine, if completely wrong for realistic parallax. Sonic's animation is no worse than what we've seen in Sonic 4 so far (not that that excuses Sonic 4). I think the biggest issue with business isn't the background so much as the foreground. The foliage looks great, but there's just too much of it butting into the play area.

[Kim]

You can download a demo of the game at their site now. (http://sonicfanremix.com/)

EDIT: Color me unimpressed. The Sonic 4 demo had me much more interested than this does.