If you could talk to the game's developers...

[Guest JediIgor]

Well I just finished reading this now, and I don't mean to resurrect an old thread but..

 

[list=]The source code is everything but the pictures: We could turn this game (or the tactical) into Episode 1 podracer if we had it; that's how powerful it is.

 

It seems that because of their NDA they're not too inclined to answer everything, so why not ask them to send all of their archives that they can without breaking their NDA?

 

I've read suggestions about contacting the stock-holders and it reminded me of a strategy someone could attempt. It's called turboing, and anoyne who reads /. will know what I'm talking about. http://www.macwhiz.com/articles/art-of-turboing.html If done right we could actually get very far very quick.

 

If all else fails, it would be a shame if the same thing happened to LEC as to VaLVE earlier this year (hint hint).

[XeqtR]

wow there was alot of replys and unfortunately i don't have the time to read them all but a couple things i would suggest (if allready not suggested) would be to have the multiplayer more than 2 players but like a max of 3 or 4 that would be very interesting and fun. Also instead of having it set in 1 specific timeline, myabe have the option available to select wich timeline to play in etc.

[Jahled]

Err... well i've already confessed to being a complete PC clueless-one, so I was quite shocked when my friend Jethro suddenly appeared from China on my doorstep yesterday evening, just dropping by inbetween business in Europe. When I shuved him in the direction of my PC (twas where I planted his can of beer..) he started rattling off stuff that went way over my head, but basically suggested cracking the game's source code shouldn't actually be that that hard.. he muttered more stuff about reverseing the program language... languages with names like python... drank his beer and rushed off... Me no expert, so I know not what he was saying, other than the confidance inwhich he was saying it! Bear in mind this is someone who I grew up with in inner-London, got into his martial arts, figured he wanted to learn Mandarin, studied it, learnt it, moved to Beijing, speaks it fluently (always amusing when he gets a call from China in a pub with him...people look on open mouthed), married, has now a beautiful daughter, set up an expanding business exporting stones, and leaves me with heaps of DVDs every time he 'passes by!' But he knows his PC stuff like the back of his hand. He was actually the first person I knew who had 'Elite'on the ancient BBC PC... remember that? Seems now like playing a game staring at the starfield screen saver... But anyway, jet lagged and perhaps overlooking stuff he might have been; as I say i'm in the dark here, but it did sound interesting...

 

Podracing?!?!? Igor... i'm after stuff like a hundred character each side, five hundred system galaxy; plus half that in deep-space empty sectors, eight fighter option each side galaxy setting... kind of thing

[Guest JediIgor]

Well, that was how silly we could make it. How realistically we could make it is let the person specify the # of planets he wanted (with a minimum and a maximum obviously..) and then each time the star charts would have random planets (names and attributes taken outta a big list of course) with some planets that everyone's heard of appearing more often then others.

 

Now about what your friend was talking about, I'm pretty sure it's called reverse engineering (which is pretty much guess & check afaik). Now I reckon someone here who knows assembly (literally machine code) might be able to do it in a few years -- but anyone with that sort of major skill (and Rebellion is a pretty complex game) would probably be off working somewhere for lots of mula.

 

Not sure why he mentioned Python either, it's just a language like any other (except that it's more like Java than C++), albeit with a nicer syntax.

 

Well since he seems to know what he's talking about, maybe you could ask him to figure out a few things? Like going over the unit limits? No need to reverse engineer the whole game .

[Jahled]

Unfortunately, we've got to leave him out of any equation. Despite being (almost) as lost to Star Wars in general as I am in life, he's got to much going on in his life to make time for PC games. Believe me, I have tried to get him here, even on the back of the gibberish we've been posting in Outside Interests, but he simply doesn't have that much time. He'll probably be up to answering questions via email though..

[Khan]

g'day

 

just read through the thread and thought 'd bump it up to the top.

 

Did you ever get a reply from the Hugh bloke or any of your other leads?

[Guest Scathane]

How good of you to notice, I had almost forgotten. I'll contact Hugh...

[SOCL]

How good of you to notice, I had almost forgotten. I'll contact Hugh...

That's not like you, Scath... Have you had too many beers (or gotten into a snowboarding accident too?)?

[the_mask]

Hope everything's still in one piece with you, SOCL.

Yeah Scath, keep reminding this guy of the eager modders, that are sitting like vultures before his house, waiting for some info to hit the floor.

[SOCL]

Hope everything's still in one piece with you, SOCL.

Yes...except for my brain, but the doctors just put it back together with new duct tape.

 

Heh he--OUCH!

 

 

Yeah Scath, keep reminding this guy of the eager modders, that are sitting like vultures before his house, waiting for some info to hit the floor.

Yes, tell him that if he doesn't help, my troops will be deployed.

[Trejiuvanat]

I thought all of your troops had been massacred by the Cattis....

[SOCL]

I thought all of your troops had been massacred by the Cattis....

Ah, yes, but these guys are the new Swedish brand troopers, guaranteed to work until they stop.

[Trejiuvanat]

I think I found one of your Elitetroopers...

 

SOCL's relentless shocktrooper!

[Cain]

.....Did anywane think to start an agressive email campain with all the members to convince Lucas Arts to make a new Rebellion official patch ?!

[SOCL]

I think I found one of your Elitetroopers...

 

SOCL's relentless shocktrooper!

Shit, their cover is blown!!!

 

SOCL turns to his aide, who materializes out of thin air. "Tell the troopers to hop away as fast as they can! They must escape!

The aide frowns. "I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that."

SOCL's eyes grow wide at his aide's voice's change to that of the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. "What do you mean, Hal--I mean aide! You MUST do as I say! I command you!"

Aide Hal rolls his eyes. "Well, of course, sir, but you see...our BunnyTroopers...they used the cheap generic battery...not Energizer."

"DAMN IT! What about those million and half orders we had for Energizer?!"

The aide shrugs. "Not sure, sir; I'll check." The aide disappears and SOCL turns away, suddenly noticing the Energizer batteries hooked up to his aide's computer...

"WILMA! I mean--AIDE!!!"...

 

 

 

.....Did anywane think to start an agressive email campain with all the members to convince Lucas Arts to make a new Rebellion official patch ?!

Hmm...not a bad idea, though some have tried chaining themselves to the front of Skywalker Ranch to get Lucas' attention to no avail. The most contact they end up having with Lucas is the creator of STAR WARS yelling, "Get out of the way!" or "Open the gate, will ya?" Of course, being the devote fool of a STAR WARS fan, the person galdy takes any insult from George Lucas as a priceless jem and does anything his master orders.

 

How do I know this, you wonder? Well, Trej told me he did this very thing once.

...right, Trej?

[Trejiuvanat]

Your brain must be off-line again, SOCL!

 

I can arrange a Yuuzhan Vong brain replacement for you. The one thing you have to do is chain yourself to before my house and take whatever insult whenever I open the gate, and obey my every command...

 

Trej's voice turn like Palpy's: "Because you, are now mine."

[SOCL]

Your brain must be off-line again, SOCL!

 

I can arrange a Yuuzhan Vong brain replacement for you. The one thing you have to do is chain yourself to before my house and take whatever insult whenever I open the gate, and obey my every command...

 

Trej's voice turn like Palpy's: "Because you, are now mine."

Touché [/spam]

[Trejiuvanat]

Touché [/spam]

 

[spam]Now this really is a code that we should activate. [/spam]

[ElvisMiggell]

Now now boys, we'll have none of that thank you very much!!!

[Jahled]

.....Did anywane think to start an agressive email campain with all the members to convince Lucas Arts to make a new Rebellion official patch ?!

 

Well dude, as you may have tracked along this thread, some of of us have tried to extract some information from Lucasarts, without that much success, other than Scathe's lead of communication with one of the game's developers.

 

And no, we haven't launched a sustained email attack on what seems like the nemesis organized via this site, because it would be largely pointless.

 

Lucasarts gave up on Rebellion shortly after it's release. Quite why I don't know, because it lives up to what it was always sold as; managing a galaxy! Whether or not the game's limited scope for expansion denied it further development and/or suppoort remains to be seen, but we can't ignore the fact the gaming community as a whole essentially had no time for the game. It will remains to be seen how much positive effect the RebEd has had on the endurance of the game, personally I think it has been essential to this site's game development; to the extent I realize exactly why I for one keep playing this old game. Without RebEd I would not have tolerated the crap images of Bane Nothos for example and continued to engoy the game.

 

So, our editor enables us, and that's anybody with any attachment to the game, to mold it to their perception of the Star Wars Universe. How many other games can enable you to do that? We have superior new models to import, new programing to expand the game's scope, and an endless list of possibilities with RebEd's card creation expanse... the game is in short almost limitless!

 

It's not as flash as Homeworld, nor as liquid as a first person shooter; but the game was never anything but a very basic galactic engine, requiring imagination; which I for one can live with... we've got models that now are looking like some other era compared to the originals of the game.

 

Umm. Err. Email campaign? Lucasarts arn't going to reward are devotion to this game with anything other than silence. We've tried. What we really need is the game's source code to crack all the stuff we realize for the game, but arn't able to do... along the lines of all the ideas in the rebellion2 thread. This we can acieve if we had the basic programing of the game. Feel free to bombard lucasarts for this information, for I personally grow tired of not being able to capture rebel ships, leave my fleets hidden in 'empty space,' and being restricted to four types of Imperial fighter when I Have at leat twelve TIE varients to unleash doom upon the rebel vermin....

 

In short, your's could be a galactic idea....

[CalamariAce]

I don't suppose contacting Lucas himself would get us anywhere....

[CalamariAce]

Hummmph, they release the source code for Homeworld I (check out http://swnr.themaw.net/index.php) which is a younger game than Rebellion!

[Evaders99]

Homeworld published by Sierra - company good with gaming mods. Their Homeworld modding community is thriving. Also the publishers of Halflife, allowing the widely popular Counterstrike mod as well as hundreds of other mods. There is a good system of developers and modders working together to keep the community together.

 

LEC on the other hand... the closest moded things we have are the Jedi Outcast/Academy (read Quake 3 system) games and the Galactic Battlegrounds (read AOE) games. These are systems designed for multiplayer, but actual modding isn't much done here. The developers know what LEC will want.. or rather not want.. and any such attempts at source code would be frivilous and responded with scorn. There is no outside influence to these games.. on ideas or even suggestions. LEC is very closed about it will and will not do. I don't see them every laxing to allow such a moding community that we would want in a Rebellion game to see through.

 

 

Good luck convincing someone, but honestly this isn't going to happen.

[Cain]

......hmmm...if for ex we start to search for the people ho have worked at this game and diplomatically email them ...maybe they have some info or parts of that hated source code

maybe they will give it to us after all this time....because I am confident that they already forget us ...so .... probably some wane will get merciful with us and give us something...

 

huh...or if 2000 members start sending 10 e-mail’s by day with a diplomatic request ....in some months they will notice us....about the game in general my opinion is that the interface is the problem....it is window type and very uncommon to a gamer.....at first it was like this for me ....I learned the game without the manual because it was my cousins and he forget to send it..Can’t remember.

 

 

So I still believe that is a way...and in 2-3 years we will se a similar game released ..I'm confident of that

[SOCL]

other than Scathe's lead of communication with one of the game's developers

By the way, where is Scath? I've tried e-mailing him to no avail. I'm getting a tad worried...

 

Good luck convincing someone, but honestly this isn't going to happen.

I know I'm not an authority figure here, but, Evaders, I don't think it helps anyone nor does it make anyone feel confident/good when you make pessemistic comments such as this.