Drakan Remake by YanGez93 [Project abandoned]

[Mechanist]

Looks great for the most part - although I'd say that the "snowy grass" looks somewhat... "overexposed", too white?

My assumption was to make this project completly free in 100% and I'm aware of copyright infrigments:) Even when we change name it will be still similar to Drakan so I cannot accept money.

No, I didn't mean as payment for OpenOOTF, but as an unrelated donation to help cover the expenses.
You know, such as how that homeless man recently donated 2 brand new BMW's to the church

Also, although I'm no expert on this, but I'd think that as long as the original OOTF files are required to run OpenOOTF (and not distributed as part of OpenOOTF!), and the original developers are appropriately credited, then it effectively falls into the category of a graphical mod with some extra fan created content, so it wouldn't raise any issues with IP rights that way.

For an example of what I mean, take a look at "The Nameless Mod":
They utilized the Deus Ex engine (Unreal Engine) and a lot of the game's assets, to create an altogether different fan-made game (with a story totally unrelated to Deus Ex).
Averted the copyright issues by distributing it as a free mod for Deus Ex - meaning it required owning Deus Ex in order to function.

OpenOOTF is pretty much a reversal of the above situation - you're recreating the game's content in a different engine - but most of the above should still apply.

AFAIK, the root of the problem lies in distributing the IP belonging to someone else, depriving them of their rightful profits. In this case, the relevant IP would be primarily the characters' designs, and the story.
Also, the doctrine of "fair use" cannot be applied in this particular case, at least not as far as I understand it.

I can't really see any other ways around it, aside from the following:

• Release OpenOOTF as a "graphical mod", requiring a full installation of OOTF to work at all;
• Get permission from the copyright owners to release it as a free, standalone fan-made game (unlikely?);
• Hack away at it until nothing recognizeable remains of the Drakan characters and story. The problem is, that you then necessarily have what is effectively a brand new game, rendering the original purpose moot.

[Arokhs Twin]

Just to add my two cents; releasing the game as a graphical mod is probably be the best way. I tried and failed to find out if / when the drakan copyright expires as it's a legal mess. Neither of the drakan games are in production so therefore Sony won't be loosing out on sales if this were standalone but there is the intellectual property rights and the creative rights plus trademarks to contend with. As I've said previously I doubt Sony would care but there is always the chance of falling foul of their lawyers who like so sue for any reason they can find. It's a real minefield.

Getting permission from them would be next to impossible; just trying to find the right person or department to contact is hard enough.

I'd agree that if you made the game standalone and removed anything related to Drakan then it is a brand new game and therefore isn't a drakan remake. However if you did go down this route then you could charge money for it.

As for hosting it, dropbox gives you 1TB of space and you can share folders for collaborative work but you have to pay for it. $79 per year I believe.

[Mechanist]

SolidWorks sounds good.

Well, it's a great piece of 3D CAD software. One of the best there is, in fact.

It's just not intended for creating models of the kind normally used in games, especially character models. The user interface simply isn't geared towards that.
It'd be like trying to plow a field using an SUV in place of a farm tractor - sure, it might have easily enough power for the job, but the wheels are too small, the clearance is too low, it isn't heavy enough to get sufficient traction, there isn't a good way to attach the plow, etc.

With that having been said, if you do want a 3D model of some kind of mechanism, then that can be arranged.

For an example of what is fairly easy to model in SolidWorks, think along the lines of the soul crystal pedestal/contraption in Arokh's Lair.

Getting permission from them would be next to impossible (...)

Well, in my line of work, "impossibility" is a very relative term. I routinely perform tasks that >95% of the other employees consider absolutely impossible to do

I'd agree that if you made the game standalone and removed anything related to Drakan then it is a brand new game and therefore isn't a drakan remake. However if you did go down this route then you could charge money for it.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but even if OpenOOTF was released as a free mod for OOTF, there would be nothing preventing YanGez from subsequently commercially releasing a different (non-Drakan) game of this type using the same engine?
I mean, on the basis that it involves charging for the brand new content (levels, characters, story...), and not for the (free) engine.

[UCyborg]

At this point in time, is Sony even aware that Drakan was ever a thing? Legally, there might be restrictions, but in practice, people pretty much do whatever they feel like with abandon-ware without any consequences whatsoever.

[Mechanist]

Sure - but going from general experience, it'd all be fine and dandy, but only until some smarta$$ (or beancounter) figures out there's some money to be made by litigating. Especially by going after the low-hanging fruit.
Or by otherwise (effectively) outlawing an otherwise harmless activity - which was one of the principal causes of that major disaster I mentioned recently, the one that caused me enormous losses.

[UCyborg]

Eh, you're right, there's always a chance something could happen. Would artificially restricting this creation to Drakan owners actually work? It seems silly.

[Mechanist]

It's typically called "covering your butt". A simple and sensible precaution, given the risks.

Also, I know that it isn't directly related - but given the prevailing legal and political climate in Poland, I can certainly understand YanGez's cautious approach.

Realistically, what's to stop people from just pirating OOTF (or TAG, or any other game) from wherever, in any case?
Last time I checked, TAG is freely available (as in: pirated) on PS2 ROM sites, together with zillions of other PS2 games...
I presume that the situation with OOTF would be similar - especially since functionally speaking, it's effectively more or less abandonware.

Still, the copyright (presumably) still applies, so why take chances with OpenOOTF?

For a more pertinent example of a similar effort, check out Ultima V: Lazarus. It's pretty much the same deal as OpenOOTF - a major graphical overhaul of Ultima V in another engine.
And guess what? It requires Ultima V to be installed.

Finally, remember that it should be perfectly fine to release a free, playable demo of OpenOOTF (which wouldn't have to require any OOTF files at all, or perhaps just the demo version), as long as it features the same content as the original demo of OOTF.

[UCyborg]

For a more pertinent example of a similar effort, check out Ultima V: Lazarus. It's pretty much the same deal as OpenOOTF - a major graphical overhaul of Ultima V in another engine.
And guess what? It requires Ultima V to be installed.

Nowhere does it say it needs Ultima V, it needs Dungeon Siege because they chose to develop it on that engine and making it standalone was not possible. So it's effectively a total-conversion mod for Dungeon Siege. Besides, you can't install and play Ultima V on a modern PC without using DOSBox.

[Mechanist]

Hm, you're right. My bad, I wasn't paying attention.

Wait... doesn't it mean that they effectively republished the entire IP of another game, and got away with it?

[UCyborg]

Wait... doesn't it mean that they effectively republished the entire IP of another game, and got away with it?

Check this out; Legalities

So as long as you don't sell it or claim the original idea behind the game was yours, it would work? EA apparently doesn't have any issues with its existence.

Regarding Drakan, one of the members here started the idea of repacking the whole game with all the content the modders have created. It was even accepted on the now non-existent GameFront as abandonware. While it's certainly something that shouldn't be done from the legal standpoint, how do you keep the old game not available for purchase anywhere alive? You can't. It might as well be completely forgotten, which is perfectly legal.

It'd be a shame though. I have a hinch that some people would buy it again it if it was available on GOG, so even if they've already bought it in the past.

[ToothieBootie69]

I can't even begin to describe how unfathomably happy it makes me to see a big productive and passionate community around my all time favorite game!! Even after it went off the market, holey moley!!! You guys rock!!!
Do you have a Patreon or something I can throw my money at to appreciate you guys as much as possible?

[Mechanist]

Hi there, and welcome

Hmm, "big" isn't quite the word I'd use; I've been here about a month, and only a few of our members were active during that time.

Last time I asked, YanGez isn't accepting any donations... not yet, at least. But in the future, who knows

As you can see, we're in a bit of a pickle regarding OOTF's legal status. It's a tricky and delicate issue, which needs to be resolved before OpenOOTF can be released.
Of course it is a relatively minor problem for now, since there's still a lot of other work to be done first - to the best of my understanding, OpenOOTF is still far from being complete.

[yangez93]

My opinion is that, problem of legal status certainly will be not solved right now, because we actually we do not know details/procedures how the Sony company checks if there is any copyright infrigment, every company have confidential information. That's why we've got a discussion here, we dont know what they will do in case of any copyright infrigment. Even when we change names,world,story etc. They can care when story will be similar to Drakan or Rynn is identical to to the main character. And of course, what about plagiarism? When we talk about other games there were even lawsuits against GTA (before it was realeased in 1997, there was a similar game already in 1993 and Developer of this game sued Rockstar North). There are many such cases, that is the market not only game industry but also music, movies, books and many other.

Getting permission from them would be next to impossible; just trying to find the right person or department to contact is hard enough.

Yes, it'll be very hard. They rather dont want to someone remake their works in commercial goal so Sony will lose their sales.

Here in this forum they were created mainly mods, game patches so authors should not worry. Even author of Drakan 10th Annivesary had some worries about Legal Status (and I thinking also about OpenDrakan by Zelasus)-

But if we take that way of standalone game ->When it won't be remake what about Drakan fans? They want to play this? A lot of Drakan fans searched by phrase "Drakan remake" or "Drakan modern engine" and finally they found this. And they want to it will be finished. (btw. they want to even make small donations A little money will not hurt but I'm really careful in this matter right know, ). But the assumption is that it was supposed to be "Drakan Remake"

Another problem is game promotion, how fans can find this game? They have using phrase in search engine "Drakan","Drakan fan game", etc. They won't know name of this game. Even when want to play something similar we have to write something like "Drakan similar games".

We had also Drakan fan game announcement in the past: Legends Of Drakan . There is even "Drakan" word in title.
viewtopic.php?t=3851

There would be another way making Drakan Remake in just Riot Engine with new/improved models, music, sounds etc. So we here have Drakan HD Mod. Here, we would rather not worry about copyright infringement because even the editor is available. But we know how this editor works Rather hard to do levels,advanced graphic solutions, shaders and of course I saw some problems with playing game in modern operating systems.

Summarizing reading previous posts. I have question, it has to change name from OpenOOTF to release as "Graphical mod"? I hope OpenOOTF won't be only graphical improved

I can't even begin to describe how unfathomably happy it makes me to see a big productive and passionate community around my all time favorite game!! Even after it went off the market, holey moley!!! You guys rock!!!
Do you have a Patreon or something I can throw my money at to appreciate you guys as much as possible?

Thank you

You know, such as how that homeless man recently donated 2 brand new BMW's to the church

Thank you guys for offering small donations but really cannot accept . Of course it would have to change when the project develops to a large extent and I will need more and more time. The goal of donation would be 3D models(placeholder), buying some assets from https://assetstore.unity.com/ or to hire freelancer to make Arokh or to make cutscenes. Or buy some game music license, I searched some free to use music but they are little bit boring Fortunately, nowadays you do not need a lot of money to make a game

[Mechanist]

here would be another way making Drakan Remake in just Riot Engine with new/improved models, music, sounds etc.

Hmm, seems like a dead end to me.
The engine is quite dated, doesn't support a lot of useful features, and appears to have serious performance issues.
Ah, and also the editor is kinda broken, especially on modern systems.

For comparison:
On my old PC, in stock OOTF with graphical settings at max (but no foghack) I was getting 80-120fps in most areas.
On that very same computer and OS, Skyrim (or Witcher 2, for that matter) would run at about 20-30fps most of the time, with graphics quality and draw distance set to medium...medium-high - and of course even then the graphics were still vastly superior when compared to OOTF.

Also, to the best of my understanding, any previous attempts to port TAG to OOTF's engine fell flat on their face, due to TAG assets depending on engine features unavailable in the older PC version.

Zalasus' work on recreating OOTF's engine may yet change that picture, but even then, we still return to the IP issues.


As for Sony "losing sales" - well, it's kinda hard to lose any sales on a (discontinued) product that isn't being marketed in the first place?

OOTF is available on abandonware sites, and TAG is on PS2 ROM sites.
I'd hazard a guess that as long as noone is making any money from it, a remake being released likely wouldn't bother anyone.

Thank you guys for offering small donations but really cannot accept .

Well, if you do change your mind, my offer still stands.

[Metaldrgn]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is royalties. A contract or agreement could be made as to royalty payment if this game does get developed. That may be the easiest solution. The price could be kept low and that should reduce royalties as well but it depends on the agreement.

Also unless someone actually talks to their legal department, we shouldn't really speculate.

Here's something interesting I found:
https://www.gbgames.com/articles/indie- ... copyright/

Sounds like calling the game openOOTF wouldn't be violating anything, it would be the content/likenesses. I haven't finished reading through it, but it does mention that someone could be liable if it hurt sales, but I would imagine because the game is so old something like this may actually increase the sales and/or make people want to know more about it.