Topic: End(lurking) == true

[ObsidianShiar]

Hello guys.

I've been lurking for a bit here, and I've decided to share my thoughts with you.

In the past, I've played SFC1 and a tiny bit of SFC3, but I wanted to give SFC2 a try. So I go to a torrent site (not giving names) and I see entries for EAW, OP and EAW CE. I didn't even know about CE, and thankfully the torrent description linked to here.

Having several years of experience in other gaming communities, I see that you're doing things differently here than is practised elsewhere. It's awesome Taldren evaded a licensing hell situation (well, sort of) by giving certain rights and source codes to you instead of taking them with themselves to the metaphoric grave.

But, what I don't like is that you're charging for games you didn't make and keeping your community patch reserved only to those who pay you money instead of making a separate installer for those who got EAW one way or another. I know bills for the site domain etc. need to be paid, but you can only ever do so with donations. I know that won't be enough, but realistically speaking, this is a largely forgotten series with few remaining fans, what did you expect?

I want to believe you guys are here for the benefit of the games and what's left of their communities and not personal profit.



I'd like to hear some staff response and see what you guys think of this.


P.S. While the CE splash screen is stylish, I think you should change the title. It relates to SFC1 more than SFC2.

[ObsidianShiar]

There's a lot of accusations in your post. My advice to you before making a negative name for yourself;  is to ask questions instead of coming up with your own reasons as to why we do things around here. It's better to ask.

You're right there, I should have phrased some things better. I'm sorry if it came as an offense to you, but I actually want to like this place and am trying to deal with what's standing in the way, so to speak

If you are truly lurking around you will see we aren't the mafia and we aren't hoarding profits like a pack of Ferengis.

Nooo, I wasn't trying to hint that you were a sort of mafia at all, far from it. The way you work just seems unprecedented in certain aspects.

Community patches have never been charged.

Maybe, but I haven't seen a way to get the patch other than purchase the CE from the Market tab.
 

As for the torrents, please don't posts about such things. No one here likes to hear about illegal copies of the game.

When it comes to abandonware, torrents (and well, eBay and maybe Amazon) are the only ways to get a game that's sold nowhere else and the former rightsholders can't do anything about them. This site is not owned or sponsored by Interplay, Activision, Quicksilver or Taldren, so it came as a surprise to me to see purchasable games. Certain other communities I've been to (Battle for Middle-Earth and NHL 2004 - both of which have big modding communities) do things... let's just say... differently

I find it very unusual that instead of introducing yourself from the beginning you began lurking around.

Uh, I'm not sure I follow what you mean...

[TarMinyatur]

I'm almost certain that Frey has paid out of his own pocket several thousand dollars to keep Dynaverse.net online. I doubt that donations and marketplace purchases have ever covered the hardware and connection costs for running Dynaverse.net.

The Starfleet Command community has never supported profiting from the intellectual property of others. Several of us have donated many hundreds of hours of labor to improve this game through executables, models, missions, ship data, etc. Nobody ever charged a penny for it.

[KBF-Butcher]

Every now and then that I login to Dynaverse.net just to catch up for any SFC updates, I am surprised that I still find people here trying to contribute by any means to the community and try to keep an obsolete game (but maybe the best ever released) alive. I also feel guilty that I have never donated anything to Dynaverse, although I am using their free services for more than 12 years...well at least I feel better today that I bought online the SFC CE :p
Many thanks to Frey and all the people that are keeping this site and the SFC community still active

[Leermeister]

You guys should Log into the Dynaverse 3 server that is still running more often and we can have a real war

[FPF-DieHard]

You guys should Log into the Dynaverse 3 server that is still running more often and we can have a real war

Why would we do that?   SFC3 sucks. 

[Leermeister]

You guys should Log into the Dynaverse 3 server that is still running more often and we can have a real war

Why would we do that?   SFC3 sucks. 

Because there are pretty much no Dynaverse 2 servers. Anyway best way to keep a game alive is to play it.

[FPF-DieHard]

Because there are pretty much no Dynaverse 2 servers. Anyway best way to keep a game alive is to play it.

SFC3 is not nor will it ever be my game.

Only thing SFC3 was good for was it got Nannerslug to leave D2

[Leermeister]

It may not be as good as SFC2 but it is a masterpiece compared to any other Star Trek game (including that monstrosity called STO). And here in 2015 it is the only one i can find a dynaverse server running.