something about squadron...

[visciom]

I have been playing Marathon: Squadron recently, and I've enjoyed it for the most part. But I think the credits screen needs some adjusting.

First off, somehow textures from half life 2 ended up in Squadron


Secondly, many sounds seem very similar from sounds in Half Life 2 and Day of Defeat. Too similar.

Lastly, ShongShong obviously took textures from Rubicon but did not give Rubicon's designers credit, nor HalfLife2's designers.

This isn't really a big deal as Squadron is non-profit, but it would be nice if the developer gave people the proper credit they deserve.

[kineticturtle]

7 stolen Half Life 2 textures?
3 sources (HL2, Rubicon, DofD)?
7 (almost) letters in "Squadron"?

COINCIDENCE?
When will we know the TRU7H?



Seriously though, I'd be interested to hear from shongshong about this. Treellama mentioned that they could possibly have been from a texture CD or something. We'll see.

[shongshong]

yep! thats right, and sorry, my extreemly bad for forgetting to mention my sources, but mainly due to the fact alot of new resources implimented into squadron are from a variety of other resources.

Origionaly, when I was building textures, it was primairily bassed off of the Rubicon image resources. Than to change it up and create a new feel, or addition to that of rubicon, I threw in textures similar to that of the origional enviorment of rubicon.
Than, for the materials (pointed out) were from a variety of areas. A major income was definately from that of HL2's resources (about 10 or so) some from turbosquid (very few) and some from quake and marathon orphanage [for instance, the IFC doors].

Same can be said about certain soundfx. A variety from hl2 again [via torrent] and a few from "The Freesound Project" (A database where people upload soundclips).

Sounds and wall textures have been primairily used from sources to save me a handfull of time in development'. And I definately should credit my sources! Maby on my version debuging release(comming up), will include more acurate credits, lol.

I say my main reason of not crediting correctly is because I whipped out thoses game credits at the very end on thoes last few days, (causing me to rush the process)

Overall... I hope it doesnt make anyone cry... or sad... thats one of the main reasons why I did make this game opensource

[treellama]

Perhaps you should look up what open source means, because there's no definition of open source that comes remotely close to "using other people's copyrighted material without their permission."

I won't report you, but it don't be surprised if someone else does.

[kineticturtle]

Hey shongshong,
Glad you came out in the open about this. Glad to hear you're doing a fix release too! I posted a review on Fileball (pending approval right now), I hope you'll wait until it's released to release your fix! If you have any questions about my comments and suggestions in that review, feel free to ask me!

I'm going to play around with porting a couple of my netmaps to Squadron. Hopefully I can get the shapes file to work with Forge...

Still having fun with the thing. Good work!

EDIT: Exclamation! Exclamation exclamation! Exclamation exclamation exclamation! Holy crap exciting apparently!
MORE EDIT: I also should second what wolfy said above. Be careful whose copyrights you're messing with. Keep in mind also that freesound (I use it all the time as a theater sound designer) requires sighting specific sources back to their freesound usernames for all sounds used! So you might want to do that too. Freesound does keep a database of everything you've downloaded, to help track the samples down. Also: !

[shongshong]

sweet! I'll definately have to wait for your reveiw so I can change more errors I didnt catch or whatever it is. And about netmaps: I should also include other peoples netmap designs into the next update. So if you know anybody wanting to make a ww2 style beach head, or somthing, I dont know, send them to me for the next update. (Lol! dont wory, This time, worldly credits will be involved).

I dont know what else to add to the next revision, but if anyone else has ideas, throw them in

edit-----
ill try and get as many of my source credits listed out as possible. the copyright material

[kineticturtle]

sweet! I'll definately have to wait for your reveiw so I can change more errors I didnt catch or whatever it is.

My review and some other review have been approved! Again, feel free to ask me questions.

[shongshong]

I read your review and find my self agreeing with alot of the problems presented. (especially that of proof-reading). Well... word of the wise, I suck at english and I live in America!
Now that I have some problems laid out exactly for me, I can (once again) begin work. Revising my scenario. lol

but like you said, a one man process is a tough job: so Im gonna start up a new topic that will be a team conglomerate effort in hopes of creating the revised version fix as well as a netpack job,

Ill try and make this next process quick

[RyokoTK]

Why didn't you do that first?

[John Drake]

I suck at english and I live in America!

Where are you from?

I got confused initially about the IFC troops; I thought that they were friendlies that were pissed (I shot two with a grenade after thinking this thing was a switch) becaue the radar shows a green square and the VacBoB voice. I love the weapons, but I don't know what the .50 cal drums go to... I guess I will have to play more (can't hurt). I liked the lack of mazes in Squadron; I don't think I can stress how easily I get lost. Anyhow, great game and I would not sweat over the credits. (After all, it was free so most judges will cut you some slack.)

[kineticturtle]

I suck at english and I live in America!

That's pretty normal.

He really should "sweat over the credits." Theft is theft.

Yes, yes he should. You can avoid judges having to cut you slack at all, that way.

[John Drake]

Yes, yes he should. You can avoid judges having to cut you slack at all, that way.

Well it is kinda late for that now isn't it? He already said he will fix it; I was just saying that most reasonable people won't clap him in irons and toss him in jail.

He really should "sweat over the credits." Theft is theft.

It isn't "theft" per say; more like copyright infringement. Are textures even considered "intellectual property" of people? Anyway, I said I would not sweat it if I were in his shoes. Personally, I would not report him and I hope no reasonable person would.

[goran]

I love squadron, it's a masterpiece. Prolly one of those scenario ppl will remember. You did a lot of things right! New gameplay, challenging, smaller levels, much better sounds, realistic design. The coolest juggernaut ever. The weapons are superb. I never forget the tight shotgun action I had in those corridoors, or all battles where I charged with my automatic weapons and shot everyone down like rambo. Ah, and you even pulled a favourite of mine. Not giving credits. Lol, ppl are tight assed nowadays. There's amountain of awesomeness in squadron, and ppl go right away to bitch about credits.

[visciom]

Not giving credits. Lol, ppl are tight assed nowadays. There's amountain of awesomeness in squadron, and ppl go right away to bitch about credits.

Well, how would you feel if someone took some of your own work, and put it in something that they claimed they did themselves?

By the way ShongShong, its good to know that your honest about the whole matter, and are working to fix it.

[shongshong]

lol! thanks for your moral suport goran
But I realy do respect copyright stuff, I know what its like to have your stuff riped off (personal experiences in school)
and I realy would of loved to have site my sources but when crunch time came around (and passed [new years deadline was not exactly met. {8 days after}]), Hammering out the scenario so it was playable was a struggle.
But hey! its out and public with some things that passed right over my head! So thats why I am pushing my new initiative, "V1.2 tweak"!

and in an effort in getting squadron users to download the fix, I will implement more net packs and health distribution in the map folder.

[goran]

Well, how would you feel if someone took some of your own work, and put it in something that they claimed they did themselves?

Oh, that would be an honour, don't you think? Someone thinks my stuff got the edge and all, and decides to use it.

[treellama]

But I realy do respect copyright stuff, I know what its like to have your stuff riped off (personal experiences in school)
and I realy would of loved to have site my sources but when crunch time came around (and passed [new years deadline was not exactly met. {8 days after}]), Hammering out the scenario so it was playable was a struggle.

I don't think you understand the issue here at all. It's not just the stuff from Rubicon you didn't give credit for. You've admitted to downloading a commercial game(!) (and I'm guessing you don't have a license to distribute all of those mp3s either), taking the textures out of it, putting them in your scenario, and then claiming you made them. The only thing more heinous would be if you tried to charge for it too.

This isn't some school project, this is how some person makes his living. And not much of a living at that, knowing what game artists get paid. We live in a society where we agree that for a limited time, people are allowed exclusively to say what can and can't be done with their creations, including charging for them. If you don't have permission, you need to remove those textures, music files, and sounds from your game. If you don't agree to the way our society works, then take your "creation" off of fileball and go post it in a society that works a different way. Good luck finding one.

[Shadowbreaker]

I don't think you understand the issue here at all. It's not just the stuff from Rubicon you didn't give credit for. You've admitted to downloading a commercial game(!) (and I'm guessing you don't have a license to distribute all of those mp3s either), taking the textures out of it, putting them in your scenario, and then claiming you made them. The only thing more heinous would be if you tried to charge for it too.

This isn't some school project, this is how some person makes his living. And not much of a living at that, knowing what game artists get paid. We live in a society where we agree that for a limited time, people are allowed exclusively to say what can and can't be done with their creations, including charging for them. If you don't have permission, you need to remove those textures, music files, and sounds from your game. If you don't agree to the way our society works, then take your "creation" off of fileball and go post it in a society that works a different way. Good luck finding one.

Squadron stole much much less than EMR or even Portal of Sigma. Please tell this all to their creators instead. Portal of Sigma only credited the maker of the title theme and claimed ot have done everything else.

[RyokoTK]

Squadron stole much much less than EMR or even Portal of Sigma. Please tell this all to their creators instead. Portal of Sigma only credited the maker of the title theme and claimed ot have done everything else.

Not this shit again.

[LegacyTyphoon]

Relating to the music, you should at the very least put in correct information for the mp3 files. When I ported them over to iTunes, only two of the songs even had any information at all. The rest were "song01", "song02" etc...so I'd assumed you'd created those songs...Anyway, really, just be prepared to accept whatever comes from using these textures, sounds, and songs without permission if someone reports you.

[treellama]

Squadron stole much much less than EMR or even Portal of Sigma. Please tell this all to their creators instead. Portal of Sigma only credited the maker of the title theme and claimed ot have done everything else.

I don't as a habit download scenarios and try to find what got lifted from where without permission or credit. If you want to get off your butt and upload examples, as visciom did, or if simon or catambay comes on here and blatantly admits to doing it, like shongshong did, I'll complain about them too, if that makes you feel better.

[RyokoTK]

To Simon's credit (who cares about Catambay?), he did do a lot of extensive editing to the M1/2/Inf textures, and he still credited them. I think he used a couple Rubicon textures, or something, but you never know the circumstances behind that. There are a few people credited under the graphics department of Sigma. Let him tell the story.

[shongshong]

Relating to the music, you should at the very least put in correct information for the mp3 files. When I ported them over to iTunes, only two of the songs even had any information at all. The rest were "song01", "song02" etc...so I'd assumed you'd created those songs...Anyway, really, just be prepared to accept whatever comes from using these textures, sounds, and songs without permission if someone reports you.

I dont know if im saying things to my self, but I already answered this question!

Ryoko and others were complaining about my aiff to mp3 conversions, and I couldnt realy use itunes to do a clean conversion, so they offered me MAX, a good tool... but it blasted out all the info to all thoes songs... except for thoese few because thoese were mp3 to begin with.

I Will be fixing the tags on the next update. And will be placing all the artists names in the credits
AND please... dont point fingers at me like that...

-----edit---------
Just remember, This scenario was designed more as a tech demo of what the marathon engine can dish out... not as a self promotion thing... dispite how I created the credits. At the time, (under deadline time) I was creating thoese credits more as a joke than somthing to be taken seriously. (Same with the ending screen)... But I than totaly forgot to site my sources so.. yah... somthing to put in on the next Update

[LegacyTyphoon]

I dont know if im saying things to my self, but I already answered this question!

Ryoko and others were complaining about my aiff to mp3 conversions, and I couldnt realy use itunes to do a clean conversion, so they offered me MAX, a good tool... but it blasted out all the info to all thoes songs... except for thoese few because thoese were mp3 to begin with.

Ah, I didn't realize that your program killed all the information...sorry about that.

AND please... dont point fingers at me like that...

Sorry if it seemed that way, I wasn't trying to finger you for anything...I didn't see anything specific about the music mentioned in this thread (If I missed it I apologize...), so I figured I'd post it.

Really though, I believe as long as you give proper credits for the music, copyright date, artists, and all that jazz, I think you'll be okay...This is how it works on AnimeMusicVideos.org at least...but don't quote me on this, I'm still not entirely sure.

Yes, yes, you may already know about all the copyright stuff and what you need to change, but really, we're just trying to be helpful. We're not out to shove a giant, gasoline-dipped, flaming, metal pole up your ass...I don't think that analogy worked...but I think you get the idea.

[Mordekai]

We're not out to shove a giant, gasoline-dipped, flaming, metal pole up your ass...

I am. I don't think he understands yet. I don't really have a problem with "stealing" from another scenario and giving credit to them. What I have a problem with is stealing from a game like Half-life 2. I don't care how much you credit them, you don't do that. The fact that you didn't even credit them makes it even worse. And don't give me this "I was busy and I forgot" crap. I don't care how busy you were. Don't break the law so that you can get done on a deadline.

And you didn't even make the music?! And you're letting people download it?! What is wrong with you? Have you no respect for any sort of copyright or anything? Seriously, you need to take out any music that you didn't make.

This is from fileball: "You represent and warrant that all information provided by you in connection with your submission is complete and accurate, that your application for submission is made in good faith, and that neither the file contents nor the manner in which it is displayed will directly or indirectly infringe the legal rights of any third party.

It is a violation of these terms and conditions to conduct any unlawful activity or any activity that constitutes (in our sole opinion) an abusive practice. Abusive practices include but are not limited to trolling (posting outrageous files to generate numerous negative responses), attempting without authorization to post someone else's creation, violating trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights."

I would suggest that you never put that music up again.

Really though, I believe as long as you give proper credits for the music, copyright date, artists, and all that jazz, I think you'll be okay...This is how it works on AnimeMusicVideos.org at least...but don't quote me on this, I'm still not entirely sure.

No. Is it legal to burn copyrighted cds and give them to people? Or to let them download it online? No. It isn't. Yes, I know, it's done all the time, but a work like Squadron should have more taste than that.