21 Sep, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
Yes, Famine, he could.. but what possible incentive does he have to do so? Niceness?

If Electronic Arts closes up shop tomorrow (we can only hope!), do you think they're going to take the time to back-patch all their old games that require activation, let alone the new ones that connect to their Origin servers, just to make people happy? I doubt it. It's far more likely they'll pull the plug and *MAYBE* 10 years later someone else will buy the IP and start over.
21 Sep, 2013, Famine wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Yes, Famine, he could.. but what possible incentive does he have to do so? Niceness?

If Electronic Arts closes up shop tomorrow (we can only hope!), do you think they're going to take the time to back-patch all their old games that require activation, let alone the new ones that connect to their Origin servers, just to make people happy? I doubt it. It's far more likely they'll pull the plug and *MAYBE* 10 years later someone else will buy the IP and start over.


Huge difference between someone who is an actual member of the community versus someone doing this for shareholders.

Zugg would patch it.
21 Sep, 2013, Zeno wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
Zugg's part of the community?
21 Sep, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
I highly doubt it.

Zugg has been complaining for YEARS about decline in sales, yet his answer to this is not to throw open the floodgates of hippy-mud-love and make it an open source project that others can continue. Instead, he is choosing to not waste any more of his time on development of a product that is no longer profitable. I guess if he's bothering to keep the activation servers running, you can consider that being a "member of the community."

Or, maybe they're just running on a machine or VPS that he's already using for something else, and it's not worth the effort to bother shutting it down. :)
21 Sep, 2013, Famine wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
I highly doubt it.

Zugg has been complaining for YEARS about decline in sales, yet his answer to this is not to throw open the floodgates of hippy-mud-love and make it an open source project that others can continue. Instead, he is choosing to not waste any more of his time on development of a product that is no longer profitable. I guess if he's bothering to keep the activation servers running, you can consider that being a "member of the community."

Or, maybe they're just running on a machine or VPS that he's already using for something else, and it's not worth the effort to bother shutting it down. :)


Why should anyone waste any more time if they feel it's too dangerous to continue? I mean, the man has said that he almost lost everything just to keep development going because of how low sales were. That's pretty hardcore and a major sacrifice for someone to do for our genre of gaming. Yet, you're casting him out like he is a bad guy because he won't make it open source and has chosen not to risk his family, the rest of what life savings he has left and everything in between to make you happy.

At the end of the day, it's a business. Like all businesses, they come and go. You cannot shun someone for closing up shop due to not being profitable enough to stay open. It's not intentional, he is not trying to screw the customers, it's just business.

I think what he is doing is the right thing. It's extremely hard to get any additional investment to continue the product development even further. It had a good run, and now it's time to focus on himself now.
22 Sep, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm not attacking anyone. You are defending something that's totally off topic. :)

The discussion was about DRM, and the fact that with CMUD/ZMUD development dead, whenever Zugg decides (or is forced) to turn off his activation servers, no current customer will be able to (legally) re-install their software because of the DRM choices made.

While he *COULD* choose to release a patch to remove the DRM, he also has no real incentive to do so. That's the nature of DRM, and it works that way because we all allow it to work that way. Not enough people are going to refuse to buy Windows 9, GTA 6, or FMUD-3D just because it has DRM that will eventually render it useless.

There are companies who remove DRM after their sales cycle spins down. Egosoft (makers of the X series of space 4X games) is pretty well known for releasing patches to remove their DRM after a year. They claim their publisher requires the DRM to be added, but they always negotiate with their publisher to allow the removal of the DRM after the game hits the bargin bins. They are the exception to the rule though… most just don't care.

Does Zugg care? I have no idea. Does he care and have the energy to bother removing the DRM from his codebase? I also have no idea, but I'm gonna lean towards not so much. If he did, he would have done so when he decided to stop developing it.
40.0/46