Civ2's source code petition

[Harry Tuttle]

Ok, edits made, dates changed as well as the recipient as suggested by Merc and Cap. I'm going to start gathering the names. Yaro's list is of course the first choice, but I'll leave the door open as to asking for the names addresses again if we can't contact him.

@Curt: We have some nice vacation plots in the Mojave desert we can sell you...

[Harry Tuttle]

Ok, I've been looking on the Atari and Infogrames website.

Officially Infogrames is a holding company that exists as the parent company to all the Atari subsidiaries. Atari is broken up into mainly American and European divisions consisting of Production, Publishing, and Distribution segments.

As I see it, Atari, Inc (the United States division) controls all three segements for the United States. Now, this might be a good place to start, as it seems that this might be where the majority of the work of the company is done. Though, Infogrames is a French company, but their market might be slanted toward the United States more than Europe meaning that the decision makers might be located in the U.S.

Now, I went looking for contacts on Atari, Inc.'s site: http://corporate.infogrames.com/corp...p#northamerica

I think these contacts might be the ones to go to:

Corporate Communication
Nancy Bushkin
Tel: +1 212-726-6500

Financial Communication
us.ir@atari.com
Tel: +1 212-726-6500

Product PR
us.pr@atari.com
Tel: +1 978-921-3700

Here are the offices in the U.S.:

Other Offices

Atari Interactive, Inc.
50 Dunham Road
Beverly, MA 01915
978-921-3700


Atari, Inc. (Humongous Entertainment)
3855 Monte Villa Parkway
Bothell, WA 98021
425-486-9258

Atari, Inc.
2230 Broadway
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Main Phone: 310-595-2100

Atari, Inc.
613 Tasman Drive
Suite B
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Main Phone: 408-212-7800

I think these are good prospects to start with. A word of caution. I think that we need to have everything together before we go to them and start asking to speak to someone. If we go in unprepared we'll look disorganized and be dismissed. People who work in corporate settings, or in any business settings, do not like to have their chain yanked and their time wasted.

[Harry Tuttle]

This was posted on CivFan by Yoshi and addressed by me:

Yoshi: "Perhaps we could start talking about how things would work if these guys release the bloody code: setting up a base now would save time later (i.e. in this group at least, who’s going to do what)—this is putting aside general input.

Having a clear picture of how all this will work will make things much easier."

Harry Tuttle: "A scripting of events would be a good idea. The problem is that we need a main organizer, for all the sites. Otherwise we could have people jumping the gun. I guess the continuing steps would be:

1) Find a person and address to contact.

2) Address the legal concerns in the letter and exactly what we want.

3) Finalize the letter.

4) Gather all the names and emails from the various organizers.

5) Assign one person or a committee to be in contact with with the recipient.

6) Send it in two forms, electronic and paper.

7) Wait. "

[curtsibling]

Good show with those contacts, Harry!

I think with your letter, we could try and get one of the lead admins of this site
to put their august name on the letter to give right feeling of serious community intent.

It would be great to involve the whole community in the letter (CDG, SCS and CFC among others) and make it
sound like a real plea from the loyal games players, headed by some business-like individuals.

I think we are on the right track, we just have to assure them that we are not into making money.

[Eivind IV]

@Harry:
I hope you're aware of the importance of the work you do! I think I speak on behalf of all civers when I say that this is very much apreciated!

As it looks now it looks as you're doing this pretty much on your own. I just want you to know that I'm here if you need help with anything. Be it source gathering, tracking down persons etc.

@All:
I think that curt has a good point with the lead admin thing. I don't know who that is here at apolyton, but I'm sure Thunderfall (CFC) and Elucidus (CDG) would sign up when it's a question regarding the great benefit of the civ(2) community. Pablostuka, admin of the Civ2 section at CDG and jasev from the spanish site, we have already. Who else do we have? The German web ring and the polish civ site?.

With a grand world alliance in the search of the civ2 holy grail like this, we can't fail!

And, any word from yaro?

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Kobra
As it looks now it looks as you're doing this pretty much on your own. I just want you to know that I'm here if you need help with anything. Be it source gathering, tracking down persons etc.

Just continue to post. I may ask you to do some people gathering later, depending on how things go. Thanks for your help!

@All:
I think that curt has a good point with the lead admin thing. I don't know who that is here at apolyton, but I'm sure Thunderfall (CFC) and Elucidus (CDG) would sign up when it's a question regarding the great benefit of the civ(2) community. Pablostuka, admin of the Civ2 section at CDG and jasev from the spanish site, we have already. Who else do we have? The German web ring and the polish civ site?.

With a grand world alliance in the search of the civ2 holy grail like this, we can't fail!

Thunderfall said he could contact someone at (I think he said) Firaxis on our behalf. Other than that I don't think he'd sign though, not wanting to become involved with any problems with the developers.

I don't know about Elucidus, haven't talked to him, but Pablo is obviously on board.

Sezon, who runs Civ.Org.pl is already on board and is reporting over 200 signed from his site.

MarkG *might* sign and help out, but I think he is in almost the same boat as Thunderfall as far as keeping relations steady. We could just ask him flat out of course, he is a personable guy.

The Civ Gaming site, the one that hosts Mercator's site, does not have a Civ2 section specifically, but I did just post the petition in its Other Games forum. We could ask one of the Admins there.

As for the German site, which I have had trouble finding any specific one, I do need someone to go out and post something. Eivind, how about it?

And, any word from yaro?

Nope, not yet. I didn't specifically ask Pablo to find him again, but I bet he's seen the posts on CDG and here. I'll send him a PM.

[curtsibling]

@Harry:

Your determination to the petition is bound to gain a great reputation!

It is good to see such stalwart fans of CIV2 are still standing tall, gentlemen!

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle



As for the German site, which I have had trouble finding any specific one, I do need someone to go out and post something. Eivind, how about it?

Probably the Civilization gaming forum. There are still active posters there.

http://www.civ3.de/ and http://www.civforum.de/



I've tried to visit some of the older German Civ2 forums, but most of them seem to be down now.

Das Civilization Universum
http://www.civII.de and Http://www.civ2-forum.gamigo.de Seem to be down or no longer offer stuff about Civ.

[Harry Tuttle]

Oh, and here's the network:

Petition threads on the Civilization Gaming Network forums, the CivFanatics forums, The Creative Design Group Civ2 forums, and the Civ.Org.Pl forums:

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5124

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88765

http://www.cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/civ2/viewtopic.php?t=579

http://forums.civ.org.pl/viewtopic.php?TopicID=2489

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by CapTVK


Probably the Civilization gaming forum. There are still active posters there.

http://www.civ3.de/ and http://www.civforum.de/



I've tried to visit some of the older German Civ2 forums, but most of them seem to be down now.

Das Civilization Universum
http://www.civII.de and Http://www.civ2-forum.gamigo.de Seem to be down or no longer offer stuff about Civ.

Thanks Cap! I bookmarked them.

Also, here's a French site from one of their links: Civfr.com

Now, who here can speak fluent German and French?

[Harry Tuttle]

A thread was started on the German webring in August:

http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http://www.civforum.de/showthread.php%3Ft%3D17517&prev=/language_tools

[Eivind IV]

I hade German for 5 years at school, it's a bit rusty now though, but I can do it and get understood as a last resort. But I really think Jim Panse should be our man here. His mother tongue is German

Are there any Frenchies in here?

[jim panse]

I got your PM Harry .... I already responded to the thread at the German forums ...

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Kobra
Are there any Frenchies in here?

Yes, La Fayette!

Otherwise, though definitely NOT french (), as a native french-speaker, I could lend a hand...

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Cyrion
Yes, La Fayette!

Otherwise, though definitely NOT french (), as a native french-speaker, I could lend a hand...

Thank you for volunteering Cyrion!

I am a terrible French speaker and it is even more foreign to me than German. I think that it would be best if you started the thread this time, in their "Other Games" forum (It's a Civ3 site).

http://www.civfr.com/forums/index.php?showforum=65

I think it might go over better if a French speaker were to start the thread. If you would, please...

1) Do a little synopsis of what the petition is about and what it would let us do.

2) Explain that you are looking for petitioners from the site.

3) Post Version 3 of the letter located a few posts above this one. (Apologize that it is in English and that a dumb American wrote it )

4) Explain that signatures can be submitted in a post (explain that using "AT" instead of @ in their email addresses guards against spam) or in a PM to you or me. Also, relate that the emails will not be used for anything else than the petition.

5) Post these links to show them the network:

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5124

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88765

http://www.cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/c...topic.php?t=579

http://forums.civ.org.pl/viewtopic.php?TopicID=2489

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115096

http://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?t=17517

6) Ask for input!


And the same goes for anyone else who would like to help out on a site that hasn't had it posted yet. Your help is much appreciated!