GENERAL: activsion

[mrmitchell]

ok...

If Activision does this, I shall (1) give as burnt offering 25 sacrificial virgins or (2) see whut games they have (hey, you never know, one might interest me.)

[Immortal Wombat]

wow. Mr Ogre came back. Fingers crossed then, eh?

[Dale]

Hmmm........... interesting.

Good to see you again Mr Ogre.

Locutus:
Don't you even make that smartass assimilation comment again.

Well guys, if something DOES pop up in the way of source, here's one programmer who could tear himself away from personal projects to look through the code.

[Solver]

Great to hear that Dale .

For the record... does anyone know how many fully-able programmers (that is, with understanding of C++ and some experience) do we have here? I was once told that some modders do only know SLIC and have no previous programming experience, so I'm wondering.

[Locutus]

Not many.

Dale, you, me (though even I don't have much experience with C++), Martin the Dane, maybe Martin Gühmann (not sure).

But J Bytheway has plenty of VBasic experience and will probably be able to make himself more than useful, and I don't think Peter and Ben would need too much time to get the hang of it. If we do get our hands on the code, we might be able to persuade some old guys to come back (e.g. MrBaggins) and some Alt Civ people might be interested as well.

[Solver]

As for AltCiv people, I'm not all that confident... but yeah, you are right, not many. And, we'd have to ask ourselves the next question - how many people we have here, of these few programmers, that will have the time to fix bugs, etc.

[Immortal Wombat]

You know, every time I go back to the C++ code in the sprite creation readme, it seems to make a little more sense.

[J Bytheway]

I've dabbled in VC++ 6 - I got through the Scribble tutorial. This would certainly be an incentive to apply myself a little more .

[Solver]

It should be, J . I guess you have the time to practice C++ before we get the source...

[Dale]

Those interested in learning a bit of C++ will find the following sites usefull:

- http://www.gamedev.net/reference
- http://www.flipcode.com/tutorials
- http://www.gametutorials.com

Heaps of useful stuff. I learnt a lot of not "how to program C++", but more along the lines of "how to do THIS in C++".

[ToonGoon]

Well, the return of Mr. Orge has add some weight to our slim chance....

Would there be any value in getting a petition of names together.....It may do nothing but it may also demonstrate how many people are still interested in this making this game better....

[Mr Ogre]

Here's an update. So far it looks fairly promising, but it still has to go through more people. The annoying part is that the person I've talked to would like all the comments stripped from the code to avoid releasing anything that might hurt Activision's image (most of the concern there is over potential remarks re Microprose and Avalon Hill left over from when it was Civilization: Call to Power) or anyone's personal feelings. I'm sad about that, because there are some funny ones in there, and it'll make understanding it all that much harder. But it's still better than nothing. There's little to no direct financial incentive in this for anyone, and the only alternatives are not doing it at all, or paying someone there, a lawyer most likely, to scan every single comment for legal ramifications, and it is a rather large code base. The whole "Civilization" thing on the first game was a very messy business, so while I'd be with you guys in thinking that concern is pretty silly, I think lots of things lawyers do are silly... until I'm court being grilled by one .

[Pyaray]

Originally posted by Solver
More thoughts here... frankly, I can't believe that the source is lost. All in all, anything as complex as CtP2 is a very big investment of job by programmers, and I think that sources are preserved if at all possible.
...snip...

You have to remember that there is no more development taking place at Activision corporate, we (Mr. Ogre, St. Swithin, myself and all the rest of the team) were the last of the in house developers. Activision is now pretty much a publisher, but they do wholly own several other development houses. So keeping track of where the source code is, isn't the highest thing on their priority list. I'm certain it's still in the building somewhere, but knowing where it is is another issue altogether. It is a rather large building.

I don't know whether Activision will release the source code or not. I for one hope so. But it is their property, they spent an aweful lot of money to develop it. Giving it away for free doesn't actually gain them anything other than good will. So if they decide to release it, please remember that, and thank them profusely for doing it. And if they decide not to release it, that is their right and perogative to do so, don't be too harsh.

And for the record, some of us do still look in on Apolotyn every now and then, even though it's often just silent watching.

Pyaray

[TheArsenal]

The whole "Civilization" thing on the first game was a very messy business, so while I'd be with you guys in thinking that concern is pretty silly, I think lots of things lawyers do are silly... until I'm court being grilled by one .

Wow. Excellent news, looks like this is close.

Mr Ogre, I read a bit about the "Civilization" naming battles. Truly messy stuff indeed. And you are right. Lawyers do very silly things. Do what is needed to keep them far, far away.

[centrifuge]

This is some truly amazing news. Thanx for the work guys ( Mr. Ogre, Big MC et al. )