The petition for Thief 1&2 source publication

Sulphur on 22/10/2010 at 22:14

Yeah, hell, Freespace 2 and Doom and Quake and Quake 2 and 3 and all had their source code released and I bet GOG doesn't make an even bunch of pennies on FS2 and neither does id for its collections on the Steam store. Such terrible business sense!

vorob on 22/10/2010 at 22:17

Quote Posted by mr. hermit

if u start giving them idea's about reselling the game on gog.com they're going to start saying 'why the fuck should we part with the source code the game can still make money'

Since you guys have drafts for thief 2 gold and not working on it, i don't think there will be any good use of source codes. Maybe some shitty bloom and etc. So for me its better to have game on gog, they will take care of game so it will be running without problems on modern pc and will look like it was intended by developers.

mr. hermit on 22/10/2010 at 23:09

Quote Posted by Sulphur

I cant be bothered explaining the differences between John Carmack, a person that shares my ideology and the corporate lawyers and accounts at EDIOS.

Renault on 22/10/2010 at 23:34

Quote Posted by vorob

While MoroseTroll is trolling, i'm actually asking questions.

ROFL. Do you think when they say "working on it" they mean they just started "working on it" after you tweeted 2 hours previous? No, you idiot, it's been in the works for months.

Quote Posted by vorob

Just get out. Having the source code will open so many door for editors, and if you don't understand that, you need to do your homework. And if you had half a brain, you could get Thief working just fine on modern hardware, like the rest of us.

Brian The Dog on 23/10/2010 at 00:13

At the risk of showing my ignorance here, if GOG were to be allowed to sell Thief Gold, how hard would it be for them to produce a fix for the DDraw.dll? Thief looks amazing with the latest version of DDFix with lots of fancy things on it, but how hard would it be for a competant third-party to reproduce its own version of ddfix that "only" made it playable on modern graphics cards and CPUs?

Oh, and vorob, having the source code would be a tremendous help - fan mission creators could increase the size of levels, increase the quality of textures Dark can cope with, and so on. It would have no bearing on Thief 2 Gold missions being released whatsoever.

Edit - Brethren's right, GOG would have been after the first two Thief games ever since they started. Each has more than 1700 requests on their "wanted" list, and that's too large a set of numbers for them to ignore. The biggest problem, other than Eidos' lawyers, would be making sure Dark ran on modern hardware.

(why have over 140 people requested Thief 2X on GOG? Sure it's great, but it's also free!)

jtr7 on 23/10/2010 at 00:29

Since March of this year, the Legal Department has been mulling things over after René (not a dev, not the dev, and no longer employed by EM, and not to be bothered about something he has no control or say about, please) forwarded them a copy of the code and dev's email about the sticky SS2 code within it, owned by Electronic Arts. We know nothing beyond that. Kyle, the current Community Manager can't do anything about it but check in with the Legal Department once in awhile. The latest word is exactly what it was back in March: The Legal Department has it, is considering it, and neither it nor we are forgotten. Nagging them isn't productive, and there is already at least one taffer checking in with people about it on the community's behalf. No one important to our goals is unaware and they don't need frequent reminders or attitude or a declarations of our entitlement. Things are still in motion...slow motion, but not stalled or dead.

The day the most-excellent programmers among us may be able to relieve the mission creators of stale hard-coded caps is still a real possibility.

But seriously, tell your friends not to bug, demand, harass, nag, or inquire, Eidos, Square-Enix, Eidos-Montreal, Electronic Arts, Irrational Games, or subdivisions or partners of, or individuals who work or worked for these companies and/or Looking Glass Studios, etc., etc. We await word from the actual individuals who will make the decisions, and there's no more need to insist they turn it over. They know. They know our history with FMs and mods and such. In the most optimistic sense, they still have to untangle the issues of legal ownership between two separate companies, as well as decide how to release the source, should they decide to do so. We wait. Nagging anyone, especially past employees, is not good and helps no one. Calling them names and insulting them is also futile. Expressions of impatience are fine, but attacks and spite won't speed things up.

ZylonBane on 23/10/2010 at 01:10

Quote Posted by mr. hermit

I cant be bothered explaining the differences between John Carmack, a person that shares my ideology and the corporate lawyers and accounts at EDIOS.

Apperantly their are lot's of thing's u cant be bothered 2 do.

jolynsbass on 23/10/2010 at 03:36

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

Apperantly their are lot's of thing's u cant be bothered 2 do.

I only looked at this thread because I saw that you replied. Your acidic wit always makes me grin. :D

Cobak on 23/10/2010 at 06:11

Quote Posted by MoroseTroll

You may ask me: "New petition? Again?!"
I may answer you: "Yes."
Do you know why? The situation has been changed this spring (2009) and we could make these changes... deeper. (http://www.petitiononline.com/ThiefSrc/) Together.

P.S. We, the Thief communty, have been asked some ex-LGS people and they told us that they have nothing:

1) Sean Barrett: "I didn't think to save any of the Dark Engine source code."

2) Kevin Wasserman: "I don't have access to them (Dark Engine games source - MT) or their source code."

3) Ken Levine: "I’m sorry to say Irrational nor Take Two own the System Shock 2 source code."

4) Randy Smith: "I don't know of any copies of the Dark Engine source code lying in dusty piles in anyone's filing cabinets, but if I hear of one, I'll encourage the owner to read this thread."

5) Warren Spector: "The fate of the Dark Engine -- which Looking Glass used to create Thief and Thief 2 -- is a mystery to me."

6) Tom Leonard: "I'm afraid you'd probably have to contact Eidos for the source code, I don't have anything to give you."

7) Collin Moore (Irrational): "Releasing the source code to System Shock 2 is out of our hands as Irrational Games doesn't own the IP or the code."

So, if you wish to write them your own letter or a private message about the Dark Engine source code, please do NOT disturb them, because they don't have it. Thank you.

You should update this front page :)

And also, thank you to whoever (MoroseTroll) managed to find the dev who had it! And you should definitely thank the dev for us! Even if somehow this doesn't manage to get released it's still awesome that we managed to hunt it down and was very awesome of them to turn it over to Eidos to try to help us out as much as they could :D

Goldmoon Dawn on 23/10/2010 at 06:49

Quote Posted by Cobak

And also, thank you to whoever managed to find the dev who had it! And you should definitely thank the dev for us!

20 posts ago...

Quote Posted by MoroseTroll

Ok, it was me who have contacted that former LGS employee, but please don't ask me his/her name because I've no his/her permission to state it. The source has been transferred to Eidos Montréal at the beginning of February 2010 for sure - both Eidos Montréal employee and former LGS employee have confirmed that fact. That's all since then.