Put the wish list for porting projects HERE...

[xav1r]

Well, this seems unrelated to the topic, but it could mean a good opportunity here. Midway either today or yesterday file for bankruptcy. Does that mean that now all their IP is up for grabs ?? This could mean it's a good time to get some of their titles on linux.

[Svartalf]

Well, this seems unrelated to the topic, but it could mean a good opportunity here. Midway either today or yesterday file for bankruptcy. Does that mean that now all their IP is up for grabs ?? This could mean it's a good time to get some of their titles on linux.

Yes and no.

What it means is if they've filed under Chapter 11, it means they're regrouping, pending approval of that plan by the Court and the assigned Trustee. If they don't approve, they get to re-try unless the Court or the Applicant decides there's no salvaging things afterall- at which point the case gets converted to a Chapter 7 filing. In this space, you might, if you have an inside connection, have a chance at arranging a deal (won't cost them much risks-wise, and might bring in more money...)- but otherwise you'll have the same odds as you would if they weren't int he Bankruptcy proceeding.

Chapter 7 filings are liquidation filings. This means the Trustee finds buyers or auctions off the assets of the company in question. Unless you can pony up enough cash to satisfy the Trustee, you won't get the IP rights for anything in that sale. At the end of the sale, the rights devolve to their varying respective rights-holders, much like many of Capstone/IntraCorp's titles have done.

Having said this, and looking at the announcement, they've filed for an 11 proceeding. Unless you know someone in Midway or know someone that is friendly with someone in the upper management over there you can forget it.

[Svartalf]

EA also has an old lokigames port of Simcity 3000 Unlimited or doesn't that count? (I am not counting the bastardized WINE version of The Sims Transgaming did back in the day)

Heh... While I'd like to have some of the later on SimCity titles, the odds of that one ever seeing the light of day on Linux is slim, sadly. EA's who they are. If you're not seeing a port of current stuff, you're not likely to see their back-catalog either (I'd love to have Populous 2 and Populous: The Beginning on Linux... That ain't happening either... ).

[xav1r]

Ah, k, what about the game i mentioned to you, Anvil of Dawn? Seems like a good game, it's an RPG.

[tuke81]

Ahh feel a bit nostalgy Blade_of_Darkness or Clive_Barker's_Undying. The former works through wine fine with openglide and the first one works with openglraster.

[invitation]

Put the wish list for porting projects HERE...

The title HAS to be a practical one. The rights holder HAS to be reachable in some manner. The rights holder has to be at least NOT openly hostile towards Linux use (That means Dungeon Siege is right out... AAaaand the rights holder has to have the source code in HAND in it's entirety and be willing to allow a port.

I can help with some projects, but not others. I am NOT going into competition with LGP on publishing or running counter to their porting efforts. I am still under contract for some things and there are business dealings and projects that I kind of need to maintain a good relationship with them for now.

Some suggestions will entail money. Unless someone ponies it up or can manage to pass the hat for it (Unless there's a business involved, though, you're going to find that this will be nigh impossible right at the moment.. there can be no ports of that specific game unless you sell the rights holder on the idea of them doing it themselves.

Don't be too hurt if your suggestion is shot down for any problems with above items.

With that... The floor's open. Falcon 4.0's been suggested and it's being checked into for a serious project however the chips may land in that deal.



Here's a list of the current prospects and dead ends as of today (01/27/2009) as I've tabulated them up to this point- there may be new ones lurking in the thread and some stragglers in the thread that precipitated this one that I'm in the process of doing the initial checking on.

I'm listing the dead ends first. Keep in mind that these are all in this list for problems with availability of source code or rights access. Some of these were mentioned as dead ends out of the gate by one of the posters in the thread or, under review, were determined by myself to be non-practical requests. If, for some reason, you've got a lead on changing the status on the dead ends, speak up in the thread or PM me (As an example, I offer each and every one of Interplay's back catalog, including things such as Kingpin, Freespace2, etc. as we had someone point us in the direction of Good Old Games, who has current publication rights to Interplay's stuff and have indicated that they're not against the idea, but are understaffed to accomplish the work...)... I'll be putting up more edits to this post as I tabulate all the requests. We've got a nifty list and I need to follow up on some of the realistic ones. Keep the realistic suggestions coming, gang.

Dead Ends:

No One Lives Forever (Lithtech - No Lithtech engine games are practical right at the moment..
Psychonauts (After finding out what Majesco did to at least one studio, we don't want to deal with them- sorry.
Wing Commander (EA property...code's likely to not be available at this point with Origin effectively defunct.
Oblivion (Prime AAA title- not without loads of cash...
Morrowind (Ditto...)
Portal (Any of the Valve stuff's up in the air- someone may well be doing all of Orange Box and Steam.
Diablo
Diablo II
StarCraft
StarCraft II
Diablo III (Gimme a break, guys... This isn't a pie in the sky list.
KotOR
KotOR 2 (Not that anyone would WANT that title..
Any of the GTA titles.
America's Army (We HAD a version of this guys, but the DoD decided it was not a big enough payoff..
System Shock (Studio defunct- no clear title to code known, nor do we know if it's available at all.
System Shock II
Rise of the Triad (Ryan already beat us to it...go over to icculus.org if you've got the assets.
Call of Duty 4
Unreal Tournament 3 (Uh, supposedly Epic's still working on this...)
Bussimulator
Syndicate I
Syndicate II
Syndicate Wars
Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Any title from the Tom Clancy series
Stargunner
Any of the Lemmings versions
Dragon Age (If there is going to be a version, it'll be up to EA and Bioware..
STALKER
Masters of Orion 1 or 2
Slamtilt (Actually, ANY of the 21st Century Entertainment titles are this way..
Interstate 76
SimCity (Already GPLed and out under the name "Metropolis" in all of it's ancient glory..
Neverwinter Nights 2 (Atari published property- need I say more?)
Jedi Knights II
Jedi Academy
ST:Armada
ST:Elite Force
ST:Elite Force II
Max Payne (Anything, really, from out of Remedy Entertainment because of close ties with Microsoft...
Dawn Of War and expansions
Harpoon III (Initial Contacts made, looked promising...then it fizzled for no apparent reasons...

[RobbieAB]

Chapter 7 filings are liquidation filings. This means the Trustee finds buyers or auctions off the assets of the company in question. Unless you can pony up enough cash to satisfy the Trustee, you won't get the IP rights for anything in that sale. At the end of the sale, the rights devolve to their varying respective rights-holders, much like many of Capstone/IntraCorp's titles have done.

Surely in the event of liquidation, they sell to the highest bidder, and they can't turn down a small offer if it is the only offer?

I will confess I don't know much about the US bankruptcy system though.

[xav1r]

What about the Game Arcanum of steamworks and magicka obscura? It's a classic from interplay.

[Svartalf]

What about the Game Arcanum of steamworks and magicka obscura? It's a classic from interplay.

Troika imploded right after they finished this game. Unless Interplay has the source code, it's going to be difficult to resurrect what was an excellent game.

[Svartalf]

Surely in the event of liquidation, they sell to the highest bidder, and they can't turn down a small offer if it is the only offer?

I will confess I don't know much about the US bankruptcy system though.

Depends on the amount of the offer in proportion to the expected value of the asset. If the expected is 100K, a 10k offer for rights may/may not get accepted by the trustee- and it'd be legit for the trustee to reject it (pennies on the dollar offers in a bankruptcy sale are typically not viewed as honest offers...).