Official KaM Remake Ideas topic

[kocsis1david]

I played a match today and the enemy defeated us within peace time with labourers. He scouted to our territory and place buildings everywhere and no place left for us. This could be preveted by splitting map to each player's territory in peace time. And it would be better to move the soldiers in that area.

[Lewin]

I played a match today and the enemy defeated us within peace time with labourers. He scouted to our territory and place buildings everywhere and no place left for us. This could be preveted by splitting map to each player's territory in peace time. And it would be better to move the soldiers in that area.

I can't believe people use such crappy tactics and ruin the game...
I suggest you remember people who use those tactics and don't play with them. It's just blatantly abusing exploits in the game which exist because it's still in development.
But yes, once we add territories this won't be possible.

[FeyBart]

Over the years many people have requested a donate button so I think it would be used. But as much as we would love to receive money for programming the Remake, that would be making a profit from [partially] someone else's work and it would risk the guys who own KaM asking us to stop. The idea, sprites, sounds, music, etc. etc. is all theirs, so we're already legally on thin ice by posting all of these assets for free, with only a simple check in the installer to make sure people own KaM too.
We never expected to get money for the KaM Remake and it's a fun hobby so we'd rather get no donations than take the risk of having the project shut down.
But thank you very much for your support

Maybe you could ask permission from Joymania? The Remake doesn't work without the original (or does it?) and so it's only an add-on. Besides, they still make really little money on it anyways, right? The Remake only is an advertisement for the original game.

- What do you mean by the banners? I don't understand you.

I mean advertisement banners (ads by Google, for example).

- We're planning to add shared control, it shouldn't be hard to do and I agree it would be fun to do this with a friend while playing online.

Sweet!

- In KaM and the KaM Remake your serfs will share the enemy roads if you connect to them. However, in KaM they won't use the corn/wine fields of another player, but in the KaM Remake they will

Oh, really? I probably haven't paid attention, then.

- Capturing villages and looting storehouses sounds like an interesting idea for the future.

Thanks.

[Lewin]

Maybe you could ask permission from Joymania? The Remake doesn't work without the original (or does it?) and so it's only an add-on. Besides, they still make really little money on it anyways, right? The Remake only is an advertisement for the original game.

It works fine without KaM, our installer just doesn't allow it. But once it's installed, you can delete KaM and it will keep working fine.
You might be right, they might not mind us accepting donations. But there is a reasonable chance that they will, and that means if we accept donations or ask them, there is a reasonable chance that the KaM Remake will be shut down forever.
As soon as we have a donate button and ads on our site or in-game, the owners of KaM will stop seeing us as just some fans making a Remake, they could see us as making a large profit from THEIR intellectual property, it could put them on edge. You can make a lot of money from advertisements and donations, I don't want anyone to get the impression we are trying to make money out of this. At the moment we look basically harmless to them, but if we look like we're trying to make money they'll start wondering about our motives.
Remember that even though KaM won't be making them much money (though still some), these guys own the ideas. So they could one day release a KaM 2 or an RTS in a similar style. Publishers like to hold onto property like that, even if the chance they will use it is very small.

[The Dark Lord]

But what if we just happen to be very generous people, and Krom and you accidentily put your account numbers online...
Just kidding, I understand that you won't take the risk.

[krisdw]

Haha nice post TDL!

No I understand it completely as well.
It's too much of a risk. I would not like to see this beautiful project shut down. It's given me lots of good times so far and it would be a shame to see it end!

[kocsis1david]

Does Joymania not let you to make a game running without the original? In this case I think It's not so fair that they are making money from your work.

[Encaitar]

Does Joymania not let you to make a game running without the original? In this case I think It's not so fair that they are making money from your work.

Joymania had and has 'the idea' of KaM, so it is their property. Even if you would remake every graphics in another style + use the code lewin & krom (+ some others) it is still 'the idea' of Joymania . If I am right, that alone is enough prosecute one in court as you are stealing anothers idea. Mods (and projects like this) are often considered as non vital to companies, as they do not lose money by it. As soon as mod-makers (and remakers) asks money for their work, the company behind the original game/app/etcetera wants to shut it down as they do lose money by such a project.

[kocsis1david]

Joymania had and has 'the idea' of KaM, so it is their property. Even if you would remake every graphics in another style + use the code lewin & krom (+ some others) it is still 'the idea' of Joymania . If I am right, that alone is enough prosecute one in court as you are stealing anothers idea. Mods (and projects like this) are often considered as non vital to companies, as they do not lose money by it. As soon as mod-makers (and remakers) asks money for their work, the company behind the original game/app/etcetera wants to shut it down as they do lose money by such a project.

I see. This is maybe a little off topic, but once I've made a bomberman game and I've been said that every idea is from other games (not just from the original game), but the game's core was the only idea that I didn't figure out myself, and there are a lot of bomberman games.

[Siegfried]

Joymania had and has 'the idea' of KaM, so it is their property.

But it's the publisher, who has the right to sell it and make money out of it. So, depending on the licensing details, they have to agree.

Concerning 'the idea': they only have rights on the idea if they have a patent - which they don't. So the idea is free. If we had new graphics, sounds and excluded the kam maps, this project would be entirely free.

Look at widelands, they did it that way.

[Encaitar]

Joymania had and has 'the idea' of KaM, so it is their property.

But it's the publisher, who has the right to sell it and make money out of it. So, depending on the licensing details, they have to agree.

Concerning 'the idea': they only have rights on the idea if they have a patent - which they don't. So the idea is free. If we had new graphics, sounds and excluded the kam maps, this project would be entirely free.

Look at widelands, they did it that way.

I was indeed wrong there, my humble apologies. Now I think about it, Open Transport Tycoon (OpenTTD) did it exact that way too! To be honest, I don't know very much about copyright issues, only from what I have heard here and there. Just a look at wikipedia should have told me enough:

Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

Anyway, the graphics are used, so the Remake can only be released as a mod.

[batoonike]

In the original KaM in multiplayer there was a choice for starting with buildings and units or just buildings. So even if the map had predefined starting units, you could not take those. It would be awsome to have this option in remake. There are quite a few maps that could be sometimes better without those starting military units.

[krisdw]

One thing I often find annoying is that when your serfs are delivering planks and stones to a construction site, as soon as 1 plank is there your entire idle builder crew starts to work on it. Often they'll block the "entrance" to the construction site, causing serfs problems with delivering the other needed planks and stones. (happens especially with a gold mine but with other buildings too).

Also, your builders will often start running between two or more construction sites because one plank doesn't take long finishing up, and if the serfs don't deliver the second plank in time, the builders will go to another construction site that perhaps also has only 1 plank lying there. And then they're going back to the first. And back to the second. And so on.

It slows your building process down. It would be nice if there would be an option to make your builders wait until every ware needed for the building has been delivered so that they can finish it in one time without often going back and forth between several construction sites.

Of course, the regular method should also stay in the game. It would have to be a player's choice, maybe a bit like the new "Fell & plant" or "Fell only" options for the Woodcutter's. It could be like "Build as soon as possible" or "Build when all wares present" or something.

[GreatWhiteBear]

you can counter that with insight and skill.
yet, you still have problems, but less.

[krisdw]

Thanks for indirectly calling me a noob

I don't mind. I still wanna hear what Lewin thinks of this though.