..
a little history :
.. starting Summer 1998, there was already some discussion to
standardization mods for easy of use .. by Summer 1999, there
had been quite a few mods made, with a common player requests
of a "best of" CD being published.
.. by Fall of 1999, the flight sim division of Dynamix has been
cut, however a couple important Red Baron II/3D team members are
still employed elsewhere at Dynamix. 2 of our community's modders
had stayed in friendly contact and pursued getting the tools and
other files necessary to make new 3D models for the game .. this
was accomplished and permissions granted for publication in early
2000
.. Red Baron 3D modding really takes off in both singleplay and
multiplay .. there are many new calls for a simple to install
CD collection of mods. There is some discussion with Sierra reps,
the tone of which at the time, indicated it would be unwise to
even attempt to recover costs of a such a CD. In a practical sense
as well, the community had not technically nor productively reach
the point of
making a comprehensive , quality product that would have met the
basic requests of the players in year 2000. We've only reached
that juncture in the last year.
.. Dynamix is folded completely. One attempt to license the source
code directly from Sierra is met with too rich a price, for what
may be nearly useless material. Another attempt in 2001 to have
the former owner of Dynamix negotiate with Sierra for help, at
least informs us of some of the business reasons why that wasn't
going to happen in the near term. Sierra goes through considerable
turmoil with 3 parent company changes, then being on and off the
'to sell' list during the Vivendi liquidation-restructuring
.. about a year ago , we attempted to present an earlier version
of Players Edition Proposal to Sierra. Unfortunately, the contact
at Sierra was made redundant, and situation at Sierra still unsettled.
It's understandable during restructuring and downsizing , that
VUGames & Sierra management would have little time or interest
in a discontinued property and it's relatively small community
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..
where we are now
.. the tech and knowledge of Red Baron modders has come along
way in a year .. the elements of a producing a remarkable, comprehensive
mod CD of the game are in place , or in production. In general
discussion with former Red Baron II/3D developers, we have a
fair grasp of what could be accomplished , should we obtain
further information, development tools and/or source code from
Sierra
.. it would appear the video games industry is regaining health,
and that Sierra is doing ok .. 2004 looks good for them with
the upcoming publication of Half-Life 2
.. The Promised
Land's Full Canvas Jacket mod has demonstrated market interest
we could only guess at otherwise .. all good news there
.. while the opportunity seems better now than anytime in the
past to go forward , we don't know Sierra's current positions
or thinking about working with game communities of discontinued
properties, nor their current thinking on Red Baron in particular.
As such , some of Players Edition Proposal is only our best
guess regarding how cooperation might work well for mutual benefit
of Sierra, the Red Baron game community, and the future of the
game title itself.
Table of contents :
:: Introduction
:: Proposal
:: Product
:: People
:: Community
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