End of development, removed from store.

[Craneballs]

Craneballs is ceasing to exist as an entity. It is my unpleasant duty to inform you that after months of searching for possible options for further solutions to the problems surrounding the PLANET nomads project, we must announce the end of the entire project as well as the existence of the company. Believe me, the development of this game cost us a lot of energy and financial resources, however, due to the coincidence of events and procedural solutions, we are unable to continue. I wish you all the best of luck and may gaming keep you cool.
All the best
Jan

[Hades]

there are a few game like Lineage 2 and WOW that has open source on the open market they are not legal, But there are a few company's most of them small that allowed open sourcing of there code that is legal. As for games like Lineage 2 and WOW to many ppl are running private servers it would bankrupt them to even try and go after everyone that uses there code. lol All I was referring to If the company that owns PN were to release there code to open market willingly then heck please continue. otherwise We can always be hopeful that they would be willing to sell it off and someone could finish it. As I said many times it's a great game. And i still enjoy playing it.

[Lisias]

Originally posted by Hades:

there are a few game like Lineage 2 and WOW that has open source on the open market they are not legal,

I understood. But, since I'm a professional on the field, it's important o clarify that these **are not** open source. :)

Leaked source, source available, whatever. Just don't call these Open Source, because they are not - this would make the project's life harsher, because you would have two adversaries against you, as Open Source developers make a living from it and don't want to have their work misunderstood with shady (or plain illegal) practices.

[Hades]

Originally posted by Lisias:

Originally posted by Hades:

there are a few game like Lineage 2 and WOW that has open source on the open market they are not legal,

I understood. But, since I'm a professional on the field, it's important o clarify that these **are not** open source. :)

Leaked source, source available, whatever. Just don't call these Open Source, because they are not - this would make the project's life harsher, because you would have two adversaries against you, as Open Source developers make a living from it and don't want to have their work misunderstood with shady (or plain illegal) practices.

WOW and Lineage 2 are open source. I ran Lineage 2 myself. and I re coded several areas of the game.

[Ravenaige]

I know that the developers are also the owners of the game

I said this with thought

[Lisias]

Originally posted by Hades:

WOW and Lineage 2 are open source. I ran Lineage 2 myself. and I re coded several areas of the game.

If we are talking about this : https://github.com/World0fWarcraft

Nope, this is not the WOW game source code. They are reverse engineered new code bases for the server and client (OpenWOW).

Please note: **they are not** the game's original source code, they are new code bases written from scratch using knowledge they gathered by reverse engineering the original binaries.

This is perfectly legal on Europe and USA at least (some other countries disagree) but, yet, they are **not** the original game from Blizzard and, so, WoW itself **is not** open source.

So I will say it again for your own sake: nothing related to WoW and owned by Blizzard is Open Source. All I found until this moment are 3rd parties initiatives unrelated to Blizzard that decided to create from scratch new code bases using knowledge obtained by reverse engineering the originals.

And why this is impotant? Due Copyrights and Trademarks.

If you, thinking that WoW is open source, take any asset from the original game, change it and redistribute it with your own code, you are in copyright infringement.

If you use the WOW names without disclosing they are owned by Blizzard or, even worse, compile a modified Client and distributed it as it would be a WoW Client from Blizzard, you are in trademark infringement,

And this is the reason I hammering this subject this way around here, Any attempt to resurrect this game without proper knowledge about Copyrights and Trademarks will not only be subject to legal entanglements later (if any reason the process ends up in success and get public attention), but will also be kicked out from this very Forum we are using to discuss the subject (check the ToS).

[glabifrons]

I think our only chance of moving this forward would be to track down who has ownership of the source code, which would be exceedingly difficult since the company went out of business years ago. So this would involve tracking down who retained the rights/ownership when the company folded. If it's more than one person, this gets even more complex.
On the wild off-chance that we could track them down and contact them, we'd then have to convince them (all) to crowdfund the release of the source code, as I seriously doubt they'd be willing to go through the work for free. Maybe something like a (second) kickstarter, but that may not go over well considering how bitter people were from the original kickstarter (that's what killed the game, not corporate greed or any hair-brained conspiracy from the government).
If we were able to convince them of that, and we were to fund this release, they'd then have to go through the source and make sure nothing licensed from anyone else is included in it. This is what we'd be paying for. Exactly this is what has blocked other games from going open-source that wanted to in the past.

[Hades]

Games do seem to provide a lot of law suits when it comes to games becoming open source material or games that were leaked to the open market. either way it has caused a lot of issues. and finding them should not be that hard, unless you don't have a clue of what Country they reside in, But tracking them down looking up trade marks or company license.

[ymrich]

Originally posted by glabifrons:

I think our only chance of moving this forward would be to track down who has ownership of the source code, which would be exceedingly difficult since the company went out of business years ago. So this would involve tracking down who retained the rights/ownership when the company folded. If it's more than one person, this gets even more complex.
On the wild off-chance that we could track them down and contact them, we'd then have to convince them (all) to crowdfund the release of the source code, as I seriously doubt they'd be willing to go through the work for free. Maybe something like a (second) kickstarter, but that may not go over well considering how bitter people were from the original kickstarter (that's what killed the game, not corporate greed or any hair-brained conspiracy from the government:sefacepalm:).
If we were able to convince them of that, and we were to fund this release, they'd then have to go through the source and make sure nothing licensed from anyone else is included in it. This is what we'd be paying for. Exactly this is what has blocked other games from going open-source that wanted to in the past.

I have already written two letters to two contacts I had, proposing the above. I happen to be from the same country as the developers, what could make things simpler, but alas, there was no response.

I suppose the better path to future is to make an open-sourced game from the start, similar to PN, but much better, and preferably running on UE5. For me, the focus would be a highly detailed construction and physics model, allowing for intricate decorative details as well as much greater functionality (logic gates etc.). I think the former could be easily achieved by having custom blocks, which would be shrunken 4x4x4 cube blueprints built from standard blocks, and colored, then shrunk don to the size of a regular cube, having its own thumbnail. This would be probably enough to distinguish our game from the template. I have some experience in creating textures and 3D models, if there's someone out there willing to do the programming... UE5 probably has a ton of free assets we can use.

[Teutonicfarms]

Thank you for this amazing game!

[[NOPE] Sigvar]

Ever Late to the party..
Sorry to hear this is the end but I had a lot of fun playing this.
Perhaps your re-incarnation lies ahead.
Wish you the best with whatever you do!

[xxXHonestJohnXxx]

I had more fun with Planet Nomads than No Man's Sky. PN just ticks the right boxes for me.

[Hades]

Originally posted by xxXHonestJohnXxx:

I had more fun with Planet Nomads than No Man's Sky. PN just ticks the right boxes for me.

I feel somewhat disheartened because this game PN died the way it did. seeing how much potential it has still.

[[NOPE] Sigvar]

Things change in a persons life. Relationships, business or otherwise, don't always work out. Resources dry up. Then there is the world at large just sucking the life out of everything. It was horrible the way it was and the pandemic killed anything that wasnt in top shape.

[Sprocket66]

I have a nostalgic love for this game. It's a very fun game that also reminds me of better times in my life. It's far from finished but I still come back a couple of times per year since it first released for another go. It's one of those 'if only' games where you could see the potential but it ends up drowning while trite, crap games get the funding and all the breaks. So many great games have unfortunate endings while the biggest turds float the highest. I'd love to see modders have a go at this game and see where it leads.

[Ashven]

If one were to be interested in acquiring the game and engine...How much would the company sell for?