Knights and Merchants.net Forum

Hey, someone has posted in german forum interest pictures, but not very nice, i think.
It is one of the biggest Shops in Europe(I know it also from poland) called "saturn" so nothing small.

However the think is, on it is the Remake of Lewin+Krom... Naturally the uncomplete version

So one thing: I think, you havent allowed to publicate your re-rework, have you?
Because for me its Great(from gamer view) but Incredible in developer view(!), because there is that much work from Krom+Lewin and the others, it is totaly free. So the team doesnt get any Money and than there comes a funny publisher and makes really money with it.

This is called "modern money strategy" in German. So you have workes, they dont get any money and you recieve really much.

So have you thinked about a lawyer or sth. like that? Because i dont know really the contracts, but normaly only (the team of remake) /Real developer can accept this one, however you have made the remake, so normaly you should be asked.


What do you think about this??

Here is no word about the Remake, so this is marketing tactic?!
http://www.amazon.de/Knights-Merchants- ... 057&sr=8-1



Some pictures:







P.S: I have found sth. At the 2nd picture copyright is written between 1998-2012. So it is now inactive?

There is a similar topic somewhere, Krom and Lewin are aware of it.

Well, I don't see here any problem. Krom and Lewin don't take any money from this and Remake need original "KaM TPR". This don't change anything.
Anyway you're right, Topware should ask, or just inform them...

The Remake has always been available for free (only requiring TPR) so the fact that TPR now ships with the Remake doesn't really change anything, since if TPR did not come with the Remake then you could just download it from our site anyway.

And even before they were doing this, they were still making money from us. A lot of people bought TPR from GOG in order to install the Remake because they lost their CD and it's so cheap (I've heard a lot of people say this).

It's not really any more wrong than us creating the Remake without their permission for reusing their assets (images, sound, music, etc.). It would have been nice if they emailed us to tell us they would be releasing it, but oh well. At least we know for sure they approve of our project and aren't going to send us a cease and desist letter

I agree with Lewin. Remake is available for free, but you must own a copy of TPR to use it. So bundling it with a CD does no harm.

However it would have been nice to discuss that with Joymania (include links to Remake site, updates, etc). Get a note and CD with brochure.

Players can still donate to the project )

I think it is just free advertising for the remake, so it is all good right?

It can generate income indirectly because of the option to donate.

Haha, first I thought someone is realy trying to get money for selling the remake. Then I noticed that TopWare is the amazon seller so I'm relieved that TopWare is "supporting" the Remake!

Maybe they are now willing to offer some information about the game mechanics that aren't 100% investigated yet. I still would like to know how the lifepoint regeneration works exactly xD

That would be, literally, awesome. You know how many arguments there were in pre-Remake days over how the combat system worked in TPR? Madness

Haha of course viewtopic.php?f=6&t=493
Unfortunatly I'm to busy now to continue my research.

But now we would have a good argument why Topware should help us with some information

Topware themselves won't know about fighting systems and statistics, they're the publishers not the developers. And I doubt the developer remember exactly what he wrote 14 years ago. It would be necessary to dig through the source code to find out how it works, and I doubt they will want to release the source code to KaM (what advantage is there for them? If anything it's a risk)

@Lewin: What risk it is for them to share the source codes with us? (if they have it, which I doubt, cos then they would have hired someone to fix most obvious bugs)

It's generally risky to release the source code of anything, and every request for source code should be declined. (No one knows the actual reasons for that, what's sure, is that every software company knows the rule very well :X)

That is not true sado, Valve also gave the source code for their games to the community and thye made great mods and stand alone games with it. For example valve gave the source code from half life to the community, and the community made a mod called counterstrike, this mod was very popular, but in order to play it you needed a copy of half life. Later they even bought it over cheap and released it as a standalone game. Most games that valve owns right now started as a mod on half life.

So it is not really a risk to release the source code, you just have to know how to do it.

I was being sarcastic. I'm not sure if that was clear, so I'm sorry I believe that releasing source code of an old game doesn't pose any risk, but somehow the companies think it's a bad thing. What you're talking about is more like, SDK for the engine. (Or maybe a whole source code indeed - I'm not entirely sure which is correct in Valve's case)