Advice requested

[icelus]

I'm struck by just how GOOD the materials made for Wesnoth are: the art, the music and the fleshed out world in particular. It seems a shame that a substantial fraction of the high quality material available under a non-restrictive license is only used by one game. As someone who can code but not draw and who has little interest at this point in world development, I want to try to make a game reusing Wesnoth's content directly.

The first thing I thought might be fun to try is a single-player permadeath single-character pseudo-RPG. In outline: your protagonist is an outcast. He/she starts with a little money, as level 1 of a basic Wesnoth unit. They wander around killing people and stealing, gaining reputation with different factions and equipment. The game is dominated by attempting to survive as long as possible, with each new outrage you commit increasing the strength and quantity of faction units being committed against you. There is no endgame, no winning situation, rather like the old game Elite. Units are taken directly from Wesnoth, with conversions for rogue-like [energy point] time. The world map would be taken from the standard Wesnoth geography, with faction leaders randomly generated and placed.

Hopefully this is enough basic detail to make the following questions answerable:
* Are people opposed to this type of re-use of their work?
* Are people opposed to something like this being called Wesnoth: Rogues?

This is not intended to be something that would divert effort away from the main Wesnoth project; it's just another way of using the impressive stuff you have to relatively cheaply provide a different play experience.

Obviously I have a lot more detail than this worked out, but all of that can wait for later; I really just want to make something fun on my own; I'm not looking for a help, just reassurance this won't tread on people's toes.

[dipseydoodle]

Well the name Wesnoth: Rouges is actually a goodish name. The game is in GPL so you could use any graphics you wanted too as long as you made a link to this site if your going to make a website for it. You could primarily use the Wesnoth thief as the lead character and build around that..... Just make sure people know that this game was not made by the Wesnoth team and is a Fan-made game. If you are a fan. I don't object. I think this is great. maybe you could even make this into a graphical rougelike(I enjoy rougelikes such a ADOM, NetHack and Angban. Crossfire is good too).

Good Luck with your game.

Dipseydoodle.

[King_Elendil]

Rantings and ravings...

IMO it's not very polite to use art/whatever, that was made for a specific game, in another game. If you get permission from the artist/creator, that is one thing, but saying "wow all this stuff without a copyright, I think I'll use it" is a little weird. Yes legally you have the right, but it's better to treat people like people in my opinion.

Instead of making a separate game, why don't you just make an add-on? If you learn WML, you can do a whole lot of very neat things within Wesnoth itself .

[Hulavuta]

Um, there was a game that was almost EXACTLY like Wesnoth, using the same graphics and stuff. I haven't actually played it, and I forgot what it is called. I think Battle for Riverstone or something. You can do it anyway, but it would be nice if you gave us (by "us" I mean the developers and other contributors) credit, etc.

By your post, I'm assuming you are new to Wesnoth, but a ton of people have made RPGs that actually run on the game's engine

[Unnheulu]

Of course you can! Just make sure have a read of the GPL, and make sure you follow the conditions set out there. oh, and it has to be released under GPL. Good luck!

[icelus]

@dipseydoodle: I dislike the name "fan" game; it would be a new game just with accelerated development due to re-use, something free software ought to enable to happen more often.

@King_Elendil:

(a) The philosophy of Wesnoth (http://wiki.wesnoth.org/WesnothPhilosophy) goes as far as suggesting such a thing should be done. Secondly, even though it is legally allowed and explicitly suggested, if the game authors object I will write something else, probably with no art at all. This was the purpose of the post..

(b) I actually worked on silvertree, and did enhancements to the WML engine for that, as well as entire gui rendering system in WML (the frame WML system of silvertree is mine)... but I want to make a NEW game (for my own enjoyment) because I want a more radical shift of the play style than you could easily get by modding.

@Hulavuta: I haven't found anything else using the Wesnoth resources, I did look. Did the RPGs like the ones described on these forums ever come to anything? Obviously I'm not going to try to steal your credit; you can see titling it "Wesnoth: X" as an attempt to appropriate your brand or to attribute credit from the start, which is the reason for my other question.

@xer: sure legally I can(!) And since I don't want help in making it, the point of this thread is politeness and an urge to avoid upsetting a large number of people unintentionally. It isn't worth making something that will create ill-feeling, which is why I ask now before I invest too much in it.

[Hulavuta]

I might be mistaken about what you're saying, but the RPG's can be downloaded from the game. They aren't separate games. When I say "They run on the engine" I mean that they are actually played on the wesnoth game.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Try addons such as Wesband, Labyrinth of Champions, Into the Underworld, and Brent. Also try reading about Artisticdude's new RPG, the Dark Dagger Wars.
There's no need to make a separate game for this- it could all be made into an addon. And I bet more people would see and play it if it were an addon than if it were a different game.
It's a fine idea, but making a totally separate game is unnecessary.

But good luck with whatever path you choose!

[dipseydoodle]

@dipseydoodle: I dislike the name "fan" game; it would be a new game just with accelerated development due to re-use, something free software ought to enable to happen more often.

Ok. Good luck tho.

[Dave]

I have been a big proponent of people reusing Wesnoth's resources for a new game. There are a bunch of different directions one could go in.

I STRONGLY encourage you to do this, and hope it is highly successful! You won't be treading on anybody's toes.

You are welcome to call your game Wesnoth: Rogue if you want, however you are also welcome to call it a different name and set it in a different setting while reusing art/sound/etc resources if you want.

Of course there has been a bunch of content made that make Wesnoth RPGish or take it in other directions, but I don't think any of it can quite match up to a purpose made game engine.

David

[dipseydoodle]

I could not agree more Dave.

[lmelior]

Just to clarify, anyone who wants to make their own GPL software (doesn't even need to be a game!) neither needs to ask permission to use Wesnoth resources nor link to BfW at all, though they most likely need permission to use the Wesnoth name if they wanted to do so. Any developers or contributors that would object to their work being used in another GPL game have sorely misunderstood what it means to contribute to free software, so frankly, I don't think it's even necessary to ask.*

I've witnessed Dave and many other developers and artists say in the past that they would like to know about other projects that use their work, but that's not so they can say if they approve or disapprove, but rather because they'd most likely be interested in the project itself.

icelus,
It sounds like a great project, I hope we'll see something grow out of this soon. I poked around the SilverTree forums a bit, it's interesting that you were so involved over there but haven't joined the fun here at all. Not a fan of TBS games I guess?


*EDIT:
It just occurred to me that there might be situations where you have to consider moral or religious or political objections, so I guess it's not that cut and dry. Neither the GPL nor CC licenses make any mention of it, so I guess it's legally allowed, but maybe some artists would up and leave BfW if their portraits showed up in a game with prostitutes, abortions, and pagan rituals. That wouldn't be good. As a side note I just came up with a great game idea...

[Dave]

Just to clarify, anyone who wants to make their own GPL software (doesn't even need to be a game!) neither needs to ask permission to use Wesnoth resources nor link to BfW at all, though they most likely need permission to use the Wesnoth name if they wanted to do so. Any developers or contributors that would object to their work being used in another GPL game have sorely misunderstood what it means to contribute to free software, so frankly, I don't think it's even necessary to ask.

You are absolutely right that you don't need to ask, however many people feel that it is polite to, and would probably feel wrong about using the resources for something the original creator was strongly opposed to.

However, I am very happy for people to reuse Wesnoth's resources, and I think the other developers feel the same way.

David

[Tonepoet]

Rantings and ravings...

IMO it's not very polite to use art/whatever, that was made for a specific game, in another game. If you get permission from the artist/creator, that is one thing, but saying "wow all this stuff without a copyright, I think I'll use it" is a little weird. Yes legally you have the right, but it's better to treat people like people in my opinion.

Instead of making a separate game, why don't you just make an add-on? If you learn WML, you can do a whole lot of very neat things within Wesnoth itself .

I actually feel the opposite way: I think it's incredibly rude to release something under a liberal license, then get all huffy about it when people use your contributions precisely as prescribed. It's good to keep in mind that the promotion of freedoms like unrestricted use and total customization are both core design principals of the GPL. If the content creators didn't like this and wanted to reserve any rights to permissiveness or exclusivity, they just simply shouldn't have agreed to otherwise. Since they'd already said yes long ago, it'd like giving a gift to somebody then taking it back, which is incredibly tacky to say the least.

That being said, do be sure you and everybody you end up working with understand and agree to the full terms and conditions of the GPL Version 2 before doing anything icelus. Technically speaking, use of the art that comes with Wesnoth is provided only to software that adheres to its full provisions. Everybody needs to know what they'd be getting themselves into before stepping knee deep into it.

[Zarel]

I actually feel the opposite way: I think it's incredibly rude to release something under a liberal license, then get all huffy about it when people use your contributions precisely as prescribed. It's good to keep in mind that the promotion of freedoms like unrestricted use and total customization are both core design principals of the GPL.

I think it's fine, if at the same time you mention its license, you mention your own preferences. There is a difference between "I don't want you to do this" and "I will sue you if you do this".

Of course, unless you explicitly specify your wishes, anything released under the GPL is stuff I'd assume the author wanted to be reused. I'd probably notify the author first, but I wouldn't sweat it if I couldn't contact him/her. And I'd probably skip that entirely, if the current copyright holder weren't its author.