No he didn't. He was selling stealth copies of Airball on ebay before bunnyboy even announced his, and there are graphical differences we have documented on the Lost Levels forums:
Other than the small graphics changes, have there been any other comparisons of the completeness of the games? I know the one I have is beatable on every difficulty level, so the claims of being only 80% finished are pretty bogus. Some of the options screens could probably be polished more but that is a very small change.
Frank...you might want to try being a little more polite when you appear on a forum of fellow collectors and admit to going behind the back of the owner of a piece of history, potentially compromising his find.
Tread carfeully, because I dont' think you're making any friends.
Frank...you might want to try being a little more polite when you appear on a forum of fellow collectors and admit to going behind the back of the owner of a piece of history, potentially compromising his find.
Tread carfeully, because I dont' think you're making any friends.
I didn't "compromise" anything, I simply asked one of the company founders (as part of a larger email, mostly about Space Ace) if he remembered working on the port, if it was ever completed, and if he remembers if they ported any of their other games to consoles like the NES. He said they prototyped console ports all the time, and he would dig through his archives for further info. They did the computer version of Thundercats, so I'm hoping that maybe they might have experimented with it on the NES. I also asked about Grid Grabber, an original game that Elite did for Jaleco, which they might still have a copy of.
No one is mad about this existing, nobody is silly enough to ask for an NES cartridge back, and I have no reason to apologize for sending an email to a game developer to ask questions - especially when they're questions that might benefit us all.
Just to touch on this subject, I asked the person from whom I obtained the game from how they ended up with it in the first place. Quoted from an email:
"As far as provenance for these items - from what I understand, all of this came from one of the actual designers at Elite. Case after case of this stuff was sold to a guy in Seattle when the designer passed away (I will try and find out the name of the designer)."
So about me contacting a "living, breathing" person, I thought of that. I'm under the impression that I'm a tad bit late. Surely one of the people you spoke with remembered working for Elite and/or coding for the game, correct?
Hi Mark, that is really interesting info that would have made your magazine article even better, you should have included it! As I said in my previous post, the co-founder of Elite that I am in conversations with did not have anything specific to say about Hoppin' Mad, other than that he'd dig around and see if he had anything in his archives. I am glad you tried to get more insight into this game, and it's unfortunate that its designer (Mark Crane, I'm guessing?) has passed on.
I don't really care if you sell Hoppin' Mad, and I doubt anyone at Elite would either, but reading this thread was really mind-blowing to me - people openly acknowledging that the IP owner still exists and talking about selling it "under the radar" was crazy to me, and I had to say something. I don't understand how people can care so passionately about a hobby and then try openly to avoid the people who made the games in the first place!
Sorry for stirring things up in your forums Dain, I just couldn't believe what I was reading here.
No he didn't. He was selling stealth copies of Airball on ebay before bunnyboy even announced his, and there are graphical differences we have documented on the Lost Levels forums:
Other than the small graphics changes, have there been any other comparisons of the completeness of the games? I know the one I have is beatable on every difficulty level, so the claims of being only 80% finished are pretty bogus. Some of the options screens could probably be polished more but that is a very small change.
No, sorry, not on our forums anyway. I haven't played the other build, though I did beat yours on all three difficulties, and it seemed fine to me. I totally agree about the bogus claims, I remember in the old days hearing that the game was unsolvable! We were also told that the game was on a unique board, which also turned out to be false. There was a lot of strange misinformation back in the late 90s/early 2000's, as far as unreleased games went. Don't even get me started on Earthbound.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with yours, I'm just pointing out that the other one seems to be more complete. Like I said, a bit off-topic, and just an FYI for anyone interested.
^^^ I hope you don't support any of the repro makers then. 100% of their profit is derived from IP infringement.
Nobody was suggesting trying to screw the original creator of this thing. But some companies have strict policies that would compel them to quash a release no matter what the individuals in the company actually want to do. It doesn't sound like Elite is big enough to have a vigorous legal team that would do something like that, so it's probably a non-issue in that they may not have the same level of stringency that one of the larger companies would have to apply.
I had responded, but read Frank's most recent reply and decided to change what I had originally wrote.
I have to comment about your contact of Elite about my proto...
What you did was a pretty shitty move and you know it could have potentially compromised my proto. If not, I'd be able to play Resident Evil 1.5 on an emulator right now
You should have asked me to contact them first, in your PM on DP it was very clear that you had already contacted them alerting them to my find.
Your response to this thread was lacking a bit of tack as most have already pointed out. I understand your concern and that is the ENTIRE reason I wrote the EZine article, to find out what others thought about the situation. I was not saying that one thing was right and the other was wrong, but as a collector of NES games I know that this game should be released to this community. The programmers credited for this game are no longer employees of Elite (although all have Video Game working credits with different companies dating up until 2007), so I didn't think that asking Elite would be my best bet for info. I thought that contacting the company could do nothing but hurt my chances of releasing this game, so I didn't bother contacting them. If you knew better, why wouldn't you lend advice instead of going over my head and contacting them directly?
I appreciate your change of tone, but don't you dare blame me if Elite doesn't give you prototypes or source codes for past games. You have produced nothing more with your research so far than I have, and my intents are 100% in the best interest for the community. I will do my best to release this game to this community based off of advice from this thread (yours included).
Again, if you have contact info for any of the 3 men credited for programming this game, do tell. I will contact them immediately.
^^^ I hope you don't support any of the repro makers then. 100% of their profit is derived from IP infringement.
Nobody was suggesting trying to screw the original creator of this thing. But some companies have strict policies that would compel them to quash a release no matter what the individuals in the company actually want to do. It doesn't sound like Elite is big enough to have a vigorous legal team that would do something like that, so it's probably a non-issue in that they may not have the same level of stringency that one of the larger companies would have to apply.
See, this is exactly my point. Your concern is whether or not a company has legal grounds to stop something from happening, which strikes me as a pretty sociopathic point of view. What I care about is potentially pissing off someone who is cool and might be open to this community. Do I think it's going to happen? No, I don't, I just don't like how some of you guys appear to be completely open about it and entirely disrespectful to the people who made the games you enjoy. I was not starting a legal discussion, I'm more interested in the ethics of a community that tries to sell someone's incomplete game without telling them (not you Mark, you tried).
As for the first part of your post, if you're really interested, I have never purchased a reproduction cartridge, except for the time that I bought a copy of Hero Quest and had it sent to its programmer as a thank you gift (the builder might have even done it for free, I forget). I guess I do "support" sites like gamereproductions and nesreproductions in that half of their content came from stuff I either found or spent money to acquire...
I have to comment about your contact of Elite about my proto...
What you did was a pretty shitty move and you know it could have potentially compromised my proto. If not, I'd be able to play Resident Evil 1.5 on an emulator right now
You should have asked me to contact them first, in your PM on DP it was very clear that you had already contacted them alerting them to my find.
Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. These guys were already aware that I, personally, leaked a copy of Dr. Franken to the internet and did not mind at all (or even comment on it at all, really). Of course there is no way you could have known that information, so I can see your point, but my contacting them was in no way going to compromise anything, otherwise I might not have done it. I want to play this game too.
I have contacted developers about unreleased games others have discovered many times in the past - in fact, the only reason we have a 100% complete build of California Raisins is because the programmer sent it to me (the cart found in Florida, which I dumped, was pre-release; the one I was sent by the programmer was the gold master).
And for the record, my emails to Elite were mainly asking about Space Ace and Thundercats, with some interview-type questions I had about how they operated in the old days. Hoppin' Mad just happened to also be a good conversation point that I brought up. I didn't do anything wrong.
Let me just interject long enough to thank you all for being mature adults and actually presenting salient points to one another. Certain other posters at NA should take note of the communication in this thread. Also notice, it's possible to use profanity without being vulgar.
Let me interject long enough to thank you, Dan, for all the kick ass work you do for both NA and the EZine
Frank, you have a very good point with Dr. Franken. I figured that Dr. Franken was made public by one of two possible people, but I had no idea Elite was aware, and ok, with it being released. That puts a very different spin on the situation and I appreciate the info.
So this is what I gather from this thread so far:
1. Everybody wants this game released (no kiddin')
2. Elite is very aware that I have this proto and seem to be ok with it
3. The 3 programmers that are credited on the cart no longer work for Elite and at least one has quite possibly passed away.
I think I should do a few things before moving on. I'd like to see if I could get a hold of at least one of the original programmers to see if they could add any insight on the cart. I also think that at this point it is totally rational (and the right thing to do) to contact Elite directly and see what they can bring to the table. If they can't give me anything that would help me come closer to bringing this game to release, I'll ask if I have their blessing to contract one of our homebrewers in bringing this game (or a copy inspired by this game) to a finished state.
Thanks for your insight Frank, I'd love if you could help me out as I know you have some contacts that may be of use to me. Anyone else have any take on this?
Let me interject long enough to thank you, Dan, for all the kick ass work you do for both NA and the EZine
Frank, you have a very good point with Dr. Franken. I figured that Dr. Franken was made public by one of two possible people, but I had no idea Elite was aware, and ok, with it being released. That puts a very different spin on the situation and I appreciate the info.
So this is what I gather from this thread so far:
1. Everybody wants this game released (no kiddin')
2. Elite is very aware that I have this proto and seem to be ok with it
3. The 3 programmers that are credited on the cart no longer work for Elite and at least one has quite possibly passed away.
I think I should do a few things before moving on. I'd like to see if I could get a hold of at least one of the original programmers to see if they could add any insight on the cart. I also think that at this point it is totally rational (and the right thing to do) to contact Elite directly and see what they can bring to the table. If they can't give me anything that would help me come closer to bringing this game to release, I'll ask if I have their blessing to contract one of our homebrewers in bringing this game (or a copy inspired by this game) to a finished state.
Thanks for your insight Frank, I'd love if you could help me out as I know you have some contacts that may be of use to me. Anyone else have any take on this?
If you can get an interview with any of the programmers this would be some great incite on the game, and would be a great addition to put in a future E-zine, with the interviewees concent of course. As for not wanting to contact Elite I can understand the caution about the legality issues and also, did anyone bother to mention that Mark was probably so excited to own this proto that it diddn't cross his mind to think about hack programming and all the other controversial stuff? As many of you agree, this is something for the community to talk over and discuss, which I am glad Mark is letting us do, and please remember everyone does not have all the same ideas, which is why we should be more open and helpful to eachother, and try not to criticise eachother when it is really not accomplishing anything. With that said i'm looking forward to some great discussions on this subject in the comming months, and to see what the outcome for this hidden gem will be.
Comments
No he didn't. He was selling stealth copies of Airball on ebay before bunnyboy even announced his, and there are graphical differences we have documented on the Lost Levels forums:
http://bmf.rustedlogic.net/misc/airballcomp.gif
Other than the small graphics changes, have there been any other comparisons of the completeness of the games? I know the one I have is beatable on every difficulty level, so the claims of being only 80% finished are pretty bogus. Some of the options screens could probably be polished more but that is a very small change.
Tread carfeully, because I dont' think you're making any friends.
Frank...you might want to try being a little more polite when you appear on a forum of fellow collectors and admit to going behind the back of the owner of a piece of history, potentially compromising his find.
Tread carfeully, because I dont' think you're making any friends.
I didn't "compromise" anything, I simply asked one of the company founders (as part of a larger email, mostly about Space Ace) if he remembered working on the port, if it was ever completed, and if he remembers if they ported any of their other games to consoles like the NES. He said they prototyped console ports all the time, and he would dig through his archives for further info. They did the computer version of Thundercats, so I'm hoping that maybe they might have experimented with it on the NES. I also asked about Grid Grabber, an original game that Elite did for Jaleco, which they might still have a copy of.
No one is mad about this existing, nobody is silly enough to ask for an NES cartridge back, and I have no reason to apologize for sending an email to a game developer to ask questions - especially when they're questions that might benefit us all.
Just to touch on this subject, I asked the person from whom I obtained the game from how they ended up with it in the first place. Quoted from an email:
"As far as provenance for these items - from what I understand, all of
this came from one of the actual designers at Elite. Case after case of
this stuff was sold to a guy in Seattle when the designer passed away
(I will try and find out the name of the designer)."
So about me contacting a "living, breathing" person, I thought of that. I'm under the impression that I'm a tad bit late. Surely one of the people you spoke with remembered working for Elite and/or coding for the game, correct?
Hi Mark, that is really interesting info that would have made your magazine article even better, you should have included it! As I said in my previous post, the co-founder of Elite that I am in conversations with did not have anything specific to say about Hoppin' Mad, other than that he'd dig around and see if he had anything in his archives. I am glad you tried to get more insight into this game, and it's unfortunate that its designer (Mark Crane, I'm guessing?) has passed on.
I don't really care if you sell Hoppin' Mad, and I doubt anyone at Elite would either, but reading this thread was really mind-blowing to me - people openly acknowledging that the IP owner still exists and talking about selling it "under the radar" was crazy to me, and I had to say something. I don't understand how people can care so passionately about a hobby and then try openly to avoid the people who made the games in the first place!
Sorry for stirring things up in your forums Dain, I just couldn't believe what I was reading here.
No he didn't. He was selling stealth copies of Airball on ebay before bunnyboy even announced his, and there are graphical differences we have documented on the Lost Levels forums:
http://bmf.rustedlogic.net/misc/airballcomp.gif
Other than the small graphics changes, have there been any other comparisons of the completeness of the games? I know the one I have is beatable on every difficulty level, so the claims of being only 80% finished are pretty bogus. Some of the options screens could probably be polished more but that is a very small change.
No, sorry, not on our forums anyway. I haven't played the other build, though I did beat yours on all three difficulties, and it seemed fine to me. I totally agree about the bogus claims, I remember in the old days hearing that the game was unsolvable! We were also told that the game was on a unique board, which also turned out to be false. There was a lot of strange misinformation back in the late 90s/early 2000's, as far as unreleased games went. Don't even get me started on Earthbound.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with yours, I'm just pointing out that the other one seems to be more complete. Like I said, a bit off-topic, and just an FYI for anyone interested.
Nobody was suggesting trying to screw the original creator of this thing. But some companies have strict policies that would compel them to quash a release no matter what the individuals in the company actually want to do. It doesn't sound like Elite is big enough to have a vigorous legal team that would do something like that, so it's probably a non-issue in that they may not have the same level of stringency that one of the larger companies would have to apply.
I have to comment about your contact of Elite about my proto...
What you did was a pretty shitty move and you know it could have potentially compromised my proto. If not, I'd be able to play Resident Evil 1.5 on an emulator right now
You should have asked me to contact them first, in your PM on DP it was very clear that you had already contacted them alerting them to my find.
Your response to this thread was lacking a bit of tack as most have already pointed out. I understand your concern and that is the ENTIRE reason I wrote the EZine article, to find out what others thought about the situation. I was not saying that one thing was right and the other was wrong, but as a collector of NES games I know that this game should be released to this community. The programmers credited for this game are no longer employees of Elite (although all have Video Game working credits with different companies dating up until 2007), so I didn't think that asking Elite would be my best bet for info. I thought that contacting the company could do nothing but hurt my chances of releasing this game, so I didn't bother contacting them. If you knew better, why wouldn't you lend advice instead of going over my head and contacting them directly?
I appreciate your change of tone, but don't you dare blame me if Elite doesn't give you prototypes or source codes for past games. You have produced nothing more with your research so far than I have, and my intents are 100% in the best interest for the community. I will do my best to release this game to this community based off of advice from this thread (yours included).
Again, if you have contact info for any of the 3 men credited for programming this game, do tell. I will contact them immediately.
regards,
-Mark
^^^ I hope you don't support any of the repro makers then. 100% of their profit is derived from IP infringement.
Nobody was suggesting trying to screw the original creator of this thing. But some companies have strict policies that would compel them to quash a release no matter what the individuals in the company actually want to do. It doesn't sound like Elite is big enough to have a vigorous legal team that would do something like that, so it's probably a non-issue in that they may not have the same level of stringency that one of the larger companies would have to apply.
See, this is exactly my point. Your concern is whether or not a company has legal grounds to stop something from happening, which strikes me as a pretty sociopathic point of view. What I care about is potentially pissing off someone who is cool and might be open to this community. Do I think it's going to happen? No, I don't, I just don't like how some of you guys appear to be completely open about it and entirely disrespectful to the people who made the games you enjoy. I was not starting a legal discussion, I'm more interested in the ethics of a community that tries to sell someone's incomplete game without telling them (not you Mark, you tried).
As for the first part of your post, if you're really interested, I have never purchased a reproduction cartridge, except for the time that I bought a copy of Hero Quest and had it sent to its programmer as a thank you gift (the builder might have even done it for free, I forget). I guess I do "support" sites like gamereproductions and nesreproductions in that half of their content came from stuff I either found or spent money to acquire...
I have to comment about your contact of Elite about my proto...
What you did was a pretty shitty move and you know it could have potentially compromised my proto. If not, I'd be able to play Resident Evil 1.5 on an emulator right now
You should have asked me to contact them first, in your PM on DP it was very clear that you had already contacted them alerting them to my find.
Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. These guys were already aware that I, personally, leaked a copy of Dr. Franken to the internet and did not mind at all (or even comment on it at all, really). Of course there is no way you could have known that information, so I can see your point, but my contacting them was in no way going to compromise anything, otherwise I might not have done it. I want to play this game too.
I have contacted developers about unreleased games others have discovered many times in the past - in fact, the only reason we have a 100% complete build of California Raisins is because the programmer sent it to me (the cart found in Florida, which I dumped, was pre-release; the one I was sent by the programmer was the gold master).
And for the record, my emails to Elite were mainly asking about Space Ace and Thundercats, with some interview-type questions I had about how they operated in the old days. Hoppin' Mad just happened to also be a good conversation point that I brought up. I didn't do anything wrong.
Frank, you have a very good point with Dr. Franken. I figured that Dr. Franken was made public by one of two possible people, but I had no idea Elite was aware, and ok, with it being released. That puts a very different spin on the situation and I appreciate the info.
So this is what I gather from this thread so far:
1. Everybody wants this game released (no kiddin')
2. Elite is very aware that I have this proto and seem to be ok with it
3. The 3 programmers that are credited on the cart no longer work for Elite and at least one has quite possibly passed away.
I think I should do a few things before moving on. I'd like to see if I could get a hold of at least one of the original programmers to see if they could add any insight on the cart. I also think that at this point it is totally rational (and the right thing to do) to contact Elite directly and see what they can bring to the table. If they can't give me anything that would help me come closer to bringing this game to release, I'll ask if I have their blessing to contract one of our homebrewers in bringing this game (or a copy inspired by this game) to a finished state.
Thanks for your insight Frank, I'd love if you could help me out as I know you have some contacts that may be of use to me. Anyone else have any take on this?
Frank, work on your reading comprehension before you acuse a respected member of being a sociopath within your first 10 posts on the forum.
Let me interject long enough to thank you, Dan, for all the kick ass work you do for both NA and the EZine
Frank, you have a very good point with Dr. Franken. I figured that Dr. Franken was made public by one of two possible people, but I had no idea Elite was aware, and ok, with it being released. That puts a very different spin on the situation and I appreciate the info.
So this is what I gather from this thread so far:
1. Everybody wants this game released (no kiddin')
2. Elite is very aware that I have this proto and seem to be ok with it
3. The 3 programmers that are credited on the cart no longer work for Elite and at least one has quite possibly passed away.
I think I should do a few things before moving on. I'd like to see if I could get a hold of at least one of the original programmers to see if they could add any insight on the cart. I also think that at this point it is totally rational (and the right thing to do) to contact Elite directly and see what they can bring to the table. If they can't give me anything that would help me come closer to bringing this game to release, I'll ask if I have their blessing to contract one of our homebrewers in bringing this game (or a copy inspired by this game) to a finished state.
Thanks for your insight Frank, I'd love if you could help me out as I know you have some contacts that may be of use to me. Anyone else have any take on this?
If you can get an interview with any of the programmers this would be some great incite on the game, and would be a great addition to put in a future E-zine, with the interviewees concent of course. As for not wanting to contact Elite I can understand the caution about the legality issues and also, did anyone bother to mention that Mark was probably so excited to own this proto that it diddn't cross his mind to think about hack programming and all the other controversial stuff? As many of you agree, this is something for the community to talk over and discuss, which I am glad Mark is letting us do, and please remember everyone does not have all the same ideas, which is why we should be more open and helpful to eachother, and try not to criticise eachother when it is really not accomplishing anything. With that said i'm looking forward to some great discussions on this subject in the comming months, and to see what the outcome for this hidden gem will be.