Saria wrote:
IT'S HAPPENING
No. It is not.
1) The only thing Stardock could have bought here is the rights to the "Star Control" name itself. The rights to EVERYTHING ELSE - Ur-Quan, Precursors, Spathi, Chenjesu, all of it - reside with Toys For Bob. That is why and how the sourceforge UQM release was possible, and why the title had to be changed. If Stardock tries to make a Star Control game without involving TFB, there will be no Ur-Quan, no Syreen, no Shofixti, no Yehat, no nothing. In short, it will not be Star Control.
2) Toys For Bob is wholly owned by Activision. Activision has no reason to cooperate with a rival publisher. At the very least, Stardock would have to pay Activision exorbitant amounts to be able to use Activision employees for a project intended to compete with Activision's core business - electronic entertainment. It is extremely unlikely that Toys For Bob has avoided signing non-compete agreements. Therefore it is highly unlikely that Toys For Bob - meaning Paul Reiche and Fred Ford, the people who count - will be involved in any Stardock Starcon project.
3) If Paul Reiche and Fred Ford are not involved, I don't care what name is slapped on it, it's not Star Control.
4) Stardock is the company that announced they were doing a Master of Magic remake and then came out with one of the worst releases in gaming history, Elemental: War of Magic. They then put a huge amount of effort into undoing the PR damage they took from that, resulting in Fallen Enchantress, which is a passable fantasy strategy game, but nothing legendary.
5) Stardock's track record even with its successful games is that they make dry, workmanlike games. There is not that much personality or quirkiness in them. The whole point of Star Control is the quirkiness and the personality infused in every detail. This is purely a matter of who actually works on the game, and their creativity and what sort of ideas they have. Ford and Reiche have it. Stardock has not yet demonstrated that they do, and based on the Elemental / Fallen Enchantress history, there's better than even odds that it'll turn out they just can't.
6) Star Control is about spaceships, dammit. Not X-com like tactics. I love X-com, but if I want to play X-com, I'll play X-com, not X-com-renamed-as-Star-Control.
e: for whatever it's worth, Wardell responded to my posting these same points at the UQM forum by saying that they ARE in touch with Reiche and Ford and that things look "hopeful". Which would remove some of my objections.
e2: According to this
http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?top ... 5#msg71115Paul Reiche says Stardock has not contacted them at all. Wardell's post in that thread came not so long after so there can't have been that much in the way of specific discussions between the two. Well, we'll see.