Wow...Rip OFF

This game is a complete ripoff of an old acollade game called Star Control II. WOOWOWOWOWOWOWWOW nice job. Very original

Congratulations! You have made that observation ten years too late for anyone to care!

Welcome to the boards, Lastdirective. I think.

@ue_research---development, on Mar 21 2006, 02:35 PM, said in Wow...Rip OFF:

Congratulations! You have made that observation ten years too late for anyone to care!

snorts

Yeah, but this one's better.

I've got news--Star Control II and Escape Velocity are entirely different. Just about the most they have in common is that they both take place in space, so I wouldn't know why you'd think EV ripped that off.

Escape Velocity, for your future reference, actually ripped off an even older game, Elite.

-Bob

Bah! Yer young whippersnappers dun appreciate th' simple complexity of a good ol' 'acollade game' like Star Control II!

Back in th' day, I hadda hike ten miles through th' freezin' snow and sleet jus' to get to mah cable internet, an' it was uphill both ways. You young'uns just dunno how t' appreciate anything anymore.

I wonder how idiotic he feels now?

By his logic, all games that take place in space that were made after SCII are rip-offs of it.

Lastdirective, this certainly is a different way to introduce yourself to the forums

not that it's a good one.

@mackilroy, on Mar 21 2006, 08:17 PM, said in Wow...Rip OFF:

I wonder how idiotic he feels now?

By his logic, all games that take place in space that were made after SCII are rip-offs of it.

Lastdirective, this certainly is a different way to introduce yourself to the forums

not that it's a good one.

I agree Mackilroy, Lastdirective needs to watch what he says, unless he wishes to have some Ambrosians angry with his comment. Some people here are very protective of Escape Velocity.

Glad I turned some heads :p. I only wrote that it was a ripoff because the Gui layout and the "3d" Battle layouts are almost identical. I fail to see how you guys(Mackilroy) think that since I think that this game is a "ripoff" of SC2 that i think all games made after SC2 are ripoffs? Freelancer is not a rip of SC2 neither is Descent Freespace...or any wing commander games. Im sorry I have an opinion you dont agree with. Im almost glad its a ripoff because the way Accolade presented SC2 was awesome...Im guessing that Ambrosia Soft devs thought so as well.

There are significant similarities between Star Control 2 and Escape Velocity, but EV has made significant differences to the gameplay. Such things as:

Combining flying-around space with combat space
Multi-ship battles
Trading
Extended outfitting - every ship can be modified and there's more outfit types
Vastly more inhabited planets
...

That's what comes to mind off the top of my head. There's also things that EV doesn't have that SC2 does, such as no landing on planets (and thus no hunting animals or collecting ore). Frankly, once you decide to have a game where you can fly from one planet to another and there's multiple factions or species, there's many things that you basically have to include or else your players will thing that you're suffering from a brain injury (e.g. "What, no trading? You're nuts!").

Are you talking about the original EV here, or did you mistaken this board for EVN? (Just want to clarify things, though it only makes minor differences.)

Ld, they're not almost identical. I've played the SC games, and they're quite different.

As for why I said that, I was being sarcastic, but since you asked, here it is: you gave absolutely no reason why EV was a ripoff of SC2, other than your opinion, so, from there, seeing as they're both space games with combat, it's pretty easy to extrapolate that you might think other games are ripoffs too.

Also, no one asked you to pay for it.

@firebird, on Mar 23 2006, 06:17 PM, said in Wow...Rip OFF:

Also, no one asked you to pay for it.

Except Captain Hector.

SC II and EVC and every space game ever is pretty much a total rip of Asteroids.

There is nothing new under the sun, so sayeth The Bard. Get over it.

/ranton

In the interest of adding a voice from the professional game development community, I would just like to say that we consider immitation to be the most sincere form of flattery. I would also like to point out that no matter how much one title may "rip off" another, there are typically some fairly outstanding differences that help to set products apart from one another.

One thing the marketing nuts at a game software company do is create a "competative product analysis" which takes a look at similar games in the genre that are currently available on the market. It's an old practice that you can still find in many industries today (Deep Impact vs. Armageddon). Often, you'll discover that that the product you're competing against much more similar to your own than you would like to admit.

I would also like to introduce the idea of a "high concept." It's easy. Take your favorite game and describe it in 20 words or less. "A strategic mission-driven space simulation game involving commerce, trading, and policical undertones." That was 12 words, 13 if you double up for the hyphenated mission-driven part. How many games does that describe? I can name several off the top of my head including EV, Elite Frontiers, Eve, etc...

As long as a game doesn't blatantly rip off the itelluctual property of another company, it can be a good thing for the industry. It initiates competition which in turn leads to better design which leads to better gameplay and eventually to a better experience overall. Without competiton, games take a nosedive in quality and enjoyability (just look at EA's sports titles once they acquire an exclusive lisence... f**king bastards).

To provide an example of competition in the field, I would like to introduce two game franchises that have been competing together for years. Quake and Halflife. (We're just going to ignore the little fact that halflife was written on top of the quake engine) "A first person shooter where the player must battle their way through a paranormally infested version of earth to obtain freedom." This high concept could mean either of these games, or a half a dozen other titles released at the same time. The point it, because of the intense competition in the area of the paranormal-invader first person shooters genre, the companies producing these games have been forced to either enhance their gameplay experience (Halflife 2) or change their entire concept (Quake III, Quake IV). Either way, the market thrives, gamers obtain more enjoyment, and copies fly off the shelf (Despite what PC gamer wants you to think, the game industry doesn't give a flying f**k about good games, it's all about the money ), and everybody ends up happy.

EV was simply a natural product of the cycle described above. It took a great concept embodied in the games of the past, gave it a new name a new level of sophistication, and a new platform (Shareware), and it took off into history as a wonderful game and a favorite of many.

The point is, and I'm sorry it took this long to get here, EV isn't so much a ripoff of Asteroids and Star Control as it is a direct descent. A child if you will. It built upon the blocks of it's ancestors, honored them, and was, in turn, used as a building blocks for several games, commercial and otherwise, that have been released since then.

To sum up, Lastdirective and Hamster are completely right. It's not a bad thing however. If you don't like the phrase rip-off, consider using the words evolution, predecessor, or outgrowth; they'll all work just fine. If we want games to contine to thrive, we have to accept the fact that there have never been very many original concepts hitting the shelf. When they're available, gobble them up. When they aren't, take the next step in a tried and true genre and give it a whirl. It might surprise you.

-AJ

/rantoff

I think the most important thing about all of this is that all of the code, graphics, and support for EV were/are done by Matt Burch and Ambrosia and they deserve to be compensated for their efforts if you're going to play it. It doesn't matter where any ideas came from, people have the same ideas all the time, it's the work that matters.

I think weither it's a copy cat or not, games made with the same "stuffs" as the older classics and still offer very high replayability are ok in my book.