[Ramen4ever]

Nice to see George getting back to his twittering. Looks like he's keeping things professional.

[N64]

Ramen4ever, on May 24 2009, 01:20 PM, said:

Nice to see George getting back to his twittering. Looks like he's keeping things professional.

George play,3dr dead. http://profile.mygam....net/GeorgeB3DR

[Tedades]

angelo86, on May 24 2009, 10:59 PM, said:

George play,3dr dead. http://profile.mygam....net/GeorgeB3DR

He plays a lot of games, he has multiple games on 100%. Good to see he really cares about keeping up with the competitors.
(or is it a shared console, where everyone at work/home can play on...)

[NUKEMDAVE]

angelo86, on May 24 2009, 04:59 PM, said:

George play,3dr dead. http://profile.mygam....net/GeorgeB3DR

I believe George has a disguise Xbox Live account because I played a guy in Duke3D XBLA a few nights ago and he talked and sounded much like George. One of the things I heard him say while talking to someone in the Dukematch Lobby was "Lesson learned" and that pretty much convinced me that it was probably him. I checked his profile and his location was Dallas.

[rockmx8]

NUKEMDAVE, on May 24 2009, 09:47 PM, said:

I believe George has a disguise Xbox Live account because I played a guy in Duke3D XBLA a few nights ago and he talked and sounded much like George. One of the things I heard him say while talking to someone in the Dukematch Lobby was "Lesson learned" and that pretty much convinced me that it was probably him. I checked his profile and his location was Dallas.

Yeah that's right bro, I remember when you told me that. The guy sounded and acted just like George, it's highly likely his alternate account. In Duke3D he was pretty good after we witnessed him play.

Well I just hope they can reach a Good Equal deal for both 3DR and Take2 after this stupid court case. When I go witness it on June 4, I will be watching and praying to G-O-D that the outcome will be great for 3DR. DNF better release someway or another despite what's happened so far. Either they rehire the team or partner with HumanHead or whatever, just GET DNF DONE SO THIS WILL BE THE MOST EPIC GAME IN HISTORY!! NOT AN EPIC FAIL AS MOST NEGATIVE PEOPLE THINK IS HAPPENING FOR 3DR AND DNF......

[peoplessi]

That's all. We won't see DNF in the near future, that's pretty obvious considering the circumstances.

[zchri9]

did we ever find out what he was saying no to?

# No.7:46 PM Apr 27th from web

[MusicallyInspired]

No.





See what I did there?

[Sinisterambo]

MusicallyInspired, on May 25 2009, 08:48 PM, said:

No.

See what I did there?

No.

zchri9, on May 25 2009, 10:56 AM, said:

did we ever find out what he was saying no to?

# No.7:46 PM Apr 27th from web

It could have been in response to one of his follower's questions, or a reply to Take Two for their "fire-sale" offer (although the negotiations were said to have fallen through on May 4th).

See what I did there?

[zwieback]

hehe

[MusicallyInspired]

Sinisterambo, on May 25 2009, 05:09 PM, said:

See what I did there?

No.





....ok we could do this all day.

[storm8ring3r]

MusicallyInspired, on May 26 2009, 05:07 AM, said:

....ok we could do this all day.

no.

[Omega037]

From what I know of these kinds of cases, my guess is there will be another and another and another hearing for god knows how long before anything is decided.

[mentalstampede]

Omega037, on May 27 2009, 12:58 AM, said:

From what I know of these kinds of cases, my guess is there will be another and another and another hearing for god knows how long before anything is decided.

Exactly. It seems like >95% of the people commenting on this have absolutely no concept of how the legal system works, and the other 5% know very little about it. It's a very slow and byzantine process.


A couple of things:

1: The first rule of suing or being sued: Do not publicly comment on pending litigation. Anything you say can and probably will come back to bite you in the ass. Remember the famous line in the miranda warning, "Anything you say can and will be used against you?" To a large degree this is true for civil litigation as well as criminal. It's easy to make an offhand remark that can be twisted into meaning something entirely different by the opposition counsel. The best way to deal with this is to not say anything. So quit talking shit about George and Scott for not making a great deal of public statements. They're not saying anything because they've got attorneys who know what they're doing.

2: Like omega mentioned, there will be a long string of hearings and any legal action taken will provide deadlines for response by the other party. All of these deadlines rapidly add up into a lot of time where nothing is happening. Furthermore, a great deal of this has to occur before a judge has an opportunity to rule on any portion of this. This will in all likelihood take months, and even then nothing of substance will have been decided.

3: This will probably not make it to trial. Most lawsuits don't. Most cases are settled out of court before they get that far. A jury trial is very expensive, and always a gamble no matter how airtight your case seems. It is never certain how a jury will respond.

Oh yeah. And hello everybody. I guess I'll have to start lurking here instead of the 3dR forums now....

[Woodensword]

Hi mentalstampede...yes but isn't the restraining order to be decided in the first hearings (4th or 11th of june??)

The restraining order decision is very important imo for DNF future

[mentalstampede]

There may be a decision on the restraining order at the first hearing, but I think it's kind of a moot point with no dev team.

[dalbrech]

Quote

1: The first rule of suing or being sued: Do not publicly comment on pending litigation. Anything you say can and probably will come back to bite you in the ass. Remember the famous line in the miranda warning, "Anything you say can and will be used against you?" To a large degree this is true for civil litigation as well as criminal. It's easy to make an offhand remark that can be twisted into meaning something entirely different by the opposition counsel. The best way to deal with this is to not say anything. So quit talking shit about George and Scott for not making a great deal of public statements. They're not saying anything because they've got attorneys who know what they're doing.

100% agreed. I have been very critical of George and Scott because because of the way they monumentaly messed up the whole DNF development project from almost day one back in 1997, but they are only doing the smart thing by keeping their mouths pretty much shut while the case is in court. That is SOP, and any attoney who is not a complete incompetent would have told them not to comment on the case in public. I suspect they knew from the day they announced 3dRealms was ceasing operations that this would end up in court, and that is why they have been so quiet about the details.
And I agree we are dealing with people on this forum who know NOTHING about how complex and long legal porceedings are.

[Kathy]

Quote

but they are only doing the smart thing by keeping their mouths pretty much shut while the case is in court

Wasn't there an official statement because of the Take-Two lawsuit? They've pretty much opened their mouths because of that.

[Woodensword]

mentalstampede, on May 31 2009, 11:10 PM, said:

There may be a decision on the restraining order at the first hearing, but I think it's kind of a moot point with no dev team.

Yes, and i agree with dalbrech that the legal system is complex and long BUT DON"T forget the most important thing!!!!

Many companies and banks face MANY legal complaints every day BUT they continue to operate with their business as usual (in most cases) NO MATTER how long the trials take.

Now if the restraining order is denied what prevents 3d realms from doing what they would do anyway after the trial???

I mean the problem for DNF would not be the trial itself but the most important things (money, dev team)

[SpitFire]

Here's my prediction, and since this is coming from me, pay attention.

Everything in court goes smoothly for 3DR, T2's charges get dropped/case gets dismissed, and later on 3DR sues T2 for damages caused by the false lawsuit. But DNF never comes out, because George spends the money gained from T2 on hookers, cocaine, and a fleet of H2 hummers.

Just throwing stuff out there.

[EvanAzzo]

SpitFire, on May 31 2009, 04:54 PM, said:

and a fleet of H2 hummers.

Bahahah I can see like 12 hummers sitting outside 3DR HQ just chilling there.


I say Take2 drops it but 3DR still doesn't finish DNF because they don't have the man power.

[Ramen4ever]

EvanAzzo, on May 31 2009, 04:37 PM, said:

Bahahah I can see like 12 hummers sitting outside 3DR HQ just chilling there.


I say Take2 drops it but 3DR still doesn't finish DNF because they don't have the man power.

Well at least they have the horse power then....


Bad joke is bad.. >_<

[SpitFire]

Ramen4ever, on Jun 1 2009, 01:21 AM, said:

Well at least they have the horse power then....


Bad joke is bad.. >_<

Actually I was thinking just that, then read your comment.

It's never too late to hire a bunch of eager young guns to finish the game. I even think some of the others, who are still looking for jobs, would love to finish what they started. That or people wanting to finish the game just for the glory and fame.

[Raziel]

mentalstampede, on May 31 2009, 01:10 PM, said:

There may be a decision on the restraining order at the first hearing, but I think it's kind of a moot point with no dev team.

Yes, but at the same time, IF the restraining order is approved, the game is as good as dead... The way I see it, 3 things have to happen for DNF to be completed:
1) No restraining order since preventing any development on the game for the next 1.5 years+ will make the tech outdated and all of the current devs will have other jobs by then...
2) Find funding for the game - either from take-two or someone else
3) Find a different publisher??? I know this is a very long shot due to a legal contract between 3DR and TT, but I think 3DR will be against releasing it through TT after all this shit.

The only realistic way I can see to accomplish all 3 points at this stage is if Take-Two drops the case and decides to drop their shit and fund the project to completion. That will take care of points 1 and 2 and I think 3DR will put up with Take-Two as a publisher for DNF in this case, making point 3 irrelevant. If things don't play out this way, it is hard to see the game being completed...

I'm at least hoping that the restraining order is dropped since that takes care of at least point 1, in which case 3DR can try and get funding from other publishers like Microsoft (yes, they are evil, but they have enough money to pay TT what it takes to sell the publishing rights of DNF and they have enough to fund the game). They may however want to push it to be an XBOX360 exclusive, but at this point who cares as long as it sees the light of day...

So while it is a small chance, I think getting rid of point 1 will already help, on top of that, if point 1 is denied it could stimulate Take-Two to go down the path I mentioned as the best case scenario since they will see things as not playing out in their favor and might try and settle things before it gets to trial. Their entire case rests on the game never being completed - in order to guarantee that happens, they know they have to freeze development because this court case will most likely take 1.5 to 2 years... what do you think will happen if the game DOES happen to be completed partway through the court case??? That will heavily backfire for Take-Two, aside from making them look like idiots publicly, it opens up the possibility for 3DR to counter-sue them...

Anyway... that's my two cents...

[Kathy]

As far as I remember, they can publish it through Steam as long as it's not brick-and-mortar.

[SpitFire]

Raziel, on Jun 5 2009, 01:10 AM, said:

The only realistic way I can see to accomplish all 3 points at this stage is if Take-Two drops the case and decides to drop their shit and fund the project to completion. That will take care of points 1 and 2 and I think 3DR will put up with Take-Two as a publisher for DNF in this case, making point 3 irrelevant. If things don't play out this way, it is hard to see the game being completed...

This seems most probable. Once the odds start stacking against them, TT will more than likely drop their "charges". This will most likely happen if the restraining order is denied.

[dalbrech]

Lotan, on May 31 2009, 01:32 PM, said:

Wasn't there an official statement because of the Take-Two lawsuit? They've pretty much opened their mouths because of that.

Yes, but you can bet that statement was cleared with their lawyers first. And they have pretty much kept quiet about the proceedings since.
Scott and George will say nothing about the case without their lawyers OK, and their attoneys are telling them to say as little as possible.

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 4 2009, 10:15 PM, said:

As far as I remember, they can publish it through Steam as long as it's not brick-and-mortar.

That is correct, they retain the rights to electronically distribute the title and it is possible they might go down this route which would solve the problem to #3. To be honest though, I don't think they would make it electronically exclusive permanently. What I CAN see them doing is making it exclusive electronically for 6 months to maximize their revenue before passing it to Take-Two for a boxed release... Why do I say this... simply put, a lot of people still aren't comfortable with electronic distribution, especially for a game of this size.

Here is an interesting food for thought though... they *could* release DNF in episode form using steam until the game is 100% finished... this will ensure they get a constant stream of revenue as the game gets completed and it means they get a lot of revenue directly with Take-Two only entering the equation once the game is completed. I haven't thought about this yet, but taking this approach solves 2 and 3. The game would fund itself and they would only have to release through Take-Two in a box once all episodes have been released. It will also be much easier to concentrate on polishing a small chunk of the game at a time and knowing that after each chunk they get a massive amount of revenue, so this seems like a good solution to all their problems... Finally, the whole Take-Two lawsuit would fall apart since all of a sudden, 3DR did produce a proper DNF release despite Take-Two saying they haven't produced anything except for a few trailers and screenshots.

Of course if the restraining order is approved, this wouldn't be an option either. And like I've stated, restraining order = death of DNF. The tech will be outdated and there simply won't be any of the existing development team available to work on the game even if they did want to complete it at that stage...

[Kathy]

Raziel, on Jun 5 2009, 11:39 AM, said:

Here is an interesting food for thought though... they *could* release DNF in episode form using steam until the game is 100% finished... this will ensure they get a constant stream of revenue as the game gets completed and it means they get a lot of revenue directly with Take-Two only entering the equation once the game is completed. I haven't thought about this yet, but taking this approach solves 2 and 3.

That's an interesting thought. But, I think, they have thought about this as a possible solution. But still, we don't know what was the situation since they've closed the studio that fast...

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 4 2009, 11:55 PM, said:

That's an interesting thought. But, I think, they have thought about this as a possible solution. But still, we don't know what was the situation since they've closed the studio that fast...

It is true that we do not know the exact situation, but I don't think they would definitely have thought about this as a solution... And it is a proven way to go as demonstrated by Half-Life 2. I might pass this suggestion over to Scott Miller just in case. Of course, if the restraining order is in place now it would be pointless. What do people think, should I suggest it to him?