Author: Delaria Dragon (---.localdomain)
Date: 11-28-09 22:53
Hey everyone and sorry for OOC,
just to add my couple statements here regarding what Peter said in the closed thread:
"The team can't get involved for legal reasons, I think they rather like not being in jail or having their shirt sued off their back, so yeah.
That's really the end all and be all of it.
Yes, someone could make a version for cracked iPhones, but because of those same legal issues, Exult as a project team could not support it.
The reason for this is simple - even if you did not distribute Ultima VII with it, or Serpent Isle, the file formats that Exult uses to store data are the intellectual property of EA. So until EA either releases rights to those formats, or makes them "open" under something like the GPL, it's not going to happen.
And I don't expect EA will ever do anything regarding the Ultima VII file formats that Exult uses. They're old, outdated, and there's not much for EA to gain by releasing them, from their point of view. (Trying to convince a suit that "community goodwill" is something they can bank on may as well be trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
Cheers, Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer, Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands
www.thefeudallands.ca"
++++++SNIPP++++++
Sooo... Now, please explain to me, if the file formats are being used now by exult on all other platforms, why can't it be used on the iPhone? Is it like, uhm, special territory, where EA would look at specifically? It's another platform, period.
You don't have to go through the app-store, you don't even need a Mac to develop in Objective-C and get the stuff there (besides, there are C(++) wrappers). Even apache's running with php and mysql on the little handheld box transforming it into a webserver - ok nothing to do with exult per se, but please, please, please, pretty, pretty please, consider adding a cocoa-touch layer for the interface. SDL is available for it.. Kind-of (up until 2.2, 3.x doesn't seem to work according to: http://code.google.com/p/iphone-sdl-1-3/). Porting it should be a matter of adding the interface layer...
There's no more legal issues with putting it on the iPhone than with having exult available in the first place.
Also, since EA does have some games for the iTouches, and with the advent of downloadable extra-content, it wouldn't be too far-fetched for them to consider offering an official paid downloadable package of U7 on the app-store. Just add that control-layer, PLEASE! It could breathe new life into the project.
Okay, enough ramblings of an old fan, and THANK YOU for letting me play my favorite Ultima on my Mac! Great job, everyone involved. You guys rock!
Ultima forever!
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