Neutopia III Homebrew?

[Nighttrate]

Whatever happened to the Neutopia III homebrew that The Frozen guys were working on?

[Nighttrate]

Why didn't they press it themselfs then? That would avoid all that & if they got problem with keeping a profit from it donate the funds to a worthy charity

[galam]

They abandoned it becase they didn't want to see CD-R profiteers make "repros" of it with fancy printed labels.

sad, really.

Haha. I remember some moron on ebay doing blank cd's with printed artwork of expensive games.  I dont know where people come up with these stupid ideas.  I can just see somebody buying one, burning the image and re-selling it to some unsuspecting idiot. Fools fool fools, i guess, but anybody even printing then selling the blanks really is scum of the earth.

[galam]

They probably just can't afford the legal fees to go after the scumbags who would profit by pirating a wholly original work made by a fellow enthusiast. Some people just have no sense of right and wrong. Makes me ashamed to be a human.

what would rock is if the cd-r profiteers would grow some f*cking brains and make their own games to burn to disc and sell. But, such an edeavour is beyond their intellectual capacity. I figure that is why they have to go around stealing other people's work.

what is even sadder is that photo shop seems to be beyond some people's ability, so there will always be willing customers to feed these warts on the genitals of the homebrew/hacking scene.

Im going to pay $15 for a sega cd snatcher disc print, then burn the St Elmos Fire soundtrack to it. Such rare, teh epic.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I don't know how to explain it, other than we really just didn't want Hudson/Konami on our backs, as we would want to do a pressed version of said game.  I know there's more to it than that, but, I just don't remember all the details.  I still have quite a few basic tunes done(& plans in my head), some I considered finished at the time, but, I've progressed in my musical abilities since then, so, I'd want to go back & redo them.  I think a few of the songs are on the Mysterious Song disc for one of the bonuses IIRC.

[seieienbu]

I'm sure it would take great effort, but redrawing things and releasing your own adventure game that's not named Neutopia would keep away the lawsuits I dare say.

[esteban]

MORE HISTORY: The Neutopia3 project was conceived back before Wii Virtual Console. At that time, it seemed as if Neutopia was as dead as a doornail.

Once old games (like Neutopia)  became an active source of revenue again....well, you know.

Hudson/Konami/IP-owner-of-the-future are a valid concern.

BAD MEMORY: I believe that Old_Rover had already planned out the basic structure of the game, he was happy that, in general, the stages/maps were much more expansive than the earlier games.

[nodtveidt]

We had designed most of the game, and yeah, it was way more expansive than the previous two games. Paranoia Dragon had composed much of the soundtrack, and Keranu had done quite a bit of sprite work as well. lord_cack had taken over tile detail and was almost finished with one region's work. We had a working game engine and one region partially mapped out and mostly functional. Once Neutopia was back on the market, we wrestled with the idea of going ahead with it anyway, but eventually decided to scrap it because of how fiercely Konami protects their IP. So, unless Konami makes a Neutopia III (hahahahahahahahahahaha), this game won't ever see the light of day. We had considered releasing it under an alternate name but we had several other projects we were also juggling.

[NightWolve]

Oh wow, I didn't know it got that far along! Yeah, just release it under another name if you ever get back into it - that'd be great. Shame for it to be permanently scraped over such fears.

[elmer]

We had considered releasing it under an alternate name but we had several other projects we were also juggling.

I really hope that you guys will eventually do it that way ... it sounds like something that I'd love to buy/play.

Using the Neutopia name and doing the story in the same world would be way cute ... but there's plenty of examples of game creators moving to new companies and doing "spiritual sequels" with enough changed to avoid lawsuits.

For instance ... I thought that "BioShock" was a brilliant retake on the original "System Shock".

Avoiding the actual Neutopia name would make it possible to release it without worrying.

They abandoned it because they didn't want to see CD-R profiteers make "repros" of it with fancy printed labels.

Is this actually a problem with commercially-pressed homebrew games, or just a worry? Is there an example of this being done?

[KingDrool]

I really hope you guys take it back up under a different name. I don't know, "The Return of Jazetta" or some shit. We really need more Neutopia-like games for the Duo.

[esteban]

I really hope you guys take it back up under a different name. I don't know, "The Return of Jazetta" or some shit. We really need more Neutopia-like games for the Duo.

The Seabloon Saga

[SkyeWelse]

Many years ago when I first found out about the Neutopia III project I was very excited and still excited for it's release today. I do see that there may be legal issues with releasing it now under the name "Neutopia" because of virtual console especially, however I hope that this can simply be released as a spiritual sequel to the original franchise that we loved. I know that it is less desirable to release a game that is not directly tied in to the official Neutopia series, but that definitely does not make your game any "less" than the original if it is a spiritual sequel. You might even say that we live in an age now where spiritual sequels are all over the place where fans and/or creators have united in order to bless gamers with all new iterations of the games they were best known for, or based on the classics we grew up with. And in some cases these new games and new franchises can even outdo the originals that they were based on.

I really hope to see Frozen Utopia finish this title up, even if it's called by something else. Besides, if you end up doing that you should have absolutely no issues pressing and selling the game directly just like you all did with Mysterious Song. Yes, there will be some repro folks that show up, but it would be much easier to stop them from doing what they are doing on places like eBay if the game and it's contents are copyrighted to your team.

I bought Mysterious Song and enjoyed playing it, and I know there is a push for making the sequel to it, but personally above all of your other projects, this one has stood out to be the most unique and most desirable for me. I'd buy it in a heartbeat directly from you all as a pre-order.

-Thomas

[esteban]

Many years ago when I first found out about the Neutopia III project I was very excited and still excited for it's release today. I do see that there may be legal issues with releasing it now under the name "Neutopia" because of virtual console especially, however I hope that this can simply be released as a spiritual sequel to the original franchise that we loved. I know that it is less desirable to release a game that is not directly tied in to the official Neutopia series, but that definitely does not make your game any "less" than the original if it is a spiritual sequel. You might even say that we live in an age now where spiritual sequels are all over the place where fans and/or creators have united in order to bless gamers with all new iterations of the games they were best known for, or based on the classics we grew up with. And in some cases these new games and new franchises can even outdo the originals that they were based on.

I really hope to see Frozen Utopia finish this title up, even if it's called by something else. Besides, if you end up doing that you should have absolutely no issues pressing and selling the game directly just like you all did with Mysterious Song. Yes, there will be some repro folks that show up, but it would be much easier to stop them from doing what they are doing on places like eBay if the game and it's contents are copyrighted to your team.

I bought Mysterious Song and enjoyed playing it, and I know there is a push for making the sequel to it, but personally above all of your other projects, this one has stood out to be the most unique and most desirable for me. I'd buy it in a heartbeat directly from you all as a pre-order.

-Thomas

I hear you. And there must be many others who feel the same way.

I personally love the ARPG genre, in general, far more than menu-based/turn-based battle systems.

So a spiritual successor to Neutopia is far more intoxicating to me.

I hope Old_Rover finds success/happiness in his real world struggles. If he does, then he might want to forge ahead with his grand vision of "Neutopia 3"...maybe.

Or maybe he'll wan t to make Lucretia 3 SCD instead...

[Desh]

Ever since I played through Neutopia II I have dreamed of what the 3rd would have been like.  I also love the  ARPG genre and the Neutopia games are some of my favorite of all time.  I would lay down whatever monies to get a copy of such a game.  You could just call Newtopia 3 cause it's NEW, get it?  (slaps knee and laughs).