Abandoned Works

[Amadeus]

1 hour ago, MirceaKitsune said:

What if at one point I do decide to get back to a map and finish its FM but someone else also uses my submission?

Good question. I think it would be fairly reasonable to expect that if you choose to abandon an FM, you are also choosing to relinquish the rights to take it back again if someone else has already declared that they are going to work on it. You could always reach out to that individual personally and ask to take it back or participate in joint development, but since they have picked up an FM you abandoned, you should respect their choice.  I'd also add that if this is an issue you are genuinely worried about, you might not be ready to abandon an FM of yours.

Of course, if no one has picked up the abandoned FM, you can certainly take it back up again without issue, just say so on this thread so we can keep the submissions organized. 

As a side note, you can find the wiki page for abandoned FMs here: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Abandoned_Works

[datiswous]

Please check out the first post by @fllood

I think that if you give it up for sunmission it becomes abandoned by you. If then somebody takes it to work on, you cannot make a mission out of it anymore dirrectly. You already abandoned it. If nobody had took it, you could take it back to work on again.

[datiswous]

Sorry I didn't see @Amadeus's post

[MirceaKitsune]

That makes sense. Means I'd have to think carefully before submitting any of my maps; I'm not motivated to work on a few old initiatives, in which case I don't want my work to be lost... at the same time I could become motivated again someday, and if someone picks it up I might feel bad that I can't work on my version again. I know... being undecided about everything is one of my biggest flaws, plus worrying and overthinking far more than I should

One more thing I couldn't help wondering: Should this perhaps be turned into a forum section rather than a single thread? There's a section for posting finished FM's, another for Beta testing them, so a new category for posting abandoned projects would make sense. I think this would be cleaner as each FM or map group could have its own thread where the discussion is contained and you don't have to dig through one mega-thread, making it easier to find individual projects and look at replies to see if it was taken. The wiki page helps with having an unified list, but you can't have focused discussion on each abandoned project nor edit the page to post or update your FM unless you're a wiki mod. If others agree we can maybe ask Taaaki about it.

[Amadeus]

17 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

One more thing I couldn't help wondering: Should this perhaps be turned into a forum section rather than a single thread?

This might be useful if more abandoned missions were being taken up or abandoned, but it doesn't happen all that often. Not even once a year, I don't think. IMO, it seems better to just keep all the info in one thread for now

[MirceaKitsune]

Seems it's time for my submission to this thread: Back in 2021 I began a marathon project, creating much of it during one summer. Unlike most of my map attempts, it was brought very close to completion and is technically playable even if far from polished. At some point I started working on other things including different FM's and didn't touch this any more. It's now been sitting on my drive for over 3 years. I don't want it to get lost unless I were to do more changes in the future.

I gave the FM an alpha version thread over a week ago; It's so early I hadn't even decided on a final name, the directory was named empire and I believe the name I ultimately wanted based on its story was "Fall of an Empire". Several testers tried it and expressed enjoying it, which is part of what motivated me to post it here. As I have too many projects and ideas to likely pick this back up for finishing touches, I'd like another mapper who enjoys it to do so, which would prevent the existing work from getting lost. For team members with wiki access, please add it to the Abandoned Works wiki page: The pk4 is available on Google Drive or Mega, below is a series of descriptive images I dug up from my screenshots directory taken as I was working on the project:
 

Spoiler

Description: I created this in 2021, a few elements were inspired by what was happening in the world and my life at the time. It was an ambition to create a city hub with 3 different cities / towns / villages you can travel between which are all available, the area being much more open and less cramped than my previous missions. Story wise it was meant to be a contrast between technology and magic; I believe you work for a king who hired you to find his missing daughter, along the way you travel through different areas and have a lot of side quests you can do for various characters in each zone.

Since I'm unlikely to want to work more on this, I can be okay with the locking system of the abandoned works process... if I wanted to make changes again, I'm sure whoever picks this up wouldn't forbid me from doing so after they're done. Whoever wants it most can take over, feel free to ask questions but if I don't respond don't wait in my confirmation to pick it up; As a general rule everything I make is freely licensed and defaults to CC-BY-SA so share it freely. I only ask to remain credited as an author, otherwise please keep the FM true to its spirit: I recommend fully playing through it to get a feel of what it's going for, for questions you can check the alpha thread I linked where I already clarified a few unfinished aspects. I'm hoping this can be picked up by someone who truly likes it and is passionate about it, and ideally an experienced mapper since I'd like the best for this project especially with the amount of work I put into it 

[Amadeus]

2 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

Since I'm unlikely to want to work more on this, I can be okay with the locking system of the abandoned works process... if I wanted to make changes again, I'm sure whoever picks this up wouldn't forbid me from doing so after they're done. Whoever wants it most can take over, feel free to ask questions but if I don't respond don't wait in my confirmation to pick it up; As a general rule everything I make is freely licensed and defaults to CC-BY-SA so share it freely. I only ask to remain credited as an author, otherwise please keep the FM true to its spirit: I recommend fully playing through it to get a feel of what it's going for, for questions you can check the alpha thread I linked where I already clarified a few unfinished aspects. I'm hoping this can be picked up by someone who truly likes it and is passionate about it, and ideally an experienced mapper since I'd like the best for this project especially with the amount of work I put into it 

 

I can upload this to the abandoned FM repo and add it to the wiki as well tonight.

As for getting a credit, any mapper who wishes to adopt any abandoned work would be required to credit the original author/s as per the rules stated on the first page of this thread, so your name will definitely be on it once it is released.

If anyone would like to adopt this, just say so here in this thread or feel free to reach out to myself or any other team member

EDIT: Alright, added the FM to the Abandoned repo and edited the Wiki

[JackFarmer]

The status of this project is "released" (became part of Hidden Hands: The Anomaly).

Could someone please update the information? Thank you.

 

[datiswous]

7 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

The status of this project is "released" (became part of Hidden Hands: The Anomaly).

I think you only used part of that map. Or there were 2 maps: castles.map and caves.map in the fm-archive. I have to look into it.

I think you used caves, but not castles.

I mean the info can be updated, but (if I'm right) maybe the castles part can be rereleased as an abandoned map?

Edited yesterday at 03:08 PM by datiswous

[Amadeus]

I made a quick update on the wiki, but if the castle is indeed still available, then I'll just make a separate entry for that and mark it as free for adoption

[datiswous]

Ok so I still have the archive on my pc an checked it out. Castles and caves consists of the following map files:

• castles.map
• castles2.map
• castles3.map
• caves.map
• caves2.map

I think @JackFarmer only used caves.map. The other 4 I don't recognize from HH4 and I played the fm kind of recently.

I think they could be useful. Castle and castle2 are not small maps.

[Amadeus]

the castles/2/3 maps are all the same thing, just different versions with minor improvements; same with caves/2. I'll wait to get confirmation from Jack before making a separate entry for castles

[datiswous]

2 minutes ago, Amadeus said:

the castles/2/3 maps are all the same thing, just different versions with minor improvements; same with caves/2. I'll wait to get confirmation from Jack before making a separate entry for castles

I don't think so. I noclipped through them and they look very different

Absolutely not minor

All the maps are completely different maps as far as I can see

Edited yesterday at 04:10 PM by datiswous

[Amadeus]

Ah, yeah, you're right. These three are clearly very different. My bad. It's been a long time since I looked at these

[datiswous]

Maybe every map should be seperated? Caves2+Castles1-3. Otherwise you keep having this issue.

[JackFarmer]

1 hour ago, Amadeus said:

the castles/2/3 maps are all the same thing, just different versions with minor improvements; same with caves/2. I'll wait to get confirmation from Jack before making a separate entry for castles

Yes, you are right; back then I only adopted the caves, nothing more.

[Amadeus]

Okay, cool. I'll mark the castles as separate maps. Thanks for the insight!

[datiswous]

caves and caves2 are also very different from each other. But caves2 is pretty small.

Edit: Not 100% sure. Ok maybe not relevant, since caves2 is so small.

Edited 20 hours ago by datiswous

[Amadeus]

Alright, I fixed the abandoned missions wiki and included the new entries, plus pictures, for the castle maps: Wiki