X-Wing Facility and X-wing Remaster

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X-Wing Facility and X-wing Remaster

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unmarcz
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Post by unmarcz » Thu Jul 15, 2021 8:01 am

Hello everyone,
Do you know X-wing Facility? They working on X-Wing Remaster based on XWAU, but with new models, cocpits, and etc. (Great models) . Do you have more information about this group and project? I found only Youtube channel and instagram.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDcpvB ... NnVAIOu0Qw



Thank you and have a nice day

Martin
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Talaris
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Post by Talaris » Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:45 am

X-Wing Facility goes by korekwerner on this forum. Also has a previous channel on YT called SWArtisticTeam. As far as I’m aware, he isn’t officially a contributor to XWAU, but uses it has a base for his own mods. Some of these are model imports from official sources like Battlefront (EA), and so are off limits to bring into XWAU. His custom made cockpits and backdrops do look amazing though, as does his revised ISD I model. I had hoped to see a release, but I assume the mod is still being tinkered with for now.

Bunny Punch
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Post by Bunny Punch » Sat Jul 17, 2021 5:59 pm

I've been following X-Wing's work as well. Looking forward to it's release. Really like the cockpit style they use.

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Rookie_One1
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Post by Rookie_One1 » Sat Jul 17, 2021 9:06 pm

While I would prefer him to work directly with the XWAU team (like the TFTC team is doing), I only have praise to give him for the work he did up to date
Rookie One, is that you?? - Ru Merleen, Rebel Spy at Imdaar Alpha
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Tuskin
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Post by Tuskin » Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:23 pm

Talaris wrote:
Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:45 am
Some of these are model imports from official sources like Battlefront (EA), and so are off limits to bring into XWAU.
Erm, doesn't XWAU have a couple ports from other games, like Star Wars Galaxies, and the droids being from Jedi Outcast/Acadamy?

But I agree it is better to use custom models that fit within the engine. Converting higher poly models from the newer games into the X-Wing Alliance engine, just doesn't look great a at all, smoothing errors and all that. You can see it well in these videos.

Plus you know, legal reasons.
Talaris wrote:
Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:45 am
His custom made cockpits and backdrops do look amazing though
Some of them appear to be from Squadrons.

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unmarcz
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Post by unmarcz » Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:39 am

New video:

X-WING SQUADRON series #3 | X-Wing Alliance (XFMod-WIP) | X-Wing Classic Playthrough | No Commentary

https://youtu.be/u58JNtbmw-Q

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Driftwood
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Post by Driftwood » Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:34 pm

Tuskin wrote:
Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:23 pm
Talaris wrote:
Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:45 am
Some of these are model imports from official sources like Battlefront (EA), and so are off limits to bring into XWAU.
Erm, doesn't XWAU have a couple ports from other games, like Star Wars Galaxies, and the droids being from Jedi Outcast/Acadamy?
Some stuff is based on SWG models, but not straight ports, but let's jump past semantics. As for any JO or JA models being used, I can't really comment since I've not been involved with those, but let's just assume similar precedent even though they're still available for purchase that they're all LA licensed items, used in another LA licensed item, so there may be less boat-rocking potential there for sake of conversation given historical context within the SW modding scene in general.

I'm not going to claim I know or understand IP law past a certain point and I could be entirely wrong with my entire assertation here so take everything here with a huge grain of salt. And I'm mostly going to be operating out of an entirely historical context regarding the subject.

Historically I quote an old post someone somewhere else made on reddit 4 years ago, and seems to be the SW modding community's consensus and experience as a whole as far as I've observed:
However, Lucas Arts unofficial policy seemed to be to let the fans do almost anything they pleased, so long as they didn't make money off of it and it wasn't too much in direct competition with what they were doing. Disney appears to have kept this approach to Star Wars more or less, probably because there is a relatively large fanbase that would be extremely upset if they changed that.
In most cases IP holders understand that cracking down on fan projects is a good way to invite extra bad PR they don't need. Thus while they do not want to grant these projects legitimacy in case they change their minds latter, in general they either don't care or do not want to fully shut down projects unless they get so big and successful they can really compete with an official money making product.
And as a general reminder, modding is in and of itself unless explicitly stated is illegal because technically we're not allowed to make any changes whatsoever to the product, but generally speaking mods don't usually get shut down unless it causes some kind of significant material problem; depending on the company.

Regarding official content I have two significant examples of utilizing officially produced content in a mod:

One notable exception being the UnrealTroopers mod from 2003 was officially granted license to use official content (excluding music) and freely distribute it and even enter a contest with their mod with no restriction through negotiations with LucasArts. I have no idea how they pulled this off, but LA was pretty mod friendly overall. Usually. But this is still a surprising turn of events.
However in contrast to the above exception, some mods like Galaxy at War for Men of War Assault Squad 2, blatantly and unapologetically uses ripped models for their content since 2013, even from EA products no C&D to date 8+years; doesn't make it right though and I wouldn't recommend this approach either since it could negatively affect the modding community in the future IF anything ever does happen, and the leeway we have been given thus far may simply reverse to zero tolerance policies of IP enforcement.

Two different examples, of two different approaches, and the same end results. (So far). Generally moving stuff from say Halo Combat Evolved to Fallout is an obvious no-no for example. Companies don't like their product being moved to another company's product. So it's surprising how GaW hasn't ran into legal issues in almost a decade. But there also isn't any profit being made, and there really isn't any official product to compete, and the mod functionality just isn't very polished to be honest the last time I looked at it so I doubt if big D even knows, they don't seem to care at this point.

A different example is one that had an unfortunate result, the fan remastered KOTOR being shut down even though you were required to own the original game to use it, as the mod was FREE, but it wasn't just a normal mod either, it moved KOTOR from the original engine to UnrealEngine I believe which complicated things.
As I recall EA had a remastered version of the game in the works itself, and thus obviously saw the mod as competition to their upcoming product as it provided their target market an alternative if they already owned the game, rather than needing to purchase the remastered version, thus resulting in a potential future loss of profits, and thus the C&D was issued.

Relative to the XWAU and our circumstances related to this topic as I see it:

In contrast to Squadrons or Battlefront SWG is fully abandoned and has been for over a decade; you cannot buy the game commercially, it's hard to find the files, hard copies can't be used without using an emulator, the companies originally involved offer no support for the service (servers/accounts) associated with the product. It's 100% dead and isn't being revived, maintained, or actively policed by the IP holder (for whatever reason - probably not worth the time/money). SWGEMU community and its offshoots have been operating for over a decade, and even take donations to fund their servers (though not profiting allegedly), and Disney/LA/EA haven't C&D'd them yet unlike the WoW classic emulators*, and the Tabula Rasa** EMU that got C&D'd into oblivion, largely because they aren't losing or potentially losing profits to warrant needing or wanting to defend against the possible IP violation.

*WoW Emu makes sense legally since the game is still commercially supported and available, Blizzard would certainly lose profits if people had an alternative option to their product.
**Tabula Rasa Makes less sense comparatively since it's not commercially available, and was only in existence for a year to begin with; perhaps something else to the story.
(Third example is a bit different but; Games Workshops C&Ds most everything anymore, even 3rd party or self made DIY components, fan art, comics, animations, ect, which is highly ironic given how the hobby for Warhammer/40k started, because British IP law requires they defend every perceived violation of their IP or lose the rights to their IP, so every violation is a potential future loss of profit if they lose their IP rights, but it does make them overly draconian and takes a lot of fun out of the hobby. Essentially they want you to buy everything related to their game, from them, period.)


X-Wing, TIE Fighter, XvT, and X-Wing Alliance provide no real competition to Squadrons either, as they are entirely different games, and if we don't use their assets there's delineation since we are not trying to offer a similar or competing experience, or provide their content to people that haven't paid for it. Squadrons and Battlefront assets ripped from those AAA titles would be a huge problem to use in any other format outside of private personal use because it would justifiably be perceivable as a violation of their IP that would pose a potential or real damages to their profit margins as those games are still actively supported and marketed. That would definitely get a mod using those assets C&D and require at least the removal of the offending assets, if they couldn't find justifiable claim to shut the entire mod down.

In XWAU's position thus far we (believe) that we are not stepping on anyone's toes legally using SWG assets in limited capacity as:
1. They are not being transferred to a non-LucasArts affiliated product as XWA is also covered by the LucasArts license, (IE not Battlefront by EA Games > Fallout by Bethesda Softworks) and are merely being repurposed within LucasArts IP to begin with, and proper credit is given.
2. That we are not potentially damaging current or future profits or use of the IP for the IP owner as; SWG is not commercially available, is completely unsupported, and has been defunct for over a decade so there is no profit to be made or lost at this time, and we are not competing with or providing a similar product they currently provide, and the IP holder doesn't seem interested in pursuing takedowns of things using this particular IP thus far per established precedent with the emulator projects.
3. XWAU is making no profit ourselves, do not and will likely never take donations.
4. Recognize that Disney ultimately owns all fan made content based on the Star Wars IP and can dictate (to a point) what we can and cannot do with their IP even under "fair use" at will, and subject to change at any time.

Maybe that position is entirely wrong; however, the reality is that if Disney feels the need to C&D us, they will do so and we'll have to remove from the public whatever offending content they want.
Alternatively if they wanted to take over the mod assets and commercialize them for their own purposes and fully remaster XWA and then re-sell it as a newly remastered game then they'd be within their legal rights to do so even though they'd legally need to credit the XWAU members whos assets they'd be utilizing at a minimum I think. Otherwise they can at any point just decide to crack down on modding and fan content in general like GW and just C&D everything because they have the legal right to utilize or allow use of their IP as they see fit, period.

Also worth noting modified content that originated from members of the XWA/X-Wing series modding community has already been assimilated on an official bases on back end related function for GoG and Steam release versions of the game being necessary to the function of the games on modern operating systems. One instance where community tinkering and releases has commercially benefitted the IP owning company as they did not have to spend time or money getting things to work. So it's not like the game publishers are unaware of our community or its practices.

If you want my subjective opinion with the XWAU being the longest standing mod for XWA and likely being a driving force between marketing and current sales and free advertising for XWA (which are probably miniscule to begin with), and the good relations we've had with LA in the past, and the fact we've gone 20 years without a C&D order, and the fact we're making no money or distributing any commercially available products, or competing with EA's products in any way I don't think the risk of C&D is very likely, as it seems from the laypersons perspective the XWAU community (being such a niche market anyways) provides more of a tangible benefit to the IP holder than a detriment by updating and maintaining this specific IP, but all the same we try to minimize risk by not taking donations or blatantly ripping stuff from other games or using other people's content without permission. Which is why the project prefers original content as there's obviously less liability to worry about.

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