Jurassic Park mod's NEW direction. news

Greetings,
This is Christopher, the leader of the project.

Many of you have been following this project for quite some time. This project has been an interesting experience for me, a learning one too. The project is a sensitive one, due to copyrights.
This community and few others have given me the cold shoulder for starting this mod. (Not saying the majority of you, but certain individuals.. some for their own personal reasons/conflicts of interest)
There is abuse even on a personal level at times, not so much these days, but in the early days it was very bad.

What has not changed is recruiting. Recruiting for this project has been a nightmare.
That is because the communities I tried to recruit from, like this one... only lecture you about copyrights. Of course, I don't see it happen with the Star Wars mods, or other various IP related projects. Seemed to be isolated to only mine when it happened.

Everyone has to share their two cents, when one person telling you is enough, but it turns from informative into stoning. Even now, I still think we are 'out casts' in the eyes of CERTAIN people in the modding community for doing this project; I know there was a lot of ugly feelings and comments from certain individuals over the fact that we made #2 in ModDB MOTY 2007 for unreleased.
Why? Because the project was "unoriginal"... and "only winning because of its name", and it was also "unfair" or "unjust" and not worthy of mention because it is "illegal".
Maybe there is truth to that, but I still sensed envy ;P

No, the project is not attacked when this happens, I am. I become the human face for the project, and the punch bag. I've considered shutting it down NUMEROUS times, because I got so @#$&#xin;g tired of the douche bags in the modding community. Especially the ones that judged this project and did copyright projects themselves. I wanted to get this off my chest, sorry :P

No, I am not throwing in the towel and announcing defeat. The project is continuing, but it has to change. The issues above are only part of the problem, a great majority but still not the whole problem.
The project is just too big, too grand. It needs to be smaller for two important reasons.
Reduce workload, and reduce the risk of copyright. Obviously if we went pure map pack, I don't think anyone would worry about copyrights, it is just fanart afterall at that phase, not a game. Some will argue with me on that, I expect someone to argue with anything I say just for the sake of arguing. However, fan art is protected... it only starts to get into the "grey areas" when it is "software".

I personally believe what happens with the modding community in SOME situations regarding copyrights is an absolute crime, and in other cases, justified.
Copyrights sometimes are over-reaching, and that is why the fair use doctrine had to be written, because power like that CAN be abused. Remember, Life Alert thinks they own the sentence
"Help, I've fallen and I can't get up", cause they put a TM next to it. I guess if you guys ever say that on TV, you better get some lawyers. Seriously, there has to be a line drawn somewhere.

We will continue to do a mod, so it will still be in a 'gray area', but nowhere near the threat that we may have been facing previously.
Effective immediately, the project is now multiplayer co-op.
It features one location from Isla Nublar, instead of the multiple that would have been done for Singleplayer. There is no more Singleplayer, and will never be.

I want this project released by December at the latest, and I want to move on.
An MP co-op Jurassic Park with CE2 graphics has to be good enough for you guys, and it is better than waiting forever for an SP game that this team could never do. It is too much work, and recruiting is never going to be good enough for an SP game. An SP game is too grand and epic and only raises our risk of "issues" with legality, as it can for instance be seen as "competition" if Universal decides to do a SP Jurassic Park game again. I know competition is one reason from real life examples.
Use of material that isn't supposed to be redistributed without licensing/authorization, such as music or clips of the movies, is another.

This will not completely clear up legality, but I think it will help as we will no longer be telling the story of the movie, or remaking/showing cinematics. None of the recorded music will be used, but we can record/render our own arrangements. We may or may not use the official sfx, if not.. no worries, I know so much about the creation of those sfx I could recreate them and they would sound the same, but they wouldn't be the official recordings, which is great.

Yes, we will still have the character names and the name Jurassic Park.. but if this is all we have from a 16 year old movie, and our project is as small and insignificant compared to the singleplayer idea... I am not afraid nor worried about the release of the project. There are grey areas, but they are exactly that.. grey areas.
I will not take my chances with singleplayer, but I will with this new direction.

This down-scaling will allow the small team that I have, to actually be able to make progress production wise, and not be so overwhelmed and over burdened.

I can not tell you all the details on the scripting side of things with this project, especially regarding co-op, because I am not authorized to; but I can tell you co-op already works, A.I. and MP together.
It is only a matter of art assets mainly now for this team. Customization of characters, weapons, enemies, and the levels. It is something we already have progress in, and the amount of assets we need at maximum have been reduced to this list..

Setting:
Visitors' Center Compound, Isla Nublar; August 1993

• The Visitors' Center
  • Exterior
  • Rotunda
  • Cafe/Kitchen
  • Control Room/Lab
  • Garage
  • Misc
• Raptor Pen
• Safari Lodge (NOT FOR CERTAIN YET)
• Emergency Command Bunker
• Maintenance Shed
• General outdoor area
• Helipad

Characters:
Dr. Alan Grant
Dr. Ellie Sattler
Robert Muldoon
Ian Malcom

Dinosaurs featured:
Velociraptor
Compsognathus
Dilophosaurus
T-rex

Vehicles featured:
Jeep YJ
Ford Explorer
Helicopter

Weapons used:
Spas 12
Pistol
M16
Switchblade

Already many items on this list have been done. All the vehicles, all the weapons, half the dinosaurs, and a good amount of the "settings/structures".

We only have 1 character model, and we have a Visitors' Center to finish.
That basically sums up what we need to finish before December.
The Visitors Center, and 3 character models.

I've been resuming work on the Visitors' Center as you can see. And I'm redirecting the former weapon/prop, and vehicle modelers to the Visitors' Center to help me detail it.
The Visitors' Center is the big big majority of the work that needs to be done, because it is so extensive, but it will be done.

I'm not worried about anything else, because that can be done without much a problem.
It would be nice to find additional help for those assets, but even if we do not we will be fine because I'm planning on it NOT happening. I can't rely on new members joining now can I?

Anyways, this new direction once again is 4 player co-op.
It will take place in the Main Compound of Isla Nublar.
The Visitors' Center, and the outdoor area around it.. which features the Raptor Pen.

No miles of island, paddocks, or aviary, etc. Yes, it is a bummer, but it does reduce the work load.

My goal once again with this new direction is before December 1st.
Thus a release would follow. The more help we have, the quicker, but even the team I have now can pull this off because the workload is far less. Thanks to all of those who have been following and supporting this project, and thank you for taking the time to read this announcement.