Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

Hadrian got permission to sell the mod in the sense to cover the shipping costs - not for profit.

If it were ever possible to charge money for such a mod, I would think the cash would have to go to something like PBW.

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

Great suggestion. That's actually a better idea. It would support the SE4 community as a whole, plus it would be easier to manage the money because it would all be all be going to the same place. Brilliant!

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

You cannot sell it. The legal ramifications of such a thing would only cause hardship and anger.

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

You would ask SFI/MM if you could give it away with an $XX donation to PBW. The expansion itself would have to contain no copyrighted material outside of SE stuff and the permission of all contributers to distribute their work. In that case I don't see any problems.

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

Urendi Maleldil said:
What do you guys think? Is trying to sell a mod like this something you'd be interested in, or is it not worth the hassle?

Selling mods is anathema to the very concept of modding. Asking for donations is fine, but mods are meant to be free...

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

Selling a mod is, frankly, absurd.

You're screwed right away by the fact that the "market" for mods has everything else at zero cost.
Secondly, any good ideas are bound to get re-implemented in many other mods... probably in better ways too. There is no actual monopoly on ideas.
And really, would YOU pay for a mod?

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

I agree with selling a mod directly, but a compilation disc with perhaps some extras like custom music etc. might be a nice gift for a small donation to PBW don't you think? Kind of like PBS. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

Instead of selling it we could distribute it for free exclusively on a special "support PBW" website with a prominent paypal "donate" button.

Then we put the word out to various gaming publications and web sites with a quick press release letting them know that SE4 is still around, people are still modding it, there's an active SE4 multiplayer community out there called PBW, and why don't you stop by for a friendly game?

I'm a journalist. Press releases are no problem to write. And I'm sure there are a lot of people here that could build a quick one-page website.

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

You mean you should not sell it? I dont think there is a legal "cannot" involved. Many people in many games sell CDs of add-ons for games. After all, its their own work. Its no different than selling a CD of avatars, or icons, clip-art, sound effects, tiles, etc. There should be no problem selling a CD of help files, or nations, or replacement text files, or whatever for this game.

The advertising part of it might get shakey. You can announce it here and give a link but creating a page that sells the CD and mentions "Space Empires IV" or Malfador could complained about.

And it doesnt matter what the market is since it doesnt cost anything to put it online for sale. If I remember correctly the materials cost of providing it on CafePress is some like $6 so if you set it at $6 then you make nothing (CP handles the burning and shipping). If you charge $7 then you get a dollar each time.

But I guess with Shrapnel offering free download off of their servers then its no biggie for most of the mods. But a major mod-compilation that takes someone quite abit of effort would make sense to offer off of CP (also mugs and mousepads with keypress charts, tshirts with ship sets and funny sayings, posters of great space battles, bumper stickers, etc etc)

Re: [Planning] Unofficial SEIV Expansion Pack
 

Anyway, there are several parts to the expansion:

• New Tech Areas (& Racial Traits)
• Expanded Tech Areas
• New Components, Facilities, Hulls
• New Races (& AI, possibly using some of the new techs)
• New Quadrants, Systems and Planets
• Flavor Text (Empire Types, etc.)
• Additional Graphics (load screen, UI enhancement, etc)
• New Events, Intel projects
• New Formations, Strategies

Most of these can be taken from existing mods (with the creator's permission of course), but it will take editing to make everything work together and keep the stock flavor. I know of several items from the Masters Mod and the Ages mod that might work as part of the expansion pack.

For graphics, we might be able to use a version of the Image Mod with the non-original and copyrighted images removed.

Post here or send me a private message if you want to help out with one of the above areas. Once we get the ball rolling I can assign you a particular task.

Also post links to any of your mods mods or race styles that might be able to help fill those areas.