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By Dr._P_Venkman
#401029

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-jCpwjXJt0

After seeing this it has me thinking; Why can we not pull resources and make a free roaming GB game amongst ourselves??

Hell, if this guy can just take the skins and apply them to an base such as "GTA; San Andreas", why can we not take one of the many plathora of NYC based 360/PS2 games ("Spider-man 3" or "Prototype" for example), apply a few changed to the physics (you know, gravitysprings to mind - especially on these games...I can hardly see the Rookie web swinging into action!), take some of the ghosts from the online games and have them appear all over NY? (Hell, the pedestrians already react on prototype by going crazy and running off!)
Look, I'll level with you; I have no idea how this would work - I'm no designer, I'm just a gamer who'd love to see it happen. My previous ramble might be completely undoable, but by God if there's a chance that someone might be able to do it wouldn't it be awesome?? :cool:
#401189

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip3A0ds7UKs

I followed a few links around youtube, and it seems that it's been done quite a bit - and on more upto date games like the one above, [which had me in hysterics by the way!] Something I did notice is the video below is the familiar name of the uploader...So it's not new to the users of this board...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gg0IPitCdQ

So we have a fair few people who would be capable of doing this on here, especially with one of the original programmers to boot...
RagingDullahan wrote:Lack of team work and negative attitudes is why it won't happen. I don't know how to program but I do know Valve has a map/level maker on steam.
I get what you're saying about negative attitudes, what I don't understand is WHY. We have a common interest, and share a love for a movie franchise - sure some of us are more into it, knowing more, own more merchendise, dedicate more time to it, have watched it the most or whatever, but in the end it's a mutual love for it that has brought us here and it's a shared love that brings us together; not divides us.
What we can do should be put to good use- who wouldn't want to put their expertise to use and have their name on a fan made game that really puts together the wishes of hundreds of fans to make the perfect GB free roamer? That kind of appreciation for going above and beyond would surely be something that any fan would want to be accociated with...right? I know I'd be happy to give as long as needed to use my music diploma to get quotes and add what ever was needed; from quotes, sound effects and general music for soundtracks and scores etc.
As long as we're not selling it, there's no issues with the licencing...but donations in appreciation can be accepted :cool:
By GhostGuy
#401207
I am not only a programmer, but a game developer as well, and I'll tell you why we can't do that...
Hell, if this guy can just take the skins and apply them to an base such as "GTA; San Andreas", why can we not take one of the many plathora of NYC based 360/PS2 games ("Spider-man 3" or "Prototype" for example), apply a few changed to the physics (you know, gravitysprings to mind - especially on these games...I can hardly see the Rookie web swinging into action!), take some of the ghosts from the online games and have them appear all over NY? (Hell, the pedestrians already react on prototype by going crazy and running off!)
Applying a skin to a game is a matter of replacing one image file with another image file. Sometimes this is relatively easy, sometimes the files are all packed into one big file as in Ghostbusters and special tools which may or may not be publically available are required to pack and unpack them.

But either method is still far easier than what you're asking. What you want would not only be a huge amount of work to implement, but would require access to the game's source code. Think of source code like this post. It's written in English, easy to read. Now imagine if I took this post, removed all the capitalization and punctuation, translated it into German then converted each word into a number. That's what's called compilation, and the end result of that is what's on the disc. Translating that back into this post would be impossible. You'd get a garbled mess. You might be able to get the gist of it, barely. Modifying it in any meaningful way though would be extremely difficult.

Let's say the game was written largely with scripts though, separate from the main program and they all happened to be stored as plain text. Well, your chances of making changes successfully just greatly improved. You'll still likely need special tools, but maybe you can spawn a bunch of flying people and maybe you can swap models out. But you're still talking a huge amount of work, and you'd have to get lucky and find the right sort of game.

Would the end result even be worth the Herculean effort though? I mean how many people are going to be able to play your modded xbox game? How would you distribute the files? And get them onto discs? Would the console even recognize the digital signature on the game as legitimate and allow it to be played?

Your chances of success for something like this would go way up if you modded a PC game instead. You still have the potential issue of packed files, but there are lots of PC games with tools for modding them out there. I don't know if there are any free roaming games like GTA that you can mod like that though. You'd have an easier time turning say Half Life 2 into a GB game than making one with the Ecto you can drive around.

I did see a pretty awesome Back to the Future mod for Crysis though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZAaKH0FYO8

I have not played the game myself but I don't think it's set in NY in the present day, so you'd have a lot of work ahead of you recreating it. Months and months of work. Possibly years. But you could eventually produce something with the Crysis engine I imagine. By the time you got done though the engine would be way out of date, GB3 would be out, and we'll all be going grocery shopping in flying cars.

Of course now that I've said all this, someone will come along and prove me wrong and go to the trouble to change all the pedestrians to flying ghosts in GTA. :-) I see they managed to replace the player model with Slimer. And I have seen some pretty cool mods for the games that involve superpowers now that I think about it. So hey, I could be totally wrong about how moddable the game is. I'm still not sure how you would get this into people's hands, and is that the PC version or the Xbox version of the game? PC version like I said would likely be much easier to make any changes to. Still be a ton of work to make the mod worthwhile though. I mean having ghosts flying around would be neat but if you can't capture them...
#401222
Awesome response GhostGuy, I appreciate it.
I previously mentioned it, But I'm just an ambitious gamer, not a designer. I figured that if there was any chance of someone somewhere knowing how to do one thing, and someone else knows how to do something else in reguards to making something like this happen [and I don't even mean some overtly ostentatious attempt to create a story lead game, as that would require years of animating and voice overs etc] that it would be what everyone seems to want.
Hell, put the Ecto 1B in, the player skins, have a few ghosts and (somehow) manage to transfer over the basic proton beam and Rookie proton pack handling in, and "Sanctum of Slime" the "Call outs" to locations (In ingame bubble form) for some 'busting and see how it fairs, even as an expasion pack on any of the games mentioned would be alot of peoples dream...Including my own.

Though I must admit that I have no idea what I'm talking about in reguards to even changing a player skin, a lot of people wouldn't know where to start orchestrating a score with 5 part harmonies, Keys, Modulation, tempo changes, instrumentation and arrangements or, in most cases basic compostion, but then some of us do and can't imagine not. You get what I mean?

Just imagine if there someone who reads this, knows how to do it and manages something like what I'm thinking and Atari get wind that not only is there demand, but also chance of making money from it and it gets comissioned...


[Press "2"]
#401552
GhostGuy wrote: You'd have an easier time turning say Half Life 2 into a GB game than making one with the Ecto you can drive around.
That's what I was thinking about, using Valve's Source engine to make the multiplayer part of Ghostbusters the video game. Yes, for those who don't know, there is a pc version of Ghostbusters the video game, it was available on steam until recently.

As for creating demand for another video game, I also wonder why we as fans aren't doing anything about that, maybe going dressed up as Ghostbuster to Valves headquarters would be one way of saying we want another video game or emailing Gabe Newell?
#401615
skankerzero wrote:heh.

I still retain all the source code and assets to our game.

I'll have fun modding it one day.
Did this comment go under the radar?
Does this mean that it's possible to do something to expand on the original game?
I have no idea how source codes work, but does that involve the full "Infernal Engine"?

It'd be awesome to take the models and all associated movements and put them in an open world environment, along with the proton beams and wrangling animations (as with the online gaming levels), take a few ghosts and make a "Sanctum of slime" style game from a 3rd person perspective. The story mode wouldn't be nessessary, just a call out to a location to blast and capture a few ghosts is all it'd take to make it perfect for me. having a base of opperations to return to to empty the traps etc ala Mafia II would be awesome; Just a reason to drive the Ecto 1 with the sirens running to a location with an agenda, a sense of urgency as opposed to having the skins and nothing to do would give us all hours of pure enjoyment!
I don't suppose it'd take much to revert the Ecto 1-B back into the original Ecto 1 either; The asthetic logo on the hood, the Ecto 1-A hazard strips and the "Super Slammer" can be removed, right?

As I say, I'd be more than happy to use my knowledge of music production to do what-ever would be needed for sound clips - I've even thought of searching hours of footage to get sound clips for call out announcements over the walking talkies and such...And there's gotta be more guys on here who can put in their expertise in one way or another...
By GhostGuy
#401616
Dr_P:
Even if the game he's referring to is GBTVG and he worked on it and has the source code, the publisher would surely frown upon him releasing it. They might even sue him over it.

Besides, as I already mentioned, a mod like you're talking about would require months of work by a dedicated team of multiple people. There are mods for Half Life 2 which people have been working on for YEARS and they're still not out.

And as others have mentioned, it's no simple task to take assets from one game and place them in another. Every game engine is different, requires the assets in a different format, and requires different data files to go along with the assets to tell the game how they should behave. Games don't all use the same scale for objects, they don't necessarily use the same math for rotations, they don't have the same physics model, or animation system. You're basically asking if we can take the engine and interior from a 59 miller meteor and stick it in a Porsche. You might succeed in making them fit with a lot of welding and cutting, but in the end, it's not really worth all the effort.
#401640
In an ideal world, This would be a labour of love; We all get into something because we love to do it, be it a hobby or those lucky enough to make that hobby a full time job. To be able to work on something this ostentatious would a lot of people, hence we pull resources and delegate jobs to those who will do it the best and actually enjoy it. If AJ was to interact with the other GB websites and this becomes a big enough thing, we could get the attention of all the right people. It's a great opportunity to make the game we all want, not just leave it to a massive developer who can only give it so much attention. I know that there's be issue with copyright infringement given the licences to the source material being owned by Columbia, but that's only if it gets sold and profit is made in their name. If they're that bothered, they'll cash in on it and make a legitimate sequel.

But the opportunity to use some of the lost material created for the game, like skins or hell even have Skankerzero himself as the lead playable character(!) That avoids likeness rights, the story boards can be written and illustrated by the guy that does the comics who's on here, surely? There's creative control for you! Remember that GHOSTBUSTERS is a franchise, and was named as such in GB;TVG, so the original line up need not be mentioned. Could call it “Ghostbusters of New Hampshire”or any of the other hundreds of GB franchises...Take your pick.

Ok, so copying the players and such and copying it to a NYC game, as I mentioned in the OP is off the cards, but can we not have someone map out a larger online multiplayer level? Make it a few blocks and such? Just enough to drive around? Can THAT be done?
The game play could be based on randomisation, you might be called out to deal with 1 ghost or 100, of a few different sizes and difficulty? Just how a job might go for the GB's, no need to build to some mighty crechendo, just an awesome "Second life" Ghostbusters style...

Am I the only one who'd love to play that?
By Gareee
#401644
Then get right on it and create it for us! ;)

Ghostguy has it right though... it takes hundereds and hundereds of hours to do a game (or an elaborate game mod). Who has that much free time to dedicate to it?

Honestly though, once you've written a game, you never really play it for fun. You know all the tricks the game has to offer, and you've spent so many hours working on it, that you almost never want to see it again.

I don't get the fascination so many people have about driving the ecto around in the game. It doesn't really do anything at all. Thats why they decided to not include the batmobile in the Arkham City game.... they just couldn't come up with really fun game mechanics doing it.
By skankerzero
#401686
Yeah, even with all the source files, it would take a good amount of effort to mod the game into a free roaming city game.

The best bet would be to find someone that has the source files for GTA or whatever and combine the GB art assets with the GTA city and code. Even then, that would take a good amount of effort.

The most I can personally do is change out art assets and re script levels.

One of the things I had always wanted to do was to make a 'GB3' movie using the game by placing new cameras throughout the game and frapsing it all and editing it into a 2 hour movie. Still though, that would take more effort than I have available at the moment.
#402015
Ok, so there's no way in hell this could ever happen; For every way this could be possible there's at least 10 reasons it's impossible. But I'm a dreamer and had to put an idea out there in the hope that something- anything near what I had in mind would be possible - but in the rush to jump on and give all the reasons why it isn't possible, could the whole thread be read first? I mean, everything that people are pointing out have been addressed...
Gareee wrote:Then get right on it and create it for us!
In the very first post I made:
Look, I'll level with you; I have no idea how this would work - I'm no designer, I'm just a gamer who'd love to see it happen. My previous ramble might be completely undoable, but by God if there's a chance that someone might be able to do it wouldn't it be awesome?? :cool:

I go on to reinforce this point later...

I previously mentioned it, But I'm just an ambitious gamer, not a designer. I figured that if there was any chance of someone somewhere knowing how to do one thing, and someone else knows how to do something else in reguards to making something like this happen [and I don't even mean some overtly ostentatious attempt to create a story lead game, as that would require years of animating and voice overs etc] that it would be what everyone seems to want.

Speaking of Voice overs...
jackdoud wrote:Not to mention access to the voice actors.
But the opportunity to use some of the lost material created for the game, like skins or hell even have Skankerzero himself as the lead playable character(!) That avoids likeness rights, the story boards can be written and illustrated by the guy that does the comics who's on here, surely? There's creative control for you! Remember that GHOSTBUSTERS is a franchise, and was named as such in GB;TVG, so the original line up need not be mentioned. Could call it “Ghostbusters of New Hampshire”or any of the other hundreds of GB franchises...Take your pick.

I know now that I'm pissing in the wind, but thanks for entertaining my crazy, crazy notion anyway.
By Gareee
#402031
My point, was if you want something, learn to do it yourself. If you want something that requires hundereds of hours of work to complete, then invest the hundereds of hours yourself creating it.

Do you think the game authors knew how to do write games when they were born? Nope. Odds are they worked on free idea projects just like this one, until they learned enough to be hired to create commercial items.

There are two types of people in the world. Dreamers and Doers.

Like Nike says,

Image
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By GBFamon
#402045
I agree with Gareee. I have learned a little about game development on my own over the last few years. With the various free software you can download (UDK, Cryteck to name a few), and the free learning resources, there should be no reason to not take it on. I have been wanting to make a GB game for years, so I have been slowly learning how to.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Ghostbusters Fans on Android
#402064
So the Idea of a group effort - utilising the expertise of people who are already in the know - Fans who can already do this, want to do this, and HAVE done this is off the cards altogether until I download some programmes, take a few years out of my life to learn how to put a rudamentary game together so what? you can make your point?

:sigh:
Nevermind.

I should just have listened to sense...
RagingDullahan wrote:Lack of team work and negative attitudes is why it won't happen.

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