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General discussion (archive)New release: Starflight 1+2(131 posts)(131 posts)
(131 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 24, 2011
Meet Starflight, one of the first great space opera adventures, available here on GOG.com for just $5.99.

Some of you may not know this game but that’s why we write these fascinating articles, right? [url=http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/starflight_1_2]Starflight 1 begins on the planet Arth, when your civilization discovers that they were, in fact, a colony planet of Earth. Excavations into the ancient colony landing sites enable humans to build starships, and set course for new life and new civilizations. You are set to embark on a mission to re-explore space and discover why the Old Empire collapsed. As time goes by and you discover new planets ready to be colonized, discover new lifeforms, and eventually build yourself a proper battleship, an old threat emerges and will humans triumph this time over the mysterious Crystal Planet which endangers the galaxy, or will it all fall to ruin and ashes again?

Gameplay consists of oddly familiar features for the genre, in part because Starflight defined a number of standard elements space opera adventure games. For example, you start out with a ship that is held together with duct tape and baling wire. Most of the cool features aren’t available yet--like weapons. Initially, you will need to get by with mining and trading, but after you’ve paid your dues, things start to get more interesting. When you’ve earned a little cash through hard work you can enroll a crew to man six different posts (each has a direct correlation to your ship’s performance) and upgrade every part of your spaceship. You can also land on planets (but not all of them, some are so high gravity that you will crash if you try). After you touch down safely, you can send a terrain vehicle to travel around the planet for minerals, artifacts, or alien lifeforms (that ring a bell for anyone? :).

The Starflight universe consists of over two hundred stars and several hundred planets to explore, and the Starflight II universe is even bigger. No RPG can be good without random encounters, and you’ll meet aliens of all kinds and shapes. Some will be belligerent, and some will be friendly, and you’ll rarely know until after they’ve fired at you.

Starflight 2 basically takes all the good things from it’s predecessor and improves on it drastically. Following the events of the first game, the galaxy is at relative peace but a race of cowardly, gelatinous blobs gain access to superior technology and it’s your mission to find out how to stop them! The story may start a bit ordinarily, but it definitely ramps up to an exciting finale! If you’re a fan of Starflight--or another game in our catalogue that has you flying around the stars and talking to aliens--you should definitely pick up this incredible two pack for just $5.99 today!
Posted November 25, 2011
Dammit. I think I'll buy the PC versions from GOG, but probably check the "unofficial" Amiga and Sega Genesis versions as well, as well as the open source remake. PC games from the CGA/no sound card era are generally a bit too old-skool for me, I prefer the Amiga, console or even C=64 versions from that era, if available.

That kinda makes it ok, right? I bought the old game, but might play another version of it instead.

It is a bit same how I used to hunt down for the ultimate version of Elite long time ago, and then there was the "Oolite" remake as well. For me the best versions were "Elite Plus" on PC (due to its analog joystick support which made manual docking so much easier), and the Amiga version felt great too even if it had only digital controls IIRC.
Post edited November 25, 2011 by timppu
Posted November 25, 2011
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thekittster: There was an EGA version of SF1, and the GOG screenshots look like that. I've got the original CGA version and it looks quite different, even in composite mode (see [url]www.mobygames.com/game/dos/starflight/screenshots[/url] for examples of RGB CGA, composite CGA, and EGA SF1). The sound is PC-speaker only...
Thanks for the review (also to those pointing out the differences between Amiga and Sega versions). EGA doesn't sound so bad, too bad the sequel doesn't have sound card support.
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Trilarion: Why not sticking even more to the truth and saying what GOG really is: a live-long, single person, non resellable, non supervised permission to play a game. You can ask any court in any decent country respecting copyrights for that and they will agree.
I would replace "single person" with "single household".
Post edited November 25, 2011 by timppu
Posted November 25, 2011
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brainfromarous: You're right, we never "owned" that book, song or whatever to being with. The problem confronting us now is that the digital marketplace enables a subversion of DoFS --- now we don't even own our personal, legal copy.

This is not "semantics," brother. This is a major step backwards for consumer rights and the courts cannot address it quickly enough.
I read that long time ago, but IIRC in Polish copyright law they consider copy on HDD (or backuped on cd or else) as the same as physical copy. I mean, it has no physical copy when you bought it, but after downloading the game on your HDD, it has.
Posted November 25, 2011
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timppu: ... I would replace "single person" with "single household".
But from the GOG standard license it's clear that they mean a single person, i.e. the buyer. He or she is allowed to install on as many computers but not to let others play. Others would have to buy licenses themselves. You can correct me, if this is wrong.

Actually now I have words for why I don't like this "I like to own things, and that's why I am here" approach. It makes the difference to services to Steam larger than it really is. Than you can say: here I am owning there only renting, but that's just not true. The only difference from the legal point of view is that GOG does no supervision why Steam does check the validity of the license almost always and reserves the right to withdraw the license at any time for any reasons. The rest is the same.

Of course it's a rather pronounced difference but it's no where like owning. If people start to think of that as owning than I wish the good old days of real ownership would come back.
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SLP2000: ...
I read that long time ago, but IIRC in Polish copyright law they consider copy on HDD (or backuped on cd or else) as the same as physical copy. I mean, it has no physical copy when you bought it, but after downloading the game on your HDD, it has.
So, would it be legal in Poland to sell this HDD with all copies on them or the burned CD to somebody else and this somebody else would then legally be entitled to play the game and sell it himself?
Post edited November 25, 2011 by Trilarion
Posted November 25, 2011
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timppu: ... I would replace "single person" with "single household".
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Trilarion: But from the GOG standard license it's clear that they mean a single person, i.e. the buyer. He or she is allowed to install on as many computers but not to let others play. Others would have to buy licenses themselves. You can correct me, if this is wrong.
I have let my gf (in the same household, even using the same computer as me) play a GOG game I've bought. So did I break the license?

I think there was some discussion about this before, I hope some GOG representative clears that up. From the earlier discussion GOG rep seemed to be rather lax on it IIRC, ie. "use common sense"; letting your kids and wife in the same household to play the same game is ok, while sharing the game with your (even closest) friends next door or the whole town is not. I presume it is not forbidden either that I let a friend of mine to try out a game when he visits me or uses my laptop on my permission.

In my case I've considered "common sense" that as long as it is primarily me who is controlling who plays the game I've purchased (one at a time, ie. not installing it to their computers so that they could play it any time they want irrespective to me), GOG is probably fine with it. But then as said, so far only my gf has played any of them in addition to me.
Post edited November 25, 2011 by timppu
Posted November 25, 2011
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Trilarion: So, would it be legal in Poland to sell this HDD with all copies on them or the burned CD to somebody else and this somebody else would then legally be entitled to play the game and sell it himself?
No idea. But GOG Terms of Use says we are under laws of the State of California.
Posted November 25, 2011
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timppu: ...common sense...
just means, that they cannot control it. Even Steam cannot control it. So it's inofficially allowed but not officially. I am also doing it. :)
Posted November 25, 2011
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timppu: ...common sense...
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Trilarion: just means, that they cannot control it. Even Steam cannot control it. So it's inofficially allowed but not officially. I am also doing it. :)
GOG couldn't control it either if someone shared the games to everyone in the world, but still they don't say that is an ok thing to do.

The part about "single user" is more probably related to re-selling the license (ie. a GOG game license is not tranferrable, but "single-user" in that sense), not whether others in the same household can utilize the same license, within reason.

Anyway, I'd rather hear GOG say if GOG purchases are single user only (and I think they already have).
Posted November 25, 2011
I've never played Starflight 2, but Starflight 1 is one of the best games I've ever played.
Posted November 25, 2011
Regarding GOGs policy on sharing your games within your household or not I refer to this post here.

I own Psychonauts from GOG and my brother who lives in another house wanted to play it. I used to tell him to buy his own copy because GOG trusts me by giving me a DRMfree game and I won't betray that trust. But after reading that post I think its OK for him to have it installed on his computer just as long as I'm not playing it when he is doing so as well.

Kinda like the old days when only one of us could have the required CD to play it. (Theme Hospital I lent you away and you never came back.)
Posted November 25, 2011
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cnquist: I own Psychonauts from GOG and my brother who lives in another house wanted to play it. I used to tell him to buy his own copy because GOG trusts me by giving me a DRMfree game and I won't betray that trust. But after reading that post I think its OK for him to have it installed on his computer just as long as I'm not playing it when he is doing so as well.

Kinda like the old days when only one of us could have the required CD to play it. (Theme Hospital I lent you away and you never came back.)
My brother isn't interested in most of my GOG games, but he enjoys semi-realistic FPSs (we share a Steam account for the Half-Life series), so after I was mostly finished with Far Cry I let him install it on his computer. I'm not proud of that, but he seemed to enjoy it and I felt kinda good making him happy (if only for a little while). :P Plus now he's down in South America, with a slow internet connection and I think he still plays it occasionally.
GOG trusts me by giving me a DRMfree game
Right on. I don't exactly remember the context, but I do remember telling people at one time or another I wasn't comfortable with just giving them a free copy of a game. (Can't really say as much for movies, sorry. :/) My most pirated game would probably be the obscure Speedy Eggbert, because many of my friends love the cute quirkiness and I wanted to spread the love. (I legally bought both 1 and 2, though, as well as several eGames demo CDs.)
Post edited November 25, 2011 by tfishell
Posted November 25, 2011
I own the Sega Genesis port of SF and it's one of the greatest games I've ever played. In the manual there's a pretty epic short story by Robert Silverberg inspired by his time spent on the PC version. I'll have to pick this up just to see what made him write that great story!
Posted November 26, 2011
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cogadh: Holy crap! GOG, you did it again! this is one of those games that has been on my personal "all-time greatest" list for the longest time and I had long ago given up hope of ever finding a legit copy of it. Instabuy for me!
+1, but I saw a copy on eBay the other day. Blargh. I bidded $15 but it ended up selling for $20, which is too steep for my blood. I never did get around to playing it though because I was too young, and later we lost the disks *sadpanda*. Subsequently, I came across it many times on various places like HOTU, but never had the time or motivation to sit down for a proper playthrough.
Post edited November 26, 2011 by lowyhong
Posted November 26, 2011
A great game, sadly, the inferior PC version.
Posted November 27, 2011
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katakis: A great game, sadly, the inferior PC version.
inferior? haha
it is the original and how it was meant to be!
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)New release: Starflight 1+2(131 posts)(131 posts)
(131 posts)