Would you purchase the soundtrack if it was available?

[munster]

I'd certainly be willing to purchase an mp3 download for €10; £10 sterling comes to something over €12 so that's good also.

Heck, if it went to €15 I'd be in!

[xolotl]

I'd be in for something like $10 USD, though it might depend on the length. For a single album's worth of material, $10 is usual for digital-only stuff.

[Calathon]

I am interested in the soundtrack! The price should depend on how many tracks will be for sale, but I think 10 - 15 USD for an album of circa 15 tracks sounds fair.

[BasiliskWrangler]

I got fed up with waiting for a response from Basilisk Games so I went ahead and obtained the soundtrack from the game files. I will make a donation when the next game is announced.

Sorry PM.

It's not so easy just to put up a soundtrack for sale. For many tracks, we only have usage rights for, not ownership rights. I'd have to contact each original composer and seek out a distribution deal with them, which isn't worth my time even if I sell a few hundred copies.

Why didn't I obtain ownership rights for this music originally? Because it is often 5x more expensive to purchase the full, unrestricted ownerships rights for music, even for tracks that are written exclusively for us. The original composers want the ability to reuse or resell this music for their own benefit, so we have to pay much more if we want to own the track completely.

For our next game, I will hire a composer to write us an exclusive soundtrack and I'll make sure we retain full ownership rights to it, so that a separate soundtrack can be made available.

[BasiliskWrangler]

I'd have to contact each original composer and seek out a distribution deal with them, which isn't worth my time even if I sell a few hundred copies.

So why did you mention the possibility in the first place? Don't think I'll even bother asking you about that limited edition wall poster now, why get disappointed again...

I had no idea how well Book III would sell. I had hoped it would exceed the previous games, and maybe shatter my sales estimates, which would have made it worth my time to seek out soundtrack rights and additional goodies (wall poster map, deluxe limited-edition trilogy box set, etc.) This didn't happen, and so if Basilisk Games is to survive to make more games, I must focus 100% on the next product right now.

The one thing I do promise, 100% for sure, is a deluxe Trilogy download edition. It will be all three games on all three platforms, high-res map of the world, and a soundtrack pieced together from tracks (all three games) that I can get approval on distributing. It will be a big, fat digital download and will likely be out in time for the holidays this year.

[IJBall]

The one thing I do promise, 100% for sure, is a deluxe Trilogy download edition. It will be all three games on all three platforms, high-res map of the world, and a soundtrack pieced together from tracks (all three games) that I can get approval on distributing. It will be a big, fat digital download and will likely be out in time for the holidays this year.

Cool.
I look forward to this...

[MyGameCompany]

I'd have to contact each original composer and seek out a distribution deal with them, which isn't worth my time even if I sell a few hundred copies.

So why did you mention the possibility in the first place? Don't think I'll even bother asking you about that limited edition wall poster now, why get disappointed again...

I had no idea how well Book III would sell. I had hoped it would exceed the previous games, and maybe shatter my sales estimates, which would have made it worth my time to seek out soundtrack rights and additional goodies (wall poster map, deluxe limited-edition trilogy box set, etc.) This didn't happen, and so if Basilisk Games is to survive to make more games, I must focus 100% on the next product right now.

The one thing I do promise, 100% for sure, is a deluxe Trilogy download edition. It will be all three games on all three platforms, high-res map of the world, and a soundtrack pieced together from tracks (all three games) that I can get approval on distributing. It will be a big, fat digital download and will likely be out in time for the holidays this year.

Looking forward to that! Any chance the Deluxe edition will contain any new content, like Ash Island or other locations?

If you would like to do some new content, but don't want to take time away from your new project, I might be willing to help. I've had some fun with the modding tools lately.

[BasiliskWrangler]

So to confirm, there was going to be an add-on for Book III but all focus is now on the next game? No more patches unless something drastic comes up?

Correct, sort of. The add-on was dependent on the success of Book III as well. I will certainly fix any game-crashing bug that comes along, but it's more and more unlikely that any significant update to Book III will happen.

For modders: I am okay with the possibility of doing an "experimental branch" where I make a Windows-based version with new modding abilities. This would only be for a few trusted people to work with- but that's the problem- most of the modding people don't use Windows and it's a lot of work to compile the game for multiple platforms. The experimental branch could eventually see an "official" release if it becomes stable enough.

As MyGameCompany mentioned: if there are some good fan-made mods ready by the end of summer, I'd be happy to look into officially integrating them into the Trilogy package.

[raverdave2k]

This would only be for a few trusted people to work with- but that's the problem- most of the modding people don't use Windows and it's a lot of work to compile the game for multiple platforms. The experimental branch could eventually see an "official" release if it becomes stable enough.

I'm a windows user and this is something I would definitely be interested in, though I'd imagine would need a few more than just little old me to be worth while.

As MyGameCompany mentioned: if there are some good fan-made mods ready by the end of summer, I'd be happy to look into officially integrating them into the Trilogy package.

Your welcome to include any of my Book I and II stuff if you want, I still need to take the time to sit down with my thinking cap on and start planning something for Book III though.

[xolotl]

For modders: I am okay with the possibility of doing an "experimental branch" where I make a Windows-based version with new modding abilities. This would only be for a few trusted people to work with- but that's the problem- most of the modding people don't use Windows and it's a lot of work to compile the game for multiple platforms. The experimental branch could eventually see an "official" release if it becomes stable enough.

We'd been talking in another thread about how there's probably nothing stopping us from implementing something which would patch the main datapak file itself, which could make mod support implementation something which wouldn't even been necessary. I hadn't actually taken the time to dig into it yet, but it's certainly a possibility. In re: modders not using Windows, I do have to admit that even though I'm on Linux, I've mostly been using the Windows version via Wine, since my main desktop suffers from some weird audio bugs on the Linux version. It might not be too onerous to just do that in general.

Anyway, as with everyone else, I am eagerly awaiting the "full trilogy" download pack. :)

[MyGameCompany]

I've actually been running the Windows version of the modding tools in a virtual machine on my Mac. So a Windows version of your modding tools would be ok with me.

Or if we can modify files in the data pak to add new NPCs, quests, etc, that would work too.

[SpottedShroom]

For modders: I am okay with the possibility of doing an "experimental branch" where I make a Windows-based version with new modding abilities. This would only be for a few trusted people to work with- but that's the problem- most of the modding people don't use Windows and it's a lot of work to compile the game for multiple platforms. The experimental branch could eventually see an "official" release if it becomes stable enough.

I think the odds are probably against this, but it can't hurt to ask...

Is there any chance you'd consider releasing the engine source code for Book III? Xolotl and/or I could certainly add mod support ourselves. You wouldn't be losing any sales from it, since anyone who wanted to use new engine builds would still need to have the non-free data files. If you're not planning on doing anything more with the Eschalon engine, I don't see that there would be much downside for you.

[The One]

Thomas Riegsecker, I command you to give Elliot Kendall the engine source code for Book III.

[mbrowne]

Thomas Riegsecker, I command you to give Elliot Kendall the engine source code for Book III.

Ummm... You'll probably need to cast that at a higher spell level.

[BasiliskWrangler]

I think the odds are probably against this, but it can't hurt to ask...

Is there any chance you'd consider releasing the engine source code for Book III? Xolotl and/or I could certainly add mod support ourselves. You wouldn't be losing any sales from it, since anyone who wanted to use new engine builds would still need to have the non-free data files. If you're not planning on doing anything more with the Eschalon engine, I don't see that there would be much downside for you.

This is not an impossibility, but it can't happen right now. Ask me again in a year.

Until then, I'll look at adding a few of your high-priority requests into an experimental build. I was looking over one of the request threads in the Editing Forum...eh, I'll make a post there.