Server Authentication

[Chris2]

I don’t understand how this relates to the announcement that iD Software bought the publishing rights for the game last year but I guess I’m not the only one that’s confused about that

When was this? First I’ve ever heard about it. Afaik Bethesda are the only ones who’ve acquired the rights for a game previously held by Activision.

[DrFunkenstein]

Here’s a link to a post I made about this some time ago. I haven’t been able to find an official announcement or something like that, please keep that in mind.

Dr. Funkenstein

[Chris2]

Judging from the email above, it would appear this wasn’t the case.

[Setlec]

i hope Zenimax gets the all rights of ETQW so we could get more hope of support…

[DrFunkenstein]

As I said, I haven’t been able to find an official source and I definitely won’t claim I know for sure. I linked to the post and the thread on the Steam forums because it contained a link to the reaction from Activision.

Take it for what it’s worth.

Dr. Funkenstein

[SockDog]

The Bethesda guy sounds confused. I know I’m in no position to contradict him but I’m going to anyway.

He says they own Quake Wars but not Enemy Territory. From this I’d assume the following.

They own the rights to publish Enemy Territory: Quake Wars but not Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

Why?

[ul]
[li]Search here: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp id Software owns the trade marks on Enemy Territory and Quake Wars (so by extension Bethesda/Zenimax)
[/li][li]W:ET was never released, I do wonder if this in some way gave Activision rights to distribution which have yet, or may never, expire. Perhaps the money they invested with id on the game gave them the code should the game never be released and so recoup the costs.
[/li][li]Quake Wars left Steam in the same way Quake IV did, there is no reason why Activision would do this unless motivated to do so*
[/li][li]The Bethesda guy doesn’t get either game’s name right.
[/li][/ul]

Pretty insane that not even SD can get hold of someone at Bethesda to comment on this.

*Here is perhaps a small concern to the contrary. That maybe wanting to switch off servers meant they felt compelled to also remove the game from sale. I’d doubt this though, Activision be considerate? LOL

[Chris2]

He says they own Quake Wars but not Enemy Territory. From this I’d assume the following.

Am I missing something here or does the text he quoted not mention anything to do with ET:QW or W:ET directly?

Pretty sure that the email is saying that they (Bethesda) own other “Quake games” and that they don’t own Quake Wars which I assume is the game being discussed in this correspondence and that Activision has most likely assumed that Quake Wars, having Quake in it’s title, was one of those “Quake games” snapped up by Bethesda.

Also yeah, the trade mark, which afaik is similar to the IP, has always been with id software, they filed for it on June 3, 2005 according to that link.

Unless I’m going mad then I think it’s TAW_OldWolf that has confused the issue.

[Breo]

Right now there are around 80 players online with a lot of empty servers…
The OP is from 4 March, you guys really think they would fix the auth server with the current amount of players?

[TAW_OldWolf]

In my question to Bethesda the title of the game is Enemy Territory Quake Wars.
So the answer is directly related to this game.

[Chris2]

[QUOTE=TAW_OldWolf;400114]In my question to Bethesda the title of the game is Enemy Territory Quake Wars.
So the answer is directly related to this game.[/QUOTE]

Well then, it still stands, the response indicates they don’t own ET:QW, they only own the other Quake games. (I assume Quake 1, 2, 3 & 4)

I don’t get where you got “They say that Bethesda own the rights to the Quake Wars but NOT for the Enemy Territory part.” from…

[SockDog]

My bad, I read your summation as part of the quote from Bethesda earlier on my phone and then didn’t reread when doing this reply. So we need to ask whether a Bethesda Tech Support guy actually got the right info (which would suggest Activision has just taken ETQW out back for ventilation) or if he’s mixed his messages to his superiors and gotten a bad message back.

It presents an interesting concept though, my assumption was always that ownership (publishing rights) would revert to id after a time period. But if this is true id may have had the option to buy back ownership at a later point. Did id want Quake IV but not ETQW? However they feel about ETQW it’s been their most successful MP game since Q3, would seem silly to throw that away, especially as Activision clearly didn’t value it at all.

I’ll cross my fingers and hope for a bad tech support.

[Chris2]

It presents an interesting concept though, my assumption was always that ownership (publishing rights) would revert to id after a time period. But if this is true id may have had the option to buy back ownership at a later point. Did id want Quake IV but not ETQW? However they feel about ETQW it’s been their most successful MP game since Q3, would seem silly to throw that away, especially as Activision clearly didn’t value it at all.

id Software owns the IP/Trademarks in all cases and have done so since day 1 afaik, the publishing rights and the burden of support however lies with either Bethesda or Activision as I understand it. As Bethesda’s parent company bought id Software I guess they saw it fit to buy the publishing rights to the major games in the franchises that id owned the IP for, why ET:QW wasn’t included I don’t know.

Complicated stuff.

[Runeforce]

So I guess ETQW must now be ABANDONWARE

[SockDog]

Sad day if true but brutally consistent to how ETQW was born, lived and perhaps died.

Maybe SD can buy the publishing rights.

[Loki2]

However they feel about ETQW it’s been their most successful MP game since Q3,

guessing you are either to young to know of, or just forgot all about RTCW-

RTCW in its day was FAR more successful then ETQW – thousands played that game for many many years… i being one of them… there are far more people playing RTCW today then ETQW…

i enjoy ETWQ and i still play it - but i also play RTCW (no lag in RTCW )

[Donnovan]

But, in true, cant judge game success or its legacy just by head count.

For sure ETQW have a big legacy, that will remain for a long time. And i’m not saying its the end.

[SockDog]

[QUOTE=Loki.;400152]guessing you are either to young to know of, or just forgot all about RTCW-

RTCW in its day was FAR more successful then ETQW – thousands played that game for many many years… i being one of them… there are far more people playing RTCW today then ETQW…

i enjoy ETWQ and i still play it - but i also play RTCW (no lag in RTCW )[/QUOTE]

Fair point, RTCW probably was more successful then ETQW, it kind of came between my Q3 and CoD gaming periods so I never played for a huge amount of time. My point however was that ETQW was not a poor MP game, especially considering D3 and QIV didn’t really do much in that area.

[Ashog]

RTCW was more popular than ETQW, but ETQW lasted longer (almost 5 years), whereas RTCW lasted at most 3 years.
W:ET, which killed off RTCW, on the other hand was even more popular than that and lasted as much if not more than ETQW.

Still missing RTCW though, which I enjoyed on a competition scale more than W:ET. W:ET was more fun on pub though.

[Chris2]

ET:QW didn’t really last 5 years though, it limped on for 5 years more like.

[TAW_OldWolf]

At least we can have our internal TA mod scrims now, thanks to OmeletduFromage who have setup a server with vpn connection.
One of our other members, blimp, fixed a ranked server to a dedicated without loosing the authentication. Going Pro mod on that one.

We will fight on with ET:QW !!