Big day for dev posts today.

On the topic of the patent registration not mentioning NDS, and the claims that NDS has no proof:

Q: I want to thank everyone that supports us in our efforts to bring Meridian 59 back online. This issue of our not actually owning Meridian 59 is absurd. With all the press we’ve been gathering 3DO would’ve put out a press release denying our claims and probably would be suing us. It’s all just crazy.

The abandonment issue is partly a cultural confusion I think because the US Patent and Trademark Website is one site. Meridian 59 was never patented. What he’s referring to as being abandoned is *some* of the older Meridian *Trademarks*. Trademarks of course have nothing to do with ownership of a product or copyright. If you go to the US Patent and Trademark Site http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/tm.html Click on “Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)” and do a structured form search for Meridian and 3DO you’ll see the two dead and two LIVE Trademarks. Again, even if they were all abandoned, they are only Trademarks and would not mean 3DO abandoned the product, or code, or copyright, or somehow released it into public domain. Also as stated in Gilroy’s post on the matter, at the US Copyright Site http://www.loc.gov/copyright/search/cohm.html
you can search for registration number TX-4-558-820 and see that the game is still under copyright. All of these official marks and rights are being transferred to NDS, there is simply government paperwork lag involved before that’s shown on these sites.

As for the proof… I told him 3DO was going to put out a press release. Then 3DO told me they weren’t going to do a press release, but they’d mention it on their website with our contact information. So I told him that. Then 3DO told me there hadn’t been any Meridian 59 info on their website for over a year so they weren’t going to put any on now, but anyone that emails with questions about Meridian 59 will be sent information about NDS. I told him that. Guess he didn’t bother emailing. Some people don’t want to believe. *shrug*

On beta testing plans for NDS' Meridian:

Psychochild: It's good to see so many people willing to help out. :)

Thanks for the offers, all. We'll post up on the web site and on the mailing list when we are ready to take testers for the servers. Can't quite comment on a date, unfortunately. Still trying to work things out.

We're working on getting everything up and running smoothly. We're as eager to see the game back up and running as you are, but we want to make sure to make the new servers as good as we can.

Thanks again for the support, everyone. :)

Explaining the BGF files in the M59 resource directory:

Psychochild: Actually, the BGF files are compressed bitmaps with a bit of extra information thrown in there.

The extra information basically organizes the bitmaps into different "frames". Each frame has a number of individual bitmaps for viewing the item in each direction.

So, when the monster attacks for example, we specify "play frames X through Y" on the server side. The client takes the direction the monster is facing compared to you, and cycles through the appropraite bitmaps.

I'm not sure about the exact format of the file. Just sharing what little I know about it. I think some other info is stored in there, too, but my memory fails me right now.

Anyway, that's about as much as I understand about it all. :) Thought some of you might be interested.

(Gerechtigkeit:) i was in another official post :)) that line about 'i loved that line' was mine :)) (the Gerechtigkeit trend continues ;) - ed)

Psychochild: After this message, Near Death Studios will no longer mention Gerechtigkeit in any of our posts.

It seems that Gerechtigkeit's head is getting just a bit too big to be tolerable. While we appreciate the enthusiasm, we can't be responsible for an ego swelling that big.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

-Psychochild


(Hehe. ;)


As always, keep an eye on the forums here at Gilroy's Meridian 59 Reference for more infobits.