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How do we feel about Homages?
designationxr377
Member Posts: 542 Arc User
So, about two years ago I played a foundry mission I really liked the concept of which was in turn an homage of another piece of fiction. While the mission wasn't bad I still found myself looking at it going, "that was neat, but, man... if it was done this way..." I suppose it is the curse of being a foundry author playing another author's mission.
For a while thoughts about it have been bouncing around in my head and I have been thinking about the mission I played and what I would do with it if I was in charge of re-mastering it. Purely as a fun thought thing to keep me busy.
However, a recent mission I was making for the purpose of my fleet gave me an opportunity to do something similar to that. Although, the drastic changes to it are more to the idea of the original mission's intent and I would call it an homage in the same way the first mission was an homage to its source material. I was okay with making it mainly because as a fleet based mission at this point it wouldn't be advertised and played by most people. But what if it wasn't limited to that small group of people?
I have tried contacting the author of the original mission, but, as that was their only mission and they are not a name I recognize there is a chance that individual either doesn't play STO often anymore or has indeed quit. I fear either they are not coming back or they are not going to respond to my attempts to contact them. So, I am now posing the question to the community.
How do we feel about missions that are homages/re-masteries/revisits/or otherwise borrow heavily from another work?
No matter what; I am pointing out even from the beginning that the mission exists as an homage and giving credit where credit is due. And just to cover bases, what I am considering/doing doesn't violate the ToS or the Foundry EULA.
For a while thoughts about it have been bouncing around in my head and I have been thinking about the mission I played and what I would do with it if I was in charge of re-mastering it. Purely as a fun thought thing to keep me busy.
However, a recent mission I was making for the purpose of my fleet gave me an opportunity to do something similar to that. Although, the drastic changes to it are more to the idea of the original mission's intent and I would call it an homage in the same way the first mission was an homage to its source material. I was okay with making it mainly because as a fleet based mission at this point it wouldn't be advertised and played by most people. But what if it wasn't limited to that small group of people?
I have tried contacting the author of the original mission, but, as that was their only mission and they are not a name I recognize there is a chance that individual either doesn't play STO often anymore or has indeed quit. I fear either they are not coming back or they are not going to respond to my attempts to contact them. So, I am now posing the question to the community.
How do we feel about missions that are homages/re-masteries/revisits/or otherwise borrow heavily from another work?
No matter what; I am pointing out even from the beginning that the mission exists as an homage and giving credit where credit is due. And just to cover bases, what I am considering/doing doesn't violate the ToS or the Foundry EULA.
Post edited by designationxr377 on
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I'm fine with homages if they're done well.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I've taken influences from all kinds of sources such as Stargate, Babylon 5 and Star Wars. It's one of my favorite things to do because the people who get the reference will get some extra enjoyment out of it (hopefully).
Obviously you mustn't outright copy any prior work, not even a Star Trek property that is included in the EULA. But there are lots of ways to tell a story that connects with those works without copying. For example I'm working on a mission based on an event during the Romulan War as depicted in "Federation: The First 150 Years." Obviously that's not included among the things that we can use, so I'm telling a completely different side of the story from what was in the book. Only one character will appear in both, and he was named in TNG so I'm safe there. The book focuses on a space battle, I'm expanding on a ground battle that was maybe half a sentence in the book and inventing a lot of things from before and after the battle. Its a fine line to walk, hopefully no one will think I stepped over it.
The time loop from Cause and Effect in my mission "First Cause, Then Effect"
The baryon sweep from Starship Mine in my mission "Clean Sweep"
I think the difference lies in straight ripping off/copying ideas from established works. If you're taking parts of ideas or concepts, it's fine. But straight copying? That's a lot more meh and basically "bad form" especially in relation to another Foundry author.
Same here. As long as credit is given where credit is due.
And knowing you XR, I'm sure the mission would be awesome.
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
The mission that started this interest, which I am going to be pointing out at the end, is "Hunt for the Daq Duj" by Seancy8512. It was a spotlight mission that isn't currently supported as a spotlight reward since it was from the pre-special rewards days. For those that have played it, it is an obvious Homage to Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October".
With Clancy's recent death and the project I was working on my willingness to pursue an adaptation of Red October, inspired by Seancy8512's adaptation, took shape.
In truth, my mission uses the Breen as the Cold War adversaries and works quite a bit differently from the "Daq Duj" mission. The biggest thing which I have been having the most fun with is that the player and their ship takes on the role of the U.S.S. Dallas from the Red October story, start to finish. That is the only view you have of it all playing out and it works rather well and is a refreshing way to tell it I think.
I just worry that it is going too far. After all, another author inspired me to do this adaptation after his adaption of another work of a man who I'd like to show respect to and dedicate this work to in the end.
I was planning on having my fleet play through it for a fun time, and perhaps a few select individuals who I know love Red October (stares at Drogyn), but if I am unable to contact Seancy is my homage to Clancy and Seancy's work out of line if I choose to share it with the greater STO public?
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
"The time has come to see the world as it is." - Captain James T. Kirk
Twitter - @SDVargo
Yeah, that video was of interest, and gave me a bit more food for thought on the issue.
Half the fun of making this mission for me was how close I could make this adaptation to the trek setting to the Film version. For example, with the dialog as per my usual fun with it there are many paths to get to the same place. But, there is a very specific path where if a player does the right thing and selects the right options, if they feel compelled, they can use all the same lines the Captain of the USS Dallas did in the film. To me, I think that is fun. Where someone can literally fill that role like they would do in say a video game of the film.
However my danger is that in order to do that I strove to make as many lines and who said them as similar as possible. I was driving to make a reflection. It wasn't easy, and to me felt like making an authentic reproduction of something else: "True to the Source Material." However, I hope that my disclaimers at the start and end make clear that I don't want to claim the story is purely my work. Other than the perspective shift so that you don't see the things happening at headquarters or aboard the October the only real thing I added were those aspects for combat and pacing to help make this feel like a mission and have a bit of that exciting fighting that makes a mission feel together.
As an update: I finished the mission and yesterday ran my fleet through it as per the original event plan. It is currently withdrawn to fix some technical issues and apply another layer of polish before I do anything else. But, something popped out.
A fleet member who was playing it really got into the mission, really got hooked. But, the thing was, they also never read or saw Hunt for Red October. While I love the idea this is introducing them to the story something about it makes me feel guilty that they enjoyed my mission so much before knowing the source material. Perhaps that is just due to the fact EULA gets hazy and more tot he "no" side if I actually say "Go watch or read 'The Hunt for Red October" since that drifts into the whole advertising outside materials thing.
I don't know, I try to make no secret this is an Adaptation and Homage. I am at least able to site Seancy and Clancy in the mission. Hopefully that will be enough.
The Magnificent Seven was practically a scene for scene rip off of Seven Samurai. And I mean that literally. In one movie here's a guy cutting wood. Then in the other here's a guy cutting wood, and the actors even sort of look similar, with the exception made for one being Japanese and the other caucasian.
Quinton Tarantino basically blatantly ripped off City on Fire, starring Chow Yun Fat for the plot of Reservoir Dogs, and just re-organized how it played out (instead of the movie being completely linear it has flash backs). On a side note, I hate most of Tarantino's movies, but that's neither here nor there. Reservoir Dogs was alright, except that it was an inferior version of the original City on Fire.
Granted, both of those examples are from movies, where it seems ripping other people off is more acceptable (probably because the visual aspect makes up a large portion of a movie's content, whereas with a book it would just be plagiarism). But in any case, you'd be in pretty good company, and if you actually admitted the source of your inspiration then I don't see how anyone could complain.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
Anyway, my KDF spotlight "Raktajino in a Jar" is based off the lyrics of "Whiskey in a Jar" by Thin Lizzy (although I prefer the Metallica version). The lyrics were the start point and then I added a lot from there. There's obviously a line between inspired by/based on and blatant ripoff, and we all gotta walk that line sometimes. Best way I think is to use the previous work as a basis, and then build on it and make it your own.
It is called:
"In Pursuit of a Cold Front"
Author: XR-377
And yeah, it's an adaptation of The Hunt for Red October.
Go ahead and have at it if you feel so compelled, then, come back here and yell at me for my accuracy being too accurate. >,>
Of course too the song is a "rip off" of an old Irish folk ballad so there is a real long line of borrowing to get to your mission
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
You just made my day
At one point I even made some lyrics for the Klingon version of the song. Wonder if I still have those somewhere.
Here we go, small additions, but still fun:
As I was goin' over the Cowrk and Ker'i mountains
I saw Captain Ferel and his lat'num he was countin'
I first produced my pistol and then produced my bat'leth
I said "stand and deliver or Fek'lhr he may take ya"
I took all of his lat'num and it was a pretty penny
I took all of his lat'num yeah and I brought it home to Mollei
She swore that she'd love me, no never would she leave me
But Fek'lhr take that woman yeah for you know she tricked me easy
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Being drunk and weary I went to Mollei chamber
Takin' my money with me and I never knew the danger
For about six or maybe seven in walked Captain Farel
I jumped up, fired off my pistols and I shot him with both barrels
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Now some men like the fishin' and some men like the fowlin'
And some men like ta hear, ta hear the torpedoes' firin'
Me I like sleepin' specially in my Mollei's chamber
But here I am in prison, here I am with a ball and chain yeah
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Whiskey in the jar-o
Musha ring dum a doo dum a da
My character Tsin'xing
The Metallica version was one of my best friend's favorite songs. I once found the song in a really old library book of Irish folk ballads.
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Did that "timer system" I used with the mobs fighting on the other side of the wall break again?! I swear every time I test it it goes fine but any time I show it off... or it needs to work someone fades through a wall or a captain level mob dies to a team of ensigns.
I'm not sure why, but there's a dialog that I had to play twice... once before and once after running around the bridge and clicking consoles.
My character Tsin'xing
BUT, despite invisible walls and other things mobs keep phasing through the wall and it is getting on my nerves. All it takes is one break there and the mission hiccups horrifically. If only I actually had a timer. : /
Oh well, it's still a fun mechanics trick, I'll see if I can't get it to work properly.