Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters will make its strategy to Steam on February nineteenth. It is a model of 1992 technique traditional Star Management 2 that takes benefit of updates from its long-running open source project, and it will be fully free.
The Steam launch is being orchestrated by Pistol Shrimp, an organization based by unique Star Management creators Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. Reiche and Ford have lengthy been working in the direction of a sequel, variously known as Ur-Quan Masters 2 and Ghosts Of The Precursors.
Why is that this launch known as Free Stars and never “Star Management 2”? Aren’t Star Management 2 and its predecessor already on Steam for a small price? The rights over the collection have been a lot contested between Reiche and Ford, who appear to personal the copyright, and technique recreation writer Stardock, who purchased the rights to the Star Management trademark. Stardock developed a Star Management 2 sequel of their very own, Star Management: Origins, again in 2018.
Either side had been in an enormous grump with the opposite, resulting in indignant weblog posts, spurious DMCAs, crowdfunded authorized defences, and eventual amicable settlement as a consequence of intervention by bees.
A part of the settlement was that each events would proceed to make their video games, with Reiche and Ford providing writing assist to Stardock Star Management video games, and Stardock providing expertise assist to Reiche and Ford. Reiche and Ford are seemingly unable to proceed utilizing the Star Management trademark, however can use the whole lot else.
To coincide with the discharge, Pistol Shrimp are launching a podcast through which they’re going to talk about The Ur-Quan Masters’ legacy with different builders, with episodes introduced which is able to function Fallout’s Tim Cain, BioShock’s Ken Levine, Firewatch’s Chris Remo, and extra. There will be an audio version and YouTube uploads.
If all of this nonetheless appears faintly baffling to you, then as all the time Richard Cobbett has the products on why The Ur-Quan Masters issues.