I cede the first three criteria, I'll leave the fourth one in the dust since even if I explained that I don't think it'll contribute very much other than waste space, but what you mean by "finished" in the last criteria sounds a bit odd to me though.
This definition is very counter intuitive, an unfinished game can indeed not be developed any further just as the finished game can be, but very few of us would say that there are games that appear to be unfinished yet the developers have stopped working on it entirely. Most of us would agree that such games are most certainly not finished, despite that criteria.
To be quite honest I don't recall if the TW purchase page promised the "finished product" or "all future versions", and I can't check since it's obviously been taken down a long time ago. I have a feeling it was the latter, though, in which case there's no problem.
Having looked into that myself, I will say that I haven't come across that myself. This has proved to be a profoundly useful sight by the way:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060708181052/http://www.taleworlds.com/sales_faq.html Perhaps you would fancy taking a look for the nostalgia.
I digress, you're right about nothing in the agreement explicitly stipulating that the developers finish the game (although now that I think about it, with the game being sold in beta, not guaranteeing that the product is going to be finished might be a defensible move), but not prescribing terms when the devs can legitimately stop isn't an answer. This clause works in tandem with a modified understanding of what finished means in this case. Simply having the clause of all future updates being free doesn't protect the buyer enough, without any understanding of some kind of finish line or a general area where the game can reach, they could well stop at .960 or even .808 and call it quits. It may mean that no Warband or WFaS ever come out due to unfeasible conditions of the contract- that the developer more or less bound to the the buyer (something which I recall you found disagreeable), but on the flip side this could also mean they just call it quits and the buyer is put in the mercy of the developer. Neither letting them stop in those nearly dysfunctional early versions or binding them to the will of the consumer is desirable. Some shared semblance of what "finished" means has to be reached because both interpretations taken to their logical ends is simply unacceptable. And since the agreement was so vague as to leave this whole issue unresolved, the only way out of this is to appeal to tacit or post agreed notions of what finished means.
We can't demand that they never touch a game engine again to try and make a new game simply because of that clause, and neither can they call the product finished as they wish.
Following from this, one of you main claims is that the game was finished prematurely. If neither the consumer nor the developer agreed to any terms of finishing, this claim clearly wouldn't work if you're referring to the agreement.
This also extends past the realms of unfinished games as well. When I buy a copy of Dawn of War: Winter Assault, I expect that the game I buy is finished. And using this example of not developed any further, this would clearly not be the case when I see Dark Crusade come out, and later Soul Storm come out. I have bought, in accordance to this definition, an unfinished game because the developers have continued to develop it. Likewise, if I bought a 2010 Mercury Cyclone and after a few months the 2011 version came out, my claims that I bought the unfinished version of the mercury cyclone would go unheeded by most people.
This comes back to the distinction between the "as is" and "all future versions" business models. Most games have the former.
That distinction is irrelevant in terms of whether a product is finished. Saying that somethings can be solve "as is" is essentially ceding the contest to whether the mercury cyclone is an unfinished car. I have bought an unfinished game from Dawn of war. You may counter with the fact that I bought the car and game knowingly, but in response to this I will argue that this is far from the case. Perhaps I don't have that much of a justification in the car case, but perhaps the developers didn't make it known that they were continually developing a new expansion for the Dawn of War game. I assume that I am buying a game with some sense of being finished in development, there really isn't anything in the transaction that stipulates this, but the assumption of what finish means here, that being finished as part of a series, applies to M&B as well.
I think the claim that M&B was finished prematurely along with the claim that Dawn of War was finished prematurely stemming from this criteria are not simply appealing to whether or not the developers have kept working on it. It seems to be appealing to something more than than that. With this in mind, it would seem to go hand in hand with M&B being prematurely finished as it was released and later patched up, even if no subsequent sequels came out.
I don't think there's any question about the distinction between patch and sequel; besides, the patches were freely available. So that's really a non-issue.
I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying here, this is in the context of trying to find out what, besides simply saying that the devs won't develop a game any further, that we can appeal to any semblance of a finished game. If you make the distinction that a game can be divided into sequels, then to be consistent you must make the distinction to Mount and Blade as well. The terms of the agreement are ambiguous, they can support both interpretations. Specifically, the interpretation of what the word version pertains to in the clause "all furture versions would be free". If you pick one interpretation from another game and stick with that, the Dawn of War: Winter Assault game being a finished product, you cannot pick the interpretation that the version in that agreement pertains to all games since you're not distinguishing between games and patches at all. You will be contradicting yourself.
It seems to be the only plausible way of satisfying the clause as you interpret it though. "That the person who purchased the game will continually get updates for free until the game is finished" more or less. The only point where updates can stop when the game is finished is when the developer can no longer make the game any better. That is to say, the game, insofar as it is held within it's own settings and mechanics, is perfect. There is obviously a great deal of divide between what is finished and what is perfect, speaking normally, but given the way in which Warband has been argued as being nothing but the original M&B but better seems to imply that a game can never quite be finished so long as the developers can add stuff to it. Put these all together and you do get the claim that perfection is demanded through this interpretation of the terms.
That right there is where you deviate from what I'm saying and start making stuff up.
That is the logical extension of what you are saying, your claims have certain premises under them. In short, you seem to have arbitrarily stopped short and concluded your claim in an incoherent context. You do not take your premises to their logical ends, and only stop where you feel convenient. If your only defence of that counter argument is that I'm making it up, when I have demonstrated where your interpretations of the agreements is going, you're really just giving up.
Or there is another interpretation of that quote 
. Since the above "finished" criterion is no good, and we obviously both don't want to bind up the either party in servitude to the other, the answer is probably in between. Meaning what constitutes the meaning of "finished" is probably not M&B as it was released, but it to claim that Warband should be included because the buyer sees it as the same game probably isn't true either. Extending from this might be the case that the dev or the ship wright be made to patch up the game after its release, it would be no longer a matter that they can decided to take upon themselves at their leisure- that this specific type of agreement requires it of them. Where this practically leads to isn't all that clear though, I personally think the patches made for M&B puts it right in the area of a finished game. While this does clear up that neither extreme ends should be enforced, it doesn't give any guidelines to where in the middle it should be.
Like I said, in the absence of a design document I'm quite fond of the "when it's not being developed any further" definition.
If that is your position, then you cannot complain about games not being finished when developers stop short and call it quits since you don't have any other definition of finished to appeal to. As an extension of this, if you actually are fine with that, the claim that M&B isn't finished cannot be made in tandem to this position. You must give up one of the two claims, but that would leave you handicapped since I've demonstrated that simply having one of those is inadequate to notions of what finished means and will cause great potential unfairness to both parties.
The claim that warband content should be included in M&B because it is the same game is wholly relevant to that example. Bugfixes and new content both contribute to a finished game insomuch as it is an update or makes the game better or more complete. The whole piece diatribe in the spoilers uses the tangible world's use of the word finish. This definition traditionally rests well within the discretion of the producer and seller. However, the main twist in the above piece is the issue of what happens when a customer buys something within the same constraints of a person that bought M&B in its beta form. I think the above analogy shows that there are certain risks involved with this style of purchase. One might be able to acquire the product through a discount and may even get to use these early incarnations, but without stipulating just what the end product should look like, doesn't leave much room to complain that the finished product should be this way or that way, much less that the finished product should be the most up to date in design and development. One can complain about the dysfunctional nature of part or the whole of the product and even be justified in demanding that the producer fix it as no cost to the buyer, but these factors fall within the realm of basic functionality of the product, and not something that should be put in the product due to it making the product complete.
You're still trying to rationalize your way around the fact that WB is a further development of M&B. This ambiguity goes both ways, without a clear design document or other stipulation of what the finished product is going to be like, the developer has no basis to claim that the half-finished product is in fact complete either. In such a case there's no other way to resolve the issue than to examine the half-finished and finished products and see whether the latter is actually a continued development of the former (ergo the former is not finished but merely a work in progress). Which in this case it is.
[/quote]
I think you made a very big mistake in how you applied the term rationalization here. If your using the definition of rationalization in a dismissive stance, all you've shown here is that you're just burying your head when counter arguments are made in opposition of your positions. I don't think I've made any unreasonable or leaps of logic, in contrast to your short responses, I have sincerely tried to explain to you why one step leads to another, and why certain premises when taken together give you a conclusion. In response to this, I could also make this claim about you too, and seeing that I'm the one actually thinking about this in depth I think I'm the one who would be more justified in this context.
In any case, your counter argument here falls right into the two arguments that one cannot simply appeal to the future instances of development to see if a game is finished because this would also sanction the release of unfinished games that are more or less dysfunctional, and the second argument that appealing to all future instances of a game to see if it was finished would imply that you're operating under the principle that until the human race becomes extinct, you would really not know if the product you've bought is a finished product.
If you can claim that this M&B game is unfinished for example, I can also claim that my copy of Winter Assault isn't finished because I can see other expansions coming out. The argument that it is bought as is doesn't really counter my argument at all. When I ask the Relic if my copy of the game is complete they would most certainly say yes, if I ask you if my copy of Winter Assault of complete I think you would also feel compelled to give the same answer. But if that criterion of what is supposedly finished is used, I have clearly bought an unfinished copy of the game. This is the issue. Saying that I bought the game as is, is merely just saying that, yes I bought an unfinished game, though I cannot complain about it due to the transaction agreement. It is that I've bought an unfinished game that is so counter intuitive. Can I even own anything that is finished with this definition? All the version of the objects I own will almost undoubtedly be improved in the future.
The second reason why this fails is... well, here:
It seems to be the only plausible way of satisfying the clause as you interpret it though. "That the person who purchased the game will continually get updates for free until the game is finished" more or less. The only point where updates can stop when the game is finished is when the developer can no longer make the game any better. That is to say, the game, insofar as it is held within it's own settings and mechanics, is perfect. There is obviously a great deal of divide between what is finished and what is perfect, speaking normally, but given the way in which Warband has been argued as being nothing but the original M&B but better seems to imply that a game can never quite be finished so long as the developers can add stuff to it. Put these all together and you do get the claim that perfection is demanded through this interpretation of the terms.
Author
Topic: Mount and Blade (Read 656822 times)