Here's the deal.
I personally called Contraband's offices about a month ago. I spoke to the company's president/owner himself, Bill "Burger" Heineman.
Mr. Heineman was a very nice guy to speak with. I explained that with the release of EV: Nova for Windows, its opening a new opportunity for Windows users to play a classic, extremly popular Macintosh game. Also, with the expansibility of Nova through plugins, the possibilities for Windows game development using the Nova engine was huge, just like it has been for years with Mac EV. I went on to talk about how many people in the game community were looking forward to getting the .rez file format so we could begin making editors to write plugins on Windows machines ourselves.
Mr. Heineman said that at the time, they had no centralized plugin format information at the time, it was still spread out in the EV: Nova source files. He added it would take him about a week to get the information together, then would email it to me. He said that releasing the information would not be a problem. Upon his request, I also sent an email to him at burger@contrabandent.com.
A week and a half went by. No email from Contraband. I waited a few more days, then called again. Mr. Heineman said he had emailed it to me just a few days after I had called. On the premise that he may have not received my email or had written it down incorrectly, I again emailed him again per his request.
2 more weeks went by, again I did not receive a response from Contraband. A few days ago I emailed them again and have not received a response. I don't really expect to.
At this point, I am a few others are trying to write editors based on Mehrune's .rez format that he ingeniously figured out himself. While this has been extremely helpful so far, there are minor things that his format is not completely clear about. That's why we need to get the offical format from Contraband directly.
I am making the appeal that over the next few days, as many people as possible do the following 2 things:
- Email Mr. Heineman at burger@contrabandent.com asking for him to release the file format.
- Call Contraband at (714)689-2500 and ask them to send the file format out.
It is my hope that if we get enough people talking to them via phone and email, it may prompt some action that up to now has failed to appear. To my knowledge, also as I stated previously, there has been no mention that Ambrosia itself does not want this information released. When I've talked to Mr. Heineman himself, he said there would be no problem.
As of the time of me posting this, its about 8:00am California time. This means we have a good day to hopefully get some action done.
I think that people calling will get more of a response than just emails. For some, emailing is easier, though. Do both, if you can.
When you call their offices, please do not be harassing and rude. Simply ask for Bill or Burger(same guy). When they ask who you are, tell them your name and you are someone who wants to write plugins for the Windows Escape Velocity Nova game they recently released and the community needs to get the format to the .rez files. Say that you are calling to request they release the .rez file format used for EV: Nova plugins.
For simplicity's sake, it will probably be best to give them your own email address to send the information to, if that's the route they decide to take, or ask them to post the information in this forum. If you are the one to get the information, please post it here in this forum in this link for all of us to access and share.
With the number of Windows folks alone who have emailed me about beta testing my client, we should be able to get a minimum of 20 people who should do this. Throw in anyone else willing to help, and we should hopefully have enough people to get this done.
To recap:
- PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT BE RUDE TO THESE PEOPLE. WHEN YOU ARE TALKING TO THEM, YOU NEED TO TREAT THEM WITH RESPECT AND PATIENCE. HONEY, NOT VINEGAR!
Whether it be email or by telephone, simply identify yourself by real name or handle, and tell them you are a developer who needs this information to write plugins for the Nova game. - Contact Info:
Email: burger@contrabandent.com
Phone: (714)689-2500
We're doing this for each other. Good luck, and thank to all who help.
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Dawn of Infinity(formerly OpenEV): the open-source multi-player EV (url="http://"http://openevgalaxy.sourceforge.net")http://openevgalaxy.sourceforge.net(/url)
measures.