Dear Microprose,
As the authors of the Darklands FAQ, we are contacting you to present an idea we have toyed with in the past while. I'll get right to the point. It is that the game we so dearly love should be released into public domain, in the same way that Betrayal at Krondor (Sierra) was. The advantages to this are many.
1. You can release the latest version.
2. Everyone can get it and stop hounding you (and us...yes, we get our fair share of requests...shall I send you my archives? ;-)) for copies of the game or free distribution of the material.
3. This can be done at no real costs to you, as you are no longer anticipating sales of the game and can only benefit from having to deal with fewer questions in this respect.
4. It can be distributed both by game magazine CDs and/or on the web by downloads. If you include the game protection (or remove it from the game), you will never be troubled by this again, I suspect.
5. It will resolve the problem (which we have been encountering lately) of damaged disks. We feel these are your responsibility as the producer of the games. It is your right to stop supporting the game, but it hardly enhances your reputation with the community you depend on for future sales.
We, the authors of the FAQ, therefore respectfully request that you release the game DARKLANDS, preferably in a form that does not require the use of copy protection, as a public domain game, at the first available opportunity. Our DARKLANDS FAQ home site (http://conk.com/world/darklands) is available to publicize this release.
Please note that we are NOT asking you to release the code. We expect you will wish to retain the rights to that portion of the game.
Thank you for you attention.
C. Michel Boucher
Fred Farzanegan
Dennis Ahr
Alexander von Lünen
Marilyn E. Burford