When I was younger, I used to play a game called Stars!, and I loved it but I've lost it and haven't been able to find it anywhere. It occured to me today that maybe one of you guys might know where I can get my hands on it. It was originally distributed by Empire Interactive. I have been able to find demo's and patches, but not a clue about the full game. If anyone could point in the direction of acquiring a copy again, that would be awesome.

It doesn't appear to be abandonware. It would probably say so .

Following some of the links from the underdogs, it seems Empire is planning to release it again in the first half of 2006.

*checks date*

Ah...

Yeah, i've heard of Sword of Stars, Azhdeen. I'd heard that once you've upgraded your ships to a certain level, there's pretty much nothing else to do in the game.

The graphics are supposed to be good as well, but the interfaces are poorly designed - as you said.

It's a shame really, coz it sounded like a good game.

...

Guys, Jig said to avoid talking about stuff like abandonware, cracks, and whatever, because A) it's against the forum rules, and B) coz such talk can attract attention from the sort of people who might decide to shut down the site or even the whole BOTF2 project. So do as he says, ok?

Nope, if a company drops the rights to a certain title, then it becomes freeware, meaning it becomes legal to distribute the software for free.

Warez is just a term for games of a certain age. As many of these games are still being sold, software companies will definitely try to sue warez-sites whenever they get the chance. This is really stealing from software companies, so definitely illegal.

Abandonware is something in between. The term is used for (usually older) software that is no longer being distributed, but where someone still owns the rights. Abandonware sites argue that, if games are no longer for sale, they should be made available for free. The purpose is to preserve the games and to give people a chance to discover classics that are no longer being sold. Though you can discuss if abandonware is morally right, as far as the law is concerned, abandonware is illegal. But as the companies involved are no longer making any profit out of these titles, they usually don't bother to sue the abandonware sites.

So anyone can have an opinion on abandonware, but as it's illegal, I think it's safest if we don't link to any abandonware sites here. I seriously doubt it would ever get us into trouble, but you never know, we might as well avoid the risk.