The Silent Hill Preservation Project

Hey there, I am working alongside Silent Hill Community and Letter From Silent Heaven in effort to documenting and preserving the history of the series' development, especially Silent Hill 2. I have contributed my prototype version already to the project in the hopes of educating and entertaining fans of the series. http://www.igotaletter.com/rarities/version10/

Right now we are working together to find pre-release content of silent hill in the form of proto / press discs, asset discs, or images and video footage.

We would be willing to offer a considerable amount of money to collectors for pre-release content as well as video footage, information, or doccumentation. Thanks.

 

another Curator? :clap:

 

I dont understand ???

We only have one proto version so far and have fully documented it for others to enjoy.

I am simply asking for people to help submit photos, videos, and information reguarding pre-release content of silent Hill 2 or perhaps sell their prototype discs if money is the only way. I really want to share whatever information we gather with the community. I am a huge fan of the series and want to educate other fans about the history of the game's development and some of the changes the game underwent before release.

We are a reputable site and a community of fans who simply want to preserve the history of the game.

I know other sites have claimed that they wish to share information when they really only want to obtain prototypes for themselves but this is not the case here. I am a well respected member at Nitnendoage and several other forums and am doing this with no intentions of any personal gain.


Also note that no ISOs will be released for legal reasons but will be backed up to preserve data. We have konami employees that visit our site so we will not release any files that are given to us. If you were to send us an ISO for documentation we would merely back it up and take video footage and post it on the site.

I am only one of many individuals who are part of this project. Our website and mission statement will be online shortly.

 

No isos released, you just play and keep backups for "the project"? Good luck, that's a tough sell.

 

We can't release the ISOs because it is illegal and there is a huge risk of konami shutting down the site. I think that is reason enough. Perhaps we could release them privately upon request but it is very risky.

Also I do not even have the means to play these disks myself, I submitted my proto version to the project so that it could be backed up and documented.

Dont even get me started talking about people hoarding prototypes for themselves. I am pretty sure half of this site is guilty of that but you can certainly convice me that I am wrong.

If you guys know a safe legal way to release the ISOs I would be open to suggestion.

 

The negative comments seem to be based on the thought that you/the project are asking to receive protos for free (like the Curator of the PS Museum, which was mentioned in the second post), to archive and document for "the greater good" or whatever, but not to share them.

But you offered to pay money for the protos, so I don't see how this is different to any Want-To-Buy request posted on this site daily, other than that you're asking for just videos or other info as well. Wrong forum! Sell 0.10!

 

Well I dont think it should fall under the standard WTB forum because we are purchasing these with the intent to preserve and document them. And no we do NOT want people donating to us like the PS museum that is not what I meant in the post. We will compensate for any Information, Images, Video footage, or discs given.

So basically:

1. We do not want the original discs unless necessary, just the files, images, or videos.
2. You will be compensated for anything you submit to the project
3. Everything is backed up, documented, and preserved on the website for others to view
4. We will only release ISOS if we can find some legal way and only at the request of the donors.

 

Purchasing protos and showing videos and screens on websites is hardly new.

Such a legal way doesn't exist, unless Konami says OK (they won't). I don't see a big problem in releasing short preview demos anyway.

 

I personally dont have a problem with it, but I dont want LFSH to get shut down if someone else does have a problem with it.

I guess one option would be to release ISOs anonymously on a different site.

 

Hi there,

My name's John and I run the SH2 site Letter From Silent Heaven (igotaletter.com). I thought it best to properly introduce myself here and help explain my end-game in terms of this project.

I'm not a prototype collector and as I go on you'll find this more and more evident. So my apologies ahead of time if I'm missing some basic knowledge of proto-collecting. Along with TwistedSynergy, I'm also a big fan of Silent Hill 2. I enjoyed the game enough to make the site I mentioned above and over the years have been beyond-fortunate to have fans of the game (and site!) submit information/images/videos and more about the game. What started off as a personal obsession soon flourished into something greater thanks to other fans' help. One of those fans was Twisted here who allowed me to document what was on the prototype he has.

His trust and generosity made an exciting--and important--addition to the history and preservation of Silent Hill 2. Small or big changes, it's great to see changes in the game before its final release as it helps let us know the original intentions the developers were going for. As proto enthusiasts, you obviously already know this!

Anyway, this is when Twisted and I got to talking about how great it would be if others would like to share media/data about their discs. After much talk we decided to tackle this project as you see now. Again, I'm not a proto-collector so I don't know the proper way to approach this.

What I've learned is there are collectors who aim to sell and others who aim to document and preserve. Those who aim to sell most likely won't share the data on the disc as it would depreciate its value. More so, those who aim to sell, from what I've brushed up on, are asking for prices that someone like me sadly can't afford.

For those who would only sell and not release the data we discussed asking for donations to pay for it and such but then who would receive the actual disc? It's something I'm not worried about but surely others who donate may care. Also, how could we gather donations without generating attention from Konami? That wouldn't be good!

Putting aside the collectors who want to sell only, we thought we would approach any and everyone with open arms in hopes that anybody with any SH2 PS2 prototype would like to share images/video/data from the disc to be added to LFSH for the sheer fact of letting thousands of others fans get a deeper perspective of the game.

This is all very confusing to me, seeing as I'm not a collector. The world of proto collecting and selling is something very foreign to me. If others would like to explain the issues with what I stated above please do so. The better I understand all of this the better we can hopefully help share new information about SH2 to the world.

If you stuck with me this long, thanks. It's hard to trust people, especially a new guy such as myself, on the Internet but know I'm not looking to hoard a disc and never reveal what's on it. If I could safely release an ISO without any fear or legal issues I'd do so in a heartbeat so long as it guaranteed that I can share its data, in form of an article with images/videos, on the site for others to enjoy. I have no cruel, misleading or manipulative intentions here. We've tapped out all pre-release media from all major gaming sites (as can be seen in the "Rarities" section of the site) and all that's really left to explore is prototypes, press kits and such.

I hope this clears up some things. We're just looking for media and data to share. We mentioned sending ISO's only for those who have discs but have no means of playing/capturing media from them. Thankfully I have means to play burnt discs and record footage of them for the site. If a donor does not want the ISO shared elsewhere then we wouldn't. If there's a way to share the ISO and the donor allows us and there's practically no concern of legal recourse then I'm all for it.

Ah, I'm starting to repeat myself now. Hopefully this helps some.

Thanks for your time.

Oh, and hello Anders.

 

I suppose we could find a way to do that. From experience has there ever been problems with any community ISO releases? How likely is it for a company to really take action against this sort of thing?

 

Not really. Silent Hill as a franchise is far from dead, however Silent Hill 2 isn't even readily available in any format it was originally released on. My recommendation would be to do what ASSEMbler suggested and release it as a third party. Movie studios do this so well you can't get anyone to actually agree if they did release a clip or a whole movie online as the higher ups have their heads so far in their bank accounts they're more interested in suing for more money.

The Harry Potter movie that just came out has a DVD quality 36 minute release on the internet. Probably was a rip from a DVD screener but rumor has it that someone involved in it's production released it to whet appetites and drive people into theaters. I wouldn't be surprised; regardless everyone questioned has denied any involvement in this.

Judging from the prototype you have on the website, you don't have a complete game. More or less something that looks like it was sent to magazines for them to write up a preview on. Ultimately I don't think Konami is going to drop a massive lawsuit on anyone for this one.

EDIT: Took a look at the site a bit more, never knew about the San Bruno connection. But speaking of getting sued that is likely why Neely street got changed. Great inspiration to clone an area but it is a GREAT way to get sued to duplicate a place a little too accurately. Lack of memory be damned, money speaks louder.

 

I'm quite lost. They just want some pre-release SH versions so they can find differences and comment them on their site. I think this should have been something like "we do not share prototypes, we sell them" or "sure, I'll contact you and send you an ISO of the prototype I have so you can comment it on your site". That's all.

Or maybe it's just I love SH saga and I would be glad to see the work of these guys extended with new versions of SH.

 

You wouldn't be 'shut down' You'd receive a cease and deceast letter in which case you pull it from the website.

 

Did you already obtained the Silent Hill E3 Prototypes released by drx? You can get them here. Dunno whether the torrents are still working.

 

Thank you for the suggestion. Letter From Silent Heaven already has an article/coverage for the E3 trial and another pre-release version called "Version .10." We're hoping to share other articles of other pre-release discs.

You pretty much nailed the overall intent here. We're looking for people who have proto discs of SH2 to share whatever they can for Letter From Silent Heaven. There's no catch. We welcome images and/or videos of any pre-release differences. If a person doesn't have the means to play/record footage and doesn't mind sending a copy of the ISO then we can document everything for any site articles.

We know those who are wanting to sell proto discs won't share any media/data on them because it would depreciate its value. We're appeasing to people who own protos and have no intent on ever selling them to share what's on the disc for others to enjoy. And in this case, it's in the form of articles. We understand there are proto collectors that will never share what's on their discs. That's a crying shame but what can you do? Again, we're reaching out to those who want other fans to see what's on the disc but through an article with images/videos.

A simple site explaining this fully and such will be up whenever I have enough time. I'm working on a project at my job which is taken up a lot of my time plus the holidays coming around...