91 réponses à ce sujet

[MokahTGS]

JasonNH wrote...

I was ninja'd by MokahTGS as I came here to post some similar, those less vigilante-like sentiments. 

Well I'm always up for some good ole vigilanty justice...car's runnin' with a couple rolls of duct tape, extra car battery and several bottles of liquid courage...you just say the word and it's party time...

[Sunjammer]

ladydesire wrote...

http://social.biowar...8/index/3276201 I believe this is the thread that JasonNH was refering to.

Also:

• http://social.biowar...8/index/3156409
• http://social.biowar...8/index/3070662

[BigfootNZ]

EDIT:- oh I thinkthis sums up my view

Im in no way at all saying people MUST stick what they make for NWN1/2 on the
Vault, im just of the view that if after posting any custom content someone creates onto the
Vault and then in the content description they say 'You cant do this that or the other with this'  it just
seems bizarre given the place they are uploading it to.

Any other situation like requested content is fine
with restrictions since the artist more or less is working for someone else and as
mentioned a few times by others, its up to the requester to choose to
release or not (although we have to remeber that when their module gets released, to the vault more than likely, all that
content will become avilable by defualt anyway, I guess its a way of
keeping the custom content in their hands initially so its released with their
module and showcased in it rather than earlier by someone else who beats them to the punch... That I
can understand entirely) and that I have no issue with.

A long time ago in a NWN1 toolset far, far away I recall a big mess that happened with a couple of modules. (Don’t recall the names right now). An individual took a mod makers module and made a few area changes, corrected some spelling and grammar and uploaded the module as a corrected version. There was no end to the crying and complaining by the mod author and his fans. It was deemed wrong to take a mod makers work and re upload it.

Now, while ive made my stance clear, that 'event' Hellfire, I can deffinatly say was bad form. Doing that IS wrong in my mind, and agree that is a good example of the very bad an open community can create.

The thing is thats a module, which to me is the most sacrosant of any other CC. Blueprints to me are the least control worthy of all CC... anyone can slap one together, and they arent in anyway special, ie theres no talent behind them (those and prefab characters).

You then have Scripts, anyone with coding ability can do them, some are good, some poor, and some are amazing but again with time a good script can be tweaked into an excellent script and even a poor script as long as its bug free is fine and does what it advertises. How often has any of us been stumped on how to do something and incorporated some aspect of someone elses code into their own? (Ive done it, but id never incorporate anyones entire code as is, and any part I did use id rewrite into my own personal prefrences).

Now we have area prefabs, they take alot more work than blueprints, they often have custom scripts and blueprints. I could see someone being very justified in complaining if someone basicly took one, changed the  tileset or textures and then called it their own. The thing with them though is, they need to be given to the community to be worth anything, sicne for the most part they are created as a stand alone release and a single area on its own isnt really all that usefull to anyone but someone that wants it incorporated into their project. So really they are the least controled naturally.

Now the two that can cause concern.

Models... my own personal area. Whats a model?, a mesh crafted from a concept, UV mapped, textured, animated. Someone takes it and retextures it, fine and dandy, but theres still two 3rds of the original authors work remaining... to not at least give a shout out for the original author is bad form, the thing is while its bad theres still enough of the original model that anyone who knew of the original authors release (and most would given that it would have been released and seen by the community at large for a while before altered variants start poping up) would know who the original creator of that work was and would hopefully bring this up with the variants maker if they didnt mention it.

Now if someone takes your model and reworks the mesh significantly, and the texture id say let it slide in most cases, in changing the mesh they'll also had to work on UV's somewhat so more or less they've done more than just given it a new coat of paint, theyve done enough leg work using the original as a base that while they should give you credit for making it easy for them, they've at least put a good ammount of effort in.

And like area prefabs, a model is useless without a module to run it in, it needs to be given to the community to have any real purpose. While custom models for a PW could be quite a draw card for players to that PW, is it really doing your work or your artists justice in having it appreciated by such a small number of people?.. most artists get a warm glow when as many people as possible get to see or use their work even with the risks, even if the players of the PW are ignorant of the materials source (heh, when the first CEP was released the PW I used to play on, I had fun seeing people use my shields and occasionally made mention of who made them, most gave it no notice... but that cant be helped ).

Another thing I jsut thought of with models is, how many times has anyone gone and looked at a new model released on the Vault and noticed its from X,Y or Z PW and thought... "hmm I think ill go have a look at that PW and see how they used it" , i know I have. Its a good attractant for new players in its own right really, since some people like myself tend to ignore news articles about new and old PW's , but always visit the ones about new models... you dont have to release ALL your custom models either.

Modules, now this is where I'll agree the Author has full control and rights over any content inside that isnt someone elses to begin with, They have done pretty most all of it and put in hours, weeks, months and in some cases years of sweat. Although again without giving it away to the community its a lump of pointless data on HD somewhere.

The thing is though realisticly, how many people actually have the gall to tweak another persons module and call it their own... it takes a low kinda person to do so, and i think such a person when found would be quickly ostrazisized by the community naturally for their actions, unless people werent aware of the wrong doing.

Its good to see this hasnt ended up like the heated one from the Old Board.
 
Heh and heres a question, how many of you PW runners use the CODI Osyluth, CODI Robes pack, CODI creature pack or even my Savage shields/Grue/Iuon Stones? (that includes them packaged in the CEP)... all of those for the most part have downloads over 1000+ so they are in wide use. Imagine if CODI, or I had desided to keep all that lot for ourselves rather than release it to everyone?... released content helps and benefits everyone, including those that release it.

Also, dont forget that in NWN1, scripts, blueprints and area prefabs, which to me really make the PW what it is are all retained server side, so they ARE in affect fully controlable (and any custom 2da's cant work without em, so just dont release your scripts with your PW custom 2da's). NWN2 though throws a spanner in the works with this. Models hak paks by their nature being required as an actually download to use in a PW will mean someday they will get released by a user... although again most are good people and respect peoples rights if asked to do so.

The one thing i cant quite understand about control is, if you make material that is to be controled, in a module that is to be played by others, which naturally means others will have to download it to use it in that capacity. Eventually someone will post that material, unless the material is made for a module being used by a small group of players for a Lan game or private server. In which case its easily policed since everyone knows everyone else. I can understand if an artist is requested to make something for this type of setup and is told not to release it to the general community since that is part of the makeup of the request, a verbal contract etc... and you must uphold such agreements. Its the open public modules that attempt this control of their content, or the artists that pop up a hak pak of models and then go on to say 'I dont give permission for anyone to modify my work' I dont get (especially when such people are just making retextured OC creations, i guess its like the old copyright symbol being slathered all over a new artists images since they think it'll make it some what more professional) .

Pardon the mildly incoherant post ... not sure where i as coming from apart from my initial first paragraph agreeing with Hellfires example

Modifié par BigfootNZ, 06 août 2010 - 12:40 .

[kamalpoe]

BigfootNZ wrote...
Now we have area prefabs, they take alot more work than blueprints, they often have custom scripts and blueprints. I could see someone being very justified in complaining if someone basicly took one, changed the  tileset or textures and then called it their own.

Unfortunately, the Vault does not seem to care if you repackage others prefab work as your own, even if you make no changes. Earlier this year I identified multiple prefabs from one author that took another authors prefab work (not mine) as their own, without attribution or credit. These were not changed tiles or textures either, no changes at all were made. After some discussion with community members on the IRC channel on what would be appropriate action, I emailed the Vault admins on this, complete with comparison screenshots of multiple areas, but no action was taken and I did not receive a response from the Vault admins. I believe another person from IRC also emailed.


Personally I think extensive scripts and model creation take more time than prefabs, but maybe that's because I stink at scripts and could not model if Baron and Hellfire hit me over the head with the model stick. :innocent:

I'm guessing DNO will read this as a mod and wonder what areas/authors. I do have that info still. I refuse to use the infringing author's works, despite their original (And that unfortunately must mean I did not recognize it from elsewhere) work being of good quality.

[dunniteowl]

What I am more curious about kamalpoe, is why didn't the Vault admins do something? So, go ahead and PM me, and we'll discuss that offline. I'd like to know more about that. Maybe I can do a little arm twisting. As you might be aware, I have no troulbe with verbally browbeating folks into submission. Credit where credit is due is important to me. And that's where I stand on this. Sharing is sharing. Vault submissions are a de facto agreement to share. That in no way relieves anyone of the human obligation of common courtesy and respect.



As an real life example of that, I once was at a bar in San Francisco with a buddy. I am about 5'6" and not heavily built. This humongous guy cut in front of me while I was waiting to get a drink at the bar. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hey man, you just cut in front of me. I'm in line." He turned away without saying anything. So right away, I think, "Great. A jerk." I tap him on the shoulder again and tell him to please get to the back of the line. He reaches for me with this huge ham sized hand. The guy was built like John Matuszak. Just before his hand got hold of my shirt, another arm came from behind me and grabbed his wrist.

Another really big guy, who was just behind me did this and said, "You heard the man, Get to the back of the line." He got.



Sometimes folks need more than a gentle reminder to be civil. So let me know what's what with that and while I can't promise success, I can promise to do my best to sort it out with the Vault folks acting in my Capacity as Community Representative, Moderator and whatever else I can toss into the pot of Semi-Official Authority. (You guessed rightly kamalpoe and hopefully it wasn't too much a leap of faith to believe that I wouild.)



dunniteowl

[AndarianTD]

This is a discussion that I really don't want to get back into again (though for the record, I agree with Hellfire's post). But the following is probably relevant re: Vault policy on this matter.

Custom Content Authorship Guidelines

Modifié par AndarianTD, 06 août 2010 - 04:47 .

[The Curt Jester]

As someone who has spent a good deal of time learning modeling (and produced nothing thus far) I can already see how much time and effort it takes to make anything, let along something decent. I can't count the hours I've spent making a few simple helmet models and working on textures I end up pitching. Granted, I'm no expert and someone who is good can probably do things five times as fast, if not more, it still gives me an idea of the real workload these CC people take on -- for free. And I don't even do the unwrapping for my stuff because I can't figure out how to work the program (or it just doesn't have the function - haven't figured out which!).

So, yes, credit should be given where credit is due.  If you use it on your site, give credit.  If you repackage it, ask the person's permission first.   If any of those angry emails are like one message SoD got because the server wouldn't cater to someone's demands, I can entirely see why it would encourage a person to quit.   However, I think that the majority of people who use the content are grateful for the work others have done - it's just that the few who don't appreciate it (but demand it!) are the ones that shout the loudest. 

So, for what it's worth, a big thank you to anyone who's made custom content for NWN2, especially RWS who have give us SOOO many good tilesets! Oh, and RWS gets full credit on our hak list. In fact, I believe we have every single hak listed in our credits with the authors (when we could find names).

NOTE: If emails can be such a problem, I have a suggestion that would alleviate that somewhat.   Simply make your email inaccessible to the public.  If people want to make requests from you, make them do it on the RWS forums.  In general, people are less hesitant to be rude like that when they know everyone else can see them acting that way.  It's not a surefire way of preventing the flames and demands, but I'm betting that it would help a lot.   

Modifié par The Curt Jester, 06 août 2010 - 05:02 .

[The Puppeteer]

Hmm.  I suppose I may as well post my views on this topic in two parts.

First of all, I believe the following should be the case out of principle:

• Authors should always get full credit for their work.  Others should not attempt to claim it as their own.
• Author's have the exclusive right to distribute or not distribute their own work as they please.
• Author's have the right to post restrictions on how their publicly-distributed work may be used if it is created outside of the toolset (modeling, textures, etc.).
• Anything created inside of the toolset is the property of Atari and once distributed publicly, is free to be used by anyone in any manner excluding that which violates Atari's end-user permissions (blueprints, areas, etc.)

Now I will post my personal manner of approaching the issue.  Though I fully admit the right of an author to withhold content at will, in most cases(note that I said "most"), I don't see the need to do so.  Those who like to steal other's work can usually grab them from haks so it's not as if such content can be effectively safeguarded.  I don't see any practical way for an author to prevent theft of their due credit once such creations are put in a publicly-distributed module or PW.  I will always ask permission from the author before extracting content out of haks unless said haks are purposefully distributed for public use but not everyone will do so.

Since theft cannot be prevented once something is distributed, I see no reason to adopt overly-protective measures that will merely prevent the largly-honest NWN2 development community from having access to beneficial content.  So I'm of the opinion that most content should be readily shared amongst developers.

Some may say that restricting custom content makes each PW unique.  My take on the matter is that it does little more than force every new project to break the exact same ground over and over again.  Before I started working with the Sea of Dragons team, I was on the staff of a different PW.  When I moved on and started assembling SoD, I spent quite a bit of time addressing the exact same issues, exploits and bugs that the other PW dealt with.  The end result is that the NWN2 community advances more slowly than it might if every admin was quicker to share.

Posting on the Vault isn't  the only venue for distributing content.  I find that simple making it known what projects are being worked on is enough.  If developers know what is out there, they can then communicate with each other and exchange resources as needed.  This is the sort of arrangement that Pain and I use.  Currently, Pain does most of the giving and I do most of the taking but the reason for that is quite simple.  I'm working on a fairly new PW and am therefore setting up the core systems.

As long as I'm bogged down doing the basic structure of the PW I can't spend my time creating content that is new to the NWN2 community.  I'd like to create a full-blown crafting/gathering system but that's not going to happen until the basic PW is set up and running.  Fortunately, I've had quite a bit of help from several accomplished developers (most notably Pain) who are helping me past this initial hurdle.  SoD is fast approaching the point where it will be ready for the "endgame" so to speak.  It's in the interests of everybody that developers reach this point of being able to make something entirely new.

I don't put most of my work on the Vault because frankly, most of what I created up to now is not really well coded and doesn't have much application outside of specific situations.  It's not very useful to end-users.  I've learned a lot though and in the future I hope my systems will be much more useful to the community.  If anyone wants something that I have created though, feel free to ask.

There is only one thing that I will never distribute.  I won't make the SoD module itself available to the public.  I will give portions of it away even to the point of distributing the entire thing piecemeal but not the assembled module.  If anyone wants to steal that, they'll have to spend weeks putting the individual parts together.  heh

[Shallina]

We should burn the guy who took the OC, correctected many things in it, made it better and uploaded it back on the vault....

If someone took my module,, corrected many things and uploadedd it back, I'd feel very honored. It would mean that I have done something worth of a really good interest.

Actually I can't wait to see poeple make addition to BGR

The truth is that author's have really little right about their creation with tools like NWN2 toolset , NWN or DAO toolset. They are completly open and the agremment in using those tools are just as follow :

Share it or keep it for yourself.

If you want to do something that you own at 100% you need to work with your own engine, or an engine where you have legal right to have content that belong to you in it. Not something like NWN, NWN2 or DAO where the user agremment is very clear and where it's clearly stated that you have almost no right with stuff created with those engine.

Modifié par Shallina, 06 août 2010 - 06:40 .

[Hellfire_RWS]

Shallina wrote...

We should burn the guy who took the OC, correctected many things in it, made it better and uploaded it back on the vault....

I edited the OC way back in the day, and removed the cinematic cutscenes, so it would be a bit more compatable for multiplayer.  I was made to remove it from the vault.   Go figure.

I am very glad the current one has been allowed to remain.

[ArtEChoke]

Shallina wrote...

Share it or keep it for yourself.

Shallina, you should check out my new watermark!

[The Fred]

Wow that's pretty awesome.

[dunniteowl]

I'm just glad that I got mentioned at all. That's great Art.



dno

[Shallina]

Denied and a lock !!! I 'll be a rogue ! With a hight pickpocket and force lock skill !

Modifié par Shallina, 06 août 2010 - 07:08 .

[Kaldor Silverwand]

The only points I want to make are:



I think the distinction made by some between creating models or textures and creating areas, blueprints, or scripts is arbitrary. It is a matter of time, creativity, and skill. If I spend a significant amount of time and skill and creativity on a blueprint or a script then it certainly qualifies for the same protections, if any, as a model or texture. The more investment I personally make then the more respectful I would expect people to be with the content I release.



So, the OC Makeover SoZ Edition (and the soon to be released hopefully MotB Makeover SoZ Edition) are examples of things that are primarily collections of scripts that alter the behavior of the OC and MotB in fairly significant ways. There has proven to be an enormous amount of testing that I have had to do, including replaying the OC and playing MotB all the way through, sometimes selecting a variety of options at different points. And so, with the amount of time I have put into it I think it fair that I do not want someone downloading it, replacing or removing a few of the scripts, and then reuploading it as a replacement of their own.



At some point if I abandon the platform then I think it might be reasonable for an interested party to ask permission to take it over, but as long as I am breathing, responding to questions, and have not given such permission then I think that people can choose to use it as it is provided or choose to not, but there really is no other respectful choice.



If people are disrespectful to the creators then the creators will stop creating. That is fact. And in that case we all lose.



Regards



Kaldor (who really needs to set up his signature line)

[Banshe]

Ughh...

First off, this thread wasn't meant to go the way it did. Mostly because I certainly didn't want to see a "credit" flare up occuring.

The thread title is apt and to the point, but I suppose that different people think of different things when they see the same sentence.

This is not about how people treat or view CC. It is about the CC getting lost. Which did and did not happen in this case. The CC is actually on the vault. It is the documentation that is missing. I cannot speak for Nytir but I can make an educated guess. I think if he was trying to maintain creative control of his work, he probably would have done the opposite: documentation on the vault and CC offsite. So I think it was an oversight.

So, if I may, let me re-address this issue and speak to the people who this will concern: If you make CC, please keep in mind that you may not stay in the NWN2 community forever. If you want the CC to leave with you, that is ok. But if you don't please post it to the vault so that it is in safer hands.

[Hellfire_RWS]

I think it would be a good idea to not only have items on teh vault, but other sharing sites as well, including teh owners own web server.



Places like

rapidshare

Filefront

Dropbox

etc



RWS content is onthe vault and my own private server which has been paid up for 24 months.

[Banshe]

Sure. The more places, the better. As someone pointed out early in this thread: the vault may not stand forever and even there, files get lost (not sure how that happens but they always seem to be looking for missing files).



And since the vault's eventual demise has been mentioned, it has been on my mind for a while. If it does happen, how on earth can so much content be saved from destruction?

[The Fred]

I would hope that something as large as the Vault wouldn't just disappear without warning, and the community would have time to take steps to preserve as much content as possible. You never can tell, though.

[MokahTGS]

So this might be a stupid suggestion, but this very site has file storage for project related files.  I will upload files here as well as the vault so that I have a broad net of intrest.  Even though this site doesn't have a NWN2 section, the NWN one will suffice in the short term, and who knows...they may even one day add that catagory...especially if the community is active.

[The Fred]

Yeah it's annoying that DA gets 10 sections and NWN gets one. If it wasn't called "NWN Modules" then I guess it could be rationalised to be a catch-all for the whole NWN series, but it is, so non-module projects don't make sense there. Also, there's no section for Mass Effect or BG, so they have to use the NWN one too, which is really annoying.

[kamalpoe]

The Fred wrote...

Yeah it's annoying that DA gets 10 sections and NWN gets one. If it wasn't called "NWN Modules" then I guess it could be rationalised to be a catch-all for the whole NWN series, but it is, so non-module projects don't make sense there. Also, there's no section for Mass Effect or BG, so they have to use the NWN one too, which is really annoying.

It's even worse. NWN modules is the catch all for non DA stuff. So all the ME mods go there as well.

/Persoonally I laugh that 4 of the top 10 DA mods, including #1, are nudie mods.

[ladydesire]

kamalpoe wrote...


/Persoonally I laugh that 4 of the top 10 DA mods, including #1, are nudie mods.

I'm not amused by three of those mods, since the person/team is "begging" for popularity to have gotten them all on the first page to begin with. Perhaps a concerted effort on our part could get rid of the trash. :happy:

[Hellfire_RWS]

ladydesire wrote...

kamalpoe wrote...


/Persoonally I laugh that 4 of the top 10 DA mods, including #1, are nudie mods.

I'm not amused by three of those mods, since the person/team is "begging" for popularity to have gotten them all on the first page to begin with. Perhaps a concerted effort on our part could get rid of the trash. :happy:

+1