Grimrock

dogtown1 wrote:not sure if this is the right thread for this question, but how easy is it to access certain textures and meshes for the game

say someone wanted to have mossy green dungeon walls, or skeletons that use a new weapon mesh, will this be possible?

"The primary rule is that you cannot distribute any
assets we have created. This includes, but is not limited
to, software, code, Lua files, graphics, writing and
audio. This also includes any modified versions of
anything we have made."

So retextures are out. I think it's kinda dumb, really, but rules are rules.

FloorBelow wrote: "The primary rule is that you cannot distribute any
assets we have created. This includes, but is not limited
to, software, code, Lua files, graphics, writing and
audio. This also includes any modified versions of
anything we have made."

So retextures are out. I think it's kinda dumb, really, but rules are rules.

I don't want to start a legal debate, but the above quote would mean, that you are only allowed to create new dungeons, when all the entites/objects/textures/meshes are self-made, too. Not using their wallsets for example. Or am I wrong?

Leto wrote:

FloorBelow wrote: "The primary rule is that you cannot distribute any
assets we have created. This includes, but is not limited
to, software, code, Lua files, graphics, writing and
audio. This also includes any modified versions of
anything we have made."

So retextures are out. I think it's kinda dumb, really, but rules are rules.

I don't want to start a legal debate, but the above quote would mean, that you are only allowed to create new dungeons, when all the entites/objects/textures/meshes are self-made, too. Not using their wallsets for example. Or am I wrong?

Well you are not sharing the assets, the wallsets etc stay on your own computer.

Daniel.

Darklord wrote: Well you are not sharing the assets, the wallsets etc stay on your own computer.

Daniel.

Well yes, you are right of course. Thanks

I'm hopefull they may allow retextures and such at some point, it's very popular in games such as Skyrim. We'll have to wait and see.

Daniel.

I really think they should change their mind. I don't know when they were writing down those rules, maybe before they thought about doing an editor? I don't know many games with such restrictions. They must change this to vitalize the modding community.

Leto wrote:

FloorBelow wrote: "The primary rule is that you cannot distribute any
assets we have created. This includes, but is not limited
to, software, code, Lua files, graphics, writing and
audio. This also includes any modified versions of
anything we have made."

So retextures are out. I think it's kinda dumb, really, but rules are rules.

I don't want to start a legal debate, but the above quote would mean, that you are only allowed to create new dungeons, when all the entites/objects/textures/meshes are self-made, too. Not using their wallsets for example. Or am I wrong?

Sure you can create and distribute new dungeons. Your dungeon only refers to assets that are shipped with the game (they are contained in grimrock.dat), so you would not be distributing the assets themselves with the dungeon. Also you're allowed to distribute assets that you have created yourself.

So in short, you are only allowed to include your own custom data that you created from scratch in your dungeon/mod. However, the dungeon can refer to data already shipped with the game.

For example, you can use snails in your dungeon. You can't include the snail graphics/sounds with your dungeon/mod, but you don't need to, as you can point to the snail shipped with the game.

The problem is when you want to use modified data. Say you want to use a snail with a red cone, instead of a green cone. You wouldn't be able to include that in your mod, as it's based on the original snail, and therefor property of AH.

The only way it would be allowed would be through a patcher. For images, this seems far-fetched. For LUA files, this might be more accessible (it's already done for the console.lua file). However, that would require the user to run a patcher before being able to play your dungeon/mod.

Hopefully, AH will make it so that that's not required, for example, by supporting item/spell/monster/etc LUA files in the custom dungeons/mods which values override the values in the original LUA files.

Again, I really hope AH changes this rule. In todays games, it is required to build upon the original content and modify it, because the amount of work that must go into new-content-from-scratch is massive. In older games, this was OK, aber today you have to build your own mesh, diffuse map, specular map, bump map, animations, AI code, sounds etc... I'm sure this will restrict the modding community a lot.

Let's say someone wants to build a dungeon as a sequel and (don't know if it's possible) assumes that the party/characters from the single player get imported, being at level ~ 14. Maybe he wants the same enemies, but with better stats to provide a challenge to the player. This is just not possible. Maybe he wants to build a boss-snail ... The huge amount of work required when it is not allowed to change and ship original content will kill very, very many mods.

I think you're missing the point.

A Boss Snail that would have the same graphics as a regular snail, just with stronger stats, wouldn't require the inclusion of all graphics data all over again. You'd have to enter data for a new monster, that uses the Snail model, but with different stats.

Likewise, new monsters could be set to use the same AI as existing monsters.

Now, if you'd like the snail boss to, say, have a crown on his head, then it's an entirely different matter. That's practically impossible under the rules that AH has currently set out.