Grimrock

Leto wrote:Come on guys, please stop those fancy creative ideas with game file patching, texture blending etc... trust me, this willg not work. And I don't mean technically.

What I mean is: It will work for a minor number of modders, but it will not support and vitalize a real modding community, which is a big deal for longevity in the game industry today. AH has to adopt their rules for the dungeon editor.

And by the way: if they don't change the rules, it isn't really "modding" (modification), it is patching or creating add-ins etc.

I'm gonna have to agree here... I understand why the devs want these kind of rules in place, of course, but the strictness of a few of these rules will not foster the development of a thriving mod community. If they relax their stance on edited assets and the distribution of such, then it will go a long way towards building a better mod community and as a result, increase exposure of their game -- which translates (as a logical conclusion) to more sales.

"Dude! You gotta try this game Legend of Grimlock... it's like an old-school dungeon crawler, and there's like fifty custom maps already, and all kinds of custom monsters and [expletive deleted]!"
"Okay... sounds good. Where do I get it? I might want to make some stuff for it, too... remember how crazy I went with Fallout 3?"


-Loth

lothario wrote:I understand why the devs want these kind of rules in place, of course, but the strictness of a few of these rules will not foster the development of a thriving mod community. If they relax their stance on edited assets and the distribution of such, then it will go a long way towards building a better mod community and as a result, increase exposure of their game -- which translates (as a logical conclusion) to more sales.

They have probably made enough sales that they can walk away from it. I don't see why they should relax their rules; they made those rules for a reason and I would expect they will stick to them. We should be glad they are offering us the mapper ~for free; and not have any gripes about having to jump through some hoops to get custom monster skins.

Isaac wrote:

lothario wrote:I understand why the devs want these kind of rules in place, of course, but the strictness of a few of these rules will not foster the development of a thriving mod community. If they relax their stance on edited assets and the distribution of such, then it will go a long way towards building a better mod community and as a result, increase exposure of their game -- which translates (as a logical conclusion) to more sales.

They have probably made enough sales that they can walk away from it. I don't see why they should relax their rules; they made those rules for a reason and I would expect they will stick to them. We should be glad they are offering us the mapper ~for free; and not have any gripes about having to jump through some hoops to get custom monster skins.

Well, if their intention is to just walk away from this, then yeah... keep the rules as they stand. I (and many others, I'm sure) am hoping that this is not the case. It would appear that all the work that the devs are putting into the map editor (which, as you pointed out, is free) is an indication that maybe they are trying to get more mileage out of this title. What I'm saying is that this mileage could be made more possible by less stringent distribution standards.

-Loth

lothario wrote: It would appear that all the work that the devs are putting into the map editor (which, as you pointed out, is free) is an indication that maybe they are trying to get more mileage out of this title. What I'm saying is that this mileage could be made more possible by less stringent distribution standards.

-Loth

It's a good chance that they will use the editor on one of their next projects. I will assume that they had their reasons for the rules they chose; and assume that the reasons are still a concern to them. By 'walk away', I don't mean from the Grimrock IP, I mean from Legend of Grimrock 1.

Isaac wrote:It's a good chance that they will use the editor on one of their next projects. I will assume that they had their reasons for the rules they chose; and assume that the reasons are still a concern to them. By 'walk away', I don't mean from the Grimrock IP, I mean from Legend of Grimrock 1.

I can tell you why they chose their rules as they are now: copyright enforcement. Like I said in my first post on this thread, I can completely understand that. If you don't enforce your own copyright, it ceases to exist. This is common sense that we both can agree on.

HOWEVER

It pays to play just a little bit nicer with your mod community... take Bethesda, for example. They allow edited assets to be posted on sites like the Nexus. Something as simple as a retext of a character skin is completely allowable under their modding guidelines -- but not under the guidelines of this great game. As I read it, a modder would have to create a texture or model from scratch, and also use a patching technique to get his 100% original content to show up in Grimlock. We are not allowed to touch anything from the vanilla game. Maybe I misunderstood something here, and I'm wrong about this... but if I'm getting it right, then this is not the best way to nurture a mod community. Companies like Bethesda and Taleworlds (the makers of Mount and Blade) are doing it the right way, and as a result, have very impressive mod communities -- something that continues to reward these companies to this very day. Heck, I remember when Taleworlds was one guy! I was playing Mount and Blade WAAAAYYY back when it was practically alpha -- and there were awesome mods for the vanilla game even then! If you knew any python, it was easy to make your own (which I did, but never released to the public).

My point here is that it would be worth it to the devs of Grimlock to lighten up just a little bit on the assets... you can still protect your copyright without requiring these kinds of measures to be followed. As it stands now, there are going to be some custom maps, a few new monsters (maybe), and probably not much else unless the really die-hard fans are very talented patchers. Things like custom character classes, races, game mechanics rebalancing, custom spells, etc. are not going to be doable (meaning "releasable to the public") without violating the devs' modding guidelines for Grimlock. Want to make the fireball spell do a little more or less damage? Sorry... can't touch the vanilla code.

-Loth

lothario wrote:... take Bethesda, for example. They allow edited assets to be posted on sites like the Nexus. Something as simple as a retext of a character skin is completely allowable under their modding guidelines -- but not under the guidelines of this great game. As I read it, a modder would have to create a texture or model from scratch, and also use a patching technique to get his 100% original content to show up in Grimlock. We are not allowed to touch anything from the vanilla game.

Bethesda is sue-happy if one is a big enough fish, and they have closed down modders that they thought were good enough to pose a risk. They also have rules to prohibit the use of their assets in their own games; though the common rule is just not to cross mod their games; ie. no Oblivion rats in Fallout 3. In general you are right about them allowing some leeway... but the way it works for them and many others is that they strictly forbid it, but willingly turn a blind eye ~usually.[/quote]

Isaac wrote:Bethesda is sue-happy if one is a big enough fish, and they have closed down modders that they thought were good enough to pose a risk. They also have rules to prohibit the use of their assets in their own games; though the common rule is just not to cross mod their games; ie. no Oblivion rats in Fallout 3. In general you are right about them allowing some leeway... but the way it works for them and many others is that they strictly forbid it, but willingly turn a blind eye ~usually.

Hmm... what I think Bethsoft does is claim ownership of mods based off of their assets -- which Almost Human can do as well. If you ever played Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, then you might remember a mod for FO3 that altered the game mechanics to let players "supe-up" their weapons via weapon mods you could find/buy in the game. Guess what? In New Vegas (which came after FO3), this system of weapon modding was adopted into the vanilla game -- Bethsoft used the modder's idea and ran with it for their next product, because that mod for FO3 was so popular that they knew it would work!

As for people getting sued or "shut down" for making mods based on Bethsoft's assets -- I can't say I've ever heard of this happening, and I have been very active in that modding scene. Perhaps you are thinking of some other company? There are literally thousands of model retexts and such you can DL for the Fallout 3 series on the Nexus... Bethesda doesn't limit any of this, and in fact encourages such activity, as they can claim all the work released to the public as their own. They take pains to ensure that modders have an easy time incorporating mods into the game, as the game launchers are designed to let folks easily load .esp files made by their own in-house SDK's like the Oblivion/Skyrim CK and the GECKs for the Fallout series. Those tools are capable of changing just about anything related to the game assets/engine, and Bethesda even hosts wikis on their websites on how to use them properly!

A LOT of people have said in the past that Oblivion NEEDED mods to be playable... I have been involved in Bethsoft forum discussions that joked about how Bethesda releases half-finished games on purpose so that they could get the rest of us to finish/fix their games for free afterwards! LOL this is not the case, of course, but it just goes to show you how open Bethsoft is to both criticism and modding in general. They really, really let anything fly.

-Loth

lothario wrote:

Isaac wrote:Bethesda is sue-happy if one is a big enough fish, and they have closed down modders that they thought were good enough to pose a risk. They also have rules to prohibit the use of their assets in their own games; though the common rule is just not to cross mod their games; ie. no Oblivion rats in Fallout 3. In general you are right about them allowing some leeway... but the way it works for them and many others is that they strictly forbid it, but willingly turn a blind eye ~usually.

Hmm... what I think Bethsoft does is claim ownership of mods based off of their assets -- which Almost Human can do as well.

That too... It's the point of releasing the tools; release tools and you control the scene. The EULA gives them ownership of anything done [directly] using their tools. It will almost certainly be the same way with AH. To not protect oneself this way leaves open anyone's claim that they ripped off their mod ~even if they never saw the mod, or thought it up years prior and hadn't implemented it. As AH says, they need to be able to make their games as they want to; ownership via the tools provides this.

As for people getting sued or "shut down" for making mods based on Bethsoft's assets -- I can't say I've ever heard of this happening, and I have been very active in that modding scene.

I didn't mean based on their assets; but in hindsight I think you are right. I was "sure" I'd seen/read some that were threatened with cease & desist, but the one I was thinking about was the Dune conversion, yet that one was posted about on the Bethblog, and it's still on Nexus. What I think it was was that somebody released a [retail] game with assets straight out of Oblivion in it ~big difference; and certainly my mistake. However I have read blog postings by modders that claimed to have had trouble with them.

Fair enough, Isaac... thanks for the discussion about this. You play "devil's advocate" very well.

Maybe the devs will see our debate about this, and re-think their stance on modding this game. They really don't have anything to lose by relaxing a bit and letting us post up edited assets -- as long as those edited assets are used for modding Grimlock (and not being incorporated into a different game like that dune conversion thingy you noted).

-Loth

8 on the todo list.

Just Sayin'