Roxanne's Inofficial Mod Versions

[StummvonBordwehr]

Actually it was an intentional misuse. Trying to be funny - and having to explain the joke, was a sure sign of that working really well... 

[Grammarsalad]

On 4/11/2020 at 9:34 AM, CamDawg said:

Hmm, a new Roxanne version of Amber has reappeared in the EET Install Tool, along with a slate of other mods. Strangely these mods already have working EE versions, yet are not forked from their original repos and are only used by the EET Install Tool. How odd.

I recall she sent a (useful) pull request for faiths and powers a while ago. It was a long time ago. She has been a valued and valuable member of the community. I know that there were... issues.. but I miss her and wish she would come back.

[prowler]

There should not be 2 or 3 versions of the same mod.

The principles of the modder community have not changed for years.

If changes are made to the source code, they must be posted publicly on the forum. If the mod’s author is retired, need to find someone who will maintain the mod today. Or just send fixes to Leondardo Watson's Big World Fixpack.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by prowler

[subtledoctor]

I agree that Roxanne was very knowledgeable and generally helpful and is better off working with modders and players in common forums.  Unfortunately her behavior has become more egregious since she went off on her own.  From what I understand. WithinAmnesia stole a bunch of assets from the Balduran's Seatower group and released his own version using the stolen assets; and now Roxanne is claiming that as her own mod...!  And then of course there are all the modified versions and undisclosed changes and unauthorized redistribution of a bunch of smaller mods. All of that would have to be taken down... and I doubt that will happen.  It seems like Roxanne has really taken a stance of flipping the middle finger at the rest of the modding community.  Weidu mods are inherently open-source, in that anyone can inspect a mod's .tp2 code.  We can state copyright terms and our wishes in a mod's Readme or in a forum, but there nothing we can do to really protect mods from being ripped off.  It seems like Roxanne has decided to take advantage of that to do whatever she wants with anyone's mod, flouting norms of cooperation and respect.  I don't foresee her changing this stance, though of course I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Edited May 2, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Jarno Mikkola]

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

and now Roxanne is claiming that as her own mod...! 

Does they ? I require you to show me a exact quote on that, with a link. Cause I am pretty sure you have also taken the liberty of modifying and redistributing mods not originally made only by you. I have done so too, but I am not the one on the high horse here.

[subtledoctor]

I never distributed anything without the blessing of the mod’s last maintainer... that’s pretty much all we’re talking about. 

As for your proof, go look at her website. Last discussion I saw, WithinAmnesia said something like Roxanne was helping with work on the (stolen) mod; now it is presented on her website in a section called “my mods.” Go ahead and look. 

[Jazira]

7 hours ago, prowler said:

There should not be 2 or 3 versions of the same mod.

The principles of the modder community have not changed for years.

If changes are made to the source code, they must be posted publicly on the forum. If the mod’s author is retired, need to find someone who will maintain the mod today. Or just send fixes to Leondardo Watson's Big World Fixpack.

I second this, things are complicated enough without having to deal with several versions of the same mod. We're a small community, and we need to avoid this problem getting out of hand.

Today thanks to github or such tools we can altogether easily work, fix and translate on different centralized project. I don't care about the overweening ego of some modders, and their disguised, ridiculous childish war.

[Jarno Mikkola]

2 hours ago, Jazira said:

I second this, things are complicated enough without having to deal with several versions of the same mod. We're a small community, and we need to avoid this problem getting out of hand.

It's easy to avoid using the unofficial mod if you just don't use the moding tool attached to it. So difficult, must take brain power to avoid.

@subtledoctor, could you please look into this forum, and say that Roxanne was not involved in any of the stuff they claim to be.

[Jazira]

You better tell that to common players, let's not be fooled, most use it because Roxanne's BWS tool work fine and it's easy to use.

You can manually bypass those unofficial versions and replace them with whatever you want, it works. I doubt it makes me anything dumb.

Using something coming from Roxanne is not a crime. Otherwise we all better uninstall half our mods, cause she has contributed for most of them.

I didn't know about this Balduran's sea tower case, that is beyond limits... I mean publish an updated version of an abandoned project without having the permission for me is totally ok, but stealing assets from an active development team and put your name on it is fucked up. 

Isn't there copyrights attached to mods ? Any possible legal action ?

 

[The Artisan]

24 minutes ago, Jazira said:

You better tell that to common players, let's not be fooled, most use it because Roxanne's BWS tool work fine and it's easy to use.

You mean the tool that arbitrarily blocks mods on fake incompatibilities and puts mods on 'Expert' not because of actual functional incompatibilities but because of Roxanne's own agendas? To which users are led towards her own echo chamber where she feeds them misinformation? Yeah, definitely intuitive, no problems to be seen there.

27 minutes ago, Jazira said:

Using something coming from Roxanne is not a crime. Otherwise we all better uninstall half our mods, cause she has contributed for most of them.

Bullshit. I could probably count the number of contributions Roxanne has made that has integrated into the original distributors' work on one hand, if even that. If Roxanne gets her hands on it, it goes in to her own personal cache of unapproved mirrors. That is not in any way contribution.

[jastey]

15 hours ago, Jazira said:

Using something coming from Roxanne is not a crime. Otherwise we all better uninstall half our mods, cause she has contributed for most of them.

No, not most of them. A handful she contributed to. The rest she made EET-only versions with changes to her own liking mirrored on her own site, dubious GiHub accounts of arbitrary names, and dropbox downloads. This is not contributing, but what leads to what you are noting yourself: different mod version with different version numbers which confuse players.

Most mods were updated to EET compatibility now - I mean the official versions. Roxanne does not include those into her tool and she does not take down her changed version although they weren't any longer necessary. Not only her versions are still up - somewhere scattered across the internet and on various GitHub accounts - but also she misinforms on her forum about the official version being "bugged", "unplayable". and "not compatible with EET" - without giving helpful specifics. It is annoying the least.

On 5/3/2020 at 2:26 AM, Jazira said:

I second this, things are complicated enough without having to deal with several versions of the same mod. We're a small community, and we need to avoid this problem getting out of hand.

Today thanks to github or such tools we can altogether easily work, fix and translate on different centralized project.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

 

On 5/3/2020 at 2:26 AM, Jazira said:

the overweening ego of some modders, and their disguised, ridiculous childish war.

Would you elaborate what the overweening ego and childish war would be here? What do you want the community to do, take down the official mod versions so only Roxanne's remain so players don't get confused? And if we insist that we would like our own work to be distributed the way we created it is a "disguised, ridiculous childish war"?

Because if one thing became clear after seeing Roxanne's inofficial mod versions pop up in different GitHub accounts after they were requested to be taken down and seeing where the EE Setup Tool downloads them, then it is that - sadly - Roxanne has no inclination whatsoever to take down her changed mod versions OR work together with the rest of the community. She might have done that at the beginning, but now, the way she handles this is a straight mittle finger in direction of the IE community as a whole.

[Cahir]

2 hours ago, jastey said:

Because if one thing became clear after seeing Roxanne's inofficial mod versions pop up in different GitHub accounts after they were requested to be taken down and seeing where the EE Setup Tool downloads them, then it is that - sadly - Roxanne has no inclination whatsoever to take down her changed mod versions OR work together with the rest of the community. She might have done that at the beginning, but now, the way she handles this is a straight mittle finger in direction of the IE community as a whole.

As I've said before, it's probably because each of those little unofficial changes are done only for those mods to play nice with her Sandrah Saga, a little revised dialog her, little change in scripting there. For me the saddest part is that she completely twisted the idea of BWS Tool not just to adapt it to work well with *any* EE setup, but she modified it that it works *best* with the set-ups she advertises as the only *true EET experience* (shockingly most of those set-ups contain Sandrah Saga as the core center of it). Instead of changing or fixing the mod itself based on (rather harsh, I admit) feedback, she uses all the dirty tricks to "force" other players to play her mod, which includes changing an otherwise great tool to suit her agenda.

[Jarno Mikkola]

21 hours ago, Jazira said:

Isn't there copyrights attached to mods ? Any possible legal action ?

Somehow you fail to undestand that there has never been a case where mods are covered in a legal case cause they are complex as hell ... and for to copyright a thing, you need to submit the asset/assets to a public record before you can claim a copyright for it. This public record varies according to the asset/media cathegory. And just like with pattents, if the asset is publically available before you make your claim to it, you can't claim be yours after the fact.

5 hours ago, jastey said:

and seeing where the EE Setup Tool downloads them

Sorry, what are you talking about ? Cause I am pretty sure that if you google that, you won't find it named as that. Aka, it's a BEW today. So you might want to revise your statement. And if you have issues the size of an airplane, you might as well take it to Roxanne, at where the google will lead you to aka the above link, and take a picture as proof and deliver that here and so we can  see what happens.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola

[Azazello]

oh yay, a(nother) Roxanne poolparty! Can I join in?

 

Not much to contrib here, only to note:

• 'Roxanne' is just as equally likely to be a 'he' as 'she'. We work withwhat we have-- gotta use 'she'.
• S/He still maintains at least one account here on G3 - so I'm sure s/he's reading this thread! Hi Roxanne!
• Despite past 'indiscretions', s/he still posts infrequently (at least, under known aliases) on RPGCodex. {sorry, I don't know which is the newest post}

 

On 4/26/2020 at 7:23 AM, StummvonBordwehr said:

Just adding my 50 cents. Sorry if I open old wounds.

What happened over the years have is a usage of other people’s work without consent. And it’s still happening in 2020. 
 

If you wish to be a part of a community, respect for other people’s work and consent is mandatory if you want to change something  - no matter how helpful you are towards people who like your work. I sincerely hope for redemption for Roxanne and her project. Time will tell if that ever comes to pass.

But until the above comes to pass, I steer clear of Roxanne and her project. Not for the lack of helpfulness, but for the lack of consent.

Hear, hear!

[Jazira]

Well, most is an exageration ok, let's say some, i regurarly see roxanne add pull request on different projects so there is some contribution, at least on some mods i'm working on.

It's been years that I witness a lot of hostility toward her, (or anyone using any of her mod/tool ... yeah), for promoting her own mod on the tool she maintain, if i've been her i would have done the same, and most of you too let's be honest. Maybe not in the same way but still.

My mod, my sweat, my time. Self-promotion isn't a crime especially considering all the time and effort put into a public service. Then things escalated, fixes that should have been called tweaks, misinformations, little revenge and such.

Let's be clear, i'm not defending everything Roxannne have done in the past, and this baldurian's sea tower case is just unfair. I'm just giving her credits for what she contributed, for maintaining a tool that, like it or not is very popular for newcomers. I repeat myself, I'M NOT SUPPORTING HER ACTIONS, especially the latter.

I am not aware of half of the story here, and i doubt everything is on her, some of her detractor have a responsability too, for this whole situation because it crearly have started years ago, not just with this baldurian's sea tower case.

I just wish the better for the community. I'm done with this subject, i'm sorry for opening old wounds and if i have offensed anyone.