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Editorial control question(s)


Kulyok

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First, thank you for this project. As I understand, it eliminates the problem of install order of NPC mods, which is great.

 

I am in the middle of a writing project myself, so, as a possible future participant of the Crossmod banter pack, I have some questions, regarding the editorial control of the mod.

 

If the questions seem not-so-friendly, please, note that I do consider the idea great, I am very grateful that this mod exists, and simply want to clarify some things for myself - or other modders, for this matter.

 

1) Modder A(me, for example) and modder B submitted several banters for their respective NPCs, approved both by modder A and modder B. Then, several weeks(months, years) pass, and one of them wants to withdraw or change submitted and approved content - and it may happen that another is unavailable at the time. Will that be allowed? I, personally, am very much against this.

 

2) In FAQ, you wrote

 

I won't modify the material without the writers permission when I come to code it other than correcting grammar and spelling mistakes.

 

I am sorry, but do you know better than the author? Considering punctuation, many things are arbitary, i.e. what to you may be a mistake, to the author it is a pattern of speech. Using one term or another is arbitary, as well, and you may perceive as a spelling mistake the thing that author perceives as clear necessity. I myself had the word "abhor" changed to "accept" during a proofreading, so, unfortunately, I know what I am talking about. Some NPCs also have an accent, which makes spelling mistakes even more difficult to discern.

 

So, frankly, I'd much rather have it as "I won't modify the material without BOTH writers' permission," i.e. not a comma changed, not a word tweaked - regardless of the circumstances.

 

3) I very much admire your dedication to the project, but what happens if another person takes over? Will the rules be changed? Will it be possible to tweak existing content? It is my fear that it may happen, and I would not want this.

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I myself had the word "abhor" changed to "accept" during a proofreading, so, unfortunately, I know what I am talking about.

 

My guess is that Grim wouldn't change "abhor" to "accept," but that he would change "except" to "accept" if the sentence was "Except your fate, foul creature!" (or, even more likely, just write back to you and ask you what you really meant there, since now that I look at it, there _is_ a way "except" might make sense there, but I wanted to use your example word.)

 

It is my fear that it may happen, and I would not want this.

 

Of course, the other solution if you're really that worried about comma placement under a new regime is to simply embed your own mod-to-mod banters.

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My guess is that Grim wouldn't change "abhor" to "accept," but that he would change "except" to "accept" if the sentence was "Except your fate, foul creature!" (or, even more likely, just write back to you and ask you what you really meant there, since now that I look at it, there _is_ a way "except" might make sense there, but I wanted to use your example word.)

 

And it would be fine, but I am just not sure whether this will be the only case, and where the line would lie.

 

Of course, the other solution if you're really that worried about comma placement under a new regime is to simply embed your own mod-to-mod banters.

 

I know, and I wanted to do that in the first place. However, the problem, as I understand it, is that if my NPC A has a banter with NPC B, and NPC B initiates the dialogue, it will never run properly, unless NPC B is installed *before* NPC A. Or some such. (Am I right?) I know that if I install Kelsey and Keto, I should install Kelsey first, yes? And Crossmod Banter pack happily eliminates the problem of every mod author(me?) frantically telling his players: "Install my mod last!".

 

Though, of course, Crossmod Banter pack has another problem - a problem of of being silent.

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And it would be fine, but I am just not sure whether this will be the only case, and where the line would lie.

 

Grim isn't cruel and merciless like I am. I will vouch for him generally erring on the side of caution and "developer intent." (he _did_ publish the Alassa/Goo banter, after all.)

 

I know, and I wanted to do that in the first place. However, the problem, as I understand it, is that if my NPC A has a banter with NPC B, and NPC B initiates the dialogue, it will never run properly, unless NPC B is installed *before* NPC A. Or some such. (Am I right?) I know that if I install Kelsey and Keto, I should install Kelsey first, yes? And Crossmod Banter pack happily eliminates the problem of every mod author(me?) frantically telling his players: "Install my mod last!".

 

All correct. But, as you observe, there are some tradeoffs--like future comma placement jeopardy, and having your work published alongside the Goo/Alassa banter, to name two.

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Sorry for the delay in replying. I haven't had a chance to do much posting these last few days.

 

In an attempt to answer your questions. When it comes to 'grammar and spelling correction' I would not change the word abhor, however as Jason pointed out I would ask which word you meant in the except/accept scenario. I would automatically correct a sentence that read as follows, however, 'We killed everyone nad it was great'. I would make an assumption that you are not talking about someone's bollocks and actually meant 'and' instead of 'nad', though I'd probably e-mail you once I'd finished coding the banters telling you of any tweaks. I won't modify any american/english spelling differences however. If the author wrote 'armor' it would fall inline with how they have written their NPC and I won't change it. As for punctuation, I'm not gonna make arbitrary changes, but I will correct it if it is an obvious error e.g. 'I want to kill Bob a.nd Fred'. In this example, I'd assume they typed the fullstop by accident, but as above, once I'd finished coding I'd tell them I'd made the change and if they tell me it was intentional I will happily change it back. As a final note on this, I don't run this material through automatic spell checkers/correctors as they do cause problems with unusual and fantasy words.

 

As for modifying material at a later date, it depends on the circumstances. If it is a serious rewrite, I'd want both the authors permission before making any chances. If one author wants to change a word their NPC says in a banter, just because it sounds slightly better (e.g. changing 'It is my desire to...' to 'I would like to...' if they want their NPC to sound less formal). If one author says that they want the banter removed, I would do so asap and then consult both authors to see whether some agreement can be made on the banter i.e. whether it be discarded entirely or just rewritten for a later release.

 

As for control of the project, I have no intention of leaving it in the foreseeable future, however should such a thing occur I would hand it over to someone I trust and respect and would ask that they respect the rules I created the project with.

 

To summarise, I won't be an absolute bastard about this, making seemingly random changes to your work, and under the circumstances I've mentioned above when I would make some kind of change, you would be alerted to it before the new version is released.

 

PS: Yeah, the Goo/Alassa banter is fairly painful. It was included as an easter egg and thus not viewable without setting a variable. However, in the broader case of 'I don't want my material to be in the game with the Sir Fucksalot/Whoreamatic 300 banter' (should such a thing exist), that material wouldn't be installed into your game unless those (scary) mods were installed i.e. you had already accepted those authors writing into your game. So, in theory, you shouldn't end up with crossmod banters of lesser quality to the original material for the NPCs in question as (in almost all cases) the crossmod banters are written by the original author (and in any other situation, the original author would have given their blessing on that material, were it to be released).

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