Minimal Acknowledgement of Other NPC

[Domi]

OKay, I think this needs to be discussed.

 

I think that the level of minimal acknowledgement of another modder's work in the third party modder's work need be agreed upon, as acceptable throughout the modding communities.

 

The amount of mods growing. The amount of authors is growing. The amount of retiring authors is growing. The players often ask for modded NPCs interactions. There are some interactions (such as acknowledgements of other romances) that makes no sense when done partially (ie my NPC reacts on some competitors, but not on others?)

 

We had seen the personalities clashes in the communities. The player suffers because of our reliance primaraily on personal contacts.

 

These are the reasons why I would not want to get the "ask the individual modder" answer. What I want is the Policy per Community or Blanket Policy for say, BG2 mods. Could we perhaps forge something like the "Minimal Allowed Interactivity Pack"?

 

Majority finds it acceptable to check for other person's Variables between the romances and cut our own romance without bugging the author of the other romance about it. Fine and good. Unless there are objections to it to?

 

Many people find it unacceptable to put words into a custom NPC's mouth. Fine and good.

 

Between it is the middle ground and gray area.

 

Can we check for the presence of another modded NPC in the party and make a dialogue without him or her participating, but

 

-giving a general idea that s/he is there

-mentioning him/her by name

-discussing him/her with the PC.

 

I am guessing that it is time for sort of chose:

 

- are we considering the 'custom' NPCs truly a part of BG epic, or something entirely dependent on the author?

-how far the rights of the custom NPC author extend on controlling the third party content (ie script check, mention, texts)?

-how those rights are different for people who write expansions for BioWARE NPCs?

[Andyr]

I wouldn't mind people mentioning my NPCs, though I would prefer if they would let me know they are doing so - I'd have thought they would probably have to anyway to check the death variable for the InParty() check.

[Domi]

Person's work might be accessible, while the modder him/herself not. And, as I said, in some cases, not being able to reach say, Weimer, means that the others' permissions are void, because you have to do all or none.

 

So, there needs to be established some sort of a reasonable circumstance when you don't have to pass your hat around.

 

It is maybe that I don't work with the original characters at all, but I can't see how I have any sort of grounds to object to some other NPCs saying that 'my' character is in the party or discussing him/her, if the texts are not being added to his/her dialogue files.

 

We need to give at least partial freedom, otherwise the bias between Bio's (where you can do all you want) and customs (where you can do nothing) is too strong and well, starts to harm modding to the degree of people having to chose only one modded NPC per party, so they don't end up in the situations where all NPCs latch onto PC, and pay each other not even a minimal amount of attention.

 

I respect Grim's efforts. But can't you see what is happening? The most popular male romance, Kelsey, is not even on the list. Weimer is unavailable. What is the non-PPG person to do?

 

Cross out the romance reactions (let alone conflicts!) altogether.

[Chev]

How about each modder must keep an active email and reply in 30 to 60 days about questions about his/her mods, if not then other modders can use eliments of the mod, like scripts, spells, custom familier or something, in their mod or make patches for the mod to work with other mods. That way their work remains whole, but allows others to update it if need be with a patch. My 2 cents..

[jcompton]

I doubt you're going to get a complete consensus on this, so I think the situation just defaults to the de facto modder's creed: Do As You Will.

 

I respect Grim's efforts. But can't you see what is happening? The most popular male romance, Kelsey, is not even on the list. Weimer is unavailable. What is the non-PPG person to do?

 

I have said on many, many occasions that I consider Kelsey fair game for all purposes public and private. I can only say it as many more times as you need.

 

That said, it seems to me that Grim has inadvertently complicated the situation. By creating a mod that he encourages people to put all cross-mod material into, but also making it a requirement that all related parties sign off on the transaction, it is now arguably more necessary to obtain signoffs which some people are very reluctant to issue. (The Nathaniel girls are still waiting for me to be able to string a sentence together about banters they submitted to me, for instance.)

 

Given that there is a clear expectation that material in that mod will be approved and endorsed by all concerned, I do not want to see any Kelsey material in there that I haven't signed off on, because players would reasonably conclude that I approved it.

 

So to conclude, I propose that modders should feel empowered to put whatever content they want into their own mods released under their own names. G8 Meeting World Bank Endorsed Olympic Committee mods must continue to muddle through with layers of permissions.

 

I await your counter-proposal.

[Domi]

I hereby declare that I will mention and allow discussion of the custom NPCs, or partially custom NPCs by name in my mods without applying for permits. I however, will not write texts for custom NPCs. I will write texts for partially custom NPCs that do not reflect the modded content (ie I will add Solaufein's texts to Kivan's interjection in his BioWARE text, but will not write anything romance-related).

 

(Runs for the hills)

[Borsook]

While my opionion does not matter here: If one can do whatever he/she wants with BIOWARE NPCs (in terms of adding dialogue) why not with custom ones? How modding the game is different than modding a mod? If a game maker says "do not mod my game" the outcry is terrible but when mod author says "do not mod my mod" it's fine? I personally do not believe that a modder has a right to stop others from modding his work as long as it's clearly stated in attached documetation that e.g. added lines have a different author.

[Andyr]

People don't tend to read the attached documentation.

[jcompton]

That's true, and that means it is likely that some subset of players will still presume that anything they read with a mod character's name on it was written/endorsed by the authors. But then, people sometimes mistake mod content for Bioware content, too. Just part of the game.

[Borsook]

People don't tend to read the attached documentation.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Some people simply don't care who did what, and may play 50 mods by X and never see X's name. But that's hardly an argument for doing or not doing something.

[Domi]

The answer I was given to a similar sentiment on Attic was that once you've paid money for the game, you are free to do as you will with the characters. While the fanfiction on a fanfiction character is a different matter, since you did not compensate the author for the abuse you are going to instill on his character.

[Borsook]

The answer I was given to a similar sentiment on Attic was that once you've paid money for the game, you are free to do as you will with the characters. While the fanfiction on a fanfiction character is a different matter, since you did not compensate the author for the abuse you are going to instill on his character.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, unfortunately in modern times paying for software and having rights to do anything with it are two completly different matters, often buying the software just gives you right to use it without any other rights. There are games makers who prohibit modding. Many of those games are modded (and those which are not are not modded rather due to lack of appeal than respect for the will of makers). There are free games that are modded too. Modding in all it's history was always on the border (and often crossed it) of end-user license agreements. Modders prohibiting modding their work seem hypocritical to me. Not to mention that the only realistic thing they can do in case of somebody not following their wishes is stopping making mods.

[Domi]

When writing having the second modders participation is good in any case, because s/he knows his/her character best, could have some obscure backstory bit that can be fleshed out etc (ie I don't need to go inventing anything about Tsujatha for a banter).

 

So, I for one, would not insist on that, even though by default I cannot possibly exercise any kind of veto on any of the NPcs I wrote for, so I cannot expect the reciprocate 'author's bonus'.

 

I just prefer to make half-an-halfs on customs.

[jcompton]

The answer I was given to a similar sentiment on Attic was that once you've paid money for the game, you are free to do as you will with the characters. While the fanfiction on a fanfiction character is a different matter, since you did not compensate the author for the abuse you are going to instill on his character.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

While I think such an attitude reflects fear and reluctance to have someone's own work placed under the same microscope they're willing to bring to bear on another's, I will actually go so far as to say that "mods in a game" and "fanfiction about a game" do not necessarily need to be subjected to the same standards.

 

If you put your mod out there, you are implicitly saying "I believe this is worthy to be a part of this game." (unless you're deliberately making a joke, or at least something you think is a joke.) Therefore, it's up for grabs, just as the game itself is.

[Grim Squeaker]

Damnit, why do people create such large threads when I'm away? I'll try and address some of the discussed issues but I'm tired and its an awful lot to individually address every post.

 

On the whole, I think that yes some level of agreement between modders on a minimal level of compatibility that doesn't require authorisation is a good idea. The reason when I started Crossmod that I decided to say 'permission is required for everything' is that that was the best place to start it. If I'd said 'this is okay, but this isn't' somebody would have objected. So if we want to decide between us what is suitable or not, thats fine and I'll change the rules.

 

Cross out the romance reactions (let alone conflicts!) altogether.

 

Domi, what do you mean by this? Do you mean that you think I should remove the component from Crossmod? I'd just like to say that the reason its in Crossmod is not because 'these are the people who have given permission' its so that automated code can check (at the end of someones mod install list) what is installed and what is not. The reason I ask for people's permission before adding NPCs to the list is there are important flags which I do not know their intention about (i.e. can their romanc be killed, should it kill others?) In the past I have contacted the author for this information and in all but one case they have replied in some form. The one case is the original Nalia Romance, so I guessed the intention of the author when it comes to these flags. If he ever wants this changed, I'll change it. The point is, its not a permission issue but a convenience thing, because modders I would imagine don't want to code romance killing scripts for every new NPC that arrives on the scene.

 

As for Kelsey not being in the Crossmod Banter Pack: Jason has given his permission for crossmod romance scripts and Kelsey is included.

 

I have said on many, many occasions that I consider Kelsey fair game for all purposes public and private. I can only say it as many more times as you need.

 

If I'm reading this correctly (which I assume I am) you are saying other people can use Kelsey in their mods? If thats the case, thats fine. This has been done before (e.g. Weimer with Solaufein for the Kivan-Sola material) and if thats the case then I won't ask for your blessing on every piece of material.

 

The point is, much as in the romance case, crossmod's existance is not about permission or lack of, its about convenience of install. This has been debated time and time again, but as a programmer I believe duplicating material between mods to deal with an install order issue and attempting to keep both sets up-to-date is a ridiculous idea and should be avoid. Because of this I created crossmod to avoid that problem all together: They install it at the end and the appropriate material is installed.

 

If people really feel that there is a problem with 'oh I don't have their permission' then yes, we should impose some general lower bound where permission isn't required for trivial things (such as talking about an NPC, but not with, or general script checks), and more modders if they feel they don't want to bother having to grant permission for every modder, they can say 'if you want to write crossmod material with my NPC/mod involved, thats ok'. I just created a diplomatic system so that people wouldn't complain about someone else using their character without permission. If we have these lower bounds for crossmod material then can be hosted in the person's mod or they can be crossmod I don't mind, but ideally I want to avoid the duplication of material problem (and to a lesser extent installing material that is pointless without the other party installed).

 

I'm tired and I'm going to sleep...