Due the recent goings on in and out of these forums I feel that I need to say something.
As modders we have absolutely no legal protection on the mods we make. We can only rely simple courtesy and etiquette. There has been far too much stealing from servers, decompiling, rewriting/editing then releasing without so much as a simple 'could I take a look the source for such a mod'. You'd be surprised what a simple bit of courtesy will get you. If you take interest in a project and asked the mod author if they'd be prepared to send you the source they'll probably oblige. Maybe answer any questions you may have. While I can't speak on behalf of every modder out there myself and a lot of others I know would certainly be more amiable if extended this simple courtesy.
We modders tend to learn the ropes by looking at the works of others and that in itself is nothing wrong. The problem is when you start tearing apart someone's work without even asking. I've already seen modded versions of weapons I've created and I've not released the assets. Now I'm not offended that someone has wanted to improve or change the original. What offends me is that I'm not even asked if I would mind.
Let's take two of my weapons as examples; the Colt Python and the Medic Shotgun.
The Colt Python I released the assets when I deemed that I was done with the project asking that two things be taken into consideration. One, credit where credit is due which is simple courtesy. The second is that you tell me what you've changed and why. Why's that? Well maybe I'd like to learn from what you've done. Hell knows I can't balance a weapon to save my life. Just the Colt Python Assets alone have been downloaded 147 times and no one has created even a private version? Even if I'm not going to play with it or it's never going to go outside of a LAN I asked that I be told what changed and why. That is all.
The Medic Shotgun on the other hand is very much a work in progress. I've released test versions of it with the intention of getting feedback. (Ignoring the slow development pace, I do have other commitments) Now if filefront is anything to go by I've had over 1000 combined downloads. Well I certainly haven't had nearly that amount of feedback. Fair enough. But I have now seen someone editing the medishotgun, while one, it's still a project I'm working on and two, not even asked me if they could do so. And they would have had to decompile packages to edit the code and models as I haven't released the assets.
Folks, it isn't hard to ask, have some consideration and respect to those that put time and effort into creating these mods, some of which are simply amazing. Not all of us are easy to get on with or talk to, we are human after all. But nothing is more annoying and frustrating to see our work being tampered without our consent. If this continues I can only see more mods not being released and being kept behind pass worded servers.
Regards,
Whisky aka Gartley
tl;dr
Please have the decency to ask before pulling apart and editing our work to create your own versions.
As modders we have absolutely no legal protection on the mods we make. We can only rely simple courtesy and etiquette. There has been far too much stealing from servers, decompiling, rewriting/editing then releasing without so much as a simple 'could I take a look the source for such a mod'. You'd be surprised what a simple bit of courtesy will get you. If you take interest in a project and asked the mod author if they'd be prepared to send you the source they'll probably oblige. Maybe answer any questions you may have. While I can't speak on behalf of every modder out there myself and a lot of others I know would certainly be more amiable if extended this simple courtesy.
We modders tend to learn the ropes by looking at the works of others and that in itself is nothing wrong. The problem is when you start tearing apart someone's work without even asking. I've already seen modded versions of weapons I've created and I've not released the assets. Now I'm not offended that someone has wanted to improve or change the original. What offends me is that I'm not even asked if I would mind.
Let's take two of my weapons as examples; the Colt Python and the Medic Shotgun.
The Colt Python I released the assets when I deemed that I was done with the project asking that two things be taken into consideration. One, credit where credit is due which is simple courtesy. The second is that you tell me what you've changed and why. Why's that? Well maybe I'd like to learn from what you've done. Hell knows I can't balance a weapon to save my life. Just the Colt Python Assets alone have been downloaded 147 times and no one has created even a private version? Even if I'm not going to play with it or it's never going to go outside of a LAN I asked that I be told what changed and why. That is all.
The Medic Shotgun on the other hand is very much a work in progress. I've released test versions of it with the intention of getting feedback. (Ignoring the slow development pace, I do have other commitments) Now if filefront is anything to go by I've had over 1000 combined downloads. Well I certainly haven't had nearly that amount of feedback. Fair enough. But I have now seen someone editing the medishotgun, while one, it's still a project I'm working on and two, not even asked me if they could do so. And they would have had to decompile packages to edit the code and models as I haven't released the assets.
Folks, it isn't hard to ask, have some consideration and respect to those that put time and effort into creating these mods, some of which are simply amazing. Not all of us are easy to get on with or talk to, we are human after all. But nothing is more annoying and frustrating to see our work being tampered without our consent. If this continues I can only see more mods not being released and being kept behind pass worded servers.
Regards,
Whisky aka Gartley
tl;dr
Please have the decency to ask before pulling apart and editing our work to create your own versions.
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