So, Age Creation is *gasp* Hacking? </sarcasm>

[Paradox]

http://www.uruobsession.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=35&t=23287 is a post by Greydragon from 2005 when PyPRP was first released. Legally, nothing has changed since that point in time. Allow me to quote

Over the last few years many of you have worked on modifying and manipulating Uru and Uru related products. By doing so you have raised many issues that Cyan now needs to look into. Whether the issue is fan created content to alcugs or your own personal endeavor these are not items we can decide on quickly.

The assumption made by many in the fan community is if Cyan doesn't say anything then they must be okay with it. Don't mistake our silence for approval. These issues need to be discussed in detail on our end to determine where they fall in the big picture.

We have never given anyone permission to hack our engine, make servers with unauthorized data; use our global data, etc.
. . .

http://www.uruobsession.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=35&t=22514 outlines some ground rules, but it also states that

The problem is that by using Uru intellectual property (including Age names, characters, textures, models, etc.) you kind of put us in a position where we have to be the bad guy. If we don't protect our copyrights and trademarks, we may have all kinds of issues down the road - both legally and story-wise.

Clearly fan-Ages can do as much damage to Cyan as anything else. Flymode was certainly damaging to Uru, the AdminKI and whatnot were damaging to Uru, but Cyan never told us to stop. They stayed silent. Don't assume that silence is approval. Cyan may be very slow to act on something, but they have also acted as fast as lightning in the past.

[Aloys]

Don't mistake our silence for approval.

That silent attitude is something that always bothered me to no end.

You can say that about something that just started, but when something go litterally for years without a word one can wonder...
It appears safe to assume that if they indeed had an issue with all of those activities they would have speaked. If something threatens your business you don't remain silent for years. And if you indeed end up acting and kill the whole thing ('foxing' it)or restrict it enough that it's pointless to continue it, then you become the bad guy for a bad reason.
You don't let people work on something for years to finally wake up someday and say "oh BTW, we can't let you do that, please stop everything"...

Thankfully that didn't happen, and all this may at some point (?) be a thing of the past. Here's to hope they can soon announce some good news about the GT negociations and this aggravating grey area can finally come to an end.

[BAD]

Did all of that stuff really hurt Uru?

There is another list of historic events that I believe hurt Uru more than any amount of hacking....

Cyan signs a deal with Ubisoft to publish Uru Online.

Ubisoft switches gears on Cyan, forcing them to turn 12 years of work into a single player game.

Uru Live is canceled before it is even released fully due to Ubisoft not seeing enough prologue subscribers.

Cyan Releases Until Uru.

Cyan turns a blind eye to hacking.

Cyan signs a deal with Gametap, using UU as a showcase for the games marketability.

Cyan and Gametap release Myst Online Uru Live.

Gametap closes MOUL due to lack of new subscribers.

All of these decisions have hurt Uru more than anything we could possibly do to the game 1000 fold. All of these decisions were in no way controlled or decided by this community.

We need to stop blaming ourselves for Uru's failures. We are not the creators of the game.

[Paradox]

Thankfully that didn't happen, and all this may at some point (?) be a thing of the past. Here's to hope they can soon announce some good news about the GT negociations and this aggravating grey area can finally come to an end.

Oh, it never happened.... </sarcasm>

At this time I would refrain from releasing or modifying any data until stated from Cyan Worlds Inc. that it is all right to do so.

(As far as I know) Nobody ever did get permission to release PyPRP, Cyan never said that it is "all right to do so".

On that note, even on the MOUL forums Chogon stated that

we may approve some user created content but have left you no legal way to actually make that content. Yes, we are aware of that. And we hope to get that changed in the future. But for now, please respect this forum's policy about not discussing "hacks", "reverse engineering", etc. of Cyan's products or about tools that are derived from that manner.

We have no legal way to make content. Thus we are all hacking the game, violating copyright laws, Intellectual Property laws, End-User License Agreements, and a number of other things. Yay for us!

[Sophia]

Nowhere has Cyan ever said user created ages would hurt Uru. As Aloys said, if you turn a blind eye for years, that is saying enough. Of course they have to spout some legal mambo jambo when forced to say something, after all, they are a business and need to consider more factors than "we" do. Anyway, enough said, except this: I think Uru's comeback doesn't stand a chance without user input. Quoting law, rules and legalities is fine, but ultimately (speaking solely of the connection between user created content and the survival chances of Uru), isn't it the result that really counts?

Hehe Paradox, I just saw what you wrote above mine, still, I disagree with you Stricly speaking you may be right, but I still say we have to consider the whole color spectrum for this one

[Aloys]

We need to stop blaming ourselves for Uru's failures. We are not the creators of the game.

I partly agree, (only partly, because as someone who was part of Ubi back then I can't help but feel a tiny bit of responsabilty.. :/ )

There is another list of historic events that I believe hurt Uru (...)
Cyan signs a deal with Ubisoft to publish Uru Online.

That's a little unfair, Uru Live was a risky project, several publishers turner it down before Ubi took it. Who knows, if Ubi didn't took it the whole game might never have happened. I'm not defending Ubi though, I agree that turning it into a single player game hurt it in the long run, and then they cancelled the 'online component' before even giving it its chance, that's obvious. But then again it happened, we can't change history; who knows what would have happened if Ubi had turned Cyan down? Maybe they wouldn't have found another publisher.. There was a time where most the infos we had from Cyan were of the kind: "we are still looking for an investor/publisher". Many people were relieved to see Ubi picking up the project.

Cyan Releases Until Uru.

No.
No no no no no and no.
Saying UU was a bad thing for Live is WRONG. If it wasn't for UU, Uru Live would most likely never have returned, it's that simple. Many people have been bashing UU lately, I agree it had its problems, but it was NECESSARY. The game (Live) had been *cancelled due to underwhelming commercial performance*. That's the worst that can happen. After that, good luck pitching such a project again to an investor. Cyan's best (and possibly only) hope was to prove there was a loyal community attached to the IP. That's what they did, and it succeeded.

Thus we are all hacking the game, violating copyright laws, Intellectual Property laws, End-User License Agreements, and a number of other things. Yay for us!

This is even more fun than throwing booby-trapped pellets down the Lake.

[BAD]

I did not intend to say that those aspects of Uru were bad, but that the decisions made had hurt Uru more than hacking.

Those choices had good and bad consequences. The bad things they brought outweigh anything the community has done.

[kaelisebonrai]

Here's the thing, please, don't assume Cyan's silence is approval, they themselves have said this is not so.

Editing the Neighbourhoods is something I fully intend to do. Editing the existing data, to improve, to fix, etc.
This is the way of a modder, indeed. And, what's more, I fully intend to release my edits. =P

Games increase their lifetime via modders, they are improved, fixed, made better by modders, at times the modders do more for the game than the creators of it did. Age old bugs and issues, are fixed and solved, broken parts are repaired... New things are created, new features, old features, once removed, are restored..

Modding is a good thing, our hacking will improve, and restore, and rebuild. Think of it, the restoration, without the DRC.
Cyan has never approved, and at times, has had major issues with these edits, our creations.

I say, myself, that we give up these shackles, for the freedom of editing as we feel is required, or desired.

This is a modding community, and with modding, comes editing, and hacking, and developing *new* tools, new features, new things, indeed! But, it also comes with editing the old, to improve it, to better the game, to better the community.

Think about it.

[Tweek]

No.
No no no no no and no.
Saying UU was a bad thing for Live is WRONG. If it wasn't for UU, Uru Live would most likely never have returned, it's that simple. Many people have been bashing UU lately, I agree it had its problems, but it was NECESSARY. The game (Live) had been *cancelled due to underwhelming commercial performance*. That's the worst that can happen. After that, good luck pitching such a project again to an investor. Cyan's best (and possibly only) hope was to prove there was a loyal community attached to the IP. That's what they did, and it succeeded.

Now I agree Live would not be around if it wasn't for UU, I also agree that it was a necessary chapter in the Uru book, however it was not a knight in shining armor full of virtue and absolved of sin. Yes it was a good thing for Live, but it was also a bad thing, it has caused some damage that is still apparent even today, some traits in the community that carried into Live. But I'm sorry it's not wrong to say that UU had a negative impact on Live, it's something that happened (whether or not some people care to admit).

To the matter in hand, I have no issues with most hacking of Uru, I expect there are some aspects I'm not cool with (I wasn't keen on people file diving when a new Live build came out and posting spoilers, but then that wasn't really hacking now that I think about it). Sharing Cyan files I'm not to happy about but that is a given I have no qualms about where we stand, I was tinkering with the game files as soon as people started figuring how to get back to the city in 2004, some times I just don't see what the issue is with some of the people who are against it.

[Paradox]

No.
No no no no no and no.
Saying UU was a bad thing for Live is WRONG. If it wasn't for UU, Uru Live would most likely never have returned, it's that simple. Many people have been bashing UU lately, I agree it had its problems, but it was NECESSARY. The game (Live) had been *cancelled due to underwhelming commercial performance*. That's the worst that can happen. After that, good luck pitching such a project again to an investor. Cyan's best (and possibly only) hope was to prove there was a loyal community attached to the IP. That's what they did, and it succeeded.

Now I agree Live would not be around if it wasn't for UU, I also agree that it was a necessary chapter in the Uru book, however it was not a knight in shining armor full of virtue and absolved of sin. Yes it was a good thing for Live, but it was also a bad thing, it has caused some damage that is still apparent even today, some traits in the community that carried into Live. But I'm sorry it's not wrong to say that UU had a negative impact on Live, it's something that happened (whether or not some people care to admit).

UU was necessary. It shouldn't have been, if Ubi had given Uru the chance it needed. UU killed a lot of the storyline and IC immersion, and that carried over to MOUL.