Discussion about MODing MOULa (Split from GoW Bevin)

[Jamey]

In response to expansion to the GoW Pub;

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to officially add expansion to the GoW pub itself, and have it appear in MOUL. I believe It would violate one of RAWA's rule for age creation and writing.

Rule 3 - Writers must not reveal "new" information about characters, places, groups, etc. used by Cyan.

3 – Characters, places, groups, etc. that have appeared in Cyan's games, novels, etc. can be mentioned or used, but Writers must not reveal any new information about those characters, places, groups, etc., where "new information" is defined as information that would in some way change what is known about the character, place, or group.

For example, one can "find" an old D'ni Age that was once visited by Veovis (the fact that Veovis may have visited that Age doesn't constitute any significant "new" information about Veovis, since it is very likely that he visited countless Ages, but they can't "find" an Age that was owned by Veovis or Written by Veovis (those kinds of things would be releasing new information about Veovis.)

The main City in the Cavern is also included in this. Areas that have been in Cyan's games or novels can not be changed. If one wants to reveal ("restore") a new area in the Cavern, it must be self-contained and only accessible via the Nexus (e.g. the Great Tree Pub) or via another Age (e.g. the Uran Silo linked to from Er'cana).

An exception of a place that was used by Cyan but can have "new" information revealed: specific D'ni neighborhoods. They can be considered as self-contained places. New information can be revealed about a Writer's neighborhood as long as it doesn't affect other neighborhoods or the main Cavern as a whole.

In short, the rule of thumb for determining what should be allowed is, "How likely is it that this new information will cause a contradiction with information released by Cyan or other Writers in the future?" If it's likely to cause a contradiction, then it is not allowed.

Of course I could be wrong, but it will be ultimately up to Cyan, the Guild of Maintainers, and possibly the Guild of Archivists to decide what will get released into public eyes on MOUL.

I could be right about all of this being against Cyan's rules, I could be wrong, I don't know for sure. Only Cyan does. It would not hurt to ask them though.

HOWEVER, all of this does not mean we could all make a new age together that we could use for meetings and such, or possibly expand The Writer's Niche when it comes out (It's Officially FCAL approved by Cyan, and run by the Maintainers a couple of times, so I'm VERY sure it'll make it through the Guilds process when Cyan is ready for User Created Content)

[kaelisebonrai]

@Jamey: As chacal has said. *no* fan group should have any control over what is seen and released to the public. And any suggestion that they should, should be attacked with full force. Phasers set to "kill" as it were.

Also, Re: Cyan not approving of it? I'm going to be very, very blunt, and honest. "I don't care." Cyan's "rules" are mostly foolish, and have no grounding in the reality of gaming content communities.

[Chacal]

Well, of course it's their server, so in the end it's their rules.
The biggest constraint right now is Cyan's lack of resources.
Even if we had the tools, even if they turned to us for building and testing, right now they don't even have the resources for including a new Age in their production server. They would have to trust someone outside Cyan to help run the server, and historically they never trusted anyone else than Eric.

I mean RAWA runs the Vault Manager now, that should tell you something.

[Jamey]

@Jamey: As chacal has said. *no* fan group should have any control over what is seen and released to the public. And any suggestion that they should, should be attacked with full force. Phasers set to "kill" as it were.

Well, when I got a chance to talk with Rand when MOUL opened up, I think what he wants to do is make sure that the Guild systems are fully running and running strongly, which means that we'd make content, and Maintainers would approve or disapprove of it. Then what would happen is after the content has gone through the Maintainers, it would go to Cyan so they can check and approve of it before it is released, and Cyan decides if and when content would be released. The Messengers would get the news out, and the Cartographers would help make the maps for the new ages released. The Greeters will still do their thing

Now I realize that some of this is speculation, but only time will tell what will happen, but I think this method would be the way to go, as it would have all the guilds working together, and at the same time, Cyan's vision of their game is upheld if they (or someone they trust) is at the helm.

Also, Re: Cyan not approving of it? I'm going to be very, very blunt, and honest. "I don't care." Cyan's "rules" are mostly foolish, and have no grounding in the reality of gaming content communities.

Well, of course it's their server, so in the end it's their rules.
The biggest constraint right now is Cyan's lack of resources.

Bingo Chacal. It does not matter if some of us disagree with Cyan World's rules, it's their server and their game, so they are ultimately going to be the ones calling the shots, whether some of us like it or not. If one doesn't like how Cyan is running it, one shouldn't play MOUL then. (not where Cyan calls the shots)

[Chacal]

While they call the shots.
As soon as we start our own servers, it becomes an entirely different ballgame.

[ddb174]

The Elders of Cyan are not going to be pleased :O

[GPNMilano]

While they call the shots.
As soon as we start our own servers, it becomes an entirely different ballgame.

It is because of this very mentality of "let's cut out the creator the moment we can" that I hope to god whatever license they release the source under is incredibly strict. I personally can't wait to see people's reaction when they realize their whole "as soon as Cyan releases the sources we can tell them to F**k off and steal their creation" idea blows up in peoples faces.

[Trylon]

And people wonder why Cyan doesn't work with us

Seriously though, I do seriously believe Chloe has a point here. We're all looking forward to seeing the OSS Uru - personally I hope we can also use it for non-uru projects - but we should be careful about all this "lets go our own way with it" stuff.
We might feel we have a certain right to uru because we enjoy it and spent lots of time hacking it, but in the end it doesn't give us any right at all. A bit more respect would be appropriate.

I'm not keen to do a scaled up repeat of the GoW PyPRP Fork incident! Even though that one actually worked out in the end, I'm not proud of how it went down!
(Nope, not gonna explain that one, send me a PM if you really want to know)

[Aloys]

It's not only Cyan's server, or Cyan's Game. It's Cyan's IP.
And they are definitely not going to release that one in the wild like that. As much as some of us might dislike it.

So far they have been pretty flexible regarding our handlig of the Uru/Dni IP, and the way to publish our work; for good or for bad. We have done Ages, written stories, we have even dabbled into Dni Ages/story, and for the most part they have been cool with it. RAWA already released a while ago a set of guideline which seem to give a pretty good outline of their intentions and clearly some of our stuff doesn't fit in. This isn't a problem as long as it doesn't end up in Cyan's court. And that means in their game/IP.

Basically for the last 4 years they have let us do our things, but as soon as they allow Ages to be released officially and publicaly in MOUL it becomes a whole different ballgame, and some of the habits we have taken will have to change..
D'ni Ages? Nope. Ages whose story somehow mess with released Cyan work? Nope. Doing everything we want and hope to publish it? Nope. Oops. (I'm over simplifying but you get the idea)

Now, I feel that they should not have let us do as they have, because in the end it will only cause frustration and outrage for some people. Being a little more strict earlier would definitely have annoyed some, but at least it would have avoided the situation that is about to unfold..
Leaving the house to the kids and expect them to behave as you would want them to is *not* a good idea.. And in the end everybody pays for that.

Although to be fair it is a bit of a lose/lose situation, because they weren't too sure of where they were headed for all these years.. If Cyan had folded a couple years ago, or had somehow lost the D'ni IP it would be different. Thankfully they are still here, it's their IP, their creation, and they want to keep some form of control on it. It's only fair unfortunately.

I'm not keen to do a scaled up repeat of the GoW PyPRP Fork incident! Even though that one actually worked out in the end, I'm not proud of how it went down!
(Nope, not gonna explain that one, send me a PM if you really want to know)

Why? It was fun! Thinking of it though, it's uncanny how close it is to the UO/Gehn incident.. Just change the name of the characters and websites and we have almost the exact same story. Freaky.

[kaelisebonrai]

@Jamey: As chacal has said. *no* fan group should have any control over what is seen and released to the public. And any suggestion that they should, should be attacked with full force. Phasers set to "kill" as it were.

Well, when I got a chance to talk with Rand when MOUL opened up, I think what he wants to do is make sure that the Guild systems are fully running and running strongly, which means that we'd make content, and Maintainers would approve or disapprove of it. Then what would happen is after the content has gone through the Maintainers, it would go to Cyan so they can check and approve of it before it is released, and Cyan decides if and when content would be released. The Messengers would get the news out, and the Cartographers would help make the maps for the new ages released. The Greeters will still do their thing

Now I realize that some of this is speculation, but only time will tell what will happen, but I think this method would be the way to go, as it would have all the guilds working together, and at the same time, Cyan's vision of their game is upheld if they (or someone they trust) is at the helm.

Also, Re: Cyan not approving of it? I'm going to be very, very blunt, and honest. "I don't care." Cyan's "rules" are mostly foolish, and have no grounding in the reality of gaming content communities.

Well, of course it's their server, so in the end it's their rules.
The biggest constraint right now is Cyan's lack of resources.

Bingo Chacal. It does not matter if some of us disagree with Cyan World's rules, it's their server and their game, so they are ultimately going to be the ones calling the shots, whether some of us like it or not. If one doesn't like how Cyan is running it, one shouldn't play MOUL then. (not where Cyan calls the shots)

It is their server, their "game" sure. It is also /our/ time and effort, our creativity. I will not be told how I should express my creativity by any other person.

Oh, and don't worry, I'm already tiring of the.. graveyard of memories, as someone very close to me described MOULagain. And many of those memories are unpleasant. Dhel, Mystler, Serendipity (though I'm not sure she is back), Dangerzone, and others are back, and making my experience in MOUL a painful reminder of a not-so-happy past. I went to MOULagain hoping for a pleasant experience like I had on some private shards, and had forgot the miserable time I had with MOUL. That said, I've had some fun meeting up with some old friends, but, I personally think I'll go back to the shards, for now.

EDIT: Also, let it be known that Cyan has been /far/ from flexible regarding fan content... Even Bethesda who has treated their "modders" like rubbish on occasions, has been far more flexible. Hell, fans fix most of the bugs in Bethesda games, as "unofficial patches". Fans expand, repair, and add to the game worlds of Bethesda games, and, in fact, add to the popularity and lifespan of the games themselves. Morrowind would not still have the active, committed community it has today without fan "mods" and I only bought Morrowind in the first place because I'd heard about the vast number of mods available for it. I consider Morrowind one of my favourite games of all time, in fact. Whenever I re-install Morrowind (which I do, every so often), I always install one or two mods with it. Sometimes many more. Bethesda released Oblivion, later. since I loved Morrowind so much, I bought the collector's edition as soon as I could afford it. I hated it. I couldn't bring myself to play the game for very long, it was... just not what I enjoyed, as if they took everything good about morrowind, and replaced it. Well.. A while later, I forced myself to play it (it was expensive, I didn't want to have wasted the money), but, this time, I added massive numbers of user created content and alterations... it made the game playable. even enjoyable. enjoyable enough to spend a year or so playing it and enjoying the world, and user modifications. Bethesda, as badly as they have treated modders in the past, now interviews prominent modders on their blog, though I cannot remember how often. Bethesda lets modders alter, and use meshes, textures, music, etc. Bethesda does /not/ require they apply to their legal team for every mod. Bethesda even released tools to make mods, too. Even has their engine set up in such a way that mods integrate easily and simply. A mod "plugin" system.