Message Redacted

[Zander]

Can I offer my perspective?

Yes, of course you're all nice, decent people, with awesome skills that could have been, and might still be, of great use to open source Uru, whenever it may happen.

But, from where I see it, and ignoring niceties of definition of "hack", "crack" and so on, you futzed around with the software of a game with whose software you did not have permission to futz around. Cyan recognised your skills and tacitly accepted what you had done, but did not want you talking about it on their proprietary forum. At which point you went all up in the air about it, and seem to be under the impression that open source has already happened via some back door, that Cyan have ceded all rights to any version of Uru to the fans (i.e. you), and that, on top of the aforementioned tacit acceptance, they should be grateful to you as well.

I'm grateful to you. Drizzle is fantastic, and the fan Ages are great. But I'm not Cyan.

If you were to stop pushing for the right to talk about your stuff on Cyan's forum, then maybe Cyan will feel in a position to move on the important issues. Though I don't see how they can grandfather in any version of software that was produced in violation of a EULA, thus actively endorsing that violation.

I'd much rather see you talking on Cyan's forum about software produced with Cyan's permission for use with MOULa...but they won't give that permission if it looks as if they've been forced into it. That's just basic human stuff.

[kaelisebonrai]

You ignore several things that these horrible, dirty hackers have done that Cyan should be grateful for.

Several bugfixes in the KI, I believe, are due to these dirty rotten horrible hackers.

I don't know the full details, but I'm sure others might be able to shed some light on it all.

But, either way, you don't seem to understand, or know, or even care, about the complexity of the situation. This is up to you, but why bother telling us how horrible we are, when you ignore all this.

I would, also, recommend you do your research, in general, because things are not necessarily as black and white as you make them seem. =)

EDIT: yes, I am aware I regged after you, however, I've done my bit, and done the research, how about you? =P

[Zander]

When did I call you dirty or horrible? When did I call you anything but nice, decent people with brilliant skills?

Read my posts, and not whatever foul invective you make up in your own fevered mind, before you respond to me again, please. Or permaban me, if Hoikas likes. I don't think I'm much bothered about coming back here, actually.

[diafero]

However, kaelis is right in saying that Cyan already accepted KI patches during UU.

What you write sounds reasonable, Zander, however you forget one thing - the only reason why we can now even talk about open-source Uru is that people did these hacks. It's not like Cyan planned this from the beginning. The UU servers were published as reaction to Almlys announcing Alcugs. People kept interest in Uru because they had UU, and they had PyPRP which grew more and more mature up to the state we have today. And after MOUL was shut down, hackers ran servers in the underground so that people who couldn't stand the offline game would stick around, while also creating tools to play the former MOUL-only ages. So their whole plan is based on the pre-work of the Uru hackers. And now Cyan wants to cut off this part of history, and just declare that we may only talk about the hacking we got from them, and not about the hacking that brought us here. In their official point of view, the history I outlined above never happened. There is just MOUL, and MOUL hacking thanks to them giving us the 3ds Max plugin. This totally neglects that we had to hack Uru down to the last file, and some even hacked (and still do so) MOUL without the tools and info provided by Cyan. This is an important part of Uru history, it shows that it was the fans sticking around, not Cyan, keeping the game alive. Of course I am grateful for Cyan creating this wonderful game, but we put too much work into it to be treated like this,

[Trylon]

Zander, please don't let the reply of one person bother you like this. I believe kaelis accidentally mistook some of your words for sarcasm.
I for one in principle agree with your post - in principle, since I also take in account how many people feel, regarding what diafero explained above.
Still, your opinion is welcome here, and you should not be afraid of banning. We don't ban people for their opinions here.

[kaelisebonrai]

*sigh*

"dirty horrible haxxor" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the GoW at large, based on an exaggerated form of the views of many on the moul forums, note, the dirty horrible haxxor bit is the exaggeration, not the view itself.

Indeed, people aren't banned for their opinions here.

Read into my post what you will, you have still ignored, by and large, the real point of the post.

But, from where I see it, and ignoring niceties of definition of "hack", "crack" and so on, you futzed around with the software of a game with whose software you did not have permission to futz around. Cyan recognised your skills and tacitly accepted what you had done, but did not want you talking about it on their proprietary forum. At which point you went all up in the air about it, and seem to be under the impression that open source has already happened via some back door, that Cyan have ceded all rights to any version of Uru to the fans (i.e. you), and that, on top of the aforementioned tacit acceptance, they should be grateful to you as well.

Again, I restate my point.

You're ignoring the history, as Diafero said, ignoring the existing patches from the UU era... And so on.

Lay the blame on me, or others, all you wish, but, you /are/ ignoring the complexity of the issue.

EDIT: further clarification: It was not an attack at you, or any other, it was merely a tongue-in-cheek reference to the GoW. Read into that what you will. Personally, I wear it as a badge of honour.

[Simone]

Zander (as others here and elsewhere) made some important points nonetheless; he did not oversimplify. A company cannot endorse something illegal (or at least violating the EULA) done with their property, or approve of it officially. Yes, they accepted patches during UU, but that was the only time (apart from now) when Uru did not have a publisher and Cyan was not on the verge of disaster. This has nothing to do with disrespecting the players, or trying to erase part of Uru's history. If people are frustrated that things aren't happening quickly, it is understandable, but it has only to do with feelings. In the case of the sign above here, I think your feelings have been made clear over at the MOUL forums; but it still does not change what Cyan can or cannot do.

[kaelisebonrai]

Again, it is not illegal. Violating a EULA does not necessarily make it illegal. UU, however, also used the same engine as the things we cannot speak of on the MOUL forums. Somehow, I think it wouldn't be ok to talk about altering UU, either

By the by: during UU, Cyan was beyond the verge of disaster. In 2005-ish, CYAN CLOSED ITS DOORS. Went kaput. Bye-bye, all that jazz. I think that's a little interesting to note. D'mala, maybe you might have a point, but, D'mala isn't all there is to UU. So, your reasoning of UU being when Cyan wasn't on the verge of disaster, is not relevant. Path of The Shell was also during this period.

[Simone]

Even if violating the EULA does not make something illegal, the EULA is still an agreement. Starting to condone *some* violations to an agreement, years after such violations happened, first of all would be extremely unfair to all those who respected the agreement; second, it could become a real mess.

Moreover, when Cyan closed its doors they probably had relatively not much to lose, but OK. I still don't think that invalidates Zander's or my points though. Cyan is taking the steps needed to ufficialize the developers' work, and you can still do whatever it is you've been doing for all these years. If you look at the situation as it is now, you are winning on all sides. It will just take a while for the referee to declare this "game" over.

[kaelisebonrai]

I don't see how anyone is winning, but, whatever.

I disagree that they're taking any action, currently to utilize the developer's work, right now. They're talking a little, but not actually doing much, if anything.