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[ddb174]

Yeah, this is sortof what I was getting at, Bad. There can be things that are upheld, even without a signature. And it depends a lot on the extent of the lawsuit. (E.g. small claims (e.g. <$20,000 where I am) are a lot more willing to accept verbal agreements, *but*, it depends on precisely what that agreement was. If a verbal agreement was purportedly to pay back a loan with 10% interest within a year, they are likely to believe and enforce that. And if a "click" agreement was purportedly to terminate your account without refund should you try to reverse-engineer, then they are likely to enforce that too. But if a "click" agreement was purportedly to owe the company damages of $20,000 should you try to reverse-engineer, then good luck on them ;)

[kaelisebonrai]

We should call it what it is. Modifying. We are a modding community. I think avoiding the word hack is a good idea.

I have been trying to advocate calling what we do, what it is: Modding, but have been met with some resistance, on a fair few occasions. =P

I'm still using the term myself, but, I've had little luck with either side of the fence accepting it. =/

EDIT: Guh, corrected I've to I'm, that's what happens when you're revising the text, several times >.<

[diafero]

The Linux Kernel Hackers also "officially" call themselves that way, so I came to like that term

Not sure if we should really try to fit into other people's weird world views by calling ourselves differently than what we feel we are. And while... hacking ... Uru, I feel much more like a hacker than like a developer. Often enough it's not about doing it how it should be done, but about misusing the available resources in most creative ways. Cyan might one day make us "developers" by giving us appropriate tools and resources, but currently, I can't really justify calling myself Uru developer. Uru tool developer, okay (but personally I hardly do that), however as soon as it comes to the actual game, it's hacking.

[BAD]

Yeah, this is sortof what I was getting at, Bad. There can be things that are upheld, even without a signature. And it depends a lot on the extent of the lawsuit. (E.g. small claims (e.g. <$20,000 where I am) are a lot more willing to accept verbal agreements, *but*, it depends on precisely what that agreement was. If a verbal agreement was purportedly to pay back a loan with 10% interest within a year, they are likely to believe and enforce that. And if a "click" agreement was purportedly to terminate your account without refund should you try to reverse-engineer, then they are likely to enforce that too. But if a "click" agreement was purportedly to owe the company damages of $20,000 should you try to reverse-engineer, then good luck on them

Exactly. The worst they can do is get a judge to tell you to stop reverse engineering their software if they can find a judge even willing to listen to their claim. Judge Judy maybe?

Fero,

We'll call ourselves whatever we please. We're not here to win any popularity contests. I, like Kaelise, think that modding is the best term because practically every other community that hacks game files call them mods. I feel like it's calling a horse a horse.

However, does a rose by any other name smell as sweet, and does a hacker by any other name code as good?

[Tomala]

They're also called HAAAAAAAAX!

[Nadnerb]

Excuse me while I sap all the lols out of the previous post.

In the normal usage of the word, HAX are generally modifications to the game that are not accepted by the publisher or the community, and are usually used for cheating of some kind. Mods, on the other hand, are either entirely new games created by modifying an existing game, or additional features to an existing game that are accepted by the community or publisher... In this case, whether the GoW produces HAX or Mods is a bit fuzzy, since they're generally accepted by (much of) the community, but not yet by the publisher.

[Tomala]

Killjoy...

[Aloys]

Not sure if we should really try to fit into other people's weird world views by calling ourselves differently than what we feel we are.

I understand, but really it's a communication issue in the 'marketing' sense. It's all about the wording: Many people in the Uru community have a wrong idea of the name 'hacker' and feel uneasy about it, and we cannot change that.. However we can choose to use a different name.

[Whilyam]

I've fairly consistently called them "coders" because that's essentially what they are. They are people who work with code. I use "hacker" in quotes when I do use it.
I do think we spend too much time working on semantics. Just avoid using the incorrect term "hacker" or anything else involving something forced (like cracking) and you're probably already closer to reality than the windbags who base their Uru philosophies out of this.

[Nadnerb]

However we can choose to use a different name.

And whatever word we choose will eventually come to be associated with "hacking" and the connotations will follow it.

First we call "retarded" people "mentally challenged", then "special people", and each one of those has eventually acquired the same connotations as the original. It is this kind of avoiding the accurate term to be politically correct that pollutes language and distributes bad connotations to strange places.