Questions regarding UAM

General debates and discussion about the Guild of Writers and Age creation

Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Sirius » Sat Apr 15, 2017 3:57 am

Ah ! That explains a lot. Dulcamara, you have nothing to blame yourself about, there is no one at fault - CWalther and Dendwaler are right. It's just an unfortunate turn of event.

People want to make their Ages available on more Shards, or need a quick way to test their Age online. And since integration into Deep Island is slow, and since it means explorers might see the Age before it's ready, they go to UAM.
Dustin doesn't look after UAM (*), but since people politely ask him for help, he provides them that help.

I agree, Dustin's intentions were probably good - he was merely helping (**).
What made this situation so complicated is that he left the GoW in the worse possible way, and that his server is not legal. This made us all (me in particular) react quite violently to seeing his Shard was being used again, without knowing Dustin's goal.

Oh, and Korovev:
Korovev wrote:My irritiation comes from people who think that “it runs better” and “it is free” justifies playing on a shard that promotes piracy; it also comes from people who think that because Cyan has not publicly condemned that shard, then they must be happy with its existence.
...I think the only person this applies to is Dustin. As for the others ? As the MOUL topic shows, there are just those who are aware that UAM is illegal, and those who aren't. But if you warn them they understand that they should avoid it.

...And that's why it's good to have topics that warn about these issues.
Otherwise, this situation will happen again, and since Cyan moderators violently remove any reference to the subject, that just makes everyone nervous about possible copyright infringements.

So please, Dulcamara, don't feel bad about it :) No one is to blame, it's just old history coming back.


-----


Now, about Dustin and his history in general... Let me explain the sentences I marked with (*) and (**).

→ (*) As Karkadann rightly noticed, the UAM Shard is not even synced with the Shard's UAM database (yes, those terms are confusing). This shows Dustin probably doesn't care much about it.
However, he still helps people who ask him. And that's a problem for the reason I'm about to expose.

As Christian Walther said, the GoW is sometime borderline when it comes to legality.
Christian Walther wrote:(wobei allerdings gesagt werden muss, dass sich diverses von was wir hier tun in rechtlichen Grauzonen bewegt, wenn auch nicht derart eklatant)[...]

...But to be accurate it's even more complicated than that. I would say law is almost secondary here, as it's more of a matter of trust between Cyan and the GoW.
The things we do on the GoW don't harm Cyan, and are often beneficial to them in some way. We actually keep copyright infringements to a minimum to prove we mean no harm to Cyan and to keep Ubisoft at bay. Because of that, Cyan is lenient towards us, as this gives us more freedom to make things like the Offline-KI or libHSPlasma.
Because they don't lose money, they can go about upgrading the MOULa servers like they did recently, or make new games like Obduction without worries. Because they trust the builders and hackers around here, they decide to make the engine open-source and let the Intangibles improve MOULa.

Dustin wants to please people around him. Whether it is a form of selfishness or oversized ego isn't important. The fact is even now that he is gone, he still helps people who request him.
However, the biggest problem with this guy is that he was always too stubborn to clear up his UAM mess when he was here, and that he doesn't care now that he left.
→ (**) Which means his "help" always ends up either causing financial loss to Cyan, tensions between Cyan and the GoW, or tensions between fans as this topic proves.



These were the fact. Now, what does that mean about Dustin's intentions ? I see only two possibilities:
  • Dustin wants to bring down Cyan, the GoW, fans, and erase Myst from history. While he knows that's impossible, he does his best to make everyone's life bad through a machiavellic plan involving confusing moves - even after years of apparent inactivity.
    All we can do is ignore him and warn people not to pay attention to him.
OR
  • Dustin is a good hacker but a short-sighted temperamental fool.
    All we can do is ignore him and warn people not to pay attention to him.

Pick whichever you want...
Anyway, I have the answers I wanted about UAM and Dustin, which puts my mind at ease. Thank you all for the informations ;)
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Korovev » Sat Apr 15, 2017 6:05 am

Sirius wrote:I think the only person this applies to is Dustin. As for the others ? As the MOUL topic shows, there are just those who are aware that UAM is illegal, and those who aren't. But if you warn them they understand that they should avoid it.

I hope so, we’ll see. But consider that Doobes and I warned them both at the AGM two weeks ago and in the thread that got erased, and people are still praising and promoting the UAM shard in Facebook.
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Karkadann » Sat Apr 15, 2017 12:42 pm

To sum it up Dulcamara you walked into an old feud, as an age writer you should be able to use the information and resources available to improve your art without getting involved in the feud.
Unfortunately there are still issues between the two sides of the feud that don't look resolvable any time soon, and its very unfortunate. Both sides have a wealth information and resources
that if combined would be something everybody would benefit from. As far as the legality, Cyan seemed to turn a blind eye to the illegal shards as long as they are done in good taste.
In addition the only shards that are legal are the open source MOULa type shards, there is no "more illegal" or "less illegal" here, the UAM shard and the DI shard are both illegal. unfortunately they are the ones
with all the fan ages and old game engine that has most if not all bug worked out. Kinda like a testing ground for age writers until somebody comes up with a better solution hint hint
it would seem to be a necessary evil that Cyan is willing to tolerate for now at least.


Just make a mental note on the topic to avoid this political land-mine in the future
If you do talk to Dustin again tell him I said Hi and thanks. perhaps one day this situation
will be resolved. Until then Keep in mind Holding onto anger is like drinking rat poison and
expecting the rat to die, it also uses up more mental resources then its worth.
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Doobes » Sun Apr 16, 2017 8:28 am

Korovev wrote:My irritiation comes from people who think that “it runs better” and “it is free” justifies playing on a shard that promotes piracy.


This. If the shard allows you to download files for free that are normally paid for (and thus keeps money from Cyan), that is PIRACY, pure and simple. To have people who claim to support Cyan condone that sort of thing simply because they have trouble with the other, more reputable shards, is rather foolish.

The easier option is not always the correct one. Sad but true.

EDIT: I can honestly believe you didn't know, Dulcamara. I myself have been around the Age building community for years and even I don't know the full story about what went on. ;)
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby philipgr » Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:11 am

Good evening

A fellow explorer friend of mine told me about this issue when we on Skype. Last year I found out about the UAM Shard so I sent an email asking for a login account. A few days later I received a user ID. I have been playing Dulcamara' updated Alabaster on it. I have found that I crash less when clicking on buttons. However I have found it to be a bit laggy when there are a lot of explorers in. Last week when I first linked into Alabaster there were around ten to fifteen people already playing which made it very laggy.

I have a question which I am hoping someone can clarify for me. I do not wish to create problems and start a new issue. A number of years ago I read on the net somewhere that Cyan had released Uru's source code to the community as open source. I use
Linux Mint and Zorin which are open source. In the Linux community open source means that any one can take a program, distro etc that has been released as open source, modify it, port it, use it to create a completely new distro and so forth. An example is Linux Mint which uses the Ubuntu distro source files. Ubuntu is a fork of and based on the Debian distro which is one of the two main distros. The other is Red Hat. Most open source software is released under the copyleft GPL licence created by the Free Software Foundation under the guidance of Richard Stallman.

I have been under the impression and belief that because Uru's source files were now open source they had been ported and used to create the other Uru Shards with changes to accomodate the different servers each shard uses.

My question is: Is my belief and impression correct? If not I will really appreciate it if someone can explain the whole setup to me.

Thanks and regards
Philip
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Karkadann » Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:42 am

The Deep Island shard and the UAM shard use an older game engine based on Uru CC from the days of "Until Uru" the devils in the details "Until we can publish Uru again this is what we can give you" then Game Tap came along and offered to publish Uru Live, I dont think GT was willing to compete with a free version of the same, who would which I believe is why Cyan shut down the authenticated server around the time GT opened up the cavern, Game Tap reopened the cavers but with a different newer game engine which is the one that is opened sourced. or at least a partial open source, there are still things Cyan would prefer we do not to fiddle with.

So basically there are two game engines that I know of , the older one which I believe may still be tied to UBI and the new one that Cyan did a partial open source with.

Not sure this answers your question also Keep in mind this info is based on what little I know and a bit of speculation. Perhaps someone can fill in the blanks or correct any errors
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Sirius » Wed Apr 19, 2017 1:50 pm

That's mostly correct, but there is a slight distinction between "engine" and "game". To put it simply:

Cyan open-sourced only the engine that runs Uru. Not its 3d models, environments, sounds, etc (you can get them for free but they are not technically yours). Which means Gehn Shard, etc are legal as long as they require you to download the environments from MOULa directly. You could even make your own game with Uru's engine, as long as you make all the environments yourself.

Deep Island and UAM run on a similar but older version of the engine, which was NOT open sourced. The 3D models, etc they use is not open sourced either. They belong to both Cyan and Ubisoft (just like End of Ages does).
Deep Island is still "legal" (almost) because it (almost) does not redistribute files from the original game: you (the player) is only replacing a config file of their own game to force the game to connect to the Internet. Because it's your install and it's disconnected from any Cyan/Ubisoft server, you're free to do so.
The data sent by your modified game is received by an Alcugs server (which is an open source program made from scratch, and thus belongs to the community), which synchronizes player positions and sends this small data back to each player.

UAM, however, gives you a program which allows you to download the whole Complete Chronicles game for free. That's the issue.


(but yeah, while Deep Island is mostly legal, it still allows you to download the Offline-KI, which isn't legal because it includes modified Cyan files. That alone makes Deep Island "not legal should Cyan or Ubi decide so". But the OKI is much smaller than UAM and can't be used without owning the original game, which means it's a smaller infraction than UAM is, and thus is tolerated by Cyan since it means fans can explore new Ages.
We could rebuild the Offline-KI to be completely legal, but that would take time and means we would lose some of the Complete Chronicles bugfixes)


Karkadann wrote:If you do talk to Dustin again tell him I said Hi and thanks. perhaps one day this situation
will be resolved. Until then Keep in mind Holding onto anger is like drinking rat poison and
expecting the rat to die, it also uses up more mental resources then its worth.

Well said. Dustin is the guy who made Drizzle, and for that I'm still grateful towards him. I don't feel the need to hold bad feelings about him since despite the mess he left he's trying not to interfere anymore.

Korovev wrote:I hope so, we’ll see. But consider that Doobes and I warned them both at the AGM two weeks ago and in the thread that got erased, and people are still praising and promoting the UAM shard in Facebook.

That's true. I don't follow what happens on FB, but if such things happen it's quite sad.

Doobes wrote:This. If the shard allows you to download files for free that are normally paid for (and thus keeps money from Cyan), that is PIRACY, pure and simple.

Then Deep Island is pure and simple piracy too ;) (Thanksfully, the way DI redistributes files means Cyan does not lose money in the process.)

Doobes wrote:EDIT: I can honestly believe you didn't know, Dulcamara. I myself have been around the Age building community for years and even I don't know the full story about what went on. ;)

Seems we were quite a few to not know much about it. Which makes it important to talk about it, IMHO.
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby TrapperDave » Sat Apr 22, 2017 8:13 am

I agree with what Sirius posted above, it is time I responded to all this controversy.
_________________________________________________________________________________
I am the culprit or bad guy who started all this. It was meant to be a fun little event on the Arogosy. I had advised Karel not to post on the Moula Forum. But I went ahead and posted with a dual location.
http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=28601
-- The MOULa thread:
TUESDAY 25th April 2017 at 13.00ki time
located in Urutunes Hood in the Moula Cavern
13:00 Ki Time > .... until everybody gets tired or tilted > (typo sp.)
Karel will stream: Sea Shanties, Pirate Songs & Music for the Sea
Event will last 13 Ki to at least 14 Ki + & then a second DJ may take over & last until 16:00 Ki +
***
And also Karel will be in Urutunes Hood for further information.
***
A Fun ... Fun ... Fun Event ! Mandatory to bring some rum along !
posted by TrapperDave for Karel > for further information: contact: Karel,TD,and enders
Joker or enders may DJ after Karel leaves.
--
The part I edited out: but I did not have to because it was left there intact on the Moula Forum"
"Simutaneously located on the Ship Argosy. Note to find the ship guides will be provided to
meet you at the link in in Laki'anay Age ( UAM Shard ) whisper (shhhhhhh)
The book is on your relto shelf on the bottom center.

And also Karel will be in Urutunes Hood for further information."
--
All over a simple little event that received nasty reply's. The first day it received maybe a dozen reply's all about the Uam shard. I bit my tongue until the next morning. That morning I responded saying
all shards are illegal and I wish I could delete this entire thread it is so contentious, but I can't. When I got home that night I was shocked to see the thread was cleaned and all the nasty was removed.
Except my original post remained, even with 80 + views on it. It even contained the original post referring to "a second location on the Argosy in Uam shard". The last I looked it has 415 views! I wish I
could have read the reply's that day with the 80 views, but maybe it is best I did not get that chance.
--
Then I saw the controversy was moved over to the GoW Forum with this thread. I bit my tongue again.
What led up to all this is a long story. I also thought Uam shard was gone and history. I was not in that shard for 4 or 5 years. Alabaster was placed on the Deep Island shard and I had been waiting for it for
2 years. I was busy with the 7th Moula Anniversary but had to delay until the Anniversary Events were over. After completing Alasbaster many times I wondered why many of my friends were not in DI looking at this
fantastic Age by Dulcamara. I asked many to come to DI and see Alabaster with me. I was told by most we are in Uam shard and Alabaster was not there. I am an avid player in Deep Island, having done all the fan ages
mostly 4 years ago. So I tried to help many friends set up DI and install it so I could show Alabaster to them. I found out that many people have trouble setting up DI ! I had recently installed it on my new WIN 10
with no problems. I started this thread because others had this problem: viewtopic.php?f=111&t=6749 observations
"the file dat/Garrison_District_FemaleLanding Roll.prp has an invalid version, but is required to log in.Uru can not be started." I never did get an answer for her & had others tell me the same thing. One person solved
it but I do not know how? She said she wiped it out 4 or 5 times & then it finally worked ?
--
Next I learn from friends that Laki'anay is on the Uam shard and it was not present on DI. I wanted to see this fan created age very bad and a bunch of us went there as a tribute to GLO.
So having not been in Uam shard for a long 4 years + I was amazed it was still there up and running. And I retrieved my password long forgotten and I was in Uam shard just as I left it years ago!
Two events were being planned by others: The Argosy Event above and a Under Water Event in Gilito.
--
Now that I was in the Uam again I made some observations. It was clear to me that more people were in Uam shard Vs. the DI shard. And I saw many old friends I have not seen for years still in Uam.
The reason I heard from many people was that Uam is easy and trouble free to install & setup. DI seemed to be a monster that many people can not install ? I do not know why others have this trouble?
--
Next I was amazed that Albaster was now in Uam shard. The Age was broken into two parts and I tested it in Uam. I was so delighted that most of my friends were in Uam and could now visit this
fantastic great Age with me. I rushed to Face Book to announce it:
"TrapperDave Urupics
April 11 at 8:07pm
Alabaster Age is now in UAM shard
by Dulcamara Elodea
It is in two parts ( Alabaster2) and appears to be running a lot smoother, so far that I The tested."
--
I do not like my words being twisted and taken out of context. It was implied on the Moula forum by Korovev that I said Uam shard runs smoother than DI. I DID NOT say that, I said "It is in two parts
( Alabaster2) and appears to be running a lot smoother, so far that I The tested." The reason I announced that is many more people could now see Alabaster in UAM shard. Those who could not play this huge Age in DI.
One reason was the Age was too large, huge and with lag. But I also thought the DI Server was at fault with invisible avatars and buttons that normally worked and then sometimes did not.
--
Next thing I see is Dulcamara was being attacked here on this thread. I did not like that at all and felt real bad ! But again I bit my tongue. There was no reason to attack Dulcamara this way.
That upset me greatly! Simply because she took advantage to put Alabaster on the Uam shard. And one good reason for doing that is to reach many people who are not in Deep Island, a much wider
audience. It upset me a lot that Dulca was dragged into this. All because of my Argosy Post on the Moula Forum. But now I could show many people Alabaster and was delighted and enthused to do so,
because all were in the Uam shard !
--
Now I was very curious as to what is going on here with an old war? So I began researching and writings emails, and to Cyan for answers. I did not like being accused of stealing from Cyan. I own
URUCC and many others do also. There were many false posts i felt made on the Moula Forum by Doobes2, korovev, and AdamJohnso. Statements like:"Shards like Deep Island have a ‘light’ shade of grey"
and"The ‘UAM’ shard has a far darker shade of grey" bothered me. Two wrongs do not make any of them right. I stated on the Moula Forum that all shards are illegal then. In the post above Sirius
stated "but yeah, while Deep Island is mostly legal, it still allows you to download the Offline-KI, which isn't legal because it includes modified Cyan files"
--
Cyan has this statement on their website:
"Legal & Copyright
Like any good neighbor we are more than happy to share our stuff with you… as long as you don’t go making money off of it for heaven’s sake! We’ve got a few rules and regulations just so that we can
stay good neighbors. These rules apply to (but are not limited to) any of our images, movies, animations, text, fonts, story, characters, sounds, and music (“Assets”) as they relate to our products,
and even beyond. Just so we’re on the same page, legal is not a priority, just some kind of unfortunate complication. But we’ve been told we have to watch our assets."
* Note: None of the shards are making money off of it, I think only donations.
--
Only the program code is open source, not the content. But every shard has to distribute some content. As Sirius stated the Offline-KI, which isn't legal because it includes modified Cyan files.
DI distributes the MOUL ages, the modified KI and various modified files including binaries. All the ABM/ToDni/Pots/MOUL ages are available for free today. With Myst5, Crowthistle, HexIsle, you
are required you to show that you own them, by installing and converting them with the use od Drizzle, from what I understand. Uru: The Path of the Shell, extended the story of Uru in the present
and added multiple never-before-seen Ages. Unlike the first expansion pack, Uru: The Path of the Shell was not free, but was boxed and sold in stores. Uru, To D'ni, and The Path of the Shell were
also packaged together and sold as Uru: The Complete Chronicles.
--
This is all a complex issue! I am pursuing some answers from Cyan legal which I do not have yet. However the "shades of grey" IS NOT A GOOD ANSWER ! Legal is Black and White", you know lawyers :)
From what I understand is the UAM shard has a license from Cyan ? I am not sure and trying to find out. I do not like being accused of stealing from Cyan. I own all the Myst Games and related.
Two wrongs do not make any of them right! I think this issue needs cleared up some for the better future. I did not want to open up a heated debate. However now I intend to find answers to some
ridiculous accusations.
--
We just wanted to have a simple little fun event of the ship Argosy that at present is only available in the UAM shard. But some have turned this into a nightmare!
"Can't we all get along ?" ... was my last post in the MOULa Forum before it was cleaned.
I think everybody needs to take a deep breath and calm down.
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby philipgr » Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:14 am

Good evening Karkadann and Sirius

Please accept my apologies for my late response, I had some personal issues to deal with. Thank you very much for answering my question and explaining which part of Uru was released as open source and how each shard works.

Regards
Philip
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Re: Questions regarding UAM

Postby Sirius » Sat Apr 22, 2017 12:38 pm

Heh, don't worry. Some accusations were baseless and have been cleared, some only accuse you of not being aware of an undocumented topic. As you could see from the reactions on the MOUL forum, lack of information is always a source of problems. I made this topic is to clear the situation in question ;)

Cyan doesn't mind sharing most of their stuff, but Complete Chronicles / PotS is also Ubisoft's stuff. Fortunately CC is a small game so it goes unnoticed, but if Ubi notices someone is making illegal use of their stuff, they could react very violently. They usually don't care about such small games, but are pests when it comes to ownership (that's why they launched their own (laughable) uPlay platform).

Are these Shards legal ? No. Why ? Because they aren't completely white. If you want to stay on the right side of the law, that's all you need to know. Don't want to be considered stealing from Cyan ? Then don't modify your game, because there always IS the possibility that someone can sue you for it.
What's the deal with "shades of grey", then ?
Let's just say it's an indicator about what your intentions appear to be. Darker shades look like you're giving the finger to Cyan/Ubi. With a lighter shade of grey, both might just ignore you and consider you're good enough to be considered white.
Although Dustin's intentions were presumably good when he made UAM, his Shard still looks like an affront to the makers of the game. DI at least looks like a Shard that tries to be legal.

--

You know, when MOUL was first made open source, Cyan accidentally open-sourced a file which was actually not open-sourcable (because it belongs to RAD Game Tools, which made the library used to play videos in Uru). When the copyright holder realized it, they commanded Cyan/OpenSource guys to completely remove that file from the Internet. And Cyan/OSguys had no choice but to ask politely everyone on MOULa/OpenUru/GoW to please remove that file as fast as possible.

Now, RAD Game Tools could have simply filed a complaint against Cyan directly and dragged them to tribunal (Cyan would have lost the trial). But they went the amicable way and warned them that they should make the file disappear as fast as possible. Why ? Because it was a smallish single file which wasn't very useful on its own, and Cyan didn't try to open-source the whole proprietary code.

That's the difference between Offline-KI/DI and UAM Shard.

--

Anyway. As for the rest, well you know how it works: people are unaware, or misunderstand, exaggerate or overreact about informations, which makes a whole mess of things. But we humans won't ever change ;)

Also, the UAM wiki claims:
UAM (which stands for UruAgeManager) is a Cyan-approved project, which includes several parts:
- The UAM tab of Drizzle
- The fan-Age collection at: http://myst.dustbird.net/uru-ages/
- The UAM Walkthrough project
- The UAM KI Plugin
- The UAM Shard (The approval status of this particular project is affected by Non-Disclosure Agreements.)

This notice misses:
- the approval status of the project by Ubisoft
- details about the UAM Shard Non-Disclosure Agreements in question
- the actual legal status of the project in question
- the boring LICENSE under which you might use, redistribute, reuse and modify the UAM project. These are very important but completely boring so people always ignore them.

So yeah, it seems some part of UAM are Cyan approved, but there is no actual proof of it. And even if there were, that wouldn't make things legal.


In short:
Be careful around DI and UAM, but be even more careful around UAM.
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