Guild of Writers

PRP files account for nearly all the visual content after the launcher. So if you can't distribute any PRP files originally from Cyan, there will be pretty much nothing to look at on your shard. No KI, base Nexus GUI to work from, no avatar animations, or avatar selection screen, and no Cyan ages. So yeah, that license for the content is pretty important.

Lontahv wrote:PRP files account for nearly all the visual content after the launcher. So if you can't distribute any PRP files originally from Cyan, there will be pretty much nothing to look at on your shard. No KI, base Nexus GUI to work from, no avatar animations, or avatar selection screen, and no Cyan ages. So yeah, that license for the content is pretty important.

Yikes! It sure is important to get that license, and soon! But, is it at least possible to write in some PRP files to add commands to the KI and/or upgrade the Nexus GUI?

If you want to even have a KI, you'll need to completely re-make the GUI model. Easier would be to not have a KI and just have a line of text for chat. You can work on editing the Nexus and KI files, but you can't redistribute them.

Lontahv wrote:If you want to even have a KI, you'll need to completely re-make the GUI model. Easier would be to not have a KI and just have a line of text for chat. You can work on editing the Nexus and KI files, but you can't redistribute them.

Yet. I hope Cyan GPLs those files soon. But, that means the KI is inaccessible? Man. Well, how can you link to fan Ages if you don't know Python?

You can't distribute the PRP files on your server, but you *can* ask your users to copy them from an Uru install that they use for Cyan's MOULagain shard. Lontahv's statements are a bit of hyperbole... But assuming your users can't copy the files on their own, you would have no KI, no ages, not even the avatar selection screen. It's really important that Cyan gives a content license for shard owners sooner rather than later.

Branan, thanks for bringing that up, I missed that aspect. There always is the option of making a patch for use on a copy of a normal MOULa install.

Branan wrote:You can't distribute the PRP files on your server, but you *can* ask your users to copy them from an Uru install that they use for Cyan's MOULagain shard. Lontahv's statements are a bit of hyperbole... But assuming your users can't copy the files on their own, you would have no KI, no ages, not even the avatar selection screen. It's really important that Cyan gives a content license for shard owners sooner rather than later.

Yow! That certainly is important. We need that license to do just about anything with URU. But, it doesn't say it is a crime to distribute Cyan's PRP files, it just says "modify and redistribute". I get from that sentence that we can:

1. Distribute unedited copies of Cyan's PRP files.
2. Edit Cyan's PRP files as long as we don't distribute them.
3. Bundle unedited Cyan PRP files with a basic shard (no fan Ages though ).
4. Possibly edit AGE files to add linking books leading to fan Ages (but, if I'm understanding what's being said, that may be impossible without editing and/or adding PRP files).

And we can't:

1. Distribute edited copies of Cyan's PRP files (bundled or not).

So, perhaps a basic shard is possible if we bundle PRP. I'm guessing this license is what held back the GoW shard from opening.

nathan2055 wrote:1. Distribute edited copies of Cyan's PRP files (bundled or not).

Technically you could get around that by only distributing the modified bytes. As in making an application that works out what bytes have changed and distributing the changed bytes in a patch which then takes the original PRP on the clients PC and builds a modified one using that and the changed bytes(Some old Patchers for games worked like that as the patches would be smaller in size... though they take far longer to apply). None of Cyans stuff would be distributed.

Stucuk wrote:

nathan2055 wrote:1. Distribute edited copies of Cyan's PRP files (bundled or not).

Technically you could get around that by only distributing the modified bytes. As in making an application that works out what bytes have changed and distributing the changed bytes in a patch which then takes the original PRP on the clients PC and builds a modified one using that and the changed bytes(Some old Patchers for games worked like that as the patches would be smaller in size... though they take far longer to apply). None of Cyans stuff would be distributed.

Interesting idea. What do you think, Branan?

The patcher scheme would work pretty well and be completely legal. One consideration for a patch setup is that if any files got modified or deleted from the patched install, the client would not be able to automatically redownload your files from the file server. So not being able to have the server hand out a pristine version of all the files it expects you to have has its drawbacks.