Making a mod incompatible with other mods

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The analogies hold for freely-exchanged products--I don't see why money is relevant. The notion that if I haven't paid for the object you still get to control what I do with it equally silly in my view. (I even worked in a free rather than paid example: "If you are given a book".) It's not like I've borrowed YOUR copy of the mod and utterly wrecked it. You have provided me with my own copy of the mod, which I should be able to do what I like with. If you wish not to provide me with a mod, that is your prerogative. It is not your prerogative to come round my house and uninstall Shadowkeeper.

 

So, basically what you're saying is any mod on the internet is considered freeware and since the creator(s) can't do anything legally, they should suck it up.

Lovely sentiments. And you wonder why new BG modders quit so quickly?

 

Legally, you're probably not going to have any recourse against people hacking up your mod. You're already modifying and redistributing parts of BG2 without permission, which is arguably a violation of the EULA to boot. (On top of that, for almost all modders, it's never going to be worth the time and money to try and sue someone for something they did to your free hobby. I've seen a lot of legal threats flying around since I started modding, and precisely 0 of them have come to fruition.) But I'm talking ethics here, not legality.

It's clearly not very nice to change someone's mod without their permission and upload it for others to download. I am not advocating this.

On the other hand, I think it's unneccessary for a modder to try and tell an individual how to play their game. Ultimately, yes, I think if you want to exercise this degree of control over how people play, it's a misguided effort.

That came out longer than I expected. I'm not trying to say "please don't bother releasing any mods". I just think you'd be far better off spending your time, say, improving the actual content than messing about with stupid anti-cheat scripting which is going to be shaky at best.

Well, there are hundreds of people working on mods, and trust me, we all think our creations are artful and flawless and shouldn't be touched too. But we "suck it up" as you put it, and let people get on with having fun, safe in the knowledge that we may have contributed to that fun.

 

Actually, I believe Sim was commenting on the scripting, which would make it impossible for your character to have his attributes changed by, for example, Mind Flyers (they can drain intelligence, right?). Same goes for other utilities such as potions and strength belts.

...what's that got to do with this? This wasn't a question of bug reports, it was a question of kuemper not wanting players to change the class of her dwarf. I didn't quite understand her reasoning, but I'm fairly sure it was about her "creative work" being "desecrated" rather than worry about inaccurate bug reports.

I think that's a bit far-fetched. I won't go telling everyone how much Arian sucks for creating too powerful characters if I've boosted all of Tashia's stats to 25 with Shadowkeeper.

I fail to see what's so different about a mod. When it all comes down, both the table and the book have been created by a designer; just like the mod.

It's also a bit like saying that you can't create a mod in the first place, because you're changing someone else's work! (In this case, Bioware's.) That makes the entire issue both redundant and silly.

 

Kuemper, you are talking total raping of mod when I mean "fine tuning for my needs". Let's say I need a bard in my party. I want to try Keto, instead of HaerDalis(?). Then I want to play as a skald, because never played as one. I can't see that bad if I change her to skald (and still enjoy one of the greatest NPC-mods IMO). And I don't have a time to make new runs every time I want to try something new.

And if I someday find mod that doesn't allow me to do it... ah well, there's plenty other npc-mods to try instead for me. With all respect. But I really hope this kind of thinking in IE-modding isn't becoming more popular.

Edit: Oh , and I really appreciate the work you modders have put for my enjoyment. I really do, with your hard work my game is more bug free, customized for my needs, more challenging, you name it...

Then other thing how approachable you are. Like I pm'ed Sim for an idea to DEFJAM mod and he added it in few days. That's the spirit I love to see in BG-community.

You also help us gamers here in the forums on our problems with game aswell. Sikret is good example.

On topic, I don't think restrictions fit in the modding scene. Just wanted my opinion out, as a player of your mods.

(Sim, can I have my banana now?)

[ December 30, 2006, 02:10: Message edited by: Anjo ]

 

I think there's little risk of that. The vast majority of people with both the will and the ability to carry off a mod realize that their time and energy are best spent on other aspects of design, and/or seem to appreciate the terribly tenuous position a game modder would put him or herself in by asserting that his or her mod should somehow be considered more sacrosanct than the underlying game actually being modded.

 

If I hadn't seen this thread with my own two eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.

 

...Well this is ridiculous. Plenty of NPC mods have special weapons/items for their NPC to use, and almost all of them have restrictions put on them so that only their character can use them. There's no complaints about this. But when kuemper wants to do the same with her character (as opposed to items), you raise hell?

I can understand the posts that are saying "most of us just suck it up and live with the idea that our work will be screwed with", as a bit of advice not to take it so seriously, but to deride her for wanting to avoid her work being altered? That's just too far. If you don't like it, you don't have to use her mod, and she'd actually probably prefer it that way.

RE: original game not being 'sancrosanct'
Weimer had to build WeiDU from the ground up, and I'd bet SK wasn't a walk in the park to make either. BG files have their own formats, and the game doesn't come with an editor like so many other games do. If you think they didn't want, at least in a small way, to protect their product, you're deluding yourself. Anything kuemper tries will naturally have ways of being defeated (anything can be re-written), just as the BG file formats ultimately did, but that's her choice and I'll thank you to leave it at that.

 

I don't see why anyone would download a mod for an F/T NPC then turn it into a cleric.

I've been known to change a few stats on my PC (if I can't be arsed to wait for a good roll on character creation) with SK, but I don't see the point in editting a mod. The only time I'd do that would be the same situation. If someone created a mod with really low stats and it was too difficult, I'd edit it. Or if the NPC started with crappy XP when compared with the rest of my party, I might edit that as well. I don't see the point in changing things too massively though, what's the point in using the mod in that case?

Saying that, I don't think any limitations should be in place to stop someone playing about with a mod. It's their choice what to do with it really, but I just don't see the point.

I don't mind using SK with the original BG2, I mean when you've played it through 5 times 'vanilla' you need a change. Mods and SK are just a way to create that change and keep things interesting (SK and mods are exactly the same thing in my book - messing around with the original game).

 

I don't see the connection. An item only usable by an NPC is part of a story. A dialogue where an NPC pipes up "PLEASE STOP USING SHADOWKEEPER!" is not.

I think David Gaider wouldn't have been helping people mod if he was overly concerned that they would DESTROY HIS BEAUTIFUL WRITING.

Your payoff is in the post.

[ December 30, 2006, 14:39: Message edited by: SimDing0 ]

 

Or maybe they didn't want to spend time coding an editor to the game? Instead they wanted to work on getting as many features in and as bugless as they can.
I just don't really see why you'd want to make a mod with such an odd restriction on it. I mean, your ultimate goal is for people to play the game and the story behind it right? So what is the problem with having people able to make them a Ft/Cl? I'm just not seeing what the big problem is.

 

It's basically the same, eventually. I was speaking generally, to explain why I agree with any such modder-made 'protections', and under what conditions. And a "desecrated", modified NPC can also be a source of incorrect rumours about a mod, even if she hasn't said that she worried about this. Furthermore, the other things I've written about in my post is whether it's correct if a modder makes such 'protections'. As a counter-argument to:

Which you agreed, and I didn't. Especially with the "shouldn't release it" part. In other words, this sounds like "If you build in such protections, rather don't release the mod at all!". What I've said about author rights explains why that's an incorrect approach.
Also, it has been discussed here whether a player should edit a mod or not, whether it makes sense to build in protections or not (regardless the reason of them) and such. I believe I brought up a few relevant points in my post, even if it has been slightly off-topic.

 

I'll bet otherwise . Gatekepper and Dalekeeper may have been a tad harder though

Also from the SK site: "The point of the editor is to allow you to have fun playing the game however you like it best." This is how I've always seen it and I must admit I have even used it on a mod :gasp: - and an npc one to boot. Tashia (sorceress) didn't have a spell pick that I wanted to be able to use in that current game (it might have been something like knock in a run where I didn't have a thief). So I well changed it.

Back to the issue you could just set all of the npc's stats to what they should be whenever you enter an area, or rest (add it to the use all healing spells on rest and give the npc a 'healing spell' that reverts all stats etc back to normal).

You could also write somewhere that you have installed some type of virus that will be activated after the user uses shadowkeeper on your mod but may take some time to kick in. Then, when something does go wrong (not as a result of any virus that you didn't actually include) they will think it was a result of using SK. Anyone who has the technical knowledge to unequivocally proves that no such virus exists would probably be able to get around any actual protection that you could include. Not too sure of the legality of this but I have seen it on some shareware .gif creator.

 

Stu, I somehow doubt that false threats of virus will help anything, more likely they could do harm. I wouldn't touch some mod that states that there is a virus that will install itself under specific situation with a ten foot long pole.

 

I think this "virus-thing" is bit overshot. I don't think that's the way Kuemper wants to do it.

 

I strongly believe player should be able to do what he wants with their game. Because everyone has their own idea of fun, and this game (like any other game by definition) is made for having fun, isn't it?

After all, mod-makers are introducing much more significant changes into the Bioware product than simple stat-editing, but Bioware doesn't sue or prosecute them. I think it's hypocrisy to demand from others not to edit your work, if your work by default is the result of similar editing.

As long as the edited version of the mod doesn't get released/distributed/whatever and is kept for private use, I see nothing wrong with it.

 

Erm have you read her posts? She was asking whether a mod could "cause bugs/glitches/game crashes when the code or NPC is changed" that's pretty close to a virus...

Although I understand Kuemper's point of view I believe that programming a mod to crash your game if you tamper with it is a tad extreme.

Would it be possible to disable spellcasting for a mod NPC? If the character can't cast ANY spell then it's no use turning her into a Cleric.

SK is a wonderful tool and I wouldn't give it up to play a mod. I don't really cheat but I've done some tweaking in the past (changing classes portraits or colours for instance).

 

Perhaps you could offer an incentive for not modding the npc? Custom items are usually a very good way to discourage shadowkeepering. It's easy to change a character's class, but most users won't be inclined to edit the usability flags of your item.

So, give your character a special weapon or armor or something, restrict it to female dwarven fighter/thiefs with a minimum of her stats. If they change your character to a Fighter/Cleric, they lose the ability to use your custom item.

Seems like a pretty fair trade to me...

-Artimus

 

But if they know how to edit the NPC, they could edit your custom item too! Oh noes!!!1