Releasing St. Lucia based maps

[brethren]

So, I've been messing with all the great info on the wiki for TDM and DR (especially Fidcal's tutorial, thanks man). I've got a map that I've been building to experiment with and practice various things with DR, and now it is nearing a complete state, one that might make an interesting, albeit small, FM. What's the stance from the TDM guys, is it OK to release these missions publicly? If so, any stipulations, such as checking them out withe the TDM team first?

 

To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this since St. Lucia was released. There's plenty of assets in there to release a decent sized mission.

[New Horizon]

So, I've been messing with all the great info on the wiki for TDM and DR (especially Fidcal's tutorial, thanks man). I've got a map that I've been building to experiment with and practice various things with DR, and now it is nearing a complete state, one that might make an interesting, albeit small, FM. What's the stance from the TDM guys, is it OK to release these missions publicly? If so, any stipulations, such as checking them out withe the TDM team first?

 

To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this since St. Lucia was released. There's plenty of assets in there to release a decent sized mission.

 

Go ahead and release it. No stipulations. That's St. Lucia and the assets were released.

[demagogue]

You still should probably beta-test it (if you haven't already), not as a Darkmod restriction but just because it's smart to betatest missions. But then you might solicit a Darkmod person to be part of your betatest too, since they might know things that could be useful for you.

[SneaksieDave]

Yes, I'll add a seriously emphatic 'go for it!' We've got quite a bit going on behind the scenes (though it's probably hush-hush) so I'll just say it's nice to see missions being developed on the outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too.

[brethren]

I would absolutely beta test it, like any other FM. I still have some more work to do on it, don't want to get the impression that I'd be releasing it this week or anything! Soon though, I'd say inside of a month.

[Baal]

Are you the Brother Renault that released "Through no vault of my own"? Because that was a great little mission.

[brethren]

Hey, thanks for the kind words, yep, that was mine (my only release). I actually go by Brethren now on TTLG, I should probably change it here too.

 

Another question for the TDM team - will all maps created now and in the future up to the actual release of the mod, will they work with the final product? I would think the obvious answer would be yes, but I've read a few thing about Thieves Den not working with the St. Lucia release, or something similar to that.

 

OK one more - are rope arrows disabled in St Lucia? I tried to put one in my mission, and it crashed (well, it wouldn't start up at least).

[Mortem Desino]

All the maps made with Saint Lucia assets should work just fine with version 1.0. Its pretty unlikely that we'll make any major changes that could break maps or missions. In fact, closemouthedshadows (a tiny FM originally made with Thiefs Den assets) still works correctly on my SVN build.

 

Rope arrows should be working in St. Lucia. The entity should be atdm:ammo_ropearrow_small.

[Springheel]

Any interest in becoming a beta-mapper and making your mission with the updated assets?

[Flanders]

To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this since St. Lucia was released. There's plenty of assets in there to release a decent sized mission.

Most people who made missions with those assets were lured into the team . Their missions were or are being updated with the latest assets and are made into playable missions.

[brethren]

What's your guys opinion of releasing TDM maps that resemble levels from some of the official Thief games?

 

[New Horizon]

What's your guys opinion of releasing TDM maps that resemble levels from some of the official Thief games?

 

 

Our general stance is that we don't encourage it, mainly for copyright reasons...but resembling a level and carbon copying it are two different things. Much like TDM resembles Thief, but isn't Thief...levels can certainly be inspired by the originals without copying it exactly.

 

As for anyone making a 'direct' port of a Thief level, they would be on their own.

[brethren]

I might be on my own then...

 

Edit: To expand on that, I would be using architecture from an existing Thief level, but the story and characters would be completely different, so you couldn't really call it a direct port.

Edited April 22, 2009 by brethren

[Farsead]

I've been thinking about this too.

 

Of course, a straight-out copy may be copyright infringement.

But, taking for example Angelwatch, and changing parts of it (both shapes and textures) so that it's tailored to some rich noble or mage, rather than the (of course non-existant) mechanists, shouldn't that be pretty much okay?

 

That includes changing the name to Skywatch or something.

Edited April 22, 2009 by Farsead

[Mortem Desino]

The end-user license agreements of most softwares prohibit "reverse-engineering, decompiling, modifying...for any use other than your own" or something to that extent.

[Farsead]

The end-user license agreements of most softwares prohibit "reverse-engineering, decompiling, modifying...for any use other than your own" or something to that extent.

 

Which if I'm not mistaken does not say anything about creating from scratch, with similarities (sometimes strong) to the original map. :-)

Edited April 22, 2009 by Farsead

[Springheel]

Edit: To expand on that, I would be using architecture from an existing Thief level, but the story and characters would be completely different, so you couldn't really call it a direct port.

 

You could, but why would you want to?

 

Making a map in the same *style* as a Thief mission is certainly doable, and could be cool (we have a Bonehoard-style map in the works). But copying the architecture would just spoil it for anyone who knew the original level, IMO (unless the intent is to actually update the level on a modern engine, which is tempting but obviously a copyright no-no).

[brethren]

Edit: This was more of a response to Mortem and Farsead, Springheel snuck a response in there while I was typing.

 

It all depends on how you (and possibly a lawyer) interprets it. Even if you build a map from scratch, someone could probably argue it was "reverse engineered" from one of the OMs.

 

I think the real question is, as long as you're not charging any money for it, does anyone really care? I'm guessing, on a game from 2000, probably not.

 

Btw, this is from the T2 license.txt file:

 

"This software accompanying this license remains the copyrighted property of Looking Glass Studios, Inc. You are entitled to use this product for your own use, but may not modify, decompile, reverse engineer, sell, rent, or lease this software to anyone else without the prior written consent of Looking Glass Studios."

Edited April 22, 2009 by brethren

[demagogue]

Of course that "license" is part of what you buy when you buy the game and doesn't extend outside of that.

 

But anyway, I like to think of it as an ethos kind of thing even if the law were no issue.

 

Aside from the engine itself (which itself will go open source soon) and some Doom3 assets, Darkmod has been made from the ground up completely in the public domain by the contributions of normal people. There's something really liberating and democratic about that, the fact that once it goes public, no one entity can "own" or "control" Darkmod to restrict people from it. I think once you get into that ethos, you want to participate in that; you want to make original stuff that you freely give to the world. So for me it's not even so much a moral thing; it's wanting to be part of the whole "open source" spirit of the times, freeing ourselves and our art by the sweat of our own brows.

That doesn't sound too much like a manifesto, does it?

[sparhawk]

"This software accompanying this license remains the copyrighted property of Looking Glass Studios, Inc. You are entitled to use this product for your own use, but may not modify, decompile, reverse engineer, sell, rent, or lease this software to anyone else without the prior written consent of Looking Glass Studios."

 

Of course this doesn't say anything about reconstructing it, as you are not doing anything of the above when you create a new map in a new engine and use an existing level as a template. You are not modifying it (obvisly) and you are also (obviously) not decompiling it. A laywer might construct a "reverse engineering" out of it though, but that's IMO a far stretch, because if you just run thorugh the level, note down some details and build your own level similar to it, I don't think this could be called reverse engineering. But that would depend on a judge and even there you could easily get different oponions depending on the ctual judge.

 

But of course may argument here, shouldn't be a defense because I honestly think that creating a new map, which might be inspired by an existing map, is much better and more interesting to build and to play. So it's only my opinion on how I would interpret this license in regard to a lawsuit, but I'm not a lawyer so they might see it differently (and probably will ).

[Mortem Desino]

Perhaps a good example might be project "Black Mesa: Source"? It has well enough publicity already for VALVe to know about it.

[Springheel]

Bretheren, if you're interested in being a beta-mapper just post a few screens of what you've been working on. We're focussing our attention now on people who can commit to getting playable missions ready for release, and you sound like that's your goal.

[brethren]

Here's a few, not finished mind you but it'll do the trick for now...

 

 

 

 

 

[Fidcal]

Lots of character and atmosphere. I'm sure you're aware of the texture misalignments especially on that big stonework. With experience you'll find it easier to make blocks and beams and buttresses singly to a width where the texture fits and then clone them to save having to align them one by one. And that tudor ceiling lath & plaster is more appropriate to walls. But overall it indicates some nice ideas. It's veering towards a Mechanist feel though - remember there are no Mechanists so generally metalwork is not used structurally where stone and brick would be used. But those things can be learned.

 

This reminds me that dark stone block texture really needs a better normal map.

[Flanders]

This reminds me that dark stone block texture really needs a better normal map.

There is one for that texture, it's textures/darkmod/stone/brick/dirty_large_blocks_deep.

 

Those screens really remind me of Eavesdropping, especially that last one.