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Steam definitely allows a single person from Russia to have multiple games (paid and free) on their platform: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/AleksandrGolovkin I doubt, that Steam actually cares about Copyright. It is probably more a compliance thing for them. They have to let someone sign something so they can say that they did all they could. This game clearly comes from a country famous for their copyright-enforcement (and yes, it isn't even available in english): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1029500/_the_Three_Kingdoms_of_China So while the majority of games on Steam seems to be western world Indies, they certainly do not exclude the less copyright-sensitive countries... And they actually have nbo reason to - as has been already said, they can just remove a game on an incomming copyright claim until it has been resolved. What they seem to do check for (now, it was way different some years ago) is a minimum level of quality - which TDM definitely offers. Red Eclipse 2 is: https://store.steampowered.com/app/967460/Red_Eclipse_2 Battle for Wesnoth is too: https://store.steampowered.com/app/599390/Battle_for_Wesnoth

I agree with what you're saying. My biggest problem with this ethics debate is that there seems to be a lot of insincerity and moving the goalposts by people whose argument is simply "I don't like this" hidden behind various rationalizations. Like people claiming that Stable Diffusion is a collage machine or something comparable to photobashing. Or admitting that it's not the case but claiming that it can still reproduce images that were in its training dataset (therefore violating copyright), ignoring that the one study that showed this effect was done on an old unreleased version of Stable Diffusion which suffered from overtraining because certain images were present in 100+ copies in its dataset, and even in this special situation it took about 1.7 million attempts to create one duplicity, never reproducing it on any of the versions released for public use. I also dislike how they're attacking Stable Diffusion the most - the one tool that's actually free for everyone to use and that effectively democratizes the technology. Luddites at least did not protest against the machines themselves, but against not having the ownership of the machines and the right to use it for their own gain. They're just picking an easy target. I don't believe there's any current legal reason to restrict training on public data. But there are undoubtedly going to be legal battles because some people believe that the process of training a neural network is sufficiently different from an artist learning to imitate an existing style that it warrants new legal frameworks to be created. I can see their point to some degree. While the learning process in principle is kind of similar to how a real person learns, the efficiency at which it works is so different that will undoubtedly create significant changes in society, and significant changes in society might warrant new legislature even it seems unfair. The issue is I don't see a way to do such legislature that could be realistically implemented. Accepting reality, moving forward and trying to deal with the individual consequences seems like the least bad solution at this moment.

The whole point of this thread is that ChatGPT and related generative AI technologies have the potential to "change the game" of game making. If the TDM community seems dead to you, remember that is only because there are very few people in the world with the skill set or resources to make fan mission, or even to contribute productively to discussing them. A lot more people like stealth games than have the time or talent to make them, much less learn how to make them. If new technology can lower the threshold for them to participate or even create an entirely new population of participants, that could be revolutionary for us. But the first step of that process is recognizing what this new technology is, what it's capable of, and where it fits within the pre-existing human social/economic/legal ecosystem. How else are FM creators and potential creators to know whether it is worth investing their precious time investigating this tech and integrating it into their processes? Hence the discussion so far. Something that I don't think has been brought up about this is that if anyone wishes to publish works while forbidding their use for creating any sort of derivative work, there are legal mechanisms right now that allow you to do that: You just need to keep your work under lock and key and make every person you allow to see it sign a legally binding confidentiality and non-compete agreement. This is extra effort and will generally require you to make proportionate concessions to the other party to make the agreement both legally valid and economically enticing, but it can be done. In fact it is done. Frequently. What you can't do is nail your work to the church door for all to freely see, or give it to every merchant to sell on the open market, and then retroactively decide you want to reserve additional rights for yourself! Can you imagine if the world actually worked like that? I cannot imagine a more fertile ground for corporate oppression. Imagine if Disney had the right to ban anyone who had ever seen Snow White from ever working in animation! Imagine if Activision could ban anyone who had ever played a Call of Duty from developing a competing modern military shooter. The only angle to this argument I think has a shred of validity is that maybe we can and should hold industrial actors to different ethical and legal standards from actual human beings. However I don't think that finger in the dike would hold back the storm surge for very long. Crowd sourcing is a thing, and there are plenty of people who would be happy to donate their C/GPU time and internet connections for AI research. In terms of legal strategies against generative AI, the copyright angle is the weakest of sauces. Even if the courts are taken in by the fallacious claims of the plaintiffs (which would not surprise me), their rulings will be just as unenforceable in practice as the music and film industries' fruitless wars against piracy. Worse in fact, because with generative AI there could be an actual arms race between uncovering and concealing evidence of illegal copying.

Music copyright is a mess, hopefully the courts don't draw inspiration from those cases.

The copyright angle is going to be decided by the courts. But if you can't prove that some AI output actually remixed your work, you have no claim. Even where you can, it will be pointed out that "style" is not copyrightable and humans also use references. Then there are some legal precedents like Google Book Search and TurnItIn that could be favorable to Stability AI in its big lawsuit. When you see the cobblestones Arcturus generated above, is it possible to trace any specific infringement, other than the image used as input? Doesn't seem like it would be.

One angle no one has presented in this discussion yet, is copyright. I mean it sucks ass and is probably unconstitutional in it's current perpetual form where someone across the world can break your stuff after taking your money. But that is beside the point; the way these AI routines operate, is by creating derivative works from someone else's work. Well it's not *quite* the same thing, because it takes little snippets from everyone and mish-mashes them together into something new. Or put a different way, if I was a skilled mapper, I'm not sure how happy I would be about sections of my work winding up in another "machine-generated" map comprised of work of other humans without my permission or giving proper credit. I guess this opens Pandora's box to the idea that humanity could achieve more if everyone worked together, which is something that I don't actually disagree with. I however also don't think humanity would cease to create new things if machines began rampantly "sampling and remixing" all of our output, because creativity and sharing is just part of human nature.

Not to be a nag, but I was thinking about the columns problem. If you go to the view source tab in the wiki article: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod&action=edit The raw table data is accessible directly: |- !align=left|{{TDM-FM|written|Written in Stone}} |Bikerdude, Amadeus, Dragofer |{{Forumlink|https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21265-written-in-stone-beta-210-only-20220128/}} |2022-01-28 |338 |Yes |Yes |CCC 22, Elixir |City Missions |Undead, Horror Themes |- Each pipe character represents one of the columns.

Way too far fetched. I only saw strict rules against promoting, justifying piracy on old Steam forums. Probably also valid for the new discussions thing. But they are a store and a game company. Steam is also DRM in an of itself. So I guess that explains the reasons. Not sufficiently user friendly due to their monopoly as well. Yeah author's rights matter morally, but copyright doesn't mean that one should be a copyrast (pederast) for profit. And that's what copyright became.

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

Terrific! The beta test thread is up: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22238-beta-testing-the-spider-and-the-finch/

@datiswous, made that correction fm_test.subs --> fm_conversations.subs @stgatilov, about srt naming and file location, would you be OK with the following edit? New/changed stuff in italics: srt command is followed by paths to a sound sample and its .srt file, typically with matching filenames. An .srt file is usually placed either with its sound file or in a "subtitles" folder. The .srt file format is described e.g. [1]. The file must be in engine-native encoding (internationalization is not supported yet anyway) and have no BOM mark. It contains a sequence of text messages to show during the sound sample, each with start and end timestamps within the sample's timeline. It is recommended to use common software to create .srt files for sound samples, instead of writing them manually. This way is more flexible but more complicated, and it is only necessary for long sounds, for instance sound sample of a briefing video. It's a simple enough standard that it can be shown as an short example, demonstrating that subtitle segments can have time gaps between them. And the example can show correct TDM usage, without requiring a trip off-site and picking through features that TDM doesn't support. Specifically, the example shows how to define two lines by direct entry, rather than using unsupported message location tags (X1, Y1, etc.). And skips other unavailable SRT font markups like italics, mentioned in the wikipedia description. The example would also show the TDM-specific path treatment. The example could be inserted before the sentence "It is recommended to use common software...."

Welcome to the Dark Mod forums MarsManon! Thank you very much for the kind words about SLL, it's always nice to hear We all worked real hard on bringing Grayman's map to life and I'm glad you enjoyed it

I was so enchanted by this FM, I had to sign up to the forums the same day I finished it to come thank the authors Genuinely, truly incredible work! I was so overwhelmed in places that I resorted to just shouting joy at my monitor two, three, maybe four entirely separate times while playing. Exploring, puzzling, finding something new, trying to use it, and finding it does a whole new, separate, wonderful thing! There aren't enough words inside me to describe the feeling. It was breathtaking. I don't have any specific feedback that hasn't come through this thread before Thanks so much for making this, for all the inspiration and ingenuity and effort it took. If I never play another level this good, in any other game, in my life, I'd be fine with that.

How you can help depends a lot on what skills you have. I can Record Video Recording "Let's Play" videos or simple walkthroughs of existing missions and posting them to Youtube is great exposure for the mod (see example .) Be sure to let us know so we can link to them. If you have some editing ability, Video tutorials, where you explain how the mod works, or how to use specific tools, would also be great. Video trailers, showcasing interesting places and features, are also great for publicity. An example is . I can Write Writing reviews for missions are always nice, especially if they include good screenshots. Not only does it give us something to post on other forums, but it makes mappers feel good when their mission gets attention (especially if it's positive). We have a collective thread to post reviews in: http://forums.thedar...s-walkthroughs/ Writing reviews of the mod as a whole, targetted an an audience that doesn't know much about TDM, is also very useful. You could also try offering your services to mappers to create interesting readables, or to proofread for their mission. I can Act and Record Audio We are always on the lookout for good quality audio recordings for vocal sets. If interested, you can pick a few different lines from this script: http://wiki.thedarkm...t:_Average_Jack and send the recordings to Springheel, who then writes a script based on the type of voice you have. I can Translate We could always use translations of our menu/hud into more languages. Also, only a few FMs are aavailable in more than one language, so there is a lot of work there, see the I18N Translator's Guide in the Wiki. I can Model Great! Take a look at the model request thread:http://forums.thedar...-requests-here/ and pick something that interests you. Or just post a, "Hey, anybody want a model?" thread in this forum and I'm sure mappers will get back to you. I can Animate Fantastic. We can always use more good animations. Our current character rigs use a Maya skeleton. PM Springheel for more info. I know C++ Have a look at our coding section in the wiki, pick an issue or feature from the bugtracker of the mod or the leveleditor, download the recent sourcecode release (or better ask for an SVN checkout) and get cracking. Make sure nobody is already working on that specific issue and feel free to ask questions. I can Edit Images We can always use completely new textures and/or improved versions of older textures. How to get started and how to import them into the mod. I can Take Photos Good quality photos of useful textures (medieval-ish building facades, dirt, rocks, wood, etc) are always welcome. The fewer directional shadows and higher resolution, the better. I don't have any skills Even if you can't do any of the above, you can still help out. Talk about TDM in other forums; share your (preferably positive) experiences with other gamers you know. Last, but not least, compliment people when you like their work. Saying "thanks", to a developer or, "I really enjoyed your mission" to a mapper will make their day. -------------------- I'll update this further as more things occur to me.

OK I think I've got to the bottom of this. I've created this forum thread (with bug report): https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22221-bug-drowning-ai-in-shallow-water/ I can apply a workaround, although it won't be perfect and the bug itself needs fixing in the engine. There are a few other things that need fixing so will put an update together soonish.

If any mappers have encountered weirdness with kill objectives not working with drowning AI, I think I've found out why. I don't think it would be a particularly difficult one to fix either. I've raised this bug report: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6323 Some context here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21837-fan-mission-the-lieutenant-2-high-expectations-by-frost_salamander-20230424/&do=findComment&comment=487316 I think this is a bug, but just raising here in case some people think otherwise.

Author note: It's hard to believe it's already been a year since Act 1 came out! Well during this mission the player will be following Corbin into the Grimwood district to followup on a lead from last night (Act 1) .. the mysterious tablet! This mission is my first time including full EFX support as well as a HD briefing video file, additionally a new script has been added crafted by the talented Obsttorte which has loot flying towards the player when you pick it up. On a level design front I have tried to change things up a bit by really catering towards a number of play styles, this mission can be completely ghosted or you can use the tools at your disposal to wreak havoc on the citizens of Northdale. For the first time I have tried to create more sandbox environments which don't offer clear answers handed directly to you, so if you're having trouble figuring something out try a different method. This mission takes between 1 - 2 hours to finish depending on the difficulty you play on and how thoroughly you explore. I hope you enjoy your night in Northdale! - Goldwell Voice actors Fen Phoenix Goldwell Random_taffer Yandros Beta testers Amadeus Boiler's Hiss Cambridge Spy Chakkman Crowind Epifire Kingsal SquadaFroinx Custom Assets Andreas Rocha DrK Epifire Grayman Kingsal MalachiAD Obsttorte Sotha Springheel SquadaFroinx Purgator With special thanks to Epifire for creating a large collection of custom models, Grayman for helping out with coding, Kingsal for drawing the ingame map and Moonbo for his script revision on the briefing video. Available via in-game downloader MIRROR File Size: 417 mb EDIT: If you are having performance issues please consult this post by Nbohr1more which may address your issue http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19936-fan-mission-shadows-of-northdale-act-ii-by-goldwell-20190320/page-2?do=findComment&comment=436271

Hi guys, through the "cheats" topic I got the idea, that it would be quite useful, if there were tags for missions (the post was about removing the killing restriction in some missions to suit the prefered play style). I don't know how easy or difficult this is, but with them, it would be quite convenient to pick missions with playstyles, environment, etc one does want to use. This could also be expanded to other mission properties. I remember a discussion about climbable drains, handles on doors, that cannot be picked and other things the map author chooses for himself. That way these things would be clearer and as I said before, it is easier to choose missions with playstyles that suit oneself. What do think?

I agree with this, my thoughts are not going about this haccker who steal the code, certainly a copyright violation as generally piracy is. This files are now online and disposable in several webs, With this the question arises, if a person, who does not have to know that these codes are illegal, downloads them and uses them, or part of them, incorporating them into his own project. How do you want to link this to a copyright infringement, whose criminal responsibility depends on the hacker who stole them and uploaded them to the network? There may already be thousands who have downloaded these files. Chase everyone? The only one who can be held legally responsible by the author company is the hacker, no one else. Besides, I don't think there will be many consequences of this in such an old game from more than 20 years ago, whose code is already of little use in current games and OS I also don't think that the author company has a significant loss of profits with this, they have already gained a lot with the sale of DN in their time. Another thing would be in a current game, recently released. where such theft can mean a great loss for the company. Even M$ has released the old MsDOS as FOSS.

I don't understand why you're still going on about copyright. A leak isn't a copyright violation. It's a hacker breaking into a server, and distributing files which were never officially released in the first place, and you then aiding him. I feel like you're deliberately trying to water this issue down, in a pretty ridiculous manner, and I'm glad that I'm not invested enough in this issue, to get upset over it.

Copyright infringement of imaginary property is not theft. There are no "stolen goods". It's just copyright infringement, with its own criminal and civil penalties but typically lax enforcement. We'll see if Embracer Group or whoever currently owns the Duke Nukem IP tries to shut down distribution and modding of a 20+ year old dead game, but they can't stop it if the people working on it are determined. There's a reason pretty much every movie and TV show is downloadable and streamable on pirate sites within hours of release: whack-a-mole doesn't work very well. Some people will get scared off by a DMCA letter, but the files are already widely available now. As for whether or not it should be linked in here, that's a question for the forum staff. Maybe the links should be removed. Just provide helpful hints instead.