So, whats going on?

Hola,

Recent activity and whatnot has me kinda confused. Between what looked like some hush-hush political post about getting WotC behind us (?!?), Nomad's seemingly unanswered request for changes, and a general disagreement in regards to trying to release something ASAP vs. making sure it works well and contains changes necessary I've become very, very confused.

Can anyone bring me up to speed?

Chris Woods

 

Things are going much more smoothly (and not to mention faster!) than I would have ever hoped. I have come to expect a very half-baked sort of 'environment' when dealing with game modifications due to experience in the past with being 'in the know' about other mod groups - most of them take WEEKS to release anything, and most of their releases have a tendency to remove features which actually work or replace them with half-baked sort of things.

(i.e. bug fixes PLUS some really poorly made, imbalanced items that some whino on the mod forum might have requested or the modder decided was 'cool to put in' with inconsistencies with the rest of the game)

This mod community, the ToEE mod community, has got to be one of the very few exceptional communities I've seen, and which I'm really glad to be a part of.

We've got an actual system going here - code milestones, weekly releases and most importantly - the open sharing of data. We're not competing here to release something before some other guy, we're all working together to make things work.

Anyway, let me fill ya in:
About the hush-hush, we're trying to get WoTC backed behind us which is all that's really needed to be said. If we can get them to back us - cool. Why? Because we'll get the 'right' to do what we're doing and Troika might lend us some actual support in making our job helluva lot easier with some of the problems we can't figure out (or CAN figure out but would spend time figuring out) or help us along.

 

Oops, pressed send too fast.

More stuff I wanted to add:

We release stuff to OURSELVES for testing purposes and the like (i.e. via e-mail, attachments on the forum and so forth) but not to the public. The public gets the 'finished' product, or at least - whatever we've changed and tested thoroughly. We don't want to be like Atari.

 

Back from my Cat Nap... Yeah. .Exitium has the right Idea IMO...

I'm going to shelve the Item Descriptions for a bit and just enhance what we already got.. I.e. Spell Fixes, incorrect protos references, etc.

BTW, Chris can you send me your fixes without the removal of the "craft Rod" feat?


I can re-add the protos changes in, but the o ther one about item crafting is the one I'm not sure about .

 

I usually try to make very even handed posts and always consider carefully everything in regards to a subject before making my opinion know. I rarely have an opinion orthagonal to the origional one presented.

Keeping all this in mind, let my say that I completly disagree with everything said in th paragraph above. In fact, the only part of this paragraph I don't disagree with is the fact that it's in English, although it might have been better if it was Italian to convey the Mafia Head Boss mentality that it has imbedded in it.

First, I beleive it is a very bad idea to get any company involved in a fan made mod that has shown no results. Think about it, do you really beleive that WotC will treat us in any different way then an obsticle? You beleive they have a "kindness streak" that gets applied to independant modders?

WotC will do what makes them money, and they will do it at our expense. We do not have the power or ability to protect ourselves from WotC should they choose to muscle us in any way. If anything goes even slightly wrong, we will be screwed and screwed in a big way.

Furthermore, from what I gather of Nomad's copy of the email sent to him (I don't know the entire conversation for reasons below) we would be linked in to some other company that "works for WotC" in some way (fixing some 3.5ed Tools). We couldn't possibly put ourselfs at more ends then getting involved with a company that we know nothing about.

Second, the "hush-hush" thing, of which I (and many other people helping with this project) have no idea as to the extent of, is perhaps the most sickening, elitest attitutide I've seen in quite some time. I applaud Nomad for posting the email sent to him to try to neuter political gerrymandering in this respect, but the post you made indicates to me that there has been more conversation outside this board in this respect. If you, or anyone else, is even considering a move with this mod, said intentions should be made abundantly clear to every person involved in the modification, period. Those people should be allowed to give their input as to the concept.

No one person in this forum speaks for anyone more then themselves. I'm not being directly accusational here because I'm not 100% clear as to whats going on, but noone speaks for me but me. If anyone is really serious about bringing WotC into the work in any way (or Troika, or Apple for that matter) every member of this project should be made to know before any sort of discussion occurrs.

Third, the self-proclaiming nature of this concept, and other floating around, where one person says "I now speak for [insert-anyone-but-myself]" can not be made without the rest of the people involved in this project agreeing with it. No one can presume to speak for others.

Finally, I feel a personal slight in this matter. Why? Well, for starters I've fixed half the bugs in the "spell bugs" sticky, all wands work now, all scroll scribing works now. item creation is working propper again, and I've got Staffs working and craftable. Because I've been working with the files rather then crusing this board, though, I've suddenly fell "out of the loop". You are judging your fellow modders based on the volume of their voice rather then the quality of their work. This is sickening.

Chris Woods

 

Whoa.. wait a minute nobody's judging anyone around here. And no Oligarchy, Elitist group, or anything like that is making decisions for any part of this mod.

Also to clear some things up, there has been no further emails sent to me about "being official" after the post I made.

I really don't care about WOTC backing or not. "Hush hush", or any of that other hubbubaloo. I want to fix the game so I can enjoy it more fully, as well as move the general player community into a place where the only thing modders really do is create new content. (not fix bugs)


lets try to drop the ruffled feathers, and just fix the bugs the game....


Btw, I've been trying to get into making some spell fixes, now that my sole in game contribution (Item descrips) is out... Where is that thread your talking about? What spells have you already looked at?

 

The "Random Fixes" thread shows all my changes. It took the last hour to clean out any testing stuff I was also doin in the files so that what I presented was fixes only.

As far as "ruffelled feathers", it simply stems for the implication that "we are working to be on sides with WotC" which was an inevitable conclution of Exidum's post. If that conclusion misrepresents intent you have my appoligy, however I would ask that Exetium chose his verbage more carefully. The follwoing paragraph:

is very straightforeward about saying "We're trying to get WotC to back us" -- this is being done without concent of several modders OR it is done with their concent in a hush hush manor. Wither of those two things is a serious problem.

I agree, lets just fix things, however posts made have indicated to me that some people may or may not be doing other manuevers that don't involve just "fixing things". Despite the scating nature of my posts in this thread, I feel justified based on the implication that 1) other poeple in this forum feel they can speak for me and 2) All members of the mod crew re not privy to decisions that carry a very real legal connitation with them.

Chris Woods

 

What exactly is there to be gained from asking WotC for approval? A cease and desist letter? Why would we want to make them aware of our modding efforts? Of course they won't approve of it, it was WotC and Atari that forced Troika to take out the brothel to get a Teen rating.

 

I recognized the need to disclose these things to everybody else and did.. Side deals, agreements, whatever will not benefit the group.

I will continue to disclose any "group" type conversations/decisions, and hope that everyone else will do so as well. If not, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Now I'm hoping we can leave the past behind us, and just concentrate on the game.

 

I think the whole "elitist" thing is just a simple misunderstanding... at first, and I mean the first few hours or the mod forum up at the old Circle of Eight, Mynex had good (I think) idea of seeing if we can get Wizards APPROVAL to Mod the game, in essence, to be an "official" mod group.

He in no wants to envelope our group/community into WOTC, or his own company.

He was trying to utilize HIS assets, and his contacts, to make modding easier for us and to eliminate any future problems stemming from WOTC/Atari/Troika.

If we do become and "official" mod group, as in, WOTC has recogized us and said "Yes, you can use our intellectual property to modify another one of our intellectual properties." THAT'S IT.

If they make us "official", and then lay down a bunch of dictates, rules, "approval before release" to anything we do as a group... well, shit.. I'm GONE.

They can do that, if they want to pay me. If I'm making shit for free, I'm going to do it MY WAY or the way of the majority of the rest of the guys (and girls?) doing this FOR FREE.

It was my understanding that Mynex was of the same opinion.

I'm not trying to turn this into a career. I make more money as a Sr. System Administrator. I do this for fun, and if what I do makes Atari/Troika more money due to increased word of mouth... well, then they just need to STFU and let us be. If they can't understand that, then I'll go underground and make shit anonymously and just release it out there. heh.

 

It WAS all a misunderstanding...

Now back to work! before I sick the mutated gibberlings on you..

J/k of course

 

Alright, caveat reader. I appoligize for misrepresenting anyone.

I would like to suggest that, should this come to pass, all moders are ask if they would like to be involved before anything official is done.

Chris Woods

 

That's in no way an unreasonable ask... I definately would expect some kind of group discussion on the matter...

 

Indeed -- I'm with you on this aspect, Chris.

We (and that's EVERYONE who is contributing, not just the guys releasing files with their names on them) gets a vote.

We get told the WHOLE deal, etc.. and then we vote on it.

 

Thats a good point.. Most don't realize there's a lot more than just changing the text files around... (example, all of the applications that have been created to help mod the game..)