The case of 0rion79: opinions needed!

I completely support the hardline stance. Really, that is the way it should be. I voted for negotiations (which I took to mean opening a dialog only, not compromising) only because it would remove Taluntain from the middle of all this. As he stated, talking 0rion's mod down and leaving it down will have repercussions for him (emails and what not).

0rion will most likely, if he hasn't already, find another site to host his mod. He will most likely find a way to let visitors to the Atari boards and Sorcerer's Place know where to find it. We can go the constant vigilance route, finding his mod where ever it may be and trying to shut it down, or we can just swallow a little of our pride and talk with him about it. I personally think that all the posts fighting over this on the boards tarnishes our reputation as much as it does his.

He will probably never apologize, but I think he will give credit where it is due, and remove the disparaging remarks from his readmes and cease disparaging us. At least it is worth a shot. If he won't comply, then the hardline is still an option.

Of course, do we really want our names on what still is, ultimately, and incredibly buggy piece of work? Just a thought.

 

Cujo, you are absolutely wrong on this point...He's a thieving rules RANGER.


*Locks bolt to the rear, opens feed tray cover, loads ammo..and resumes scanning sector.*

:wyatt:

 

Thanks for all the help Taluntain, sorry to mix you up in all of this!

 

Hopefully this is not too late to affect any kind of official decision. I initially voted to negotiate with Orion with Cerulean as our spokesperson. Going on what had been reported in the 'Stunning Revelations from Orion' thread I thought it was fairly harmless to let him have his release. That was until an innocent little missive from Shiningted in my PM inbox led me to look at what Orion was actually trying to unleash upon the world. Ted suggested that we might look at what Orion had done in the way of spells and play tit-for-tat and use his successes (with full credit given to Orion) here. So I went ahead and actually d'led Orion's release, not expecting to be amazed, but expecting to, maybe, find some new worthy stuff. But in short, I found shit. If you need to know what kind of shit I found then PM me (or you can ask Shiningted as I vented upon him pretty extensively.)

In any case, that quick glimpse at what Orion was actually trying to keep alive changed my attitude completely. If Orion wants to release a ToEE mod, that is fine by me. But, as far as I am concerned, his mod should not contain or in anyway be associated with (beyond necessary downloads) anything released by Co8, period. If he wants to build on what we have done, then he should have to require a d'led from here before he can add anything. Nothing from here should be included in his release without our permission.

The sheer shoddiness of the release is my main criteria for this suggested proviso.
I basically only looked at the new spells in detail and ran some tests with them. In much the same fashion that I did, Orion decided to use a spell object ( coincidence? I don't think so....) in the implementation of 'Tenser's Transformation'. But his implementation has no way of getting rid of the object when the spell is over, takes no consideration of the fact that reducing the intelligence (in and of itself, as far as ToEE the CRPG is concerned) does not impede spell casting, makes no attempt whatsoever to give martial weapon proficiency and basically required no testing nor any research of the actual game on his part. His Mordenkainen's Sword is just Spiritual Weapon renamed and assigned a Wiz/Sor caster level of 7th.

I didn't look at his new mass spells as they are a 'no-brainer' and unfuckupable, more or less.

The major thing that turned me in this direction, though, is that I copied and included his 'Tenser's Transformation' spell object into my protos.tab. In game I 'give' ed the object to a party member and started trying to test it. On all 4 seperate occasions, with 4 seperate testing criteria, this object caused a CTD. To me it is obvious that he hasn't even tested it himself.

As far as I am concerned, let Orion make a release. But do not allow him to include any Co8 stuff with his release, no matter how much credit he gives. If he needs our stuff, he should have to indicate that in his release and provide a link for download, along with a disclaimer that what he has done, on top of our stuff, is his and his alone.

The shoddiness of his work should not be reflected back upon us under any circumstances and he should in no way be allowed to use any of our stuff without going through the hoops of it having to be downloaded from here.

If that means he can't pick and choose then so much the worse for him. It also means he can't rape and pillage what so many of us have worked so hard to achieve, only to sully it with his own substandard work.

As I have said, I am late in making this statement (for which I apologize) only because I had not realized the severity of the situation and thought that it was primarily a 'political thing'.

Darmagon

 

that sounds perfectly reasonable to me - his mod = 0% Co8, he HAS to say "download Co8 X to get the base for my mod, which is totally separate"

 

And if he complains about his mod being compatible with Co8 3.0.4 MOD [not the Co8 4 MOD], he can be told to inform people wanting to install his mod to deselect (uncheck) all of the option checkboxes when installing the Co8 4 MOD...just installs fixes only.

 

Personally - myself, seeing how'd he most likely 'undo' or hose-up Liv's Skeletal Priest [among Liv's other wonderous fixes and changes], I much more like the idea of people installing the Co8 3.0.4 MOD prior to adding 'his' mod, instead of them installing Co8 4 MOD.

 

Hadn't realized that you were so cruel, Gaear, but yes, if we have to go back that far to disentangle ourselves from his stuff then sobeit.. Actually just kidding about the being cruel thing. This has to be done with a clean slate or we might just as well let him simply have his release as is and forget about any negotiations aside from proper credit in his readme. And that is just what I don't want to see, as then we become simply co-authors of his shit and are as liable as he is for the crap. (Barring an extensive forensic reconstruction which most gamers are simply going to ignore anyways.) As far as I can see, the only reasonable way we can make sure that nothing from Co8 gets included without having to be downloaded from here is to have the examination before he is allowed to have any kind of resurrection of his release. Therefore he has to submit his proposed release to us for scrutiny, and not to just one member , but to the entire community for the simple reason that what one of us might miss, another might catch.

And he has to do the leg-work, not us. We will have enough to do verifying that he is not using any of our stuff in whole or in part, flagrantly or in disguise.

Ultimately, the reputation of this entire community could be at stake. We must be vigilant. He could ruin us all with just a few lines of credits and a huge .zip full of bugs and nonsense.

Okay, we are not really that fragile but still, the damage could be significant.

To Taluntain, if you are listening, my greatest apologies, but if this is the direction our community takes, then you really have some serious decisions to make. I am sure that Orion will not want to have to do all of this. But I am certain that this is what is necessary in order for us to allow his release to go ahead.. He can't rip us off, add 'shit' and then simply give us credit which will simply serve to implicate us in that shit and expect to get away with it.

As far as I am concerned, he must : remove all Co8 content (as far back as may be necessary, ie. until there is nothing that is Co8 based at all) from his release. then, in as far as his release is based upon Co8, he must provide download links to Co8 to get what he needs. Then, if he actually has anything to add, he can provide his own release completely seperate from what we have to offer ( and with documentation indicating this.)

Darmagon

 

this is definitely my stance on it too.
his mod is an addon to an older co8 release. not an "alternative" to that co8 release. an addon, nothing more (and nothing less).
he has no right to bundle all sorts of co8 stuff with his mod like this.
no right at all.

and for god's sake, it's just common decency, man!
I can't believe he doesn't understand this!

cripes.

 

I am convinced. Forget the full credit thing. If he want's his mod back up it will need to be as an add-on to 4.0.0 (without the optional DH, of course).