Re: ATTN: Stricter rules re: commerical game resources.

[BouncyTEM]

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of rips <I mostly only rely on them because I *CANNOT* do art :\), but the four year rule seems silly, especially since that would already exclude a lot of stuff that's already out there. The realguns mod, for instance. It seems wrong to just discard things prior to the rules and then enforce it after, and to exclude it to projects. It's inconsistent and wishy-washy to my eyes.

I think 1 year's more reasonable. By that point, while the game might be going strong, it's not exactly new anymore and a good chunk of its sales are already done. It seems much more balanced to me to wait just one year as opposed to 4, when these forums <on phpbb, anyway.> have only been *around* for 8 years. If we were to follow this sort of timespan, just about everything ripped from more modern games around the time of this forum that we have would fall apart under this rule, overall.

Seriously; is 2015 really reasonable for when RAGE resources may start showing up? We'd have to wait 1/3rd of the entire forum's existence just for that.

The rest of the rules seem reasonable to me.

[Slax]

There's no CANNOT in art, only DO NOT UNDERSTAND YET. Practice.

[TerminusEst13]

...and sometimes practice takes years upon years upon years in order to make something look even decent. :p

I suppose one alternative is requesting all of the art from someone else, but that's a...shall we say, unreliable proposition.

[BouncyTEM]

I've been practicing for 14 years and I'm still no better off.

Part of the problem is really, really poor hand-eye coordination and extremely shaky hands. :\

Another part of the problem is that I have difficulty projecting 3d into 2d, or vice versa. I can only work in complete 3d, basically. x.x

I'm basically not built for art outside of image manipulation work.

[InsanityBringer]

@Wildweasel
I see nothing wrong with trying to rip a game that's even a millisecond old.

Other than the fact that you're committing copyright infringement.

[Enjay]

I think 1 year's more reasonable.

Even 1 year is a figure plucked out of the air with very little in the way of anything to say "this is the correct period because...". However, pointing out that, by the rule, RAGE is off limits until 2015 does focus the mind a little.

The thing about this rule is that it is "just made up" (yes, I know all rules are). It is a special case being made for new games because... well, why? It seems to just be there because of some unease about a situation that might exist but which, in reality, hasn't and (I suspect) some prejudice against particular types of projects. The whole RAGE debate that seems to have brought about this rules clarification (and invention of the four year thing)* spawned from a comment along the lines of "how long 'til we see crappy RAGE weapon rip mods". That question seemed to spark a "something needs to be done to prevent that" response and thus the concept of a period where it was not OK to rip a game was born. I guess I really want to know why this needs to exist and why four years is seen to be appropriate. I certainly don't remember a consensus** the last time it was discussed.

*It is also worth re-emphasising that everything else is just a rules clarification or tightening up except the four year rule which is a new invention made up on the spot and applied at the same time as other unwritten rules were codified.

**I appreciate that the ZDoom forum is not a democracy and should not be expected to be either.

Let's take another no-longer-new game: Doom3. No one seemed to care about Doom3 based weapon mods coming out "too soon" (indeed, there was something of a clamouring for them). The good ones were usually based on Doom3 inspired new sprites (ie not rips) and the model-rip ones were either awful or took a long time to come out. Of course, easier rips - such as some textures and sounds - were used much more quickly and no one seemed to care. And, let's be honest, the technology used in modern games makes many of their resources unsuitable for ripping anyway (even though people still do it). I also don't think that a kind-of legality rule should be used to try and impose some kind of quality control (which is certainly an implication that can be taken from looking at how and where this four year rule came from). Also, How many other new games have been mercilessly ripped within the first few weeks of them appearing and posted here? Very few, if any. So what is the four year rule there for? It just strikes me as an unneeded knee-jerk arbitrary response to a problem, mooted in the RAGE thread, that doesn't even exist.

Please note, I'm not arguing against the four year rule because I want new-game rips to be circulated on the forum. Actually, I don't really want to see them (unless someone can rip all the Spanish shouts and insults from Vegas2 (actually, November 2007, looks like that's OK now - just - phew )). I just want a rule that doesn't feel like a knee-jerk, random, arbitrary response to a perceived requirement for a (as I see it, non-existent) "special circumstance".

@Wildweasel
I see nothing wrong with trying to rip a game that's even a millisecond old.

Other than the fact that you're committing copyright infringement.

As you are for a game that is older, even much older.


[edit]

(unless someone can rip all the Spanish shouts and insults from Vegas2 (actually, November 2007, looks like that's OK now - just - phew )).

Oh gno!!! forget that I spoke. The game was announced in November 2007 but wasn't released until 2008. It's still off limits.
[/edit]

[SoulCrow]

I am merely speculating here, but I believe the four year rule partially stems from ethical considerations. Perhaps four years is too long, but take the other extreme (Sodaholic's one millisecond, or in other words no time limit)... someone (potentially entire teams of people) have spent a certain amount of time (sometimes years) working on the resources for a game. Time, energy and effort have gone into making those resources, and then when the game is finally released, there are those who would simply steal said resources for their own desires. This holds true to all game resources that have been used, but holds particularly true to contemporary games (for reasons others have already mentioned). I can only recall that little message included in the opening pages of Doom's manual, which arguably applies to Rage now:

Please don't make illegal copies

The program you've purchased was produced through the efforts of many people. Everyone at id Software relies on sales of this program to support themselves and their families. Help preserve jobs (and keep game prices down) by honoring the copyright of this program.

I get the feeling that this issue speaks to those in this community that do create their own resources, and that they try and project their own ideas and considerations onto "official" (for lack of a better word) game resources as if those resources were their own.

[Sodaholic]

What part of "New" don't you understand?

Because I don't see how it matters if it's new or not. If it's released, it's released, doesn't matter in the slightest how new it is. It's completely pointless and has no basis in logic to block the ripping of resources based solely on a game's age. What if a game was freeware to begin with, but was released within the past 4 years? Can we not use it's resources?

I really don't care about the other rules too much, they're pretty reasonable, but I really want to see this age limit removed, it's stupid and unnecessary. Actually, if we were to have a time limit, I think 3 to 6 months isn't too bad. It's enough time for the sales to die down, but it's not ridiculously long either.

I see nothing wrong with trying to rip a game that's even a millisecond old.

Other than the fact that you're committing copyright infringement.

As Enjay pointed out, copyright still applies no matter how old a game is, so that argument is invalid.


Also, I'm asking this as a joke, and not being serious, but since Rage was in development for 7 years, can't we release it's resources now? After all, the game is technically 7 years old, even if not released then.

[printz]

After all, the game is technically 7 years old, even if not released then.

Same as how a newborn is 9 months old.

[Enjay]

Same as how a newborn is 9 months old.

Which, of course, some people believe - but that's a whole other debate.

[esselfortium]

"Okay guys, I guess you can rip resources from games, but only if they're old games and only if you put some actual effort into doing something to make them your own. We don't want to become a community of self-entitled thieves, here."
"Whaaaat?! But I want to rip ALL the games! Right now! You're denying me my right to use RAGE resources!"
".. Nevermind. Too late."

[Enjay]

I am merely speculating here, but I believe the four year rule partially stems from ethical considerations...

I can't really argue with any of that, in fact I agree. It's just this arbitrary unilateral rule of a four year limit. It's just so hard to pin down to anything because, like 99% of all statistics, it just seems to have been made up on the spot and is not in keeping with the other rules. The other rules seem to be a nice blend of at least some respect for legality and an appreciation of current practice. The four year rule does not.

[amv2k9]

I think the four-year rule is a bit off the mark. If this were a community that were modding (for example) Rage, a very new game, and creating content that was competing for attention with the main game & any sold, developer-produced DLC, it would be understandable. But let's face it, we're modding for an engine which in human years, is old enough to mate, vote, join a military, smoke & drink in most of the world; nobody is going to confuse "Doom: Rage Weapons" with Rage. If somebody wants to play Rage, they will (hopefully) buy it; they won't go and download a mod which plays nothing like Rage other than the first-person and shooting bits, but features low-res downsized chunky pixellated sprites or low-poly models of Rage's weapons. Even if said mod is awesome, it's still not competing for attention and reducing sales of the real deal.

For the record, I don't love rips. A good portion of the time, they're just not good. But saying to a talented coder guy who can't sprite, who wants to make an apocalyptic Doom TC in which a certain game's weapons would fit "sorry man, sit on this for four more years", doesn't benefit anybody, especially when you consider that publishers these days are interested in the the first two weeks or so of sales to determine whether a game has succeeded or not. Four years off, the publisher has either commissioned a sequel, or buried the IP and reallocated the development team to other projects, or just laid them off.

[wildweasel]

Well geez, what do you want us to do? I'm not planning on removing the time limit any time soon, because I was kind of hoping that these rules would help the community not look like a bunch of folks who sit around and think about what's the next "real" game that we can port to zdoom.

And Sodaholic, I'm (informally) going to tell you to please, stop posting in this thread, you've "made" your point, and all you're doing now is just repeating yourself. Your argument isn't going to change anybody's mind here, and that you've continued to argue despite previously saying you would stop and despite that I've called you out on said stopping, means that I think you ought to do better things with your time (like make something) than arguing over the fact that waaaahhhh, we won't let you post RAGE resources in the Resources forum.

[Gez]

Okay, I suggest a new rule: instead of the arbitrary hard-and-fast 4-year rule, how about you can start ripping games as soon as they are repackaged in one of these "discounted game" collections that you can find on the lower shelf of your local game shop? I'm not talking about Steam sales, but brick-and-mortar stores featuring cardboard-and-plastic packages of games rebranded as being sold at a cheapo price.

Provide photographic evidence. That way, it will not be subjected to an arbitrary date on a one-size-fits-all approach; but on verifiable, tangible facts.

The rational being that once a gain hits this stage of commercialization, the profit-earning phase is over and the development studio is presumably winning their bread with another product, so you'd only attack their beer money.

Alternatively, one can be a hardass and point out that no copyright infringement means no rips at all.