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| Thread: I am having a moral dilema | |
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 11:06 AM |
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I am having a moral dilema
Me that for now about 15 years have been raping everybody's maps to make them fullfill my own preferences, not so much because I need to but because I can, I'm now modifying a random map in the hope that it becames more interesting and in the process of doing that I am counting on many other people's work, like Salamandre's Conquistador and Usain Bolt, Woodmelon's Second Henchmen and Palace of Dreams and hzworld Invite-Tavern, besides the incountable number of people that have been working to make WoG/Era what it is today and prepotent as I am, I want to enforce my options on other people (specifically the suposed player) game.
To acchive this I will have to not only customize the setup with preestablished WoG options but to copy what other people scripted as independent mods and add it to the loaded files.
Besides thinking I maybe violating some copyrights, I am in doubt cause I know what I fell (and do) when somebody else trys to enforce their options on me.
I am an atheist so can't ask my religious leaders and I'm not in a situation where I can pay legal advice so I put my questions here, hoping some of you can help me to find the awsers.
1. Should simply advise people to use this or that and leave the choice to player or is it ok to customize my map the way I want?
2. Should I ask permition to use the code and wait until I get it to publish what ever I do or is it ok just to mention I used it and disclaim the authors from my mistakes?
Honestly, every time I think about this I make a different choice.
Thanks for your toughts
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 11:28 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 11:29, 10 Mar 2015.
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If you're an atheist to its furthest extent, then you should not care about anything outside yourself and about that which cannot compromise your integrity. If someone cannot pursue legal action against you, then what's stopping you?
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 10, 2015 11:35 AM |
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Edited by Maurice at 11:39, 10 Mar 2015.
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Do maps fall under some form of copyright protection? I doubt it, since it ties in with the source materials provided by 3DO/NWC. But there's still intellectual property.
I'd say, the least you can do when using source materials created by someone else, whether it's a full map or just a line of script, is to acknowledge the original creator. Supply a readme-file with your map, or perhaps embed the text within the map itself, referencing the origin of the materials you used.
If someone disagrees with you using their materials to make your own maps, they can get in touch with you and ask that you cut it out of your creation(s).
edit:
Stevie said:
If you're an atheist to its furthest extent, then you should not care about anything outside yourself and about that which cannot compromise your integrity. If someone cannot pursue legal action against you, then what's stopping you?
Are you equating atheism to egoism? I'm an atheist myself as I do not believe in any supernatural being, but it's not something I try to convince other people of; however, I'm always helpful and considerate of other people and try to understand their point of view. If anything, I don't consider myself an egoist at all. What's stopping you would be common decency towards others, "don't do unto others which you don't want to have done unto yourself".
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 11:46 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 11:59, 10 Mar 2015.
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I said furthest extent. That alone should've made it clear. Egotistical or not, it doesn't matter in the end if it cannot hurt you. I can totally get you liking to be grateful and whatnot, but it wouldn't be different than me liking a banana. Personal preference, not morally compelling by anything. "Common decency" is relative, as everything else would be.
So it boils down to this to him: does he or does he not value the relationship between him and the original creators. Because either way it's highly unlikely they'll ever pursue legal action against him.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted March 10, 2015 11:54 AM |
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Oh boys, starting existential discussion. 
He is talking about using parts of other's erm codes or ideas then publish on its own. Which is perfectly moral and everyone of us did it, for saving time. When I made an exhaustive list of EA:B abilities then integrated in my map Alexander, I expected everyone to use it by only copy/paste, and this is what they did.
What you can't (hence my arguing with Mazaczek) is to take a full work/mod/map, make some modifications then release under same name or slightly modified. Well, legally you can, but be sure the wog world will curse your name until the apocalypse drums shrill.
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Macron1
Supreme Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 12:18 PM |
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bloodsucker said:
I am an atheist so can't ask my religious leaders
That's the plus of atheism - free will of individual
I agree with Salamander. If you care about copyrights, then mention people whom work you are modifying, in txt file, and rename maps/mod to new names (maybe assotiated with base maps/mods).
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted March 10, 2015 12:29 PM |
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Edited by artu at 12:30, 10 Mar 2015.
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Stevie said:
If you're an atheist to its furthest extent, then you should not care about anything outside yourself and about that which cannot compromise your integrity. If someone cannot pursue legal action against you, then what's stopping you?
There is no deterministic relationship between morality and faith in some lame concept of a super natural boss. (To be good out of obedience and win heaven would be as pragmatic as your version of "atheist morality" and it is your agricultural, peasant bribing faith that sees things so short-sighted by trying to "enlist" people with rewards. But since the dynamics behind human behavior is never that one dimensional and shallow, that's quite beside the point.)
There are many studies that research the social, cultural, biological and cognitive foundations of morality in which none sees a correlation between assuming a supernatural entity out of no reason and having feelings of empathy, affection and considiration. Morality exists in religion because it already exists in our cognitive patterns, not the other way around, that's why the morality of religions imitate the morality of the age they emerge in. And when we observe the many recent countries in which non-religious population now sometimes is more crowded than the religious, we see no lack of morals whatsoever. On the contrary, they are usually among the countries with greatest wealth and peace with very low crime rates, where as the pious Middle East is in constant blood bath partly because of religious conflict.
It has been already explained in the most simplistic way that there is not even correlation between faith and morality in the related threads, put aside causality. This medieval, extremely primitive and childish approach on ethics is out of sense and out of depth.
@Bloodsucker
What is this man? They are third party stuff free to use, if you were religious, were you going to go to church and ask your priest if it's okay to modify WoG mods. The only thing your post makes me think is that you have too much time on your hands and you are really really bored.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Sligneris
Supreme Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 01:08 PM |
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Stevie said:
If you're an atheist to its furthest extent, then you should not care about anything outside yourself and about that which cannot compromise your integrity. If someone cannot pursue legal action against you, then what's stopping you?
I'm an atheist to one of the furthest extents possible, and yet, I do not understand your point - is this some kind of strange assumption going around? Morality is not defined by religion alone. Actually,it's the other way around - religion was created to enforce morality.
It's one of the strangest posts I saw recently... The guy asks whether it's okay to do something and you just say something among the lines of "You're atheist, so you might just as well be immoral." I mean, what?? That's not exactly how it works...
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 01:44 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 13:48, 10 Mar 2015.
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Rather than derailing this thread into yet another off topic debate, I suggest people reread this line of text again, bearing in mind that what I mean by "furthest extent" is an utilitarian nihilistic atheist.
Stevie said:
So it boils down to this to him: does he or does he not value the relationship between him and the original creators. Because either way it's highly unlikely they'll ever pursue legal action against him.
If he cares for the creators, he should do it.
If he doesn't and wouldn't mind criticism if it were the case, he shouldn't.
Either way, he doesn't lose or gain anything of material value. He can do his work in spite of either situation.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted March 10, 2015 02:10 PM |
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What if you are a utilitarian nihilistic theist who believes in a God that doesnt give a crap?
Anyway, I agree that this is not the place for such a topic, it was Bloodsucker who brought it up like "I'm an atheist, should I stop at the red lights and by which hand should hold a fork?" and frankly the whole thing feels like a caricature. I can not imagine one WoG mod maker who will get offended if someone uses some line of ERM code on some random map. I can not even imagine someone imagining such a mod maker.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 02:22 PM |
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Stevie said:
I said furthest extent. That alone should've made it clear. Egotistical or not, it doesn't matter in the end if it cannot hurt you. I can totally get you liking to be grateful and whatnot, but it wouldn't be different than me liking a banana. Personal preference, not morally compelling by anything. "Common decency" is relative, as everything else would be.
So it boils down to this to him: does he or does he not value the relationship between him and the original creators. Because either way it's highly unlikely they'll ever pursue legal action against him.
I will not go in an argue with you, there was a reason why I made the thread in WOG and beyond and not in the Other side of the monitor.
The assumption that people without religion don't have a moral backgound is not only ignorant but inconstitutional in both mine and your country, that assume an independence betwen church and goverment.
We all assume people to have respect for each others rights to the further assumption of the law, a law wrote by men not some presumible god.
I'm not talking about the map itself, it was created with the Random Map Generator so I don't see how I could be violating any rights by editing it.
I'm talking about thousands of lines of code I want to use AND MODIFY without the express permition of the authors, except Sal that is giving it at this moment in his post and had already give it to some extend during this process.
As far as I know both Woodmelon and hzworld are chinese and don't participate in our english spoken community very often, they have their own very active community as you may know. I think Woodmelon is not even interested in Heroes anymore.
And I don't expect this map to became so popular as his Dragon Slauther or TEW4, so probably they will never know about this, is just a matter of doing the right thing. But I'm felling Maurice is right, if I acknowledge their work in the Read Me file it is fine.
Thanks people.
P.S. "I'm an atheist, should I stop at the red lights" - Artu
I also said I'm not findging myself in a finantial situation that allows me to consult a lawyer but I don't see people getting mad at it.
It was kind of a joke about institutionalized "moral" advisors and why I feel this to be the right place to put the question but I see most of you didn't got it. Sorry, my bad.
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted March 10, 2015 02:24 PM |
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Quote:
I am having a moral dilema
How about instead of having "dilemmas", you simply ask if authors of these mods allow them to be reused? Most of them will agree if they didn't state it clearly already.
____________
The future of Heroes 3 is here!
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted March 10, 2015 02:26 PM |
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The only moral issue when hurly-burly copy/pasting thousands of code lines from various authors is dealing with customers anger when mod will crash every other second.
But I guess you already know how to deal with, question of habit.
bloodsucker said:
I'm not talking about the map itself, it was created with the Random Map Generator so I don't see how I could be violating any rights by editing it.
What about aesthetic laws you brutally violate?
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 02:46 PM |
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Salamandre said:
What about aesthetic laws you brutally violate?
The concern about aesthetic laws is one (not the only, I'm also lazy) of the reasons why I use RMGs. You should see the maps I create myself without the machine's help... 
It's the main reason why I never tried to publish one.
Warmonger said:
How about instead of having "dilemmas", you simply ask if authors of these mods allow them to be reused? Most of them will agree if they didn't state it clearly already.
Cause I don't know their mails and hzworld didn't awsered my PM. Woodmelon's stated it for Second Henchmen (that I didn't modified) but not for Palace of Dreams (that I did).
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 10, 2015 04:08 PM |
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bloodsucker said:
It's the main reason why I never tried to publish one.
I am not sure if I understand this correctly; are you referring to your custom made maps only, or to all maps you make? I assumed that you started this topic because you want to use the resources created by others, to make maps to publish for the general public.
If you make them purely for your own use, then I don't see the problem at all  .
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 10, 2015 05:11 PM |
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Maurice said:
I assumed that you started this topic because you want to use the resources created by others, to make maps to publish for the general public.
If you make them purely for your own use, then I don't see the problem at all .
You assumed correctly. Until this day I have made or modified an incountable number of maps (I've been playing this game since RoE was released) BUT I never tried to publish none cause I always felt they added nothing special and the ones I handmade myself were also awful.
Three years ago I discovered WoG by accident and since then my interest for the game has been growing. It has growned so much that I now have a reasonable understanding of ERM and can enhance a map in many ways. I still wonder with the possibilities I see to have fun changing this and that, adding Experience Habilities to creatures or changing their stats, teaching spells to heroes, trading their classes and specialties, etc... While playing with this things I have wrote a few thousand lines of functioning code and I still have a lot of ideas that I'm trying to implement.
In this process I usually employ the RMG, wich most of the times gives me crapy but playable results. Once or twice, none the less, it creates a more interesting setup, where my code fits in and makes something I feel special. I already played this map twice and I have been adding tons of functionalities, yet I have some more ideas I wich to implement. While easy the map resulted funny and I think some less experienced players may like to play it.
But my own experience is based on the mods I have installed like Usain Bolt and Conquistador Leaders (and Mentoring, and Bounty Hunter and so many more) so to trust that player will share my experience, I need to make them part of the mod, incorporate them in it.
While many of this mods and scripts don't play a decisive roll, BAI, Second Henchmen, Palace of Dreams, Usain Bolt and Invite Tavern do.
Without BAI at his maximum, a map I found easy will probably be extremely boring. Without Usain and Invite Tavern, you will probably take forever to finnish and be unable to recover lost heroes without spending hours hiring and dismissing. So, or I incorporate this scripts in the pack or I say somewhere "I recommend you to use this scripts, with these parameters" and let player choose to do it or not. And this is where I get stucked, I feel I must force player to my settings or I can't control the experience and map behaviour will be more random then I wanted. On the other hand, I like to be the one controlling the things when I play, so I'm doing to others something I don't like to see done to myself and for that I need to (ab)use somebody else code.
Should I do it? Should I let it in the open? If I let it in the open, the issue of being abusive about others code completly desapears, they were the ones who publish the mods with the options I used, all the rest will be my own code. Franckly, looks more correct but less interesting.
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Haregar
Famous Hero
of destruction
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posted March 10, 2015 05:53 PM |
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Edited by Haregar at 18:34, 11 Mar 2015.
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Oh boy, another battle without end named as "theists versus atheists" is on or am I wrong?
But to talk about this thread's topic: I think if somebody released something with a view to make other people do whatever they want with it (like "here, do whatever you want"), then it'd be kind to write down the credits (who did it and what was it) under your project.
If it's something like a big mod, then in my oppinion writing credits is somehow mandatory from the moral point of view, because an author or authors deserve it (otherwise you'd act like a thief, or rather you would give a permission to others to call you like that, lol). Situation changes when you don't know who created the mod and/or you cannot contact its creator(s) while you really had will to do it and you really tried with a proper diligence.
If it's a free license, then It'd be kind to say who's the author too, but free license as free-for-use license's character is obvious I think.
At least it's my oppinion.  Cheers and good luck.
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted March 11, 2015 12:40 PM |
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1 for the citation of credits and sources: well, pretty easy, just cite them. of course it gets difficult if you do not note the source the first time you use it (I have trouble refinding resources if I used too many)
and about enforcing your preference on other players, well... isnt that what any map maker would do? If he chose to play your map, then he choose to abide by your options. I personally do enforce my preference in my maps (well I dont have any heroes' yet). its just because i so badly think it should happen, I make a map with it. If someone thinks otherwise, he make his map with options he like.
also btw, those wog options given to user is too nice lol.
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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted March 11, 2015 03:11 PM |
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Or just choose a proper free licence for your stuff like WTFPL, CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GNU GPL, FAL etc.
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