eezstreet

Hell yeah, why not? What is wrong with it?

I probably meant "mods", not "models". The problem with making mods for cash is that you're ripping off of the game itself. Especially in the case of code mods and level design, and even more so when there's highly proprietary formats involved like those involved with ICARUS and GLM. Since neither of those two formats have been explained in depth to us by Raven, it's pretty safe to say that the format isn't open, and likewise, the use of those formats wouldn't exactly be ethical.

Then there's the concern of moral integrity, respect, things like that involved.

Is there anything special that needs to be set up like vendors and such or are the compiled into the maps? Thought it may be like lugormod where you can place these things wherever you want.

 

EDIT: No wonder I couldn't find anything relating to making the server, I'm missing that zip folder. I'm trying to use the launcher to reinstall but it isn't working since the server it connects to for that info seems to be down and it's hung up on looking for updates, the only things I can click on is manual and website.

Use v1.33 for launcher. I have a feeling you're using the old version.

Do you actually know what rigging is, or are you just throwing words around willy nilly?

Regardless of whether it's rigging, it's still important information that needs to be known.

We're getting off topic here though.

Last I checked, conversion of the XSI to GLM was not part of the rigging process.

It's part of models being put into the game.

It's unnecessary. Rigging a model is not something that is specific to Jedi Academy. It's like how we don't have tutorials on how to use every piece of modeling software. People are too lazy to actually read the documentation that comes with their software, or read/watch one of the thousands of tutorials already out there. Pretty sure this is what minilogoguy18 has been getting at.

Last I checked, Assimilate was definitely part of the Jedi Academy SDK.

Regardless, there aren't a great deal of tutorials on JKH regarding it, and it's pretty necessary really.

This totally wasn't @@Caelum's idea or anything, but I think JKG has gotten off on the wrong foot with a lot of people, and this is my chance to try and change people's opinions about things. I would like to apologize for the rushed release of the initial game, and sorry about the misinformation that was generally given out about the state of the mod, and the useless hype around the release. Going forward, I want to get some opinions from the community about how to improve the game and make things better, accessibility of the mod, gameplay, whatever. I think we have a lot of things to make up for, and I've taken a lot of the flak (and believe me, I took it quite personally) from various different communities such as MB2, JKH, on our own turf at TerranGaming, Moddb, Facebook, all of those different places.

I think we released a very buggy and incomplete product. A bit of a shame really. We rushed to get the game out by the release date, and I think that we ought to have delayed the release personally. But unfortunately shortcomings are quite common in the world, and a lot of them befell the release. I've personally spent a lot of time trying to rectify our mistakes. Lots of bugs and changes were done, as our patch notes may indicate:

http://jkg-update.terrangaming.com/packages/public/patchnotes.html

And the next patch will fix things even further:

 

New Features

- New map: Mos Eisley! Comes in Day and Night versions.

- New Map: Jawa Fortress.

- Added names above the heads of important NPCs throughout the world, and displays their title.

- Several (hidden) features added, geared toward Phase 2.

- Added XBOX 360 controller support. Use /in_joy 2 in the console to turn on support for it.

- New JKG_Binds.cfg to match recent changes.

 

Bug Fixes

- Corrected several crashes

- Several corrections to Arena

- Fixed the common 'scumbag doors' bug in all maps.

- Corrected several sprinting animations not having correct footstep sound effects.

 

 

Balance

- Added new Bounty system. Killing multiple enemies in one life results in a bounty over your head!

- Added new firing mode system, replacing alternate fire. It uses the same key as saber style select, so be sure to bind that if it is unbound! (it is updated in JKG_Binds, also)

- Default credit count cut in half.

- Starting weapon now sells back for 1 credit.

- Starting life (and max life) reduced by default. Starting life and shields are adjustable through a new cvar named "jkg_startingStats".

- Bespin Shafts no longer contains any shield or health pickups.

- Blowing up enemy trip mines results in a small credit gain.

 

 

Visual

- Added in visual holster system (WIP, and currently is only for your own character)

- Added several sprinting animations for each weapon class.

- Reverted several animations back to base (walking and jumping included),

- Added reloading animations, again for each weapon class.

- Bespin Shafts now has a new set of teams: Bespin Cops vs. Ugnaught Worker's Union, and a new levelshot; others to come when those maps are updated.

What I want people to do is give us some kind of feedback in general with JKG. Constructive criticism, a description of whatever bad experience you might have had, a description of whatever good experience you might have had, an idea as to where we should take things, all things will be considered. I'll watch over this thread very carefully and try to respond to each answer thoroughly. For any JKG devs that are watching, I ask that they do not respond to this thread, I will handle things myself the best I can. If for whatever reason this thread dies out, I ask that someone mention me.

Morals to me are like an opinion or a point of view, what is morally wrong to one person someone else may not think so. You can't say someone paying for a model is wrong because of your moral standpoints.

Hm. This kinda reminds me of the whole debate over abortion. Taking a stance like this one says to me that you don't really care. I can respect that.

I can respect paying for a model. I can't respect paying for a mod.

I wasn't going to make a tutorial using an unfinished model.

 

No one needed a tutorial and they still don't, myself, AshuraDX, Chalklyne, Inyri and Crimson Strife are proof of this. I'm making the tutorial because I know the community wont grow without it because people are naturally lazy.

Fair enough. But I believe that people need tutorials because they aren't naturally lazy, they need some way to learn. JKH doesn't have any real tutorials on the matter and I doubt that tool tutorials are going to be enough when it comes to rigging, as it's a complicated process.

Is it against the eula? Maybe. Regardless of whether or not it is, morally, it's a victimless crime - both parties receive something they're happy with, in exchange for something they're willing to sacrifice to get it.

I kinda have a different viewpoint on this (see what I did there?). It isn't a victimless crime if you think about it. The victim is the community itself, because if people are openly accepting money for mods and trading them for cash, at what point will the community start making mods simply for cash? Nobody would be able to simply request a mod or get help with anything without there being cash involved. Openly allowing people to pay for mods, directly or indirectly, only condones such behavior.

In the case of KotF, I don't think Tim's attempts to sell KotF are morally bad. I think what's bad is the fact that he's selling other people's work, and profiting off a lack of knowledge of all facts from the other party. He's also deceptive about what he's offering. Is that bad? Yes, because there's a lack of information on the buyer's side, but then again, the buyer should be keeping themselves as informed as possible. But I don't think the very principle of selling KotF is bad.

You have a fair point here. But when you're releasing such a large mod as kotf, and (not taking into account the obviously stolen content and simple scripting that the mod is) you're basing it off of the factors of both the Star Wars IP and the Jedi Academy code which lays the foundation, that's stealing from the game developers and George Lucas. So either way you swing it, you're still stealing. How would you like it if someone made a modification of JKHub, and then required pay for people to join, and it actually made a reputable profit? Pretty miffed, I would assume.

I don't think paying a modder to make a mod is morally bad, or making a mod for money is. What I do think it is is bad for the community: it sets a worrisome trend, where modders have less and less incentive to make things for free, and will instead more often than not resort to making paid mods. You see it happen with certain softwares - even the IP.Board software we use - a huge quantity of mods is paid, simply because it's completely accepted, everyone loves money, and there's little incentive to give someone away for free when you could get paid for it in an environment that considers that completely acceptable.

This.

I myself would never charge to make mods for someone, but if a person really wanted to thank me for my effort after I complete their mod and without prior arrangements then they could donate if they wanted. I do charge people that want websites (cheap though!) because it really takes a big chunk of my time to develop it in-between university work and other projects.

And resources, I presume

This is one of the reasons I stopped working on Jedi Knight Galaxies. The "project leader" got his money from the Donate button to "cover expenses" for the website of a mod that was far from release state. The original project leader barely lifted a finger to contribute to the development of the mod, apart from being the "ideas guy" and sometimes opening photoshop and making some HUD graphics. The mod itself was broken, the team structure was broken, communication didn't exist, the project was failing. But PR was still pouring out optimistic "news" to keep the fans clinging on. Much of the content shown was heavily prototyped garbage or fakery that was made specifically for the dev diaries but had little significance to do with the gameplay of the mod itself (The horrible untested broken running animation even passed through to release). A large bulk of time in the development of the mod was spent making a fully-working fully-animated stargate system that allowed the developers of the mod to travel between servers instead of using the /connect command. I feel really sorry for people who clicked that Donate button and hoped something playable would come out of the project in good time.

I wasn't actually aware of such a thing going on. But at least he's cleaned up a bit, I suppose.

However, the mod is developing now at a much more steady pace. Notable is that the running animation you've mentioned is gone already in the next patch

Prove it in a court of law. That's the issue -- you can't prove what someone might or might not have done. And that's why, legally, it's not an issue.

So how does it stand morally, which in my opinion is the bigger issue?

If the requester offers money, it'd be a donation. Don't very well see where the developers would have a leg to stand on to combat it. The creator can very well say "Hey, I didn't ask him for money in exchange for goods. It's not a purchase."

Sure, but if he didn't have any donation, the creator probably wouldn't have made it. Frame of reference:

Noones charging anyone, he's offering to pay, no one told him he had to pay, he's doing it to get an incentive going to make someone want to make his model.

 

It's not like the people that can model are demanding money for models.

Ninja'd, so I'll respond to this here.

Texturing for the model I'm using for the tutorial is already underway by AshuraDX, the community will get their tutorial.

it's good that the tutorial will come about, but I still don't agree with the fact that it needed a texture to be brought into the community.

No one has to pay anything, it can still be done without a tutorial, someone just has to want it enough to search past the JK modding sites.

Someone doesn't have to simply "want" something to get things done. I for one want bigotry, greed, and ignorance to end. Now, I've already spent pretty much my whole day on a forum defending my idea that one of those tenants should be upheld (and another, indirectly), that doesn't change the fact that people like Dan Mor or Tim are still profiting from the modding community.

That's why we need to inspire people. We need to inspire people to make models and other artwork, because people want tutorials on how to achieve what they're trying to do, not something which may or may not be unrelated. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to spend 30 hours or more studying on the theory of light before I learn anything about graphics programming.

Making a mesh doesn't violate any EULA ever. Making a pre-packaged mod does. And regardless, that's a contract violation. The best they can do it sue you for it.

 

And as far as donations go, as long as they're voluntary there's nothing wrong with them. Most sites that feature donation options usually do them through paypal, and there' usually a disclaimer. Example. I rightly have not looked at Skyrim's EULA lately, but you get the idea.

Sorry, I misinterpreted. I thought he meant a prepackaged mod.

Either way you swing it, "donating" for a "mod" to be "released" is still wrong.

 But making a mesh doesn't violate the EULA.

Yeah, I misinterpreted. Sorry about that again. ._.

It has been said numerous times that we're talking about a scenario in which the modeller is being paid for the model, not converting/rigging it for in-game use. They make a model for a price offered by the buyer. The buyer then does all the tedious stuff getting it in-game. If they went on to try and sell the completely JKA rigged model to others for use in their game, then it would be illegal yes. But the original mesh-making is not.

And I'm talking about mods here, and whether or not it's legal for people to make mods, which for all intents and purposes, the OP of that thread was explicitly asking for. He wouldn't have asked for a simple mesh to be done on a forum explicitly about modding. That simply doesn't make any sense. Why would somebody ask for a mesh on a relatively small forum such as this for a specific niche, in favor of something like IndieDB or Polycount, where that kinda stuff is traded all the time. Furthermore, the lack of explicit sentiments such as "I only want the mesh, I'll put it into the game myself" (which I guess I would've been fine with, I don't totally agree with it, it's better than paying for a mod I guess but I still kinda disagree with the idea) makes me believe that the person was wanting a mod made, not a model.

Sorry mate, but I don't understand the comparison. What is illegal about paying someone to make a mesh?

It's illegal if you violate the game's EULA, is it not?

That's a minor point though.

No, I have neither the interest nor the time, and I doubt you or anyone else could make an offer that would change my mind. That's reality. I don't have to get far enough to get into morals and ethics -- I just don't have the energy to even entertain the idea.

Fair enough.

Regarding him not being able to figure out how to get something packaged and in-game? Not the issue of the creator. If that's the deal, and the person is willing to pay for it, that's the deal. And there's nothing wrong with doing art on commission. In fact a lot of modding sites for other games have donation buttons right on the download pages. The Nexus sites, in particular, do this. Donations of course are quite different than reimbursement. A seeker offering to donate to an artist for making something is not at all the same as paying for services rendered.

See my below post about how that differs from how this would have taken place. Things like that generally imply that the creation is open to the public for free use, without requiring a donation in order to take place. Now, what Tim on the other hand did, he accepted "donations" so that his mod would continue. And generally I think everyone agrees that what Tim did was wrong. At what point does someone who fulfills the OP's (of that thread's) request become someone like Tim? What makes someone like Tim different from someone like a modeller who makes a model for cash? Was it just the viruses or the content he stole that made his actions bad?

What about Dan Mor? Was it the fact that he piped the Ukrainian JKA community into his site, or was it the content that he stole that made it bad?

See, the reason I bring up thievery is because it's all become clear to me now.

If you're releasing models on the GLM format for cash, the GLM format was engineered and made by Raven Software, how fair is it that they spend all this time creating all these formats and exporters when people are practically gyping them for doing so? In a sense, you're kinda stealing from Raven, which in my eyes makes modders who do things for cash no different from Tim. And it doesn't matter what the drug dealer's motivations are, or how many times that he's sold drugs is. The fact is, the person who sells the content is someone who's done that. A drug dealer is still a drug dealer if they've done it one time after all.

So what it really comes down to is: is the artist charging for mods, or accepting donations as gratitude? I think you'll find that legally it makes all the difference.

If I give you a donation as a means of gratitude after giving me some weed, does that still make it illegal for that transaction to take place?

You seem to have already made up your mind.

From what I've gathered, people have been echoing the same sentiment, "it's fine to pay for models". Which, I agree, it isn't a bad thing. But I do disagree with making mods for cash. Because at what point do you decide that you're no different from Tim and Dan Mor, people that have deliberately sold assets for money? I'm not discussing the obvious thievery involved there. But I guess the same thing can be said of drug dealers: At what point do you go from a incidental person who sells a bit of dope for cash, to a dope dealer?

I guess the main thing I'm asking here is, is it wrong to make a mod for cash? Or isn't it? I'm not asking about models specifically. I'm talking about mods.

I guarantee you that if the guy doesn't have the time to learn how to model, he isn't going to have the time to learn how to get it ingame either, since you would need a program to do such a thing, and some experience in the program.

I have no interest in answering a hypothetical question. If you want to ask a real question and get a real answer, go ahead. I've already stated my position, however.

Fine. I'll ask a real question then.

Can I pay you to make a mod?

No ones charging anyone, he's offering to pay, no one told him he had to pay, he's doing it to get an incentive going to make someone want to make his model.

 

It's not like the people that can model are demanding money for models.

No, but I still disagree with the idea that people need to pay money in order to get models done. Why waste all that time making a model for a guy for a few bucks, when you can curb the things you talked about in this thread by making a tutorial? That way, the community can benefit, not just one or two people with a dollar in their pocket or a model in their base folder.

That's why I said he could get his model made then the part of getting it in the game will be solely on him, he wont be paying for a mod, he'll be paying for a model.

?

So...you're agreeing with my sentiment then? I'm confused as to what your position is.

Probably because there isn't much market for paid commissions for coding work.

Yes, clearly. Money makes the world go round, etc.

You'd have to pay in advance or I'd never agree to it

Most carpenters make people pay after the work is done. Which is ironic, since modelers don't pay for materials like carpenters do.

Besides, what will you have lost if you didn't get paid? If we're talking about a carpenter again here, you're talking about wood and time, as well as space in their shop, and if they want to get rid of the piece and recuperate any of their losses, they have to go through the time to get the thing sold. Heck, modellers in my mind gain something from making models, since at the very least that can be a portfolio piece.

And if you seriously think this scenario would ever happen, you need to get out and figure out how the world works. Also, you'd have to pay more than $600 per model, assuming I could pump one out every week that you would reliably pay for (which wouldn't happen) and then I'd still have to be able to afford health insurance, which would probably tack on another 50-100 dollars if I had to pay for that out of pocket. Major medical insurance is a bitch.

I'm talking about in a hypothetical situation, in the perfect storm, how things would play out. If I paid you to make a mod, not taking cost into effect, not taking the idea of "doing this for a living" into effect, in fact, would you make a mod for cash? Yes or no?

So yeah, not plausible. This whole conversation is kind of ridiculous, to be honest.

What's ridiculous is charging people for mods.

Probably means I don't commit to things that haven't happened, because in most cases you don't know exactly what you'd do in a situation until it occurs. It will never occur, so it's irrelevant in any case.

Why won't it never occur? You don't know that it won't ever occur. I could offer a job where I pay you $600 for each model (just using that as a baseline) tomorrow, and you mean to tell me that you wouldn't feel any bit wrong about modelling for JKA for cash? And for the record, I'm referring to a full PK3 and everything, all packed up nice, rigged, tagged for the game, all the amenities there.

I don't see why you're getting so upset eezstreet, don't think you'll ever really win this argument, there are tons of people that work freelance and get paid to do it but like Inyri said freelance artists don't make nearly the money you seem to think.

Don't see why you're making this personal, but okay. Difference is that freelance artists make models for a living, they don't make mods. I find making mods for pay is fundamentally wrong. Nothing wrong with models. And the reason I think why modellers don't make the cash is because sometimes the cost of these models is outrageous if you ask me. Quadruple digits for a model that took a week isn't really worth it if you ask me.

Look at the first word of the previous post, and I think you'll find that I did indeed answer that very question. I also pointed out that the likelihood of that ever actually happening is really really low.

What does "probably" mean though? Means you're considering making models for mods for cash? Or that you would be intrigued by doing it?

What is wrong with charging money if it's your hobby?

Would you make models for cash if you had the skill to do it, the time to do it, and you made more money than your day job?

You seem to be avoiding my question: if you got paid at a rate, salary, hourly, whatever, for making models primarily for use in mods, in such a case that you were getting paid more than your day job, would you do it?

I want a blog.

Don't know about you, but I'd be really hard pressed to charge enough and put out enough work to make more money selling mods or mod material than I make at my day job. 

Supposing you did. Would you do it?

I don't really see the issue, it's kind of like paying someone to help you paint your house for example <.< It's a service, it's not like he's asking for full time pay on a mod team where no one else on the team gets paid.

 

It's about the occasional job of making a model for someone else, and being paid to make it a priority.

 

 

I mean illustrators and the like do commissions, pretty much the same thing.

Would you pay for art for use in mods, supposing that it had more money for you than your day job? It's less hours and more pay! More flexible hours, and more flexibility. Not to mention, you don't have to mention it on your taxes. Makes life easier, does it not?

Besides, if you made mods for cash, why do boring stuff? Doesn't all have to be mods either. Can do some indy game freelance stuff too.

Wouldn't you want to mod for cash?