[TSL] The Offcial K2RP Question Thread

[Darth Balor]

Before I get to the main post, I would like to clear up a few things abut the recent "incident" with K2RP and Emperor Devon/File Front.

 

 

Emperor Devon sent me an email saying we had used some old TB loadingscreens in our mod, but the only thing the TB screens were used for was screenshots for the download page. Below are links comparing the loadingscreens used in our mod and the TB ones:

 

TB

Landing Arm

 

Radiation Area

 

TE

M4-78 Landing Arm]Landing Arm

 

Radiation Area

 

The reason I put this here is because i would rather Team exile not have a tarnished reputation.

 

Now that is out of the way you can ask any questions about our mod here.

 

Questions already answered:

 

1. Q. Will there be multi-lingual dubs? A. Yes!

2. Q. Will there be a uSM version? A. Maybe.

 

Ask away.

[Sith Holocron]

Why didn't you use your Loading Screens instead of the "other" ones when posting the mod on Shem's site?

[swfan28]

So this is what this was all about. I hope this will be cleared up quickly.

Sith Holocron wrote:

Why didn't you use your Loading Screens instead of the "other" ones when posting the mod on Shem's site?

He probably just googled for M4-78 screenshots and happened to get these Team Bantha screens instead of taking time to play the game to M4-78 just to record some screenshots or dig the images out of our .mod files. I don't think anyone in the team knew that those screenshots were used as loading screens by Team Bantha.

[Inyri]

[sarcasm] I often google random, unrelated images when looking for screenshots of my mod. [/sarcasm]

 

But seriously... You're trying to convince people that you used screenshots that weren't even included in your mod... to promote your mod? That's silly.

[Marius Fett]

Cheery as ever Inyri!

 

Glad everything is sorted now....

 

Good mod

[Darth Balor]

[sarcasm] I often google random, unrelated images when looking for screenshots of my mod. [/sarcasm]

 

[sarcasm]Oh yes I often type "M4-78 screenshots" in the google searchbar when modding for unrelated games[/sarcasm]

 

Really though, Shem downloaded the mod and he could have easily looked in the tslpatchdata folder and found our loading screens.

[swfan28]

Darth Balor wrote:

Really though, Shem downloaded the mod and he could have easily looked in the tslpatchdata folder and found our loading screens.

He still can but... why did you use those random screens?

[Emperor Devon]

Really though, Shem downloaded the mod and he could have easily looked in the tslpatchdata folder and found our loading screens.

 

Shem and I deal with dozens of mods. Do you expect us to examine each individual file of all those to see if they're true to the screenshots the author submitted? Give me a break and use some common sense instead. It isn't terribly difficult to take screenshots of your own work.

 

In any case, it still doesn't matter. It wasn't your work and you didn't ask for permission to use it. I don't know what Shem and I have to do to get the message across; that's plagiarism and it is not acceptable at our site (or this one). It doesn't matter how popular you are or what mod you're working on - everyone is held to the same rules.

 

The pulling of your mod was not due solely to those silly loading screens in any case. You have previously tried to plagiarize work of Team Gizka's and Darth333's. When I kindly asked you to explain why you were using my old team's work, you instead chose to call me a psycho and create an uproar at Kotoriles. I had to spend hours last night dealing with the crap that arose from it; frankly, I'm so sick of this whole thing I don't even care if the loading screens were yours or not anymore. (Not that it matters, the evidence is overwhelmingly against you in that - even a member of your own team testified to us.)

 

Your mod used stolen work so it was pulled. This was not the first time you attempted such, so you were banned. It's that simple and it is not negotiable.

 

After all this crap you are no longer welcome at our site. We will not be hosting any of your mods again. Good day.

[Shem]

Really though, Shem downloaded the mod and he could have easily looked in the tslpatchdata folder and found our loading screens.

I can't believe you're actually saying this. That's not a great defense. Did you actually think saying that would make it all better? Do you really think this justifies you for stealing?

 

In "MY DEFENSE", I was not familiar with the loading screens that Team Bantha had made when attempting M4-78 is the only reason that got by me. It was Devon who was a member of that team that recognized it right away and we both agreed without argument to be nice about it and let you make it right. This would have helped you keep that current mod on the site and allowed the fix to be uploaded. You decided that you were above the rules and tried to stick it to us. I don't know how you thought that was going to work. What, did you really think we were going to come to the decision that we can't live without your mod at KotorFiles? I don't think so. You maybe talented, but you're not a god in our eyes.

 

As I keep clearing PM's out of my box to make room for the ones I keep getting, I'm getting more information and I have thought of a way for Team Exile to still be able to possibly post their mod updates on FileFront.

 

You (Darth Balor) have to resign from the team and so does another unnamed person who I won't mention because they have yet to make a public fuss about it. The reason why he must resign is because of his past with plagiarism on other issues. I'm noticing your teammates are turning against you and for good reason.

 

If you two resign (the other will be notified in private), and they are disassociating themselves from the two of you from Team Exile, and I know for sure you two are no longer apart of the project, I may consider letting Team Exile to continue to post their updates on FileFront. Devon and I will talk about this soon if Team Exile gets rid of the trouble makers. I'm being more than fair about this.

 

I would suggest the other members of Team Exile to resolve this matter soon so this case can be closed because I'm very sick of having to deal with it.

[Malpense]

IYou (Darth Balor) have to resign from the team and so does another unnamed person who I won't mention because they have yet to make a public fuss about it. The reason why he must resign is because of his past with plagiarism on other issues. I'm noticing your teammates are turning against you and for good reason.

 

Balor pretty much is Team Exile... you ultimatum for him to resign will pretty much condem Team Exile to failure, which is a pity because at least the community had finally gotten the opportunity to have a working M4-78.

 

That said, this controversy is more or less going to lead to the projects collapse in my opinion; personally I don't feel comfortable working with Team Exile until this is sorted out. Your answer to getting it straightened out is have Balor resign... which is only going to gut the team to the point where it's very unlikely it'll live much past a week. Either way, this project is more or less stuffed IMO.

[swfan28]

Malpense wrote:

Balor pretty much is Team Exile... you ultimatum for him to resign will pretty much condem Team Exile to failure, which is a pity because at least the community had finally gotten the opportunity to have a working M4-78.

Yeah, he has done very good work in keeping this project organised. Without him there to give our modders assignments and managing the "current build" this project will be just a bunch of modders, not a working team. That way we would not do any better than Team Bantha even if Balor will allow the rest of us to use the material he made for this project. Things were already going in the wrong direction during the two week period in which Balor took a vacation and passed the current build to me.

Malpense wrote:

That said, this controversy is more or less going to lead to the projects collapse in my opinion; personally I don't feel comfortable working with Team Exile until this is sorted out. Your answer to getting it straightened out is have Balor resign... which is only going to gut the team to the point where it's very unlikely it'll live much past a week. Either way, this project is more or less stuffed IMO.

Yeah, and thats not all that is stuffed. Each of us now have a reputation of plagiarising mods because of the uproar this incident caused. This was just the two screenshots Balor googled when posting the mod to Filefront presumably to save time. I will never understand why he didn't just change the screenshots to our own loading screens when asked to.

[Emperor Devon]

Balor pretty much is Team Exile... you ultimatum for him to resign will pretty much condem Team Exile to failure, which is a pity because at least the community had finally gotten the opportunity to have a working M4-78.

 

Technically it's not an ultimatum, as only Darth Balor has been banned from submitting to our site. The rest of his team and any works they produce together without him are not.

 

In any case, as our authority only extends to KotorFiles you are under no such prohibitions on other sites. There's still the Taris Upper Emporium, though admittedly I would be lying if I said that's the same.

 

I will never understand why he didn't just change the screenshots to our own loading screens when asked to.

 

Indeed, upon receiving the mod we gave him a full chance to explain why he was using them. Why he chose to neglect to inform us of the backstory behind this and squander that chance I can't begin to guess, and the whole thing makes me quite sad; large projects such as this get announced practically every other week here, and it's extremely rare that any of them get off the ground let alone to the point they can release anything. This mod looked like it had a chance at getting something done, and to see it fall apart over two load screens leaves me quite depressed.

[Darth Balor]

Ok, would it help If I said I've been under alot more stress lately, I have a theatre showcase coming, a full length play in which I'm a main character, 2 other projects I'm working on, I've had the flu, my best friend just shipped off to Iraq and alot more.

 

Devon, I didn't plagurize any TG work, I credited them in the read-me, and the D33 mod stuff actually was new scripts and such but because I found the best way to create the mod it happened to be simular to apparently another Dead Eye ducan mod.

 

I'm really sorry for creating this fuss, I know know kfiles will not host any work that I create. I really though don't care where it is hosted, so long as my team doesn't have a tarnished reputation. I didn't even know they were loading screens, I thought they were just screens of the mod with a siggy on 'em. Again I'm really sorry, I understand this is hard for everyone here but, could we please just accept itt was a mistake and take the blame off my team please.

 

Also the following is a list of the members of my team, the RA Jeff guy who has been emailing me trying to get me to join his boycott of kfiles is not one of mine:

 

1 Ayrian - Site Admin

2 DarthBalor - project leader.

Group members

3 Mindtwistah - Dialog editor

4 jcoolZombie - Dialog editor

5 jonathan - storyline editor.

6 Siralos - Voice talent

7 Gray - inactive

8 Weave - sound editor

9 Ulic - all around modder

10 swfan - scripter

11 Malpense - Beta Minion

12 loony - Beta Minion

13 DarthStoney - M4-78 lead.

 

 

Oh and we are not going to "fall apart" because of this, we are going to go on temporary public hiatus and do what TG is doing and keep all devopment within the team. So eventually you will get the K2RP, but not from filefront but from my own paid host.

 

Cheers, and good luck.

 

P.S. My team is not going to support kicking me off.

[Shem]

Ok, would it help If I said I've been under alot more stress lately

You mean excuse you from your actions because you are under stress? Heck, I've been going through a stressful time in my personal life these last couple of weeks. I never use that as an excuse for doing something wrong in my life. Sure we make mistakes and it's more likely to happen when under stress, but I don't think that is the reason why you decided to steal.

 

Life has taught me that when you make mistakes, you take responsibilty for them and make them right and apologize where needed, even when it really hurts. I know I've made my share, but when I'm wrong and I know I'm wrong, I try my best to make the situation right. I've even apologized in situations where I still felt I was right because I didn't like the harsh feelings it created and just wanted to hopefully set things right with that person so there was no hard feelings (a big reason why I have a successful marriage because I don't let my pride get in the way). This is something you chose not to do. If you had tried to make it right, the recent update would still be up and your mod patch would have been up too.

 

and the D33 mod stuff actually was new scripts and such but because I found the best way to create the mod it happened to be simular to apparently another Dead Eye ducan mod.

I'm going to blunt when I say you couldn't tell the truth if someone put a gun to your head and all you had to do is be truthful and what would happen is you would still screw it up and the gun would go off. I actually still have your attempted file submission in my "Mods With Issues" folder on my computer which will help people understand what the problem was with that.

 

When you attempted to upload your version of Deadeye Duncan on Manaan, you used Darth333's:

 

man26_reparg.dlg

spawn_deadeye.ncs

 

...files. I know this because I have her original mod and they both had 5/20/04 dates on them with the exact times and file sizes. The new or edited files you submitted were:

 

man26ad_duncan.dlg

goodbye_deadeye.ncs

goodbye_deadeye2.ncs

 

...which had 9/27/07 dates on them. I'm betting based on what I can see is you took her mod and just made some of your personal edits based on her builds original builds and just claimed them as your own. Judging from that, and your talent with modding, you tend to be lazy and use shortcuts, which is probably what you did there. This make sense based off of what you tried to do with the loadingscreenshots. You liked those and were too lazy to make your own when sending in the screenshots.

 

I was being nice about the whole thing with the Deadeye Duncan mod when I asked you just to ask Darth333 for her permission to use her work. I still don't understand your hang-up about doing that. You argued and lied to me about it; thus the mod did not go up. The same thing happened again with the loading screenshots; thus the mod got taken down. I don't understand your logic, but it needs some serious work because it has costed you more than you obviously realize. You could have made it better so easily, yet you thought you were above it.

 

P.S. My team is actually backing me up not turing against me, jsuk.

That's a mistake if they really want any credibility. Being associated with you would not be good for their image. I've already been approached by different board moderators about this issue wanting to know more since you have no problem discussing it all over the place and they see what happened and see your problem and support my decision to pull your latest mod update release.

 

Actually I want those who support you to come forward and post here claiming they're on your side. I'm curious to how much truth there is in this statement since you have a hard time with that issue.

 

Well, Team Exile members; tell me what your feelings are. I think the public wants to know where you stand.

[Darth Balor]

Can I apologise and everyone drop it please? I really didn't mean to cause a fuss. I know I'm the one who brought up here, but like you said:

Life has taught me that when you make mistakes, you take responsibilty for them and make them right and apologize where needed, even when it really hurts. I know I've made my share, but when I'm wrong and I know I'm wrong, I try my best to make the situation right. I've even apologized in situations where I still felt I was right because I didn't like the harsh feelings it created and just wanted to hopefully set things right with that person so there was no hard feelings.

I'm trying to do that, the only reason I'm trying to clear this up is so that Team Exile doesn't have a tarnished reputation. I'm perfectly gald to drop it, I don't care whether or not you host it.

 

I'm sorry everyone. I'm a 15 year old boy with issues, I 'm really sorry to have caused an upraor.

[swfan28]

Shem wrote:

Well, Team Exile members; tell me what your feelings are. I think the public wants to know where you stand.

Well, I guess nobody in the team wants Darth Balor out because we don't want to see the project die. He is a vital member of the team not because of his modding talent and skill but because of his ability to organise the team. I tried to take over that responsibility for two weeks while Darth Balor was away and it didn't go very well. From my experience that kind of skill is rare and I don't think anyone else in the team could replace him either though I don't know all of them that well.

 

The way how he "handled" this incident was worse than bad however. We know he is not the most diplomatic guy and it is a pity that the other team members only found out about the trouble when it was too late. I can understand that he would google for screenshots of M4-78 when he had no saved games close to M4-78 at hand and didn't think about the teams own loading screens but not why he refused to change them when called on it. When he found out that those were loading screens from other mod though unreleased he should have apologised and changed the pictures.

 

The use of Team Gizka's fixes is also understandable as oversight. I too was under assumption that these big restoration projects are made so that other modders will make their mods on top of them. That is the case with this project at least but its true that Team Gizka had not yet given permission to use their fixes. I was unaware about that thing with Darth333's mod before this but it sounds far more serious if the files actually are completely same. Here he should have known better than try to use them without permission.

 

Also, Darth Balor, why did you have to gloat that we are still supporting you and planning to "go underground" with the project? I thought I and at least two other team members adviced against this sort of action. What we really want is to save the project and restore our public images and gloating won't help us any.

[Ghost Down]

Darth Balor, after all this crap I still support your awesome mod!

 

- Ghost Down

[Darth Balor]

I wasn't gloating, I just. Ugh, All I meant was you won't support pushing me off the team.

 

Also I couldn't change the screenshots, though devon and Shem could have when I sent them the email saying they aren't in the mod. they keep saying I needed to get rid of the plagurized stuff, but I never had acess to the editing function of the download page.

 

And Dashus has said we can use the Team Gizka fixes in our mod, ask him.

[Darth InSidious]

I'm not reading most of the crap in this thread - if I want a heated argument, I'll go insult Achilles or something. So excuse me if I've missed the point.

 

What I will say is this:

 

I downloaded this mod on Wednesday, as I recall, possibly Tuesday. That was before, yes before the mod went down, and I was even aware that there was a problem.

I looked in my tslpatchdata yesterday, expecting to find Team Bantha's old loading screens, which I should recognise - I remember them first coming out...(leans on Staff Of Ancient High-Oneness (+1 Charisma) )

 

But I digress. Now, I'll admit, I got the wrong one for one of them - I thought the second screenshot that was a problem was 802DRO, but what I can do is show you what I found in my k2rp\tslpatchdata folder for load_801DRO.tga - I hope you don't mind, DB?

 

The released 801DRO loadscreen.

 

As can be seen, this is not from Team Bantha.

 

I'm sorry, but I may have missed the point of this thread in the emotionalising...?

[Sith Holocron]

It appears that's the one Darth Balor said was included - see top of thread for links. Without going into previous issues, I think the current issue between Balor and KOTORFILES was that the Team Bantha shots were used as screenshots for the mod. It's too bad that the screenshots at the top of thread weren't used instead as they're pretty nice (although I personally wouldn't have had the droid in there).

[jedi7000nathan]

luckely for me i got the mod before it was taken off the site and how do you install it the tsl patcher keeps asking me to find 303nar

[DarthStoney]

I'm not reading most of the crap in this thread - if I want a heated argument, I'll go insult Achilles or something. So excuse me if I've missed the point.

 

What I will say is this:

 

I downloaded this mod on Wednesday, as I recall, possibly Tuesday. That was before, yes before the mod went down, and I was even aware that there was a problem.

I looked in my tslpatchdata yesterday, expecting to find Team Bantha's old loading screens, which I should recognise - I remember them first coming out...(leans on Staff Of Ancient High-Oneness (+1 Charisma) )

 

But I digress. Now, I'll admit, I got the wrong one for one of them - I thought the second screenshot that was a problem was 802DRO, but what I can do is show you what I found in my k2rp\tslpatchdata folder for load_801DRO.tga - I hope you don't mind, DB?

 

The released 801DRO loadscreen.

 

As can be seen, this is not from Team Bantha.

 

I'm sorry, but I may have missed the point of this thread in the emotionalising...?

 

Thank you ,that is all I ask is that anyone who has or has been able to see

m4-78 mod let others know it is not anybody elses work. At this point I am

not sure I even want to bother finishing if it is going to be tagged as stolen work.

[Sith Holocron]

What do you think he needs to do in order to gain that trust back? I suggest those who are following this, but having yet spoken their minds about this issue, I would encourage you to do so. If there are questions you need to ask to help you understand the situation better, please ask away so you can give a good heartfelt opinion on what you all think I should do; what the FileFront staff should do.

 

A) Darth Balor should take a serious look at how his words and actions may be perceived before making ANY posts again. These issues could have been resolved right at the beginning had a little humility been involved here. Yes, I realize he's 15 but perhaps he should look at these recent developments as a socialization lesson and learn from it. I've leanred the hard way that in polite orums, one should act politely. Modders are artists, not thugs.

 

B) On the FileFront end: Oversight of the mod submissions by one or more Team Bantha members seems to be obvious. Emperor Devon is a member, who appears to be familiar with the mod. Isn't Pavlos also a member of FileFront as well? If something looks "off" about the mod, don't post it until corrections are made. That would also include screen shots obviously.

 

C) Team Exile also has a responsibility to also prevent materials that others have created to end the mod. Some self regulation is required here too.

 

D) Don't lose sight that we're a community and we decide - by our actions - whether the community is worth keeping company with.

 

Enough of my blathering, anyone else have any ideas?

[jonathan7]

I'm not reading most of the crap in this thread - if I want a heated argument, I'll go insult Achilles or something. So excuse me if I've missed the point.

 

What I will say is this:

 

I downloaded this mod on Wednesday, as I recall, possibly Tuesday. That was before, yes before the mod went down, and I was even aware that there was a problem.

I looked in my tslpatchdata yesterday, expecting to find Team Bantha's old loading screens, which I should recognise - I remember them first coming out...(leans on Staff Of Ancient High-Oneness (+1 Charisma) )

 

But I digress. Now, I'll admit, I got the wrong one for one of them - I thought the second screenshot that was a problem was 802DRO, but what I can do is show you what I found in my k2rp\tslpatchdata folder for load_801DRO.tga - I hope you don't mind, DB?

 

The released 801DRO loadscreen.

 

As can be seen, this is not from Team Bantha.

 

I'm sorry, but I may have missed the point of this thread in the emotionalising...?

 

I must confess I'm with InSidious.

 

Too me I feel like being between a rock and a hard place.

 

I think some peoples actions have been questionable, plagerism, is however completely unacceptable, if KotF for example was ever to come out (though I don't think it ever will) I would not downloaded it on principle. ED and Shem, I have been around on Lucas Forums for a while and have a great ammount of respect for you both and the whole community has alot to thank you for. ED I have always enjoyed conversing with you on more serious matters and think you have alot of intelligence and wisdom. With regards to Darth Balor cast your minds back to when you were teenagers, I remember doing many silly things, which with retrospect made no sense and I couldnt tell you why I had done them. I think what has happened can be put down to youth and inexperiance, and perhaps the arrogance that comes from being a teenager.

 

In truth I am unsure as to what my position is at the moment.

[Shem]

I’ve been reading some of your replies recently and the one thing I always want to do is the right thing and what is in the best interest of the KOTOR community. As some of you may already know, I got involved with FileFront to help make it a good place to host mods because of what was happening with PCGM. I realized it was very possible that we were going to lose it in the future and I wanted a secure and safe place for us to host mods. I brought the idea of someone getting involved with FileFront from Holowan, but because of how FileFront got off on the wrong foot, nobody seemed to want to give it the time of day. So I realized that in order for that to change, I needed to be the one to step up to make things happen. It’s not always fun being a manager/board moderator, especially the crap you deal with. To be honest I think sometimes I’m still doing this because I know right now nobody will put in the time to make it run as well as I’m running it right now and I fear that it will go downhill if I were to leave. There is truth that I do have a great love for the place because of all the work and service I’ve give; anytime you serve something or someone, your love for that thing or person will grow; so I guess it depends on my mood depending on what type of day I’m having.

 

About this issue; I did realize after the fact that the loading screens that Darth Balor uploaded were just the screenshots that helped promote the mod. The problem was he wasn’t very clear about it when trying to explain it and it was hard to take him seriously because of his attitude and after my personal experience dealing with him when recalling the Deadeye Duncan incident just over two months earlier; which I have documented already. Balor still used those screenshots without permission and still wouldn’t ask for permission to use them when called on. He still was suborned about that, even after the Deadeye incident. That’s a big problem from where I’m standing. I hope you guys can see it from my end of it.

 

One of the biggest problems Balor had was the way he reacted when asked about it. I remember the night before when discussing the issue with Devon and asking him if he would ask Balor about it. I come home from work and by routine I moderate all the comments that happened on FileFront and the next thing I know I’m reading where Balor decided to flame my assistant manager by calling him a psycho. From where I’m standing that’s not looking good. I waited on MSN in hopes Devon would get on so we can discuss this and the only person I had available on the FileFront staff to talk to was one of our FileFront admins Inyri Forge because I hate making big decisions on my own when they will affect so many people. I was with the decision to remove the mod and she agreed that it’s time to take down the mod as well. I was pretty upset that I felt it had to come down to it and by the tone of my messages here should have shown it.

 

This issue wouldn’t have made it to the public if Balor didn’t even bring it up or if the mod didn’t make it to the public and taken away bringing out the fact that it was a popular enough mod that people were asking about it. Again; I hate making decisions that affect so many people like this because I always want to do the right thing and what’s best for the community. I have gotten a lot of support for my decision to remove the mod and I’m grateful for that. Tonight I’m seeing a little difference of opinion and that started with Darth InSidious, who I really have a great respect for.

 

I personally hope more people who have a great position of respect around here like some of the modding veterans, especially Holowan Mods, etc, take the time to add their input; especially if they’re following this issue. I just want to do the right thing. If anybody thinks there is a way to reinstate having the K2RP being able to be hosted on FileFront and would feel good about it while still have Balor as your leader, please speak your mind. Actually any supporters or non-supports speak because I’m listening and want to make the right decision.

 

If this does get resolved in Team Exile’s favor in terms to keeping Balor and being allowed to host the mod on FileFront, I would suggest if a problem does arise again because of an unseen future issue that maybe someone else should be the one either Devon or myself deals with instead of Balor; one who will be more civil about the matter so that your team will have good results because Balor’s diplomatic skills need a lot of work and when he spoke the way he did, he was representing your whole team; not a good thing from where you’re standing and all the hard work you guys have done over this last year will be in vain. I know that Balor is 15 and has a lot to learn and I’m taking that into account here.

 

One thing that will still be in effect is Balor’s ban on FileFront for his behavior. If things can be resolved right for the K2RP team and Balor apologizing to Emperor Devon for his flame and shows that he’s going to make some changes in the way he handles himself, I may end up reducing his ban time and upgrade it to a comment ban instead of a site ban. Balor needs to show he can be trusted again before I would consider letting the K2RP being hosted with us while he's still the team leader. What do you think he needs to do in order to gain that trust back? I suggest those who are following this, but having yet spoken their minds about this issue, I would encourage you to do so. If there are questions you need to ask to help you understand the situation better, please ask away so you can give a good heartfelt opinion on what you all think I should do; what the FileFront staff should do. Thank you for the time you have taken to read my lengthy post.