ForceMod III Advance v2

[MyKell]

Some may have heard of this new "mod" by Pitchest Heart. Info can be found at http://www.phrgempire.com.

 

My personal feelings about it's creator and his motives have been well published (to say the least).

 

Here is my point of debate:

 

Is it acceptable to use other peoples work (models/weapons/map) in your mod without permission?

 

Is it acceptable to take the core of a mod (ForceMod III in this case) tweak the saber, weapon, bot, and npc files and call your work a "new version"?

 

Thanks!

[Totenkopf]

From my understanding of modder etiquette/rules, you're supposed to ask permission if you wish to use the original author's work (as is?). However, since much of what is modded is often a reworking of a game's original files, is it realistic to expect modders to go to the original programmer of a specific file and ask permission to modify said file? If you don't go that far with the game's original author's work, why should you with another modder? I think that you should at least tip your hat in your read me file, but that if you're only using the other modder's work as a starting point....well isn't that what he was doing from the box, so to speak? As long as they are only taking credit for their tweaking, versus passing it off as completely original, I'm not sure it should be a real big deal. lies have a way of catching up with people.

[Heavyarms]

Totenkopf hit it close, but I'm going further. Even if you use it as a base, you should still credit it as a base. You took it, you should give credit. If you did it in college with a paper, they call it plagarism.

[MyKell]

Would it matter if one used a model without permission because the readme contains a deactivated e-mail address?

[Heavyarms]

Nope. Makes no difference. That's like saying that because I moved away to Japan from the U.S, someone can take my patented invention in the U.S. and sell it to another company.