Mods to the game.

[Talad]

As you have read on the cheating page, mods are not allowed in general by PS license. You cannot use or create \"Derivative Works\" with the copyrighted content. This means that all mods are not allowed by PS License.

This is done for a number of reasons, some of which are:
- keeping quality standards associated to our game
- be sure that players gets what they expect
- protect our work from spoilers.

Having that said, we are amazed by the work that has been done by the community on very interesting and useful mods to the game. The whole idea of \"open development\" has been catched and implemented by many modders exactly as we wished. There are mods that are \"fair\", no cheating, just useful additions to controls or functionalities (logs, better menus, ability to configure colors/layouts, etc..)

PS License is meant to stop the spoilers, not the good ones, and we decided to have a list of approved mods.

Approved mods will have a special grant by PS team that allows players to use those with PS Client on Official ps server.

Approved mods need to have this characteristics:
- a version identifier (like 1.2)
- open source code
- a web page to host it (if you have problems with bandwidth we can host the file download on the main ps site)
- a full list of features, published for a specific version.(like 1.2)
- approval from ps team explicitly written on ps main site.

This way modders are happy, players are happy and we are sure no cheating, no bad quality, no off-topic gfx is given to players.

If you like the idea, review you mod, make a web page for it with the required info, and ask us to approve it.

It\'s important to note that any official update of the game (run through the updater or download from main site) will probably overwrite the files of those mods. So players will have to reinstall the mod after the update.

We cannot guarantee that the mod will work again after an update, that\'s responsibility of the modder.

I posted this to forums and not to main site since we are working on the idea and want your feedback before going official.

[Kiern]

Very good and clear Talad, I agree all the way...though of course, I\'m not a modder. :baby:

[Zeraph]

I was wondering, if you wanted to add additional levels to PS & are not a dev, how would you test the level mods to see if they match up with the PS world, if you do not own your own server? Would it be cheating if you added additional levels to PS?

[Xordan]

*Three cheers for Talad!!*

Zeraph: I believe that you can just download the CVS, run your own private server and test things out there. Best for a dev to answer though, as I\'m not sure. And yes, I believe it is cheating to add your own additional levels to the game to use on a official server, as it could allow you to make \'shortcuts\' through different areas, and you could generally have a unfair advantage over other players.


Talad: Looks an excellent system to me. If a mod was good enough, could it be used as an offical patch? If so, I assume everything it contained would go under the planeshift license yes?

[Icefalcon]

I\'m glad to see the rules layed out clearly, and that the security is tightened.

[Talad]

We can review patches sent by modders to be integrated into the game, we already have done that in the past.

Will be a choice of the modders to propose his mod for integration, or keeping it proudly on his web page (I know that people like saying: \"I\'ve done it, download MY mod.\")

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Talad
We can review patches sent by modders to be integrated into the game, we already have done that in the past.

Will be a choice of the modders to propose his mod for integration, or keeping it proudly on his web page (I know that people like saying: \"I\'ve done it, download MY mod.\")

Yes, but for the players, it would be better to have it integrated so that they will not have to keep re-installing it after each update.
Anyway, it\'s the modder\'s decision.

Originally posted by Talad
As you have read on the cheating page, mods are not allowed in general by PS license. You cannot use or create \"Derivative Works\" with the copyrighted content. This means that all mods are not allowed by PS License.

IANAL, but AFAICS this isn\'t true for code-only mods. The GPL does allow anything to be done with the code. After all, that\'s what it is there to make happen. It therefore doesn\'t constitute a \"derivative work\" WRT the content.

However, ? 3

From the PS license
You may use the provided Material, for personal use only, to connect to an Official PlaneShift Server only in conjunction with a Planeshift Client, distributed by the Planeshift Team. Offical PlaneShift Servers can only be designated by PlaneShift Team.

will prevent any modification to the sourcecode to be used in conjunction with an official server, thereby effectively locking out code-only mods as well, because you need to use the content in conjunction with the modified sourcecode unless you have re-created all content (resulting in incompatibility in terms of the rulebase). Since the content may only be used with the client distributed by the PS team, a modified code (while perfectly OK in terms of the code license), isn\'t the official version and thus you may not use the content anymore.

With this interpretation in mind, and the intention to actually enforce it, it is paramount to expressly allow certain types of modding because otherwise any modder would perform an illegal activity.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to me. As much as I dislike the requirement for approval, this seems to be an acceptable tradeoff for stopping cheaters. It doesn\'t make me happy, but I\'d rather see cheaters banned than to test my mods on the official server.

Laws and rules are a necessary evil.

[Monketh]

So, I take it it may be possible to create skins so long as every scrap of the original is removed before hand?

What about interface \'skins\'?

[Zeraph]

I am a little confused about the server, assuming that a modder can download the cvs & compile it, there is a way to run PS offline? Which is to say use your own computer as a server & not use any internet/network connections? Or do you have to have another computer to install the cvs server?

Well, if that is the case, I would think that making it more available to people would cut down on loading mods onto the official server illegally. Since I know little to nothing about programming C++ but have experience in 3D & modding game?s content such as adding custom levels / more models to other games were that sort of thing was encouraged & they didn?t release the code I had no need to learn C++ to add stuff to the game.

I was thinking, we could have a ?Mod Test? which is identical to the PS server, but has no restrictions as far as mods (good or evil) so that we can test out the mods & submit them, share them & all that only to be used on the mod server, even if there are cheaters they will only be able to work there cheats on the mod server. If I had knowledge on how to set up such a place (I know servers are generally not free) I would, with the devs approval of course. A place were you can mod the client all you want & not get flagged for cheating, but all of the mods would only (unless approved by dev team) be used on this server. It wouldn?t be a place to send players just people testing out content that they can submit to the dev team instead of testing on the official server.

(BTW: This wouldn?t aid in cheaters because they would just use the official server for that.)

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Zeraph
I am a little confused about the server, assuming that a modder can download the cvs & compile it, there is a way to run PS offline? Which is to say use your own computer as a server & not use any internet/network connections?

AFAICS, it works this way. In fact, I would expect it to be like this because any networked app can be used in this way by using the loopback \"network\" (running the server on the same machine as the client and entering \"127.0.0.1\" as the servers IP address in the client). The only things you can\'t catch this way are problems caused by low bandwidfth and by packet loss / data corruption (since neither will happen within the same computer with any significant probability). This works even without any networking device installed.
So unless PS is doing some deliberately weird stuff in terms of networking (which I doubt it does), you should be able to use it \"offline\" just fine.

Originally posted by Zeraph
So, I take it it may be possible to create skins so long as every scrap of the original is removed before hand?

AFAICS, yes. Also, you can AFAIK modify an existing model if you make substantial changes to it. Changing some color won\'t do, as won\'t adding some freckles. But if you take the human model and make something totally different (like an Enki) out of it (i.e., the original will not be recognisable), it\'s not a derivative work anymore. However, there is a grey zone somewhere as to what is a \"substantial change\". Mostly, this differs from case to case.
But I may be wrong on this or in the future because of the $$-driven IP madness currently going on that strives to totally erase any rights of fair usage. Also, IANAL, so don\'t base your defense in court on this.

[lynx_lupo]

*yawn*  Of course source mods are allowed, see the intro post for further explanation(what good is a mod if none will use it?). It\'s GPL...

[Reikar]

Maybe if you make a seperate directory that you can store the mods in that the client will auto-detect, it will allow the people making mods an easy way to add the mods and have it so you can remove them easier. it would also allow the updater to update with out altering the files in the mod.
If you want to insure that the mods arent ones that will be used to unbalance the game then you could have it so that the client checks a database of files allowed by planeshift against the files you have in the mod directory (a way i know of is you check the name of the file and the file size with the one in a database if they arent allowed or the file name matches but the size doesnt then it comes back with an eror message).

i hope it helps

[Monketh]

Reikar, you have a good point.  

However, an easier method would be simply inserting a \"tag\" into the client distributed as fully compiled.  The server would see this as a non-modified client.  Officially allowed mods would be given their own \"tags\" for their pre-compiled versions as well.  Thusly, the devs would know who does and who doesn\'t have a mod.  You\'d have to mod to cheat directly, although this couldn\'t be used to catch Glitch-exploiters.

[Kiva]

However, an easier method would be simply inserting a \"tag\" into the client distributed as fully compiled. The server would see this as a non-modified client. Officially allowed mods would be given their own \"tags\" for their pre-compiled versions as well. Thusly, the devs would know who does and who doesn\'t have a mod. You\'d have to mod to cheat directly, although this couldn\'t be used to catch Glitch-exploiters.

Yes, yes. It\'s all very good, but aren\'t you forgetting that if you mod the client, you can also mod it to send the \"right\" tag as well?

Anyway, it\'s all very simple. Use your mods on the official server and risk getting booted because what you\'re doing isn\'t allowed.

[tangerine]

What if the tag was encrypted ? Server would send a randomly generated public key, client would use it to encrypt the tag and send it to server. So the message that client sends to server is different each time it connects. And the tag could be updated with the updater every week.

This one would require cracking skills at machine-code level, hopefuly.