Nightfall Post Mortem

[R_Yell]

It's terrifying how many mods make the same mistakes, specially the lack of an early design document. This must be read by anyone who wants to start a mod, however there are also other good reads like this one.

[bobthehobo]

Those were both interesting reads.
Lessons to be learned.

But anyway, the ModDB article mentioned something know as the "poor man's copyright", a system that doesn't actually work.

It may sound silly, but regularly mail yourself copies of the mod, your assets and code. Seal them in an envelope, mail it to yourself - postmarks contain dates - and don't open them. Archive them in a filing cabinet, so if a situation ever arises where you need proof of ownership, you'll have dated proof.

If you check the US Copyright law page, you'll see that this will not hold up in a court of law:
(From copyright.gov)

I’ve heard about a “poor man’s copyright.” What is it?
The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright.” There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

[Wraiyth]

Australian copyright law works slightly differently. Under Australian copyright:

There is no government registration system for copyright protection in Australia. You do not need to publish your work, put a copyright notice on it, or to do anything else to be covered by copyright — the protection is free and automatic. There are no forms to fill in, and there are no fees to be paid. You do not have to lodge your work with a government agency or anywhere else.

So in Australia, theres no system to register Copyright for any fee like there is in the US. The advice from the Australian Copyright Council for protecting yourself against disputes is as follows:

If there's a dispute about who created something protected by copyright it may need to be resolved by a court. A court would look at all the relevant evidence. The most important evidence would usually be oral evidence from the creator and from people who saw the material being created or who saw early copies. Other evidence may include drafts of the work.
Such cases are, however, extremely rare.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, someone who goes to court claiming they own copyright when they don't runs very large financial risks, as they might have to pay not only compensation but also both their own and the other side's legal costs. Second, if someone falsely claims in court that they have created a copyright work, they risk perjury charges (a criminal charge for lying to the court). Third, there are provisions in the Copyright Act which allow people who have been groundlessly threatened with copyright infringement to take action against the person making the threat.

The second half is why the whole issue was so stupid for NightFall in the first place - the law was absolutely on our side.
According to the first half, the best ways are oral evidence, evidence from other people who saw it created, and drafts. And whats the best way to file and store drafts? By putting them onto a CD (you can embed a creation date into a CD, and files will all have their last modified dates on there. That can still be faked as well, but so can most digital systems for anything). Mailing them to yourself is an extra precaution, especially if the creation date of digital media and the postmarked date are the same, and if need be you can also sign an affidavit to connect those two things (meaning if its found to be incorrect, you can face perjury charges).
Its not the safest way to protect yourself, but its an extra bit of security, at least in Australia. The best thing you can do, though, is familiarize yourself with the copyright laws in your country so if you ever are threatened in the way that we were, you know the correct legal course that you can take to protect yourself and your property.

[Farles]

Wraiyth, my love, this is the coolest thing you could have do for us. Taken all what we've been thru and telling the whole community how mods really works, will help, I hope, to stop too-ambitious mods before they get too big, preventing wastes.

Seriously, I know feel all we've done wasn't so useless in the end, for us and the community.

I'll be sure to come visit you in Aus next summer.

[otihome2469]

very insightful!

[Lord Ned]

Good read, reminds me of what happend to Halo - Ring of Destruction.

Lack of planning, no time schedual, leader dropped in and out, no overall goal. Forchently I don't think we got further then a map or two and maybe a few lines of code.

It was so bad that our mod team leader wasn't even making the recruiting posts, we had extra people like PR specialists and crap that we didn't need, etc. I also remember there might have been a similar one going on at the same time on the GoldSRC engine, etc.


I think what would have worked better if we had started out the mod as a fast paced MP one with a map or two and got public input on all the Mp gameplay, before bothering with NPC's and such. We also got a marine modeled, I wonder if that still exists...

To expand:
Alot of the team member were young, over happy, had no prior mod experience, and had the basics of mapping experience, etc. (Me included, damn my work has gotten better)

[MrTwoVideoCards]

WHOA MEGA BUMP!

[Lord Ned]

10 Days != Megabump, also it's a stickie, i'm hardly bringing the topic up any, lol.

[theblahman]

For such an important article, a bump is fine too.

no cats please

[Lord Ned]

With the entire "Mailing your stuff to you" thing -- What is it trying to prove, that you had the code?


In my honest opinion, I think the BEST way to have any security is to keep things like this:
Mappers only get the .VMF's
Coder(No Plural) only get's the Source
Material Artists only have the VMT/VTF's etc.
Modelers only have the model files, and the related materials for them.

Now obviously the mappers can't map without the VMT/VTF and test in game, so you build the mod, send him the Client.DLL, and Header.DLL, and then send him materials. Materials are less of a problem (IMO) then models or code.


This way everyone has PARTS of the mod, but not the entire thing (Except for the Leader) and there's less issues of taking it and running.

The only problem with that is if your Leader runs off, but that should never happen.

[Inveramsay]

With the entire "Mailing your stuff to you" thing -- What is it trying to prove, that you had the code?


In my honest opinion, I think the BEST way to have any security is to keep things like this:
Mappers only get the .VMF's
Coder(No Plural) only get's the Source
Material Artists only have the VMT/VTF's etc.
Modelers only have the model files, and the related materials for them.

Now obviously the mappers can't map without the VMT/VTF and test in game, so you build the mod, send him the Client.DLL, and Header.DLL, and then send him materials. Materials are less of a problem (IMO) then models or code.


This way everyone has PARTS of the mod, but not the entire thing (Except for the Leader) and there's less issues of taking it and running.

The only problem with that is if your Leader runs off, but that should never happen.

This I think is a good way of A) Creating deep mistrust B) Creating massive bottlenecks.

[MrTwoVideoCards]

With the entire "Mailing your stuff to you" thing -- What is it trying to prove, that you had the code?


In my honest opinion, I think the BEST way to have any security is to keep things like this:
Mappers only get the .VMF's
Coder(No Plural) only get's the Source
Material Artists only have the VMT/VTF's etc.
Modelers only have the model files, and the related materials for them.

Now obviously the mappers can't map without the VMT/VTF and test in game, so you build the mod, send him the Client.DLL, and Header.DLL, and then send him materials. Materials are less of a problem (IMO) then models or code.


This way everyone has PARTS of the mod, but not the entire thing (Except for the Leader) and there's less issues of taking it and running.

The only problem with that is if your Leader runs off, but that should never happen.

This I think is a good way of A) Creating deep mistrust B) Creating massive bottlenecks.

I agree, that is just retarded, if your team is going to be like that, then there isn't even a point in Having a Team. Or even a project for that reason. I've handed my entire mod to all of my members, and have never had any issues. It's just sad that sometimes you can't trust people.

[Kremator]

Well we just had the unfortunate luck of running into this issue, I trusted my core team, but new recruits were usually on probation for a while. The more high profile the mod is the more caution you need to take in these matters, can't be too careful.

[Lord Ned]

Would you rather: Have some untrust for a while but a working mod, or put a ton of your hard work into the mod, then boom someone takes it and runs?

[MrTwoVideoCards]

Well that depends on the Team of course, which the Leader, is in control off, but its to different to really sit down and talk about it, because theirs alot of Team models you can follow. One without a Leader, and one with.