I'd like to have a rational discussion. Do you think Pasta's replies are mature and rational? I think not. He just enjoys seeing drama and making it worse so as to create even more drama which he enjoys even more.

And what the hell, this day's bad enough as it is.


If you agree with that stance, I'd assume you'd then agree to his conditions, whatever they may be. This doesn't appear to be the case as the rest of your post shows.

Then you go on about comparing the FL scene to Half-Life 2. The problem here is that HL2 servers cannot even remotely be compared to FL. The sole logical comparisons are MMOs and RPGs because they have the persistence and depth that FL has. In CSS, I can go from server to server, trying out 20 in a night and then picking my 5 favorites (or 10, or 20, whatever) and playing there most of the time. With FL, people usually gravitate around one or two servers and invest far more time on them. You can't get on a server and be up to par in 10 minutes, it can take hours if not weeks. There's a far bigger involvement present in FL than in shooters. That means that people tend to be more protective and more attached to their servers.

Further, FL's community is small and is dwindling everyday. Nightstalker might not care if his servers were full, but now when every player counts having your mod on other places dilutes the experience for everybody involved. Mod makers feel that their work is getting "stolen" because they've specifically dedicated their time and effort so that they could see, as an end result, the server they chose grow and flourish. If you don't want to respect that, you risk losing everything the mod maker has done.

On top of that, many servers nowadays have unique server-side setups that are critical to the enjoyment of the mod. Any illegitimate server will not have access to those setups, which in turn delivers a lesser experience for anyone playing there. That gives the mod a worse reputation than it deserves. Similarly, if a player's been banned from a server, it's been done as a punitive measure. Allowing that banned player to just make a new server and put the mod on it and grab players from the main servers just means banning it meaningless.

Wicked makes the point: most if not all MMOs won't allow you to make your own servers. They'll ask you to go on their official ones, be it for money or experience. I don't see why, just because we don't ask for money (and that should be a POSITIVE point), we're not allowed to have ownership over our things. You should just pick from the myriads of mods that do allow people to host their own servers instead of purposefully selecting those that do not want to.

Should you really want to go on legalities, EULAs might not even be binding for all we know. There's been a few cases on that and the results have been split.

Further, the art done in the mods would most probably be considered to be the property of the creator. By art I mean models, textures and such. Code is the property of MS, that's obvious, but graphics are more of a grey area.

Didn't I just address it? And the EULA was specifically in answer to weishaupt's comment, not to the server problem.

For a start, just drop the community dying argument, because its simply not true. We are doing very well considering the age of our game.

Now, concerning the issue. Here is the thing, there are valid points for both sides.
Personally, I think its not helping your mod in any way to close down server hosting, but at the same time I accept that some modders feel that its their way. I dont agree with it but I accept it.
I dont think this discussion can come to a conclusion, because there will never be one.
Its clearly a mentality thing, similar to capitalism vs. communism.

So, this is to both sides: Please dont try to persuade the other side no matter what. At some point, we have to accept that some people just do things differently than what you personally think is right.

You missing MY point.

There is also a education which i get from my parents and that's
"respect" and "value's"

If my frontdoor is open, that won't say that you may step into my house, uninvited. Does it?

If you think yes, that say enough about your value's from life

Cya spacecowboy

Despite our differing views, I'm glad to see you're open to rational discussion, though I'm pretty sure we'll end up countering each other back and forth over the course of typing out our next post and missing counterpoints that we should read. My apologies about likely having missed some of your counterpoints to things I may have said in my response to Witch. That being said, here we go.

>If you agree with that stance, I'd assume you'd then agree to his conditions, whatever they may be. This doesn't appear to be the case as the rest of your post shows.

I don't think you quite understand where we differ. I agree that he can do whatever he wants with his mod, yes. He can set whatever terms he likes, and I agree that it is respectful to abide by them. However, when you put your mod on the internet in a publically available, freely distributed format, with no passwords, authentication, or any other kind of restrictions, expecting those conditions to be enforced is simply foolish. As I recall, in the other thread, you told him he should release a stripped down version. This is a fine idea in theory, but according to what you just said, doesn't entirely mesh with your desires. Why not just strip out the hosting abilities for others in general? Keep the key files to yourself and only distribute them to those who you allow to host your mod. If that isn't possible, then there's really not much you can do. Once it's on the internet in its full state, keeping others from doing what they will with it is an exercise in futility. Is it right? Debateable. Is it childish to cry about it after you've opened the door to it? Yes. The best you can do is to use it to your advantage, which is what I am advocating in this scenario, rather than complaining about it.

>Then you go on about comparing the FL scene to Half-Life 2. The problem here is that HL2 servers cannot even remotely be compared to FL....There's a far bigger involvement present in FL than in shooters. That means that people tend to be more protective and more attached to their servers...Further, FL's community is small and is dwindling everyday. Nightstalker might not care if his servers were full, but now when every player counts having your mod on other places dilutes the experience for everybody involved.

It seems to me to be a case of the former feeding into the latter, and I can't say it dilutes the experience for everybody involved at all. What dilutes the experience is the reason for people WANTING to branch out and make other servers: Nobody can just be amicable anymore. Everyone's just saying "MINE MINE MINE", BECAUSE the community is dwindling, which in TURN causes the community to dwindle because of people getting fed up and branching out, consequences be damned. It doesn't help that the whole "MINE MINE MINE" behavior is being defended like it's commonplace everywhere, as I've already held up examples of where and how it works. Your argument for persistence on FL as opposed to other games is somewhat counteracted by the fact that people work for the same amount of time and put the same amount of effort in on other servers, just for different things. And particularly Gmod, where an arguably similar level of persistence exists on particular mod servers, but just the same, it's propogated very well without the bickering about other servers "diluting the experience". The FL community finds itself in this situation, again, because of the way they've approached it, and they approach it this way because of the situation the FL community finds itself in. Such is the nature of the beast, as it seems.

>If you don't want to respect that, you risk losing everything the mod maker has done.

I respectfully disagree with this. Again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, other modding communities with arguably the same level of persistence and time/effort put in are flourishing quite well without "losing everything the mod maker has done". Everything else I can say about this topic would just be repeating verbatim the above statements, as they hold true.

>Wicked makes the point: most if not all MMOs won't allow you to make your own servers. They'll ask you to go on their official ones, be it for money or experience. I don't see why, just because we don't ask for money (and that should be a POSITIVE point), we're not allowed to have ownership over our things.

The difference here being that MMO's won't allow you to make your own servers because it's a business, and should you cut into the profits of a corporation running an MMO, you find yourself in a VERY actionable position. Because you don't ask for money (and I agree, it IS a positive point) IS the reason you aren't allowed to have ownership over your things. If you WERE to ask for money for it, you'd be sued by MS so fast it'd make your head spin. As I said, read the EULA. It is a FACT that MS owns any mods made for their software. You may have made the 3D models, you may have made the systems, but the SECOND you put it on the internet as a Freelancer Mod it becomes the property of MS. Like it or not, that's the way it is.

I look forward to your rebuttal, and again, I appreciate you opening the floor to rational debate.

Agreed