[MOD] Path to the Throne

[Writing Bull]

Why do you develop your next project at another forum?

 

[raystuttgart]

Why do you develop your next project at another forum ?

Mainly because of technical reasons.
(infracta has many great features I really like.)

For the way I intend to develop the new mod I needed several things which infracta granted me.

• strong moderator rights
• internal team area
• fantastic file hosting possibilities
• ...

I also have a great relationship to the owner and the moderators of the site and
I really like their philosophie considering modding.

Additionally I don't want to disturb the other Civ4Col-Modding projects too much.

This thread is the only thread I intend to have outside of infracta considering my new project Path to the Throne.
(Except maybe a thread for announcing public releases in Civ4Col - Mods and Files once public releases are available.)

And even in this thread I don't plan to have real discussions about content of the mod anymore, since my forum is up and running now.
I will mostly use this thread for telling a bit about my progresses from time to time.

 

[AbsintheRed]

You would probably get much more feedback on this site though
Even if you don't want to develop the mod here, I would advise having a couple threads in CFC too
Playtesting, bugfixing, etc..

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi everybody,

I am currently still in the progress of outlining the concepts of the mod and writing / discussing lore.
(I am going quite relaxed with the project, since it is simply for relaxation and fun.)

One of the thing where I could currently really need some help though is creating house signs / flags.
(My graphical skills are really low.)

If anybody is interested to help out, please read here and here.

 

[Pallando]

One of the thing where I could currently really need some help though is creating house signs / flags.
(My graphical skills are really low.)

Hmm, I don't understand Ray, couldn't Schmiddie or Wili Tell do that for you easily? Or what you are asking is something altogether special?

 

[raystuttgart]

Hmm, I don't understand Ray, couldn't Schmiddie or Wili Tell do that for you easily ?

Sure they could.
I also know several other people that could do that considering their skills.

But none of them have said, that they are interested in Path to the Throne.
I am still a one man army.

Running around and begging for favours between modders will not help me on the long term.
At some point that would become annoying to my modding friends.

I will need real partners that have fun modding on a Sci-Fi mod for Coloinziaton.

A big project like Religion and Revolution or Path to the Throne simply does not work without a big team of motivated and skilled modders.
(At least not in the way that I would like to do a modding project.)

So I will see what the future will bring.

 

[raystuttgart]

I have tried to outline the essential concepts of the project.
With Path to the Throne I don't want to only create a different scenario, I intend to create a totally diffent gameplay.

Maybe a few of my ideas do sound interesting.

 

[orlanth]

Intro Trailer Video now on Youtube:
click the "gear" icon to watch in HD, and crank up the volume


Link to video.​

 

[raystuttgart]

Wow, awewsome.

There is still a long "Path to the mod".
But I am much more inspired to continue working already.

 

[Writing Bull]

Very nice! Who are the artists who had created the images and videos which you have assembled?

 

[raystuttgart]

To be honest, I have no idea.

I had assembled hundreds of Sci-Fi images and don't know anymore where I got them from.
Many of these images I had even collected years ago, when I created my private mod for Galactic Civilizations 2.

 

[Writing Bull]

I will protect this mod and the work of people that have been generous and given us rights of usage. (...) Most basic rights of modders and third party Copyright-owners is nothing to temper with.

I had assembled hundreds of Sci-Fi images and don't know anymore where I got them from.

Sorry, I'm astonished at that. Few weeks ago you had a big conflict with the admins of CivFanatics. You accused them of disregarding the copyrights of third-party-artists who had given you the permission to use certain files. You considered leaving the forum because of that.

Now you are developing a new great mod using a lot of third-party-content. You can't specify the names of the artists. How do you want to get their permissions to use their artwork?

 

[raystuttgart]

You accused them of disregarding the copyrights of third-party-artists who had given you the permission to use certain files.

The main point for me is, that I had given my personal word to René Osmanczyk when I had asked him for permissions.
This word I will try to protect.

How do you want to get their permissions to use their artwork ?

I can't.

If any of these artists should come to me and tell "You are using my work without my permission or giving proper credits.",
I will say "You are absolutely right, please excuse." and ask "Could I continue to use your work and give you proper credits ?".

If he does not want that, I will remove his work.

But W.B., I told you many times already:
If you have problems or concerns with anything I do, let us please not start public arguments but clarify that with private messages.

 

[Robert Surcouf]

Oh my !
I've only seen this thread yesterday!
This is quite interesting... I like the general idea , although I thought you were going to stick a little more with Frank Herbert's Dune.
If I may ask:
1) Why do you prefer a brand new universe than a known universe (of course there is less freedom if you use a well known universe)?
2) Why did you choose a sci-fi universe rather than a "magical" universe? I'm not only asking about your personal tastes... There aren't any magical themed mod for Civ4Col. There's already at least one sci-fi mod for Civ4Col: Orlanth's Colonization 2071. (And there's also an Uchronic (is the word correct ?) mod: Writing Bulls Werewolves). But there isn't any "magical", or heroic fantasy mod...

I'll read the presentation thoroughly and ask questions if I have some, and if you don't mind

 

[orlanth]

Very nice! Who are the artists who had created the images and videos which you have assembled?

Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed it

Yes, the question of formally tracking down and obtaining copyright permissions relating to every piece of content included in a small free mod with a limited audience can easily become really complicated. Many of those images most likely originate from a site such as deviantart where artists choose to upload their work, but often the same image has been uploaded to numerous places by a variety of people. For example, regarding the 3 second video clip of a planet which I added to that video, I got it from one of the great psybient music video mixes made by astralseeker on youtube. He was fine with me using that, but each of his dozens of videos is itself a mix from numerous sources. In making a non-profit mod which a small community of fans may enjoy, administrative complications of tracking down and formally licensing everything may not be feasible, but attribution should be given where possible or known and content should certainly be removed if the creator does not wish it.

let us please not start public arguments

Well I don't know what private disagreements you may have had, but you have certainly each made great contributions to Civ4Col modding that are deserving of great respect The modding community is so small that it would be a pity if disagreements detract too much from it.


(original author unknown)

 

[raystuttgart]

Why do you prefer a brand new universe than a known universe (of course there is less freedom if you use a well known universe)?

First of all, I thought it could be fun to create a new universe.
The second aspect you already mentioned, which is freedom to create without being limited by a given background.

Why did you choose a sci-fi universe rather than a "magical" universe ?

There was no specific reason for that, other than orlanth mentioning about rebuilding his mod Colonization 2071 with Religion and Revolution as a base some time ago.
I then started thinking and creating first concepts how a sci-fi total converion of Religion and Revolution could look like.

I'll read the presentation thoroughly and ask questions if I have some, and if you don't mind

Sure.

But don't expect me to have an answer for every detailled question.
A lot of details are not fixed or even considered yet.
There is still a lot of brainstorming ahead.

 

[raystuttgart]

I have now finished the basic lore of all "Great Houses".

There is still a lot more lore ahead and I might not be the best writer, but currently it is quite fun to write it.

 

[Writing Bull]

Yes, the question of formally tracking down and obtaining copyright permissions relating to every piece of content included in a small free mod with a limited audience can easily become really complicated.

Hi orlanth, thank you for your explanations. But I don't understand why it should be "really complicated" to give credits to tigaer.

Few days ago ray has shown us that picture created by tigaer. The picture contains a copyright-logo. I have used google to get more information about his fantastic artwork. After 30 seconds I have found his YouTube-Channel. Most of the images, which you have used for your video, are created by that artist. Did you try to find the artist whose images you used?

And especially, you have shown us a fantastic video and enjoyed our laud. Why haven't you said that an other artist (and not you) created that stuff?

Orlanth and ray, I have great respect for your efforts to create mods for our community. But sorry, I can't understand because it is too complicated to say: "I am not the creator of that stuff." We all wish that other people give credits for our stuff. Okay, but we have to give credits for other artists too. Also for people who are not members of our Civ/CivCol-community. We have to respect them.

 

[raystuttgart]

Neither myself nor orlanth have ever claimed to have created these great city graphics ourselves.
If you read the posts, we are talking about graphics we found / had (meaning found earlier) and not that we created them.

Even in the case of the flags, where I talked about "tried to create", it is quite obvious that I copied parts of existing graphics together or only changed tiny bits.
(Everybody ever working with me knows how limited my graphical skills are and I never made a secret out of that.)

So stating "I am not the creator." in every post with a great planet or city graphic was something I never considered because I never thought that somebody could believe that.
And as you said, in some graphics, there is even still the sign or trademark of the creator.
So why should I leave that in the graphic, if I wanted to claim to be the creator ?

----------------

Although orlanth did not create the separate graphics he still created the video which is great.
It is just the same as people telling to have created a unit graphic althouhg they have used parts from other unit graphics and assembled them.
He took the images I had presented and used them, so if there is somebody who made a mistake out of laziness, than it is me.

----------------

You have found tigranes, the creator of one image, due to the trademark sign.
The other images in the video I could not trace back to tigranes by doing a search of his work.
The amount of images I have and planned to use is really big and maybe I am simply too lazy to trace all of them to their creator.

----------------

Summary:

There was no bad intention by using these images without proper credits.
(The project was not even in a stage where I might have started thinking about credits.)

Nobody wanted to wrongly claim work of others as his own work.

I agree that using images without proper credits is generally something that should be avoided.

Since I am however too lazy to trace all images I have collected to their creator:
I will simply not develop this project in public anymore or ever publish it.

All I currently want is to enjoy myself with some creative work.
(Writing lore and story, programming some new features, ...)

Edit:

I have removed all images from this thread and will close my public forum within the next days.
I hope that this discussion will then end.

 

[orlanth]

really? I hope you won't have to do that, it seems an extreme price to pay over such a minor issue. I have no problem adding a deviantart link to that video, those images have been posted multiple places across the web & I did not know who is the original author of each one.

But I do agree, making these kinds of free mods is something done on a volunteer basis in limited spare time, in hopes that a very small community of people might enjoy it. Without a professional team and no development budget, the wide range of quality thematic content needed for a total conversion mod requires assembling together numerous small pieces of content posted by a wide variety of people on civfanatics, deviantart, and elsewhere across the web; and this is the case for almost all mods on civfanatics, with everyone understanding that they include a wide variety of content collected from numerous other sources. If it was mandatory to create an extensive links database for everything, initiate copyright searches on each possible content piece, or obtain notarized intellectual property consent forms, modding would obviously stop which would be sad.

Anyhow, it's a pity if something like that could cause new efforts at Civ4Col modding to stall out, when it was looking so promising again