90 replies to this topic

[dboyrecords]

Hard to get the genie back in the bottle. One day, it'll make as much sense as spanned tables to the new-come-er.

[kruge99]

Hard to get the genie back in the bottle. One day, it'll make as much sense as spanned tables to the new-come-er.

 

Testing a 'beta' version of VP shouldn't give any person a reason to not respect the table author's who request that modded versions of their creations be released to the public without first asking for permission.

[dboyrecords]

Hard to get the genie back in the bottle. One day, it'll make as much sense as spanned tables to the new-come-er.

 
Testing a 'beta' version of VP shouldn't give any person a reason to not respect the table author's who request that modded versions of their creations be released to the public without first asking for permission.

100% agreement, not at all what I meant. I just meant that people love the physmods even if temporary until VP 10 hits the streets.

No permission=no mod. Much respect

[gigalula]

I totally agree it's not fair to MODIFY something created by someone else and release it to public without permission.

 

My only question and interrogation about that is simple and please don't get me wrong it's not a complain and or anything to start war it's clearly to understand where is the limit.... Thanks to take the time to read and reply with positive comment. Sorry in advance for my poor English.

 

So if I understand correctly when someone find some better tweak adjustment Physic on a specific table and/or change something in setting that give a better perspective of view and better pleasure of playability and this person in question never change anything else in the creation of the table itself I mean "GFX or SND aspect side never been change". That's mean we cannot share it with any other users that already like what you did and respect what you do...especially when they only change something that give a better feeling of pinball.

 

So for the guys like me that simply don't understand why these little changes that really not affect your creations and over all never get released as official release on the forum exception of external link to let other users try the table and comment about their experience on this same forum concerning their appreciation about minor change in Physic and setting.

 

So here is my question why don't you at least agree for a kind of patch file that users can share that need your original table to create the modified version so technically these is no release exception of patch that specific users want to try on their own... that keep integrity for the original release on the forum and soon as you have a better or newer release of your table the patch in question will not work anymore on newer version of table... I think that way all your work is well protected and could give a compromise to all users that would like to experiment some patch for the pleasure.

 

Sorry if my English is not perfect and for the tones of typing errors. I hope that someone will be able to understand my point of view and to all of you tables creators "I respect all your works involved in VP creations and I AGREE with your request of respect rules". It's only that I hope you will take the time to read the point of view from a normal user like me that really appreciate your work and I hope you will consider a way to let us try and test experience from others concerning setting and Physic.

 

Thanks for your time.

 

Regards

Edited by gigalula, 24 October 2014 - 02:47 PM.

[freneticamnesic]

 

Hard to get the genie back in the bottle. One day, it'll make as much sense as spanned tables to the new-come-er.

 

Testing a 'beta' version of VP shouldn't give any person a reason to not respect the table author's who request that modded versions of their creations be released to the public without first asking for permission.

 

 

In my opinion, it's no more a mod than someone running a table you created for VP921 in VP990, only in that case it may not look the same, versus not playing the same.

 

Someone unfamiliar and just beginning with Visual Pinball isn't going to look in the middle of a physics discussion thread for tables, anyone who finds them knows what they are, what they're doing, and why it's done that way.

 

Rhetorical question: Did you ask Williams for permission to release a mod of their High Speed table for digital download on the internet? Python Anghelo for his art?

 

What are you looking for here, credit? Or permission? At the heart of pinball recreation is the idea that we're doing something OK and preservative, but at the end of the day none of the authors have asked Bally/Williams/Stern/Sega/Data East/Gottlieb etc for permission to use their work. We give credit to them, by letting everyone know it's a recreation, but we just assume it's OK to do this. We're lucky simply because those companies are willing to turn a blind eye to this part of the hobby. They see it as beneficial, that the more people who play their games, in whatever format, the better. When we start arguing over "permission" to use their IP, then we're no longer as open as they have trusted us to be.

 

That raises another question I've thought a lot about, that is resource sharing. How much is too much, where do you draw the line and say someone has released something of yours? Is it just the images, the appearance? What about the script? If someone uses 1 plastic image without "credit", you'd be upset, right? What if they copied your code? Would you ever see it, notice it, or even think to look? The code is more likely to be original and created by you than the images are. Even then, most of what we're scripting has already been done, there's few people actually writing their own scripts anymore.

 

I'm not attacking you personally, I don't know you, but every time I see authors fighting over permissions I want to know why. I just want to understand, because with everything I've created I don't have an ounce of care if someone uses anything, be it a complete plastics redraw I've used on a table, or my stitched together playfield, or my lighting or custom models. I want to hear the other side of it.

[kruge99]

Take a look at my WIP thread for High Speed and make up your own mind if I deserve anything.  I certainly don't think I deserve anything more for recreating any VP table; I gave myself the pat on the back a long time ago for what I accomplished.  In my humble opinion, it's way more than most people around here would ever attempt in their lives to expand their own minds and knowledge.

 

http://www.vpforums....pic=7443&page=1

 

I'm certainly not under any impression that I own any of the artwork I recreated from scratch, no matter how much time I put into it.

 

In all honesty, I don't care what people do with my re-creations once they've downloaded them.  What I have a problem with is people making changes and then sharing the table publicly in the way Big Boss did.  He did not ask me for feedback on the changes made to High Speed and he did not ask my permission to share it.  It's crass and disrespectful.

 

It's that simple.  Don't share something if you can't get permission from the original author to do so.

[freneticamnesic]

Why is it crass and disrespectful, though? That's what I don't understand

[kruge99]

Why is it crass and disrespectful, though? That's what I don't understand

 

Big Boss didn't ask for permission to share it and he also shared it on an entirely different site, probably because he knew full well it says in my download description for High Speed that unauthorized mods are not allowed on this site.

 

If you still don't understand then you probably never will.

[LoadedWeapon]

Ok yea really no reason to debate this and really not anyone's place to question his choice.. If someone dont want someone else to share his tables then thats his choice.. Everyone feels differently and deserve to be respected... A lot of other tables out

[freneticamnesic]

Because you're not explaining, I recreate tables and I have the opposite opinion. I want to understand but, you're right, I don't get it, and I never will if you can't explain it to me. Clearly he's not hiding anything since he personally linked to it on this site. This whole hobby is an unauthorized mod.

 

What I see is, you want someone to ask for permission to modify (barely, even) something you never got permission to release. Do you see the double standard here? Just because it's a different medium doesn't mean your rules don't apply. If you are going to enforce them then you should also abide by them. If he was going to ask permission for all of the people who made those tables, he'd run into dead ends and it would take forever. He did the mods for himself but has been kind enough to share them with others, and at his own expense, bandwidth isn't free. He listed them as conversions and did not claim credit for anything beyond the conversion. I don't see the problem. Tell me why I'm wrong about this.

 

I personally ask for permission and give credit whenever I use another table creators resources, but my reasoning for doing so is not something that will benefit this discussion.

[The Loafer]

Fren: I respect why you ask but because of your view on what you constitute as ownership, no answer will satisfy your need to understand. This isn't a knock on you, we are all different but here's my take on this issue which I shared a long time ago.

Although many see this strictly from a point of view of "rights of assets", I think it's the opinion of some sites such as this one, that the effort involved in recreating the assets, building the table layout, scripting the table, etc in turn gives some form of ownership to the table author. This is done with the intention of respect, with the understanding that in some cases authors have worked dozens if not hundreds of hours. I think the parent analogy is a good one here, you work your butt off on a table, the table kind of becomes like your kid.

Most authors are fine with other people using their work and some are fine with it, but just want a respectful request to use the assets be submitted to them and credit IMHO should always be given even if the author didn't ask for this. Just fair play I think. Some may not be fine for their own valid reasons and I'm cool with that, it's not like there aren't other tables to play and I don't have to understand reasons to honour an authors wishes.

There will always be fair debate on this. A long time ago the rules were different for recreations, for example there was a time limit that allowed every table except originals to be "mod-able" after 90 days. They may change again in the future, who knows? Whatever the case these issues go back 13 years or so and I suspect they'll always crop back up, nature of things in the virtual pinball world with different opinions.

I will say though that I don't think in many cases of unauthorized mods that intention was bad. In this case, most of these were done early on (PhysMod2) and were done with the intention to broaden the testing and also further show the huge advancements that the new physics engine gave us. I really is for many people a game changer. Lots of people I think don't understand that for many, VP default physics were unplayable to them just like the vocal few of you who keep crapping on another virtual pinball simulator and this new physics update has for them changed all of that. I'm not saying that should be an automatic mod approval, but the world sometimes is build on good intentions and I think this is one of those times. In other words, this wasn't an NIcky Special situation where tables were modded with the near sole intent was to piss off table authors.

I think it would be cool for BB to remove these few tables at the authors wishes

[Replay]

I think fren is spot on with many of the points made. It's also entirely possible not *ALL* Table authors know or understand how to convert a table to physics mod 5.

 

If every table is converted and released to physics mod 5 it will allow the community to aggressively test and report bugs/problems before an official VP 10 is released.

 

It will be much better if that can be accomplished right now and some kind of common understanding about what the settings should be or how the physics should be.

[open6l]

The fact he hosts them on his own site (and not here) brings up another issue. He can remove the link from this thread but since he is hosting them on his own site he isn't really forced to take them offline (other than respect for the table authors).

 

This is starting to remind me of all the drama with the ULTRA and GOLD and VIP and ULTIMATE and 2.5/2.6/2.7 etc etc etc

 

I think it would be cool for BB to remove these few tables at the authors wishes

Edited by open6l, 24 October 2014 - 05:00 PM.

[Shoopity]

I am in no way trying to be nit-picky, I simply want to make sure I don't step on any toes (whether I agree with it or not, I try my best to respect other's requests):

What about sharing a list of changes?  As in, sometimes a table mod is just changing some numbers around, sometimes it's replacing art, sometimes it's tweaking the layout.  For the authors that require permission to mod, how do you feel about someone making a post saying:

 

I changed the Backdrop settings to the following (various changed number), I also replaced the plastics with the following images (provides link to images), and I changed all the elastic settings (new numbers)

 

Like I said, I'm not looking to stir any pots, I'm not looking for loopholes, and I'm not trying to point out fallacies in anyone's opinion, I simply don't want to make the mistake of upsetting an author by giving some information when I wouldn't even consider asking permission first.

[freneticamnesic]

Shoopity that really is the solution. We do that in the layback settings thread.

There's slightly more involved in converting to physmod, you have to change kicker strength, flipper strength and values, and collidable objects. Usually you can get away with just adjusting your rubber objects, but to be accurate most of the collidable objects should be changed. For table creators, that's not difficult, it's just not clear the best way to do so. I didn't do conversions for the longest time because documentation on how to do so was scattered all over. A post by BigBoss in the other physics thread helped me get started, and input from other creators made sense of everything.

 

I also like the idea gigalula had, there's another site that uses a patch system for this reason exactly. That's the best way to do it, it's accessible to anyone, it's straight forward, table creators still get the credit for their work, and everyone is happy. I think. Unless that also bothers people? I'm clearly blind to the other side of this issue.

[ViriiGuy]

I am in no way trying to be nit-picky, I simply want to make sure I don't step on any toes (whether I agree with it or not, I try my best to respect other's requests):

What about sharing a list of changes?  As in, sometimes a table mod is just changing some numbers around, sometimes it's replacing art, sometimes it's tweaking the layout.  For the authors that require permission to mod, how do you feel about someone making a post saying:

 

I changed the Backdrop settings to the following (various changed number), I also replaced the plastics with the following images (provides link to images), and I changed all the elastic settings (new numbers)

 

Like I said, I'm not looking to stir any pots, I'm not looking for loopholes, and I'm not trying to point out fallacies in anyone's opinion, I simply don't want to make the mistake of upsetting an author by giving some information when I wouldn't even consider asking permission first.

The other site we are not allowed to mention.. has a Patching system for tables, so you can release an update, without re-releasing the original table. and thus not breaking any rules. You download the patcher, the patch and the original table. Run the patcher, then poof you have the new updated table.

 

 

Oh.. I see This was already mentioned

Edited by ViriiGuy, 30 October 2014 - 05:05 PM.

[mpad]

Which is this site? Does it have a verse at the end?

[arngrim]

you can search on google with
arngrim vpinball

[ViriiGuy]

Which is this site? Does it have a verse at the end?

Yes it does.

[lodger]

regarding physmod 5, i'm impressed that the shots seem a bit more accurate, but most of the mods i've seen the speed feels a bit inaccurate when the ball responds to the downward slant. is there any way to decrease how fast the ball heads toward the drain on a pm version?  it would be nice to have some sort of "layman's guide" to making tweaks to tables (what specific things to tweak for more subjective issues such as the one i just mentioned.)