New "home"

[Feralidragon]

The reason why I didn't do or say anything about this in the past 24 hours or so is because I couldn't make a full check. I will need to install the demo and apply the patch, then install medor's, then compare all of them with GOTY. Checking a website only takes a few minutes and is direct, checking gaming files on the other hand is more exhaustive and they need a more specific environment other than a web browser.
Even so, despite of that, I didn't remove the link right away if you remember, I gave you the opportunity to fix it and you didn't comply, and only after that the link was removed because not only you didn't comply as you acted like a kid as well while at it.

Once I check it up I will discuss it internally and give the final verdict in our standing on that specific issue and explain it clearly, and that will be the closure of all this discussion, either some people like it or not. As for medor's PM there's nothing fishy about it, it was just a simple explanation of what's supposed to be inside there, which I will check better later on.
Until then, is best if there are no fights between either side, and as for past ghosts, I just want to make it clear that I am not taking any of them into account for this as they are just ad hominem and do not contribute for the core of this discussion a single bit, but on the other hand they show that the community as whole (because most of the people who dug them up here do not relate to each others at all, which is interesting to say at the very least) received a greater negative impact by it than you think it would.
But I think I don't need to mention this because I was clear enough in my position in our PMs some months back when you got active again, so you know there's nothing personal going on, at least from me.

And as for the EULA, I have the digital version of the original UT1 EULA somewhere in my home PC, and if we're going by that one then let me say that it's even more restrictive than the updated one and not the other way around (specially because back then UT1 was the only UT in existence and there were no plans for a sequel upon its release).
However, the EULA that applies is the updated one, and the reason is very simple: the permission to use content from other prior UT games in UT mods and maps was only added in a EULA updated *after* UT2004 was released, and it was updated specifically because the UT2004 community almost begged for it and Epic Games ended up complying. Every license holder can update the EULA, although some restrictions apply of course: they generally can be more permissive, but not more restrictive, and on the more permissive area they can't be too permissive either due to some legal binding with other licenses (as they always used some middleware and other kinds of patented material in their engine, to not mention studios they sold the engine to under specific license guidelines). For example: if Epic made a mp3 player/generator in their engine, they couldn't simply allow you to use it between UT games, since the MP3 format is still patented, and that patent only expires in 2017 (in US at least).
I do intend however one of these days contact Epic directly to clarify some stuff in the EULA and check if some stuff is deemed ok or not (even because that will directly impact my next project, which I do intend to have everything "by the book").

But, no one has to take my word for it, as I said earlier, the EULA is there for anyone to read it, and anyone is free to come over and state "hey Ferali, you're wrong, because <clear explanation here>". The thing is, it just didn't happen so far so I assume that I am reading it right and making the right assertions.

@Paper: Yeah, we all know what it is and in no way this relates to his specific case, but it's a legit question nonetheless.

[Wises]

On the note of medors v3... it is quite easy you know to google 'ut99 gotty download' & find a 'ready-to-go' fully operational version @ Gamefront.com .. which btw has been there forever.. is unadulterated and little over 300mb...

Now... what I propose to ask is... who's job is it to go there and tell them to revoke it?.. assuredly I say.. no0ne from here.
If it's a big deal.. then EPIC would have ripped into them bygones ago... alomg with all the other Hostee's across the entire internet..

Same goes for medors version.. if it is/was a problem . Then he would habe recieved a letter already from the above mentioned parties we?..

Anyways... these long drawn out UTPolitic's BS sessions are only doing harm to the community as a whole.. and we really need some kind of UTPolitics Area , segragated from the mainstream for ehem.. *shit* like this.

Is one of my pet peeves with 'FORUMS' and that is... almost every good post gets bombarded with feaces and derails the entire thread with UTPOLITICS / ABUSE / OR HERESAY !

If only there were a mod for forums which alowed users to vote posts up/ down like you see on the interweb.. where the top posts sit at the top.. and the crap at the bottom.. would be bloody awesome..

How do we move on from this... ?.. Dane you must jave alot of work to get your site uptodate?.. Ferali's got 10 other forums to admin as well as research some loopty loop case now which detracts him from getting several partially finnished mods sorted , medors one of our best resources for UTFiles since Skillz went bankrupt.. and could be updating his repository with what je can..

What iam sayimg I guess is... we all have mich more constructive things to do yeah?... but we always seem to end up in this situation...

Here's an idea.. let's just go aboit our business and let EPIC deal with any issues ... because we've all got work to do..

Bad links?.. delete , warn & move on.. make a legal section and upload all the eulas from here to microsoft.. if you will.. and point the tread at that if people want to master-bate over injustices.. link also to Epics lawyers and henchmen..

But get it done quickly.. cause we aint getting any younger...

&_&

[UT99.org]

The last guy who got one of those letters got stressed out and took his whole site down. Got cancer which i'm not saying is related. And generally never returned. It would'nt be right to have any of the two depots mentioned in the above post go down overnight. Gamefront allow users to upload content and that is all this is, only nobody has pointed it out to them. medor's resources although kept messy he probably has a lot of different collected stuff from many different places which is invaluable.

However, his V3. This file should not be an executable, and should have a clear description of what is inside or should at the very least adhere to the same specifications as everyone else.

I've been asked not to flame said member even though he really grinds my gears on almost everything he does including masquerading as admins on other forums while the real admins hide in the shadows. So nobody can ask "is there an admin here?". Posting irrelevant and potentially bad files to people who ask for other files. Not having a clue how to speak english and generally using this to abuse others. But, spamming this warez as it's been called on every site he can is a whole class above all of this and personally I think stopping it BEFORE anything bad happens is only looking out for him legally, his site, the files etc

I would suggest look at what all the other sites offer, it is the older official demo (larger in size) and the no delta/(cd) patch, they then have a compressed file of their own modifications. No dodgy executables. And because all of the files are compressed in their original states and all the custom content is separated you know you are not opening files that have been messed with in any way that could harm your computer. (In the past Epic HAVE cracked down on people who post torrent links that include aimbots or no-cd type patches)

[Feralidragon]

The exe is basically just a zip with an auto-extractor.
Anyway, I have checked the overall package, and we're in the process of deciding things internally (upon reflecting on this, it's not an easy call to make here, and I will explain why later on). However, whoever is able to, download it and check it deeper to confirm that there's nothing wrong other than the confirmation of the usage of the retail game texture, sound and music packages.

Also, does someone know any site or a free service to generate short links but restricted by country? This is essential for the final decision relative that link.

[UT99.org]

I commend both Dane and you for checking the exe. I have done it sandboxed a while ago but cannot remember the exact contents. I posted before my morning coffee the flame rant did have a point. As our post-cancerous friend pointed out he who doesn't know what half his files do. I strongly believe an MD5 here is essential given that alone. If his site were to get hacked and the file modified we would need to keep an eye on this value. For compressed files that are not executable this wouldn't be the case. And Dane, a warning in advance here, medor is a VIP on this site. Don't take my flame as a chance to flame his other attributes. Hehe good to see you again and almost active as once before

[Carbon]

I think we are missing the point(s) here.

Are we worried about the legitimacy of medor's version or that he posts it here? Are we worried about his version being in compliance with the law or that he makes a functioning version available on this site, which seems - as I have said before - contrary to our professed respect for the game?

It’s about maintaining the integrity of the site, not monitoring individuals. I have many different "versions" of UT pulled from various site rips.

UT Chicken version
UT 1st generation
Portable UT
UT Israel Edition
UT HD
UT Gold Editon
UTRA
UTMLUT-edition3c

All of these are full, working versions of UT in the wild. There are many, many more on 4shared, etc.

It isn't hard to get, but we shouldn't make it in any way available here on this site. That is the point.

The second point actually. The first is The Dane and the textures. Is it fair use to have him provide the textures without credit? Which wouldn't really matter; it isn’t about credit at this point apparently; the owner of the textures has stated that they don’t want them used. But that isn’t our job or right…to monitor individual’s decisions. All we can do is keep this place in order legally and ethically.

So, legal questions and ethical questions should net be conflated. The Dane has complied ethically by not linking the texture files here, so that is done. Nothing left to discuss on that topic. The legality is his call, which I would expect to come to nothing if said owner was aware of the textures having been extracted, so long as he is given credit, something I am certain The Dane is fine with doing. If it were clear legally for him to provide the textures, then the ethical ground is also clear; providing textures is not a working copy of the game.

So now we are left with the question of medor's files and the perhaps hypocrisy in making such a big issue out of the legality of The Dane's actions - which are now off the table as far as this site goes, making the ethical concern moot - and we are left with medor's files, in both ethical and legal grey areas. We are now checking the legality of his files which is good, but clearly ethically, we shouldn't have them on this site. So, no matter what is decided legally, the files shouldn't be available here. medor can do what he likes – join the legions of people who provide a functioning copy of UT for free – but not here. Even if the legality checks out we have a moral obligation to keep this place free of providing links that make us look suspect ethically.

The Dane has complied fully and what he does outside of this forum is his responsibility, not ours. Legally and ethically off the discussion table. The site is free from being suspect in any way and it is not our job to try to control individuals outside of here. medor’s files can be checked for legal compliance if we like, but should not be linked here on ethical grounds alone. He can continue to provide said version, but no links should be on this site. Thus, the site is legally and ethically clear, just as it currently is with The Dane.

When I first joined this site, the availability of UT for free was one of the first things that struck me; so much so that one of my early posts was on this topic. Now many argue that it isn't fully functional, but if we are honest, for all intents and purposes, it paves the way to a full, free copy. I was told that it was fine legally, but the ethical concern was swept under the rug. As it isn't my site, I just went along with it, but then as now, I think it is ethically wrong to have those files linked here. Look in the log file of medor's system folder: "utdemo hack successful!". Hack. Raises eyebrows regardless of the legal issue. If the nodelta was intended to do this - make the demo more functional - or if it is an unintended consequence - I don't know. As far as I know, the nodelta was for owners of the full game to provide them with not having to need the CD to play, not to open the door for the demo to become any bigger that 54MB and to entice people to buy the full game. Has medor gone past this boundary? Certainly. Is it legal? We don't know (and keep in mind that Epic's perhaps complacency in pursuing this does not mean it is legal). Is it ethical? No, and thus should not be here.

Now this topic is back, but conflated and confused. Separate the discussion into legal and moral topics and things get clearer fast. IMO, of course.

[papercoffee]

I think we are missing the point(s) here.

[...]

Well written/spoken.

[Feralidragon]

As for the verdict on medor's case, the final decision was for him to remove his link, simply for legal reasons (the files seem to be ok at first sight and a safe install to use online). I already PMed him, so the link should be gone in the next few hours once he reads it.

[...] so long as he is given credit, something I am certain The Dane is fine with doing. [...]

He did not, and denied to do so just because it would take work to do so. That was the whole fulcrum about the removal of his link.

I just want to make clear that Dane's and medor's cases do not correlate with each other at all. Regardless of medor being used as a tactic to detour the attention from the real original issue at hand (even if the complaint was legit), the fact remains that although legally they may be similar cases, ethically what Dane did was much much worse by miles, to not mention the attitude taken when confronted with it.


For reference (I was saving this for last): one day I used some Runestorm resources in my stuff by accident (since I had them mixed with UT2004 for some reason once, so I thought they were UT2004). Some people noticed and confronted me with it, I went to check and realized my mistake. So I went to Runestorm forums to explain the situation and apologizing for it, and also requesting if the already used resources could be kept, and if not, I would obviously remove them.
Luckily they understood the situation and accepted my apology and let me keep using them, as long as I credited them (in my case they wouldn't even need to ask for credit, I always give credit where credit is due), furthermore one of the members of the team offered himself to cook me some similar resources in case the original authors denied it (which fortunately wasn't needed, and I wouldn't subject him to such work either for my own dumb mistake).
After that, I went to check and identify their resources on my own: it was just a few sounds (from the hundreds I had both made and edited from UT and UT2k4) and 1 single decal with about 5 different variations of my own (from the almost 2.500 textures).

There are perhaps some forum members here which can actually corroborate this (and even the thread itself is probably still there).
So it's not like I am not been there before doing the picking to check if everything was ok and where it was not. So when Dane gave me one of those "not even you can do it" I giggled, given the fact that I was already put in a odd situation where I was pretty much obligated to.

The fact that Dane didn't even care about crediting because of the work involved, when in my case they didn't even need to ask to (which is the case of any developer worth of that name), shows the the difference between the ethics in dispute around here, and in light of that I feel that I don't have to say anything more.
Regardless, this is probably something that I won't have to worry about at all in the next upcoming months or years, but as long as I, Paper and Gen are on command, with Shade as the admin of this forum, issues like these will be handled accordingly.

Having that said, I want now to bring a closure to this discussion.
I won't lock the topic for that effect, so feel free to reply back if you wish, but from now on play nicely, leave the past of the users behind and avoid ad hominem ("no mud fights!" as Paper put it) and play nicely, otherwise if this keeps escalating I or another staff member will end up having to close the topic.

[Carbon]

The 2 cases do correlate but not always on the same grounds, which was the point of my post.

I don't consider legality and morality/ethics to be exclusive nor automatic corollaries; one sometimes begets the other but not always, hence my distinction and conflation. Where one agrees, the other may not at times and vice-versa. This forum has 2 concerns, one in each camp for each of the two issues. The Dane's actions apparently crossed both legal and ethical lines where for medor, the legal line is now in question while the ethical line seems to have been crossed. Any crossings of both or any single line should be unacceptable. That's all I'm saying.

As for The Dane's crediting the work, I was speaking hypothetically, future-tense. He has come clean about where he got them, so he isn't exactly trying to hide from this. Where he goes from here is not our business; he is free to act as he wishes outside of this site. I agree fully with your decision to remove the offending links, but as i said, we should have more than just legal obligations here (this site is where they should correlate), and that is where medor comes in.

I don't think I am being uncivilized in this discussion and I am certainly not trying to raise any ire or cause problems.

[papercoffee]

I don't think I am being uncivilized in this discussion and I am certainly not trying to raise any ire or cause problems.

Ferali's warning was not addressed to you...
...it was meant more general.

[Carbon]

Thanks papercoffee. It is a good discussion actually.

I just think that we have more than legality to consider; this is UT99, the premier site on the net for the game that we love. We should do all in our power to respect the game itself as well as the content of the game.

If someone were to post texture links on a non-UT site, then the ethical issue is somewhat less problematic. Said site would have no stated interest in the game and would only have to concern itself legally. We are different of course and need to protect the game on both fronts.

[TheDane]

I understand the outcome of all this ethics vs legality debate, and I'm somewhat glad that some people are able to stay focused on the topic I tried to adress. I think we are now more clear on how things are - here at ut99.org, and I'm glad that the admin team did not decide that medors warez was ok to distribute here.

For what it's worth I have listened to what has been said, though I do not agree to view of the majority I do value democrazy. Therefore I have taken the texture ressource site offline as of now. This will hopefully not be for good because it had a lot of traffic so it did show a demand for such service.

That Means that IF the service ever comes back online, it will be because it has been rebuild in a way that will satisfy the majority of the current active people in UT Development. However, this rebuild will never ever take place unless I get some help! Feralidragon says it can be done, if he is right then it's just me as a person failing to obtain the skillset to do it as he describes it needs to be done.

I have opened a thread about it on my own site, I will debate it there if anyone thinks such ressource is worth their time to assist with. I can easily Loose objective if it's debated multiple Places, so I hope those (if any?) that will help me in creating this ressource will click on the link in my signiature and register at the forums and participate in the project. The beginning of the project is simply "just" a brainstorm where the concept of the ressource should be debated, then from there, we (hopefully WE as I won't and can't do it myself) will debate about the interface of the tool.

I would like to put my hands out for a fresh start by doing this to those who wants to let bygones be bygones and shake hands - and move on towards a better future for UT?

You talk about change.
It may be time now that you do apologize for lying to the UT community about your simulated death ?

I did: http://www.unrealadmin.org/forums/showt ... hp?t=31075

How many times do you want me to apologize? Shouldn't we instead focus on the future and let bygones be bygones?

[Wises]

Impressed ^

[Feralidragon]

@Carbon: As Paper pointed out, I wasn't referring to anyone in specific there (except the bits concerning Dane and medor). It was mostly to wrap up the entire thing up and give it a proper closure.

@Dane: Since the beginning I stressed out (although apparently not enough) that you didn't need to do it alone, but it seems that it finally reached you.
I wouldn't have removed the link, even the way it was if you showed exactly that current attitude and will to do something about it, rather than brushing it off and making a whole fuss about it. As I mentioned since the start, the idea of the site is good, the act of indexing the textures represents no problem whatsoever, the only problem with it overall was just the lack of credits and the ability to download them directly with no credits or any reference whatsoever to the original pack, and which in many cases is actually against the terms of their original authors.
Anyway, if you really want to do it, then I am sure the community can lend a hand if they have been interested in your site as you claim.

In fact, if you so wish, I can work out a fairly simple php script to automatize most of the process, if not all of it (texture identification per package and per author, website links and potentially even the generation of watermarked textures and the html/css in a certain way that makes it unfeasible for a normal user to just right click it and download it), but I will only be able to do it within a few days (after I bring closure to "something" else I have my hands full with currently). All I am going to need from you is a PM with your texture site structure (to know how I should detect and generate links) and just 1 or 2 packages you extracted the textures from (for testing purposes).

The only catch with this automation is that you will need to identify each package original author (the script will use each package as the central reference for the processing), and this is where the community could help you out if you actively ask the origin of each package here and in other places.

[Wises]

Ferali.. an interesting point point you made in a recent post which struck a note..

The ability to use prior assets/models/etc.. in the newer engines.. 2k4/ut3/udk?...

My ultimate vission for many years now.. has been to totally rebuild UT into a newer engine.

I remeber years ago when I dabbeled in 2k4... a rather impressive mod which attempted exactly this.. remodeled weapons and movement etc.. however ... I think iam not alone here .. when I say that 2k4 just feels too indefferent to the originals.. and thats why that and ut3 were not as sucessful as UT itself...

Tbh when I first played it.. 2k4... I thought... woah a bunch of 2ton hippies bouncing around a map.. I actually only played it for a few games then left it for sometime.. the characters felt unreal.(as-in, not-realistic).. and the movement felt heavy... the sounds /voices and skins were nausiating <sp> and the gameplay ... different. People ive learn't don't take change to well...
Especially when the changes were to the gameplay... or in this instance... swift fluid movements , realistic exploding carcases as of oppossed to ragdoll physics with startrek 'beam me up scotty' effects.

Actually thats probably what differentiates UT from these newer versions.. to sum it up... the realism dispersed into some kinda sci-fi escapade... imo. Of course it was likely to do with Politics and lawsuits whoxh forced epics hand in toning down the violence and focussing more of some kind of objective based scenario instead... or something like this..?

Like most people I guess ... I just couldn't find the common ground between UT and 2k4..

However ... on the positive side of things... what I did like was the graphics / maps / physics and engine itself.

I can see real potential in the newer engines ... and often wonder what it woukd be like to have ALL OF UT's assests remade
Into these new engines... that I believe would bring UT not only back... but bring alot of oldschool players back4more as well

...