First of all, one mod being created from others is something I have been seeing for a while. The most recent one that comes to mind is the EX mod for Homeworld 2. Sometimes compilation mods are just better than the individual mods that make them up. Sometimes they are much, much worse (the horrors of unbalanced mods). This is not something the creators decide, its the gamers that use them that do so.

You saying that your mod will look bad next to the newest rebalance will not help. In fact, it will make some people go into your mod expecting it to be worse simply because you implied it would be.

Also, models and ideas rarely are created only by one person. It is more along the lines of who can do it best or do it fastest. The people who are most worried about work being stolen often put little signature marks in their ships or that they would easily recognize. If you are that worried about people stealing your models and ideas, do the same. Ideas are much harder to prove to be stolen since you cannot compare brains, just implimentations .

Pease note that inspired is not the same as stolen. If he stole your ideas, he would have to take segments of your brains out and give them to himself. However, it is quiet possible he copied ideas. In his first post of when the first version of the mod came out, he said he was inspired by other mods. This included one made by a certain reynen. It is no surprise then that after this worked so well that this mod has kept going.

I don't know if Dan took ideas from your site or not and saying that he sent spies to take his work makes you sound paranoid. I like both mods personally, but until you offer actual proof other than words (aka script similarities only appearing in the newest versions), we have no real reason to believe these accusations. I remember having to read through your past huge posts against theft of material as well as the Microsoft hoax and have NO interest at all in seeing it all over again.

And please review the fact that this is the Freelancer community, not security force. If you do the equivalent to posting a sign (in this case your link) that tells how to get to your companies headquarters, expect everyone from friends to foes show up. There is no quality here other than what the people enjoying the mods perceive it to be. Why would people have downloaded this mod at all if they hated every darn minute of it? Sure, yours has had less errors. Obviously, this is not the only thing people look at when playing mods. If this was not true, then several other mods would be up there on the numbers downloaded sort.

And in the case that ideas and concepts were taken one way or the other (we have no proof it was not the other way around no matter how insulting it may seem), please handle this whole thing civily. There is no need to repeat the huge arguments and flame wars of before.

PS I have a tendency to say twice the words to say half as much sometimes, so bare with the post length.

PPS Wow, ugly spacing, hope this looks better.

"A scratch? Your wing is off!"
"No it isn't"
"Then what's that then?"
"I've had worse"

Edited by - Laserblast on 3/25/2004 6:44:18 PM

Just want to say MD you have made a great mod for single player use. Unfortantly SP storyline CTD on me when I was 14.5K from the Arch during the get the protouse (not sure if got spelling right) stone arch mission.





Edited by - STARNOVA on 4/1/2004 3:16:55 AM

Ok, so if you guys at S. Studios are mad b/c of "copying," I guess I can understand; everyone has the right to get angry. But for new mambers of the FL community, flaming and railing and accusatory posts are quite discouraging. If we (the newbs) wished to experience such unpleasantries and immaturity, I know of plenty of games that I could go play to encounter flamers, ridicule, and other irritating crap. To my knowledge, MD hasn't come over to your site and openly and blatantly insulted you or your mod(s). So please don't come in here and do just that to him and our community; if you feel absolutely compelled to, start your own thread so the rest of us don't have scan through a bunch of rubbish to read about feedback and questions about a great mod.
And, Michael Dan has not said in any of the details about the Rebalance Mods, "I and my programming pals have created all of this - ALL of it, mind you! - from scratch, and now you, Freelancer, can experience it in the totally original Rebalance Mod. Click here to download."
He specifically thanks each person and group from whom he gains assistance, ideas, shippacks, and other stuff. He just has the unique ability to coalesce all of these little tidbits and tweaks into one great package. He has not claimed to have single-handedly developed all of the stuff in Rebalance on his own, so don't come in here throwing maledictions every which way.

Ok, so if you guys at S. Studios are mad b/c of "copying," I can understand; everyone has the right to get angry. But for new mambers of the FL community, flaming and railing and accusatory posts are quite discouraging. If we (the newbs) wished to experience such unpleasantries and immaturity, I know of plenty of games that I could go play to encounter flamers, ridicule, and other irritating crap. To my knowledge, MD hasn't come over to your site and openly and blatantly insulted you or your mod(s). So please don't come in here and do just that to him and our community; if you feel absolutely compelled to, start your own thread so the rest of us don't have scan through a bunch of rubbish to read about feedback and questions about a great mod.
And, Michael Dan has not said in any of the details about the Rebalance Mods, "I and my programming pals have created all of this - ALL of it, mind you! - from scratch, and now you, Freelancer, can experience it in the totally original Rebalance Mod. Click here to download."
He specifically thanks each person and group from whom he gains assistance, ideas, shippacks, and other stuff. He just has the unique ability to coalesce all of these little tidbits and tweaks into one great package. He has not claimed to have single-handedly developed all of the stuff in Rebalance on his own, so don't come in here throwing maledictions every which way.

Please, for all of our sakes as gamers who enjoy playing a great game and adding neat little quirks and addons, don't come in here raging and ranting, calling members asses and dismissing them as completely ignorant lowlifes.
Again, we have not come over to your forums and done this, harming and ruining the community by doing so.
In fact, here's the irony of this situation - TheGripper said:
"Now,Michael,you have single-handedly destroyed the best mod in the community. ... So i hope you're happy Dan,you and some of your cohorts have screwed this entire community out of what was going to be another great mod from S. Studios. so..*ahem*...screw you."
You guys say WE're ruining the community, while YOU come in and do precisely that with all the 'Oh, you could have been great, MD, if you had joined our modteam. But since you proceeded to gain inspiration from many different sources and make a fantastic mod, you're such a terrible person' tone of voice. If you guys are concerned about the community, DON'T continue to enter the forums that FLRebalbnce fans frequent, post a bunch of insults, and expect NOT to get a big (probably unpleasant) reaction from them. You act like we're unreasonable; would there not be a similar reaction if some of us come to your forums and did something of this manner?

Alright. That's not within my control. Desiring credit isn't a fault. sorry there

That's enough Reynen, stop posting unfounded accusations on my thread anymore!
I will not give you credit for what you or other SS members did not do. TFK was the creator of Babylon 5 ships, i have his initial ship pack dated since june 2003, and his last ship pavk posted on LR on 27 August 2003. You can check the downloads archive of TLR and see for yourself. The Babylon 5 systems like EFA, Centauri, Minbari and Narn was also in the his Bab5 mod a long time ago.
TNG and SS were not even founded at the time how can you claim credits for these?!
The Freespace 2 ships were make by Caid and the Wing Commader ships by John Hawke and Admiral Tolwyn, so none of this belongs to you either.
The RB house guns effects, sounds and specs were created by me, not by any of SS staff.
And for God's sake stop afirming that Rebalance has stuff copied from TNG since you know as well as me that we put togheter our both mod code and created TNG in the first place.
I left the TNG modding team when you started acting like a dictator and shut all other off, even if we agreed to share the credits for the TNG in an equal way. You founded SS afterwards...remember? Or can you only remember what's fit for you?

And don't you think I should be mad too when i made the Random Battleship Kill Missions, FROM SCRATCH, and you and TNG received credits and acknowledgement for this? I also made the FIRST multiple solars to appear in random strike missions and you guys copied it, and still TNG team is getting credit for that!
I was the first to implement armor, scanner, power, shield, fusion reactor, shield powercells upgrades, and you just took em and claim that is yours and now TNG is most apreciated for this! How do you think THAT makes me fell, ugh?
If you think you can breake me like you did to TFK and other modders you're wrong.
I know what place i hace in this comunity and only God knows how much i helped growing and become what it is today.
I never accused anyone and always encouraged new talents to come forward, and helpinh them to make their own mods, so you stop acccussing me of theft!
What i did was giving the best i got to the comunity, a lot of my free time, and many times i gave a helping hand to you when you where stuck, and now you're turning all acussations on me?! I think you should have thinked twice before making this step, Ryenen.
It seems like you didn't.

Reynen, Reynen... sheesh.

Same cr*p all over again, eh? Ever since you got this other guy (pardons for not remembering the name) to speak for you and the TNG team, all was well. Now that you let your lips flapping again it does the same harm it did back then.

I'm a part of this scene from the beginning (Freelancer, at least), and know your share of it well, as to Michaels. Your accusations are more consistant with your personality rather than given reality. Michael was never competitive, at least not in public, with his MOD... he believed in it and its affect on the community. While you rarely missed a chance to undo much of it.

Your intentions were good, but your volatile nature messed things up then, as it does now. I believe Michael... I've been a fan of Rebalance since its first version, and always comparing between both of your mods. Judging (mildly) from history and my scarce knowledge on both of you... you simply have no business here. Farewell and good luck.

Oh do chill out... I do not belive you one bit. If you have this MS lawyers number why don't you post this MS lawyer's name and number or even email address here on TLR so everyone can find out for themselves....

Personally I do not think MS or even DA would care less what the modding community does with thier games. They are not stupid. They know that if they start to prevent modders from making mods thier sales of thier products would decrease.

They may not "officially" support mods but they do "un-officially" support them just to keep people forking $$$ to buy thier game products.

For example the other day was in Best Buy and noticed someone getting a copy of freelancer. I sort of ask this individual why he was getting it. He said he got interested after reading several posts here on the TLR.

Guess this means for BP that his TLR forums is causing people to go out and buy Freelancer....

So please in your responce state EXACTLY what you own in rebalance.

ok, let's take this step by step:
1. I had the advanced equipment in my 3.01 version of rebalance that appeared in august 2003....it's in the readme so check it out, and you can check the date of posting at LR and Fileplanet(fileplanet was even earlier). I got exclusive permission to use them too, from the mod's creator, Knight79. Anyway the fact that you added them to TNG does not make them yours, the creator still got the copyright.
2. TFK gave me permission as well for the Babylon 5 capships usage, as Giskard gave it to me for the fighters. I'm about to create my own BAB5 capital ship pack anyway, and i don't wanna see your dirty hands anywhere near it..
3. no comment here, he does have to copyrights.
4. ok but many modders uses this house guns, i even got a faction gun beofre TNG was ever released, the BD Dragons Breath. And i did not used the ones in TNG, i created my own with deffirent graphics and sounds . the only gun resembling the one in TNG is the CARG laser gun and i'll be happy to remove it.
5. That's not true. I got the HW ships from the WTS mod not from yours. So i guess Crabtree ripped them first. The HW ships were about to go anyway to make space for my own WC ship pack that is curently under construction, so i don;t mind taking em out.
6. You're dead wrong here. i always gave credit to people that created ships AND ask for permission first. And i only claimed that I own all the ships added in the last version of Rebalance, cause were made by me(all the new SW ships) and my associate modeler, Augur.
7. I already gave credits to Duriel from that capship code from 3.30 on, it's the folowing line in the readme:
-Duriel_LOP: code for docking large ships such as Battleships
just search for duriel and you'll see i'm right.
8. Credits are owned reciprocal here Reynen. I'll give you credit for your original mod if you give mecredit for all you took from Rebalance at that time:
armor, tractor, power, and scanner upgrades,
-the advanced shield upgrade too(inlcuded in v3.01),
-the Battleship random encounters, random strike missions
-multiple Battleships in a single random mission
-varied ships speeds for different classes(they WERE in my original RB mod, from veriosn 0.5 on),
-the TIES and TIE weapons, sounds for the TIE weapons AND engines. (added in RB first version 0.5c on...)
-the idea of having jumpholes between far distant systems for speeding up the travel(the Nexus is based on this idea and Grssk give it only to me).
Oh and stop insulting my fans or i'll have yur posts reomove from this forum. It's between u and me...

Micheal, why act childish, just give reynen the credit he deserves.

It's a reciprocal thing here and i'll give Reynen and his associates credits for that we just agreed.
However some things is still inacurate and must be specifed.
1. Grssk was not part of TNG team simply becasue he quited modding a long time before TNG and SS were founded. And gave me the copyright for his mod
2. Reynen mod set all ships speeds to 200, it did not separated them onto ship classes.
thats about all i think. period

hey guys, some of the addons, modifications are so obvious, like different speed for different ship classes, shield/energy rechargers, etc. I dont think you can remember surely where _all_ the modification ideas came from...

What about finishihng this like "...and other credits goes to Reynen / Michael Dan (underline the correct answer )." ? And go back to modding? peace

-

Haven't really been following the disagreement here, but I have to say for my personal tastes, I'd rather have the rebalance mod without all the Star Trek, Wars, or other ships taken from established stories. I know the option is there to just not use them, but it kind of ruins the suspension of disbelief for me.