A New Chapter for the Kotor Community!

[Tyvokka 198]

Hey Kotorians (yes I want to make that a thing) –

 

I am excited to be announcing a big update to the Kotor community.

The short version is Deadlystream and /r/Kotor are moving forward with a merger of our communities. So what is happening?  Immediately we will begin co-moderating Deadlystream and /r/Kotor. I am being added as mod to /r/Kotor and Snigaroo is joining Deadlystream as an admin, while Goat is joining as a moderator. We will be expanding staff cooperation in the coming months.

Moderation of the /r/Kotor Discord will be shared and modding channels have already been added to the discord. This will become the official discord for Deadlystream going forward. Additionally, wee will also be cross-posting content across communities to encourage /r/Kotor subscriber engagement on Deadlystream and working on increasing modder participation on /r/Kotor. We hope these actions lead towards growth for both communities.

What about rules? Each community will still have a unique set of rules, processes and procedures to follow. Deadlystream’s forum based community and the reddit community are very different beasts, each with a different need we fill for the community, our rules will never be 100% aligned but we will align where it makes sense.

We will have more information announced over the coming weeks while Sniggles and I work on our integration ideas and planning.

 

Speaking of rule updates, we do have two changes that will be implemented beginning today and they are as follows;

 

·         Our rule around porting of content being banned

This rule is being replaced by the following rule:

·         Mods and Assets that are of the same game series (ie KoTOR 1, KoTOR2 and SWTOR) can be ported between games and uploaded to Deadlystream. Porting from other copyright game assets is not allowed, although any fan created content (even from other games) can be hosted at Deadlystream as long as there is no copyright on said mods, files and/or assets. You will still need to abide by all other mod hosting rules.  

                    -All mods submitted going forward will require all modder's to fill out 1 additional field, this field is called "Contains Port Content", it is filled out by selecting either yes or no from the drop down menu. 

                    -Any modder that has ported content will also be required to fill out a second field called, "Source of Ported Content", this will be a free text field that the modder can describe where his ported content is from. 

 

·         Rule 19: "All content on Deadlystream must be uploaded by the original creator/owners of the content. Uploading content that is owned by someone else is strictly prohibited, unless explicit permission can be demonstrated by the uploader. If you are found to upload content that is owned by another person without explicit evidence of permission, the first offense will result in a warning via PM and removal of said content. Any additional infractions will result in a permanent ban. Deadlystream Staff will from time to time reach out to authors of content not currently hosted on Deadlystream to see if there is an interest in having their content uploaded to Deadlystream. This activity should only be performed by Deadlystream staff members."

This rule is being changed/updated to:

·         "All content you upload must have been created by you or given permission for use in your mod by the original author. In the event that there is a mod (which you did not create) that needs to be uploaded for preservation to Deadlystream, the following will occur;

 

             -          The community member will message a moderator via PM with the mod attached and any other information about the mod and about where you downloaded it from.

 

             -          The admin will follow the “Guidelines for Re-uploading Abandonware Mods” (look for this in the coming days).

 

             -          If admin sees that the mods meets the guidelines, admin shall upload said mod.

 

             -          The uploaded mod will have a disclaimer stating “it is not actively supported and that responses to support requests should not be expected.”

 

Please note: Removal of a mod upon request from verified mod authors will be honored, please reach out to an admin for assistance.”

 

Snigaroo, myself and the rest of the staff are very excited about what the future holds for Kotor and our communities. This is only the beginning, there is much more to come. 

 

May the force be with all of us! 

 

-Tyvokka

[Snigaroo 119]

(If anyone's hunting for the Discord link and can't find it, it'll be put up later this weekend, but you're more than welcome to join now from here!)

 

Hello everyone! Although I hope many of you will also read some of the announcement on reddit to learn a little bit more about the premise behind what we’re doing, I know many of you probably don’t like reddit, or at least its format. For those who don’t, I figured it’d be a good idea to present myself here and explain why I think what we’re doing is a beneficial move—and, if I can, to allay any concerns you may have.

Although I’ve spoken to and cooperated with many of the modders here before as part of my work on the mod builds, I was a hanger-on in the community a long while before the first mod build was ever posted, back well into the filefront days. At that time I modded for myself, in much the same way that I continue to do even today, the builds being a reflection of my interests. I mention this because I want to reinforce that modding KOTOR is and has been important to me, as important as I’ve claimed it is in the reddit thread. I mod my games because I enjoy the process of doing so, and I rely on and respect the mod community for producing the content which I utilize. If I believed this merger would in any way limit or harm the capability of you folks to do the work you do, I wouldn’t have agreed to it. This merger is happening because both of us, Tyvokka and myself, think that there will be a clear benefit to both sides in the process.

That does NOT mean that the rules, culture, or expectations on either site are significantly shifting. Although there have been rule changes both on reddit and here on DS now with the implementation of this merger, we don’t expect any further changes in this vein. Our goal is not to homogenize or forcibly integrate either of the two communities, but to create a sort of fluency and ease-of-communication between them. In other words, we seek to have two separate communities that willingly cooperate with one another, not a single mega-community, which I think would be both impractical and unhelpful. The actual “merging” will therefore remain a primarily administrative one, wherein we hope to share the burden and work together to improve both communities, but with the goal of retaining their uniqueness specifically in mind. The sole exception to this is the Discord, which we hope will serve as a nice, casual mixing zone for the entire KOTOR community, including users and groups not affiliated with either reddit or DS.

So, what exactly do we plan on doing then? I’m going to give an answer which might sound worrying, but I hope you’ll come to see as actually encouraging: we don’t know yet.

Now, don’t take that as us having no ideas, because we have plenty. For one thing, as soon as wiki functionality here on DS is fully up I’ve already agreed to migrate /r/kotor’s wiki here, which includes many troubleshooting guides which we’ve refined over the years which some of you folks might find helpful—the mod builds, too, will eventually be cross-hosted. But as for everything else, we’re going to take things slowly and play them by ear, because we’re not sure how to best proceed yet. Our end goal is to allow the Deadlystream community to harness the large userbase and skills of the reddit community to help test and develop content for mods, while also encouraging reddit users who may be interested in developing their own mods to give it a try; on the flip side, we would also like to see mod and feature suggestions from the reddit community engaged with more actively from the folks here on DS. For direct interactions, with the exception of the Discord, that’s *all* we’re looking to accomplish at this time.

How we get to that end goal, though, is a matter yet to be formalized. That’s because we want to try to find the best possible system for both sites, and are going to continue to take suggestions and test options until we find something that works, ideally without causing any hassle. We’re not committing to anything right now because we want to hear suggestions, thoughts, and questions first, and then we want to see whether our first ideas shake out well or not. If they do, more power to all of us—if they don’t, we’ll go back to the drawing board until we get it right. But whatever the final outcome is, I want to reiterate that it will be a system which will be minimally invasive. I take the shared administration of DS seriously, and I want to make sure as much as I’m sure everyone else does that there’s no “help reddit” quotas, influxes of members who haven’t the faintest idea of the rules of DS, and so on. We will change whatever needs to be changed to make sure that this integration goes as slowly as it may need to, with best possible outcomes on both ends.

With that said, I think I’ve written enough. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if most of you had additional questions, and if you do have them please ask; I’d be happy to go into more detail about anything that you may be concerned or confused about, including any questions you may have about me personally. I’ll end by saying I’m excited at the prospect of working more directly with the mod community as I did working on the builds that released today, and I’ve got nothing but hope about where both sites go from here.

 

P.S. – For those of you who do hate reddit’s format but would like to use the site, the best thing I can suggest is to disable the redesign from your account preferences at the top right, then download the Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) extension. It gives a lot of additional user-controlled features that can make using reddit tolerable.

[newbiemodder 37]

I 'm excited again about modding! I love th e idea of moving assets among series. K1 <=> K2!!!!! 🙌

Blowing the dust off my K1 discs.

[Deltm 4]

This is very exciting
Cant wait to see what this yields!

[DarthParametric 3,782]

3 hours ago, Snigaroo said:

That does NOT mean that the rules, culture, or expectations on either site are significantly shifting.

 

4 hours ago, Tyvokka said:

Mods and Assets that are of the same game series (ie KoTOR 1, KoTOR2 and SWTOR) can be ported between games and uploaded to Deadlystream.

Ah, no, this is indeed a hugely significant shift. The K1/TSL rule is fine, and to be honest it's about time. It was only ever a fairly senseless (and hypocritical) holdover from LucasForum's original policy. But suddenly you're going to allow porting content from SWTOR? That strikes me as a pretty big departure, and probably something that would attract undesirable legal attention. I'm curious as to what prompted it. Is there some secret cabal of TOR content porters that mods/admins have been furiously banning in the background?

4 hours ago, Tyvokka said:

Sniggles

You're really working hard to make this a thing, huh @Snigaroo?

[Snigaroo 119]

1 minute ago, DarthParametric said:

Ah, no, this is indeed a hugely significant shift. The K1/TSL rule is fine, and to be honest it's about time. It was only ever a fairly senseless (and hypocritical) holdover from LucasForum's original policy. But suddenly you're going to allow porting content from SWTOR? That strikes me as a pretty big departure, and probably something that would attract undesirable legal attention. I'm curious as to what prompted it. Is there some secret cabal of TOR content porters that mods/admins have been furiously banning in the background?

Yes, it is a big shift, but what I meant when I said that was that there isn't going to be a systemic and continuous realignment of either community towards some nebulous (and weird) unifying centerpoint. There have been rules changes associated with the merger mostly so that the heaviest punishments in both communities are in line (IE so something perfectly fine on reddit isn't worthy of a permaban here), and I'm not going to deny that I think the changes are beneficial, but my emphasis was merely that I'm not foreseeing anything beyond what has already been changed.

As for TOR content, I imagine it's because it's in the same game series, and I believe some of its assets are already hosted for free from legitimate sources online. I don't know much about that, though, so I'll let others clarify.

7 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

You're really working hard to make this a thing, huh @Snigaroo?

It really is my actual username. Snigaroo is something I have to use because Sniggles was already taken on reddit and most people know me via reddit, but I go by Sniggles wherever I can.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

6 hours ago, Snigaroo said:

I believe some of its assets are already hosted for free from legitimate sources online

None of which are legal, and could attract the attention of an EA lawyer hit squad at any point.

 

The move is such a complete 180 on previous policy that frankly I find it bizarre.

[JCarter426 1,214]

We discussed this in the back room - incidentally, I didn't realize that was a staff-only topic before because I forgot I'm "staff" so I'll repeat most of what I said there - and I don't think it's that serious a concern. All the MMO assets are accessible without paying a cent, even the expansion ones. That's not a license to do whatever you want with it, but it does mean it would be really difficult for EA to control what happens to it once they release it onto the internet for free. There are sites that host extracted assets - legal or otherwise - and I've even seen some mods with ported MMO content on the Steam Workshop. It's a madhouse already and so far EA doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop it. Maybe because they're unaware, maybe because they couldn't stop it if they tried, maybe because they don't care?

Though this is all my personal naive optimism and I wasn't involved in any decision-making.

4 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

The move is such a complete 180 on previous policy that frankly I find it bizarre.

Yeah, that was my reaction as well.

And now for the other stuff I thought was public before (this isn't about porting):

I feel like this is a case of history not repeating itself. A few years ago, LucasForums was in a similar state. It didn't actually host mods, but It was the center of discussion for KOTOR modding, having survived a chain of file hosting site deaths - LucasFiles, PC Game Mods, and even FileFront. After they were all gone, there were still modders on LucasForums, posting new links in the Taris Upper City Emporium in whatever manner they could manage to host them. But the site was old and community activity was dwindling. Part of that was due to the loss of a hosting site. The death of FileFront was a huge blow that led to a general reduction of new content, and with fewer new things to talk about, there were fewer reasons to go to the forums. That created a feedback loop that made the problem keep getting worse. But another part of it was that elements of the site design didn't age well. The Network was divided by game series - there was more than just KOTOR, though that I've only been talking about KOTOR is a sign of the problem. In all my years I never posted outside of the KOTOR forums. I'd certainly played many of the other games, and I'd used mods for some of them. I was active on FileFront's Jedi Knight forums, but not the ones for it on LucasForums. The way LucasForums was divided created isolated communities. They each had their own modding forums, of course, but there was also a lot of overlap - they each had their own Star Wars discussion forums, their own off-topic forums, and so on. They might as well have been different websites. There was other stuff, but there's no point in criticizing the site design after it's gone. The point is that part of the problem had a clear technical solution. The site needed an overhaul to address these issues and certain members, notably Lynk Former, were working on it. But instead, LucasForums went down without notice. I don't know what transpired, but I think ultimately the right people weren't in the right place to make things happen.

So I'm glad to see that's not happening with Deadly Stream. The site is getting the overhaul it needs and with that out of the way, perhaps we can focus on keeping the community alive after 15 years. The right people are in the right place this time.

[Sith Holocron 2,477]

2 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

The move is such a complete 180 on previous policy that frankly I find it bizarre.

 

2 hours ago, JCarter426 said:

Yeah, that was my reaction as well.

I am also curious where the porting stance change came from.  I wasn't the one rallying for it but I was the one that suggested the Porting Tags be implemented, in case we need to quickly reverse the decision made.  On one hand, I won't have to hear the (until now) ceaseless clamor from those wanting to port between the game.  On the other, DP illustrated the possible concerns. I won't be personally approving mods that carry the Porting Tag.  That's to both limit my liability and to limit my current mod approval caseload.

Hmmm . . . Has anyone noticed that those folks that were asking for this porting rule change the most haven't said anything in this thread yet?

[JCarter426 1,214]

Hey, I'm not voting against it or anything. I'm just surprised.

12 minutes ago, Sith Holocron said:

I wasn't the one rallying for it but I was the one that suggested the Porting Tags be implemented, in case we need to quickly reverse the decision made.

It's a good idea, and I kind of suspected that was the reason. I'd suggest a further distinction be made between the regular KOTORs and the MMO to be safe, unless the "source of ported content" thing is going to cover that. Some sort of drop-down menu?

12 minutes ago, Sith Holocron said:

Hmmm . . . Has anyone noticed that those folks that were asking for this porting rule change the most haven't said anything in this thread yet?

To be honest, I've never known anyone to argue that the porting rule shouldn't be changed. I've only heard people say it's not allowed and that's the end of the debate. I've rarely heard anyone express their true feelings. Or at all, really. This was more of a LucasForums issue than Deadly Stream, but it never struck me as a topic that was allowed to be discussed.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

12 minutes ago, JCarter426 said:

it never struck me as a topic that was allowed to be discussed

The official rule post on it pretty much indicates as much:

TLDR: Feel free to discuss the subject in Personal Messages as much as you like but if we find it publicly displayed on the Forums, we'll delete the message and most likely ban you.

[Sith Holocron 2,477]

34 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

The official rule post on it pretty much indicates as much:

 

 

Which is now hidden as it's outdated.  (I would've thought that would've been done earlier...)  Thanks for pointing that out!

 

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Since it's open season on porting, why not go the whole hog? The "same series" argument is complete BS and has no basis in any sort of legal context. If you are fine about porting from TOR (which, by the way, I find hilarious was prompted by a merger with /r/kotor given how much they hate it), then why not Battlefront (original or new), JKO/JKA, Force Unleashed, etc.? Hell, why not Mass Effect, or Fallout, or any other game? And what about the other way? Can we make our own "proper" version of stuff like Aperion, porting KOTOR content into Unreal Engine?

[Kexikus 994]

I do have to agree with DP here. While I don't mind the new rule at all, it does seem a little random. Allowing ports between the KotOR games makes sense in that they're the same engine and already use many of the same assets anyway, but adding SWTOR does seem arbitrary.

In any case: This "new chapter" is definetly a great thing for our community/communities. Thanks for making this happen.

[JCarter426 1,214]

I see it as an issue of supply and demand rather than a legal one. If porting is allowed at all people are going to ask for stuff from the MMO because it's the same series. @DarthParametric and others have made MMO-inspired mods. There's a demand for it. But it's a risk. I think we're probably safe, but it is a non-zero amount of risk. And we could limit the extent of that risk - it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Though I'm not suggesting any policy, I'm just postulating for the sake of argument.

[DeadMan 103]

Porting may not be a problem. All SW games I own on GOG (both KotORs, JKO/JKA, Republic commando, original Battlefront II, TFU 1&2, Empire at war) have same Disney Terms Of Use. If you read section 3 carefully, you will find the next paragraph:

Quote

To the extent that we authorize you to create, post, upload, distribute, publicly display or publicly perform User Generated Content that requires the use of our copyrighted works, we grant you a non-exclusive license to create a derivative work using our copyrighted works as required for the purpose of creating the materials, provided that such license shall be conditioned upon your assignment to us of all rights in the work you create. If such rights are not assigned to us, your license to create derivative works using our copyrighted works shall be null and void.

So, basically, Disney allows us to use their assets (not only from SW, but from all their stuff). There could be arguments about new media (such as EA Battlefront), 'cause they will also have EA's terms of use, but everything released before Disney buying Lucasfilm should be OK.

[Tyvokka 198]

The porting rule was always a bit arbitrary. There is no need for further discussion on the subject publicly, the point of the rule updates are to encourage modding by allowing sources that people were probably using already without acknowledging.  Now we know what people are using without being caught off guard. Any issues that come up because of it will be addressed if they happen.

[jc2 581]

I am very excited for this renovating merger of some sorts between /r kotor and DS. 

I think this will certainly the SW Kotorian community, especially with leadership collaboration and communication among /r kotor admins and DS admins/mods.  Though, if I'm being entirely honest, small part of me doesn't like the change, for no conceivable reason, other than it is more change to the DS community. All of the site renovations, and now this, feels very overwhelming, but I am quickly warming up to the changes. 

The Wikia including all of the tips, tricks, bugfixes, and known gliches, will certainly aid different modders and Kotorians with incompatibility issues. It is crazy to think our community will continue to expand, when these games came out over a decade ago!

 

As for the porting rule, I was one such person who disagreed and vocalized my disagreement without being banned, while still adhering and supporting the DS rules against porting content.  Currently, my modding endeavors will not utilize any ported content, since I'm still working on LME & Trainable Disciple, but I look forward to taking advantage of the new rule, if it is maintained.

12 hours ago, newbiemodder said:

I 'm excited again about modding! I love th e idea of moving assets among series. K1 <=> K2!!!!! 🙌

Blowing the dust off my K1 discs.

I'm feeling very motivated to mod as well! If this rule lasts, there will be some very interesting mods in the future! 

Perhaps we will see more modders returning and new ones appearing, because of the suddenly opened, new, modding potential.

 

[Squall Lionhart 81]

I feel like Jenks is going to love the rule about porting now, given his work on Kevin's Kotor films.

[Guest Qui-Gon Glenn]

Well, the response to Darth Parametric's post, where a moderator struck his comment and threatened banishment, was all I needed to see.

I have a distaste for Reddit anyway. Nice knowing you folks, if I release anything in the future I will make a guest account or something.

I have to say, the moderation here is overboard, and although they've made room for my peculiarities I haven't feot comfortable. Enjoy your safe space.

 

Also, please feel free to ban me or close my account, whatever. I'm done.

[JCarter426 1,214]

That wasn't a response to @DarthParametric -  he was quoting an old post.

[Jenko 53]

35 minutes ago, Squall Lionhart said:

I feel like Jenks is going to love the rule about porting now, given his work on Kevin's Kotor films.

Quite happy about that. Been doing it for a while but haven't released anything I worked on...

[JCarter426 1,214]

4 hours ago, Sith Holocron said:

I know when I'm not wanted around here.  Any Admin that readS this: REMOVE ME FROM STAFF.

I think you're both misreading the situation. 🙁 @DarthParametric quoted an old rule post by @Darth_Sapiens but @Qui-Gon Glenn seems to be under the impression that it wasn't an old quote but a recent threat. I don't think he was accusing you of anything personally and even assuming he were, not only is it not something you did, it's something that didn't actually happen.

6 hours ago, Squall Lionhart said:

I feel like Jenks is going to love the rule about porting now, given his work on Kevin's Kotor films.

5 hours ago, Jenko said:

Quite happy about that. Been doing it for a while but haven't released anything I worked on...

I figured somebody with keen eyes must have noticed what we were doing. We were actually planning to try to get ahead of the controversy and say yeah we do it but we're only doing it for the films and not releasing anything. Funny how things turned out.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

You ladies sure do like your drama. Perhaps @Tyvokka can hand out some lithium tablets.

[Haveayap 127]

11 hours ago, jc2 said:

I am very excited for this renovating merger of some sorts between /r kotor and DS. 

I think this will certainly the SW Kotorian community, especially with leadership collaboration and communication among /r kotor admins and DS admins/mods.  Though, if I'm being entirely honest, small part of me doesn't like the change, for no conceivable reason, other than it is more change to the DS community. All of the site renovations, and now this, feels very overwhelming, but I am quickly warming up to the changes. 

The Wikia including all of the tips, tricks, bugfixes, and known gliches, will certainly aid different modders and Kotorians with incompatibility issues. It is crazy to think our community will continue to expand, when these games came out over a decade ago!

 

As for the porting rule, I was one such person who disagreed and vocalized my disagreement without being banned, while still adhering and supporting the DS rules against porting content.  Currently, my modding endeavors will not utilize any ported content, since I'm still working on LME & Trainable Disciple, but I look forward to taking advantage of the new rule, if it is maintained.

I'm feeling very motivated to mod as well! If this rule lasts, there will be some very interesting mods in the future! 

Perhaps we will see more modders returning and new ones appearing, because of the suddenly opened, new, modding potential.

 

Agreed, I still getting used to the new layout of Deadlystream 🤣 However, change is good. Its good to see both the /r kotor community and DS community being integrated together.