Stop deleting Awesome mods! Thread

Dear Moddb staff,

One year ago I found the greatest mod for Men of War Assault Squad ever created, the "Cold War" created by Soldier96. Have you played it? Probably not, because if you had, the mod would still be on this site. The "Cold War" mod was the most authentic modern warfare game I have ever seen, with hundreds of units from Russia, US, Israel, etc, the models were spot on to their real life counter parts, the gameplay accurately represented the real deal . . . I could go on. However, to my dismay, about 1 year ago the mod was deleted from this website. Now, I can be patient, and as much as a tragedy as this was, my friends and I were able to find other sites across the internet that supported the mod . . . not yours.
Now this year I find that Moddb has the audacity to delete the "Red Rising" mod, the spiritual successor to the "Cold War" mod for Assault Squad 2, almost as if it were a little anniversary for the dumbest thing that Moddb has ever done. So you know what's going to happen now? The devs that you banned are taking their precious work to other websites, to be published for the world that actually enjoys authentic strategy gameplay. I don't know why you want to kill my wish of finally playing a modern modification for Men of War, but I'm here to tell you to cut.the.S#!T. If you keep this up, mod developers will give up hope on your red tape BS company to post their material elsewhere. It will take time, but you are spelling your ultimate doom each time you kill a mod.

Sincerely,

A concerned and POed Moddb user

Sorry but a copyright infringement is still a serious charge, and normally should be treated like piracy and warez.

Taking assets from somebody's game (other than the original game, and published by a different publisher / holder of rights to its assets) or somebody else's mod without permission is not favourably looked upon in any case.

The best thing to do is always to create your own assets so nobody has any right to delete your mod. You can also ask other modders for their permission first, not publish a mod before asking them to allow your own use of their assets.

Also some people tend to use free, public assets - in that case all you have to do is to credit someone, but you can be never sure if it is fully made by that very person (it could be stolen/taken and re-released as free).

In conclusion, always best to make own assets to avoid problems that killed the mod you are a fan of. And it was not the site staff that killed it, only the content that the mods were/are using that led to this outburst of yours at your perceived scapegoat. Supporting copyright infringements is in many respects same as supporting piracy/warez.

I agree steeling assets is bad. Steeling ip's is just as bad but that seems to get ignored. IE the Goldeneye for Half Life, the Zelda remakes, etc. Those get front page news but w/o permission from the owner of the ip they're no different vs someone taking content from another's mod, except that other person is here and makes noise about it.

Remaking content like goldeneye is diffrent to directly ripping from one game to another.

In the case of Red Rising, they use content directly ripped from the arma series, the owners of these assets don't allow this, so the mod was removed and authors informed. If the mod author removes the copyright content, the mod can be re listed.

In cases like these its outside our control and in the hands of the modders to do the right thing.
Also with compilation packs, credit must be sought first, to credit a developer without asking permission in the first place is bad practice and can cause issues.

Although you all disagree with me, I thank you for your sincere replies to my frustration. I understand why its illegal to rip content directly from other games. Devs work hard to make games and deserve to get paid for it.

Perhaps I should make a new thread for the following topic but here it goes:

I attribute my outburst to my growing discontent at the modern gaming industry and how lazy and greedy gaming companies have become. It is simply the norm for devs to put in half-assed effort to create $60 games (especially when they are using successful franchise titles to market to "new" games . . . yes, screw you EA/Battlefield Hardline) and then proceed to remove content from game BEFORE RELEASE to sell them piecemeal to presumably ignorant customers (that's right you DownLoadableCrap whores at Sega/Total war). What happened to the days when game devs were artists?! Its not like devs were poor back in the good Ol' days! What's with the change? Is it our greed American culture that has infected them? And why can't a multi-million dollar corporation share with an independent non-profit mod designer who, frankly, often puts in equal or more work than professionals? Like they'll lose that much money? Hell if the modder gives them credit its MARKETING (within reason of course). Where is the love for the art? Gaming has become a money grab, the love is gone it seems.

Edited by: EagleBeak

EagleBeak wrote: Although you all disagree with me, I thank you for your sincere replies to my frustration. I understand why its illegal to rip content directly from other games. Devs work hard to make games and deserve to get paid for it.

Perhaps I should make a new thread for the following topic but here it goes:

I attribute my outburst to my growing discontent at the modern gaming industry and how lazy and greedy gaming companies have become. It is simply the norm for devs to put in half-assed effort to create $60 games

Actually, the market is changing. Today modelers are supposed to put their work on assets stores, just to watch it get on torrents and all kind of illegal distribution. The only way for an artist to earn through an asset shop is by volume of sales. But nooo, we put models in the store for 20€, but apparently that is still too much to ask. The biggest thing an artist can hold over his work is a right to sell it to whom he wishes. 3D is tons of work when it's done right, so these asset store prices are really not fair, as long as there is illegal use of my assets.

I understand how it's tempting to rip stuff from games, especially since it is so easy with the right tools. But honest to god, I kick people who do this up their nuts so hard, they cough them out. Bohemia are doing the right thing here. It may seem unrelaxed of them, but in the end they are protecting their artist's work from theft. Because that is what ripping is. Even though in this case it was a mod, so it seems more exaggerated than with a retail product, it is still the right thing to do.

One thing you have to realize EagleBeak, is that only the people at the top are making top dollars in game development. It's much like how managers operate in any place. Suck dry the workforce, make a profit. I'm not saying 3D-Artists earn badly. That's not true in a thousand years. But when we freelance or are self-employed, we need our work protected by the company or person it goes to. Otherwise they could just buy our models for 20€ from the asset store and resell them at their own leasure. Companies may seem like they are only interested in making more money. However, they paid proper money to the modeler, in order to obtain rights to use his model(s). They don't want them ripped and shown elsewhere. As soon as money is involved in a project, legal rights become a priority.