Whats Up with the TOS?

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

I have been taking a break from the cavern, and decided to link back in to see how my Gaint pine tree is doing in my Relto.
I clicked on URU it updated and HOLA! I find a new client window with this new,
encredible super dupper maga huge loooooooong TOS! stairing at me.
I begin to read and soon find myself turnning the mouse wheel faster and faster, Finaly I say 'Oh Filter Carp!'
and take my curser and click on the scrollbar to move it down to the bottom which seemed to take alot longer than
the couple of seconds it actualy took. :roll:

I clicked cancel, something with this much (imo) control over ones digital rights
over just about everything you can imagine, true I didn't read the whole blasted thing but for a game
with that overly grossly long TOS something is not right in dodge. (imo)
For a game that was supposed to be made free OS as Cyan stated, and not happened yet...how many years has it been now? Which it seems to have changed almost 100 degrees in the oppisite direction.
IMO, Either Open it up and go total OS or officaily change the statments made on the website and in media.

*Soon* HA!

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

...huh?

That honestly didn't make any sense.

While Open Source is taking a long time, and is beginning to look like if what Cyan calls Open Source comes, it won't be Open Source as defined by the OSI... (or any accepted definition of "Open Source").. I'm not sure what that's got to do with the current TOS? =P

Gehn, lord of ages · **Joined:** Sat Dec 13, 2008 4:24 pm **Posts:** 255

Er, what?

Yes, Open Source is taking a long time (due in part to the Cyan team being understaffed and focused on the projects that will pay their bills to keep them afloat). That was something expected. In fact, the use of the term "Soon", which you laughed at, was made in things telling us that it could take a long time (it was used ironically, intentionally). Also, statements they've made show that not all parts might be released in a totally open way, like the OSI would define it (however, this wouldn't cripple it or make them liars), if even they know how everything will be released at this moment.

The TOS has absolutely nothing to do with that. MOULa is not currently Open Source - the whole stated purpose of it was to be a stopgap measure to allow people to congregate around in MOUL because OS would take a long time. As for it being long, that's just how TOS's are. Aside from a few products which have specifically made really simple TOS's (and those are rare), TOS's are large monstrosities. Legal is long - not because (most) companies are trying to shackle you or sneak around your business in nefarious ways (and even if Cyan was an evil scheming company like that, which they are not, they plain don't have the time and staff to do so), but because in law, there is no overkill (so they're making sure they're safe from any possible misuse of their software - things that could get their works compromised, or things that could get them sued or charged against [or both, for a multiplayer environment where people could compromise the system to do things that would annoy others, and the company could be responsible for it]).

Even look at the Gnu General Public Liscense or some other open source licenses. Being open doesn't mean being short. Tedious length and lots of cautious clauses is a general problem with TOS', but not with MOULa in particular.[/url]

OHB · **Joined:** Wed Feb 10, 2010 12:28 am **Posts:** 1247

Just read it. It's not /that/ long...especially when you see that the majority of it is virtually identical to the ToS from every other game. If you're that concerned about it - it'll take as long to read as it took you post your original post.

Firesign · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 6:46 pm

uhhh, seriously? it's standard boilerplate. no issue here. tos has nothing to do with open source at all. oh, and i think the word you're looking for "is feldercarb", although "filter carp" would be a great band name.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Hey yea! You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the cavern, Filter Carp!

The TOS used to be a lot shorter, and your telling me they covered everything but the kitchen sink
or maybe they covered that too. I'm afraid to log in because theres no way I can remember all the things
that you can't do. You can't do much anyway in the cavern but run around and kick cones, relto and hood stuff
Freedoms is like gone you can't voice our opinion with out fear that you will be in violation of the TOS,

I guess I feel that cyan has again slapped the long time member Myst fan in the face I thought we were trusted
better than that. I thought MOULa would be like how Until URU was, Cyan trusted us 100% more back then,
UU WAS starting to actualy BREATH and live, everything was in place the whole shard network, each shard was doing
something a little differant. and Cyan had D'mala as the central 'Canon' Shard and even had a way to pay a monthly
subscription but it was never implemented but for a short time when Cyan was selling the Kagi keys giving you the
ability and freedom to switch shards if you wanted to.

But with Moula, all freedoms are gone, unless you are one of the few 733T that can code and use 3D software etc.
but even this is running into a stonewall now. I can not use ULM because it is not compatable with my computer
sense they started using Dot net Framework 2.0 I only can use DNF 1.1 plus the programs 'plugins' used for this
is against the TOS as well and also why you do not see any theads talking about age creation on these forums.

The biggest worry is now at any time if Cyan wanted to, could could turn into a carnation of what the
IRAA did a few years ago! Luckly they haven't Another worry is; ever heard the saying, the quiet ones
are the ones to watch because thay are the most dangerous. Well anyone who has been following URU
knows all to well who the quiet one is. IMO, this quietness has hurt more than help Moula. I know I know
spare cycles and all baaa.

I'm SORRY But my dreams are shattered. I'm one of the few who thought Cyan meant OS as in what everyone
thinks of when they hear OS, total freedom to change add to/remove MOD the game to the way they want it etc.
I'm still wanting to help restore the cavern like put in floors and walls in the hollow shelled buildings
and open them up, make new tunnels finish the Guild Hall, Cyan would add in all of the unused content
weather finished or not, The guilds could help cyan finish it. there is so much *that could have happened* already
in only Cyan was more social, talkitive and takes on the attitude they had back when UU was up,
IMO UU should have NEVER been shut down.

Oh well this is all mute same ole same ole why do I even try, Its because I LOVE the Myst storys and games
and want to see this all under one roof, some way some how. Just like user made ages the games
of Exile and Revelations, M5 are like the continuing branch of only one mans life and his family, URU is the hub
where all the branches begin.

andylegate · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 10:04 pm

You are serious? Seriously?

You're upset because of the length of the TOS? I can understand reading through it and not agreeing with something in it. I can understand reading through only part of it and not agreeing with something in it.

But not to play simply because it's long????

It's pretty standard issue compared to other MMO's and software games that are published.

But not playing because it would take you too long to read tells me (IMHO) that you are impatient. And of course considering how long OS is taking, it's even worse for you. I do understand that.

You want to talk about Age Creation? Fine. Go over to the GoW or GoMa forums (check my signature for links) and you can discuss it all you want to your hearts content. And there are many people that will talk back with you there too.

There are things about it that can't be discussed here, and if you do wander over to the GoW forum, you'll find that most of the experienced people there agree they'd rather talk about it over there than here, simply because that's where the wealth of the information and resources are in the first place. So even if all the discussion were allowed here, the majority of it would still be over at the GoW forum.

But again, the TOS agreement for logging on to MOUL:a being too long.......well, if you don't have the patients to read through it.........you're really not going to have the patients to create Ages then my friend. It takes a LOT of hard work, thought, mistakes, corrections, and most of all, patients. And that's just learning how to model and texture. Learning the other things to make something work in Uru takes even more patients and learning.
Even changing things that already exist is not a simple as you may think. It may be for some of us, because we've literally spent YEARS learning how to do it, and it took quite a bit of patients on my part.

I'm pretty sure that the TOS isn't something that you can't agree too. Cyan's not going to come get your house, car, first born child. And pretty much they are just asking that you behave yourself is all. No running around naked, trying to cuss like a sailor or hack their game server is all really. No stalking, harrasing, things like that.

It's called "C" "Y" "A" and that's what a TOS does for any company. Even CCP has one for Eve Online, and I can't think of a rougher crowd as far as language, stalking, harrasing and killing you for the "luz".

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

Is there a change to the TOS? Mine claims to be 2.10, which is the same one since, well, February.

To reiterate something that's been iterated numerous times, artistic content is not source code. Open Source does not necessarily include the artistic content. The Doom and Quake engines have been open-sourced for decades; a good amount of the Unreal stuff is open source. But the games themselves are not: the artistic content they put into the games was never given away, just the source code to run the engines.

If you were counting on getting all the Uru content to make your own, you had unrealistic expectations--expectations that neither Cyan nor the rest of the industry told you you would be getting.

All we're expected for sure to get is a framework for adding our own creations, not for taking over Cyan's.

Lontahv · **Joined:** Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:51 pm **Posts:** 265

Hey, even open-source projects have a long list of do's and don't's, take a look at the GPL.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Quote:

But not playing because it would take you too long to read tells me (IMHO) that you are impatient. And of course considering how long OS is taking, it's even worse for you. I do understand that.

TY your right I'm :lol:

There are indeed 2 points of view when talking about OS One side is for all the age creators etc.
the OTHER side is RESTORING THE CAVERN finishing the buildings and oh so much more!,
we DO have our own instances of the city you know, WHY can't instances be turned into testing cities and work
like SL??? Why can't we experiment like we could in UU??? Why can't we help with restoring the city and islands in the lake etc.?
Then the whole Hood could get involved!! It would be a way for the layman to maybe actualy do something
to help RESTORE our Cavern home! I for one do not want to make my own age because I have no patience :lol:

BUT I do want what I said above, Help Cyan to restore the cavern, why is this too much to ask for
If Cyan makes a rule The only textures that can be used are texxtures and assettes already in the game. (like other OS games)

ddb174 · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:27 pm **Posts:** 167

You're quite right about it not being a good idea to not make legal agreements for something so trivial as a game. And the others are right when they point out that this is the industry norm. (Though that doesn't make it a good thing.) As Andy says, the purpose is to protect themselves, and also to serve as a "disclaimer". That being said, it's a little sad that hardly anyone bothers to read it or see what its consequences might be. Well, there's no kind of signature or real agreement and good luck to Cyan trying to enforce it in court, so it probably won't be a problem in practice, unless the courts go nuts (always a possibility^^). But do stay away from any game NDAs, because those are typically real legal agreements.

And yeah, I was disappointed with Cyan too. I seem to remember Id always being careful to say that it was the *engine* being open-sourced, whereas Cyan says it's *Uru* being open-sourced, which is simply not true. Open-source games do happen, but Uru won't be one of them.

Self-promotional P.S.: Use Drizzle instead of ULM; it has *all* the released fan Ages, and many, many more features. (It does use Java instead of DotNet, but Java doesn't slow down your system startup like DotNet does, and you can even run Java out of a folder if you don't want to install it. Plus Java is itself open-source!)

andylegate · **Posted:** Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:52 am

VoiZod wrote:

There are indeed 2 points of view when talking about OS One side is for all the age creators etc.
the OTHER side is RESTORING THE CAVERN finishing the buildings and oh so much more!,
we DO have our own instances of the city you know, WHY can't instances be turned into testing cities and work
like SL??? Why can't we experiment like we could in UU??? Why can't we help with restoring the city and islands in the lake etc.?
Then the whole Hood could get involved!! It would be a way for the layman to maybe actualy do something
to help RESTORE our Cavern home! I for one do not want to make my own age because I have no patience :lol:

BUT I do want what I said above, Help Cyan to restore the cavern, why is this too much to ask for
If Cyan makes a rule The only textures that can be used are texxtures and assettes already in the game. (like other OS games)

Okay, I understand what it is you'd like to do with Uru. And I'm sure there are a multitude of the fans that would also like to be able to do this: Simply have something that is like a LEGO set to snap in what you'd like and it's there.

There are many, many games out there where this is very possible. Some of the games require a special editor or tools to allow you to do this (Call Of Duty, DOOM, Oblivion, Fallout 3, etc etc). It's still a bit of hard work and a learning curve with these.
Other games allow you to actually build in the game itself (The Sims, The Sims2, etc). And there are even Flash Games where you do things like this (On Facebook: Farmville, Frontiersville, Petville, etc).

However, Uru is not any of those games. It has it's very own unique (well, unique to Cyan products that is) game engine called Plasma.

Plasma takes data that is located in the prp files of Uru, and performs a real time rendering, creating a virtual 3D world that your avatar walks around in. The data that is in the prp files is more than just coordinates for a 3D object that is created. It also has data as to how it should be rendered with textures, how those textures are suppose to be mapped, and how the lighting is suppose to be mapped.
It also has other things that are NOT object: Game Interaction.

What to pull that lever? Push that button? Make that door swing open? That's animation data. Want that water to look like the water we see in Ahnonay? Eder Gira? Eder Kemo? Direbo? Those are Wavesets, and a LOT of info has to be programed in for the water to look like that, even with Cyan's plugin.

Want steam? Rain? Snow? Leaves drifting down from the trees? Those are particles my friends, and again, you have to put numbers in there to make that happen. They are not some 3D object, they are actual particles who speed, trajectory, rate of speed, birth, etc are all calculated in.

Sounds? Is it spatial or non-spatial? (IE is the sound one that doesn't seem to have a source like background music, or is it a 3D sound that has a source like a squeaky hinge?). You have data in the prp file that says how loud it's suppose to be, whether or not it's stereo or mono, how far does the sound go before it becomes inaudible? What about the fact you entered a building and now the sound changes to where it's muffled (like rain hitting a roof). That again, has to be punched in.

Colliders. ALL of the objects in Uru are rendered. But not ALL of them have colliders (IE meaning your avatar does not go through them). On the ones that you avatar will react with.

Like those journals? Linking books? Python my friend. Lots and lots of python code is needed to make those work. And that is NOT point and click, even with Cyan's plugin.
Heck, most of the puzzles in Uru need python to make them work. How do you think the Vault Control Panel in Kadish works? It knows what button you pushed in what order. How does it know that? Because of a python file that's there to keep track of it. And it's not generic. You can't just use it anywhere. You have to edit it if you want to use it for something else.

What I'm saying is this: Fans want to help restore what is in Uru now (let's forget for now the fact that RAWA put out in his guidelines that's for Cyan to do). Okay, well considering how Plasma works, how would fans do that? Right now it would can be done with Age creation tools only. I don't mean just the 3D modeling program and plugins, but there are other tools that programmers use (that I can't talk about here).
In other words: there is no way for a fan to help with that, except through the things I just said above. There is NO editing program made by Cyan, no "Construction Set" and no "in game" building of any kind. Nor is there likely to be in the near future.

Maybe, just maybe, one day long from now, someone will take Uru that has been open sourced and change the Plasma game engine in such a way that real time editing will be possible.

The ONLY real time editing we have now is with the sdl files. They are used to turn things off and on. The seasonal decorations you see in the hoods, the Baron's Office. They get turned on or off. Meaning they are already there. They were built in, or added, but are merely being turned on or off is all.

Restoring a guild hall will take a LOT more than that. There's nothing there. It will have to be built, textured and added to the prp files (or added as a new prp file, and then that means editing the .age file too).

Am I saying everyone should give up hope? No. Not at all.

But I am saying that it's going to be a long, long wait. OS is going to take a long time we see. Having a "Lego" version of Uru will take even longer I bet, depending on many things.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Like genitics and gene splicing , Makes the new PlasCry3 engine lol :lol:

Ok I vote for fixing the gareseen wall game on the next spare cycles Cyan has.

Nalates · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 1:00 am

Trust the fans… Wow… who are the fans? You know them all? You’d trust every one of them with your livelihood? I think Cyan has to publish their limits and explicitly state them. Considering what fans have done in the past it would be foolish of Cyan to trust fans to just understand and be nice.

Cyan is not going to come and take my first born? Andy, are you sure? I mean… I was kinda counting on it… :lol:

I don’t expect there ever to be in game building in Plasma based worlds… and that is not all bad. The new Blue Mars uses a similar game model to MOULa/Plasma. All building there is outside the game. SL is adding more out of world building and will soon use Collada models/meshes. All those systems have problems for those short on patience. Even SL with a simplified in world building tries one’s patience. Their building blocks don’t snap in place. I doubt we will ever have in-game building in Uru.

VoiZod · **Joined:** Thu May 11, 2006 1:47 pm **Posts:** 519

Quote:

Considering what fans have done in the past it would be foolish of Cyan to trust fans to just understand and be nice.

We are not arguing I thought I was being nice?

What worked in the past can and will work in the presant! right?
Just ask Cyan if they could fire ole D'mala back up and bring the shard network back online.
continue modding and making new user KIs and etc etc. UU was working and also really starting to breath.

Why can we not do it with Moula? it does not have to be OS to get the shard network up and going again
only differance is a differant phyX engine, has anyone figured out how to code with the phyX engine yet?
or has Cyan? Immmmmmm sure as I can be the guild of writers and maintainers could go in and fix that puppy

if give'n a chance!

oh and the models are movable from with in URU too! I have seen it done no lie.
, you can also make them larger or smaller too!!! of coarse this was back in UU so I don't know if you still can or not with the new phyX engine, not even sure if phyX are even used with the objects/models in that way. but Im guessing that you can.

Starts chanting for a UU Moula now

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