Yoho drama is going on. I wonder if I can help getting things sorted somehow (LDG admin).

Having seen the logs, the easiest way would be to get peace between Az and sarge. But neither side is going to give in. Not going to give my two cents about the issue though.

Yeah, like I said earlier, Azarael left the mod because he didn't like how it was named. He gave me some ultimatum to either rename the mod or remove all of his and Blade's content. I obviously refused. We inform all of our contributors that content given to the mod becomes property of the mod once Xav or I starts working on it.

Since then he's leaked the beta to his community, gotten the ModDB page taken down, and has locked down the wiki.

Izumo can likely give you his side of the story.

I am posting this link on Azarael's behalf so that he may try to illustrate his side to the story:

http://www.ldg-gaming.eu/viewtopic.php?p=18173#p18173

Lots of bitterness over nothing, again. My entire childhood was nothing but a course in anger management (I was bullied by my father if I ever showed any sign of rage) so this is rather alien to me. Chill, or something. I dunno.

Well I have to say that when I provided some sounds for that tranquilizer pistol I wasn't informed about that property change either. Perhaps back then that wasn't usual.

But since this is an all free project I hereby grant you the right to do anything with my material I provided and maybe will provide in the future as long as I am mentioned in the credits.
That's all I want and all that's appropriate I guess.

I mean I can understand Azarael's position in a way - with so much work he has done and it seemingly is not credited in a proper way. But I think the name Sergerant Kelly's Weapon Pack has become a brand that is recognized and renaming would cause unnecessary confusion.

Besides - why does that come to Azarael's mind now? It was fine like that all the time and just now he made up his mind and says "No more!" ? That doesn't make sense to me.

Why don't you just forget about it, work together and focus on what's important:
MAKING THE MOD'S FANBASE HAPPY.

/solution





AND DON'T FORGET THE KITTENS

I don't know what was agreed upon when Aza joined the team, but he denied the work done for the mod becoming mod property.

In a nutshell, just as Baryonyx said, it seemed to me that Azarael didn't like the fact that when people mention the mod somewhere, they just mention you, Sgt. Kelly, as the only author, just like here: http://www.ldg-gaming.eu/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2044, and felt uncredited. Although I wonder if he explained you his stance, why he wanted the mod renamed, in first place.

As far as I understood from that one article on the wiki, Kely's logic seems to go in this circle; the pack is called Sergeant Kelly's Weapon Pack, therefore it's mine, therefore all the content in it is mine, therefore I have a veto on every aspect of it, and therefore it's ridiculous to change its name.

I suppose annoyances slowly built up till the final straw broke the camel's back, at which point Steorra must've felt he'd contributed enough to warrant the pack's namechange to something more neutral. I dunno, it feels rather petty to retain a 'brand name' just for the creator's e-peen if it's gonna make one of the main contributors leave. Like that guy above said, the important thing's making the fanbase happy.

Ah yes, I meant to say for large things like models where multiple members of the team have to combine their work. Eg. Az's model, Xav's animations, and my textures. We started this policy after Blade left the team without saying a word, leaving us with a bunch of unfinished stuff that has been a hassle to clean up.

Stuff like the sounds can be removed whenever you want. Though I do appreciate the permissions! I try to credit everybody though, and if I ever forget, be sure to remind me and I'll fix it up right quick.

Credits for the mod stuff can be found all over, from the ModDB page, to the individual photos on ModDB, and even to the readme files in the mod downloads itself.



I wouldn't put much weight on the "Truth about Sgt. Kelly" page since it's extremely biased. For the truth about how the mod functions, primary decisions are made by Xavious and I, with the contributing and beta testing team's opinions holding weight. There's nothing in there about e-peen, but I'm not about to change the almost 5 year old name of the mod just because one of the contributors has an issue with it. If he wanted to leave because of that, then that's fine and that's his choice. It truly becomes petty after he decides to pull his models (and go on a tirade and break the ModDB page), after Xav and I spent weeks texturing, animating, coding, and fine tuning said models, because of that naming issue.

For the record, Xavious and I have mused about changing the mod's name before, and we ultimately decided against it. Unfortunately, I can't post much more than this at the moment, since I'm extremely busy.

But in the end, Xav and my primary goal is just to make a sweet BW mod, nothing more, nothing less.

I can't check this right now since the ModDB page poofed, but if he's just a contributor second to you and Xavious, exactly how much work is lost if you leave out Steorra's work? It seems the most peaceful course of action at this point, and not entirely unreasonable.

The funny thing about this is that he just denied access to his own mod (namely, the unofficial patch).

Let's see... He contributed the F2000 model, the Desert Eagle model, did most of the CX61, and helped with netcode. That's about the same amount of work as Blade did. I'd be perfectly fine with cutting the CX61, since I didn't do much work on it. But since I sunk massive amounts of time into the F2000s and Desert Eagles, and Xavious had to animate them and UV the Eagles, I wouldn't be happy cutting those.

Dang, that was one of the most unique assault rifles I've seen in ages...

Azarael's response:

http://www.ldg-gaming.eu/viewtopic.php?p=18198#p18198

Thanks to Xavious for providing his answers.



I second that! Save the CX61!

Azarael:
If you want the players to have the content then don't block it off! I mean, it's obvious you do this to harm Kelly and that doesn't make it better at all.

Don't take me wrong but this sounds like an excuse to me. A pretty bad excuse. If you only wanted to get content into BW, then why are you caring about credits that much? Everyone who followed the mod thoroughly (including me) has read your name more than once so it's clear that you worked on this. And to any intelligent person it should be clear that you worked on this A LOT.
And you saying that you had no choice is simply silly because you agreed to work with them and by participating, you - I admit - indirectly agreed on the mod name and going into the mod like a secret agent trying to build up power to later challenge the mod name when you feel the time has come is dodgy.
And it shows that your intention is not to get content into the game but to get your name spread.

But may I suggest a possible solution: How about adding something like "and friends" or "and company" to the mod name to point at the other developers and contributors without having to give it a completely different name? I think this should be a bearable compromise for all parties because if you all don't get this resolved then the mod will die inevitably.

EDIT: It is version 10 and IIRC there are not that many more weapons left till it's done. And Kelly has probably made mistakes and you Azarael have made mistakes as you admit - if your goal is to make BW a funnier mod then swallow your pride and get this finished.

EDIT 2: And may I remark that this "swallow your pride" thing is applicable for both sides of this fight.

Well, as you say, both parties evidently care about credit, both in wanting to rename it and in refusing to rename it. Seems to me one party cares more about the equal distribution of credit rather than a skewed distribution to his own, though.

I mean, how big a concession is it really to rename the thing to BW Community Bonus Pack or something? If such a move would've kept a capable weapon maker from leaving, I think it's the responsible decision for a team leader to make.

Besides, I doubt it's about getting Steorra / Azarael's name spread. It's not like he lobbied to rename the pack to Azarael's weapon pack, and BallisticPro / Fix would've been plastered with credits if that were the case. Isn't the issue here that one person has all of the control over the pack despite not doing all of the work?

And from what I know of the relationship between the present and former team members, "and friends" is a good joke, Bary . Such an addition only serves to further marginalize contributors like Xavious/Blade/Steorra anyway.

Well that would be my opinion too, but...



...since the leaders agreed on not changing it I thought that addition would be an acceptable compromise... *shrugs*
Besides, I thought that this addition would make them able to be friends again... kinda.

Damn... all those future weapon models look sweet and it'd be a damn shame not to get to play with them.

Since the ModDB just went up in smoke, why not start fresh and compromise? A little name change wouldn't do any harm to the mod's reputation, anyway.

I wouldn't be opposed to renaming it the Ballistic Weapons Recolors Pack if it'd make things any better. It seems like half the time that's what it's called anyways.

The Ballistic Weapons Community Weapon Pack seems more apt.

By the way, just to be clear, I'm neither on Kelly or Azarael's side. My loyalty lies with Runestorm and how they can inspire regular people to contribute extraordinary stuff to their game/s and let the community enjoy it.

The division and animosity we are currently having is seriously detrimental to the future of BW.

I'm with you 100%, Marts. Runestorm comes first, and its hard as hell trying to remain neutral on this, but I do what I can.

Ultimately no one benefits from this predicament and I think the sooner we can end this peaceably the better off we are for it.

As for the name, it really doesn't matter to me what it is. I merely suggest Ballistic Recolors because its already referred to that often enough, it wouldn't really cause any confusion, I think.

I agree. At the end of the day, it's RS that brought us Ballistic Weapons in the first place. It's up to us to keep the mod going, through strife and all.

I don't care what the pack is called, at least it's still fun to play.

I'd throw my vote behind 'Ballistic Weapons Community Pack' because that's what it IS at this point.

Besides, if Sargent Kelly eventually calls it quits I think it'd be fitting if the pack were continued by the community as a whole.

If y'all really wanted to play any of it, no one would give a rats ass WHAT it's called. So long as is works, is balanced (to each their own there) and is relatively bug free. Credits are given where the credits go, no one bothers to look at them. They see a name, and that's where THAT stops.

Sergeant_Kelly is a brand name. The mod name is Weapon pack. Just like how it's 'Azarael's BallsticFix.' Pressuring him to rename the thing is akin to pressuring Az to rename Azarael's Ballisticfix the LDG Communityfix.

Both concepts are equally stupid to me. Enjoy the game and works they both do regardless.

nevermind that I don't use Az's mod. it's not for me.

Edit: if he did, the new content would have a seperate label, showing that it is infact, seperate content. Even if modified somehow.

......wow. The mod profile got deleted.

I don't know what to say.

> Looks at filename
> "Unofficial Ballistic Weapons Fix v2.5"

I honestly don't know what y-



...okay, nevermind.



See, that's the problem. I love Kelly's weapon pack. I also love the Unofficial fix. But now, suddenly, I'm getting restricted content because of this falling out between two parties. And the only reasonable course of action is if both parties swallow their pride and make a compromise.

And "Sergeant Kelly" is not a brand name. It's not even a brand at all, and it really shouldn't be. One man's name overshadowing other people's work and effort sullies the "Community" aspect of mod, but that's just me.

EDIT:

Here's something to put things into perspective:

Ballistic Weapons was made by three very talented individuals. Do you see their names plastered all over the place? I had to look them up in order to know them. In short, I got to know them through their work.

Suddenly we have all these individuals clamoring for "brand recognition" for creating content over their work (since it's the first time a third-party program developer openly accepted third-party support... third-partyception?).

When Azarael proposed unofficial fixes to BW's original code, did RS do anything to stop it?

When Kelly started reskinning some of the original BW weapons, did they stop him?

That's what I like about RS when it comes to BW, they're humble and accepting. So I find it utterly ridiculous that people are "branding" and taking credit for third-party programs made for a game that was made on top of another game... FOR FREE. If you want your name to be recognized, show that you have the talent for it instead of just "staking your claim."

Greetings fine hobo-wranglers!

I just wanted to stop by to let ya'll know that RS and the involved parties are trying to reach an amicable solution. I don't think anyone here likes what's going down, so we've all agreed to at least attempt to find middle ground. We'll keep you posted

SB out.

Thank goodness.

*Still thinks that calling it the Ballistic Weapons Community Pack would be a good idea.*

Hope for the best.