ZC changes to come, and a call for help

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Originally Posted by SUCCESSOR

Protected from what? Is it really that hard to crack pre 2.5 passwords? And what is it that need protection? Are we afraid of people taking quests like lost isle, making small edits and re-releasing it as their own? As if doing such would result in anything but ridicule. A lot of us want to know what needs to be hidden? I bet most people who want to crack open the great quests want to see how it was done not to steal. I know a lot of people are possessive and don't want their work open...

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Let me share with you a story of my own. A while ago, I created an SMW hack called "EVERY LEVEL IGGY!" (excuse the title) People liked it, all was good. Couple of years later, I'm notified that someone created their own hack using mine as a base. I contact them and find out, someone else took my UNLOCKED hack and claimed it as their own, spreading it around places with people who didn't know that this person was a thief. So the previously-mentioned person asked if they could use the hack as a base, and they were told "yes".

So, I understand the desire to keep a password on quests, just to protect all your hard work from theft.

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Originally Posted by Nimono

Let me share with you a story of my own. A while ago, I created an SMW hack called "EVERY LEVEL IGGY!" (excuse the title) People liked it, all was good. Couple of years later, I'm notified that someone created their own hack using mine as a base. I contact them and find out, someone else took my UNLOCKED hack and claimed it as their own, spreading it around places with people who didn't know that this person was a thief. So the previously-mentioned person asked if they could use the hack as a base, and they were told "yes".

So, I understand the desire to keep a password on quests, just to protect all your hard work from theft.

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So someone breathed new life into your Hack and you are upset? In our community it would be very hard to take a quest and claim it as your own. Any one attempting to do it would be ridiculed.

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Originally Posted by SUCCESSOR

So someone breathed new life into your Hack and you are upset? In our community it would be very hard to take a quest and claim it as your own. Any one attempting to do it would be ridiculed.

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They didn't "breathe new life" into my hack at all. They just stole it and claimed it for their own, and someone else came along basically wanting to use the overworld and palettes. There was no new life, no sudden surge of popularity and awareness of it.

And I wasn't saying it only happens in one community. Yes, stealing a quest and calling it your own would be difficult here, if it was released here. Same with SMWC and hacks released there. But how do you know people will not steal a quest, go somewhere else, claim the quest is theirs, and get it incredibly popular while THEY get all the praise and attention, leaving the ACTUAL questmaker with none of that?

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Originally Posted by Nimono

They didn't "breathe new life" into my hack at all. They just stole it and claimed it for their own, and someone else came along basically wanting to use the overworld and palettes. There was no new life, no sudden surge of popularity and awareness of it.

And I wasn't saying it only happens in one community. Yes, stealing a quest and calling it your own would be difficult here, if it was released here. Same with SMWC and hacks released there. But how do you know people will not steal a quest, go somewhere else, claim the quest is theirs, and get it incredibly popular while THEY get all the praise and attention, leaving the ACTUAL questmaker with none of that?

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I wonder if Shigeru Miyamoto or Takashi Tezuka feel that way ;)

Where could they go? ZC leads to AGN. It is set up to continue to do so.

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Originally Posted by Nimono

They didn't "breathe new life" into my hack at all. They just stole it and claimed it for their own, and someone else came along basically wanting to use the overworld and palettes. There was no new life, no sudden surge of popularity and awareness of it.

And I wasn't saying it only happens in one community. Yes, stealing a quest and calling it your own would be difficult here, if it was released here. Same with SMWC and hacks released there. But how do you know people will not steal a quest, go somewhere else, claim the quest is theirs, and get it incredibly popular while THEY get all the praise and attention, leaving the ACTUAL questmaker with none of that?

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This is why we wanted a centralized database. I also wanted to put in the license that all quests could only be uploaded to one location, which would prevent exactly what you are describing.

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Originally Posted by ctrl-alt-delete

This is why we wanted a centralized database. I also wanted to put in the license that all quests could only be uploaded to one location, which would prevent exactly what you are describing.

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I think that is a little strict. Honestly I don't think theft is a problem even if there are more than one or two or five QDBs out there. There will always be a connection and will all lead to here.

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Originally Posted by ctrl-alt-delete

This is why we wanted a centralized database. I also wanted to put in the license that all quests could only be uploaded to one location, which would prevent exactly what you are describing.

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I don't think this would make any difference. Someone willing to "steal" a ZC quest is surely also willing to ignore its license. Encouraging folks to upload their creations however, and otherwise join the community, is an excellent idea.

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Originally Posted by bobby_light

I don't think this would make any difference. Someone willing to "steal" a ZC quest is surely also willing to ignore its license. Encouraging folks to upload their creations however, and otherwise join the community, is an excellent idea.

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Hypothetically, if somebody stole a quest and took it somewhere else and the original creator discovered it, there wouldn't be much they could do to have it removed(because who owns quests is questionable at best). If the license said it couldn't be there, they could easily have it removed by contacting the host.

Obviously, we decided against the one upload place edit in the license, but it may still be a good idea to list certain places. Here, pzc, etc.

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Originally Posted by ctrl-alt-delete

Hypothetically, if somebody stole a quest and took it somewhere else and the original creator discovered it, there wouldn't be much they could do to have it removed(because who owns quests is questionable at best). If the license said it couldn't be there, they could easily have it removed by contacting the host.

Obviously, we decided against the one upload place edit in the license, but it may still be a good idea to list certain places. Here, pzc, etc.

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Of course keep in mind you folks are free to do whatever you want, I'm just feeling a little argumentative tonight :)

Are you saying you folks have considered having the license extend to quests created with ZQ? If someone puts a *quest* on another web site, the license of *ZQuest/ZC* doesn't matter - unless you're saying that the ZC license will include a clause along the lines of "all quests created with this program can only be hosted on the following sites..." Having the license extend to products created with ZQ seems a little overbearing - other tools such as GameMaker (or compilers in general) never restrict what you can do with generated output.

Back on topic - I'd suggest the obvious choice of simply hosting on github. Beats hosting your own repository - you get failover, backups, etc. for free - and people can easily fork the project to contribute. As far as a build farm, I have no first-hand experience; they've always been administered by someone else. But that's always something you can look into later.