Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Hmmm...

Considering Kristoffer's notion of not wanting to work on ideas that others have also had, this seems somewhat of a handicap, both for him and for the modders, ourselves, since the more ideas we have, and the more mods we create, the less "official"--and therefore, in many ways more desireable, material we might end up with, sometime in the future.

Is there a good way to create mods without his knowledge?

Or a better solution to this problem?
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Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

nope

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

There are other forums and newsgroups. You can always work on it there.
And offering it online doesnt always gaurantee that KO will look at it so you can get away with that also.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Seriously not something I'd ever worry about. Particularly given I am dead set on warhammer mods.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Well, this is much more of an issue when one is developing mods based directly on history and mythology. I wouldn't expect Illwinter itself to ever make a mod based on another company's product. Ultimately, however, most-if not all-of the mod Nations are going to be based on *something* historical or mythological, including Warhammer, however many places removed it may be.

Amos has perhaps achieved the most creative and original mods available, but even he's got some based on books, comic books, role-playing game Nations, etc.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

I think thats what he is saying.
Its a non-issure if you safely keep to territory that Illwinter will never trod.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

The problem with that is that keeping away from any and all historically-based material is a little too encompassing to be of any value.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

I guess the issue is that there's no way for us to know what Kristoffer has in mind for the future, unless he specifically mentions something, but if we start working on something that he wants to do, it then causes him to not want to continue working on it, so we lose out on material that we might otherwise get.

I've talked with Kristoffer about this before, and he's stated that he's got lots of different things to work on, and we should just do whatever we want and he can always change his focus to something else, which is a great answer, but it seems a little inefficient of his time, when he's basically the *only* person making official in-game Nations.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Well if he wanted to then he could always give us a heads-up list and we would know what to avoid.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

I'm hoping that he'll consider that, yes. I certainly don't mind altering my own foci to areas that Kristoffer isn't interested in. As a modder, I have the option to alter the base game to suit my own sensibilities, but I can't alter something that never comes into being.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

You could, HoneyBadger, not create threads on your mods until they're reasonably close to being done. That's what most people do, or at least don't have more than 1 or 2 work-in-progress threads.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Well, I actually have a very good reason for that: This computer, being a secure work computer, is reimaged on a regular basis, which means that anything I have stored on it goes bye-bye, at times with very little heads-up notice. And I have lost a lot of information, because of that, already. So it's not that I *want* to post the entire development process for each and every mod, it's just the best way I have to secure the information so that it isn't irretrievably lost. A side effect (and I'm not sure how well it's appreciated, but it's there) is that it gives people regular and accurate updates on where I'm at, in the creation process.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

You can't email, print, diskdrive, cd or dvd burn, upload or otherwise store it?

I find that sort of hard to believe. Not that I have a problem with you making lots of threads about what you're working on - it definitely doesn't mesh with your concerns in this thread though.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

I don't have a cd, dvd, or floppy drive on this computer. No printer, either. It's all in the cause of security. I could email it, but I find that less than satisfactory, and emails tend to get lost too, especially since all I have is AOL. Objectively, it's a fairly sucky situation, overall. The only real upside is the high speed internet access, that I didn't have before, but I have to pay for that myself.

It's a whole lot better than nothing, though, and the computer itself was free with the job (and I love my job), so I can hardly complain :)

As far as it meshing with the rest of the post, I was just replying to llamabeast's suggestion.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

While Kristoffer has his preferences, I'm hoping it may not necessarily translate into "strictly avoiding entirely working on any ideas already expressed." Historical, mythological and fictional resources can be expressed into Dominions 3 in many different ways. It is also valid to express ideas that happen to be parallel or convergent to another's work and independently come up with a similar or even identical product. (I believe these principles should apply even in a legal setting?)

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

And no usb slot for a 10 dollar pendrive?

The title of this thread is keeping KO in the dark. I think llama raised a good point about you putting all your ideas up in these forums. I can't really reconcile making those threads and making this one. I guess I just don't understand your hardware limitations though.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Another solution could be to get a free online email account such as msn/yahoo/gmail/etc.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

There are ways around it, yes, unsatisfactory though they may be (and 10 dollars is actually a lot of money for me, right at the moment. I've got exactly $9.75 in free spending money that has to last atleast until Christmas-provided ofcourse, that I would even be allowed to use a pendrive on this computer. I'm severely limited by major security perogatives, and there's very little I can do, or would want to do, to get around them. The computer hardware itself isn't that bad, it's just that it can only be used in certain severely prescribed ways.) but really, I'm most bothered by the paradox: I want to post my work on the forums, I want people to see it, and I want creative freedom, but I also want more Nations from Kristoffer, and by posting my own ideas, that seems to cause Kristoffer to limit himself.

And ofcourse, multiply "I" by everyone here.

The question is, is there a solution that satisfies both the consumer who wants to produce, and the producer who wants to produce entirely original work?

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Google documents might be an excellent option for you, Honey Badger. It's free, and you can write and keep word-style documents online.

I must admit I think that would be somewhat preferable. I think people find the planning threads hard to read, and I think the forum gets most value from mods which have reached the stage of having some graphics/code made for them. Hence, until they reach that stage, I wonder if the disadvantages of having the mods outlined on here (Kristoffer-blocking, confusion of new people who can't find the completed mods amongst all the drafts, and general forum-filling) might outweigh the benefits.

You can sign up (for free) to Google Docs at docs.google.com. It really is an amazing service.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

I can always set you up HB. Do you know Linux (not mandatory, just helpful)

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

You can also write your ideas with a good old pen-and-paper. I know it seems quite prehistoric, but I heard some bushmen still use it, and that it really works. :)

For my part I use this method to write my RPG scenarios, but I'm french (=backward redneck), and we're still waiting for the first Ford T to arrive to our country.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

(Warning, I'm writing this while sleep deprived and having taken a StillNox... I am now in a consciousness-impaired state :p).

Well... I for one found HoneyBadger's planning posts very enjoyable. I don't believe in "idea squatting". 'Uncopyrightable' ideas from fiction/non-fiction should be a shared resource for everyone. 'Copyrightable' ideas can be presented for peer-review, and may even enrich competitive ideas. Even ideas that don't eventuate into a mod are valuable in my opinion. So I say, HoneyBadger, thanks for sharing in this forum, and the more the merrier! (If there's issues about newbies becoming confused, there should be other ways of overcoming that.)

Yeah, I dream of a community where research resources are shared, where mods and ideas come with references, whether to a book *cough* *Osprey*, or an author's explanation of how a fictional unit was created, eg:

- These vampiric knights are loosely interpreted from the historical Vlad II, Vlad III, and the Order of the Dragon.

- I watched the movie 'Lone Wolf and Cub' and have abdapted its fictional 'Kogi Kaishakunin' into my mod as sort of the Shogun's Champion.

- Cretan archers were famous in their era of warfare as exceptional archers, but ('for conceptual portability/invariancy') I have renamed them "Makrophetes" (Anglicised Greek = long bows) because the use long bows, unlike other Greeks.

And if the terms you're talking about cannot be found on Google/Wikipedia/Wikidictionary if would be great if something were provided so that one could read further, which might even lead to new interpretations.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Heehee. Most of my posts are planning posts. And I specifically say (often) that I am thrilled if someone takes it from me and creates it. Im big on ideas but its only interesting to me until I prove that it will work. Then I never seem to finish it and upload it. Im really not big on the maintenance thing that such items require.

Some of the best items in the game (IMHO) came about that way. Mega games, SemiRand, automatic servers, map editors, etc.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

The last time I dabbled in these arcane and cryptic arts, I got Horror Marked. True story, it's a *****.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Thanks for the support, everyone. I don't have any negative issues about this at all, it's just a confounding dilemma.

Gandalf, I'm afraid I don't know Linux. Do you remember BASIC? I know a little BASIC...One time I wrote this awesome program that made this little yellow ball bounce across a screen. Other than the competitive game element, it was almost as good as Pong-and unlike Pong, my program had color!
well, it had one color :) Yeah...I miss BASIC.

My problem is that I have a whole lot of time to research new ideas for Nations, but not that much time to actually complete them, since I work on the phones all day, and can read online, but can't do actual work very well, so it's easy for me to develope Nation ideas, but not so much to do graphics or .DM coding, so that's why I do all the planning posts.

And if anyone here ever wants to create a Nation, but they don't know what they want to make, please let me know! I've got tons of ideas, good ones, I think, that I'll probably never, ever find time to complete myself.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Yeah I remember Basic.
I still use it. Writing system tools on my servers, CGI's for my web pages, programs for modifying files in Dominions 3. The SemiRand program is in Basic if I remember right.

A knowledge of Basic, and DOS, is a great tutorial for the linux system. You would find yourself at home (and empowered) by its text mode.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

only 9.75 till X-mas.. that sounds ... weird for someone with a job

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Someone with a job, a wife, a mortgage, a family to buy presents for, a healthy appetite, and current gas prices...yeah, it's actually not that weird ;)

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

The whole situation seems weird to me.

But what do I know.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

It's a little weird, but it's for security (and since 9-11, security in this country *has* gotten weird).

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

By the way, Sombre, did you happen to get the private message I sent?
For some reason, it's not listing it under Sent Items...

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Wow, do you work in a top secret underground bunker? This just sounds like bad news for you. I really am not being sarcastic.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

I guess obviously HB has a very rigorous budgeting system. Having money for christmas presents etc and spending money separated, to the extent that he knows he has $9.75 of spending money, is... impressive. And unimaginable to me, but quite possibly that is just HB being very good with money.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

No, that's me digging through my loose change jar this weekend, and adding up all the coins :)

And I work for an airline, so the security is about the same.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

If you want to keep sent items, you have to tick a box before you send it, you'll find this box on the page you prepare your PMs.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Yep. I'm pretty useless at replying to pms.

In short: Yes you can use the tharoon sprites and the contents of the .dm for whatever, just make sure no-one associates me with the mod, asking me to change things etc.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Thanks! I won't be copying them, just basing units off of them, and the vanilla Naga sprites already in the game, and I'll give you credit for inspiration too, unless you'd rather I didn't?--I'll make it clear that it's my mod, though, and that people go to me, rather than you, for any problems.

As far as the aurochs sprites, are they originals, or based on the two Pretender bulls in the game?

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Oh yeah the Aurochs. Those were originals. I think I used some random googled image to clue me in on what aurochs look like and I may or may not have used it as a base for shape/colours/tone.

I'll upload them again.

Re: Keeping Kristoffer in the dark.
 

Thanks, Sombre :)