"Ask not what the CEP can do for you, but ..."

[Legacy_KlatchainCoffee]

               

Urk wrote...

Kalbearn I read both posts thoroughly. In fact until I read the CEP thread I thought you were just being obtuse. After reading it I realized you were a troll. To be specific, you are what is known as a "Concern Troll".

"Isn't the CEP wonderful? It's too bad the people running it are doing such a terrible job. We should take it away from them!"

Concern troll.

I realize that in more sophisticated circles the concerns I mentioned are rare (now), but my experience is the loudest and most self-certain complainers are usually found among the least sophisticated commenters. Actually the single biggest complaint I've heard over the years about CEP, an amusing illustration of the "yutz" factor, is the download size.

I've already conceded that there are legitimate reports pending on CEP. But it's not your place, or mine, or any else's outside the CEP team, to prioritize zots for repairs. Nor is it reasonable to think that a small team like CEP will be able to address every report.

Your solution, to recruit in the forums like you have at the beginning of this thread, serves only to illustrate your complete lack of project management experience. Project members brought in this way are overwhelmingly of low quality. If they even bother to respond at all to your initial follow-up they usually have far more opinions to offer than skills. Many do not like taking assignments or consider early assignments beneath them. As you have painstgakingly pointed out, and as Barry has conceded, the CEP needs to take a break on the "fun" side of CC and spend some zots debugging. As a rule this work is tedious, and new recruits are not usually thrilled with the prospect of spending their time cleaning up other people's messes. Even if a recruit has the skills to do the work that needs to be done, almost none have the dedication. Those who accept their initial assignments usually don't stay long enough to finish them.  

Projects like the CEP cannot be run this way. Recruiting for a project like this is best done by invitation. Only high initiative volunteers generally have the right stuff for this kind of project, and even they need to be thoroughly vetted. The only thing worse than not having a volunteer to do a project is finding one willing to complete a half-finished one.

But you know what? None of this matters.

What it really  boils down to is that the CEP is someone else's project. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you think you can do better, go for it. But the CEP is simply not yours to usurp.

Having done time on the project management side for a number of projects, much of what you say is unfortunately too true.

It's a difficult balance to keep - on one hand be open and welcoming enough to allow in new blood  and on the other hand have at least some assurance that the said blood would be reliable to any extent. Talking is easy, putting in the (often hard) work to make sure stuff gets done and works properly - less so.

On the other hand, just from looking at this thread the extent of the project stagnation appears to be such that it needs a vocal 'concern troll' to get things moving again. Tho, the fact that stuff can still move means that things aren's as bad as some people would like to paint them.

On yet another hand, if you've good a really good vibe going around a project, people would flock to you yourselves and would be enthusiastic enough to reliably complete 'tedious' chunks of work.

So here's to bug fixes and better vibes.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par KlatchainCoffee, 01 juillet 2012 - 10:52 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               This community here  (I involved and the firestarter for my private war where I today think i was totally messed up) had some serious clashs in the past too and now we move along side by side, not as friends (here i mean only myself) but as members of the CC scene with respect. So it´s possible to work together when everyone lays the past a bit to rest. We show it everyday here!

But the problem remains that a defunctional "COMMUNITY" expansion pack Team that has no intentions to help or support new players on their own DOWNLOAD page or on the company own game website. Yes there are other guys who help and share their experience but it´s the TEAMS job if they are a TEAM. So where is the future I ask you honest where a leader thinks every newb has to register here and there and needs to adventure trough the NWN world so he can stay save in his high castle because we all suck!

p.s. and i will never ever mention the cep again because "i dont want to get banned"
               
               

               

                     Modifié par NWN_baba yaga, 01 juillet 2012 - 01:32 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

oOKyeOo wrote...

The big point im getting is "should we create a group to support the cep" or "should we just drop it and let the cep team take there course by themselves".

More or less that is it. Given that the first choice of the two you lay out has been committed to a number of times over the course of CEP 2's existence only to end in frustration, I've finally spoken up to suggest the later.

But there is more to the second choice than you mention. The community has the choice to attempt to follow in the steps of the CEP 1 team, and come up with a solution for organizing all the content we have available to us.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Good! Now that we have gotten that bit out of the way, we still need a working game plan...



Phaze 1: Merge CEP 2.4, d20 Modern, Project Q, CTP and the PRC. Upload to Torrent Sites.

Phaze 2:

Phaze 3: Profit!!!


               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 01 juillet 2012 - 03:00 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Malagant]

               

Pstemarie wrote...

And now we've degenerated to name calling and mud-slinging. As if that'll be productive...

On a re-read, I hope my "hag" reference wan't taken badly. When I said "the hag", I certainly meant that Baba Yaga is a hag, mythologically speaking. I probably should have refrained from such an easily misinterpreted reference.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_KlatchainCoffee]

               Carcerian, you are opening a can of worms. As far as I know, its makers have decided that no-one else should make profit out of NWN other than itself. If they change their minds, it opens the potential for good and bad in equal measure. Good - people can achieve amazing things when motivated by money. Bad - much of  the spirit of free sharing and creativity for its own sake when custom content creation is concerned might be lost.

Besides, even if you manage to persuade all the various creators to agree to have their content added to one big thing, it would involve a potentially insurmountable mountain of work.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Klatchain, that is a classic joke. I don't know what Carcerian's intentions are, but the conclusion that his intentions are to make money out of NWN is not the first one I would jump to.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               I believe Carcerian is referring to "profit" in a metaphorical sense - i.e. the Community would "profit" from such a compilation.

However, by no means am I offering to be the poor SOB that has to merge all that stuff!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 01 juillet 2012 - 03:41 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <picking flowers...>

Malagant wrote...
On a re-read, I hope my "hag" reference wan't taken badly. When I said "the hag", I certainly meant that Baba Yaga is a hag, mythologically speaking. I probably should have refrained from such an easily misinterpreted reference.

Well, *I* got it :-)

But then, I hugged her, too =)
Listed a nice little magical... er, *something* from her purse. <boss! its hungry again!>
Yikes! Gotta go!

<...thistles & nettles, to be specific>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               It's a joke, from southpark episode "underpant's gnomes" who clearly had not thought out their project plan entirely...

Making money off of CEP would be a HUGE no-no, based on all the artistic copyright infringements in it's portraits alone, nevermind the fact that nearly every DnD creature has been copyrighted/licensed/registered/trademarked at some point.

Aside from servers asking for upkeep donations and Canadian colleges who liked to use it as a teaching tool (and who had special educational/promotional arrangements made with bioware), the only person I have heard of trying to profit from NWN was an admin who tried to sell gold ingame for real $$$ for upkeep, an idea that didn't go over very well with his players.

To me the basic issue is about permission, the CEP Team is Active and not giving it, so oh well...

I still see no reason why ppl can't post independant fixes for CEP like the ones already on the vault '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 03 juillet 2012 - 05:56 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

Carcerian wrote...

I still see no reason why ppl can't post independant fixes for CEP like the ones already on the vault '>

Might not be a bad idea to post a link list to those so that Excimer can check them over and incorporate them, if necessary, into the "official" release.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               

Pstemarie wrote...

Carcerian wrote...

I still see no reason why ppl can't post independant fixes for CEP like the ones already on the vault '>

Might not be a bad idea to post a link list to those so that Excimer can check them over and incorporate them, if necessary, into the "official" release.

Exactly.

Personaly I find the Krit's Spells for CEP Fixes in the "can't live without" catagory, and should to be added to CEP ASAP.

Even the more esoteric ones are nice to have : CEP Dynamic Skeleton Phenotype Palemaster Arm Graft Fix (by yours truly)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 01 juillet 2012 - 04:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <rushing to...>

Pstemarie wrote...
However, by no means am I offering to be the poor SOB that has to merge all that stuff!

Heh.

I still maintain that:

a) 35% of conflict between projects comes from either vague, misunderstood or ignored author's rights
2) 60% of conflict between projects comes from resource collisions (not coordinating/reserving 2DA lines being the biggest chunk)
and
gamma) computers are stoopid. But they are pretty good at tedious tasks they've been taught. "Let George do it"

Re CEP: I try hard to remain neutral, particularly on inflammatory subjects. I love this game and I am constantly amazed at the talent and heart of the people who contribute to it. When the negative stuff comes out, my game, my fun, my creative juices all suffer beneath a pall <too much purple, wizard>
Er, yeah. I don't like it.

My opinion here is biased slightly because I can not use CEP because it appears to contain copyrighted material in violation of a quite aggressive company's EULA (that being Blizzard) and I do not want a cease-and-desist order hitting me down the road. Having said that, I have no opinion about particular team members of CEP. Honestly, I don't even know who they are.

I do not endorse any kind of "takeover" of the CEP (see #a above) and I do not think that was Kalbearn's point.

CEP remains an awesome,herculean project of great utility to a large number of people.
It is abviously active, or there would not be such resistance posted here. So be it. Let them run their project.
It saddens me that there is so much bad blood that they do not post here nor respond (to me) elsewhere.
Their karma.

I do not recognise anyone but the author of content as being able to restrict my use of content they have released *without other restriction* on the Vault. The Vault EULA is pretty clear on author's rights. It is also clear that content submitted is:

A. User Content. By submitting any User Content through or to the Services, including on any User Tools or User Pages, but excluding any User Content you submit on IGN Blogs, you hereby irrevocably grant to IGN, its affiliates and distributors, a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, and fully sub-licensable license, to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, create derivative works from, transfer, transmit and distribute on the Services, in connection with promotion or elsewhere, such User Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate the User Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. 

It is *respect* that prevents the abuse of that little clause.
Think about it.
Please.

I respect absolutely the rights that authors have *retained*. If someone sweats and bleeds and weeps over the creation of something and then says "You may use it, but please don't modify it or re-package it without permission" I will never modify it or repackage it. I may "reverse engineer" it, buying ownership with my own blood, sweat & tears.
But I very much feel that is different.

As I understand the rights CEP is retaining, this thread would be far more profitable pursuing something along the lines of what Henesua's proposing.
In fact, I even proposed a couple names for the project... <no, boss! don't...!>
My favorite is H.O.P.E. <*raven groan*>
Hostility & Oppression Prevention Experiment <*face-wing*>
Or perhaps the CCCI - Custom Content Coordination Initiative?

<...get out of sight>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               *Grins* NWN - The Total Conversion (Replaces every component of NWN with something better/cooler/nicer-looking)

Proposed Contents:

Everything ever made by The Amethyst Dragon (esp interface and reforged project)

Override Critters with higher quality content made by artists such as by Baba, Six, Worm, Radio, Rubies, etc...

Everything possible from custom content challenges.

Hardpoint's Tilesets with Ceilings

Everything else thats better/cooler/nicer-looking or less buggy.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 01 juillet 2012 - 05:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               All jokes aside, I'd think a true community project would have public voting for submissions, major decisions, priorities, etc.

Voting is fun and would give everyone a voice. Nothing Iron-Clad of course, but at least it would give the project manager(s) an idea of what the people want.

Open forums were volenteers, sumbissions, bug reports, suggestions, critisizms are regularly read and objectivly responded to (were even if answers are no, a simple explanation why is given) are also vital.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 01 juillet 2012 - 05:29 .