It looks like we as a group are having a serious case of personality split. Should we make a quick run through our requirements once again and decide on how important they are?
This is the list of major requirements, as I see them. Please tell me if I miss anything.
NWDO should allow users to communicate in a chat-like interface. All common functions of chat clients should be considered (private chat, channels/rooms, leaving messages for offline users, operator/user separation), and some less important (file transfers, faction-related or custom user icons, mentioned before Vitae (or Rage, or whatever mages will have)/Willpower/Health Levels) could be implemented later if users ask enough.
NWDO should allow users to create and manage characters. Character creation interface should warn user if the character statistics are likely to be rejected by a storyteller, and keep track of unspent points. Same should apply to character improvement.
NWDO server should log all the messages passing through it, to ease storyteller's job of resolving complaints.
NWDO users should be able to file complaints to storytellers.
NWDO storytellers should be able to manage user complaints and feature requests with a Bugzilla-like interface (although possibly less complicated). Storytellers should be able to attach world or storyteller readable notices to user and character records.
NWDO server should be deployable by mere mortals (as opposed to developers). People might want to run their own games and avoid depending on "main" server. A server could optionally register in global "directory of servers".
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
NWDO should allow users to communicate in a chat-like interface. All common functions of chat clients should be considered (private chat, channels/rooms, leaving messages for offline users, operator/user separation), and some less important (file transfers, faction-related or custom user icons, mentioned before Vitae (or Rage, or whatever mages will have)/Willpower/Health Levels) could be implemented later if users ask enough.
good
NWDO should allow users to create and manage characters. Character creation interface should warn user if the character statistics are likely to be rejected by a storyteller, and keep track of unspent points. Same should apply to character improvement.
good
NWDO server should log all the messages passing through it, to ease storyteller's job of resolving complaints.
good
NWDO users should be able to file complaints to storytellers.
good
NWDO storytellers should be able to manage user complaints and feature requests with a Bugzilla-like interface (although possibly less complicated). Storytellers should be able to attach world or storyteller readable notices to user and character records.
might be too complex. I was thinking about implementing a messaging emailbox system. We definately need something though to communicate problems.
NWDO server should be deployable by mere mortals (as opposed to developers). People might want to run their own games and avoid depending on "main" server. A server could optionally register in global "directory of servers".
I really don't think we should consider this a public application. First, because of legal reasons. Second, I don't think most mere mortals have the knowhow to run server and xml web services.
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First of all, let me add another requirement for consideration:
Both server and client part should be cross-platform and work on major operating systems (At least WinNT, recent point releases of Mac OS X, and Linux).
> might be too complex. I was thinking about implementing a messaging emailbox system. We definately need something though to communicate problems.
A messagebox system is possible, but it might be too limited. Keeping track of who is responsible for issue A, what issues ST Joe has to resolve, and other things like that are going to take a fair bit more time.
> I really don't think we should consider this a public application. First, because of legal reasons. Second, I don't think most mere mortals have the knowhow to run server and xml web services.
Legal reasons? What legal reasons? Could you elaborate more on that? What legal hot waters are we getting into?
As for running a server, we could supply a "canned" and set up server package, which just has to be installed.
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legal reasons, as in spreading around white wolf copyrighted material under a GNU liscence. Conrad already told us we should be careful with doing that. We can't distribute anything under GNU that belongs to White Wolf.
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And why do we need to replicate copyrighted WW material? We are not going to copy rules letter by letter. Would it be fine if we "rephrase" some rules, using the idea but not using the flavour text?
Example: WW rules say that someone with a certain number of health levels has a penalty of X. What we could do is make the penalty apply automatically on every roll (and leave a button to turn it off somewhere). Then, all we are taking is an idea of the rule, rather then the copyrighted text of it, and I don't think copyright should cause us problems with that. It seems to be similar to copying someone's words vs. rephrasing them - you can rephrase all you want and have no trouble with law.
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These were some of the legal points that Conrad pointed out to me.
Restrictions: Legally Apply to ALL Sites
You may NOT repost our downloadable files on your site. This includes, but is not limited to, character sheets, graphics, FAQs or online free products, other than those found within the Dark Spiral resources. All of these items are copyright White Wolf and the ability to use them for "personal nonprofit use only" does not imply any permission to distribute them in any form.
Fees Or Charges
The site in question must be non-profit and non-revenue generating. You may not sell time, space, advertising, services, products or solicit money or goods in any way through your site.
Text
You must list our copyright on your homepage.
1990-2003 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
You may list a personal copyright for your characters or graphics you have created for your site, but keep in mind anything that is derivative from our works is still owned by us. Two simple examples: If you make a character from clan Gangrel, that is not your character and could never be used without our permission. If you make a logo that has a clan symbol as a portion of it, you could never publish that piece of art without our permission. Even without this copyright on your homepage, that law still applies, so make it easy on both of us and post it :-)
You must have a link to our homepage displayed prominently on your homepage - http://www.white-wolf.com
Any text used must cite the Book taken from and the page number. You cannot use more that 1500 words or 3 pieces of art taken from any single book. In no case may you quote more than 10,000 words total taken from any White Wolf Products.
You cannot have character generation rules listed on your site or complete power listings (even if they are your own modifications). You can however list any changes to the rules For example: On our site we allow 50 extra freebie points.
As a side note, use your brain here! You cannot repost entire books or enough information to run games. A note to people who think they are making up their own rules, if you use terms like Disciplines, Gifts, Rotes, Willpower, Humanity or list every discipline from a rule book with minor changes (or even major ones), those are not "your" rules, they are ours, don't use them.
Feel free to post any work of your own creation like new clans or tribes, new powers or disciplines, new bloodlines or whatever. That is your information and you own it, but be aware, stories created within our universe cannot be published anywhere for sale. If you write a story about a Toreador battling a Silent Strider, you could not publish that for sale without our permission.
Artwork
No more than three pieces of art may be taken from any book.
All graphic elements (Clan/Tribe/Tradition/Arcanos/Kith Logos, etc.) that may be used are found here. You may use these icons as is, or adjust them for color, texture and size to meet your needs. You may not change the basic shape or proportions of those icons.
You may not use other graphics taken from the White Wolf Web Site. This includes our animated symbols! All online graphic elements must be designed and created by you for your own site. We will be working hard to create our own look and would not like to see it duplicated.
White Wolf, Inc. reserves the right to withdraw these usage rights at any time with no prior notification.
Downloads
Downloads from our site are for personal use only. You are not given any permission to repost or propagate the downloads found on our site. If you wish to be helpful, then direct others to the downloads by linking to the appropriate pages. Many downloads can be found at http://www.white-wolf.com/download but many sections of our site offer even more. If you think the download is useful, then respect the wishes of those who created it and link people to it rather than stealing it. Downloads found anywhere on the internet which use our copyrights or trademarks are still considered derivative of our work and therefore fall under our copyrights, as per international copyright law.
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We are either legal (and can use and redistribute the server part), or not (and can neither use nor distribute it). I can't see how can we break their agreement by redistributing the legal-to-operate server.
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that completely depends on what we are distributing, if we are distributing an application which contain rules, white wolf pictures, or anything else thats legally copyrighted by white wolf... it is illegal. if we are distributing something that is nothing more than a text MIRC-like program, then it is legal. In any case, I think distributing a server is out of the question. I'm more concerned about getting something solid up that is easy for us to run and manage before we even begin to consider distrubuting this to others.
"above the earth, beneath the sky"
- Daedius
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Well, maybe keeping rules, art and such in a different private class library would work it out? We don't distribute that library, so we are only giving away the server component, and the rules are safely stored in our server away from the looks of users.
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Pictures? Their clan logos and stuff like that seems lousy in quality. We can get away without redistributing pictures.
Rules? That is more tricky. Can we distribute a piece of software that implements the rule (rather then including it as text)? I have completely no idea about whether we can do that.
Splitting stuff into libraries could work. If WW sends us a legal nastygram, we could drop the WoD ruleset and write a D&D one ;)
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It looks like we as a group are having a serious case of personality split. Should we make a quick run through our requirements once again and decide on how important they are?
This is the list of major requirements, as I see them. Please tell me if I miss anything.
NWDO should allow users to communicate in a chat-like interface. All common functions of chat clients should be considered (private chat, channels/rooms, leaving messages for offline users, operator/user separation), and some less important (file transfers, faction-related or custom user icons, mentioned before Vitae (or Rage, or whatever mages will have)/Willpower/Health Levels) could be implemented later if users ask enough.
NWDO should allow users to create and manage characters. Character creation interface should warn user if the character statistics are likely to be rejected by a storyteller, and keep track of unspent points. Same should apply to character improvement.
NWDO server should log all the messages passing through it, to ease storyteller's job of resolving complaints.
NWDO users should be able to file complaints to storytellers.
NWDO storytellers should be able to manage user complaints and feature requests with a Bugzilla-like interface (although possibly less complicated). Storytellers should be able to attach world or storyteller readable notices to user and character records.
NWDO server should be deployable by mere mortals (as opposed to developers). People might want to run their own games and avoid depending on "main" server. A server could optionally register in global "directory of servers".
I'm not sure these are ALL of the requirements.. here are my thoughts.
Also, there a powerpoint at http://china.daedius.com/atrum.ppt
NWDO should allow users to communicate in a chat-like interface. All common functions of chat clients should be considered (private chat, channels/rooms, leaving messages for offline users, operator/user separation), and some less important (file transfers, faction-related or custom user icons, mentioned before Vitae (or Rage, or whatever mages will have)/Willpower/Health Levels) could be implemented later if users ask enough.
good
NWDO should allow users to create and manage characters. Character creation interface should warn user if the character statistics are likely to be rejected by a storyteller, and keep track of unspent points. Same should apply to character improvement.
good
NWDO server should log all the messages passing through it, to ease storyteller's job of resolving complaints.
good
NWDO users should be able to file complaints to storytellers.
good
NWDO storytellers should be able to manage user complaints and feature requests with a Bugzilla-like interface (although possibly less complicated). Storytellers should be able to attach world or storyteller readable notices to user and character records.
might be too complex. I was thinking about implementing a messaging emailbox system. We definately need something though to communicate problems.
NWDO server should be deployable by mere mortals (as opposed to developers). People might want to run their own games and avoid depending on "main" server. A server could optionally register in global "directory of servers".
I really don't think we should consider this a public application. First, because of legal reasons. Second, I don't think most mere mortals have the knowhow to run server and xml web services.
First of all, let me add another requirement for consideration:
Both server and client part should be cross-platform and work on major operating systems (At least WinNT, recent point releases of Mac OS X, and Linux).
> might be too complex. I was thinking about implementing a messaging emailbox system. We definately need something though to communicate problems.
A messagebox system is possible, but it might be too limited. Keeping track of who is responsible for issue A, what issues ST Joe has to resolve, and other things like that are going to take a fair bit more time.
> I really don't think we should consider this a public application. First, because of legal reasons. Second, I don't think most mere mortals have the knowhow to run server and xml web services.
Legal reasons? What legal reasons? Could you elaborate more on that? What legal hot waters are we getting into?
As for running a server, we could supply a "canned" and set up server package, which just has to be installed.
legal reasons, as in spreading around white wolf copyrighted material under a GNU liscence. Conrad already told us we should be careful with doing that. We can't distribute anything under GNU that belongs to White Wolf.
And why do we need to replicate copyrighted WW material? We are not going to copy rules letter by letter. Would it be fine if we "rephrase" some rules, using the idea but not using the flavour text?
Example: WW rules say that someone with a certain number of health levels has a penalty of X. What we could do is make the penalty apply automatically on every roll (and leave a button to turn it off somewhere). Then, all we are taking is an idea of the rule, rather then the copyrighted text of it, and I don't think copyright should cause us problems with that. It seems to be similar to copying someone's words vs. rephrasing them - you can rephrase all you want and have no trouble with law.
These were some of the legal points that Conrad pointed out to me.
Restrictions: Legally Apply to ALL Sites
You may NOT repost our downloadable files on your site. This includes, but is not limited to, character sheets, graphics, FAQs or online free products, other than those found within the Dark Spiral resources. All of these items are copyright White Wolf and the ability to use them for "personal nonprofit use only" does not imply any permission to distribute them in any form.
Fees Or Charges
The site in question must be non-profit and non-revenue generating. You may not sell time, space, advertising, services, products or solicit money or goods in any way through your site.
Text
You must list our copyright on your homepage.
1990-2003 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
You may list a personal copyright for your characters or graphics you have created for your site, but keep in mind anything that is derivative from our works is still owned by us. Two simple examples: If you make a character from clan Gangrel, that is not your character and could never be used without our permission. If you make a logo that has a clan symbol as a portion of it, you could never publish that piece of art without our permission. Even without this copyright on your homepage, that law still applies, so make it easy on both of us and post it :-)
You must have a link to our homepage displayed prominently on your homepage - http://www.white-wolf.com
Any text used must cite the Book taken from and the page number. You cannot use more that 1500 words or 3 pieces of art taken from any single book. In no case may you quote more than 10,000 words total taken from any White Wolf Products.
You cannot have character generation rules listed on your site or complete power listings (even if they are your own modifications). You can however list any changes to the rules For example: On our site we allow 50 extra freebie points.
You may not repost our downloads on your site. Example: Characters Sheets. If you want to help other fans find one of our resources, then link to it. Example: http://www.white-wolf.com/Download/Pages/Charactersheets.html
As a side note, use your brain here! You cannot repost entire books or enough information to run games. A note to people who think they are making up their own rules, if you use terms like Disciplines, Gifts, Rotes, Willpower, Humanity or list every discipline from a rule book with minor changes (or even major ones), those are not "your" rules, they are ours, don't use them.
Feel free to post any work of your own creation like new clans or tribes, new powers or disciplines, new bloodlines or whatever. That is your information and you own it, but be aware, stories created within our universe cannot be published anywhere for sale. If you write a story about a Toreador battling a Silent Strider, you could not publish that for sale without our permission.
Artwork
No more than three pieces of art may be taken from any book.
All graphic elements (Clan/Tribe/Tradition/Arcanos/Kith Logos, etc.) that may be used are found here. You may use these icons as is, or adjust them for color, texture and size to meet your needs. You may not change the basic shape or proportions of those icons.
You may not use other graphics taken from the White Wolf Web Site. This includes our animated symbols! All online graphic elements must be designed and created by you for your own site. We will be working hard to create our own look and would not like to see it duplicated.
White Wolf, Inc. reserves the right to withdraw these usage rights at any time with no prior notification.
Downloads
Downloads from our site are for personal use only. You are not given any permission to repost or propagate the downloads found on our site. If you wish to be helpful, then direct others to the downloads by linking to the appropriate pages. Many downloads can be found at http://www.white-wolf.com/download but many sections of our site offer even more. If you think the download is useful, then respect the wishes of those who created it and link people to it rather than stealing it. Downloads found anywhere on the internet which use our copyrights or trademarks are still considered derivative of our work and therefore fall under our copyrights, as per international copyright law.
We are either legal (and can use and redistribute the server part), or not (and can neither use nor distribute it). I can't see how can we break their agreement by redistributing the legal-to-operate server.
that completely depends on what we are distributing, if we are distributing an application which contain rules, white wolf pictures, or anything else thats legally copyrighted by white wolf... it is illegal. if we are distributing something that is nothing more than a text MIRC-like program, then it is legal. In any case, I think distributing a server is out of the question. I'm more concerned about getting something solid up that is easy for us to run and manage before we even begin to consider distrubuting this to others.
"above the earth, beneath the sky"
- Daedius
Well, maybe keeping rules, art and such in a different private class library would work it out? We don't distribute that library, so we are only giving away the server component, and the rules are safely stored in our server away from the looks of users.
Pictures? Their clan logos and stuff like that seems lousy in quality. We can get away without redistributing pictures.
Rules? That is more tricky. Can we distribute a piece of software that implements the rule (rather then including it as text)? I have completely no idea about whether we can do that.
Splitting stuff into libraries could work. If WW sends us a legal nastygram, we could drop the WoD ruleset and write a D&D one ;)