UPDATED 14/06/18 - *** Rules for User Made Mods and Edits of PDS games ***

[Meneth]

This is also another problem your "rules" make : 9) You may not solicit directly or indirectly donation in any form.
What about Youtube LetsPlay´s with with Mods ?
You sure know that there are some very popular Letsplayers make some good Money just with monetization of the Mods Letsplays.

Makes no sense to say "not allowed" for simple and very very low money making adf.ly links , but on the other hand Paradox themself promote Youtube Letsplays (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ersalis-IV-MP-with-Northernlion-Mathas-Arumba!) ... that a bit strange imo :wacko:
With promotions like this you somehow gives those YT Letsplayers indirect Money ... :ninja:

Do note that YouTubers have explicit permission from Paradox to monetize their content. It isn't an accident or oversight in any way. Similarly, I've got permission to monetize my wikis and license the content not owned by Paradox under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Though of course, that YouTubers (and to some extent, my wikis, but my costs are far higher than modders' or YouTubers') can earn money and modders can't is a bit strange.

 

[Castellon]

Would there be an issue if I was to import the EU: Rome OST to use in my CK2 mod, Project Augustus: - A Roman Realism Mod?

There's no way I could limit the mod to people who have bought EU: Rome, but I could put down LoR as a requirement (It's already needed to access my mods content).

Nope unfortunately this would not be allowed.

 

[Castellon]

Can we know more about this ?

No Sorry, technically I was probably not even supposed to say that much.

 

[Castellon]

Some of these rules would apply to third party games as well, basically it goes by studio, so some are Rules from PI and some from the Studio that released the game.

 

[Castellon]

Hi, I am confused about steam workshop.
1. Do these rules also apply to mods in workshop?
2. Can I have a mod that is only on Steam workshop and solicit donations there?
3. Can I have a mod here and on Steam workshop and solicit donations only in workshop?

Yes
No
No

 

[Castellon]

There were several, but the other reason is we want the conversation here, why splinter the group, we are about inclusive rather than exclusive or cliques.
If User mods grow so big they need more than a few threads we generally make a sub forum for them here.
I understand that the devs of a mod may want a private place to talk and plan among themselves, and the rules allow for them to have a private forum for that purpose that is not open to the general members here.
They could also use a private invite only group on this site to take care of those discussions as well.

Additionally the new forum will eventually offer more options as well.

 

[Castellon]

Sounds good. Also i find that a lot of mods would benefit from subforums.

Ya it is a balancing act, it appeared for a while that the best way to kill a mod was to give it a sub forum.
Not 100% sure why, although I have a few ideas.

 

[Castellon]

There are procedures in place for obtaining a sub forum, just follow those.

 

[Castellon]

A general reminder that discussion of piracy, or methods including torrents is not allowed on this board.

 

[Meneth]

-Having wikis (I think that some wikis support discussion features)

If I remember correctly, the MEIOU&Taxes team were allowed to have a wiki as long as they didn't link to their download on it (since that'd break rule #10) .

And of course, my wikis have been allowed (though they're unrelated to any specific mod).

 

[Castellon]

I have a question regarding interaction with general public. To what extent does the ban on public forums extends to other interactive web formats? Can we still do any of these under the rules, or are they too forum-like? (asuming that no download link is provided in any of those)

-Having a page for the mod on facebook or any other social media, where the modder can interact (e.g. exchange comments) with the general public.
-Having a web or blog with a section where general public can leave comments, to which the modder can answer.
-Having wikis (I think that some wikis support discussion features)
-Having public steam groups (steam groups have "discussions" that can work like forum threads).

I think that in the discussion about publicity and media coverage the point of interaction between modder and (potential) CK2 and mod end user has not been duely covered.

Hi thanks for the question,
Wiki is usually about providing information on how to use the mod, that would be fine, I think the deal I made with the mods that wanted wikis was just to not allow discussions.
Since we allow you to post the mod on the steam workshop and those pages themselves allow comments, I do not see the steam group as being all that different, although obviously we would prefer you created your group here.
Web pages that do not allow comments are allowed.
Social media, yes I think it would not be fair to not allow you to use that
As we grow bigger, we are looking at some of these older rules and discussing if we still need them or they can start to be relaxed, at least for those based around User mods.

 

[Castellon]

I always thought posting direct download links on the steam workshop page was against the rules but reading a bit of this thread has me confused.

Can someone confirm for me this is not allowed?

You can post a link to your thread or forum here and have the direct link here.

 

[Castellon]

The instructions I get from PDS is that they do not allow any assets from one IP to be used in a mod for another IP without taking reasonable steps to ensure the user owns the IP from which the assets are being taken.
So that includes headgear or parts of images/assets ...

 

[Castellon]

Not sure I understand your comment, but it is not our responsibility to enforce other peoples IP or to know if people have permission to use it. We would act on any complaints from an IP holder, to my knowledge we have not received any in this case.

 

[Castellon]

You seam to assume we are omniscient, thank-you for that, but we do not know who holds copyright on what, or who has permission to use what. How could we possibly.
Do you know who wrote the song and maybe the same person who gave permission to the TW Devs gave permission to the user, or maybe the song is PD, or maybe the user is the original author of the song and the one that licensed it to CA in the first place. I don't know, could you swear to any of those things?

We know what our IP is and seek to protect that, if other IP holders inform us of breaches we would act to assist them, but we cannot act out of assumptions.

Our rules state that one of the above cases must be true, until and unless we receive official word from a copyright holder to the contrary we will give our members the benefit of the doubt that they are not breaking our rules.

 

[Castellon]

Hi Guys this is not the New forum discussion thread, that will come.

 

[Castellon]

Does Paradox have any problem with editing their original fonts? I mean adding new letters for e. g. polish version of the game?

Not 100% sure I fully understand what you mean, but if you are asking if you can put out a localization mod, or a mod that changes the font, as long as you do not distribute the main executable file, I cannot see an issue with it.

 

[Meneth]

Not 100% sure I fully understand what you mean, but if you are asking if you can put out a localization mod, or a mod that changes the font, as long as you do not distribute the main executable file, I cannot see an issue with it.

He means extending one or more of the fonts in the game, which would necessitate redistributing the relevant font file(s) with his modifications.

 

[Castellon]

I have two questions, the first if quite simple, but the second is quite complex to pose:

1) why are you against websites (or blogs, for that matters) that allow comments? And why do you consider that social media, which have a far greater deal of interactivity, would be unfair to rule out, though?

2) what content does count as a DLC IP? Does that includes the moddable content included in the patch, or only those that a non-buyer wluldn't have in his computer, i.e. The zip files in the dlc format?
More precisely, does the code and localisation for events wich are freely distributed with the patch but with a softcoded restriction to a dlc material part od the dlc ip or the main game ip?

I ask because there are several features (e.g. Looting in CK2) that can be scritped for modding content, but in vanilla only appear under DLC-locked religion. As the code line is aviable in the patch, this is usually considered patch material and not dlc material, and thus fair to modify and distribute regardless of the DLC.

BUT if that reasoning holds, then e.g. All the events that are supposed to only appear in-game if you have q DLC can be modded in only by modifyinv the text files provided in the free patch. Does that mean that e.g. The only content of the dlc are graphics and such that are only included in the dlc files? Otherwise, the borders is unclear and demands further clarification, I think.

Also, some DLCs include e.g. .gfx (text) files that can be reverse-engineered to e.g. Mix and match content from different dlcs without actually theoretically distributing the files in the DLC. BUT how can you distinguish wether a txt (or a graphic for that matter! has been so reverse-ingeneered and when has been simply extracted and modified directly from the DLC zip and thus breaking the rule?

Thanks

1) More than a dozen years Experience.
2) Public Items in a public patch are available to anyone owning the game, thus become part of that game and IP of that game. So you only need to ensure they have the base game and not the corresponding DLC. Hidden Items not normally available in game that happen to be distributed with the patch for technical or other reasons, are not considered part of the base game rather the DLC that would be needed to view those items in game.

Hope that helps and makes things clear.

 

[Castellon]

Are there any IP's that Paradox has freed into the public domain; for example, EU1, or other "old" games?

No, sadly with digital distribution that has mostly become a thing of the past with most companies.
We did open the source code to some of our IP for Modders to have a crack at and develop their own games in conjunction with us. This had mixed success though.
Examples of ones that got released being: For the Glory, Darkest Hour, Arsenal of Democracy ...