Really getting tired of Bugs/Nerfs (rant)
By
Amberyl,
Posted on: 2009-05-10 13:09 in Mission Architect
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It would help your case more if you'd stop using "copyright" where you mean "trademark".
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Thanks for mentioning that. My head was about to explode.
For the OP:
An edit and republish will not change your arc ID and stars (only unpublishing will do that). I'd suggest you add something to your arc description as well as the text of your first mission warning people about the balance problems.
I've decided not to touch my own arcs until the nerf/buff cycle settles down and we get something that looks reasonably like equilibrium. I think it's a waste of time in the face of utter dev silence and what I assume is a deliberate attempt to obscure changes in the name of not revealing "exploits". When it all settles down, I'll look at my content and what's left of MA, and decide whether or not it's worthwhile to try to fix it. I'd suggest you'd have lower blood pressure if you resigned yourself to it being entirely broken for balance for a while, and simply flag it as such.
I'm just going to start entering all of my text in binary...actually I did that for the bio of an enemy group that was part of this 'hive mind'. The arc got reported for website advertisment.
I14 = biggest waste of time ever.
Yeah I've already changed the title of the arc but it is such a hack to do that. There should be a mechanism that allows the author to suspend an arc without unpublishing.
I was pointing out that making changes to MA in the patches should be done in a fully documented fashion. After all, we are also a content provider to the players now, badges and tickets are nice but the main reason why we want to publish is for other players to enjoy our work. They can't enjoy our arcs if silent changes are wonking things up.
I still have no clue if the ally autoexemp is an intended change or not, and if that change will be reverted or if it is permanent.
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I'm just going to start entering all of my text in binary...actually I did that for the bio of an enemy group that was part of this 'hive mind'. The arc got reported for website advertisment.
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Wow, that's... stupid.
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I was pointing out that making changes to MA in the patches should be done in a fully documented fashion. After all, we are also a content provider to the players now, badges and tickets are nice but the main reason why we want to publish is for other players to enjoy our work. They can't enjoy our arcs if silent changes are wonking things up.
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Wow, where are all the goof balls claiming it's all in the patch notes? When I complained about the patch notes I had the friends and family network coming out of the woodwork claiming it's all there.
Friends and family where are you?
I'm afraid that problems with changes affecting the playability of the mission are inherent to the whole MA concept. As long as the devs are changing the system, those changes will affect the way our missions play. It happens to their missions all the time, and they know how they use all those resources.
One of the major problems is the devs have to make changes in a matter of hours to terminate exploits or remove missions that cannot be completed because of bad spawn points. So they have to yank a map, or an NPC, or an emote from MA instead of fixing them because they don't have the time to do it "right."
Over time the problems will be less intrusive, but for a while they're going to break a lot of missions with every patch. And it won't be possible for them to document all the possible ways things will break because they don't know how every mission uses the things they're changing.
If they change one NPC by adding or removing a power, there might be 100 missions that will be affected adversely in the minds of the authors. Another 500 authors might not think it's a problem. The only way to avoid it is to stop changing things. But we all want new features and fixes all the time.
Software maintenance is a fact of life. Every time software is changed, someone should run a regression test to make sure that things are still working the way they should be. NCSoft isn't going to run regression tests on our missions, so we're going to have to do that ourselves. Yeah, it sucks. Welcome to software development!
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Software maintenance is a fact of life. Every time software is changed, someone should run a regression test to make sure that things are still working the way they should be. NCSoft isn't going to run regression tests on our missions, so we're going to have to do that ourselves. Yeah, it sucks. Welcome to software development!
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Uhm... what numbers are you running the regression on, exactly? I don't follow the logic on this one.
I do think you need to RUN (as in, play) your missions after changes to make sure they still work, but that's not really a statistical analysis.
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Marvel doesn't own the language, but the way our wonky US tax laws are written, they HAVE to pursue (read: sue over) any possible copyright theft to retain their copyright.
Have.
To.
Or else they risk losing it in a court case later when they really do have grounds to sue.
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This isn't true in the sense you're saying it is. DMCA law will require they remove any content that they receive a DMCA notice regarding, and that they put it back up if a subsequent challenge notice is sent by the person accused of placing the copyrighted materials on their system. The DMCA indemnifies service providers from responsibility for material that is placed on the system by their customers except in the cases mentioned above.
Thus, NCSoft does NOT have to proactively hunt for violations of Marvel's copyrights, but does have to take down arcs that Marvel swears (under what is considered a legally binding oath) is a violation of their copyrights. Its only if they fail to act once they get the notice that they forfeit their indeminification.
As for having to sue to retain copyright - this is simply false. You may be thinking of trademarks, and even then they're not required to hunt down all possible violations in order to retain it. It just gives them the right to prevent you from using things that might violate that trademark - not the obligation to do so.
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US copyright laws need some serious going over, but there's not much hope of that anytime soon on the horizon. In the meantime, the devs do what they gotta do and we have to go along with them because there's no other way to fight city hall on it right now.
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The laws aren't actually that bad - the only real issue is that they can be abused by dishonest people, especially if the victims don't know how to respond to fraudulent copyright claims. If you make a fraudulent DMCA notice, you can, technically, be charged with perjury.. but realistically, that isn't likely to happen. If you give your DMCA notice and I responsd with a challenge to it, then your only recourse is to sue ME - you can't sue the middle man, since they did exactly what is required by law.
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I'm afraid that problems with changes affecting the playability of the mission are inherent to the whole MA concept. As long as the devs are changing the system, those changes will affect the way our missions play. It happens to their missions all the time, and they know how they use all those resources.
One of the major problems is the devs have to make changes in a matter of hours to terminate exploits or remove missions that cannot be completed because of bad spawn points. So they have to yank a map, or an NPC, or an emote from MA instead of fixing them because they don't have the time to do it "right."
Over time the problems will be less intrusive, but for a while they're going to break a lot of missions with every patch. And it won't be possible for them to document all the possible ways things will break because they don't know how every mission uses the things they're changing.
If they change one NPC by adding or removing a power, there might be 100 missions that will be affected adversely in the minds of the authors. Another 500 authors might not think it's a problem. The only way to avoid it is to stop changing things. But we all want new features and fixes all the time.
Software maintenance is a fact of life. Every time software is changed, someone should run a regression test to make sure that things are still working the way they should be. NCSoft isn't going to run regression tests on our missions, so we're going to have to do that ourselves. Yeah, it sucks. Welcome to software development!
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In software development you also make sure you build a list of all the changes being. i don't think anyone is asking for them to check all our misshes.
But when they remove a MAP or change how something works, LIST IT CLEARLY in the patch notes. That way the authors are alerted and can go back and fix their arcs.
I think that's all that's required.
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Marvel doesn't own the language, but the way our wonky US tax laws are written, they HAVE to pursue (read: sue over) any possible copyright theft to retain their copyright.
Have.
To.
Or else they risk losing it in a court case later when they really do have grounds to sue.
[/ QUOTE ]
This isn't true in the sense you're saying it is. DMCA law will require they remove any content that they receive a DMCA notice regarding, and that they put it back up if a subsequent challenge notice is sent by the person accused of placing the copyrighted materials on their system. The DMCA indemnifies service providers from responsibility for material that is placed on the system by their customers except in the cases mentioned above.
Thus, NCSoft does NOT have to proactively hunt for violations of Marvel's copyrights, but does have to take down arcs that Marvel swears (under what is considered a legally binding oath) is a violation of their copyrights. Its only if they fail to act once they get the notice that they forfeit their indeminification.
As for having to sue to retain copyright - this is simply false. You may be thinking of trademarks, and even then they're not required to hunt down all possible violations in order to retain it. It just gives them the right to prevent you from using things that might violate that trademark - not the obligation to do so.
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I don't think I expressed my understanding of how this works clearly enough - I'm saying that Marvel HAS to sue, not that NCSoft (it's Paragon Studies now though, right?) HAS to take something down. It's just the wiser choice for PStudios to take stuff down that might draw a lawsuit, it's avoiding risk. This becomes a self-imposed censorship due to the way the laws work.
And that if Marvel doesn't take action to protect their stuff via lawsuits, then that can be brought up later in another court case and used as defense by those Marvel is now suing. At least I think so, this area is what I'm most hazy on. I indeed might be confusing the copyright with trademark, it's been ages since I seriously looked at any of this stuff. I do know it's a huge tangled mess that lawyers love because it takes so much time to sort out and favors he who has the most cash.
I'm also not suggesting that Marvel HAS to hunt down examples of infringement, but the bigger the act of infringement, the more it behooves them to act on it - again, not because the laws instruct them to like a dictator but because it's a wise choice on their part.
BTW, I have heard of companies having people on the clock to hunt down infringements though, I know of a local bumpersticker co that got hit with a notice of legal torture from Paramount over some Star Trek stuff they were making without permission, and Warner's shutting down a Batman-themed comic zine (with a press runs in the dozens!) that DC shut down when the Tim Burton Batman film came out.
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US copyright laws need some serious going over, but there's not much hope of that anytime soon on the horizon. In the meantime, the devs do what they gotta do and we have to go along with them because there's no other way to fight city hall on it right now.
[/ QUOTE ]
The laws aren't actually that bad - the only real issue is that they can be abused by dishonest people, especially if the victims don't know how to respond to fraudulent copyright claims. If you make a fraudulent DMCA notice, you can, technically, be charged with perjury.. but realistically, that isn't likely to happen. If you give your DMCA notice and I responsd with a challenge to it, then your only recourse is to sue ME - you can't sue the middle man, since they did exactly what is required by law.
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I still feel the laws are terrible for other reasons - and I didn't even know about the one you described there! I could list my reasons, but that'd be getting really off topic here.
And the topic I was addressing was basically "why are the devs being so draconian about the use of words and names, is it because Marvel owns the English language?" I might have a few of my details wrong, but the overall thrust is correct, from my understanding of the issues - if not, please let me know where I got that wrong.
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Software maintenance is a fact of life. Every time software is changed, someone should run a regression test to make sure that things are still working the way they should be. NCSoft isn't going to run regression tests on our missions, so we're going to have to do that ourselves. Yeah, it sucks. Welcome to software development!
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Uhm... what numbers are you running the regression on, exactly? I don't follow the logic on this one.
I do think you need to RUN (as in, play) your missions after changes to make sure they still work, but that's not really a statistical analysis.
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Regression testing is a software engineering technique distinct from regression analysis the statistical technique
It would help your case more if you'd stop using "copyright" where you mean "trademark".
Dec out.
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