Wednesday 15 October 2014

Проблеск света в пучине недопонимания / Glimpse of light in the abyss of misunderstanding
 

Hello everybody, I am BlackJack, Cat's Paw's mod editor. Let's begin with the fact that I have joined the team a little bit later that it has been formed, somewhat in July, and realized that there were several things that should be altered. First of all - the organizational issues, second - our policy towards 4LS, and third - how we position our mod. The inner structure of our team is our own business, but the second and third points are to be discussed below. This post is also good for rejuvenation of this blog 'cause we've been silent for too long.

How does the idea of fan mod (that is exactly how we position it, surely not as the official expansion, by all means) creation gets born? Several people complete the game and get immersed into it by it's atmosphere, deep characters, qualitative script and the amount of overall work. And they share the same thought: "What if one tried to breathe a new spark into the game? I see a nice fan's idea over there, so why not implement it?" That is how these kind of mods begin their way. I agree that at first the team had begun their work without looking back at any restrictions or licenses. We felt at ease, probably too much, and have allowed ourselves statements that 4ls and those supporting them did not like very much. We were extremely surprised that devs were all against our mod and we got the feeling that there's a deep misunderstanding among foreign Katawa Shoujo fans and devs about what we do. The list of facts below can probably lighten the mood and reduce misunderstanding.


  1. We are not changing character’s natures;
  2. We’re not rewriting 4ls’s texts, we are integrating the events before or after some certain scenes, and we’re trying to do that as organically as possible, so that player could continue the game and complete any other route without moving to new character’s routes. We’re avoiding discrepancies within the plot;
  3. We’re not changing any lore behind any character, except for Hisao, who gets some new facts about his life, but that is vital for the plot;
  4. We’re not repainting original sprites and we’re not changing original music.;
  5. We’re not modifying the game, and the modification will not be distributed in a form of a complete and assembled game like “Katawa_Shoujo.exe”, but in a form of a patch that would add new, our own sprites, CG’s, texts. User downloads that file and installs it, mixing the new stuff with the one he already has. Imagine the situation: I’ve downloaded the free game and found a typo in it. I open the editor, correct that typo in script file and share the script on my website as an “edited script”. Is that really such a terrible violation of the license?;
    ħomk: I have to admit, that I cocked the dick, when I wrote Canwebe. Anon was right, when he talk, that mod as fileset is legal. Confess(
  6. We’re not trying to own or steal any of the 4ls’s intellectual property, and highly appreciate all the work they’ve done and the long path they walked, we’re giving the developers all the credits for their game.
  7. We’ve preferred a full-scale game modification form of a story expansion over writing a fanfic or making a video because it allows better immersion and offers much more possibilities for players.;
  8. ħomk: Separately, a few words for themocaw: your work was an initial push. I think, that Steel's post was a deliberate misinformation. He deliberately showed the old text, for what - you can kill me, but I dunno. Matter of fact, we`re working as programmers works: you have the blank, maybe, another's authorship, and start doing it work. From themocaw's text there is nothing left, as planned. Because we are creators of the mod.
  9. IMHO, the modification brings a lot of profit for the original game and it’s developers. It maintains interest for it, and is not being developed for commercial purpose. it’s development is inspired by our love for the original game and by what it teaches us, and also by our wish of “prolonging game’s life” and widening the Russian fan base. Finally, try to imagine world where fan modifications were restricted. How long would Oblibion’s or Skyrim’s fame last without fan modifications? Or remember DoTA, or Diablo II and so and so on..
  10. By the way, at this moment we’re not using original English texts, instead working with the Russian translation of the game made by Novellae Subs team, which is not official itself since it’s not included into the game for some reason, including Act 1 that was originally translated by Honyaku Subs who had a permission from 4ls, but has suffered major changes due to some mistranslations and so on.
    We hope for your understanding. We love your work and respect it, and, I repeat, we’re not changing neither a single word that your characters say, nor a single action they make, except for main character, for obvious reasons.
It's obvious that our relationships with devs will probably never be friendly, but, maybe our work won't cause so much rejection by novel's fans that support 4ls in this matter right now.
ħomk: E-e-e, next post, I think, will be about our statistic: what we do, what we had done.

25 comments:

  1. А, вы все-таки живы. Я рад.
    Я, кстати, думал - ну не так что-то. Вы же Катаву всю целиком себе не присваиваете?..

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    1. Да не, конечно, мы же не ёбу дали)

      Допишем воскресенье - отчитаемся.

      Delete
  2. So are you using Themocaw's writing or not? That statement gave some really mixed messages. What about for Rika?

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    1. No, if briefly.

      I don`t want to publish someoneelse`s text. It started from themocaw`s fanfic, but for nearly a quarter of a year it`s our own text.
      I apologize for this the misunderstanding.

      -- ħomk

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  3. Im not sure if you guys are dumb, stupid or have no idea how the law works, but if you are as much as TOUCHING Katawa Shoujo IE ADDING or CHANGING absolutely ANYTHING about the original game as a file, your work becomes a derivative work, unless 4LS specifically give you permission OR you keep it entirely to yourself, it breaks the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License that KS was made under. Neither of these are true, so you are BREAKING THE LAW. The majority of your points are redundant as they simply say "Well heres the reasons why we should be allowed" but guess what, you ar'nt allowed. At all. It dosen't matter if you arnt modifying the orginal game sources, by adding to the game, you're creating a derivative work. Thats all there is too it. Its not allowed, its ILLEGAL. I reckon you guys need to stop or get 4LS's permission (Which wont ever happen) or bad things will happen.

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    1. Why are you so stupid?

      Delete
    2. It's not about laws. It's about fans. We want to explain them, what we're doing and what they'll have.

      Delete
    3. The main problem isn't legal or illegal mod. The main problem is you are hater. IMHO haters gonna hate...

      Delete
    4. Hetzers gonna hetz. (c)
      But that's 4LS and their minions who are haters here, not homk and his men.

      Delete
  4. Хомк, прогоняй свой английский через Блэкджека, у него с английским хорошо, как я погляжу.

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  5. So... you say that a few things(your policy towards 4LS, and your mod's position) should be altered, and then you just rephrase your words from your previous posts all over again? I'm confused. How does that work? And how did you change your attitude towards 4LS, and KS' foreign fans in this post, compared to the previous ones?

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  6. Ой господи, да забейте вы уже. Нарушаете или нет кого это волнует? Что они вас по айпи вычислят? Вон люди делают пиратские кряки для игр, и чето ни на кого из них даже в суд подать не могут. Вы нарушаете закон, да нарушаете, делаете ли вы плохо? Наврядли, пирацкие переводы старых игр сделали больше плохого в начале двух тысячных нежели фанатский мод, я уж молчу про моды для гта от школьников и тд.
    Просто делайте свою работу, а мы будем вас поддерживать! Но да почаще бы напоминать о живости проекта не помешало бы.

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    Replies
    1. Начать хотя бы с того, что их "интеллектуальная собственность" не булькает и бумажкою не заверена.
      Американцев здесь понять можно: они все видят через очки своей госпропаганды, которая им ежедневно навязывает в обход логики идею доктора Гёббельса, что свобода - это рабство, демократия - это добро, а пиратство - это воровство.

      Поэтому зарубежным пользователям разъяснить это дело по полочкам все-таки необходимо.


      -- Ажура

      Delete
  7. Присоединяясь к автору выше - да,хотели по-хорошему,но не вышло.Да,4LS упёрлись.Тут уж ничего не поделаешь.Но это не повод сворачиваться,или хотя-бы как-то ограничивать свою деятельность.Раз,как уже отметилось,даже перевод нелегальный,то что уж теперь,особенно когда есть столько наработок - остаётся только идти,как говорится,"во все тяжкие".
    Многие бы дорого отдали за то,чтобы ещё хотя бы ненадолго вернуться в ту самую атмосферу.Пережить снова те же ощущения в первый раз.Включая и меня.И,как видите,на вашу работу есть не только негативный,но и позитивный отклик,да ещё какой!А это значит,что все ваши мучения не проходят даром,результат не пропадёт зря.
    За один только ваш перевод основной игры благодарен,а тут ещё целые три истории планируется - прямо праздник какой-то!Поэтому,новость о создающейся вами модификации оказалась приятным сюрпризом.
    Вдобавок видно,что вы к этому делу относитесь очень серьёзно - что показывают ваши т.н. "дневники разработчиков".Рассказы о художественной части,саундтреке,общая информация - всё это крайне интересно и необходимо.Часто захожу и проверяю наличие тут новостей.Надеюсь,у вас всё идёт так,как нужно.
    Удачи вам,и творческих успехов!

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  8. Да перевод-то как раз легален, 4ЛС его таки разрешили.

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  9. Ребят, а вы точно живы? Просто после сентября исчезла какая-либо информация о проделываемой работе. Только пост-диалог с правообладателями в октябре (а это немного не то). Если вы испытываете давление и подумываете идти на попятную - то лучше сразу предупредить читателей. Я вот уже устал открывать закладку каждую неделю. Штиль он и есть штиль.

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  11. Кстати можно было бы сделать счетчик который показывает обьем проделанной работы как делают на сайтах переводов допустим и просто его обновлять если из новостей ничего нет.

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  12. Кажишь уснули там все, кто-то просто ленивая зад... кгхм плохие люди крч =.=

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    Replies
    1. Никто не спит. Все усердно работают.

      Delete
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  14. Странно, отчёт был готов ещё в начале месяца. Почему статья до сих пор здесь не появилась - затрудняюсь ответить... От себя скажу: работа идёт. Не так, конечно, как хотелось бы, но всё-таки её не забросили.

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  15. Хочу присоединиться к проекту. В качестве кодера. Есть возможность? Свяжитесь, авторы.

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