Poll: Abandoned Mod Projects

[vast-enemy]

I have a question for the gamers of this forum.

I found a mod for an older game (Homeworld2), and its called Pirates v0.3. This mod has long since been abandoned by the author, perhaps by 7 years or more but its a wonderful concept that really should have been finished. The first releases of it were alpha at best. It containing a new playable race which used recycled models & files from the other two races and a few new models and textures for the custom new content. I would guesstimate it was around 20-30% finished when it was discontinued. So the project was essentially in its infancy and died out before it was finished, not an uncommon story for game mods. That wasn't actually the end of it either.

Someone else came along a couple years later, and tried to complete it, but gave up when faced with difficulties achieving their expressed goals. This person also claimed to know the original author and was in contact with (him) throughout the entire time he worked on it, so that it was all on the up and up. Yet these claims of authorization were never substantiated or verified. The new author was the only source of information available.

Well, now there may be a third author, me.

Whats the etiquette on such a conundrum? With abandoned-ware, mods that have been discontinued or died off for one reason or another. Can another take over without expressed approval? Can another modder finish the work of someone else, while attempting to serve the perceived goals of the original author?

Unable to reach the creator or anyone who knows him. How can I go about completing this wonderful project without running into problems? 1st off, I will never claim the project is mine, and will always credit the original author where its due, but I want to see this mod finished and playable, and with what I've already done privately, it's more than 60% completed.

 

[TakerFoxx]

That is a tough question to answer. I don't see any problems in finishing it for your personal use, but distributing without permission is a grey area that might get you in trouble, even if the original author is unreachable.

Would it be possible to rebuild the mod from the ground-up in such a way that it accomplishes the intended purpose, but has enough alterations that you can reasonably claim it as your own while citing the original mod as inspiration? Something similar to the second choice, but with enough changes to cover yourself from possible backlash.

 

[Savagezion]

Eitquette usually dictates that you credit the mod creator. As you say he has done 20-30% of the work, I would credit him with that. Mods are meant to be shared by their very nature. It is better that someone finish a mod than have a crippled half done project floating around out there IMO. Odds are the creator just got too busy with life and couldn't complete it and doesn't have plans to go back. I would rename it, perhaps with homage to the original title. Like "Piracy" instead of "Pirates" or even totally rename it and just open the introduction to the mod (and maybe something in the readme.txt) with credit to Pirates v0.3.

Some modders do get angry over their stuff being stolen but usually it is when you claim it as your own and even then it is usually when someone is trying to claim the work all to themselves or they modified a small part and call it something else resulting in stealing 80+% of the mod. Permission is not always easy to get even if they don't care due to the anonymous nature of the internet.

Ultimately, I would say make the mod, and give credit where you feel it is due. I don't see anyone getting mad over this.

 

[Smooth Operator]

The mod was shared completely open and freely? Then you credit the creator for his part and then make your own thing, as in make it under a distinguishing name so you aren't cutting into the namesake of someone else's work.

But people need to be aware that mod does not mean open and free by default, other peoples work is still other peoples work, they need to share it as they want it used.

 

[DoPo]

From my experience (as a consumer of mods, rather than creator), here is what the "official" commonly followed rules are:
1. You try to contact the mod creator. Since somebody else presumably picked it up afterwards, you can try to contact them as well. Essentially, you'll be just asking for permission to keep working on the mod. Chances are, they'll say yes.
2. If that fails (for whatever reason), you are most likely OK to just go on. The presumption is that the mod creator doesn't care one way or another - if they really wanted the mod gone, they could have pulled it down (I've seen that happen). It's not a bad idea to try to link to the original mod. You can call your one " Reborn" or something (Plus, Rising, Continued, or Improved are just some from the top of my head that exist) to signify it's slightly different. Lots of those are around.

It is really important to credit the author, however. All the authors, where possible. It's possibly the most followed rule of etiquette in the modding world I've seen. And it really makes sense - it is, in essence, their work - even if they've just laid the base, you could argue that you wouldn't have done it yourself. In fact, you yourself said that the mod inspired you to finish it, so it's not just "in theory".

At any rate when somebody tries to "steal" a mod, people do tend to find out and they generally don't like it. Do not underestimate people into modding for they are subtle and quick to anger. And more importantly, chances are you'll host that mod on some website dedicated to modding, such as ModDB - it could be taken down if the community rose in righteous[footnote]well, you know...[/footnote] uproar.

EDIT: I forgot to mention one possible outcome:
You contact the original author, they, however, say "no" to you finishing the mod. It's tough luck, but you can always redo it yourself. It would be preferable to not copy it 1:1 as that's no different than using their mod. Make a "spiritual successor" of sorts. Still credit the original author for inspiring it.