Question about Credit

Servant · Serf

Hello, my name is Servant. I have something typed up pretty long, but it seemed to be gone. The first part was basically me telling I was making a mod, called Tropico: Drug Wars, that deals with the Illegal Drug Trade. Dictators and rebels can use the illegal drug trade to make money. Dictators however have to worry about the USA and USSR, who hate illegal drugs with a passion.

What I want to know is what is the proper procedure for using an "Event" from one mod to help create another mod? Say, I want to use an event of workers engaging in a strike, or of Turkey invading Cyprus (from the Cyprus Mod), or of the World Bank loaning money to the government, just to name a few? If I want to use such an event, would just crediting the person responsible for making the original event suffice? Or should I search the person who made the Event and ask for his premission?

I have seen many modders who combined previous mods to create a brand new mod, but refuse to credit those who made the previous mods in question. And I know that is bad, because modders spent time and effort to create the mods, and they do it for the recognition. Depriving them of the recognition is bad indeed.

I just want to know what should I do in that situation.

JuntaJoe · Site Admin

It really depends on several factors.

Can you find that person? That should mean going to the usual sites for the game, like here or Cafe Tropico and making a reasonable effort to inquire. Sometimes the author will even leave something in the mod that is a clue where to find them. Addy, website, hangout, etc.

You should exhaust all these reasonable attempts before looking at the age of the work. If both game and mod are more than 2 or 3 years old then I'd say just go ahead and make the mod and give them some credit.

Everything on forums is covered under copyright law, but the law gets gray because the site owners hold most of the copyright juice, not the actual author. So if you can't find the person at the site you find the old mod then drop a note to the site owner and see if they will let you. Their permission is usually enough to cover you.

Servant · Serf

One other question, I want to use the same method as CafeDave used in order to create "Tropico: Mediterran", but I cannot understand the Hex code. Is there any 'transaltions' that could explain what the Hex Code is? Most importantly, I want to try and redirect the Tropico.exe file to read "TropDrug.lng", and instead of the default tropico.lng file (as well as having Tropico.exe read a new "bldgdata" file rather than the original one).

JuntaJoe · Site Admin

Send a pm to Brf here.

He'll know it if anyone does.