[bf1942] Andreas, please help us....

[Brigham Stevens]

ScratchMonkey wrote:

> --On Tuesday, June 14, 2005 2:02 PM -0700 Brigham Stevens
> <brs at vikingmind.com> wrote:
>
>> Can you please get an official word to us on what EA's policy is for
>> demo servers with modified python scripts? Honestly, nobody here meant
>> any harm to EA, and if EA didn't want us to change it, they should not
>> have made it so easy...
>
>
> Can anyone find a copy of the EULA in their installation? I don't see
> it on my client, and I'm waiting for the 32-bit Linux server so I
> can't check that one out. This ban smells of some heavy-handed IT
> drone exercising his muscle without proper oversight.
>
The Windows dedicated server includes an EULA which says you can't
modify it, but you have to modify the game to configure it for your
server and the python scripts are part of the configuration... Clearly
EA chose to use python to make it more flexible because they expect the
community to develop admin tools that use it and they expect mod-makers
to take advantage of the python scripts to extend their engine to create
new and useful mods.

It looks to me like the programmers at DICE had one idea that was very
different from what the business people at EA wanted, and now they are
having a clash..... I'm sure the business people were totally suprised
when they discovered how simple it was to change these things... AT
least, that is what I imagine...  You know the developers at DICE had to
know that this is exactly what would happen, it is the only reasonable
outcome if you include important settings like that in source form! I'm
sure that there are legal ramifications here and I think both sides
would have a good argument.. In the end we lose because it is a demo and
it is not worth those kinds of battles and EA has a legal staff on hand
to defend themselves.  Personally, I don't think EA would win this battle.

I for one would like to host a BF2 server when the game ships, and I
will be promoting the game and help EA sell copies to my community. But
I sure wish that EA would post an official statement about it so we know
what they expect. So far all I've seen is 2nd and 3rd hand posts and
speculation.

It is not fair to do this to the community, who after all want to enjoy
the game and create nice places for people to play on ultimately.

I feel like if these rumors are true that EA is treating us like we as
server admins are easily replaced.........

Since the main game is going to support serious modding, I think it will
be possible to release a CTF mod for the game... If this mod featured
unlocked weapons would that piss EA off?