Request:
Add mechanic to prevent wholesale copying of entities, settable when spawning.
Suggested Method:
Add "AllowCopy" boolean flag to ship
core (or ship entity), and perhaps also station entity. Entity flag can be set either by admin (anytime) or by player (only when spawning).
if AllowCopy=false
Deny saving blueprint.
Deny shipyard "Create blueprint from design"
Deny shipyard "Deconstruct to design"
Complementary Ideas & Suggestions:
- Blueprint licensing: a long-running discussion in this thread covers the topic of blueprint licensing. A concept largely intended to grant players more granular control over how their designs are used anywhere (e.g. not just on one server). Licensing could also be applied to in-game blueprint usage, providing various "tiers" of access to blueprints and additional possibilities for players to repair, trade, and distribute protected entities. The idea has a lot of merit, and could certainly add a lot to the game, but IMHO its also much more complicated to implement (and use). For that reason (licensing complexity) I will not be integrating the licensing topic into this OP, as I would like to see something basic (e.g. the "AllowCopy" flag) implemented sooner than later, and then later expanded upon with more granular licensing features. I will happily link to a relevant licensing thread once that emerges.
# Why I am against the specific idea:
"Core". There it is clearly written: You don't even know yourself if it would be the best way to implement the thing via a meta data in the core of via a server database variable for a spawned entitity. You, yourself, are not jet sure how to implement it. So if now the developers pick up the idea, they might implement it in a way it's not just a server-side thing but a block-persisent flag that automatically is in the blueprint and in the catalogue-file, and thus all of the sudden in the CC!
Also I see that you actually
want the licensing inside of catalogue files (not just server-side), but try to excuse your request with "its only a small thing not that big of a change because we only say it should be server side." But from what I read you
want more steps into the licensing area. -" Why should I support this intention?
So my first argument against it is still: It might not be implemented only server-side. Because you want to go further, the chances are high it won't stop server side or even be implemented from the start within the metadata of blocks. Thats a risk too high for me to support the idea.
My second argument is: It is the first step in a wrong direction, and supports an
intention (licensing) that just sounds good at first glance, but in reality takes away more than it gives. That are all my arguments, but the second one I explain now down below.
# So...again: Why is licensing inside a game like Starmade bad, and in other places ok:
1. Size of the intelectual work compared to size that actually matters to be protected in your real life:
Starmade is first of all a game where you are supposed to play not more than 4 hours a day, 4 times a week. And even that is a very high number. So you accomplish some creative and intelectual content here. But what dimension does have this content? It is ofcourse a fine work.
But how many hours have actual creative minds who get money for their stuff invested into their work? Exactly: There are laws out there to protect the intelectual property of work that took thousands of hours to accomplish. Not the maximum of 200 hours some nerd here in Starmade invested on some titan. Your ships are not that big of a deal. Yes they are amazing, and I like Dr. Whammys ships for sure, because I hounor the effort of all dedictated players. But I also like smaller ships because of the effort. It doesn't matter to me how special or beautiful a ship is when it comes to intelectual propperty.
Because gaming should stay a place where you can do everything, because it only is a
part of your life, and not the
center of your income like intelectual content is for some creative works out there. If it is something you make money with, then you actually can take someone to court and win the case. But for Starmade ships this does not apply. Take me to court and tell them "Jin did not make money with my ships, and I did not make money with my ships, but now I want money from him for using the ships in some private (even playing on a server is nothing of real public interest but playing within a limited group of people, like attending a sport club) game sessions on a starmade server." If Starmade wanted ships and designs to be sold and all that stuff this licensing steps would make sense. But you would never take me to court for any ships you ever will make in Starmade, because even if you win the case you loose so much of your life time and get no money out of it. I think there is even this regulation in Germany, where when you take someone to court but it actually did not really impact anything else than your ego (except insulting and hurting someone ofcourse) if you win or loose the case, you have no right to let the looser pay the court-fees.
But I certainly don't want that licensing and money direction, for this small part of my life. I want this gaming hobby to stay easy and not get more complicated and thus I don't support this intention. Because once we took enough steps into that direction some dude says "I own this catalogue item and you can only use it if you pay me."
2. Supporting Creativity
There is the argument, that people tell, that if catalogue items could be protected with a flag, more guys would upload to the CC and thus creative work would get a boost.
First: Then some really proud guys upload a ship to the CC, but many other people will not even bother looking into the CC because they are to lazy to search if the not-copy flag is in the design or not. Just check the numbers on the downloads for big ships on the CC. Not that high. And they will be halfed when people know that the usage of many ships is even more limited. I mean 100 ship design have more than 500 downloads, but not more than 4000 downloads. And now half this numbers because you make sharing ships more complicated. But 100 ships. Comeon that might be seem like a high number, but it is not that big once you try to pick a certain ship size and a certain ships type.
Secondly: If you implement regulations that govern the use of anything related to creative stuff, you have an
impact to every creator out there, not just the ones who flag their stuff with licensing flags. Creators would not bother to download CC content because the design might be flagged. And then there are plenty of other examples I can come up with and I try to name a few now, were you limit creativity and working with creative content:
- Limiting sharing lists of shipdesigns for all purposes like some download archive for beginners, or a catalogue of design that shall be used on a server.
- Having to fear that, because you used some design for a hull that was also used by someone else, you get a huge slap, because the community became so sensitive about protecting each others creative stuff. Instead of inventing new stuff, suddenly the discussion would change to prevent being creative just to protect something thats in the end not that important compared to having fun being creative.
- Downloading a ship, and then not being able to copy the ships interiour designs leads to just one thing: Not downloading the ship at all.
- I upload a ship to CC, but because many guys flag their ships, there are not many people out there who download ships at all anymore.
- Playing rp and buying a ship on a server with ingame currency and then seeing: Oh I can't use the bought ship in so many ways (here we go):
a) I want to edit the bought ship - but the editted stuff on the ship I cannot save as well - hey its my stuff I added on this bought ship why can't I save the editted ship now as blueprint? b) I want to play the game like in real life, where I bought a car and then can modify it and resell it. Volkwagen would never sue me for tuning my Cabrio with some neat colors. But because I cannot save the blueprint I might have to fear that my own work just goes down the drain if there is a bug or server reset. Real-life creative work is not comparable to Starmade content in every way. c) The server stops existing and all the blueprints get deleted, and I want to play on another server with some ships I played with very long on my old server. But I can't anymore. The ships are gone forever if the server is gone. This does not help spreading creative work, it prevents creative work to go around the world.
- I spawn a ship on a server, and then flag it with "not copy". Its my work but now I say "hey I don't play Starmade anymore", and I delete all communication ways and the owner of the server does not see me again and can't contact me. And then there is this fine work, no one ever can use it because I spawned the ship with the licensing-on flag.
# TLDR;
Why start with implementing game mechanics, that could take away so many possibilites if gone wrong or gone too far, and make everything more complex, for gaining so little creative security.
Thanks for reading and paying attention. Still I am very happy that you are talking about it constructive and try to have a discussion about it. Ofcourse I can't respond line per line to Dr. Whammy and others, because its just a too complicated idea and I think rephrasing my arguments helped understanding each other more than going the line by line exchange in this one case. I ve read your answer and tried to involve responses to them in my text. But I can't respond to every detail. ^^
Ok. Here goes nothing...
