TSR: In Ur Accounts, Deletin Ur Stuffs!

[Quorneater]

People are going to look at you like they do TSR and count you guilty by association.

Good thing some of us don't care what some others count us as then.  You have to respect or like someone before you care what they think of you.  You were on my "meh" list some time ago.   

[Missbonbon]

TSR will keep all their tools free.

I can't help but wonder, how many people thought the same thing back in the sims 1 days when all those websites started turning pay? Like I pointed out, there is no clause ANYWHERE that I've seen to stop TSR from taking this step. Yes I care about what they have done for the community, but as a creator am I going to have to take a third job just to fund my hobby?

Inge - It's not my intention to anger you.  Note that I have said "request" and "please", thus I'm asking you, not telling you.  Disagreement is not disrespect.  While the creator chatroom was public in the sense that anyone could join, which do you think gets more views from the public, the Workshop: Objects announcement thread on the front page of TSR, or that chat room?  You are of course free to do as you please, but I have as much right as you to speak my mind.  Since angering you is pointless and not something I want to do, I'll drop the matter.

Cat, unfortunately I will have to agree with Inge on this one. In these types of instances you have to pick and choose your battles. My personal viewpoint is that if Inge, or any other creator involved with this, would have taken their negative viewpoints to TSR, the only thing I believe it would have accomplished would be to shed negative light to a very small target audience. TSR allows links to MTS, and I'm sure on MTS you can find information about PMBD... that's how I found this place. YET there are still people suckling from the proverbial tit. Unfortunately, voicing their opinions in chat also reaches a very small audience.

I think Ken has made very good points though. And explained some of my points better than I ever could have. Some people in the community, politics aside, just don't want to be able to choose from only one option. How would you feel if you walked into McDonalds, and one day you have 3 different kinds of whoppers to choose from, and the next day you just have the one? Of course you can't do anything at this point because McDonalds is in almost everyone's home. My point, is that even with open source tools, once it gets to that point it will become a very difficult road to travel back on.

[Paden]

Oh, I realize that, Inge, but it doesn't change the fact that I still respect you and Peter as some of the talented people in this community. You two made it possible for me to be able to make recolours of some of my favourite Maxis meshes and I believe in giving credit where it's due. I also get a charge out of reading a good many of your posts because you have a way of stating the obvious to some that otherwise might not get it. Tea, anyone?

[scrappysim]

Inge, since you are involved in the development, as are others from the free community, is there any provision that would allow Merlin or any of the other tools from TSR to be hosted elsewhere especially in the event that they are ever made pay?  I completely understand people being wary of TSR and their intentions for the future.  I have also borne the brunt of some of their unethical practices.  If the contributors from the free community could be assured that they have the right to allow the tool to be downloaded on a separate site if TSR ever tried to make these tools pay then you could at least reassure the community that if TSR goes back to its usual ways then you and the others wouldn't have fallen victim to empty promises by TSR and the tool wouldn't be allowed to be locked away from the pro-freesite community. If MTS or your site could be guaranteed that after all the mutual collaboration that if the tool was ever made pay then it would be hosted elsewhere then maybe that would satisfy some of the critics.

[Quorneater]

A clue to the basis of this recent rumour can be found here: http://forums.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=2855976#post2855976
And as I understood it from my chats with someone, basically that is as far as it goes.   Wes has simply shifted his licences a small way in order to make life easier for the modding community.   I guess Thomas may have said something like "We have Wes on-board" and coconut's source failed to appreciate this was another one of Thomas's exaggerated over-grandiose statements that simply meant Wes and his plugins licence are "no longer an obstacle"

Inge, since you are involved in the development

Nonono I'm not!   Delphy has a public chatroom for advanced modding.   I sit in that most of the day as does Johan from TSR.   There is a friendly, if quiet, atmosphere in the room, and we ask each other things and get information about "do you know that this hex digit or this flag does?" and so on.   This goes in multiple directions, including to and from Johan.   I also offered to help test Workshop.   I am testing that some days and Peter's tools on others.  That means I download it, try to use it, and tell Johan it's got bugs and I can't use it to make my window quite yet lol.  I think I am going to like using Workshop once it is finished, and I think most other creators are too.   I respect anyone who has a firm anti-TSR view and decides not to - it's your choice.

Edited to add:  There is now a news article about this at TSR:  http://www.thesimsresource.com/news/view-post/post/13489/TSR%20Workshop%20update

[SoggyFox]

For my own part, if my only option for CC is stuff made with the TSR tool, then I'll either not play at all, or play a mostly vanilla game.  Haven't had the time to boot it up for over a month anyway - between relearning SL, running a radio station [even if its a tiny hobby station] and other RL type stuff, I've just not had the time or inclination to play sims lately.  I hope for more time, and maybe soon I'll have it, but right now, I just don't.

I -won't- use something sponsored by TSR.  I won't judge people by their company - plenty of folks who are even more generous of spirit and optimistic than me out there, who'll keep giving chances.  And coming from me, that's saying a lot - I'm always getting grumbles for how -I'm- an apologist.  But TSR has been spitting on the community since Sims 1 and the great paysite migration [which is to say, all the popular sites deciding they could charge].  They have shown themselves to be crooks, cybercriminals, and worse.  Good luck to those insisting on continuing to trust them, or influence them to change their ways.  I think you'll need it.  I'd think by now the example of BPS and how they were treated - a neutral party - would be warning enough, if all the other things weren't.

Everyone else has said it some much better, but there is my 2 cents.

[karu]

I -won't- use something sponsored by TSR.  I won't judge people by their company - plenty of folks who are even more generous of spirit and optimistic than me out there, who'll keep giving chances.  And coming from me, that's saying a lot - I'm always getting grumbles for how -I'm- an apologist.  But TSR has been spitting on the community since Sims 1 and the great paysite migration [which is to say, all the popular sites deciding they could charge].  They have shown themselves to be crooks, cybercriminals, and worse.  Good luck to those insisting on continuing to trust them, or influence them to change their ways.  I think you'll need it.  I'd think by now the example of BPS and how they were treated - a neutral party - would be warning enough, if all the other things weren't.

Everyone else has said it some much better, but there is my 2 cents.

I agree and lest we forget what Pescado has posted up in the far right corner...  NEVAR FORGET! NEVAR FORGIVE!

[CatOfWar]

I agree and lest we forget what Pescado has posted up in the far right corner...  NEVAR FORGET! NEVAR FORGIVE!

I'm totally behind never forget.  I personally could forgive if they 1) admitted all wrongdoing, 2) showed sincere contrition, and 3) made lasting, longterm changes.  The latter would include things like firing Shakeshaft the thief, going free, etc.  I don't see 1 or 3 happening before the heat death of the universe, and 2 isn't in character for the business owners.

[WrongWayLin]

I don't really have much to offer to this conversation (so I'm sure I'll be crucified for it, lol) but I just wanted to butt in and say that I am absolutely AMAZED that I managed to stay blind to TSR's corruption for so long. Actually, I'm ashamed to even admit that I've associated with them as long as I have.

And, unfortunately, a few months ago, I subscribed (for the FIRST AND LAST time ever!). Admittedly, I feel like I was conned into that one, although, it's my own damn fault. I let them fool me: I had planned on saving my kudos to buy a "Subscription day" (there are some FA items that I thought looked quite well made, but I don't have the money to waste on non-real furniture). They were 5000 points. A week later, when I had actually accumulated the rest of my needed points, I went to buy my day to find it was 7.5k points! I had a little birthday money leftover, and they had a sale going on on subscriptions, so I went ahead and "treated" myself...Never again. If only I'd found out how vast the free community was BEFORE wasting my money.

I would just like to say that I've been reading the posts here, and I want to apologize to everyone here for having been part of their fanbase for so long - for helping them wage war against the true artists.

[kenmtl]

wes h has clarified his position.

From MATY the full statement.

What I have done is allowed them to support the object mesh format I use for the MilkShape object meshing plugins. Better to have interoperable tools than not. If I had just licensed everything freely (as I did for TS2) from the start, there would have been less incentive for more modding tool development. As long people can get a free ride, they will take it. Since they have put some of their skin in the game, then standards are better than fighting.

Interesting point of view. I would have been content with a simple "It's just going to make it easier for everyone" response and done without the "you lazy ass welfare bums suck" part but hey, everyone's entitled to their opinions.

[chann]

And as I understood it from my chats with someone, basically that is as far as it goes.   Wes has simply shifted his licences a small way in order to make life easier for the modding community.   I guess Thomas may have said something like "We have Wes on-board" and coconut's source failed to appreciate this was another one of Thomas's exaggerated over-grandiose statements that simply meant Wes and his plugins licence are "no longer an obstacle"

Right. It doesn't even seem like he's changed his licence, if all he's contributed is "research" on file formats and not code and TSR is blowing its own horn again.

However, there's still that roundabout hint that because s3ac has ditched Wes's share-alike licence, even if you are transferring data from s3ac to Wes's plugins the more permissive (and pay-friendly) license applies. I'm not very comforted by that news. It seems to subvert the point of having a license that prevents "commercial and diva usage" in the first place.

[missangelica]

I will not be using tsr tool made items in my game and if I had any power, I'd be encouraging people to shun those that do create with it and have them labeled similar to being trashcanned.  It may seem extreme, but at this point after all these years, I see choosing to use this tool as an act of betrayal of the free community.  It truly is us vs them as tsr has been playing it since the beginning and the more tsr tries to act buddy-buddy, the more we should fight back.  

In the words of our resident potty mouth, tsr can shove their trojan horse up their ass.  Any "gifts" they give are pure poison and I'm disgusted by those who are so readily forgetting all the cyber crime tsr has done against the free community all these years just for a shiny that is already known to have a friggin' keylogger in it!  It just goes beyond all words.  

Anyone that associates with them will be burned.  You're awesome, Inge, but your tea cozy is on fire, whether you realize it or not yet.  (Not that you care.)

[CatOfWar]

WrongWayLin - Welcome to PMBD.  Your introduction belongs in the introduction thread, not here, but other than that, I don't think anyone would crucify you.  For what?  You see TSR for what they are and you've left, yay!  Take a look around, read the FAQ (in the Arr! subforum), and read the booty rules in Davy Jones locker, Shopping list, first post, and you're good to go.

[Paleoanth]

I think it will be more fun for people to use Workshop as the beta I am testing has many features that will make creating easier, and surely most people play the game and create for fun, not for a political exercise?   

The thing is, this is no longer just a political exercise. If this was only due to the free versus pay debate, then I could see where you could be apolitical.  The problem is that TSR has done so many illegal and unethical things.  Their behavior has not been limited to just charging for pixels.  They (and I count anyone working there or still associated either loosely or officially as "they") have hacked livejournal accounts, deleted posts in that account, hacked photobucket accounts, spread hideous images through those accounts, released personal information in a not so private forum, encouraged attacking people that disagree with them, stolen meshes, locked people out of their TSR accounts just due to suspicion of file sharing, lied, cheated, inserted trojans into their programs, manipulated people, had an entire forum shut down, harrassed...the list goes on and on.  This is not just an honest debate between two sides who have differing opinions on whether or not it is right to sell pixels.  This is TSR doing it's best to destroy people, destroy the free community and insert themselves as the overlord of the simming community. 

[Quorneater]

I still don't see what that has got to do with ordinary sims content creators, who would prefer to use a friendly graphical interface to make stuff with.  You don't think by using Workshop it means those creators are in ur accounts delein ur stuffs by association?

s3pi is there for anyone to use - or you look at the source code as an example for your own original work.  There is nothing to stop someone setting up in competition with TSR to make a graphical creation tool that is friendly to use.  I don't think Peter is up for that intensity of programming, so he's not going to begrudge someone else taking it further.

If no user-friendly alternative to TSRWorkshop is created then I am going to go on giving nominal support (and some help with testing) to the one tool that is going to bring the most enjoyment to new object makers.