FAF Modifications Vault Rules

[Morax]

Modification Vault Rules & Regulations

The following rules apply to any modification such as a coded script, UI overhaul / enhancement, unit or prop model, AI code, and other applicable changes to the base of the Forged Alliance content.

Submitted or shared files, their associated content (names, descriptions, etc.) must adhere to the standards described in this set of rules. Submitted files and any associated content may be reviewed by staff and may be subject to administrative action at any time.

Functionality and Integrity

Content uploaded to the vault should be fully-functional and not create a noticeable degradation in game performance for users. Modifications that cause a significant, diminished return for what it is addressing is prohibited:


1) Modifications that cause a significant drop in frame rate due to increased CPU usage, memory consumption etc in excess of 30% should be discussed in the mod description with a clear warning to the user.
2) A clear and concise description must be included as to what the modification does to the game and how it will affect the end-user(s)
3) Modifications must in no way cause other modifications to not perform any less than intended without consent of the original author of that modification.
4) If a modification requires others to be properly used, it must be stated so.
5) Crashes, freezes, and other unwanted side effects that are caused by a modification will be hidden until fixed by the original author
6) Files that are intended to destroy or otherwise cause harm to a user's person or property, such as viruses, malware, adware, etc., are prohibited. Submitted files will be subject to virus scanning and may be moderated as a result.
Files that require registration or submission of user information in order to function, may only do so to facilitate the functions associated with the mod and must be clearly presented as such to the user.


Usage and Accreditation

User submissions which include copyrighted content, be it game files or images, are prohibited unless proper permission has been granted by the property owner or appropriate representation. Such content may be removed from Forged Alliance Forever vaults and services, and the infringing user account might be subject to administrative action.

1) Submission of existing user-submitted content without obtaining permission from the original author(s) of said content is strictly prohibited.
2) Proper credit to the original author(s) must be given unless the author(s) has/have specified that credit is not necessary. Please, be aware that the mere accreditation of an author is no substitute for receiving explicit permission to upload or modify someone else’s content.
3) The uploader is responsible for understanding the legalities involved when using copyrighted work and submissions that contain such content may be removed.
4) Compilations must provide functionality beyond repackaging. In other words, an acceptable compilation must be "more than the sum of its parts". Slight alterations to modifications will not serve as a means to justify this requirement.
5) All files submitted must be intended for sharing publicly. You must not use our services for your own personal storage or share files with a limited group of users.
6) Language translations should be submitted only as an addition that works in conjunction with the original file and you should link to the original file as a mirror or in your file description. Translations that include content from the original mod without permission may be subject to moderation and will be removed if requested by the original file author(s).

We encourage all copyright holders to report unauthorized use of their material by utilizing the methods outlined in the “Forged Alliance File Reporting and Moderation” section at the end of this document.

Inappropriate Content

As we serve a diverse audience, user-submitted content needs to be suitable for all audience.

Inappropriate Content Guidelines at a glance:

1) Content that may be generally construed as provocative, divisive, objectionable, discriminatory, or abusive toward any real-world individual or group, may be subject to moderation. This includes but is not limited to content involving politics, race, religion, gender identity, sexuality, or social class.
2) Images containing nudity are prohibited. This includes any and all files such as preview images, icons, models, and etc
3) Modifications that utilize content that represent any kind of group or ideology of hate, references a historical event that resulted in death or extreme violence (within reason), or definitively uses inappropriate methods to describe a sensitive situation will be reviewed by moderation and Forged Alliance Forever staff for continued use

Advantageous Performance Modification Rulings

Modifications that are uploaded and can be applied to a ranked game which enable an advantageous play should be made publicly aware. These types of modifications include ones that give information not normally available to other players without the tool, decrease “apm” requirements to perform actions, and in general make it easier for gameplay to progress at a rate not normally attainable.

Please note that it is not prohibited to upload this kind of content, but it needs to be reviewed by the Forged Alliance Forever staff.

Users should make their modifications known public to Forged Alliance Forever by messaging moderation, making a forum post (for example, “UI Party” by Anihilnine), contacting the Maps & Modifications Councilor, or other relevant staff such as the Player, Balance, and/or Game Code Councilors.

Associated Content and Categorisation

The following describes our guidelines when it comes to so-called Associated Content i.e. file names and descriptions:

1) Files must be properly categorised.
2) File descriptions must be legible and informative regarding the nature of the file. Wholly misleading or incohesive descriptions are prohibited.
3) Providing links to external sources for files that would not be permissible to be hosted on our services due to copyright violations or other is prohibited.
4) When uploading images for files make sure they are relevant to the mod/game, don't mislead people and ensure no adult-only images are uploaded if your file is not an adult-only file.
5) Public placeholders are prohibited. File pages without functioning files should remain unpublished, hidden, or be removed.
5) We allow for a tactful discussion of donations and endorsements (such as thanking users for their contributions) in file descriptions. Actively soliciting either donations or endorsements, however, is prohibited and may be subject to moderation at the discretion of staff.
6) The file versions and author names must not be stated in the file name. Please request previous, outdated versions of your modification to be hidden. If this is not done, it will be assumed by the Forged Alliance Forever staff that previous ones are no longer relevant

Distribution Permissions in Relation to other Users

We provide users with the ability to detail how they wish their work to be reused within the Forged Alliance Forever service. Only the original author of a given file or asset can specify its distribution permissions.

If the author has not provided any permission information at all - you should assume that you must request permission from the author.

Should any disputes occur within the context of our websites and services, these permissions will be referred to by staff who will attempt to enforce your wishes, within reason. If another Forged Alliance Forever user does not adhere to posted permission statements, their account may be subject to moderation based on review.

If you give your permission to another author for them and/or others to use your work, then, pending a breach of whatever terms you decided, you cannot take back that permission once the other user(s)'s file has been released.

Permissions and provisions you granted to other users of our service with regard to your content will remain in effect even if you cease to use Forged Alliance Forever, or in the event that your account is terminated.

Always document your conversations with other authors regarding permissions, preferably via private message on the client, and provide staff with any pertinent evidence to facilitate investigation and conflict resolution when needed.

Distribution Permissions in Relation to Forged Alliance Forever Mods

You only retain the rights to files you have uploaded to the Forged Alliance Forever service. You do not own the rights to files or content not posted by yourself that might have been created as a result of your content being available on any Forged Alliance Forever service, including, but not limited to, ratings, comments, images created by other users, articles in regards to your content and any statistical information in regards to your content.

As a general rule, we do not remove user-submitted content from banned users, unless it is found in violation of our policies and guidelines. If your account is terminated by Forged Alliance Forever staff, you are free to decide how you want us to handle your uploaded content going forward by e.g. requesting its removal.

File Reporting and Moderation

User submitted content that does not adhere to the standards described in this document may be subject to administration as described within. You are encouraged to report content that may violate the standards described in this document.

If you encounter content that you find objectionable or no longer wish to see, please abstain from interacting with content that does not meet your subjective standards. Excessive disparagement of such content will result in administrative action against your account.

For reporting of content, please use the following methods:

1) Make a #content-reporting claim in the Forged Alliance Forever Maps & Modifications discord server M&M Discord Server
2) Contact the M&M Councilor, a moderator, or some other administrative member of the community.
3) Make a post in the “Mods & Tools” section of the message board
4) Visit and discuss in the Forged Alliance Moderator Contact official discord channel.

[armacham01]

"3) Modifications must in no way cause other modifications to not perform any less than intended without consent of the original author of that modification."

I think I understand what you are getting at here, but the way it is worded it is too broad. Read literally, any mod that "breaks" any other mod--no matter how completely unrelated they are--would be against the rules. There is just no way to design a mod so that you can guarantee it will never have negative interactions with any other mod in the vault.

"2x resources" causes the "5x resources" mod to perform less than it was intended to. But neither mod should be removed from the vault.

I'm guessing that about half of all sim mods would break BlackOps in some way, or vice versa, even though that is not the intention.

This rule should only apply to mods that are specifically designed to nerf/limit/modify some targeted mod. Perhaps:

"3) Modifications must not be designed to cause other modifications to not perform any less than intended without consent of the original author of that modification."

"5) Crashes, freezes, and other unwanted side effects that are caused by a modification will be hidden until fixed by the original author"

You're hiding the mods, not the crashes/freezes.

"4) When uploading images for files make sure they are relevant to the mod/game, don't mislead people and ensure no adult-only images are uploaded if your file is not an adult-only file."

Are there going to be any "adult-only" files in the FAF vault? If not, then the words "if your file is not an adult-only file" should be removed

[Katharsas]

"If you give your permission to another author for them and/or others to use your work, then, pending a breach of whatever terms you decided, you cannot take back that permission once the other user(s)'s file has been released."

It should not be possible to take back permissions in any case, independent of whether the person that got permission has released something or not. If i give person X the permission to use my stuff, person X starts working an a mod for 2 years, then i should not be able to retract my permission after two years even if person X has not released their work.

Btw. do you have anything to say about licenses as a form of permission? Licenses are just a standardized way to give other people permission to use your work (and to add conditions to that permission), so i find it weird that they are not mentioned at all.

Btw do we make it clear somewhere that by uploading stuff to the Mod/Map Vault, you basically give FAF (developers) full permission to store, process, make public and advertise these files in any way they wish? And that you give anybody the permission to use the files as provided by FAF?

[nine2]

it all looks very reasonable to me

[nine2]

Advantageous Performance Modification Rulings

Modifications that are uploaded and can be applied to a ranked game which enable an advantageous play should be made publicly aware. These types of modifications include ones that give information not normally available to other players without the tool, decrease “apm” requirements to perform actions, and in general make it easier for gameplay to progress at a rate not normally attainable.

Please note that it is not prohibited to upload this kind of content, but it needs to be reviewed by the Forged Alliance Forever staff.

Users should make their modifications known public to Forged Alliance Forever by messaging moderation, making a forum post (for example, “UI Party” by Anihilnine), contacting the Maps & Modifications Councilor, or other relevant staff such as the Player, Balance, and/or Game Code Councilors.

How about we make a rule - you are only allowed to use a UI Mod in a ranked game if it is uploaded to the vault? In your rules stated above I am not prohibited from using a hover bomb mod. I released UI Party because it seemed like cheating to keep it to myself. A nice rule would be you can only use mods that are available for all players.

On the other hand as a developer I need to play 50x games with upcoming unreleased versions of my mod, to iron out the bugs. This contradicts the previous point because in this case I want to play with code that other's dont have yet.

[armacham01]

"How about we make a rule - you are only allowed to use a UI Mod in a ranked game if it is uploaded to the vault?"

Whether or not these are limited for global-ranked games, definitely this should be the rule for all ladder matches.

[ThomasHiatt]

There is no way to enforce that rule so there is no point in making it a rule.

[speed2]

There is no way to enforce that rule so there is no point in making it a rule.

I have to agree here, this UI mod fight is pointless, no matter what you try to do, there will always be a way of playing with any UI without anyone else knowing.

[Blodir]

There is no way to enforce that rule so there is no point in making it a rule.

I have to agree here, this UI mod fight is pointless, no matter what you try to do, there will always be a way of playing with any UI without anyone else knowing.

sure that's true for ui mods, but not autoplay mods..., it's not very difficult to tell if someone is using the hoverbomb mod or even the auto pause bs

[nine2]

I don't understand this logic "we cant enforce it 100% of the time therefore we wont make the rule" and it would be nice to hear that explained.

You can see from a replay sometimes if people use hoverbomb mob.
You can see from a replay sometimes if people use reclaim macro.
And what about just honour?

Right now I am allowed to build a cheating automod that benefits only me and keep it secret. I think that is crazy. So what if you can't definately-always-100% tell if I use it. Just make the rule and let people report suspicious activity then investigate.