Unban K^2

[Squirminator2k]

K^2 has been banned from the forum now for, ooh, ages. Since April 2005, according to his Post Log. That's all well and good - he was banned for a reason, after all - but that reason has, frankly, become a bit of a moot point.

He was banned so that the discussion of his Editors and so forth for Worms3D and Worms 4 would not tarnish the forum. However every time he releases such a program over on the Dream17 forum, someone posts about it here. Similarly, Tweaks and Modifications for Worms 3D and Worms 4 appear all the time on the forum, and it seems hypocritical that no action is taken against these individuals who release their Tweaks, while K^2 releases programs which are actually helpful - programs that take the place of programs Team 17 said they would release, but didn't (namely the W3D map editor) - and he is punished for it.

K's made some serious headway with the tools and apps he's made available. The Map Editor is coming along slowly but surely. He's knocked together a Soundbank editor (the exclusion of this from W3D and W4M in the first place is, frankly, criminal). He has other programs in the works and, if I'm being blunt, he doesn't seem to be doing any damage.

It's been nearly two years since he was banned. Regardless of whether or not K may want to be pardoned, I feel it is important that this is done. Otherwise he was banned for nothing, and that's... that's just mean.

[thomasp]

It's not really the decision of the usermods to make, so I suggest you PM someone like Spadge, as I believe he had quite a say in the banning of K^2 (well, Spadge warned him).

I'm not going to say whether or not he should be unbanned - that's not my place to.

[Xinos]

Does K^2 even have an interest in returning?

[thomasp]

Does K^2 even have an interest in returning?
It's probably worth finding that out first, since it would be a bit of a waste of effort to try to persuade T17 to unban him, only to find out he doesn't want to return.

[bonz]

I'm well for unbanning him.
After all, he was one of the more intelligent people around.

[Squirminator2k]

It's probably worth finding that out first, since it would be a bit of a waste of effort to try to persuade T17 to unban him, only to find out he doesn't want to return.
I think that's largely irrelevant. It's the principle of the thing. They couldn't bring Derek Bentley back from the dead, or Joan of Arc, yet both were posthumously pardoned. I'm perhaps drawing exaggerated parallels but I still say K^2 should be unbanned, regardless of whether or not he would take an active part of the forum again.

[bloopy]

I'd like to see him unbanned too.

If they'd been able to give it the effort, T17 could've released a soundbank editor and a map editor for W4M, but they didn't. Customization is what keeps the community interested in the game, and that's where K^2 comes in to save W3D and W4M from being lost to the sands of time.

W3D is going to be 4 years old in 2007. How is K^2 any different from Deadcode, who was well into messing with W:A by that stage?

Does K^2 even have an interest in returning?

At the very least, he did post on Dream17 asking what was being said about Worms for Xbox Live over here. So I do think he has an interest.

[Zero72]

Bring back K^2. Totally.

[FutureWorm]

I don't understand why Team17 banned someone who is creating tools that may cause more people to buy their games. Just my two cents.

[thomasp]

I don't understand why Team17 banned someone who is creating tools that may cause more people to buy their games. Just my two cents.
Because at the time he was doing it in a way that broke various laws and forum rules. And when asked to stop, he refused.

[thomasp]

For the benefit of FutureWorm and everyone else who's forgotten why he was banned, I quote a post from Spadge: http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?p=392723#post392723 (key parts bolded)


I took exception to a number of threads by a forum member who persisted to encourage hacking of our titles (despite a friendly warning). The "hacking" was simply obtaining some map data from an Xbox demo.

Whilst the data made it onto an x-box demo when it shouldn't have done, this doesn't mean the data is within the public domain and freely available to use as he saw fit. Distributing such material is illegal in the first instance and if anything, spoiling the experience for others who choose to view it not in it's full form.

I can appreciate that people are waiting for the PC demo and it will be here soon enough, as will the full game, but I stop short at people trying to distribute our material (in final or otherwise form) before we give it the OK. We're keen that people enjoy all our work as intended and nothing else.

I also appreciate that post full release, people do create a number of utilities and such for our titles and accept that this is largely by the by for PC titles and we have been largely tolerant in most cases.

We would like to encourage and support our community where possible, but there are ways and means of that happening - and directly ignoring our requests isn't the best way to gain suppport.

[Star Worms]

It was never illegal though. He wasn't hacking it, he was creating a program to convert the map types. In no way was he editing the actual game. He was banned because Team17 asked him to stop distributing it on their forum and he refused, so he was banned.

[AndrewTaylor]

It was never illegal though.

Weeell... he was breaking the law by distributing maps. Team17 told him to stop that so he just changed it slightly so he wasn't technically breaking the law while still doing basically the same thing. This would impress a lawyer but didn't impress Spadge -- this forum is not a democracy and his word is law -- so what he was eventually banned for wasn't technically the illegal thing he'd been doing that led to his banning, sort of thing. It's a technicality, really. In any case, the law of the land is pretty irrelevant to who is and is not banned on one internet forum. It's just up to Team17.

[Paul.Power]

It was never illegal though. He wasn't hacking it, he was creating a program to convert the map types. In no way was he editing the actual game. He was banned because Team17 asked him to stop distributing it on their forum and he refused, so he was banned.But this was before Worms 4 was released, and in particular hacking files off the Xbox demo.

Still, I reckon he should be let back in. It's irritating when newbies don't recognise my occasional cartoons of him :p.

[MtlAngelus]

K^2 released maps, T17 warned him, so K^2 released tool to convert maps. Then he got banned.
As Andrew said, because of a technicality.

But seriously, back when W3D hadn't been released, the German PC Demo of the game leaked, and it was quite supported on this forum... not only that, but people learned how to tweak the demo to make it able to play what I think was, if not all, most of the weapons in the game, and they even made a subforum to discuss this tweaks...
And they ban K^2 for releasing a couple of W4 Xbox demo maps converted for play in W3d. Maps that lost the heighmap when converted.

IMO, K^2 was banned because T17 held a grudge against him for whatever reason, but you know, I might be wrong.

[AndrewTaylor]

Well, in fairness, if someone finds they can play W4 maps in W3D that's not going to help W4 sell. They'll think "well, I might as well just get the maps and play them on W3D". And since that's nothing like as good as W4, they could even get to thinking that W4 doesn't offer anything much new. Tweaking a few weapons or extending the game time doesn't cross game boundaries in the same way, and is pretty unlikely to affect anyone's buying decision.

If you look at it that way then while what he did was morally no different from any other bit of hacking, the knock-on effects are, and more to the point he didn't in any meaningful sense stop when he was asked to.

[Squirminator2k]

But at the same time it allows W3D maps to be played in W4M - in its current form, at least. That's good, isn't it? If people can import their favourite Worms Utd maps into Worms Armageddon, which they now can thanks to a certain BETA update, why shouldn't the same be so for the 3D titles?

[MtlAngelus]

Well, you must consider that W4 had a lot more to offer than just bigger maps. Also, I reckon K^2 stated quite clearly that his converter couldn't convert heightmaps so the maps weren't as good as in W4.

And what do you mean that tweaking doesn't affect buying decision? Tweaking the PC german demo gave you access to all weapons in the game, before the game itself was released... the same tweaking allowed for you to change the maps(you could take maps from other demos, or even directly from W3d), and some people even made handy programs that would let you swap things around easily right before starting the game...

[AndrewTaylor]

And what do you mean that tweaking doesn't affect buying decision?

I mean that the general W4 tweaking which is generally tolerated here is pretty harmless -- it's not going to make W4 emulate some future version of Worms or mess up an online rank system (because there isn't one) or anything like that. It's very unlikely to put anyone off buying W4. Releasing the W4 maps for W3D might. That's a clear difference.

The demo hacking is a bit different and I don't know what Team17's response to that was so I'm not going to comment there. Nor am I going to look it up because I'm going now.

[MtlAngelus]

Ah, that makes sense, but I was talking strictly about the W3d demo tweaking back when W3d hadn't been released yet.

[Spadge]

I don't understand why Team17 banned someone who is creating tools that may cause more people to buy their games. Just my two cents.

He was banned for distributing hacked levels - and was warned that if he did so, he would be banned. He took the choice. He wasn't banned for nothing.

We are considering releasing the full mayhem editor as unsupported freeware, we just haven't got around to it as yet - its not a huge priority for us right now.

[SomePerson]

May I just make the point that anyone who doesn't buy the game because they can emulate versions of the levels (without height-maps) in W3 is quite daft. I mean, if someone had made a hack so that you could play WA levels on an older Worms, would you settle for that? I sure wouldn't.

I actually think it would raise sales. I think people would be excited about playing the new levels, and would want to buy the game so that they could play these levels online or in the campaign.

Because, well, K^2 never got his maps working online, did he? Where's the point in emulating the game if you can't play the new levels online? Heck, to play one of them offline, even, didn't you even have to overrite one of the old maps? Isn't that kind of a pain in the ****? Even if you wanted to try to emulate the game through this, you'd probably get sick and tired of this method and just buy the game.

He was banned for distributing hacked levels - and was warned that if he did so, he would be banned. He took the choice. He wasn't banned for nothing.

The official line was, as I recall, "He was warned not to post intelectual property of T17, and he did so again."

Which is far from truth.

Yes, I posted one of the maps. It was taken down, and I was warned. I have not posted anything that belongs to T17 afterwards. I got banned over a day after the MinusOne converter got taken down, which had absolutly nothing in it that was taken from T17.





We are considering releasing the full mayhem editor as unsupported freeware, we just haven't got around to it as yet - its not a huge priority for us right now.That would be nice.:)

[AndrewTaylor]

May I just make the point that anyone who doesn't buy the game because they can emulate versions of the levels (without height-maps) in W3 is quite daft. I mean, if someone had made a hack so that you could play WA levels on an older Worms, would you settle for that? I sure wouldn't.

Yes, but bigger levels was one of the major complaints about W3D, wasn't it? Besides which, you can do that.

We are considering releasing the full mayhem editor as unsupported freeware, we just haven't got around to it as yet - its not a huge priority for us right now.
29236

[Glenn]

Interesting.

We are considering releasing the full mayhem editor as unsupported freeware, we just haven't got around to it as yet - quashing K^2's work is not a huge priority for us right now.

[MadEwokHerd]

I have no opinion, but for the record:

1. Did K^2 stop distributing the maps when asked? What I'm hearing from Spadge and from other people on this point doesn't seem to match.

2. Has anything important changed since he was originally banned?

[MtlAngelus]

He stoped distributing the map, but made his converter tool available.
Yes, but bigger levels was one of the major complaints about W3D, wasn't it? Besides which, you can do that.
Except witouth the height map, they weren't that much bigger were they?

[AndrewTaylor]

Except witouth the height map, they weren't that much bigger were they?

No, but then I suppose if you pick a level without much of a heightmap (which you would because it would be playable) and stick it in W3D and show it to someone who's seen none of W4 until then, they might be forgiven for thinking "well that's not much bigger" and assuming all levels are about that size.

[MadEwokHerd]

Ok, then the original reason for the ban does not make sense to me, but if it was valid then than I don't see that anything changed to make it less valid now.

[MonkeyforaHead]

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h121/Glombus79/macrosobjection160.jpg

But anyway, so long as we're all giving our two cents here, sure, I vote unban. I'm still a bit :confused: on the details, but from what I understood at the time he overstepped the boundaries and got slapped in the face for it, so I can see T17 may perceive him as a potential risk. He's a good guy, though.

[SupSuper]

If anything, I'd love to see him back just so he'd put the smack on the "fangames" going around the forum. :p

[thomasp]

If anything, I'd love to see him back just so he'd put the smack on the "fangames" going around the forum. :p
Is it me, or have those kind of died a death recently?

[bonz]

Is it me, or have those kind of died a death recently?
Stillbirth? :rolleyes:

[jb.jones]

We are considering releasing the full mayhem editor as unsupported freeware, we just haven't got around to it as yet - its not a huge priority for us right now.

That would be great!

[worMatty]

If K^2 wants to come back, he should apologise for circumventing Spadge's request and admit that he was still aiding in the distribution of the maps by giving everyone else the ability to do it rather than do it himself. At the moment it looks like he's banned for life, which sounds bad, but unbanning him just because some time has passed seems rather meaningless.

[MtlAngelus]

So, the universe is meaningless, punishing is useless.

[Vader]

I'd like to exclaim my indifference on this matter but I'd like to offer some suggestions.

If he wants to come back he should have the "Being Watched" status. If he's behaved himself after 6 months it will be removed. If not, he's gone again.

Also, if he is going to be a useful member of the community he needs to adhere to the rules of the forum but also submit to Team17's wishes on matters such as the one he was banned for. There's no point in contributing if it is not condoned by the developer - that would be detrimental to the community.

As I say, I don't mind either way. It would be good to see him on the forum but I don't especially miss him in his adbsence.