Strange thread all in all!


So.................... Who's looking forward to L5 then?

Fid is a pretty prominent poster at DF. I find it hard to believe he did something that odd on purpose.

I can vouch for both JG and King as people I have known for many years. To upset them in this way is pretty uncommon....I have NEVER seen them this freaked out.

And do NOT send me a capture of the image..I don't need any MORE sick porn on my machine.....

Mike B.

Well, I learned something new!  Anyway, lets get back to busting on L4 (and those DF people!

Foulfoot, if you want to delete all the "noise" I caused in this thread to get it back on track, feel free.

I had previously logged on while these shenanigans were afoot, but I didn't see it (or just missed it), thankfully. I just hope for Fid's sake it wasn't a hard drive corruption issue on his end that erroneously crosslinked an image from his own, personal "secret of bone hill" project  

But back to all seriousness, Bill was right earlier.

I know the debate was sort of raging over copyright issues surrounding L4, but just because it is a free download does not eliminate the copyright law. L4 is clearly in violation and WoTC can come down any time they want. Maybe they will just let it go, which is most likely.

Unless Len has an arrangement with whomever holds the copyright, the fact that it is free is irrelevant.

Badmike wrote:
Pretend I'm an idiot guys, because...well, I AM an idiot! What does anti-leeching code do, and why does it cause JG's porno-meter to go off the scale?

Mike B.

When a server detects that a locally-stored image is being pulled via a remote request, the server can instead serve up something nasty... in this case, not quite the image intended.

For instance, if I *really* wanted people to not use images from this site, I could implement such code so when an Acaeum image is linked in an eBay ad....  Though that wouldn't stop somebody from just grabbing the image and hosting it elsewhere.

In this day and age, it's sort of silly.  In the old days, "bandwidth" was a concern, and an admin (rightfully) didn't want his bandwidth quota to be eaten up by folks linking to images and whatnot.  Today, where broadband is pretty much at a saturation point, it's not an issue.

Foul

FoulFoot wrote:When a server detects that a locally-stored image is being pulled via a remote request, the server can instead serve up something nasty... in this case, not quite the image intended.

For instance, if I *really* wanted people to not use images from this site, I could implement such code so when an Acaeum image is linked in an eBay ad....  Though that wouldn't stop somebody from just grabbing the image and hosting it elsewhere.

So was it the DF server that was sending out the image because Fid's avatar over here was a link to that site (or wherever he's hosting his avatar)?

Fid wrote:I just thought I would pop in here and see if I can clear up some of the misunderstandings about L4.  Some of you may know me from DF, some of you may not.

Basically, I take a lot of responsibility for what L4 is and what it is not, so please direct your criticisms to me and not Gnarley Bones or Solomoriah.  I was basically the project coordinator (for lack of a better term) at the beginning of L4 (contacting Len, developing a rapport and dragging him away from competitive bridge) and the very loooong middle (as Len likes to say), but not at the end (real life has a way of interfering).  GB and Solo stepped in after we had many misadventures with volunteer proofers/editors during the looong middle and got this into "print".

By the time they took over, it had swollen to the size that you see and I had made the decision to go with the full color CC2 maps that Len favored.

If I had to do it over again, I would have imposed a 16 page or 32 page limit and forced Len to follow DF's editorial policy in favor of old school maps.  However, if I had done so, I know that Len would have resisted and this content would have never seen the light of day.

Some folks (especially those in the collector community) have said, simply why not just release (or auction) Len's original notes?  The problem is there are none.  He lost the drafts of L4 through L10 when he moved from Chicago to California.

Others have suggested, why not sell it through one of the old school renaissance publishers and utilize a paid, professional production team?  Three issues here: (1) when we began this, there were no OSR publishers, (2) this a Greyhawk module.  It is not set in an unnamed archipelago off the southeast coast of a large continent.  Are any of the OSR publishers selling Greyhawk modules? and (3) Len insisted from the beginning that this be "free".

As for volunteers being turned down, you're right - I turned lots of people (including some of my friends) away.  I had so many volunteers, I didn't have time to address them all personally and I apologize for this.  You would be amazed how many folks come out of the woodwork for the opportunity to meet Len and get their names in the credits.  As for the proofers during the looong middle, we set the criteria that they had to have professional experience or have been involved in other DF publications.  You have no idea how much fun it is to have such a "qualified" proofer spend nine months on a manuscript and then return it with just one comment - a misplaced comma on page 54!

Will some of your comments be addressed in L5 and L6.  Maybe, but the manuscript and maps for L5 are already done.  At the end of the day, most of us tried our best and I will always be in Gnarley's debt for stepping in at the end to make the best of my bad decisions.

First thanks for coming here Fid.  I appreciate you taking time out for this.

The reason I did not (and will not) go to DF about these issues is to avoid a lock-down flame out thread which would quickly degenerate into name calling (if not outright war) between people (and perhaps DF and the Acaeum).  I go to DF everyday, but when I see crap there like a 20+ page thread with trolls just trying to get people stirred up about innocuous issues, something this possibly inflammatory might melt the place down.  Both the fact Len frequents there, as do the people that worked on L4 (most of them Mods, btw) makes that a poisoned atmorphere for criticism. People with no real clue, opinion, or take on the matter will jump in merely to "defend" either Len or their buddies, leading to bombs dropping everywhere. No thanks.

I perfectly understand your issues with Len, as he apparantly had certain demands and such, and if the choice was between nothing at all and what we got, I guess we are stuck with what we got.  And I understand the school of thought that the item is "free" and should be judged in that context.  The issues with Greyhawk content, etc are a separate issue, and hopefully nothing bad will come from that. And yes the OSR was not as strong when this product was proposed, so it was published on DF or nothing.  And you deserve a lot of credit with even getting Len interested in this process.

However, it is plain to me and many others that this product is a sloppy, badly edited product with major issues.  And it is mind boggling that four years were spent on this and what was published was virtually unusable.  I guess my issues are how on earth can these so-called professional proofers do a worse job than any of the dozens and dozens of OSR self-publishers here?  I'm talking about mispelled words....MISPELLED WORDS!!!!  On a product that presumably intelligent people were looking at for FOUR YEARS!   Every single so-called "proofer" that had their name on this should be barred from any type of DF publication for all eternity if you guys want to regain ANY sort of legitimacy in the old school community. It's simply inexcusable, even for a free product, to have this level of ridiculousness.  A high school newspaper staff would have done a better job.  And whoever the fuck had the thing for nine months and found one error should have had his worthless ass "outed" and booted so far off DF that he couldn't find his way back. I'm sorry it's obvious to me that guy just wanted his own copy and thought "the hell with Dragonsfoot".  

It is mindboggling that people who have acutally published items (like, actual items that can be bought!) are available and weren't brought in at some point to try and rescue this mess.  Just here at the Acaeum and DF we have Bill Barsh, Guy Fullerton, R.C. Pinnell (who I understand was brought in at the end but for a totally different purpose than editing/proofing), Matt Finch, Geoffey McKinney, Jason Zavoda (author of articles for Dragon magazine), Allan Grohe, Jon Hershberger, the list goes on for people who have actual published products who would have been happy to assist.  I guess it just disappoints me because this is such a "historical" item in terms of who wrote it and the place the L-series has in gamers hearts.

On top of the spelling and grammar mistakes...the module structure as written makes no sense.  There is no table of contents, no "For the DM"s Eyes Only" section, etc.  Is it an adventure? A travelogue?  A list of location descriptions? A failed attempt to create a linear scenario? A sandbox? No attempt is made to have this make sense. Unless Len insisted on the present arrangement (and if so I apologize) the editing as such is a failure. This isn't my first rodeo, I've read dozens of adventure modules in my time, and I can't make hear nor tales of this one.

My impression is that people were overwhelmed with the size of the project, and things were allowed to slide or sit for months and months on end with no progress. Even for a free product there has to be standards when you are using a respected site (Dragonsfoot) and a respected former TSR author (Len).  Not only did it appear the staff was out of their league, but they compounded the problem by bad judgement in gettng helpers.  I don't think there is any doubt the product was done a huge disservice because of this. It could have been so much better, so we are left wondering what could have been....

Let's say I have the "lost" manuscript to S5.  I tell you I'm working on putting it out, and refuse to use the considerable resources of the OSR community to help.  After four years I release it. It has maps that don't match the subject matter, tons of typos and grammatical problems, is badly edited to the point it doesn't make much sense, and I never asked anyone else to assist me even though it's clear I was overwhelmed by the project. Free or not you'd crucify me. That's how I feel now.

Mike B.

Just my thoughts, having not read it comprehensively yet, but irrespective of free production, professional availability or 4+yrs in the making, it isn't hard to pick up spelling mistakes.
As this is free, I'm happy to have a copy but will edit the pdf for mistakes.
I may even edit the story line for my personal use, but I cant imagine it will take that long to correct spelling errors at least.

sauromatian wrote:While I've only skimmed though bits of the module, nothing jumps out typo-wise. I see some missing hyphens, overuse of the word "that," erratic use of British quote marks in an otherwise American-English document, but nothing I wouldn't expect from an amateur production. Anyone care to provide a few egregious examples?

To be fair I didn't notice many of them until I did a more thorough read through.

I do remember one page alone had three glaring mistakes. I stopped caring at that point. After four years and countless read throughs (I assume) it's hard to believe these errors weren't found.

Just as bad as the errors is the structure of the module as a whole.  Sauro, after a thorough read through, I would be curious as to your opinion of the "flow" of the module and if it's clear in it's purpose and intentions, and whether it meets the standards of even other "amateur" publications.

I'd like to point out that had the choice been no product or this, I'll gladly take this.  I guess more than anything I'm upset by the lost opportunities here.

Mike B.