Fine! You'll never have your shot at those 17 Virgins once you die! :p
Let me explain why I had an initial negative reaction to that statement on your skin. To me, making skins for winbolo is about enhancing the game, about making the game look much more attractive and much more enjoyable. That way those who play the game will want to play the game longer, and to also attract much more new people to the game the we could with those pre-historic ancient graphic. But even if we don't attract more people (which I know we would because the 1988 graphics turn so many ppl off), it will make the game a lot more enjoyable to those of us currently playing, thus increasing the amount of time we would spend on this game.
That's why I created xSkin. I wanted to put something together that would enhance my enjoyment of the game, and by releasing it, I hoped to make other people enjoy winbolo even more then they do, and thus help them want to play the game more. And it seems I was successfull - a lot of people have come to me and told me how much they enjoy xSkin, how they play with it all the time, even people who had tested the other skins and didn't like them.
Now, if I had had to ask permission to use the graphics from those other skins in order to create xSkin, I'm quite sure I would have been denied, and xSkin would never been created. And without having xSkin, I never would have thought of creating this contest. And without this contest which motivated you so much, your new skin would never have been created (or at least would not have been created this soon).
Yes, I understand about getting credits and not wanting people to copy your stuff and take credit themselves for it. You work hard on your skin, and you want to be recognized for it. That's normal and understandable. You don't want people to take your stuff and use it as theirs and claim they created it. That's why in xSkin, I created the largest readme.txt that has ever been created for a Winbolo Skin. I credited every single pixel I copied from anyone, so that the proper people would have their name honored and everyone would have no doubt who were the great minds behind the skin.
I personally feel that making skins is like making maps - you can take images from other maps and used them as you wish. Chew Toy 3, arguably the most popular map in the history of bolo was created exactly by one author taking another author's work and improving on it - without asking for permission. DH-Oil Rig, another popular map was created the same way - DeathHand took Megawatt's Oil Rig, added some stuff to it and released under his own name, without asking for permission. And you know what? Nobody blinked an eyebat, least of all Megawatt. In my case, I'm still waiting for someone to copy my masterpiece StarIce....it's been 9 years and damnit I'm tired of waiting for someone to copy my star-shape and use it in their map - I worked hard at creating that star shape! Grrrrr.
Anyway, It's my humble opinion, that this "Permission to use first", if followed, creates a lot of hurddle and roadblocks to improving the graphics of this game in my opinion - some unsurmountable. Had we had that for maps, we'd still be playing Everald Island, as the first maps were created by people illegally hacking into bolo to create the first maps.
So, that's why I had this initial negative reaction toward this huge "permission must be asked and granted" text you placed on your skin. It's a shame that out of my initial display of frustration with your permission text, you decided to very publicly remove yourself from the contest, without even discussing anything with me. I'm also quite dissapointed in you that you decided to post private messages between you and I into a public forum - what about asking for permission to post private discussion?
But since you decided to take this public, so be it.
Didn't you modify a copy of Winbolo (which is copyrighted) without permission from Elvis to create the initial GreyWinbolo skin and the initial ViperBolo skin long before he put in Skins ability. That was an improvement to winbolo, you made it publicly available, and yet you did it without permission and it was an infringement to Winbolo Legal stuff.
Let's examine what you've done even further in this very new skin of yours. In your new skin, you've used a large real picture from a website, shrank it and put it in your skin. You've also used two images from another very popular and well known game to make tiles and put them into your skin or at least that was what you said you were gonna do. You even showed me a website that sold 3-D images of a tank-like vehicle that you intended to rip off and use on your skin (which you didn't because it didn't shrink well at all). In those cases, you never asked permission from the original creator of those pictures/images.
So...let's see: while YOU can copy images from other sources at will to create your skin, you seem to want to restrict other people from doing the same. Quite curious.
Anyway, to me, I think the highest honor someone can do is if they use my creative work in my skin and incorporate it in their skin. To me that says "Your image was the best out there and was so good that I will honor your hard work using it in this skin." I would absolutely be thrilled if I could produce an image so terrific that everyone would want to be using it, thus becoming the standard for the community. I was thrilled when Sheeps decided to release a version of Aquabattle that contained stuff I made for xSkin. In my next version of xSkin, I've created a tank and base amo indicator type thing that I think roxs...and when I release it I sure hope others will be copying it, as I spent a good amount of time to get it right.
Anyway, I've said probably all I'm going to say about this subject.
By the way, after I dealt with some potential disasters that almost kept me from going out of town as I had planned two months ago, I looked at your skin and played with it to test it, and I have to say your skin looks quite amazing, it's a great improvement since the last update you had sent to me. The Sea/Deep Ocean that you put together, I didn't think was going to look good, but you sure managed to pull it off! My hats off to your terrific skin making skills.
But if I have to damnit, I'm gonna keep those 17 Virgins in Heaven all to myself.
