I have fixed some Game Breaking bugs in Tales of Arterra, (Game breaking meaning there is no way to even get past halfway of the module with the Latest EE patch.)
I would love to post my gently modified .mod here, but I don’t know if that would be accepted, or what would be the best protocol to follow. It’s worth noting that Kevin’s website and e-mail in the readme are no longer working.
Sounds just fine to me, personally. It’s free maintenance work; may even be appreciated. If the original author returns someday and wants to maintain their own modules again, your bugfixed version would spare them some effort. 
In general, before creating a derivative, you’ll want to check out the permissions settings on the project, and see whether the author made their views on derivatives being created clear elsewhere in the upload, like the description or in a readme file. Mind that migrations get uploaded flagged “Open - Free & open only if project also open” (i.e., tinker away, but don’t attempt to prohibit other people from tinkering with your derivative in turn), which may not necessarily be what the original author would have chosen had the option to place these flags existed at the time. When editing and redistributing a Migrate Wizard project, it’s always possible that somebody’ll be ticked off by it someday.
^- Permissions & licensing section on project page.
If you want to be thoroughly polite, then give clear and prominently-displayed credit in your upload description, explain why you did it, make it possible for the original author to contact you if they should want to, note that you’ve attempted to contact them beforehand (if you’ve attempted to contact them beforehand, which I take you have), and link back to the original upload. 's about all you can do on your end.
In case an original author is ever displeased to see what you’ve done, then be understanding and respectful about it rather than get defensive, and things should go just fine. “Your work was so great and I loved it so much that I didn’t want it to get rendered unplayable by patches in your absence” is a very flattering notion, all things considered. Plus, the upload entry can be handed over to them if they decide to come claim it someday, same as with the stuff currently linked to the Migrate Wizard.
This kind of thing usually goes over on a per-case basis that depends on the stances of the individual people involved, more than real fixed ‘protocol’, since nobody’s livelihood is on the line. Gestures of good faith, like asking around how to go about this kind of thing or how to reach a specific absent author, are very likely to be appreciated, though. Since you’re already inclined to go about it this way, I think you’re on a pretty safe road for avoiding unnecessary humandrama.
It’s like 99.9% just a “Try not to be a jerk and unnecessarily piss people off” + “Do have fun and build some neat stuff yay for videogame tinkering :-D” thing. Generally speaking, I think most authors just don’t want to feel like their efforts are going unappreciated, as in “Welp! Now that you’ve done the work and I have the product, who gives a damn about you anymore?!”. But most of the stuff hereabouts was made to be freely tinkered with, and this is a collaborative community where people build upon one anothers’ work on a daily basis, so don’t fret about it overmuch. If somebody bites you for trying to bugfix something so it remains usable, I’m pretty sure that’ll draw the more reproachful glances by far.
Authorship guidelines over here, Code of Conduct over here.
I don’t think there is a definite decision on this. Vault members has a different opinion on that. Truth is however that 99% of past content authors are no longer reachable so in the end in my opinion it is more about making things easier for players/users.
I did several overhauls and improvements of original content, in some cases I posted it in new entry under my name (with credits and links to original project). In few other cases my fixed/improved version was uploaded into original project.
Personally I would like stuff like that to be merged within original project and the fixed/improved version to be put above the original or - when confirmed that the new version doesn’t require old and is 100% backwards compatible - even delete (or hide) the older version. But my view on this didn’t get understood by others…
Anyway, if you want to put your fixed version into original project and nobody will be against that I can help you with that as I still have the permissions to edit any vault projects it seems. Send me your fixed version via PM with additional informations and link to original project I will add it there.
@rashkae Have you raised a bug report with Beamdog?
Given the commitment to backward compatibility, should’t they fix the trigger-to-trigger transition issue (if indeed that’s the problem)?
Or did they already say no?
I thought that particular bug had been fixed ages ago. I remember I and a number of others commented on it and it being fixed. Has it become broken again?
TR
I haven’t discussed it on NWN development boards, no. But in my own opinion, unless there’s a plague of affected modules, I’m not sure it should be changed. Clearly, from the toolset, Triggers were never meant to be destinations for Area Transitions, (if you try, the engine automatically creates and waypoint for you and uses that instead.)
I can see how validating Area transitions at runtime and disabling those that are invalid can be considered part of the stability improvement efforts.
ok so rashkae sent me the files and I uploaded it into original project - https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/tales-arterra-lost
I am however missing permissions to edit description so I couldn’t wrote who made that unofficial patch and additional details so the end result is somewhat unfinished - it would be nice if someone could edit the description and add details on that fixed version…
pm me with the information you want adding and I’ll get onto it.
TR
