Official [furryclan] statements

Tryouts statement
Teamspeak statement
Battlecom statement
Deathmatch statement
Alliances statement
Uniform statement

Tryouts statement

So, you want to join [furryclan]? Thanks for the interest, but we don't do tryouts. [furryclan] rule number two states that entry into [furryclan] is by invitation only. If you want to join, you'll have to convince us to invite you!

To do that, your best bet is to join our games and play your best. After you've played a number of games with us we might offer you membership. Please note that "a number" might end up being a lot...

Teamspeak statement (supersedes Battlecom statement)

[furryclan] now use Teamspeak for voice chat.

Battlecom statement (superseded by Teamspeak statement)

[furryclan] members regularly play with Battlefield Communicator. This great software lets you talk in near-enough real time with other players and unlike certain other voice applications, doesn't leave spyware on your machine. Unfortunately, Battlecom's authors Shadowfactor were bought out by Microsoft, who want to push their own voice chat program, Game Voice.

Whilst Game Voice is by all accounts a good program in its own right, it has several issues. Most serious among these is the requirement that one registered client be connected for every four unregistered clients. The number of players on [furrycom] sessions has been known to run into double figures, which would be impossible under Game Voice unless three members bought the software (at least one registration must be made because the shareware product cannot host sessions).

Therefore [furryclan] will continue to use Battlecom, at least for the time being. Furthermore, since you can no longer download Battlecom from Shadowfactor, we are making it available here.

Download the Battlecom client (2.2Mb)
or the server (1.7Mb).

Our sessions are not closed. You are welcome to join as long as you respect players in a game and do not talk while the action is in progress.

All [furryclan] members host sessions from time to time and should always update the IP address of battlecom.furryclan.net to point to whichever server is running. If we're online we'll probably be there.

Deathmatch statement

[furryclan] is a co-op clan. Because there are only two rules, nothing compels nor prohibits members from playing deathmatch but most will not want to do so. You can ask, but don't expect the answer to start with the letter Y.

Alliances statement

[furryclan] has no "allies" and no "enemies". Such terms are practically meaningless in a game where at most three clan members can fight against two opponents in a single match. Plus see the deathmatch statement.

Uniform mod statement [furrycat]

This is a personal statement from [furrycat].

Recently I've started to receive messages from people asking for permission to use the [furryclan] uniform mod as a base for a mod of their own.

There's a history of ill feeling in SWAT3 circles caused by people making mods, releasing them into the public domain and then getting upset when other people take those mods and include them in "compilation" mods or distribute them themselves. It is not my place to criticise people upset at this behaviour. They've put a lot of hard work into creating some great mods and if they don't want you to distribute or modify them then you damn well ought to comply with their wishes.

I, on the other hand, am more tolerant. [lakmethemud] and I created the [furryclan] mod for the benefit of our teammates and released it for everyone's enjoyment. We then knocked up a quick guide to our work which we hoped would be instructive.

Now I for one would not place files on a publically-accessible web server if I didn't want people to download them. Despite the obviousness of this, and despite the inclusion of a paragraph in our README stating as much, people don't seem to realise (more likely they don't believe, given the furore that copyright issues tend to raise) that we really are giving this stuff away.

So you read our guide and it helped you? Glad to hear it. You want to make your own mod? Brilliant! I'll look forward to seeing it. You want to base it on our mod? Go right ahead. Please, please, please, please, please do not write to me asking for my "permission." Whatever your thoughts on implicit copyright, the fact remains that we EXPLICITLY give you permission to do whatever the hell you like with our mod in the README. The only proviso being that you do not claim to have done bits that we did or that we did bits you did.

Personally, I think that's about as clear as you can get but I'll provide an example just in case.

Yes, this means that you could take the [furryclan] guest skin, airbrush out the word [furryclan] and replace it with your name. All you'd have to do is include something along the lines of "I took the [furryclan] skin and I CHANGED THIS AND THIS AND THIS." Then it's clear which changes were done by you and nobody will think that we erased the word [furryclan] from our own mod...

I know you only want to do the right thing. I appreciate that. But the right thing is clearly documented. I suppose the whole point of this rant is to say "Lighten up! Spend time working on making your mod even better than ours instead of worrying about upsetting us."

But don't forget that other modders have their own opinions on copyright and you must abide by their wishes when dealing with their work.

Sincerely, [furrycat]