I simply love everything you do Val, and I'm guessing you're the same Valzen I also admired on Rift. Your work is gorgeous, you are so very creative.
OMG! Charlice! You're back to EQ2? Good to see you! Yes, I was on Rift. lol Loved building there, but housing had nothing to offer except "oh, look at that". I'll send a note so that this thread doesn't derail. Thank you for the compliments. I admire your work, too. You do amazing things! HUGS!
About the design "theft": yep, I agree it's pretty blatant, and not good behavior at all (at least change 51% of a design, poem, song, artwork, etc., folks, or say it's a parody and claim Free Use), but this is still all SOE's stuff that we're ultimately playing with. We can't copyright or trademark anything in here, 'cause it's all theirs (more's the pity, sometimes! the art teams ofttimes hit it out of the park!). :-/ That being said, yeah, it stinks to see something you worked hard on get lifted outright. Much hugs and sorry for that derailing your vacation! :-/ Uwk
I have read the blatant theft of the design ever since it was posted and still don't have words for it, well not that I can post here. It is one thing to be inspired by your fellow decorator, its a entirely different matter to copy/steal their hard work. At least we have the facts here in this thread, id say to try and take it as a compliment but what they did is simply going to far imo.
Hello all! I see this forum has... expanded... quite a bit since I visited a few weeks ago looking for inspiration for my guild's new hall. Yes, I am the one who was greatly impressed by Cheribomb's guild hall entrance design and wished to replicate it. The courtyard look is beautiful and I fell in love with it immediately when I saw the pictures! I worked from screenshots alone, using publicly-available in-game house items. All my replication work was done by hand, with only minor deviations from the original inspiration as necessary and suitable. My guild's hall is private, and only guild members and friends are invited to enter; it was never intended to be open for public display, and I do not post screenshots claiming that this design was invented by me. We invited a certain individual inside as a friend to view the work in progress, not to post images of a private hall onto a public forum in an attempt to "out" the copiers. Again, ours being a private hall, the above-posted images are the only ones that non-members will ever view of our designs, whether original or imitation. Congratulations to Cheribomb for designing a beautiful layout, and yes, though the public may never see it, please take my replication, non-professional as it may be, as the highest compliment to your creativity!
I can see what you're saying, and yes, I agree that it is the highest compliment. You still should have asked permission before duplicating the design. It's a sign of respect to ask first. It's polite. It doesn't matter if no one else would see it except you, your guild, and friends, you still should have asked. The worse that could have happened was she could have said no. I'll warn you now, though, that decorators have a long memory, especially Cheribomb. We can't stop you, but we will remember it...
Drat, it's the KGB (Keeping Guilds Beautiful) Society, I'm on their "List." I just know they're gonna make me an offer I can't refuse... ><
I love your way of interpreting this design style as well Valzen - similar but different. To see the ordinary being turned into the extraordinary is so exciting. Also it's perfectly normal for us to be creating very similar things within the game considering we are all working from the same palette. So kudos to both you and Cheribomb for such creative and sharing abilities.
Thank you very much. I have to say it was quite eery to see this thread as I was almost finished with our guild hall. I had my mind set on a city square theme way before we even moved. Had the grotto arches for something else that didn't work out, and wanted to use them. After I saw cheribomb's, I was blown away. She and I had similar ideas, but her work is totally awesome. I'll end up changing mine. I like to be completely different with big projects. But this thread isn't about me. I only threw mine in here, because the whole thing has flabbergasted me. Lol. Was just. .. wow.
Yep, that looks like the attitude she's having, and just like rowanleigh, it will come back to bite her in the bum somewhere down the road... which makes me wonder if rowanleigh ever found a decorator. https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2...-for-a-decorator-ab-tier-1-guild-hall.544940/
Snipped: Please don't change yours. I think we all love them both and they are sufficiently different for it not to matter at all. Besides there is always the rest of the hall for you to work with. I know that sort of sinking feeling when you see something really special published and you know you've been working on something so similar. I think it's probably happened to all of us at times. It doesn't make anything less of your own creativity.l It just proves what an awesome idea you both had. Again when we work with all the same objects for creating (our palette) similarities will always be there.
Hi Valzen, sorry I couldn't comment earlier. Thank you for your compliments on my courtyard. I love your courtyard and hope you will not change it. I look at it this way; we're not the first people to do a courtyard in this game and certainly won't be the last Everyone knows we are limited by game items and are usually inspired by architectural styles we see so it's inevitable folks will have similar themes at times. I have had the same thing happen to me as well. I held my breath when I knew Jexi was working on her fright manor at the same time I was working on mine. I finally sighed with relief when she published hers before me and I saw that they came out very differently . I even double checked hers when I was done with mine to make sure I didn't subconsciously copy something of hers after I had seen it. I have to do that all the time with all the great decorators in this game So don't change yours please, it's beautiful!
I would like to bring this whole thing to a close. But first I have some thanking to do. I want to thank Jexi for sounding the alarm and doing some covert operations. It took a lot of guts for her to post this publicly. We decided together for her to post it here based on the reaction she received from The Unseen's guild leader Stonehart when she brought it to his attention that his decorator Aphelia was copying my design and even provided him with a link to my post. She said he didn't seem concerned about it. We both felt they they were also trying to being sneaky about it by keeping their guild closed to visitors. They had only given her friend access to show her how awesome their new guild design was and of course she immediately recognized it. When she brought it to my attention I almost didn't believe it until she provided the screenshots. She also mentioned that she knew this was going to cause and end to the decorating relationship that she already had with Stonehart before this stunt. She absolutely did the right thing and I am very grateful to her for it and am sorry that multiple people ended up getting hurt because of this. So thank you Jexi you are a true ally! Also, I would like to thank Afista for jumping on this and doing some serious detective work on this while I was out of town and helpless to get into the game. She got them to let her into their guild over the weekend so she could get an up close view to help determine if this work was done with a saved layout or by hand. After comparing a lot of screenshots we have determined this was done by hand and not a saved layout. She even had to convince me twice that it wasn't a saved layout by pointing out the differences in the placement of objects all through screenshots of both of our halls. If you ever need a laser eye on anything; Afista is your girl So thank you Afista you are a true friend! I want to thank the decorating community for backing me up on this and stressing your concerns as well. This was not only upsetting to myself but it was upsetting to the whole community. I am flabbergasted that if someone could copy something so close that they would also have enough skills to come up with their own design. I was not impressed with Zhalavolici/Aphelia's post on these forums either. I didn't even see a hint of an apology for all the upset they caused. The guild leader Stonehart was equally unapologetic in the Facebook Homeshow forums and at one point even insulted me more by saying I was full of hatred and must be tank. Seriously? Stonehart said that Aphelia would remove the design from their guild but I will never know for sure if they did or will. When we publish our works we risk the chance that someone will borrow some ideas and that's okay if they do it with permission or give credit on smaller things. But it's never okay for someone to be so disrespectful as to copy an entire design without permission! It's just rude and other words that I can't say here. At least through all this we can see that the decorating community all have each others backs and I for one am grateful for that. Now I'd like to put this whole thing behind me and get back to having fun in this game. Thank you all again and happy decorating! Sincerely, Cheribomb
I guess maybe I see things a little differently - it was wrong to copy the whole design without permission. But, that being said - I steal/borrow designs all the time and I'm too daft to remember where I saw it. When I see someone copy something I did - or very similar, I take it as the highest of high compliments. It means they really liked it! I know this isn't the general consensus, but can you imagine this game without some of the awesome designs being copied? Whoever turned the first table on it's side for a cabinet door - grats to you and I use this constantly. Thank you though, I have learned something here.
It wouldn't have been as big of a deal to me if this was just another home I designed and I might have let them keep the design with payment. But this was my guild hall that I leveled to 30 by myself in less than a week to do this design to represent my style and my business in this game. It was one of the the most personal projects I had done. I felt burglarized.
I agree with you that is the highest of compliments, and that is how I see things as well. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I've said it a few times in this thread, even. However, there is a difference between imitation or utilizing a technique that someone else used and plagiarism. (Yes, I know plagiarism applies to written works, but in its basic form, that is what the Unseen did with Cheribomb's hall.) What you're describing is, "I really like Suzy's paper. She labels the sections in her paper. I'm going to start organizing my sections just like Suzy." What the Unseen did is, "I really like Suzy's paper. I'm going to copy it and just change a few words here and there to make it different." Turning a table on its side? Ingenious technique, and I can do it without copying the entire room. A Venetian villa? Gorgeous. I want to make a Venetian villa too, but I'll do it my own way with my own choice in building materials. That is the point being made here. Techniques? Copy them to your heart's content. Inspiration? Take it and go forth. Make something splendid with it, improve it, make it your own. Just don't copy the whole darn thing. That's wrong.
I'm betting you never copied an entire project verbatim top to bottom though, and forgot where it came from, ya know? I'm sure, having met Cheribomb a few times in game now, that if I said to her "I adore this project, tell me about your design philosophy" she would. Heck, she might even offer pointers. Then I could go and do my version of a villa. That's inspiration. This was just a rip.
