The use of Warband and With Fire and Sword assets.
When you look at both Warband and With Fire and Sword, you could get the idea to use some assets from one of these games in a mod to enhance the other. For example, you could see some nice cathedral in WFaS and get the idea that it would greatly enhance the Calradian city of Praven from Warband. Or you could try to implement some features from Warband into WFaS - maybe in order to make your Warband mod compatible with WFaS. I know that some of you might get that idea, since I had it too. For quite a while now I've been bugging all the devs in order to find out if I'm allowed to do so. In short, the answer is no.
To understand this answer, you'd have to know that Warband and With Fire and Sword are produced by two different companies: the first by TaleWorlds, the second by SiCh. Despite the similar 'Mount & Blade' prefix, there's no trademark relation whatsoever. This means that for all purposes, you should treat them as two completely separate games: not games from the same series or brand. The transfer of content from WFAS to Warband will break the software agreement you have aggreed when installing WFAS. Vice versa will break the agreement with Warband. This means that you are legally not allowed to just transfer anything from one game to the other. The reason behind this is that no one can guarantee that the mod users have a legit copy of both Warband and WFAS. Therefore copying content from one of those games and distributing it as a mod is copyright infringement.
Even tough you can't just do it, you could try to ask the devs for the use of certain assets. I did it, but unfortunately the devs don't allow it. Understandable, since if they make an exception for me, why wouldn't they make it for you? Or him? Or anyone else? And if they allow the use of one part of the game (be it a model, texture or part of the code), why not the other parts?
What kind of consequences does this 'no' have?
- Some minimods for Warband might work without any problems in WFaS. But any larger mod that uses native assets might not run on the other game without implementing all kinds of native assets into the mod. This is not allowed, so unless you create your own replacements, you can't make your Warband mod compatible for WFaS, and vice versa.
- Features that are present in Warband but are absent in WFaS can't just be brought over, unless you write your own code. So no female faces or tournaments unless you write them yourself in the game. Mind you, all the tournament equipment from Warband is present in WFaS - altough not used as such - and doesn't have to be copied from Warband.
- Assets you might like from WFaS (like nice cathedrals, dresses, map icons, code improvements, bug fixes etc) may not be used in Warband mods.
My own mod - the Floris Mod Pack - thus won't become WFaS compatible, and I doubt that many other Mount & Blade or Warband mods will make this transfer. So I hope that - once and if the module system for WFaS is released - some modders who like WFaS wil build good mods from the ground up.
When you look at both Warband and With Fire and Sword, you could get the idea to use some assets from one of these games in a mod to enhance the other. For example, you could see some nice cathedral in WFaS and get the idea that it would greatly enhance the Calradian city of Praven from Warband. Or you could try to implement some features from Warband into WFaS - maybe in order to make your Warband mod compatible with WFaS. I know that some of you might get that idea, since I had it too. For quite a while now I've been bugging all the devs in order to find out if I'm allowed to do so. In short, the answer is no.
To understand this answer, you'd have to know that Warband and With Fire and Sword are produced by two different companies: the first by TaleWorlds, the second by SiCh. Despite the similar 'Mount & Blade' prefix, there's no trademark relation whatsoever. This means that for all purposes, you should treat them as two completely separate games: not games from the same series or brand. The transfer of content from WFAS to Warband will break the software agreement you have aggreed when installing WFAS. Vice versa will break the agreement with Warband. This means that you are legally not allowed to just transfer anything from one game to the other. The reason behind this is that no one can guarantee that the mod users have a legit copy of both Warband and WFAS. Therefore copying content from one of those games and distributing it as a mod is copyright infringement.
Even tough you can't just do it, you could try to ask the devs for the use of certain assets. I did it, but unfortunately the devs don't allow it. Understandable, since if they make an exception for me, why wouldn't they make it for you? Or him? Or anyone else? And if they allow the use of one part of the game (be it a model, texture or part of the code), why not the other parts?
What kind of consequences does this 'no' have?
- Some minimods for Warband might work without any problems in WFaS. But any larger mod that uses native assets might not run on the other game without implementing all kinds of native assets into the mod. This is not allowed, so unless you create your own replacements, you can't make your Warband mod compatible for WFaS, and vice versa.
- Features that are present in Warband but are absent in WFaS can't just be brought over, unless you write your own code. So no female faces or tournaments unless you write them yourself in the game. Mind you, all the tournament equipment from Warband is present in WFaS - altough not used as such - and doesn't have to be copied from Warband.
- Assets you might like from WFaS (like nice cathedrals, dresses, map icons, code improvements, bug fixes etc) may not be used in Warband mods.
My own mod - the Floris Mod Pack - thus won't become WFaS compatible, and I doubt that many other Mount & Blade or Warband mods will make this transfer. So I hope that - once and if the module system for WFaS is released - some modders who like WFaS wil build good mods from the ground up.