I post this here because I think its usefull for mod owners and the rest of the RA2/C&C community, its what could happen to any mod if very bad people get into the mod team.
I really apreciate it if this gets posted. Many thanks in advance.

Virtual terrorism in mod community.

You can�t trust anyone these days. Mod makers out there be carefull who you allow to help because some people who help with a mod might have plans of stealing your mod and put it on another site using all your mods voxels, SHPs, sounds and other material. It might sound like something that wouldn�t happen, but it happened to me.

In 1997 I started on a mod for Red Alert called Real Combat (http://realcombat.eclipsemods.com), a mod based on realism and real life weapons. Over time other people joined to help me with my mod, 2 of those were Emiel Suilen (Phoibos Apolloon) (fam.suilen@planet.nl) and Rob K (CO).

They appeared to be nice people and when TS and RA2 were released we started to work on a TS and then a RA2 version. However over time Emiel Suilen and Rob K changed from the friendly persons I met into sinister persons with their own agenda.

If they disagreed on something they blackmailed me for things such as decisions on rules or they said they wanted copyright and ownership on their name too (I kept those on my name for security reasons because of events that others would try to steal or take over the mod). They said would publish all the mod files if I didn't do what they say.
A short period ago they claimed I didn't do enough for the mod (whereas I am the team leader, I do many things not visible such as PR, giving asingments to other members, lots of searching for info etc.), maybe I could have done some more but that is no reason for blackmailing (which is illegal). I work as an intern at an ICT company and won't be home untill 17:15, after that I had driving lessons of 1 hour twice a week and I go to fitness once a week and I had my driving examn coming up for which I had to study things because I was very unsure if I would pass (my hard work payed off, I passed).

They blackmailed me to finish the Ticonderoga voxel as well as rifle infantry within a certain date, actually I didn't received it because my filter in OE and ICQ filters such things (they had send their so called ultimatums before), but later he told me that the rifleman was to be finished sunday 8 october.
Ironically the day before he send the e-mail (he said that he send a mail so I presume it was that one, I only got it later because of my filter when he send it trough ICQ) I made a planning for RC work for me to do, finishing the Tico in about a week (its very detailed) and the infantry in 5 - 10 days (I finished it in 5) so I was back into puttin a lot of time in it (as far as possible).

If I wouldn't have them done in time Emiel said he would make his own site together with Rob and release RC himself, which is betraying me, the other team members and violation of RCs copyright. I am the one who started the mod all by myself back in 1997 (for RA1 back then). I also had copyright that all files within Real Combat are property of Real Combat, which has been in both text files and on the site.
This was done to protect the mod against exactly such an event, however Rob and Emiel does not seem to care about my copyright.
However I did got both the rifle infantry and Tico done in time (actually 1 day before) and then he said he will make that other site anyway, even though I met his demands. He then said I should finish the grenadier the next day (monday), which is impossible, it are more then 300 frames and it already was in the evening, so they clearly wanted to get rid of me.
So because their coups failed they used a diffirent method: stealing Real Combat and renaming it to TrueWar 2001, using Real Combats copyrighted work.

I have been very stupid, I should have kicked them out after their first blackmail, but I thought they would change, and that Emiel was a friend and would not do things like that (because friends don�t do things like that) they said they would publish all files on the web if I did not comply with their demands.
I did agree on shared ownership because (otherwise they would have published the files) but that wasn�t legally valid because the law says that any agreement made under pressure or blackmailing is not legally valid.
And even if it would have been valid, they left the mod so they would no longer have any ownership.
The worst thing is that many files of RC have been stolen, its like if 2 Westwood employees working on a new game, lets say RA3 would leave, set up their own company, taking with them an early RA3 development disk and release RA2 as their own game with a diffirent name, lets say Red Alarm 3.

I call on everyone to boycot True War 2001 and I call on all sites to not host them, don�t put a link to them at their site, not to do any news posting about them and to remove any forum posts about this mod. Any help in getting their site offline and stop them from releasing their version of my mod would be greatly apreciated.

I am the first victom of virtual terrorism within a RA2 mod, others could follow. Mod makers be carefull who you allow to help with your mod, some people just can�t be trusted, they only want to take over your mod. Also you know which people you certainly should not allow to help with your mod, the two mentioned above. If any of your team members try to blackmail you you should kick them out of your team at once because their demands and acts only get worse if you don�t. Trust me, I know.

So whats with Real Combat now? I and the other team members continiue on it, estimated release is end november. Like the United States and many other countries we do not let virtual terrorists defeat us. This is a war against virtual terrorism in the mod community.

If anyone is interested, our team can always need some more people to make voxels, SHPs, music, voxel normals or anything else. For more info: http://realcombat.eclipsemods.com (it used to be http://realcombat.ra2mods.com but RA2mods is still down).

I would also like to send my thanks to the visitors of my site who send their support and helped me trough this difficult event.

Marcel van Dasselaar (Sniper)
sniper@soneramail.nl