Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Talk about creating Grimrock 1 levels and mods here. Warning: forum contains spoilers!
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Halk
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by Halk »

I'm just thinking ahead... with regard to the application of those rules... How would it work if someone, for example, took the spider creature information and graphics and created a tougher spider, for later levels, based on the same graphics with some modifications... my understanding is that that mod wouldn't suit the rules, because it couldn't be distributed.. is that correct?
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Jack Dandy
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by Jack Dandy »

Oh, that's a good point.

What exactly did you mean by "Distirbution"? Does it count as selling (That I can understand) or simply offering?

Does it mean people wouldn't be allowed to customize the current assets and re-release them? (NOT sell. Re-release!)
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Sol_HSA
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by Sol_HSA »

Jack Dandy wrote:What exactly did you mean by "Distirbution"?
Distributing:
Making a copy available for someone else, in any way, including, but not limited to:
- Posting on a web site
- Sending through email
- Posting on a forum
- Buying full page ad space on new york times and posting the code in it
- Reading it out loud on the telephone
- Changing the level data into audio form and selling it as the #1 billboard hit
- Giving out printed fliers with the data.
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Sol_HSA
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by Sol_HSA »

Basically this means that you'd have to figure out a way to distribute your data that modifies the game's data without having to distribute the original data.

So, you need to make a patcher.

Given that someone has already figured out how to make an extractor, this is relatively easy task.
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Punchy
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by Punchy »

I just want to point out that some core interfaces for lua have there source available in the libs folder, and that we should be able to basically recode every lua file just looking at the bytecode(thou this would be a approch I don't like). I want to ask Almost Human, if they could lock up the loading of scripts for the LuaVM to just the scripts included in the game and create some kind of /mods folder whose scripts are loaded with reduced permissions. If you don't want to do that could you at least please post some kind of example source for a level?
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petri
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by petri »

Halk wrote:I'm just thinking ahead... with regard to the application of those rules... How would it work if someone, for example, took the spider creature information and graphics and created a tougher spider, for later levels, based on the same graphics with some modifications... my understanding is that that mod wouldn't suit the rules, because it couldn't be distributed.. is that correct?
I can think of at least two options:
1) you can refer to the existing (unmodified) Grimrock assets packaged with the game from a mod, or
2) you can create your own monster with custom model and include them in the mod
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Halk
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by Halk »

Would the LoG devs please consider prohibiting any distribution of mods/content and so forth on these forums by way of pay-click links? There was a cheat file I think yesterday and the guy had it on one of these shady places that makes you sign up for newsletters or take surveys... To me that's selling content, since he would have made money from people downloading it.
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petri
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by petri »

Punchy wrote:I just want to point out that some core interfaces for lua have there source available in the libs folder, and that we should be able to basically recode every lua file just looking at the bytecode(thou this would be a approch I don't like). I want to ask Almost Human, if they could lock up the loading of scripts for the LuaVM to just the scripts included in the game and create some kind of /mods folder whose scripts are loaded with reduced permissions. If you don't want to do that could you at least please post some kind of example source for a level?
Yeah, distributing extracted and decompiled Grimrock Lua files, original or altered, is not cool. Loading Lua files written by you is cool - this is not currently supported but we are planning to add this feature to the game.
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antti
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by antti »

Halk wrote:Would the LoG devs please consider prohibiting any distribution of mods/content and so forth on these forums by way of pay-click links? There was a cheat file I think yesterday and the guy had it on one of these shady places that makes you sign up for newsletters or take surveys... To me that's selling content, since he would have made money from people downloading it.
If the downloaders have to pay for the file, then it's definitely forbidden. If there is a direct revenue from the downloads to the modder by, for example, advertisements (but the downloader doesn't have to pay for it directly), then it's more of a grey area. I would say it is discouraged, especially so if the site is annoying to use.

These policies will be reviewed if those turn out to be a problem.
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villdelfia
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Re: Reverse engineering (was:Temporary modding) thread

Post by villdelfia »

antti wrote:
Halk wrote:Would the LoG devs please consider prohibiting any distribution of mods/content and so forth on these forums by way of pay-click links? There was a cheat file I think yesterday and the guy had it on one of these shady places that makes you sign up for newsletters or take surveys... To me that's selling content, since he would have made money from people downloading it.
If the downloaders have to pay for the file, then it's definitely forbidden. If there is a direct revenue from the downloads to the modder by, for example, advertisements (but the downloader doesn't have to pay for it directly), then it's more of a grey area. I would say it is discouraged, especially so if the site is annoying to use.

These policies will be reviewed if those turn out to be a problem.
Websites like adfly are annoying and even dangerous to use.

There have been at least a few ads on adfly that hijacked the browser and/or installed malware, while they are quickly reported that doesn't help you much if you happened upon one of them before they're reported.

I would not only go as far as forbidding adfly and other such sites, I would put op a whitelist for allowed file hosts:

Dropbox and mediafire for files and pastebin for code snippets.
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