[Scummvm-devel] Detecting patched games / SCI bug reports

[M. Kiewitz]

Hi Max,


> Anyway, in the end, we are moving in a very grey area here.
> So no matter what we do, we will leave some people
> unhappy...

For SCI, the current commented out versions are "full" pirate versions, which means the crack is even embedded in the resource files. There is no way that a user could patch his legitimate copy that way. Also most games have the copy protection embedded into the game. For example in lsl5, you need to enter the codes for getting your ticket at the airport. The pirated version of lsl5 crashes here, because the patched scripts are buggy. In this case blacklisting won't matter at all, because even if we didnt blacklist it, it wouldnt work anyway. Same goes for the pirated version of sq4. For those games pirates easily "fixing" ScummVM to make it work isn't possible. I guess if a pirate was competent enough, he would even add the copyprotection patches into our patching code and patch those games on-the-fly instead of removing the detection for patched games.

Also startup protections only need to get done once by the user, afterwards it's possible to just load a saved game from ScummVM menu and skip the protection that way. I would personally say that cracking an original game just to skip the protection once doesn't make sense.

> Maybe that's because devs looked at them and didn't have
> the resources to address them (e.g. lack of time due to
> being busy fixing other bugs, or lack of the right game
> version, or or or). Or maybe because they get lost in the
> tons of constantly incoming new reports? Fact is, those are
> piling up quicker than they can be resolved, right now ;).

Believe me, they don't get lost at all. For me I'm fixing the obvious ones as soon as possible and will look in the other ones as time fits and when i'm into those. I also can't fix bugs that only appear in games that I don't own, also some bugs only appear in specific versions and/or the saved games are not compatible. Some bugs are really special and extremly difficult to track down. And sometimes the bugs even happen in sierra sci (and most testers don't check), so they will either get patched by me (which is a pain to do) or won't get fixed at all, but much time will have been wasted (getting to a location within sierra sci means either patching scripts or getting there regulary, both wastes plenty of time).

A perfect example for this is the SQ4/floppy graphic issue. It's not possible to warp there, because you need some stuff in the inventory and gamestate, additionally the saved game is not compatible with my version of the game. So I need to play through the whole floppy version, just for this one bug that happens at the end of the game (!) and may not even happen in my version at all.

Also please keep in mind that almost the whole SCI team is currently away. Some of the left-over bugs are meant to get looked on by walter and or md5.

Regards