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

[Max Horn]

Am 16.08.2010 um 12:18 schrieb M. Kiewitz:

>> Hi Martin,
>> 
>> I have the feeling that you took what I wrote in my
>> previous emails as some kind of offense, an attack against
>> the work you and t
> 
> Hi Max,
> 
> No, you misunderstood me in that case. I was just saying why there are plenty of bugs left.

Aha, excellent :)

[...]

>> But on the other hand, I am concerned that it would be
>> trivial to turn such a blacklist into a whitelist. Trivial
>> as in: change a few lines (probably exactly one), and you
>> get all cracked versions fully "supported" (including their
>> bugs and crashes, of course), which, in the end, would be
>> another case of a protection system (think DRM) that hurts a
>> few regular users, but not the real pirates... 
> 
> In the cases of LSL5 and SQ4 the crack patches do not work currently at all because of bugs in those scripts. Fixing it is definitely not a 2-line change.

Of course not, but disabling the check for MD5s marked as "pirated" takes one line. Hence I put the "supported" into quotation marks.

[...]

>> All the more reason to ask for help, so that people re-test
>> those bugs, ask the submitter to test whether the bug occurs
>> with the original engine, etc. etc. Some bugs have no
>> comment at all, not even one of these. My email was meant to
>> stimulate other devs here to step in and help out if they
>> have some time. :).
> 
> I looked through some and most of those w/o any comment were fan-game bugs. And to be honest i won't look into those at all for now.

Fair enough on the fan-games! But I am not sure how you come to the "most of those" conclusion: Looking at random non-assigned SCI bugs, and excluding fan-made ones (and even demos), most of them seem to be uncommented, or have at most comments by the submitter or by somebody who says "me too" :). 

Anyway, here is a more extensive list of examples. Of course, the numbers of bugs that were addressed, or even fixed, is also huge, and the SCI folks are doing a truly heroic task right now. They just could need more helping hands, I'd say.


#3034465: ECOQUEST2: Audio Irregularities
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3034465&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3034579: KQ6CD: Missing speech
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3034579&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3034714: KQ5CD: ScummVM freezes in dark forest
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3034714&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3034974: SCI: Music out of tune after loading a save
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3034974&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3036756: QFG1 VGA: Combat buttons work only sometimes
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3036756&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3037012: LSL2: Long cutscene
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3037012&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3037036: LSL2: Crash at the airport
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3037036&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3037112: ECOQUEST2: Text vanishes too quickly for shaman puzzle
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3037112&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3037126: ECOQUEST2: Graphical fade-outs act oddly
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3037126&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3037160: KQ4SCI: Stuck on door
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3037160&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3037665: SQ5: Frozen Script
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3037665&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3038228: MOTHERGOOSE: Crash at the castle
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3038228&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3038752: JONES: EGA & VGA music issues
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3038752&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

#3039368: QFG3: Text Window Glitch
<https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3039368&group_id=37116&atid=418820>

Bye,
Max