...because a patcher is really simple? And we can't just "put anything we want" into JK.exe, assembly coding isn't very easy. Removing static limits isn't hard but beyond that...

And Kicker Helper is a good point. LEC *never* went after that, and Kicker Helper was around when JK was first out.

doing that would indeed violate more of the EULA than this does. Also, it'd violate a much more important part of the EULA.

Well, if you say so...but either way, you're not just doing something LEC might not like, you're breaking the law. "Maybe they won't find out," or "maybe they won't care to go through the trouble of punishing us" is never really good justification for doing something illegal.

I'm with Freelancer on this one.

This is absolutely awesome! So much more can now be done with this engine! YAY FOR ADVANCEMENT!

I don't think what people are saying is that the patch itself isn't illegal, what had to be done to make that patch (some "reverse-engineering") is.

According to the last post on that thread Freelancer posted, "reverse-engineering" is only illegal when it is the industrial espionage kind, and no EULA can hold an individual seeking no profit from doing it. Anyone know if this is fact?

I could buy that, but I think he's talking about criminal charges with the espionage thing. LucasArts still has the legal opportunity to take you up on civil charges if you disregard their EULA.

And by the way, as long as we're viewing the assembly code, why not decompile it into C so some real things could be done with the source? Granted, I don't know the first thing about decompiling stuff, but you may as well go the whole nine yards with this...

Would you be able to get your friend to do this for MOTS aswell? (or is the program generic enough to work with the mots.exe?)

Kinda like sharing music, I guess..they can prosecute the ones who distribute it, but not the ones who d/l it. Afaik, anyway..not really sure.

I say we force LEC to make this an official patch!
(though it would be really sweet if they did it for real)

Best. Thread. Ev4r.

I think posessing pirated music is also illegal. Posessing the patch wouldn't be, since there is nothing inherently illegal about the patch nor does it violate the EULA agreement in and of itself.

For the patch to have been made the creator had to have knowledge about the engine that he could only have recieved by looking at the decompiled code which he shouldn't posess. He violated the contract he entered into, not you.

We seem to have a lot of these don't we

j/k. carry on.

DeT IQ has a point. The actions used to make the patcher are against the EULA, and the process of using the patcher is against it. It doesn't say however, that I can't host a file that modifies JK.exe, it just says I can't use one. So ideally, LEC would have to be standing over your shoulder to see if you used it or not in order to tell if a breach of the EULA has occured.

Anyway, I for one, am tired of hearing about the legality of it. :p There's really no way to look at the subject in a legal way. Let's all continue with our lives as if nothing happened, and see if any contact occurs.



AFAIK, erradicating the thing limit in MotS would be very similar, just a matter of changing where that list gets loaded. The offsets would HAVE to be different in MotS than in JK, so using the JK patcher would mess up MotS in some unknown way.

You're really starting to piss me off, you know that? You go right ahead concocting fairy tales and doing mental gymnastics to justify your breach of contract. But for the love of god don't suggest that "there's really no way to..." blah blah yhajf yadday yadda kltrhb oiw.



Pray tell, because I am simply dying to know; why exactly is there "really no way to look at the subject in a legal way?" Is the wording unclear? Are you somehow unsure what your part of the contract is?

Sorry, but wishy-washy pansy-*** rationalization really ticks me off. Sure, if you water down anything enough, sooner or later you can't tell what it is. That doesn't make it somehow right or arcane and nebulous, as you claim it to be.

And for the record, I really don't have a problem with you doing this. But be a damn man and say "This is illegal but I'm doing it anyway." Trying to water it down and say "it's impossible to tell" really strikes a chord with me.

Most excellent.

All those Massassi vibes in this thread... mmm.

And yes, please make a patcher for MotS. JK doesn't really deserve it.

Hey, lay off a little. We already agreed that it's illegal to use it. It's just no one cares.
[edit] Now that I saw your next post (the one TWO before this one), I wish to retract my rudeness since you are starting to lay off... I understand what you're saying; it was just seeming like you wanted to make it into a big flame war. [/edit]

There's a glaring fiber of misinformation weaving its way through this thread, and every thread discussing the legality of modifying JK.exe.

This is all from a GOOD post by Freelancer:

The important part is that last sentence. Breaking an EULA isn't "illegal" as there's no specific law (in America at least) that says you must abide by a one-sided video game contract (especially considering you never signed it with witness). It probably fails to be a legally binding contract in multiple places.

The issue of "legality" needs to be dropped. What is being done is simply "against the EULA" not "against the law" where "the law" is government sanctioned.

If JK's EULA is your country's law, I really feel for you.

I won't be messing with a patcher that interferes with a simple thing count. We've dealt with it for years, and saying "patched JK.exe required" in your level readme is kinda lame. If it's expanded to up adjoin limits, face limits, etc. I'll patch JK.

A second note: the person who made the patcher could argue they did it through random trial and error, which isn't decompiling, disassembling or reverse-engineering. =D

QM

Where is the line drawn? I am fairly sure the primary reason that reverse-engineering is forbidden in JK's EULA is/was to protect the financial interests of LucasArts. By looking at the source code, you may discover certain algorithms and techniques that the developer may wish to remain in-house company secrets. Stuff like that. If you were to redistribute the altered executable for profit, then you can bet your buttons that's against the law. Government-sanctioned law.

The line between being against an arbitrary, non-enforcable contract and being against the law grows very thin in certain situations. Hopefully you catch my drift.



Tsk, tsk, tsk. More lying and deceit. Suggesting as such would do him no good, since it is highly improbable and there is empirical evidence in this thread to the contrary.

You're missing something pretty major here. No one outside of LEC has JK source code, and HR's friend didn't use any source code to do what he did. There're ways to understand what a program is doing as it executes. Heck, open JK.exe with a text editor and you can see where it looks for .gob files by simply searching for the word "gob".

Opening an executable in a hex editor doesn't give you any source code. Source code is the original programming that is then compiled into an executable program.

Even decompiling doesn't give you recompilable source code. No decompiler that's ever been made has done much more than trying to convert an executable into semi-human-readable code.

Likely, how the patcher was made, was a break-point debugger was used to pinpoint when and how JK was allocating memory for the thing count, then (using pretty good knowledge of executable code) the memory allocation was diverted to a different area so that it wouldn't overwrite room dedicated to the cog enumeration (I think enumeration's the right word here)

QM

P.S. - That part was a joke. =D

P.P.S. - Another thought oocured to me in response to If you were to redistribute an un-altered executable for profit, then you can bet your buttons that's against the law. Government-sanctioned law. The point being, money hasn't come up in this thread aside from offhand mention of getting sued. I'll stand by the statement that the modification of JK.exe isn't against "the law" just "the JK EULA" and I suspect I'm not going to convince you (Freelancer, in case someone decided to start reading the thread starting with this post), to break the EULA.

So since my theory is so wrong maybe you can tell me what good it could possibly do for LEC to prohibit reverse-engineering. Since so OBVIOUSLY it has nothing to do with protecting their financial interests.

Well, game makers don't want their work (especially their precious 3D engines) "figured out" and recreated exactly (or recreated but better) using their techniques.

The words decompiling and disassembling are very definite. Decompiling means you're turning executable code into pre-compiled code (C++, etc.). Disassembling is practically the same thing.

That other one, reverse-engineering is the actual issue where modifying JK.exe comes into play. By definition, found by simply searching the internet, I got:

As you can see, reverse-engineering isn't occuring, because a design isn't being recreated. It's being modified, and there's a world of difference between the two things. Taking an Intel CPU, and modding it to be better isn't reverse-engineering it. Figuring how it works, so you can make your own, would be.

QM

Oh my god, just forget it.

lol!

I was saying, that there is no way to make this situation look legal no matter how the patch is done. I've been saying it's illegal since post 1. Don't get your knickers in a twist. :p

Why do you care anyway Freelancer, you apparently don't even have JK installed if you can't find the EULA. Go rain on someone elses parade.

The EULA isn't worth all that much anyway, by the strictest interpretation of it, modem-modem games are breaking the EULA.

You've got to wonder about LEC though... you've got a small group of guys who play an 8 year old game, and are worried about LEC suing their butts off if they fix one of the many bugs LEC left in the game.

But personally I say:

Now that that's open and shut, will anyone on massassi post news about this?

Here's my take. Would it be illegal? Probably so. BUT , because it doesn't actually allow for any warez situations (IE removing the CD Check) but simply allows for better modding I would definitely say LA will leave it alone. Just to be safe, though, I'd only host it on your site, HR.

Sounds good to me. I will take on any legal implications if neccessary. :p (I'm such a damn stickler for having this available!)

Now someone post some news!

My excuse is I tend to randomly delete items I download, then spend frantic hours searching when I need them.

GJ Hell Raiser - now give us TDiR you slacker.

I gave ya'll TDiR. You're waiting for 1.2 :p

Granted LEC's customer service sucks, and you mentioned writing them already to no avail, but doing would make it legitimate.

That's from the XvT EULA. JK's has no such statement in it. Just for your info.

Because it's mathematically, physically, in every way impossible. Assembly is the furthest you can go.

Weren't EULA declared nonbinding by some courts or something? I don't think they can be used as law anymore. Something about a licence has to be presented to the user before a transaction takes place (ie they buy it).

Also, I highly doubt LEC will care about a 7 year old game.

Oh and NEENER.

[Edit: HR you put two copies of the patcher in the zip...

BTW you should make the patcher grab jk.exe's location from the registry, as well as automatically back it up.]

[Edit: For those who care:


]

They won't care about a seven year old game, but that doesn't stop them from sending an empty threat e-mail. They know we'd pull it down if they told us to. So maybe we could keep it under wraps a bit just in case.

Yeah, only problem is this thread has been around for a couple of days, and was posted on a public (and popular) forum that is archived by Google... =/

Lucasarts probably doesn't actively search out the web for these kind of things. Doesn't sound very cost-effective.

Maybe not the company itself, but what about it's employees. They have lives, free time, and almost undoubtedly internet access. If one of them finds out about this, who knows, maybe they'd tell the company for their own benefit. I hope this is not the case though.