Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Omega2]

Regardless of psychological factors or Toady not giving any 3rd party support, there is a very important question to be asked:

What draws the line between "good" hacking and "bad" hacking in DF?

Because we already have a proof of concept in this very thread that captures the graphics output of DF. Plus Dwarf Companion and Foreman already add features to the interface that aren't there in the original game, via memory hacking. Theoretically, it would be possible to play DF with its window showing only the map, and all the menus and secondary info (stocks, stats and so on) floating in tabs in a 3rd party application. Would that be too much?

That is all I'm interested in, frankly: top-down 2d is perfect for me, I don't need any fancy graphics. But I'd really like to see more information than the interface provides, without needing to pause the game or go through a few screens and keyboard taps every frame just to see how my Axelord is faring against a goblin ambush.

[dreiche2]

Have anyone ever thought maybe he doesn't like seeing crap topics like this demonizing him just because he would rather do his own work?

Toady has, in this thread, stated that

1. He doesn't mind at least the intention of this thread,
2. that people should chill. (...)

What draws the line between "good" hacking and "bad" hacking in DF?

In principle this is something that should be discussed at some point, but I think for now it might be sufficient to wait what happens, i.e. what the hackers actually come up with, and how much of that will become obsolete anyway as Toady improves the interface on his own (see the prospector), or whether Toady at some points calls out "that's enough hacking!". So maybe this issue resolves itself and making it an official issue just complicates things.

[isitanos]

Lastly, I may have a good way of mitigating the breakage of third-party clients at every release, without requiring your direct involvement. Assuming that you develop your own open-source interface at the same time as your closed-source server, you would likely publish your interface changes to a public SVN server. You would probably do it incrementally, at the rate of one or several commits a day - akin to backing up your work whenever you've made a step. In that case, you can bet that enthusiastic developers will watch those changes keenly, to see what's going on with the interface. This means that third-party client makers will already know that moving "dwarven armies around on the world map, with a tactical view and various options" is coming for the next version (from your very detailed dev notes), so they'll have time to plan which kind of interface they want to provide for that. And since they'll see the necessary code changes evolve gradually, because you'll always need an up-to-date interface for bugfixing, they'll be able to follow closely your development. They might have to adapt to your last minute changes, but otherwise I believe that the days of bugfixing prior to release could be enough for some of them to finalize their clients on time.
Now of course, you have to feel comfortable with that way of working.

Yeah, this somewhat mitigates breakage with those third parties that are active and approaching the situation with some dedication, but the trade-off of working with my day-to-day changes under that sort of scrutiny is definitely a minus for me, and I don't think it could really happen in a vacuum without questions about changes and so on, or without me feeling like I have to provide some sort of documentation as I add things.  I don't know if that sounds like quibbling, but I can't easily overstate how much I hate managing code or collaborating on code or anything along those lines.

Additionally, I think breakages would still happen, especially when staff leave projects hanging (work obligations, got tired of it, vacations, etc.), and it wouldn't change the fundamental situation I'm imagining, although in the case of project abandonment or delays with staffing, where there isn't pressure to work with the (missing) people in question, it's more the pressure to incorporate changes back into the base API, which as I stated in my previous long post, I wouldn't be able to do without potential legal problems.

Yeah, I had the feeling you might not work under scrutiny like that. And as you say people would likely ask lots of questions (about every line of code) and it could get annoying fast.
Some people don't mind it though, so it was kind of hard to know if your dislike for working with other folks went to that extent.

I don't mean to write as if I'm sure about any of this, but once I drop this bomb in my project, I can see every day becoming "oh man, what a goddamn hassle" instead of what I've got now, which has less of that.  Again, I think the OP is justified in starting this thread, so I'm not raising that as an issue, but I've also spent some hours in here, reading posts and composing these replies.  That stuff just starts to magnify, and I'll either end up ignoring people I don't feel like I should be ignoring, or not ignoring people to the detriment of the core game itself and my own well-being.

Frankly, I appreciate your overall attitude. Thanks for taking the time to explain your position, I can now much better imagine the situation you'd feel in.
This is really more a question of personality (more or less as Exponent is saying) than anything else, and I respect your personality and your preferred way of working.

I'll post some links to your two replies on the first page of this thread, so that people don't have to wade through pages of flame wars text to find your answer.

[Sindai]

What draws the line between "good" hacking and "bad" hacking in DF?

There is no line. All hacking is good because without multiplayer modifying the game can never ruin someone else's fun.

[isitanos]

with your "How dare you contradict Toady" attitude, you make him sound like a Japanese emperor instead of the friendly and rational guy that he his.

Toady once told me, "If you don't wash my feet, I will kill your family and countless millions by flooding half the world!"
Ever since then, I have never once questioned his motives or stepped up to make suggestions to his holiness.  Why would I want to question such an omnipotent power!

True story... I think.

I will immediately slit my belly for the impertinence.

 

[Andir]

What draws the line between "good" hacking and "bad" hacking in DF?

In principle this is something that should be discussed at some point, but I think for now it might be sufficient to wait what happens, i.e. what the hackers actually come up with, and how much of that will become obsolete anyway as Toady improves the interface on his own (see the prospector), or whether Toady at some points calls out "that's enough hacking!". So maybe this issue resolves itself and making it an official issue just complicates things.

Actually, right now would be a damn good time to do it as I have the memory location for the cursor location in the map, view port boundaries, and other information that I can use to scrape and display info in an alternative manner.  I can manipulate the cursor to whatever location I want to see on the map at the click of a button, the viewpoint changes instantly.  If I wanted to, I could make a template program to automatically designate constructions or digging locations right now.  I was thinking about taking this one more step.  I would extracting the map data surrounding the cursor using the memory locations from 3Dwarf and using some of that source to provide me a 3D "window" of the current cursor location and surrounding area.  With the data collection going on in the 3Dwarf arena concerning tile data, and all that, the 3Dwarf "hack" is getting closer to what I envision and maybe I just inject some code to their base to do real time updates that I want.

There wouldn't be any key input and it would simply be an alternative view (though stuffing keys is entirely possible)... but it's definitely getting into that gray area everyone seems to be concerned with.  The question I ask myself is whether I should continue my tests or what I should do next.  My method is obviously not the most ideal, but I want to see my surrounding better and this is the only solution I have right now.

This is in no way a threat, (for those of you thinking...) but I tire of the interface and in order to keep playing I'm willing to go through this myself.  Of course, if/when I get done I'm not going to keep it to myself.

Why don't I create my own DF then?  It boils down to world generation.  I can make games, interfaces, and all that.  Where I lack talent is developing and generating content, art and assets.  Maybe I just extract DF worlds and make my own game using the maps.  I'm not sure what course I plan on going right now.  The above interface hack was my first test.

[TheSpaceMan]

I think a bad hack would be something that seriosuly change the direction of the flow of the game, can't come up with a good example and i can't see anyone pass the line yet.

A example would be using work done by Toady and claiming it as your own or as a whole. All the small parts of the game arn't that hard to make for anyone with a bit of programming knowledge. But it breaks down to the fact that all this tiny things work together and the game is playable. The size of the thing and it seems connected and even more so in the future.

I am glad to do my small things and try to provide tools for open content to users. I will even implment a "total conversion" button in on of the tools for creatures metals och plants where you just specicify some values and all this can already be done with the data provided without breaking or destroying any of Toadys hard work.

Effecting the world is one thing trying to hack in entirely new content or stealing is another.

[isitanos]

I mean, take Bethesda and Blizzard. Bethesda caters like hell to their modders. They give them a kit to play around with, a forum and outlet to discuss it all, and why? Because they know that they laid down a fantastic gridwork, but it's the players who know what the players want, and they know that it was the modders who put the Elder Scrolls series on the map, not the developers. And who reaps in all the money, yet none of the blame when Naked Nords For Hire mod doesn't work? Bethesda. When a new patch breaks mods, no one ever looks to the developers. It's the modder's shoulders that the responsibility falls on. Rightfully so.

From what I remember of the Bethesda forums, this isn't strictly true. Apart from the main accusations ("Oblivion is lamer than Morrowind" and "You're cheap because you want us to pay $5.00 for a small addon"), they also get accused of not supporting the modders enough (usually because of some bugs/limitations in the scripting that they never fix). Also, when a modder comes up with something clever, you often see posts saying "Bethesda are so dumb, how comes they didn't put this in the game". 

Of course the more mature audience of this game and Toady's excellent communication with his fans would likely (and already do) prevent this kind of behavior.

[TheSpaceMan]

I must add the fact that I would love to "hack" the world generation and try to implement my own stuff, but if i have that urge I could code it myself and implement in to a game myself anyway so it's not such a big deal.

[Davion]

What draws the line between "good" hacking and "bad" hacking in DF?

Maybe I am wording this post a bit harsh but, does it really matter?

Discussions like "What is good and bad hacking?", in my opinion, are started mainly because there's a small amount of guilt in doing it regardless, and people generally don't want to feel like they are being douchebags.

Everyone can jibber jabber, wax philosophical, and try to draw a line on what is considered "good" hacking and "bad" hacking in the community, but in the end the people that are working on their own applications for this game are going to defend themselves and say what they are doing is legitimate; even if said application is something that the developers aren't necessarily comfortable with.

[Omega2]

It does matter, actually. Imagine this:

Dwarf Fortress becomes more and more complex, receiving the occasional interface updates just to keep up with its features. At some point, someone comes up with a really powerful program using memory hacking. This program is so good, no one but the hardcore ASCII-forever-and-Toady-for-prez (humour intended) players can or want to play without it. 75% of the userbase (hypothetical number) is then reliant on this very popular 3rd party application that breaks pretty much everytime the game is updated, generating enormous pressure on both the modder (who might not mind doing it) and Toady (who probably minds) to keep things running smoothly, even though they won't cooperate directly.

Not a very good situation, really. So there has to be some sort of limit so the situation won't escape Toady's control. There has to be a line people agree not to cross with their modifications/applications, otherwise the only solution would be banning those methods altogether. And if DF became impervious (or at least resistant) to memory-hacking only after the userbase started relying too much on a third-party application, the backlash would be catastrophic. Think about the "THIS SUCKS!" topics you see every time something is nerfed in any game (such as WoW). We'd then see something like that over here, and I think I'm safe to assume no one wants that.

So, yes: discussion on what should and should not be done must happen early in the development. Players absolutely hate it when something they like is taken away from them (for whatever reasons there would be), so it's better not to let them become spoiled with things that might need to be removed later on.

[Davion]

Not a very good situation, really. So there has to be some sort of limit so the situation won't escape Toady's control. There has to be a line people agree not to cross with their modifications/applications, otherwise the only solution would be banning those methods altogether. And if DF became impervious (or at least resistant) to memory-hacking only after the userbase started relying too much on a third-party application, the backlash would be catastrophic. Think about the "THIS SUCKS!" topics you see every time something is nerfed in any game (such as WoW). We'd then see something like that over here, and I think I'm safe to assume no one wants that.

And either way it's still going to happen, which is why I don't really see the point in discussing it. If the community agrees that certain aspects of memory hacking and application development "aren't cool", the people developing those applications aren't going to say, "Darn" and scrap the project. Same with banning the content, if it was banned a community would pop up somewhere.

That has been proven with many game communities where the developer frowns on certain modding practices, and the modding practices don't stop they just go on in secret until it's safe to come out.

[Andir]

That has been proven with many game communities where the developer frowns on certain modding practices, and the modding practices don't stop they just go on in secret until it's safe to come out.

Sure, but usually these "secret" projects you talk about are not used by a great number of people.  If someone created a hack interface that offers better views, more information and more intuitive control, you better believe that it will get more traction being on a official forum.

[SirPenguin]

That has been proven with many game communities where the developer frowns on certain modding practices, and the modding practices don't stop they just go on in secret until it's safe to come out.

Sure, but usually these "secret" projects you talk about are not used by a great number of people.  If someone created a hack interface that offers better views, more information and more intuitive control, you better believe that it will get more traction being on a official forum.

I disagree highly. I guess it depends on your definition of "modifying" a game, but NoCD cracks, certain memory editing, etc. have been around forever, and I'd say there are millions of people who have used them. Progress will always push forward, regardless of the wants of the developers. I agree entirely with Davion's statement.

[Andir]

That has been proven with many game communities where the developer frowns on certain modding practices, and the modding practices don't stop they just go on in secret until it's safe to come out.

Sure, but usually these "secret" projects you talk about are not used by a great number of people.  If someone created a hack interface that offers better views, more information and more intuitive control, you better believe that it will get more traction being on a official forum.

I disagree highly. I guess it depends on your definition of "modifying" a game, but NoCD cracks, certain memory editing, etc. have been around forever, and I'd say there are millions of people who have used them. Progress will always push forward, regardless of the wants of the developers. I agree entirely with Davion's statement.

Cracks are quite a bit different than a mod to a game.  Sorry, but that's a poor... poor example.  And I'd argue that the recent crap with developers trying to prevent these kinds of hacks has actually encouraged normal people to seek out the hacks in order to alleviate the headaches caused by the developer's anti-piracy measures (long keys, constantly swapping CDs, self-infecting PCs with rootkits, etc.)

I point to any MMO Emulator project as an example.  They exist.  They allow people to use the interface written for the MMO and yet they don't draw millions of people away from the MMO.  And how prolific do you actually thing WoW Glider is?  I'd argue that it's likely a very select few people that actually run it, but it's influence is greater than most other hacks simply because of it's nature.