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Post by zodium on Feb 28, 2015 22:15:04 GMT
Er, I'm really excited about the possibilities here, but this is getting very complex from a copyright POV. Also, it is probably slightly abusing the considerable freedom of modding we've gotten from @von so far (e.g., letting us distribute game files here so far is pretty lenient). I mean, this project seems to be essentially about forcibly open sourcing (most of) Besiege.
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Post by spaar on Feb 28, 2015 22:37:24 GMT
Er, I'm really excited about the possibilities here, but this is getting very complex from a copyright POV. Also, it is probably slightly abusing the considerable freedom of modding we've gotten from @von so far (e.g., letting us distribute game files here so far is pretty lenient). I mean, this project seems to be essentially about forcibly open sourcing (most of) Besiege. Well, I understand what you mean, on the other hand it doesn't really reveal anything more than using a decompiler does. It just makes the source more readable/accessible. |
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Post by zodium on Feb 28, 2015 22:56:09 GMT
I think allowing us to decompile the game and swap files on their official forums is incredibly generous (and smart) of SG, but it's a grey area and I just want to make sure they're on board with this. I mean, it's not a qualitative difference, sure, but it's a very large difference nonetheless. It would be bad for everyone if SG decided (reasonably) that maybe it's not the best idea to let people openly reverse engineer their closed source product, is all I'm saying.
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Post by spaar on Feb 28, 2015 23:23:12 GMT
Yes, of course. I thinks it's really great that they let us do so much with modding here, even supporting it by creating a subforum for it
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Post by Von on Mar 1, 2015 0:01:07 GMT
Ok this moved on fast, this is entering a very murky area, I've removed the link temporally. We are discussing this right now, we'd ask that you don't distribute anything further for now.
Will get back to you on this soon.
Thanks guys.
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Post by Von on Mar 1, 2015 2:16:09 GMT
Ok so we've discussed this briefly (its 2 am here) and hopefully we'll get the chance for a meeting about it tomorrow, we'll be looking at all the options and discussing the best way to move forward.
I will say this.
Obviously we want mods to exist for Besiege and we want to allow you as much freedom as possible, but we also need to protect ourselves & Besiege as a product.
Thanks for your patience guys.
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SarahC
Builder
-Worried about the mod community-
Posts: 36 
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Post by SarahC on Mar 1, 2015 5:58:58 GMT
Not sure if that counts as distributing Besiege in it's entirety or not, but you probably should strip that download for all unnecessary files so you don't risk getting banned... It does. You can't upload the whole besiege folder.
OP appears to be offline so I've deleted the post to prevent people from finding it / him getting banned, just make a new one later on Oh no! Damn, it's definitely distributing - thank you for the warning! What was I thinking!?The Exe, and all assets have been removed - it's just the files that make the 4 DLL's needed. ---------------- I've just read the official post about the meeting on Sunday. SUNDAY!? Sorry guys.
It's not my intention to endanger the modding community at all...
I've removed the ZIP in it's entirety from download - and there is no other download link anywhere. |
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SarahC
Builder
-Worried about the mod community-
Posts: 36
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Post by SarahC on Mar 1, 2015 6:23:59 GMT
I was thinking.....
Besiege is ALL decompilable - apart from the game .exe (is that a Unity loader?)
From a modding perspective if a small but vital few functions were implemented in C++, perhaps sections of the main game engine, along with an encrypted "Call home" to a Besiege server... a simple challenge/request response based on the users ID and the date or something?
That would copy-proof the game, but leave most of it moddable.
These days, even .Net obfuscators are getting deobfuscated, so .Net's not very software secure.
As far as I'm aware C++ decompiling and cracking is still not mainstream, and is rather very hard to do if the software is written in a way to confuse reverse engineers, has a few debugger bombs in it, and is also obfuscated.
This would be good from a piracy prevention perspective too - as just having a full copy of the game folder is no longer enough to distribute, as the C/A server would flag over-use of an email, and block it.
(A quick google shows torrent sites have had Besiege from V0.02! - which I think is a strong indicator of the need for an authentication server.)
-----------
(I imagine some people would be annoyed at my ideas, and view me as some kind of traitor - but the dev's no doubt know of all the anti-piracy systems they could use - but have been taking a hit for the community - hats off to the guys, this is their career they're involving....
But maybe it's useful to hear from someone who's worked from both sides of the track? I've got a personal interest in protecting the financial stream of Besiege - I hope the devs earn enough so that they do an online multi-player version! Non deterministic physics though..... it might be impossible without replacing the physics engine... =/)
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Post by zodium on Mar 1, 2015 9:28:36 GMT
There's no reason to implement DRM in the code. Pirates gonna pirate, as they say, and hard DRM will only disrupt things for legitimate users in unforeseeable ways. What we need is a defined scope for modding (e.g., "stuff in Assembly-UnityScript.dll and Assembly-Csharp.dll is good, everything else is off limits"), and then we can work with the developers towards that. Stuff within the modding scope can be made actively easier to decompile (maybe even open sourced eventually), and stuff that's out of bounds can be obfuscated and made against the rules. People could still do it with enough effort, but that's true of literally anything, and so few people actually will that it barely matters, which is, well, which is all that matters.
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Post by Zeblote on Mar 1, 2015 11:08:26 GMT
They've advertised the game as DRM free so that's a no go anyways.
Honestly I don't think this really benefits modding either - compiling your stuff in a seperate dll and loading it is all fine, and a much better approach too should we ever want people to be able to load multiple mods at once in the future.
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Post by zodium on Mar 1, 2015 11:23:30 GMT
Agreed, that's the better long term solution. Distributing modified core game files should be avoided if at all possible.
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Post by ITR on Mar 1, 2015 12:42:17 GMT
I was thinking..... Besiege is ALL decompilable - apart from the game .exe (is that a Unity loader?) From a modding perspective if a small but vital few functions were implemented in C++, perhaps sections of the main game engine, along with an encrypted "Call home" to a Besiege server... a simple challenge/request response based on the users ID and the date or something? That would copy-proof the game, but leave most of it moddable. These days, even .Net obfuscators are getting deobfuscated, so .Net's not very software secure. As far as I'm aware C++ decompiling and cracking is still not mainstream, and is rather very hard to do if the software is written in a way to confuse reverse engineers, has a few debugger bombs in it, and is also obfuscated. This would be good from a piracy prevention perspective too - as just having a full copy of the game folder is no longer enough to distribute, as the C/A server would flag over-use of an email, and block it. (A quick google shows torrent sites have had Besiege from V0.02! - which I think is a strong indicator of the need for an authentication server.) ----------- (I imagine some people would be annoyed at my ideas, and view me as some kind of traitor - but the dev's no doubt know of all the anti-piracy systems they could use - but have been taking a hit for the community - hats off to the guys, this is their career they're involving.... But maybe it's useful to hear from someone who's worked from both sides of the track? I've got a personal interest in protecting the financial stream of Besiege - I hope the devs earn enough so that they do an online multi-player version! Non deterministic physics though..... it might be impossible without replacing the physics engine... =/) If I remember correctly, Unity doesn't have any c++ thingies. Well, anyways, off to the new forums :3 |
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SarahC
Builder
-Worried about the mod community-
Posts: 36
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Post by SarahC on Mar 1, 2015 14:59:02 GMT
They've advertised the game as DRM free so that's a no go anyways. Honestly I don't think this really benefits modding either - compiling your stuff in a seperate dll and loading it is all fine, and a much better approach too should we ever want people to be able to load multiple mods at once in the future. Modding the games own DLL's would be a pain - we'd have to hand edit all the mods we want to use to combine them. Having the game code overridable by multiple separate files could work... so Mod1.dll overrides one or two functions, and adds a couple... Mod2.dll does likewise... It'd work while the files didn't conflict. |
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Post by ITR on Mar 1, 2015 18:27:46 GMT
They've advertised the game as DRM free so that's a no go anyways. Honestly I don't think this really benefits modding either - compiling your stuff in a seperate dll and loading it is all fine, and a much better approach too should we ever want people to be able to load multiple mods at once in the future. Modding the games own DLL's would be a pain - we'd have to hand edit all the mods we want to use to combine them. Having the game code overridable by multiple separate files could work... so Mod1.dll overrides one or two functions, and adds a couple... Mod2.dll does likewise... It'd work while the files didn't conflict. Too bad almost everything uses AddPiece :-P |
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Post by Zeblote on Mar 1, 2015 18:42:49 GMT
Too bad almost everything uses AddPiece :-P In that case the modloader would need to provide an API for it - seems fairly easy in this case. |
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