[DISC] Decompiling ethics

[VENGEANCE MX]

Just wondering your thoughts on this... Dofus doesn't support Flash Player 10 (I've been told that this is due to a poorly-written version check, which only reads the in first character of the FP version string; this means Flash Player 10 is seen as Flash Player "1", so it isn't accepted). However, running it in FP10 would make it run so much faster on my brother's Mac Mini (he often plays with multiple accounts at the same time, which slows to a crawl). Would it be wrong to decompile the game's loader to fix the version check so it'll run in FP10? I personally think he has the right to run it in his chosen player, since he's got a paid subscription for the game.

[tonypa]

Dofus is downloadable and comes with its own exe, are you playing it in the browser only?

[VENGEANCE MX]

The Mac/Linux version is a loader.swf, not an application, since projectors don't work nicely on Macs.

We're currently playing the game in the browser because it has tabs, so this way running multiple accounts won't run too slowly. We ideally want to get the game running fast enough so that we wouldn't have to consign each client to a tab, and could instead have all clients visible at the same time. We can run the game in a standalone player, too, but that the Flash Player 9 standalone isn't quite fast enough to run multiple copies of Dofus. We could reduce quality, but since the game window has to be made smaller to fit multiple copies on his small screen, low-quality text becomes illegible.

However, I'm optimistic that we could get several clients running on the same desktop if we used a faster player. As I've noticed a speed improvement in Flash Player 10, that's what we'd prefer to have it running in, where currently we're limited to Flash Player 9 by the version check script. The only way to run it in Flash Player 10 would be to decompile the client to fix the bug in it. Since recompiling the loader.swf wouldn't reveal the engine of the game, give an unfair gameplay advantage, or even allow access to any of the assets, I think it'd be reasonable to do this?

[tonypa]

I dont think you should do that. First, its illegal, then you would use FP10 beta which itself is probably buggy as hell. Try to bomb Dofus support so they update the game (preferably in French since there is about 1 person in Dofus support understanding english).

[VENGEANCE MX]

Good idea. The have been known to permaban people who use modified clients (although I fail to see how they'd detect this). However, it still means we'd have to wait a few weeks 'til the next patch.

As for the bugginess of the FP10 beta... surely this wouldn't apply to AVM1?

Just a side-note, other members of the Dofus community have already modified the game to allow FP10.

[fil_razorback]

And if you want to tell something in French to the Dofus support, just PM me and I'll translate it for you ('trying to be useful).

[VENGEANCE MX]

Thanks for the offer, fil. Reminds me of when you PMed me about the Tweety quote I posted a year or two back.

My brother expects that the French Dofus-players have already rounded on Ankama to add FP10 support, and the next version of the game is likely to be the 2.0 release which isn't coming too soon, so he's in no hurry to contact them. Nevertheless, I think every email will help, so once we reach the weekend I'll (try to) get a message ready for you to translate.

[realMakc]

although this doesnt have anything to do with a thread (only with title)... ethics must not stand in the way of knowledge - there, I said it.

[VENGEANCE MX]

Ah, apparently the Dofus members who managed to run it in FP10 did this by editing the version number of their player using a hex editor, not by recompiling the loader.swf. I've been trying this for about an hour. You have to go pretty deep into the player to change the version number. I haven't had any luck doing this; manually reviewing every occurrence of '10' and editing likely culprits to lower version numbers just stopped the app loading. However, it won't be against the Ankama Terms of Service to use a subtly hacked player, so I'll see if we can get hold of someone else's copy.

[691175002]

For something like this clearly its not unethical, but Ankama may not see it that way.

[.hooligan]

Your not doing anything miraculous right? I mean your just making it run better for yourself? If you where hacking the actual game then I think it would be a problem.


Ps - This comment doesn't mean I recommend you do it