Possible future translation patch release info
Recently, I asked Cowering to remove my translation patches from his ROM database tool, GoodSNES. My reasons for wanting my work removed are as follows:
1 - It promotes hard-patching ROMs, a practice that is only needed for playing games on copiers. SNES emulators now allow IPS patches to be applied on-the-fly at load time. This ends up causing all kinds of havoc when a translation author updates his patches later on, as people don't tend to keep the original ROMs after hard-patching them.
2 - It is the tool of choice for pirates. As a result of my work appearing in GoodSNES, my work appears on nearly all modern SNES ROM sites in pre-patched form.
3 - The actual ROM sets end up stripping away all documentation that I include with my work. This documentation often includes very important notes on the translation, where to find updates, important notes on game bugs, and more.
4 - An IPS in itself is legal. It contains none of the original ROM code nor graphics. It only contains my modifications. However, the pre-patched ROM is very much illegal to download. A legal ROM may be created by owners of the game with a backup device (pre-DMCA, or custom made), to which my IPS can then be legally applied. By distributing my work in this form, it appears as though I am involved in this illegal process of ROM distribution, which is not the case.
However, as with digital music, movies, games, and all other forms of digital media: once I release it on the internet, I lose control over my work. I cannot force Cowering to remove my work from his ROM sets... but that's not to say that I can't do something about this in the future. Which is the purpose of this post. I'm going to describe the method I hope to use for all future patch releases made by myself. Note that this only applies to games I work on myself; such as Dai Kaijuu Monogatari.
Der Langrisser is very close to release, having only script revisions remaining. Although this will probably take several months, I won't have things ready to use my new distribution method at this point, and DL was also the work of many people other than myself. Therefore, Der Langrisser will likely be released in either IPS or RUP format. Both can be used to hard-patch ROMs. In response to GoodTools, a special message will be inserted into the game, and the documentation that usually accompanies translations in text form will be hard-coded into the ROM itself, so that even with nothing but a hard-patched ROM, our notes will be readable by all who download our work. I will take measures to make sure this cannot be removed from the ROM, the likes of which will make the copier protections in Kirby's Dreamland 3 look like child's play. I don't have this all planned out yet, but it will be as unobtrusive as possible. The readme and special note about GoodTools (and similar tools) will only appear if the user requests them to.
My other translations will likely be released very differently, however. Please note that this is only a preliminary idea, and is subject to change. For all future works, I may be releasing my work in a highly-encrypted patch format. This format will serve to eliminate the possibility of hard-patching ROMs, and thus will make it impossible to create a ROM that can be included in GoodTools and through similar archiving methods. This may sound impossible, but it's actually quite easy. Here's how it's going to work:
I will be the only person with posession of the patch creator. In addition, the code to apply the patch to the ROM at runtime will only exist in binary form inside of bsnes. This, unfortunately, has negative reprocussions like any content protection does. I will not be able to release this code, so therefore other emulators will not be able to use the patches, nor will the patches allow hard-patching, disallowing use on copiers. By this point, bsnes should be capable of running at full speed on modern machines with full sound support. At least that's the idea. I also plan to hard-code the documentation into the patch itself, and add an option in the emulator to extract these files upon user request. Or maybe I'll make a special load menu appear when one of these patches is detected.
Being a hacker myself, I am very familiar with common tricks to circumvent protections like I propose. As such, I won't allow the fully patched ROM nor fully decrypted patch to exist in memory, and I have plenty of anti-reverse engineering tricks up my sleeve. While total protection is obviously impossible, the general rule of copy protection is to make breaking the protection more trouble than it's worth. Which is exactly what I'll be doing.
Again, this is only preliminary. I may end up saying the hell with it, and just releasing all of my future translations in IPS format anyway, or maybe I just won't release anything at all. Who knows. I would also take into consideration the feelings of anyone who ended up helping with my projects, if anyone did at all. I'm sorry if anyone doesn't agree with my actions on this. I've always been one to react rather than tolerate. If you were to invest five to ten years of your life into something, you'd probably be pretty defensive of that work too, wouldn't you?
Sigh... I swear, the translation scene has given me nothing but hell. I'm so glad I decided to move into the emulation scene, it really is just like bizarro world there. It's amazing how much more motivated I am to work on bsnes, knowing that people appreciate that work. I could've finished translations in two to three months a piece if people were as supportive of them.
© 2005 byuu - archive.is/fgp9c