24 replies to this topic

[nintendotoad]

I think we should limit/ban/warn accounts and make it so that the 3 posts are also needed to get wrappers. Here's why.
1. LCANT (I know you're here.) takes our stuff and doesn't give us credit; he downloads our wrappers, uses them, and doesn't redirect to this site at all. He (she?) has been around for a long time and has made one post (to say thanks for the upload of a PC game that we want ported... it's not going up here but elsewhere) but hundreds of ports. There are many others like him/her who put up torrents on rutracker, demonoid, and direct downloads/filehosts on many sites. I think I've seen 1 link to here, and it was LinkBucks.
2. What happens after a leecher makes 3 posts? He leeches! I think a user must be required to make one post a month or risk being warned, where 3 warnings make up a permaban.
3. Spam... isn't that what the mods are for? I've seen many bannings but very few deletions of posts. (I had access to the Moderator Control Panel for a while.)
4. Linksave is insecure. Sorry, but it's true. Opening the link in my browser allows me to indirectly see where the download link is. If a leecher figures out how this works... *shudders*
I rest my case. I am ready for almost any argument on why we SHOULD allow leechers to continue leeching.

[waves]

1. Lcant should be banned.

2. Agreed!

Just some numbers I just did.

Of our 14,552 registerd users only 1,294 have 4 posts or more. Also on that we have 11,437 people as of today - with zero posts. Or the first 229 pages of names out of a possible 292.

Right now we have 733 users with 3 posts exactly.

3. Not sure.

4. It is more secure that not using it like some people are doing. Such as the Redmage - etc. But you are right about getting the info.

[doh123]

nintendotoad said:

1. LCANT (I know you're here.) takes our stuff and doesn't give us credit; he downloads our wrappers, uses them, and doesn't redirect to this site at all. He (she?) has been around for a long time and has made one post (to say thanks for the upload of a PC game that we want ported... it's not going up here but elsewhere) but hundreds of ports. There are many others like him/her who put up torrents on rutracker, demonoid, and direct downloads/filehosts on many sites. I think I've seen 1 link to here, and it was LinkBucks.

people who use wrappers often are people who steal games... these are people who don't give a crap about anyone but themselves so they really don't care who gets credit for anything, unless its their credit thats being messed with. This isn't anything we can change unless we make a new wrapper to use that has a pop up window and have it closed source...

nintendotoad said:

2. What happens after a leecher makes 3 posts? He leeches! I think a user must be required to make one post a month or risk being warned, where 3 warnings make up a permaban.

People don't always want to be part of a community, they just want to play a game... permabans are a bit overboard. Why have this available at all then? just make a blank webpage and no one can see anything at all unless they email and get to know people and prove they should be allowed access to the website... there are many ways to go overboard.

nintendotoad said:

3. Spam... isn't that what the mods are for? I've seen many bannings but very few deletions of posts. (I had access to the Moderator Control Panel for a while.)

I delete blatant spam, but theres just so much you can do, they'll just spam again.

nintendotoad said:

4. Linksave is insecure. Sorry, but it's true. Opening the link in my browser allows me to indirectly see where the download link is. If a leecher figures out how this works... *shudders*
I rest my case. I am ready for almost any argument on why we SHOULD allow leechers to continue leeching.

what is insecure about it? How does it help secure anything? what does it matter if a leacher figures out how it works?

There is only so much you can do to stop assholes on the internet, then you just have to start ignoring them.

[nintendotoad]

Point made, but if a leecher feels like sharing the links that WE put up and they go down? It's sometimes a pain to put them back up.

[thedoctor45]

I agree with doh123 - the internet is Anons playground - you'd go stir-crazy trying to control our userbase the hard way. Ignoring those individuals is probably the best way to go considering the circumstances.

I myself and the Team have had several disputes with those kinds of people already, and to be perfectly honest I'm really getting tired of this crap.

[nintendotoad]

I still kinda think we should take care of #1 on my list, but I guess it's hard to control a userbase period.

[doh123]

nintendotoad said:

I still kinda think we should take care of #1 on my list, but I guess it's hard to control a userbase period.

its a major problem.. but unless you can copyright (or have implied legal copyright for you own code in the US) you really cannot do anything to stop people... cuz you'd have to sue. If you share the wrapper in any way... people can use it however they want. Still.. the only decent way I can think of to do it... is to make all wrappers use some type of closed source launcher that has the splash screen in it... but that could take a lot of work, you'd have to try to make a way they cannot get around it easy... something they cannot figure out. That shouldn't be too hard though since most of these people are complete idiots anyways since they have to steal other peoples work.

Basically.. find a way the game will NOT work unless you use your custom code to launch it.. not standard Wineskin or CXSkin in the MacOS folder.... and hardcode a splash screen that gives you full credit.... this is very hard to do since you cannot really modify the actual game your putting in the port. Even if you crack the .exe to help in the matter, they can always replace the .exe themselves.

[GeekyMacBoy1]

I think this is a great idea :)

[playn]

in the case of CiderX, for the splash screen we could just put a " . " at the start of the name to hide the splash screen image. they will never figure it out

[doh123]

playn said:

in the case of CiderX, for the splash screen we could just put a " . " at the start of the name to hide the splash screen image. they will never figure it out

thats way too easy to find and change... I'd hardcode the actual info into the source code and not use a picture... but Cider source isn't available, and even if it was, they could find the same version from another wrapper and switch the file to get rid of the splash. You'd have to find a unique way to prevent the game from working unless it was launched a very specific way... then make your own closed source splash screen that launched it correctly. You'd want to do this on your own, as soon as its part of the project, the info will leak when multiple people know it.

[nintendotoad]

Could we do something like "tell Safari newtab:http://forum.portingteam.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5909" in the binary (That exact quote won't work, I don't know events or whatever it's called.) and then compile it or something?

[doh123]

nintendotoad said:

Could we do something like "tell Safari newtab:http://forum.portingteam.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5909" in the binary (That exact quote won't work, I don't know events or whatever it's called.) and then compile it or something?

you could take the CXSkin source and compile that in easily... but then the asshole just has to replace the CXSkin with a copy that you didn't put that in, and its gone.... unless you find a way to break the game if it isn't launched with your version

you can open a URL in code, but its easier to find and hex edit... coding in a picture creation makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to hex edit a change in.

[Headrush69]

IMHO your just wasting time trying to contain something that's uncontainable.

You boot a user or two because of them leeching and/or not crediting this site, but a few forged IP changes and a new account and a few posts later they're at it again.

Bottom line is what do you see the purpose of this site?

If its seeing OS X users being able to use Windows based apps, its working. Leechers are just a part of the Internet age.
How well have multi million dollar corporations been able to restrict their software from being leeched, cracked, hacked or ported? Since this is essentially a non profit site/group, it won't be money that lost but time and resources of admins.

If you want to get credit, as doh123 your best bet is hard coding something into the app and even then that will probably only stop a casual user.

Just my 2 cents.

If it bothers an individual that much than although I wouldn't recommend it, you have the option of only sharing with the people you choose. (But even then this will never guarantee it doesn't hit the Internet for all anyways)

[thedoctor45]

nintendotoad said:

I still kinda think we should take care of #1 on my list, but I guess it's hard to control a userbase period.

So does anyone wanna tell me what's up with that LCANT guy then... he's never come to my attention before.

[smoketetsu]

I kind of think you are barking up the wrong tree in considering making the wrappers more closed so that the ones who tinkered with them can keep their credit. For one thing our wrappers are made with either open sourced software or unlicensed third party software for which we can't claim copyright over either way. We have no legal grounds to sue anyone for using for example a pre-tinkered with wrapper and I say tinker because most of us aren't doing any actual programming we are just changing some variables in some cfg files and adding in some dll's willy nilly to fix a few problems in launching the game. Don't get me wrong I'm not downplaying the effort as I have a lot of experience doing it myself it's just that I think that some of us are starting to get a little too big for our britches.

You also have to consider that in general our ports are even if the person installs their legally purchased copy into a pre-made wrapper unauthorised and unsupported by the developers who made the game. Those companies that do it officially pay hefty licensing and royalty fees to the publishers in order to just get the rights to port the game and we to be honest are freeloaders compared to them. I'm being bluntly honest here.

Valve for example wanted $1 million up front for the rights for a third party to port Half-Life and here we are doing it for free. Who here paid thousands to millions of dollars to the publishers for rights to port the games they have... raise your hands.

Also most of us are doing this as a hobby and for fun and if it started becoming more work than fun then what's the point?

[nintendotoad]

thedoctor45: http://rutracker.org...hp?pid=11553889

His torrents in the description link to a torrent for the CXZ engines on rutracker. That torrent links back to us, but he doesn't contribute back the the site at all. In addition, most people already have those engines installed.

[noobdy]

I'm totally agree with what Chewy said, and I've been coming here for the same reasons.
Most of us came here for the same reason, we heard about you and went to this wesbite, wishing to test and play your ports, then a few people wanted to investigate a bit more to understand how to port their favorites games by using your based Wine/Crossover/Cider soft you nicely developped for us, and/or help if possible (depending of their skill).

The leechers will always be here alsong you have full applications/games ports sections available. If you want to avoid this kind of "problem", you'd better remove these sections...
Personnaly, I don't exactly see where the trouble is since even a few of you, the porters who have shared and made a ton of wrappers, certainly stealed many games from semi-private/private torrents trackers too, and didn't buy them all before porting and sharing them publicly (I also highly doubt about the right of using a license we don't own, even if we bought the game/app we'd like to port and share to the rest). Same thing with programmers who, beside creating and sharing their nice Wine based softwares, also build engines from Crossover/Cider work which is made by professional developpers. So who are stealers and who are not... Isn't that sound ambiguous?

To my point of view, porters don't have to act like being egoist and proclaim a wrapper they made is their own port (like if it was made from scratch)... Ports that are posted here are made to be as shared, used and modified as the end user wishes. So what's the point being credited for it?
It's not an individual work since it does use engines, Wine based soft, and games/applications made by others for the most. If you insist about being credited, you should also credit the work of professional dev (games/applications developpers, Cider, Crossover...) and everyone involved in the developpment of Wine, Wine based softwares...etc...
That would be a never end.

[doh123]

Yeah... the website isn't very clear, I agree there... its a ton of small buttons and tons of text all over the place. I think the first page should be something extremely clear, explaining everything someone needs to know there first time here and what the website is about... not just the news blog.

[devilhunter]

doh123 said:

Yeah... the website isn't very clear, I agree there... its a ton of small buttons and tons of text all over the place. I think the first page should be something extremely clear, explaining everything someone needs to know there first time here and what the website is about... not just the news blog.

Like the 'Getting started' and the 'About us' Tab at the Front page?

[doh123]

devilhunter said:

doh123 said:

Yeah... the website isn't very clear, I agree there... its a ton of small buttons and tons of text all over the place. I think the first page should be something extremely clear, explaining everything someone needs to know there first time here and what the website is about... not just the news blog.

Like the 'Getting started' and the 'About us' Tab at the Front page?

I didn't say links to.... :-)

[nintendotoad]

My problem isnt
im going to upload your wrapper and not give you credit
My problem is
im going to download your wrapper and never say thanks or port a game or male a tool
Its not even that hard to port a game unless its like crysis dao or codmw2+alteiwnet (10 minutes max) and making a tool takes 5 minutes after spending 10 minutes learning bash (its so straightforward) and thanks is like a 10 second process.
I rest my case

[Garfed]

Most of us come here for the same reason, we hear you and the wesbite to go, want to test and play ports, and few people want to investigate a bit to learn how to use your game their favorite wine / crossover / Cider soft you a good development for us and / or help, if possible...

[cluthz]

I guess most people that end up here really only want to play games on their mac.
Most users also really doesn't have the skill or the time to acquire the skills to make a port.

I've used Linux quite a bit and have been a mac user for over 15 years. I've always had x11 on my machine since I've had to use linux apps on osx. Still I found it pretty challenging to make my first ports.

I've been looking around here for about a year after I discovered Wineskin (which has become a really good tool!) and after seeing doh123 posts on macrumors (where I've been a member for 7 years) I decided to put some time into porting. This will be my 10th post here, where two of them are ports, a few suggestions to make other wrappers work and a few questions about why the downloaded wrappers didn't work as i hope they would.

If there was a 7 post minumum to get access to wrapper I don't think I'd be here now, because I really don't know how I could get that without spamming.

Anyways, this seems to be a nice community where maybe too few contribute (seeing as most of the wrappers are made by a select few), but I think it has to be open to get more future porters!

-cluthz