Whats acceptable in reverse engineering the various ff games

[Renderman23]

I have herd several topics on reverse engineering, game mods, etc, and currently have no clue as to what is acceptable in trying to reverse engineer the ff8 games in order to mod, or enhance their capacity.
Whats everyones goals with the project?
Would their be any legal issues in creating an ff9 port to pc(win32 or linux) with enhanced graphics? < could such a port be sold if it was simply a program that utilized the ff9 art and world data.

[Ant]

I very much doubt it could be sold, if it, in any way shape or form had anything at all to do with final fantasy, Square would come down on you like a ton of sh*te.

[Qhimm]

Actually, you run quite a risk by even calling your program anything like "Final Fantasy" (trademark violations). Selling it is absolutely out of the question, and the fact that you've had to reverse-engineer the code the game in order to make your remake is certainly bad news. Read through any program license for any bigger program, and they'll have specific clauses outlawing reverse-engineering. It's equivalent to cracking.

So, most of what you mention is not really acceptable. There would certainly be legal issues if you sold your product, even if it uses the original data files.

The only bright spot in all this is another example: ROM translations. not only do they use a questionable ROM dump, they most certainly reverse-engineer the code and modify it. Still, I've rarely heard Square go after them. However, since no one has really tried to make their own FF port/enhancement, it remains to be seen how Square will react.

[Renderman23]

So.. Tell me about "black box" development?
Its all good for learning anyhow.

Does anyone know of a program that could translate the main exe to generic c, or c++ code? OR  Use something like softice to watch for the section of execution that decompresses the character data, etc?
Im new to this,, so im sure many of you have probably already thought about something similiar to this for the pourposes of finding out the model formats and compression formats

[mirex]

Just by the way I think that it is forbidden to rip game data also.

[Qhimm]

Renderman: There are several decompilers that do this, but the result isn't very good. It would take *a lot* of work to make decompiled code compileable. Second, FF7 leaves lots of trace messages while running. Try attaching a debugger/trace window to it to see them.

mirex: No it's not. If you bought the game, it's your legal property which entitles you to do pretty much whatever you want with it, unless the software license explicitly forbids it. The trouble starts if you start using copyrighted material for your own benefit and such.

[dagsverre]

And in many cases, what's written in the software license or EULA is not legal in the country it is sold in. For instance Norway guarantees two years of guarantee on electronical products (hardware, not software). Even if the joystick manufacterer prints "AS IS, NO GUARANTEE" in big letters all over the box they are still forced by law to provide me two years of guarantee.

Microsoft state everywhere (including in their EULA, I think) that you cannot resell their software: If you pick up a copy (or license, as they call it) to XP in a store you cannot sell it on to your neighbour. I don't think this has been tried in court yet but there are postings on the net about Microsoft breaking the law in a lot of countries by this clause (effectively making that section invalid).

(I cannot guarantee for the correctness of any of the 'facts' above, I'm probably remembering a lot wrong I'm just trying to demonstrate some principles about law).
[edited] 15 2002-03-05 14:32

[Alhexx]

That should mean that, if I program and publish a ripper, it is legal, as far as I don't implement any parts of the bought game (data files, textures...) ? Cool...

 - Alhexx

[Qhimm]

That is my interpretation. Of course, I'm no lawyer. But in effect, what it all boils down to is the following: "Is there a remote chance that the company will lose money because of your program?" If yes, you're in the danger zone. Square hasn't come after me for making my rippers, but then again extracting graphics is really no worse crime than taking a screenshot.