Eureka... I think?

Well I was converting the text strings in Someplace Else to a format compatible for the game_text entity. An odd bug with Hammer at the moment is that if you put in more than 127 characters in the "Message Text" field, Hammer will crash.

The text in Someplace Else was much longer than 127 characters, so I opened the .map file and pasted it more than 127 characters and compiled like normal, and it played like normal. But Hammer would always instantly crash when attempting to open .map.

So, technically reverse engineering is impossible unless:

• The bug is fixed in Hammer
• The map is opened in QuArK (but people who decompile aren't likely to use QuArK anyway)
• The decompiler-person actually goes into the .map file and finds the "Over 127 character" thing and deletes it. But like I said, if they decompile, they're not likely to know what to look for anyway, much less know about this bug.

So, they still can decompile the map, they'll just never really know how to open it. But I doubt anyone is really THAT protective of their work. :razz:

You can't decompile a map with textures imbedded in it last time I checked.

I couldnt do it last time I tried.

Hmm? I was under the impression that embedding textures in it didn't protect the map, and there was some tool to get past that. Oh well.

you can extract the textures that are embeded but I couldn't decompile a map with embeded textures in it

Bah. Fine then, this is just a little note for anyone who doesn't feel like embedding textures and inflating the filesize for 56kers and such... :smile:

Either way, you'd still need the textures in your map that you're using. Unless they are mod standard I find it's better to have just a .bsp and not a .bsp and a .wad or more...why make it tougher than necessary?

I think Cagey's compile tools can screw up decompilers as well.

[size=13][color=white]So, they still can decompile the map, they'll just never really know how to open it. But I doubt anyone is really THAT protective of their work. :razz:

[/color][/size]

I am. I don't want people altering my map for HLDM, since to do so would completely spoil it. I already have cunning booby traps hidden in the map to effect this, but a bit more protection can't harm.

Dammit, why doesn't BBcode work?

NICE! I will be trying this as my map ,westminster, a rp map and as jinx has helped pointed out to me, its full of n00bs wanting to decompile/get ahold of my .map.  So hopefully they wont have enough brains to figure this one out

Thankies!

I just got caught by my own booby traps (!)

Turns out to be a useful (if unorthodox) way of debugging my new code

(Fixed now)

Gollum said:
Dammit, why doesn't BBcode work?

mine does every time when i quote.. i only seem to have issues with the smileys at present..

dont use netscape.. it wont work...

for the record.. hit the quote button, then remove the portions you dont want..

It's just [quote] code which doesn't work. That, and [line]

Or... you can do an -entonly compile... When someone tries to decompile, all they get is the entities.

its -onlyents , and it wont stop a decompile.

GreenDragon said:
NICE! I will be trying this as my map ,westminster, a rp map and as jinx has helped pointed out to me, its full of n00bs wanting to decompile/get ahold of my .map.  So hopefully they wont have enough brains to figure this one out :biggrin:

Thankies!

You made Westminster?

/me bows

will this bug be present in the Hammer/Worldcraft Valve used to make HL2? it would be interesting to see what people would do if it were left in ... :biggrin: