Talk:Equipment template format

Has anyone succeeded in decoding the Equipment Templates? As i see here http://gwshack.us/forums_small/viewtopic.php?t=366 some attempts have been made but not too great yet. --Phoenix 06:33, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Legal issues

I just wanted to point you all towards this thread on the GWGuru forums. The guy mailed GW support about creating a tool to edit template files and was told that it is considered a violation of the TOS and EULA to create, edit, modify, or display the template files used by GW by anything other than the GW client, and a bannable offense. -- 08:13, 24 November 2006 (CST)

Where do you see anything besides a random person spouting crap? --Fyren 09:51, 24 November 2006 (CST)

If doing this is illegal then surely so is gwShack with its skill template creator. I've not seen anyone complaing about that one yet. Also http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Skill_Template_format should go if Equipments one goes.

Has anyone read the EULA that says we can't do this? I've looked and can't see anything regarding templates or files that are created by GW. (Such as Skill Templates, Equipment Templates or even screen shots.

WNxTilly 09:51, 24 November 2006 (CST)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not NCsoft's advocate here. I'm merely pointing out that somebody (Theosebes) asked NCsoft and was clearly told that it is not permitted. Quote from the thread:

"I wrote support because sections 3 and 7 of the EULA can be interpreted either way. Support let me know in no uncertain terms that the template files are part of the GW client, and cannot be edited (manually or otherwise), displayed by an outside program, or created by anything except the GW client."

Section 3 of the User Agreement says:

"3. LICENSE TO USE [...] You may not [...] (b) modify, adapt, reverse engineer or decompile the Software, or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Software ..."

The key point is: According to NCsoft's understanding, templates are part of the "Software", and decyphering them can be seen as "reverse engineer / decompile". Creating 3rd party tools (web-based or downloadable EXE) may also violate clause 7.

If there is any doubt about it, we should at least ask ANet for confirmation. That gwshack is doing it too means nothing. They are not even an official fansite, and I doubt that they asked for permission, or that it even occured to them that what they do may be against the ToU/EULA. -- 10:27, 24 November 2006 (CST)

Ok, I guess we will have to see. I suggest then that if the page gets removed then you would also have to remove the skill template page as well as that is basically the same thread as the one I wrote but equipment instead of skills. All I can say is if these things were so condifential then why are they so easy to access? Why make them text files instead of anything with a different extension? Seems very odd to me. If people are allowed to share these files then they should at least have some better deciding than what they chose. WNxTilly 10:32, 24 November 2006 (CST)

Yes, correct, whatever we decide here is also valid for Skill Template format.

As for the justification, don't ask me, I'm not a lawyer. I think it was stupid and unnecessary to encrypt the code in the first place. ANet could have used a simple plain text format, similar to a windows INI or SYS file, and allow people to edit them freely. I guess the main reason why NCsoft are so cautious about it is because they do not want to allow ANY kind of 3rd party tools interacting directly with the game because such 3rd party tools always bear the risk of trojans/keyloggers. They may tolerate manual editing, or even web-based tools, but not downloadables / executables. And since they cannot use different standards they had to declare it illegal for all. -- 10:46, 24 November 2006 (CST)

First and foremost the data is NOT encrypted, it is in a very easy to understand binary format, which is why we had descriptions of the format from several different sources within a few hours of its release. Frankly I'm very happy with the format (except I wish they'd used url friendly base64 :P) because you can just paste it into chat as a single line. It also seems obvious to me it was, by design, intended to be shared. Of course what the designers had in mind can be different from what the lawyers decide. 68.109.82.138 20:04, 27 November 2006 (CST)

And that just sucks :( I think if we can get as many of the top fan sites & fan programs people to compain to Anet such as gwonline, gwguru, here, gwfreaks, gwshacks, theEdge etc, then we might be able to get somewhere as I feel no actual harm can come from a file created by these codes. I mean, you have to dl gwfreaks & theEdge and they could contain keyloggers. Anet always warm people about keyloggers and they should just keep doing that but just allow us to do this one thing! I mean, can't we edit the screenshots made by the GW client? As they are created by it so I guess we are all done there as well! WNxTilly 10:55, 24 November 2006 (CST)

FYI: I sent an email to ANet and asked for clarification. I'll let you know if I get a reply. -- 11:15, 24 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks, Was it just a basic is this illegal or not? Or did you say that many many people are wanting this to be made legal.....etc? WNxTilly 11:23, 24 November 2006 (CST)

From what i understand the problem's about program that modify, so as long we don't post this kind of programs we should be safe. I disagree with the page beeing deleted, as it only lists the id's of the weapons and the rest, same as the skill template. And like the skill template you can exchange them with friends. I.m curios what ANet people have to say about this. Reamains to be seen. --Phoenix 19:24, 24 November 2006 (CST)

I spend much time decoding almost 500 skill codes; I just want the page to stay, even if it's just for information. Let's see if template creator sites are allowed... Hattor 20:54, 27 November 2006 (CST)

I'm still waiting for a response to my support Question. I have been told the incident has been escaleted to a senior customer support representative. Not sure what that means but I hope I get something. Has been 3 days since I got that so I've asked for an update. WNxTilly

"To save a Skill Template, click the disk icon inside the Skills and Attributes panel, then click “Save to Template.” The template will be saved to a small file in the Templates/Skills folder below the Guild Wars installation directory. You can copy this file to other computers, share it with your friends, or post it on the Internet." - Update - Wednesday October 25. They buried themselves. If that is an actual quote from A-Net that the dude recieved in an email, then the guy that wrote that to him blatantly went against this statement posted on the official guild wars site. I see no legality issues other than internal. GuildWiki and other sites are not in violation with anything. That quote from their official site gives you permission to post your templates on websites and share with other users. I think the legality notices should either be removed or changed to reflect this information. — Jyro X 02:21, 7 December 2006 (CST)

The legality question isn't about if you can post/share the template. It's about if it's legal to reverse engineer the code and post how to manually translate/create a valid code that could then be loaded into the game. As no updates have been made recently, I'm considering writing ANet myself. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:42, 7 December 2006 (CST)

I've finally had my response from Anet!!

The templates have been designed in such a way that they can be shared, modified, decoded and uploaded to websites for others to download and view. It's intended that players should be able to do this with the files and - in normal circumstances - no action will be taken against anyone doing so. The only exception to this would be with anything giving players/characters an unfair advantage, such as exploiting a bug in the system.

This tells me they are happy for us to do anything as long as we don't abuse it with any bugs that are found! I'm thinking woot woot and these pages can now stay and not be deleted! I've also updated the page with all the codes I have, there are a few missing but I'm not sure what they are as I think I have every code ID'd WNxTilly 09:06, 11 December 2006 (CST)

Can you give us a link to where that response it posted? I'd like to confirm the validity of it before removing the legal/deletion notices from the articles. — Jyro X 11:04, 11 December 2006 (CST)

I can't, it was a support question. Unless they make it publicly available then you wont be able to see it. I can forward you the email if you want. This is the ref number 061124-000896 WNxTilly 13:35, 11 December 2006 (CST)

So all we have right now is one support email vs. another that say opposite things. I don't think these articles should be candidate for deletion, but there should be a notice that there's a conflict and it needs to be addressed and to see the talk page for more information. — Jyro X 12:09, 12 December 2006 (CST)

WNxTilly sent me the email he got from NCsoft support (that is quoted above). Based off of this I'm removing the delete tags from these. If something new is posted by ANet in the forums, or we receive a request from them, we can revisit this. --Rainith 22:50, 12 December 2006 (CST)

Glad we are getting to the bottom of this. Finally we can look forward (At least for now anyway) As you can see, I've almost got all the ID'd for the PvP weapons, armours and mods. I will add a link to the temp site that will display equipment templates for you.WNxTilly 04:40, 13 December 2006 (CST)

Dead End

This page is a dead-end page. How could we go around fixing this? Adding links to runes and armor and such? --Mgrinshpon 10:18, 7 January 2007 (CST)

related articles section is a go i guess ... Grima.worm@seznam.cz 08:52, 8 February 2007 (CST)