Unofficial patch
An Unofficial Patch is an error correction or corrective action for a commercially distributed software often computer games. Due to one or more non - commercially motivated developers from the user community instead of the original software manufacturer's
Concept
With unofficial patches is trying to maintain the original concept and the spirit of the original software product or even working out more. This focus differs significantly from other unofficial patches adaptations of software by third parties, such as mods, hacks and cracks. Since these patches typically come from an online community organized communities of users and develop them there in the consensus achieved by a wide acceptance and are usually regarded as legitimate "official" product going concern. Disputes about the authenticity of adjustments Unofficial patches in the user community before come and be but typically " conservative " solved; controversial adjustments are then omitted to optional components or. However, the development also go so far as that, as in the example OpenTTD to its own corporate game is coming, which is independent of the original. Mostly it already is the original but to abandonware.
Motivation
Motivation for creating these patches is a lack of support by the developer, which can have many reasons:
- The software is outside of the time frame or support has been replaced by a newer version ( Planned Obsolescence )
- The developer company no longer exists or has the rights to the software lost ( abandonware ).
- For the developer economically unprofitable (eg, localization of games for small markets )
- The developer can be too much time to solution deployment for a critical problem ( for example, security holes)
- The developer is overwhelmed with the problems.
Species
In computer games range unofficial patches individual authors are also called fan - patch. Combined patches consisting of the work of many authors from the user community are also referred to as a community patch.
Typical corrections are targeted at critical bugs in the program, which prevent the intended use; For example, execution error that lead to program instability, compatibility issues with newer operating systems or a lack of adaptation to new technical factors such as higher image resolution or widescreen formats.
Another common goal is the translation of software in other languages , if it was originally released not localized. This sub-group of fan- patching is referred to as voice patch, fan - translation or fan port, including for Japanese RPG games that frequently appear only for the Japanese market.
As another specific subgroup Blood patches can be viewed with which game content of a computer game to be reconstructed, which were removed due to legal constraints or cultural concerns of Publishers ( offensiveness ) for a target market.
Another variant is update - packs, in which many small incremental or only available on-line official patches are tied together to form a larger overall patch.
Methods
Since, typically, the source code and development tools of the software is not available to the community Patchern available, the behavior of the software must be analyzed by reverse engineering and debugging. For some goals, it is sufficient to perform minor changes, for example in configuration files or the Registry database, such as Blood patches; Cost and size of these patches are so often small. Other goals will be achieved primarily by adjusting the program data, such as high-resolution patches, replace the graphics textures, or fan - translations of a game; here exists a close in concepts and development tools (SDKs and specially developed tools ) for modding scene.
For other complex goals, such as bug fixes to the game engine is a direct adaptation of the binary code, for example with a hex editor in assembler is necessary. This approach is much more difficult than an adjustment directly at the source code recompilation, as it can perform to the source code of the software manufacturer with access. This scenario is led by representatives of the open source software movement as an argument that software should be in principle always be published with its source code so that users ( Planned Obsolescence ) or absence of the original developers have the option of including non- interest adapt software.
In rare cases, the community receives access to the source code of the software and can thus take the most effective support; either happens they become available on an official release or by an accidental ( leaken ) such as happened in the game engine from Thief.
Reception
The behavior of the creator and rights holder to the unofficial patch is very heterogeneous, since the unauthorized adjustments, although most do not cause any financial damage, but purely legally constitute a violation of copyright or trademark law. The reactions range from ignorance, tolerance, legal fight, official ( tacit ) use up to actively support the efforts.
There have already been the scenario that the community developers use the official ( commercial ) development has been transferred by the owners.
Also, for a community support by disclosure of the source code for a free development of the software, there are some example: Myth, Homeworld, Allegiance and a lot of games by id Software and 3D Realms. For a list of games that have been released to allow the community to self - support, see the list of commercial computer games to published source code.