Is there a way to export your house layout?

sergio · 2013-04-09 19:24:54

Dinnanid · 2013-04-09 19:44:49

sergio wrote:

Is there a way to export your house layout?

No, if you want to remember it you can always take a screenshot.

pavram · 2013-04-10 22:28:43

Sort of; but it also makes cheating easier; so I'm not going to bother explaining it.

Also I suspect Jason will be closing the simplified method off pretty soon because it is so easy to cheat with it as it stands currently.

edwardoka · 2013-04-11 03:02:07

Not export as such, but there is http://castlefortify.com/ or http://castlr.fonkle.com/ which allow you to effectively design blueprints.

The issue as I understand it is that while your house layout is technically available for export, it's in a way that, as pavram says, makes cheating trivially easy.
Hopefully Jason will alter this so that we can access the player's house layout in a nice format so that we can import/export from web apps such as the above without making cheating so simple.

Last edited by edwardoka (2013-04-11 03:02:26)

Matrix · 2013-04-11 05:07:08

edwardoka wrote:

The issue as I understand it is that while your house layout is technically available for export, it's in a way that, as pavram says, makes cheating trivially easy.
Hopefully Jason will alter this so that we can access the player's house layout in a nice format so that we can import/export from web apps such as the above without making cheating so simple.

Well that "format" would be by authenticating the user and getting access to the layout of his house only. You can already do this now (although external user authentication is not supported yet afaik) but the problem is that when you authenticate you can access layouts of other houses as well.

This problem is pretty much impossible to solve due to the way the game is coded at the moment. And it is unlikely that it will ever change.

The simplest cheating methods will probably be disabled but like Mr. Rohrer already pointed out there is nothing stopping somebody else to expose another way to obtain the same info.

Last edited by Matrix (2013-04-11 05:12:42)

edwardoka · 2013-04-11 06:20:14

Matrix wrote:

Well that "format" would be by authenticating the user and getting access to the layout of his house only. You can already do this now (although external user authentication is not supported yet afaik) but the problem is that when you authenticate you can access layouts of other houses as well.

Yeah, I wasn't talking about communicating directly with the server; I doubt Jason would approve if either of the map editor/viewer web apps used the official authentication mechanism to pull data from the server - that would likely be met with swift, sharp use of the ban hammer, and justifiably so; however, the game stores the (admittedly non-canonical) data locally as well.

I started writing a decoder for it but decided not to implement it in my editor because it would allow me to access layouts of other houses. If Jason can stop this file from storing unencrypted map data for other house layouts in the next version then I would reconsider it.

Matrix · 2013-04-11 07:09:07

edwardoka wrote:

Matrix wrote:
Well that "format" would be by authenticating the user and getting access to the layout of his house only. You can already do this now (although external user authentication is not supported yet afaik) but the problem is that when you authenticate you can access layouts of other houses as well.
Yeah, I wasn't talking about communicating directly with the server; I doubt Jason would approve if either of the map editor/viewer web apps used the official authentication mechanism to pull data from the server - that would likely be met with swift, sharp use of the ban hammer, and justifiably so; however, the game stores the (admittedly non-canonical) data locally as well.

Yeah exactly.

edwardoka wrote:

I started writing a decoder for it but decided not to implement it in my editor because it would allow me to access layouts of other houses. If Jason can stop this file from storing unencrypted map data for other house layouts in the next version then I would reconsider it.

This is highly unlikely to be implemented in a way that would prevent getting the data. He can only make it harder but not impossible.

Like he already pointed out the only way to achieve that would be a server-side implementation of the game logic and a total rewrite of the client to only receive visible tile data instead of the whole house map.

Last edited by Matrix (2013-04-11 07:09:43)

edwardoka · 2013-04-11 08:07:30

Matrix wrote:

This is highly unlikely to be implemented in a way that would prevent getting the data. He can only make it harder but not impossible.
Like he already pointed out the only way to achieve that would be a server-side implementation of the game logic and a total rewrite of the client to only receive visible tile data instead of the whole house map.

You're absolutely right that it's not possible to stop someone sufficiently determined from obtaining the data via authentication, even if Jason encrypts the hell out of everything.

What is possible however, is to make it so that other people's maps aren't stored in the local filesystem at all.

Presumably he uses the locally stored file as a means of building the security footage.
It should be possible, on the server, to know what state a given person's house was at a given time.

The file that currently holds the local version of the other person's house could instead hold a pointer to a server-side representation of that person's house at that given time. ie. instead of the map data being encoded in the file, he stores something like house_id=99191919&timestamp=1234567890, which, for looking up security tapes, loads a historical version of the house from the server to replay the break-in against.

If he really needs to keep the other person's house in the local filesystem, make it so that they are encrypted using a key based upon something tied to the player's account, and keep it in a separate file from the actual player's layout.

Of course this is all speculative, we don't know what the backend looks like.

DrNoid · 2013-04-12 00:10:15

edwardoka wrote:

What is possible however, is to make it so that other people's maps aren't stored in the local filesystem at all.
Presumably he uses the locally stored file as a means of building the security footage.

I doubt it. The security footage itself is stored on the server, so I see no reason to store the house locally. Especially since the house might have changed by a previous robber. In that case the replay would simply not work with a locally stored (and thus outdated) house.

edwardoka wrote:

It should be possible, on the server, to know what state a given person's house was at a given time.

It is. Houses are stored on the server, and to make replays work, I'm guessing houses are versioned.

edwardoka wrote:

Of course this is all speculative, we don't know what the backend looks like.

Actually, you do. The server source is also included.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-04-09 19:24:54

Is there a way to export your house layout?

#2 2013-04-09 19:44:49

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#3 2013-04-10 22:28:43

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#4 2013-04-11 03:02:07

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#5 2013-04-11 05:07:08

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#6 2013-04-11 06:20:14

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#7 2013-04-11 07:09:07

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#8 2013-04-11 08:07:30

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

#9 2013-04-12 00:10:15

Re: Is there a way to export your house layout?

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