On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 16:17:19 +0200 Tim Schumacher timschumi@gmx.de wrote:
I am writing here because I have a question concerning AppDB reports and the usage of NoCD-Patches for games.
The issue of whether test reports based on NoCD patches should even be accepted in the AppDB has never been discussed, at least not in the time I've been here. I'm inclined to fall into the "shouldn't" camp, but as a practical matter, the AppDB was already full of such reports when I became an admin 10+ years ago, so purging them now would not be easy.
Now the question is, if I update an app's page in the DB ([1]), is it ok if I list something like the following (assuming the game works properly at some point, excluding the copy protection):
What works: - Installation - Starting the game (except if the copy protection is active) - ... - ...
Not sure what you mean by "update an app's page." If you mean the app or version description, test report data shouldn't go in there at all. And no, you should never mention NoCD cracks in the app or version descriptions, nor should you ever accept NoCD "versions" as separate version entries. As for accepting test reports that used NoCD cracks, unless and until we reach a consensus that such reports should be prohibited, I'd say that is at your discretion as a maintainer. If you do decide to accept such reports, do not accept any with links to cracks or explicit instructions on how to obtain and/or use them.
However, apart from the missing copy protection driver in the Steam version, it isn't really known if and what changed between v1.1.0.0 CD and v1.1.0.0 Steam. Would it still be fine to merge "Steam" and "v1.1.0.0" in the AppDB (which is why I chose the wording "if the copy protection is active"), which are currently listed seperately?
No, don't merge them. We list Steam (and GOG) versions separately from CD/DVD versions precisely because there are differences, copy protection being one of them.