It's so funny that every time something like this is mentioned, the same discussion emerges, only the participants change. Where do I stand? Hard to tell.
To all those in favour
It seems that your group exists of two large groups of users and one minority. The first one are the people that don't seem to be able to release games, then there are the noobs who tell us they will only use it to learn and the minority group either doesn't care because their game is crap/completely original or because they think there is no way to fix this. If you don't release games, stop talking. If you're a noob and you are telling us you just want to learn from it, shut up we don't believe you anyway, and respect to the minority group.
You see, many are missing the point here. If learning and sharing all game resources was a good thing, why include encryption at all? Right, because you simply don't want people to do certain things.
Regarding to cheats, okay I don't care if you would open up my game and cheat, because I think you suck since you were not able to finish the game the way I designed it. I am sure it will bore you at some moment, but you'll see that for yourself.
Regarding to sprites, although people can still steal sprites by smart print screening (begging for no fog overlay or transparent sprites and/or picture overlays) doesn't mean that you should steal or that you should make the way to obtain the sprites easier. Most people will only take that particular sprite with print screening, while now they'll take it all. I just want those sprites to be my game only, unless I release them on the forums. Even though most people won't get away with it, does not mean that they won't try, costing me my time, energy and effort to set it straight. I want THEM to make effort stealing it, not simple executing a program and then copy and pasting.
Regarding to scripts, when it comes to scripts, I am always divided, since the learning factor from a script is much higher then from a sprite. However, certain systems I worked hard on for hours, I don't want to see in other games. It is my system, not theirs. If I think it is time that the world may use it, I'll release it. In general, these days people suck. I am not talking about those great designers, but people that are usually called noobs. Make me this script, make me that system... They don't try and learn themselves, which would be another reason NOT to be able to decrypt games, since it demotivates to learn new things and create new skills.
Regarding to online games, all the orpg's I know are protected with some kind of anti hacking program. Why? Well, in an offline game, if you cheat, you'll just fuck it up for yourself. But now you will fuck up the whole community playing that game. It's sad and I know for a fact that there are people out there fucking up games because that's their adrenaline catalyst, they like it, they do it for fun. I don't want those people fucking up my ORPG, simply because it took me time to create it.
So, what do I do? Well, I think since I have an ORPG and I can script pretty well, it comes to the following: I have to complete what I was doing. Before, all the data was on the clients computer etc. etc. This has changed in NP3+. In my game, all the map and event data is on the server. The clients have copies of the map, but everything is validated on the server. If the client is on a position that is blocked, he's a cheater. If a client get's an item without any reason, he's a cheater. If a client is leveling up without killing monsters, he's a cheater. I have to set up this enormous anti cheat system, and even then I'm not finished. I need to port my scripts to a dll, and make sure only the calls are in the game. This way people can only steal the exact SAME copy of my scripts, thus making it very noticeable.
I could go on like this, but as you can see. In order to keep my players faithfully and trustworthy, I need to encrypt my game. People are bad by nature, if they get the chance...
At vgvgf and others, we should join up and work on this together. We need a system that can not be broken by any NORMAL user and is easy update-able. Also, we might even just go with a new rmxp, without RGSSdll :P
To all those in favour
It seems that your group exists of two large groups of users and one minority. The first one are the people that don't seem to be able to release games, then there are the noobs who tell us they will only use it to learn and the minority group either doesn't care because their game is crap/completely original or because they think there is no way to fix this. If you don't release games, stop talking. If you're a noob and you are telling us you just want to learn from it, shut up we don't believe you anyway, and respect to the minority group.
You see, many are missing the point here. If learning and sharing all game resources was a good thing, why include encryption at all? Right, because you simply don't want people to do certain things.
Regarding to cheats, okay I don't care if you would open up my game and cheat, because I think you suck since you were not able to finish the game the way I designed it. I am sure it will bore you at some moment, but you'll see that for yourself.
Regarding to sprites, although people can still steal sprites by smart print screening (begging for no fog overlay or transparent sprites and/or picture overlays) doesn't mean that you should steal or that you should make the way to obtain the sprites easier. Most people will only take that particular sprite with print screening, while now they'll take it all. I just want those sprites to be my game only, unless I release them on the forums. Even though most people won't get away with it, does not mean that they won't try, costing me my time, energy and effort to set it straight. I want THEM to make effort stealing it, not simple executing a program and then copy and pasting.
Regarding to scripts, when it comes to scripts, I am always divided, since the learning factor from a script is much higher then from a sprite. However, certain systems I worked hard on for hours, I don't want to see in other games. It is my system, not theirs. If I think it is time that the world may use it, I'll release it. In general, these days people suck. I am not talking about those great designers, but people that are usually called noobs. Make me this script, make me that system... They don't try and learn themselves, which would be another reason NOT to be able to decrypt games, since it demotivates to learn new things and create new skills.
Regarding to online games, all the orpg's I know are protected with some kind of anti hacking program. Why? Well, in an offline game, if you cheat, you'll just fuck it up for yourself. But now you will fuck up the whole community playing that game. It's sad and I know for a fact that there are people out there fucking up games because that's their adrenaline catalyst, they like it, they do it for fun. I don't want those people fucking up my ORPG, simply because it took me time to create it.
So, what do I do? Well, I think since I have an ORPG and I can script pretty well, it comes to the following: I have to complete what I was doing. Before, all the data was on the clients computer etc. etc. This has changed in NP3+. In my game, all the map and event data is on the server. The clients have copies of the map, but everything is validated on the server. If the client is on a position that is blocked, he's a cheater. If a client get's an item without any reason, he's a cheater. If a client is leveling up without killing monsters, he's a cheater. I have to set up this enormous anti cheat system, and even then I'm not finished. I need to port my scripts to a dll, and make sure only the calls are in the game. This way people can only steal the exact SAME copy of my scripts, thus making it very noticeable.
I could go on like this, but as you can see. In order to keep my players faithfully and trustworthy, I need to encrypt my game. People are bad by nature, if they get the chance...
At vgvgf and others, we should join up and work on this together. We need a system that can not be broken by any NORMAL user and is easy update-able. Also, we might even just go with a new rmxp, without RGSSdll :P
