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[Cray]

I'm working on a commercial project in Rpg Maker XP and it's community is a problem. Someone didn't like the idea of it being used for shareware games and released a de-encrypting tool to the public, in too many hands now to ignore

(It uncovers all the custom ruby scripts in the engine, making any copy protection & file checks added that way useless)

I don't really care if someone sees my code & grabs the art, but I'd like to stop people from simply posting a fully working de-encrypted version & the others who'd release horribly edited vers

I've noticed I can call outside code through dll files. Is this something I could use to keep the tool users from causing problems if I put required stuff & file existing checks in one? and if so, a link to a newbie's guide to creating those would be appreciated

[Chris P]

I've noticed I can call outside code through dll files. Is this something I could use to keep the tool users from causing problems if I put required stuff & file existing checks in one? and if so, a link to a newbie's guide to creating those would be appreciated

Unfortunately no. They could just replace the DLL with a version that always returned true.

You could look into using Molebox or similar to wrap the generated game. That provides you with an extra layer of protection, since in order to use this RPG Maker decompiler/decryptor/whatever someone would have to break the Molebox wrapper first. It's not foolproof of course, but nothing ever is.

Or, you could just ignore the issue entirely. It's not something that can affect your sales much, so it's not really worth worrying about IMO. People will always find a way to get around your DRM; that's a fact of life. It can be worth throwing up some quick barriers to deter casual pirates, but don't lose sleep over it. Use the time you save to make a better game!

[GlingGling]

Or, you could just ignore the issue entirely. It's not something that can affect your sales much, so it's not really worth worrying about IMO. People will always find a way to get around your DRM; that's a fact of life. It can be worth throwing up some quick barriers to deter casual pirates, but don't lose sleep over it. Use the time you save to make a better game!

I agree with this. The more bomb-ass your game is the more likely people are to appreciate it and buy it. Spend 99.7% of your time making it bomb-ass and 0.3% of your time making it pirate proof.

[Cray]

Yeah, the pirates don't bother me much, this game would be great for cross-promotion even if they did play it without paying (lots of weird puzzles). The one-click simplicity of turning it into a fully editable free project was my main concern

A wrapper like molebox sounds perfect. I didn't even know those existed, thanks!

[mechacrash]

i used to use rpgmaker myself and i had the same sort of problem... because of this i created a second layer encryption that wasnt very good but prevented non-scripters from uncovering scripts atleast.

basically you make the script that is within the editor a decrpyion script that will open a file that is encrypted and evaluate it as ruby using the eval(code) function. This is also what i use for patching - sorry for being so... vague... i still use this sort of system for my ruby games so im not happy about releasing the actual code... just remember that Zlib is your friend