Topic: This may sound like a odd request but...

[zangetsu468]

Honestly, though, Drac9, if you wouldn't come out swinging like that all the time, that would be greaaat.

Is that last part in a Bill Lumberg voice? ;p

[Dracula9]

Is that last part in a Bill Lumberg voice? ;p

Now that I think of it, I don't think I've seen my stapler for a while.

[zangetsu468]

Now that I think of it, I don't think I've seen my stapler for a while.

It got moved to utility basement B... Didn't you get that memo?

[Dracula9]

Welp.

Guess I'll just set the Dungeon on fire.

[zangetsu468]

Welp.

Guess I'll just set the Dungeon on fire.

Squirrely guy, mumbles a lot.. (sets things on fire)

[X]

Hee-hee, office space 

Just nobody bring up the Federal @$$-pounding prison.

[zangetsu468]

Hee-hee, office space 

Just nobody bring up the Federal @$$-pounding prison.

You either kick someone's ass on the first day, or become their bitch.. I never heard of these conjugal visits 

[Corpsecrank]

I don't really have a problem with it. I mean I get it so it doesn't bother me if that is what people want to do. It is also super hard to prevent someone from using cheat engine to cheat in a game. I can't think of a single pc game aside from an online game with a server that cheat engine isn't able to work on. Even some games with a server are able to be cheated with that if the server has weak protection against it. One of the biggest problems is learning how to use cheat engine that well. The amount of time spent and the effort it takes you might as well just play the game lol. But if you learn it then it will always work on everything from that point forward.

Frown on cheating all you want but judging how a person wants to play is a wasted effort. What you find fun others will not and what others find fun you will not. There is nothing unethical about cheating either not unless it is directly effecting another person in an online game or you are actually making money by cheating some how again through some online function where what you do amounts to real world money some how.

No one bitched and screamed about how wrong it was when people popped in a game genie back in the day or an action replay or game shark. This is literally no different.

So on topic yes you can cheat in a fan game or any other pc game if you know how.

[Dracula9]

Frown on cheating all you want but judging how a person wants to play is a wasted effort. What you find fun others will not and what others find fun you will not. There is nothing unethical about cheating either not unless it is directly effecting another person in an online game or you are actually making money by cheating some how again through some online function where what you do amounts to real world money some how.

No one bitched and screamed about how wrong it was when people popped in a game genie back in the day or an action replay or game shark. This is literally no different.

It's just as much a wasted effort to try and make anyone feel guilty about having problems with it.

Rigging up your car to drive on its side at an angle unnatural to all known understandings of physics and three-dimensional space while shooting sixty-foot flames out the sides might be hella fun for some (I'd pay to see that, actually), but that doesn't make the original manufacturers "wrong" for issuing a statement of "okay look that might be hella fun but we didn't build the car for that."

And no, it's not "literally" the same.

Game Genie or Shark or any of the others have selective modification of existing values and variables and only occasionally had "one code does everything" options. You wanted everything, most times you had to go in and turn on every single one you wanted individually.

Save file editing, the only real thing I've spoken out against, isn't quite the same thing. Sure, both give you stuff earlier and sequence break progression, but Genie codes weren't as likely to actually break or softlock the game unless you were fucking around with them without knowing what the assembly values in the codes themselves meant.

You edit the wrong number or put a value in a place order it isn't meant to be in an .ini file, you can render the game unplayable. In Game Genie, you're more likely to just screw up one or two specific values that particular code applies to than you are to lock-crash the whole thing.

What happens when someone decides to change up the .ini save file to get max everything and they put, say, a special move value earlier/later in the load list than it's supposed to be, or change a value to something the engine and code isn't set to check for (e.g. trying to set item amounts to 999 when the item lists' array values are hardcoded not to exceed 9 or 99)? The game now has values it isn't structured to account for (since the game would never otherwise accrue those kinds of values outside of file editing), and will softlock itself trying to load foreign and nonexistent variables and values every step of the call scripts. Or it will read that you have that endgame ability at the beginning and let you use it, until you try to save and exit the first time and the game no longer has the "acquisition of the actual item that gives the ability triggers the permanent switching-on of that ability's variable for that save file" trigger to tell itself you have it, and the game crashes when you try to next load that edited save file.

There's way more to the matter than simply "cheets coods r bad." And it isn't as if it's even remotely possible to write in code to account for any and all possible cheats and edits and hackings so that above lock-crashes are planned around.

No, I'm not a fan of file editing (outside of the aforementioned "you beat it proper the way it was intended, I don't care what you do from here" stipulation). Obviously, if this thread has made anything clear. But there's a whole slew of reasons aside from that I dislike it--most of which center around "oh look they went and rendered the game unplayable by fucking with the files" and the potential for a player to break everything and thus not be able to experience the game without having to reinstall/redownload. It'd be a different matter if every single potential player knew my exact coding style and variable/array/data structures and could edit everything without having to worry about breaking the structures' order...but that's never going to happen, for obvious reasons.

[Corpsecrank]

Who cares if they cause themselves to have to reinstall the game? You shouldn't it isn't your time. Not only that who alters files without making a copy of them first for those exact reasons? I just don't see the point of all that added stuff you are talking about beyond the fact they are cheating.

What I said is exactly the same as a game genie or game shark etc. You are altering values in memory with cheat engine while the game is running. With a game genie the code you could alter was different and there were also other limitations because this was a cartridge on a console not code being executed on a pc where the memory can be scanned and changed on the fly. I was talking mainly about using cheat engine not about altering save files or other files. Altering a file is just one more way to change a game but that method isn't always available where cheat engine is pretty much always going to work if you know how to use it. Hell I wouldn't even waste my time altering files any more simply because cheat engine is the easiest way for me to do what I want.

About cheating being wrong? I'm not trying to change any minds about it. I am just saying don't bother bringing it into this for that exact reason. People who cheat will cheat and people who want to play clean will do just that. But every time you mention cheats there seems to be this whole cheating is wrong argument.

[Dracula9]

I'll thank you not to tell me what I should and shouldn't prioritize or care about.

And I'm sorry, but it's still not the same. You can make all the arguments for it you want. Genie edits in realtime, file editing does not. Genie can be toggled instantly or if something breaks, file editing cannot.

I appreciate that you're not trying to actively change minds on the moral quandry, but I'm not doing so either.

But there are more reasons it can be problematic, and 90% of the time nobody's gonna even think of those reasons unless they are, have been, or will be a developer. The mindset of development accounts for things users wouldn't even think about. It's not as black-and-white a matter as "it's a thing and it's morally subjective so just don't talk about it because that's all there is to it," and it never will be.

I feel a bit like Mance while Jon tries to convince him to kneel to Stannis here--"...but if you can’t understand why I won’t enlist my people in a foreigner’s war, there’s no point explaining." Just replace the "I don't want my people dying in someone else's war" concept with "I don't want my work to become unplayable because of someone else's impatience if I can protect it from that level of breakage."

[Corpsecrank]

I wasn't telling you what you should prioritize or whatever. But if that means anything to you then consider that you are also attempting to control others by limiting what they can and can't do once they install the game. Much like you don't like being told something other do not like to be told they cannot edit a file they now own. That logic of I don't want this to break because a user wants to experiment with it is exactly what apple has always done and you can find plenty of complaints about that. I never hear anyone complain because a platform is left open though.

[Belmontoya]

I wasn't telling you what you should prioritize or whatever. But if that means anything to you then consider that you are also attempting to control others by limiting what they can and can't do once they install the game. Much like you don't like being told something other do not like to be told they cannot edit a file they now own. That logic of I don't want this to break because a user wants to experiment with it is exactly what apple has always done and you can find plenty of complaints about that. I never hear anyone complain because a platform is left open though.

Rules are what makes a game. Someone who goes to the trouble of making a game tends to want the player to experience it the way they intended.

[zangetsu468]

I wasn't telling you what you should prioritize or whatever. But if that means anything to you then consider that you are also attempting to control others by limiting what they can and can't do once they install the game. Much like you don't like being told something other do not like to be told they cannot edit a file they now own. That logic of I don't want this to break because a user wants to experiment with it is exactly what apple has always done and you can find plenty of complaints about that. I never hear anyone complain because a platform is left open though.

There's a difference between apple and Dracula9. First off, it goes without saying that nobody can enforce opinions on others, it takes two parties (or more) to come to a consensus, which if can't be reached then nothing will change.

Secondly the apple argument is null and void (and don't give us the whole "it's the principle" spiel). Apple is a business, one of the world's most famous and lucrative technological companies. People such as D9 are making fan games which are keeping some of the hardcore castlevania fans alive in an era where konami is completely ignoring and disrespecting their own franchise. These individuals are putting hundreds and thousands of hours into developing games which look as if they could've been professionally made and sold the way konami used to make and sell castlevania. But they're not, they're allowing people to experience them for free. These people do not owe the general public anything, they have given their time and skill set to the general public.     

There is no moral high ground for the gamer here. There is no personal gain for these developers other than to see a final product and allow games to be experienced by fans of the series.

On a personal note, one of the things I can't stand is people placing their expectations on another individual and saying "Sort it out!". No, if you placed the expectation their in the first place, then you sort it out by adjusting down your expectation-dial by a few notches. It's not someone else's problem.

[Dracula9]

I wasn't telling you what you should prioritize or whatever. But if that means anything to you then consider that you are also attempting to control others by limiting what they can and can't do once they install the game. Much like you don't like being told something other do not like to be told they cannot edit a file they now own. That logic of I don't want this to break because a user wants to experiment with it is exactly what apple has always done and you can find plenty of complaints about that. I never hear anyone complain because a platform is left open though.

(click to show/hide)

Apple is a business. Apple has to plan extensively as to its product line to ensure that it releases products that can garner as much profit as possible. Apple, like any successful business with a product line, invests in the bigger percentage of its market--what's more likely to garner profit, releasing shit geared toward the 90% of your marketbase that's likely to buy based on past trends and customer satisfaction levels, or releasing shit geared toward the other 10% who hate the shit made for the 90%? Yes, it's business and big business especially is so commonly associated with immoral or otherwise bullshit trends and market strategies, but the fact is business is still business and business has an endgoal it works to achieve: profit.

Replace financial profit with fan satisfaction, and the principle's the same here. The majority's not always right, but if it's a question of "what thing can I make that will please a larger portion of my target audience," I'm more likely to appeal to that majority.

Apple controls a large portion of an entire global market. Apple makes billions. Apple can afford to piss a few people off, because their niche market will buy their shit regardless of how many naysayers there are.

I have none of these luxuries.

I do not control any portion of any market, local or global. I do not make a fucking dime off this. I can technically afford to piss a few people off on the universal principle of "I'm not gonna please everybody no matter what I do or don't do", but not to the degree of which Apple can slide by with controversy.

I and all the rest of us make this shit on our own time, for no pay, and invest whole years of our lives to give back because we enjoy the shit and want others to enjoy the fruits of our labors.

I wasn't originally planning on invoking the unspoken "you're getting this shit for free and it's of good quality, why are you complaining like you paid and got shafted" argument, but Zangetsu's done so in my stead, so it's now on the table.

And it's all true. You don't have to pay for fangames, you can't get shafted by poor quality the way you would if you bought a bad game, and you don't have to invest anything but your own time and patience (compared to use devs investing the same things, only with a workload entire fathoms above those of the awaiting playerbase). We the devs don't get paid for a second of all our months and years of work, we don't have the luxuries of full studios and teams of professionals and millions of dollars to budget, we don't get any reward for out efforts beyond community gratitude and maybe an article or two elsewhere (not to say we NEED a reward beyond those and the reward of artistic creation, but just for the sake of argument I'm mentioning the point nonetheless), and we don't have the privilege of development being our daily 9-5 job that lets us work on projects consistently every day.

So while no fan project is above the keen judgments of a critical eye, they're certainly under no obligation to bend the knee to everyone who'd play it and sandbox themselves and their assets.

Additionally, when those of us working hard on levels many of you in the user-end of the pool can't fully fathom or at the very least wouldn't be likely to even consider (all, I should add, to give you something tailored for as much of your enjoyment as possible, all for free and costing you nothing more than your ability to wait for it), you can surely understand the suggestions of entitlement and self-righteousness that can be interpreted when a developer decision is met with "well fuck you, you're limiting player experience because I don't like it and can't do whatever I want to the project and you're a bad person for doing so" type comments. Backlash isn't inherently a bad thing, but the quality and mindset of it can be, and it's those two things that determine its value moving forward.

So all that being said, I hope it's at least somewhat clear(er) how these kinds of attitudes can and very certainly do come off as being ungrateful and inconsiderate of all that's being done to give a few friends and several thousands of total strangers a fun experience. Not all criticism and backlash is ungrateful or inconsiderate, but ungratefulness and inconsideration often go hand-in-hand with criticism and backlash. So you see the bind of subjectivity this puts me in, and why I'm so eager to disregard it for its total lack of even remotely stable footing.

But let's extend the idea of "developer decision" for a moment.

Let's assume there's a mechanic in a game that deviates from the series standards of "normal" in a way intended to reinvent the traditional mechanic and open up its usefulness to more situations, thus allowing the player even more ways to utilize their abilities and skills for complex and open-ended gameplay. Let us also assume that the mechanic is crafted as such so that it cannot inherently be considered "bad" by any means that aren't subjective (e.g. a mechanic disliked by some but isn't gamebreaking or poorly-designed). Finally, let us assume that it is to be a base mechanic that the entire game will be planned around to some degree or another.

Now, let's assume a few people are highly vocal about their distaste for this mechanical change. They hate it for its deviation and cry foul on the part of the developers because they changed something and made a decision which majorly affects gameplay that they, the users, didn't agree with. Let's assume that this group of people is mostly small in their size compared to the overall target audience. Lastly, let's assume that the developers have very good reasons for wanting to introduce the mechanic as they believe it will allow players to experience the gameplay in a fresh new way, and aren't simply adding it to make change for the sake of change.

Should the developers go back to the drawing board and reinvent the wheel as to the entire game, which has much of it extensively planned out already and would require starting over from square one to fully alter, because of a handful of people very vocally against something they've implemented or planned to implement? Suppose they had already considered this group's mindset of preferring traditional mechanics, and concluded that the change would be worth the backlash and a good idea to implement anyway. Suppose they have a laundry list of reasons why the mechanic has value, why the change is warranted, and why the overall quality of the project has no indication of suffering for the change.

Should they just up and scrap it because a vocal minority complained "we won't be able to play the game the way we want to!" and cried foul? Should they run a poll of thousands of fans as to their preferred method of play and style and then expend time I don't even want to think about to ensure every fan has the means to play "their" way? Should they second-guess themselves on every decision because it just might not sit well with a few people?

You get the picture. Obviously protection measures and a play mechanic aren't the same, but the core idea/principle here is.

Subjective "I wanna do it THIS way!" opinions are not good enough to sway my decision to protect my files from common tampering (anyone can tamper if they want it badly enough--I can't stop everyone, but I can sure as shit stop most of them). There simply isn't enough validity or rationale in the argument of "but I wanna play it my way" that I can rely on for their objectivity. And objectivity, or at least subjectivity more strongly rooted in objectivity than what's been argued against me thus far, is what is required for quality gameplay and mechanics going forward.

As for my own subjectivity and objectivity, I've already stipulated that there's far more behind my decision than my own personal distastes for cheating games right out of the gate and never giving the intended experience a proper chance. That distaste is definitely part of it, but it plays second fiddle to the reality of file tampering having a very wide margin for error and problems and just as much potential to fuck everything up.

So since the argument's two sides consist of subjective "but I want to play it THIS way" perspectives and my own programming-related (and therefore objective, since code is nothing if not pure logic) perspectives of what will and will not break everything, you can understand why I'm adhering to my own side. Not because of selfishness, or vanity, or anything in that ballpark--because my end of things has more parts rooted in objectivity and facts than it does personal preferences and opinions.

People can lie. Code doesn't. Therefore, I'm trusting what I know of code. My personal opinions are only reinforcing garnish for that.

Now if I may be a little indignant for a moment:

It's as Zangetsu's said. There's no moral high ground for the users here. Yes, they are our audience and yes, we create to suit their wants and needs as best we can, but they have no shroud of moral superiority they can wrap themselves in in order to trounce the developers. Not in cases where the developers actually do give a shit about what they think most of the time and strive to meet expectations (which this most certainly is). We work for free, we give up whole chunks of our lives and free time (and sometimes even money, depending on what resources are needed for proper creation) to deliver a free product to the masses, and those masses don't have to do anything but wait for it. None of them pay for anything but with their patience, and yet some feel compelled to act as if this is false and some of those people feel even more strongly compelled to be self-righteous and patronizing about it. They assume the devs don't care about them and didn't even consider their opinions, when this is so often not the case.

They also forget that they only know one side of the fence. Fangame devs know them both.

We played the official titles just like everyone else. We learned the mechanics, read the lore, and drank up every scrap of content we could get our hands on like we were dying of thirst. We know. We get it. We understand. To be a fangame developer is to have just as much love and appreciation for the franchise(s) as the rest of the fans do.

But we also know what the creation aspect of all of those titles is. We have as much an understanding of spending countless hours and manpower and resources as an unofficial person or group can of what levels of work went into those official titles. Some of us have backgrounds that make this understanding even more wholesome. But unlike those giant companies, we haven't any of the luxuries associated with multimillion and multibillion-dollar IPs raking in money like it's nothing. We have nothing but our minds, our determination, and our own two hands, all to try and achieve what a filthy rich company did with all those millions of dollars and hundreds of team members and employees.

I don't think it's unfair to say that most user-end gamers don't and can't understand what that side of things is truly like until they've been there themselves.

So when a developer decides to make a choice about something they've created, and the user response is little more than "but I WANT TO do it that way, you're WRONG for not letting us do whatever we want, fuck you!" it should be quite simple to understand if/when that developer responds with a bit of edge to their tone.

One wouldn't defend a child who really, really wants to jump onto the backyard trampoline from the third-story roof because they find it fun to jump on the trampoline as well as jump from things, no? Would one argue with that child's parents to scolding the child and sealing up the roof windows so almost all of the child's ability to jump from it is removed? Even if the child really, honestly, truly might've had a bit of fun and there was only, say, a 60% chance they could've been injured from the jump?

No, because the child's idea is unwise due to its potential danger regardless of how much fun they might have had that other 40% of the time. The child is not wrong for wanting to pursue what they have fun at and enjoy doing, but the parents are also not wrong for attempting to curb and remove the child's ability to engage in an activity that, while probably very fun for them, carries the risk of serious injury or death. But at the end of the day, one of the two has to be "more" right than the other. And my money's on the side that prevents a kid from hurting or killing themselves because they decided to be reckless in their leisure.

I'm sure you're all quite tired of my metaphors by now (that was a rather extensive one), but I like them and their effectiveness at illustrating hard-to-narrow-down points in a different light.