THE "NEW" RM2K3 ENGINE

The Steam store has been around long enough for the majority of people to realize even the most regurgitated trash is worth something in a world with 7 billion+ humes .

I think it's worth money (work was definitely put in). I just think that given none of the changes I wanted to see were out there, and I don't have the ability to patch it to fix some of that, it's not worth the value I paid (it was worth something to have working battle system and copy-to-common events, but given that taking away plugins that I already had took away functionality, I would have liked either more features or about a $10 discount until DynRPG was re-added).

I don't think I would categorically dismiss it as for a quick buck. However, I would have liked to see either more new stuff (I mean, c'mon I paid for it, I wanted to see stuff that was gonna make me impressed), or just working better as an engine, with DynRPG legally configured in (similar to the scripting style of XP or something). Even if nothing else beside DynRPG and the battle system were new, cool. But since it's mostly just the battle system (the copy thing is cool, but not really enough to blow me away), even the three plugins (condition icons, message extender, mp display) I used on my game are noticeable.

It's sorta like if you had some big buzz about Skyrim, when it just came out. Then after a long download, you find out that some twit switched it with Daggerfall. All the build-up, and in most respects I wound up stepping backward from what features I had. It's not enough for me to be like, "I want my money back" but it is enough to want a second update.

author=Liberty
And no, it is not a victimless crime. Money is being diverted from the creators of the product by people who want it for free instead. Just because some people buy it and then use the pirated version doesn't mean all will and EB is still missing out on the money that they should have made waaaay back but didn't. Don't kid yourself in to thinking this isn't a crime that hurts people.

Just because it benefits you doesn't mean it's right. God.

While I applaud EB and Degica for finally getting this out to the Western audience, I can't help but feel a lot of the problems we now have with piracy of the old version could have easily been avoided had Enterbrain not sat on it for so long and refused to sell it outside of Japan. That money "they should have made waaaay back but didn't" could have easily been had if they had only released the damn thing when they should have. It might not have stopped every pirate, but it probably would have prevented quite a bit of it from those who have been clamoring to sell commercially with it for the past decade.

All that said, for those who choose to actually make a game with 2K3, I encourage those to at least purchase the legite product. It sucks for commercial users who can't use the patches with it, but for every other hobbyist not looking to commercialize, it at least offers a bit of support to both Enterbrain and Degica, even if you do resort to using the illegal version for patch-related purposes. Things have been much too quiet in both channels (nothing new from Enterbrain in almost 3.5 years and not much more from Degica), so showing support even for something as trivial as an older maker might put a bit of life back into the Maker series and encourage them to make something new.

author=Liberty
The fact that they've more money releasing it than they did not releasing it proves that it was a good business deal. Open and fucking shut.

Yeah but, I mean they aren't victims at any rate, they knowingly released this with the plan to capitilize on people's interests, and it worked, doesn't mean just because some are less inclined to feed the retroactive and at the same time unironically late behaviour that they are victims at even the least.

While I applaud EB and Degica for finally getting this out to the Western audience, I can't help but feel a lot of the problems we now have with piracy of the old version could have easily been avoided had Enterbrain not sat on it for so long and refused to sell it outside of Japan. That money "they should have made waaaay back but didn't" could have easily been had if they had only released the damn thing when they should have. It might not have stopped every pirate, but it probably would have prevented quite a bit of it from those who have been clamoring to sell commercially with it for the past decade.

This exactly, it also would have easily stopped people like me and possibly Bulma being passive aggressive about it.

And since they have released it now, the least they could do is make it square up to the original, I don't care how many times this wafer-thin justification is used:

mawk
a lot of work has gone into this re-release

I'm still not going to support a program thats leagues behind the original and completely at the behest of the company who made it. Either support the mods, or equal them!

If you don't, then no, you can't bitch when people call you out. And they will, they have, and will continue to. Defending a faceless giant like Degica is a really pointless and sad endeavor, it's like defending the Wagner Mining Corporation.

Unheard, unneeded and uncared for. The only people who do care is people who have bought the program and feel it doesn't live up to the original, justify it with 'it was hard work' all you like, guess what, so is every respectable feat of man, and at least they did profit off of it.

Like, would it really be that hard to just admit 'yo, maybe allowing legal use of third party mods on the basis that the authors of said mods own jack' wouldn't be such a bad idea??

author=Liberty
I don't know why you're so hung up on this. Just use the fucking things and don't sell your game. Simple as fucking pie.

It's not even me who would benefit, I bought the program but I've no intent of using it since VX Ace is just starkly better in my personal opinion. I'm only stating this for the sake of others, really.

kentona
...Are you seriously bitching about the fact that the new official engine hasn't been illegally modded like the old illegally translated 2k3? Do you really feel that entitled?

Lol nope, see above.

I never intend to open it, and I do not even have an illegal copy of 2k3 on my system, and never will. I just feel defending a lack of legalized modding is a pretty dumb idea. It's the same as defending a lazy decision, utterly contrived and pointless, only handbraking further the authors need to admit maybe they could have done better.

Like if you're going to outlaw modding atleast make an effort to match it.

They didn't, so no, they aren't taking an easy route either, they are just taking a very stupid and insipid one. They could have legalized modding and saved themselves a whole bunch of trouble with a well thought out EULA.

The fact is they didn't, and they expect people aren't going to chow them out about it when they've already failed to release it in a timely fashion. I'm sorry but they do not by any means possess the legal or moral high-ground at all.

This is all that has been harped on about for the last few pages! It's been at the core of others' comments! Just, ugh, seriously!

If they want to use them they can use them but they can't sell the games they use them in. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering something they don't have on the menu, then crying about it because while they might have the ingredients to make it, THEY DON'T OFFER IT ON THE MENU.

Or buying a DVD then complaining that there were no extras disc when there wasn't one made, then making your own out of the movie and whining when you're not allowed to sell your 'edited movie' because you made something out of someone else's copyright.

EB! has never allowed modding officially. Never. Why the hell would they start now? Just because you hacked the program (against their fucking EULA!) and added extra features doesn't mean you are entitled to sell a game that has those extra features. BECAUSE BY ADDING THEM YOU BROKE THE RULES THAT THEY TOLD YOU NOT TO BREAK!

FFS.

Seriously, it's exactly like hacking something into a rom, making a game with the resources and then trying to sell it. The only difference is that EB allows you to use the resources to make a game... but hacking the program is not allowed. At all. Ever. Because that's their fucking coding and they have the absolute right to say no. It's not a dick move on their part - it's them protecting their copyright and coding. People arguing otherwise obviously don't know shit about the copyright of coding and how seriously companies take that. It's their whole fucking game!

I mean, Square sued other companies for trying to use turn-based battle systems. If it's something unique to a company they are going to protect it as much as they can, and saying no to mods is one of the ways they do this.

author=BizarreMonkey
I was into debating about it maturely

nothing in this sensationalist nonsense about 'a faceless giant' has been mature, or even remotely useful. thank you for quitting, though.

I think all this misses the point. Yes, legally it should have been made available since 2003. Yes, it should have been updated since then, because people were still using it. Yes, if Enterbrain got off their asses and stopped calling "illegal" something they let go, they would have effectively ten years of profits. Instead, the product became abandonware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware

Yes, technically EB is still in business, and could have made money from it. However, there was no legal copy for sale. Not only that, but whatever version was ever for sale no longer existed, for anyone but people who knew moonspeak (for that matter, even that version was technically a steal from the country it was made so hmmm, sorry no). When a product is kept out of public sale and usage to the point where a copy of the game available to the public cannot be bought without import, the company has effectively neglected the game. Yet they somehow expected us to buy a copyright claim. Before we go along with that assumption, let's straighten something out...

Every day, I look for videos, for music, for whatever I want to watch. I can quickly figure out what's legal and what's not, even without reading a couple dozen articles on copyright and fair use. How? Well, stuff that abides by fair use tends to be not for profit, hosted on legitimate search engines like Google for an extended period, credit the original posters, or have independent work involved making it non-derivative. Non-fair use tends to end up with this disclaimer.

In response to multiple complaints we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 3 results from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaints that caused the removals at ChillingEffects.org: Complaint, Complaint, Complaint.

This was never an illegal copy. It was a fan copy, a localization made without authorization, yes, but not per-se illegal so long as there was no effort at all to provide a reasonable version for purchase (exactly the same as fan-translated versions of Akira prior to official imports). It is an illegal copy now, to any who have not bought the legit version. But that's still not the point.

The point? The legality of mods. Here's the thing. The mods are C++ material. They are property of whoever officially owns the original source code, if they are not outright open source. EB is a japanese company. They did not create the programming language known as C++. That honor goes to Bjarne Stroustrup, a guy who never took credit for his own work (the fact everyone here just said "who?" proves it), much less tried to take copyright control over someone else's work (*cough*Enterbrain*cough**cough*). Second, the codes as part of the mods in question are also not property of Enterbrain, some of them were coded by me, some by dragonheartman, some by Kazesui, some by Pepsi, bugmenot, or Cherry. You write it, you own it, and you can't copyright an idea.