TO PROTECT OR NOT TO PROTECT, THAT IS THE QUESTION!

post=139315
No, just play it. You don't have to COPY the maps, just learn from how they're made, right? Just observe them while playing.

Yeah... but that just gives you a small picture, there are a ton of other things at work here that you need to know for that map that are not reviled in a simple walk through.

Such as...

1. Is that graphic an event?
2. What animation pattern does it follow?
3. Whats the setting for the background?
4. Is that animation a battle animation or picture... or a combination of both?
5. How did he/she set up the picture animation?
6. Whats the basic eventing look like?
7. How did he/she set up the menu? What graphics did they use? Pictures? Panoramas?
8. How did he/she set up ALL the maps? (Which would be quicker if I didn't have to play through)
9. How did they set up the cloud system for the overmap?
10. What did they do to set up a scrolling BG for a battle scene on a train and the train doesn't scroll with the BG?
11. What custom systems did they use for the random battles?

The list goes on and on, so I do not protect my work because I like to have people actually MAP CORRECTLY, and my way helps quite a few people out. It also teaches them how to make custom systems by following some of my examples. Even learn how to set up scrolling battle scenes. If you want to protect your work, it's cool, but for cripes sake, help them map and event! (sniff) Please, think of the noobs! lol

No, seriously though, if you want to protect your work, it's cool. I prefer not to though. Even if the work would be my own, I'd still like others know how to use it correctly. People are going to do it anyway, no matter what security you place. (even those pesky XYZ files are easy to crack.)

Oh, and as far as copying them goes, taking a screen shot and learning from them, isn't copying. It's the best way to learn how to map now that more and more people are setting up custom EXE files.

I am a strong supporter for this because, for the longest time, after Ebon Scape was released, (a few years ago) a lot of people downloaded the game, but mostly for the resources... :( They never really took the time to learn how I mapped, they basically, didn't play the game. So I saw project after project that used the same resources, but looked like crap. Really, I saw RTP mapping look better. These resources are HARD AS FUDGE to map with, probably the hardest you'll ever encounter for RM2K3. If people took the time to open my project, looked around, they'd know the best way to map from these sets are through example.

It's really how I learned, the original artist was kind enough to allow me to download a few of his sample games (literally, they were called sample), I couldn't play them because they were in Japanese, but I opened up the editor, and learned from his examples. That's really how I learned to map for the very first time, Ebon Scape would never have gotten this far (I wouldn't even let it be downloaded in the previous noobish state it was in) If he wasn't kind enough to let me have his sample games. That's why I spread the editing love around I guess.