Does RM2003 support scripts?

[- Aërendyll -]

I have no idea how splash screen changes would be handled. I personally never see them since I play all my RM2K(3) games through Test Play in the editor, but given that the splash screens hold stuff like game engine copyright designations and such from what I remember of it...

The splash screens I've seen from older RM2k3 games have one or two splash screens with Enterbrain's/ASCII's logo in it. I'm not sure if editing these out or replacing them would be problematic if you e.g. put a smaller version of the logos on the titlescreen or in the corner of the splash screens? (I hope that's okay, as I really dislike the new splash screen screenshot I've seen from the Steam RM2k3 version.)

 

[Cherry]

The reason I wrote "using patches is allowed" in my threads/blogpost is because I was unable to find any clause in the EULA talking about modification of the engine. Only the "reverse engineering" clause, which is not something user does when they apply a patch or exchange glyphs.

I'm still waiting for an official statement from Enterbrain (and my comment here shouldn't be considered one since I am not an employee, only a contractor), but I can't see any other interpretation unless somebody shows me the "no modifications" rule I must have missed.

@Andar: Where does it say patches are an EULA breach at all? It doesn't talk about patches, it talks about specific actions, namely "reverse engineer, de-compile, or disassemble". Neither of these actions is performed by the licensee (!) when they are applying a patch or exchanging the glyphs or icons.

My point was that these actions may very well have been done by somebody else before, but this party is not the licensee in question then, so it has nothing to do with the end users' rights.

 

[Andar]

Can you at least quote the part of the EULA that forbids that instead of just claiming something that isn't even true:

That has nothing to do with the EULA, it's the basic principle behind every law: If something is obtained illegally, it cannot be used legally - no matter if stolen goods, police evidence gained without observing the rights of the suspect or in this case the internal (and secret) information about how to access and change the engine, that can only be obtained by reverse engineering.

If that were not the case, the first part of that EULA-point would be useless and not enforcable, because everyone with the knowledge could then reverse-engineer the software, write a patch and simply claim that the patch had been found on the internet.

The only way to allow that is for Enterbrain to grant the user the licence to modify the engine - and since you're asking for proof, please point to me where in the EULA does Enterbrain grant that ability?

1. ENTERBRAIN grants to Licensee a non-exclusive, non-assignable, one-time-fee license to use the RPG MAKER 2003 SOFTWARE for the purpose of creating, playing and distributing games and projects created with this software. User shall promptly register SOFTWARE before its use.

I see nothing indicating that the user may modify the software itself there.

And yes, a similiar case about Ace had been discussed internally a while ago - the information to call functions in the close-source DLL of Ace was never made available in public, so any script using that information is illegal, even if the information was gained from the internet and not by reverse-engineering of the scripter himself. Otherwise most of the copyright laws would be voided by now due to the internet-distribution of scanned books...

However, Enterbrain and Degica might decide to ignore the use of some specific patches - like they decided to ignore the use of a reshack to change the game.exe's Icon for Ace-Games, even if legally that is breaking the EULA.

The reason why this entire discussion has gone on without a (public) answer by any Degica-Employee is because the only people with the authority and knowledge to make and publish such a decision were unavailable during the weekend.

But there will be such a posting to clarify that as soon as that decision has been made and translated into the legalese language. (and no, I don't know what that decision will be, I only know that it's been discussed at places where I have no access)

 

[Cherry]

Changing parts of the engine can be considered "creating games", the same way as changing the default texts in the vocabulary.

In case of using Resource Hacker to change icons there is nothing illegal involved at all: The PE resources format is public knowledge, and the authors of Resource Hacker probably never had any knowledge of RPG Maker 2003 at all, let alone reverse-engineered it. Therefore, nothing was "illegally obtained".

There are some more cases like this, for example the RM2k(3) Font Changer utility, which was created by opening the RPG_RT.exe file in a hex editor, searching for the original font name, remembering the surrounding bytes and automating the process of modifying this font name. This itself doesn't involve reverse engineering because the hexadecimal values can hardly be considered a "higher level", and the font name itself was known from the beginning.

However, after thinking about this once more, I reconsidered my opinion, and you are right that in many cases the "If something is obtained illegally, it cannot be used legally" rule applies. I therefore updated my forum/blogposts accordingly. I will wait for an official statement.

I still think, though, that actions which involve modification of the engine without involving any reverse engineering process or usage of a tool which was creating by breaking any EULA (therefore not Resource Hacker) are perfectly legal.

 

[Andar]

In case of using Resource Hacker to change icons there is nothing illegal involved at all: The PE resources format is public knowledge, and the authors of Resource Hacker probably never had any knowledge of RPG Maker 2003 at all, let alone reverse-engineered it. Therefore, nothing was "illegally obtained".

Yes and no - and if someone simply made an icon file and redirected the program to use it, there would be nothing illegal in the process.

However, adding the icon into the game.exe itself requires disassembling and reassembling the exe-file, and that is where it becomes a breach of the EULA.

I should have clarified that.

I still think, though, that actions which involve modification of the engine without involving any reverse engineering process or usage of a tool which was creating by breaking any EULA (therefore not Resource Hacker) are perfectly legal.

But how are you able to modify the engine if not by learning its internals by reverse engineering?

Learning the (hidden) adresses might not be reverse-engineering in the detail, but it is dissassembling the software to be able to look at its internals.

There are a lot of things that can be done legally (for example, the wrapper-systems to make RM-Games run on Linux or Mac are legal as long as they simulate a windows toward the engine and only modify the screen-output etc. They would become illegal if they redirect the internal engine functions to display directly on non-windows systems), but it almost always requires someone with both technical knowledge and legal knowledge to get through all the loops and hooks of each possibility.

We simply have to wait until that has been processed - but in the past Degica and Enterbrain have always been customer-friendly whereever possible. They just can't commit on something like this without getting clearance from their legalese translators.

 

[Cherry]

Basically, you are right, however: In case of Resource Hacker, no disassembling/reassembling is involved. Disassembling is the act of converting binary machine code into human-readable assembly language. In fact, Resource Hacker doesn't even have to touch the code or data sections in the executable file (.text or CODE, .data or DATA, respectively) at all, only the .rsrc (resources) section, which is, as I linked above, documented and in no way proprietary to Enterbrain.

(Disassembling is a technical term and doesn't have to be taken literally, i.e. it's not about moving bytes around.)

 

[Andar]

Disassembling is the act of converting binary machine code into human-readable assembly language.

(Disassembling is a technical term and doesn't have to be taken literally, i.e. it's not about moving bytes around.)

Technically, yes (Iknow exactly that, I even programmed in assembler in the past)

But in a legal context, it can be interpreted as any form of analysing a program, especially when combined with terms like reverse-engineering (and today, no regular programmer still works in assembler) - it depends on the judge, but since most of those don't care about technical details...

I'm a technician myself and have only limited legal knowledge, but it has been confirmed several times by Degica's people that using reshack to change the icon IS breaking the EULA and they needed a decision cleared if they should ignore that from a legal point or not.

That is the reason why I stated that someone needs both technical and legal knowledge to get the wordings and phrasing correct, and an EULA is mainly written from the legal side to protect the companies, not by the technicians. And it's also the reason why I call legalese a different language than english...

 

[- Aërendyll -]

Reading all the new things written here since last time I posted just makes it even clearer to me that there's a lot of uncertainty about what is allowed and what isn't... The Wikipedia article linked earlier also states that reverse-engineering isn't a concept that's completely set in stone, so for laymen like me, that's not helping with understanding what exactly would cross from legal into illegal territory. Personally, I care a lot about staying on the legal side of things, so that's why I'm asking so many questions.

I'm still not entirely sure if there's a legal way to go about changing the splash screens, glyphs or EXFONT files, but my guess is that making a wrapper for the game allows a custom icon, at the very least. It would be great if we could get e.g. a whitelist for patches, wrappers creators, etc. - any chance that's possible?

 

[Andar]

FYI: The EULA for RM2K3 will be rewritten to clarify a few thing, and you'll probably like the result. But since the new wording is still unknown, I can't give you a real answer.

 

[Rukiri]

Natively, RM2k and RM2k3 don't support scripting, everything had to be done with events (and yet custom battle systems and menus could be done). Extensions like the famous Ineluki key patch used a custom harmony.dll and/or RPG_RT.exe to inject custom code into the game.

Not quite, I remember doing a chrono trigger battle system which would just call the menus and get the IDs of the enemies.  

As for DynRPG I'd have to guess incompatible but who knows, give it a try?

 

[Erika Fuzzbottom]

Okay, so to the best of my understanding, reverse-engineering means that you crack open the program and look at the code.  Don't you have to do that in order to properly create a patch?

 

[Seriel]

Not quite, I remember doing a chrono trigger battle system which would just call the menus and get the IDs of the enemies.  

As for DynRPG I'd have to guess incompatible but who knows, give it a try?

*looks both ways*

...It doesn't work.

 

[MikePjr]

I hope a lot of cool things end up being allowed.

Like a way to use a normal cursor and not a box.

A way to use image blending options maybe even for animations.

Maybe a way to make MP3s have loops like you can add in Ace.

I just know that 2K3 in it's current form is less than desirable to use.

I went back to making a game i was making in Ace, just cause i miss the cool things i can do in Ace.

 

[sabao]

I hope a lot of cool things end up being allowed.

Like a way to use a normal cursor and not a box.

A way to use image blending options maybe even for animations.

Maybe a way to make MP3s have loops like you can add in Ace.

I just know that 2K3 in it's current form is less than desirable to use.

I went back to making a game i was making in Ace, just cause i miss the cool things i can do in Ace.

It's RM2k3, ergo an older product they haven't provided support for in over a decade. While I deign to assume Degica or eB! have no plans to update the software, I strongly doubt you'll ever get as much functionality out of this as you would Ace. That's not to say this version is a waste of time, however. You just have to figure out how to work with what you have. I think it's plenty, honestly.

 

[Erika Fuzzbottom]

I'd actually have to hope they don't add Ruby scripting to 2k3.  Ruby is very intimidating, so the lack of it makes 2k3 more appealing for folks like myself.

 

[Andar]

It's RM2k3, ergo an older product they haven't provided support for in over a decade.

That has nothing to do with age - why should Enterbrain offer support for pirated versions?
This is the first time a legal version is available outside Japan, and while you can't expect a complete reprogramming of it, now there is support for those that paid for the program - and there also has been the first tileset product released where RM2K3-formatted versions of the tiles are provided as a bonus.

 

[Clord]

We all know that Enterbrain's EULA is stupidly strict but there is not much to be done in that front. Maybe they later on realize and be a bit more "lenient" with their terms. Degica of course just enforce them even if their opinion is different about the matter.

I'd actually have to hope they don't add Ruby scripting to 2k3. Ruby is very intimidating, so the lack of it makes 2k3 more appealing for folks like myself.

I fail to see how. A lot of developers don't script their own stuff and still use the tools. In fact scripting support makes RPG Maker series more appealing than without it.

 

[Erika Fuzzbottom]

Well for me personally, it's also kinda tacky to just go out and collect custom scripts for your game.  There should be more thought put into the features of your game.  Not to mention, it's really distracting seeing more than one game use the same custom scripts.

But maybe I'm just weird.

 

[- Aërendyll -]

Well for me personally, it's also kinda tacky to just go out and collect custom scripts for your game.  There should be more thought put into the features of your game.  Not to mention, it's really distracting seeing more than one game use the same custom scripts.

But maybe I'm just weird.

There's a lot of tutorials out there to create specific event systems (and in some cases: downloadable versions of said systems), though. Wouldn't it also be tacky to event the exact same thing as someone else did?

 

[Erika Fuzzbottom]

Yeah, but I can't imagine it'd be as easy to do that.  The inability to copy/paste scripts promotes creativity.

Allow me to explain.  I have the most experience with RPG Maker 1 on the PlayStation.  It had no Ruby system, and you couldn't copy/paste scripts without writing them down for someone else to read.  So aside from the ability to import a few custom graphics, all you had to work with was what the tool provided you.  As a result, I found myself having to get creative with what I had to work with.

2k3 is a lot more powerful than RPGM1, even without Ruby scripting, but I'm getting the same vibe from it.  I don't need to learn how to program, and there's no copy/pasting other scripts.  Which means I get to have more fun tinkering with what's there.

Oh, and I don't have to compete with people who like to modify the game engine. =P