Obfuscating Code

[??????]

@Kupotepo https://obfuscator.io/ is one method

 

[Astrea]

I'm going to be completely honest though about why I'm salty about accusations against me in specific in making this thread:

I'd much rather have never bothered making this thread and left the discussion of obfuscation as closed forever. But I felt that wasn't the right choice for the forum to not be able to discuss something major in the community. I'm moderating it directly because I didn't want anyone else to have to do it. Asking volunteers to deal with this thread isn't fair, and Archeia can't moderate this thread for obvious reasons.

I would rather just be grilling burgers or something, it is a wonderfully beautiful Saturday outside here.

Then perhaps this isn't the best way to go about this? VisuStella is unique in the fact that is has direct connections to both forum staff and Digeca employees. It is definitely a different case than if a plugin developer that wasn't associated with Digeca was under fire.


I am not a social media manager, nor do I have a broad understanding of this situation, but if I may suggest something: I think that members of the VisuStella team should be wary of making comments if they are both members of the team and employees of Digeca/the forums.
There is a very real issue with optics here, because it's impossible for an outside observer to tell if an individual is speaking in terms of their role as staff, or their role as a VisuStella developer. This can easily lead to (possibly malicious) misinterpretation of their statements. Again, please don't let me tell someone how to do their job, but perhaps that feedback might be useful.

Edit: And, frankly, the VS development team has made a clear statement on how they are going to move forward, which is completely fine. If you feel the need to involve yourself as an "impartial" medium between other moderators and the community, that may be something to discuss on a professional level with the rest of your coworkers. Once you become a member of the company that makes the thing you make your thing on, things get a little messy.

 

[Arcmagik]

@Astrea

That's a terribly dangerous mindset which allows for the growth of harassment inside any community.

You are partially right. No one person can de-toxify a community. That's why it takes an equal effort on the side of people that want to create a better community to counter those creating the toxic atmosphere.

Personally, I'd rather drive away toxic people than allow them to drive away people that could help the community grow. Ideally, they realize their behavior is toxic and become a more valuable member of the community, but we both know that is unlikely to happen as you state.

No one has to accept harassment to be a member of a community. Period.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

@Astrea I'm not part of VS, that is why I'm the one moderating this discussion.

Also, the only member of VS that is part of Degica or part of our moderation staff is Archeia. We've already talked about this in the staff boards, but Archeia is not going to be moderating any thread about VS stuff unless it is removing de-obfuscated code (as that is time sensitive and a clear cut violation).

She did delete a post in queue last night about VS but that was because she directly linked it to me, and I was like "oh, delete that, I'm going to make a longer post tomorrow and I'm on my phone right now and it's a pain to moderate from that".

As for non-moderation: People on this forum should still be allowed to act as users on the forum. Being a resource creator, they should be allowed to post just the same as any other resource creator on the forum is allowed to post. Making restrictions specifically for them isn't doing anything but penalizing them unfairly.

 

[Astrea]

@Astrea

That's a terribly dangerous mindset which allows for the growth of harassment inside any community.

You are partially right. No one person can de-toxify a community. That's why it takes an equal effort on the side of people that want to create a better community to counter those creating the toxic atmosphere.

Personally, I'd rather drive away toxic people than allow them to drive away people that could help the community grow. Ideally, they realize their behavior is toxic and become a more valuable member of the community, but we both know that is unlikely to happen as you state.

No one has to accept harassment to be a member of a community. Period.

You are absolutely right, and I completely respect your take on that. I personally disagree, simply because it isn't about someone "not" being part of the community, anyone can, it's moreso if they "want" to be part of the community, knowing its issues. Again, though, that's only my option and yours is also completely valid.

@Astrea I'm not part of VS, that is why I'm the one moderating this discussion.

Also, the only member of VS that is part of Degica or part of our moderation staff is Archeia. We've already talked about this in the staff boards, but Archeia is not going to be moderating any thread about VS stuff unless it is removing de-obfuscated code (as that is time sensitive and a clear cut violation).

She did delete a post in queue last night about VS but that was because she directly linked it to me, and I was like "oh, delete that, I'm going to make a longer post tomorrow and I'm on my phone right now and it's a pain to moderate from that".

As for non-moderation: People on this forum should still be allowed to act as users on the forum. Being a resource creator, they should be allowed to post just the same as any other resource creator on the forum is allowed to post. Making restrictions specifically for them isn't doing anything but penalizing them unfairly.

Is Caz not a member of the team? I may have misunderstood their post, then.

And yeah, I agree that they should be able to act in whatever way they feel is appropriate. By no means am I saying that "x person cannot do y thing because they are involved in a direct way", but I do think that a lot of the controversy does come from the perceived connections between VS and the staff as a whole. (I am by no means saying that this should change, moreso just trying to get to the bottom of why this whole thing came up in the first place.)

(Also thank u for merging my posts, I'm on mobile and doing forum formatting on a touchscreen is a nightmare.)

 

[KakonComp]

I'm thankful we can edit certain functions in the VS code in the plugin parameters themselves. I haven't seen much discussion about that, but to those trying to find their own solutions to things, sometimes just looking over that bit of code we can see/edit can solve issues we may have. It allows a lot of fine tuning without having to look at the code directly through a third party program.

I was able to change battle positioning to make battle grids a possibility to use in tandem with the core plugins from VisuStella, as well as a few other things that makes the project I'm working on a reality from the point of view of someone with only some Javascript experience.

Thanks also for the notetag sideview anchors.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Honestly forgot Caz

That said, Caz isn't moderating any VS threads either.

 

[Trihan]

This is one reason I've been wading in to some of these discussions, because my only affiliation with VS is as an independent contractor hired to help port plugins. I'm neither a VS employee nor a Degica one so you can trust that anything I say is my own words and opinions.

 

[Astrea]

Honestly forgot Caz

That said, Caz isn't moderating any VS threads either.

That does clear things up, thank you! It really is a shame how much of mess all of this ended up being, I really don't think it's fair to the VisuStella developers. In a lot of ways, they really haven't done anything wrong.

 

[Anyone]

I think pretty much everything has been said. People have time and time again remarked on the vast ocean of problems arising from obfuscation, and there's a pretty good reason why any serious plugin provider on industry engines like Unity or Unreal does not provide obfuscation. Giving the person buying their code the ability to manipulate and modify it is an absolute standard.

Whether it's a standard you agree with or follow, is, of course, up to any one individual.

I'm not even going to begin going into the whole interconnection between VS & the forum, because that way lies a lot of speculation, toxic in any and all directions, and I just can't be bothered with it.

If I do end up getting motivated again to create plugins for MZ, I won't do any VS compatibility for them. If too many people ask for compatibility, I'll send them a.) directly to VS and let them worry about compatibility or hear complaints about incompatibility and wash my hands of it, or b.) ban the use of my conflicting plugins with VS plugins entirely via the ToS to discourage people from constantly asking for it.

The average user may not understand why so many plugin authors dislike obfuscation, but perhaps when they realize how more and more plugins don't go for VS compatibility or VS itself starts getting less and less efficient with their support since the number of plugins for which compatibility requests come grows and grows with every additional plugin that's released - perhaps then people will slowly realize that it's effectively a community shooting itself in the foot.

And some of the people that place "malicious" or commercial intentions at the feet of those complaining plugin developers should perhaps take a look at those plugin devs' work. Unlike VS, the vast majority of those plugin devs who complain don't charge for their plugins. They release them all for free.
They're not losing out on revenue they otherwise would have had...

In time, other people will obfuscate plugins, the obfuscation itself, rather than "protect from thieves" will allow people to release plugins that may be taken from actually unobfuscated plugins, and in time people might even start to snipe obfuscated paid plugins by releasing self-written plugins that attempt to make all those plugins features available through from the ground-up writing - which will eventually lead to plugin devs releasing paid & obfuscated plugins from claiming that free plugins disobfuscated their code & stole it (which can't be verified unless the obfuscating author shows unobfuscated code) leading to a lot of poison and toxicity.

I cannot fathom a single good thing coming from this, but VS is, of course, free to do whatever they want.

 

[Yanfly]

Hello, I am Yanfly.

I am the VisuStella MZ plugin team's leader. Some of you refer to me as the RPG Maker plugin monopolist. Others call me the RPG Maker plugin mafia don. Some of you also think I'm some billionaire who got rich off of RPG Maker plugins. All I can really say about those statements are: Man, I wish I was actually as cool as you guys are making me out to be, but sadly I'm not any of those (especially the billionaire part).

I'm here to clear up some misconceptions. I'm not going to bother quoting anyone directly. There's been a lot of people who pressed matters on certain things and getting them all into a quote will get messy and bulky.


Regarding Obfuscation:

This will be a copy/paste of my statement from here. I still hold to it the same I did back when I posted it.

The reason why these plugins are obfuscated is because they contain code borrowed from my teammates in their public, commercial, and some private works. The obfuscation is there to protect their code. I have no plans on jeopardizing their livelihoods as that would be betraying their trust, and I, as their team member, have no intentions of violating this trust.

We know that it's much harder to edit obfuscated code, so we have made sure to include plenty of customization options available. These come in the form of highly customizable plugin parameters, some of which you can insert and modify JavaScript code in, along with plenty of JavaScript notetags. It's not a perfect solution, I know that. There won't be as perfect a solution as being able to edit the code directly. But we are always looking for ways to let you do the most with the plugins as we can allow.

As far as paying more for the non-obfuscated code, I will discuss with my teammates on the matter. However, keep in mind that this is neither a promise nor is it guaranteed. This is because some of my teammates are victims of theft in the past, and I do not feel like I would make a good team leader if I can allow such a thing to happen to them again in the future.

If there's any anger towards the obfuscation of code in the VisuStella MZ plugins, direct it at me. Do not direct it at my teammates.

-

To reiterate some key points: the customization inside the plugin parameters are not a perfect solution. I know that. But I'm not going to change that. Why? Because that jeopardizes the trust my teammates have given me with their code. Even if it's for the community, I will not betray their trust.

Call it childish, call it useless, call it bad for the community, whatever you will. But I will not betray their trust.

You are free to hate me for it.


Regarding Compatibility with Obfuscated Code:

Copy/pasted from here.

I think the concerns revolving around compatibility in this community have been greatly amplified for no reason. And why do I think that is? It's because that as long as the programmer making the plugin does their due diligence there should be next to no compatibility problems as long as there are no conflicting functions that are meant to do similar things.

What do I mean by due diligence?

Using monkey patches (or aliases, if that's what some prefer to call them), avoiding to overwrite functions when necessary, avoid diverting the main purpose of existing functions, reroute functions back to former functions if there was a detour, so long as the logic flow is on track with how the default RMMZ base code works.

For the whole duration of RPG Maker MV, I've made only a handful of compatibility patches with plugins outside of my library. There are lots of prolific plugin developers out there who have made libraries and had zero to few conflicts with mine, too, despite never directly writing compatibility patches. Some of these programmers are Hudell, Shaz, HimeWorks, Galv, Victor Engine, MogHunter, and more.

Hudell made a hugely complex system to govern farming and all that.

Shaz always likes to create her own answers to problems.

Hime likes to experiment with cool stuff.

Galv creates neat mechanics and effects for his own games.

Victor Engine does amazing work by himself.

MogHunter always flew solo to create aesthetically rich scenes.

And none of us ever worked together for a plugin compatibility patch during the entirety of MV. Yet, things still worked together! How can that be?

Every single one of these plugin developers did different things, but they kept one major constant: their due diligence. While many of them could have sought the easy solution of overwriting a function to make it do exactly what they want, they made them modular and monkey patched them. If something goes off track, they bring it back on track later.

In case someone decides to argue that it's harder to do this time around, let me present to you Fomar's Individual Turn Battle System. Fomar and I haven't spoken to each other since the VX days and you can bet we don't know each other's programming style like we did back then. He has no clue what VisuStella's Battle Core is like and we had no clue he was even making a battle system at all. Yet, you can use the two together.

This should be something that conflicts massively, and yet, it works. How? Because if you look inside Fomar's code, you see that he's done his due diligence and covers every one of the things I've listed when possible. And he's done it beautifully.

That being said, you'll be encountering problems when you obtain plugins from a plugin developer who does not do their due diligence. However, in that sense, it's not necessarily just going to be the VisuStella library that it's going to incompatible with, but nearly everything else, too. Ultimately, at that point, there's nothing we can really do but to hope that plugin developer grows. If they refuse to do their due diligence, then there's little much else that we can do about someone else's business.

Our solution to finding a middle ground then, instead, is found on our Discord server. You can find it through the VisuStella itch page. There's a plugin collaboration channel for plugin developers who wish to maintain compatibility and ask questions in it. Most of the time, it's more of them learning some self discovery instead (like with Ramza the other week). Communication and learning through each other is the key to growth.

I think there's little to worry about regarding this. It's not as big as a problem as some are blowing it up to be. And in my opinion, there wouldn't be drama or flamewars over it either unless they're started by the people who want the drama and flamewars in the first place.

-

Regarding Head Starts:

Everything Touch has explained is true. We've only begun work on VisuStella once the JP sample projects hit the public. If you're asking about how we have videos on the editor, it's because we asked KDKW for reviewer copies AFTER the sample projects hit the public for them. Any of you could have done the same provided that you've shown them a reason to give you reviewer copies. And according to Touchfuzzy, nobody has asked him after the sample projects have hit the public.

However, another thing I want to expand upon is this:

Anyone who has made a plugin in RPG Maker MV can be considered to have a head start on plugin development for MZ. This is something I don't see touched upon enough by those who are pressing the matter on head starts.

Why do I say this?

Because the base code shared between MV and MZ is extremely similar, down to the point where even the function names are the same. There are some changes here and there, but any prolific plugin creator who wanted to make plugins for MZ, who saw MZ's base code through the sample projects, would have thought the following:

1. Create the plugin in MV
2. Make sure the plugin works in MV
3. Wait for RMMZ to be out to convert any changes (ie animations and plugin commands)
4. Release the plugin

Cut out step 3 and you have the same exact plugin development process as MV's.

Why is that ignored? Is there something about the plugin development process that I'm missing here? Maybe it's because I've been doing it for years, over a decade in fact, but that process exists.

And so long as that process exists, the only way you could NOT have a head start is if you simply did nothing after having found out that MV and MZ had extremely similar code bases.

Want to know who did that exact process?

@Tsukihime aka HimeWorks

Guess what happened?

Hime's Grid Battle system worked right out of the box the moment MZ released. And it was glorious! Seriously, Hime, I tip my hat off to you for that majestic stunt.

 

[Caz]

For what it's worth, I'm very backseat when it comes to moderating on RMW in general. I barely do anything around the site except for dealing with urgent things like deleting weird spam and NSFW content. My role is leftover from my days with ReStaff, and I guess it just kinda stuck since it made sense to have an extra person around to clean up any of those aforementioned messes.

I've intentionally made a point of not getting involved with the moderation of any VS-related topics though, even to the extent that I privately asked the rest of the moderation team to deal with any VisuStella issues in the same way as they would deal with any other members potentially breaking the rules.

 

[Astrea]

To reiterate some key points: the customization inside the plugin parameters are not a perfect solution. I know that. But I'm not going to change that. Why? Because that jeopardizes the trust my teammates have given me with their code. Even if it's for the community, I will not betray their trust.

Call it childish, call it useless, call it bad for the community, whatever you will. But I will not betray their trust.

This is completely fair!

In no way was my opinion to degrade you or your work, though I do think that I could have worded it much better than I did. What I am saying is that while there are definitely customization options available, working through an additional layer of code isn't exactly an ideal situation for development.

Ultimately, there are scenarios where being reliant on code you cannot change isn't ideal. I don't wish to find myself in those situations, so I don't think VisuStella is of any use to me. This isn't an attack on the people who make it, those who use it, or even the plugin itself. I'm sure it's fantastic!

 

[Archeia]

I want to throw here about the total of 3 people that asked me for review copies.
It was Hudell, Reizen and Raphael_Sol (Sorry if I remember your name wrong it's been a long week). Hudell had to ask me twice.. The first time, review copies were not even a thing so I told Hudell it's not on the table right now, the second time was it was when JP sample games released and I had to ask Touch if we were even releasing review copies so late. When Reizen asked me, there were things going on the background. I don't handle review copies but I ask KADOKAWA representative first before any decision. And they said no. The last one asked me was about a trial.

Even giving assets to ReStaff themselves so that various artists can make various free resources for everyone on release (ps. please give them some love, they've been doing this for so long without asking for anything back) was a long waiting game.

Also I didn't close any other VS topics except for at most 3*. That was when someone started posting deobsfucators. The other is about our ToU that has no business being in RMW and was tethering to libel when we were being accused of potentially stealing code and spreading misinformation? As Touch said, we tried funneling it to 1 thread.

I even told everyone in Visustella not to post anything about us in RMW and went out of our way to just post in our small twitter and youtube. So look at our surprise when the forums was flooded with topics about Visustella.

 

[Kupotepo]

@Ferherya and @??????, https://www.preemptive.com/obfuscation
Thank you for educating me and I know a little know. I am going to assume VS probably use rename, control flow, and string obfuscation. I see the coder stealers are also the hackers. I see why the VS needs to protect their codes. The coder stealers are the cyber security experts. Thank you VisuStella for protecting us against virus and Trojan attacks.
---‐-----‐----------------------------------
I am going to assume that thread is about the grievance about coding in RPG Maker in the general. If that is case, just be sincere as possible if you do something by an accident and being defensive will not help. If people do not accept your apologies for silly errors, it is reflect on them for holding the anger.
I will say my word is chap and acting is harder to do. The manners, being nice to people, and being respectful to others are learned behaviors and these activities require training and practicing to be good.

 

[nio kasgami]

To be blunt: You cannot un-toxify a community, and I personally feel that it's something to be known and expected. No one person here can change the entire community, so a plugin developer has to understand that part of being involved here is going to be that toxicity.

Not much has actually changed, this is a platform for entry-level videogame creation, quite literally an "easy mode" for newbie game devs. That's not a bad thing, but it does determine the demographic.

Harassment isn't okay. It's awful and I wish it didn't happen, but it's a very real part of the online space. If an individual doesn't want to be part of that, then they shouldn't be. I'm not going to be, for that exact reason.

A sad truth, Even as a Professionnal NSFW artist the community I frequent can be quite ...toxic sometime I had this experiences with a follower who went :
If you continue to be friend with [name of artists I am friends with] which ake me uncomfortable I will have to unfollow you.
(I said : do it lol)

I still think we shouldn't encourage it. TBH right now the toxicity seems to be fueled about people being jealous? or more they try to find a 'reason' to hate on them. I do see that when I am looking at it on a distanced eye.

TBH it should relax once people begin to release more stuff etc.


a little more on what @Archeia and @Yanfly said I can only agreed which is something I didn't think and as a programmer I should be ashamed of that. I did disappointed a lots of people. Even as an artist I should be ashamed I didn't though about the : Fit the style/ structure so it work together.

I do think I started the fuel war with my thread which expressed my worries. But when I reread some of the post there and some stuff I said I realise how childish it was from me? I should have emailed asking my worries instead of doing this whole "thread" which was just a rant when we think about it.
My brain didn't process the though enough fast and I think that something I would regret a lots. (which is what I do feel) I did contribute to a toxic aspect of the community which is what I stand to fight against.

so I do think I owe an apology to Visustella, Archeia Yanfly and of course Touch that have to do these moderations. (sorry man I am ruining ur burger grill day :c )

So I deeply apologize.
Not that it fixes the broken pot the evil is done and the only thing I can do is work to produces resources as a content creator.

I know it's not 100% my fault but I did participate without realising 100% into those things and it's something I don't stand.

 

[PixeLockeT]

We can consider that, in fact, even users who use open source software do not personally check the code, but trust the judgment of the community behind it. Now, I would like to know what is the reason that led the team to overshadow the plugins.

Repeating my points: 1) If you don't know what's going on, you can't say if the code does only what it says it does and how it does it. Therefore, it is impossible to optimize. 2) In programming in general, one of the greatest sources of study is to study other people's codes. Obfuscated code is, in my view, a very childish obstacle. I expected more from people experienced in the area.

And well, there is not much to comment on. I would like to leave some suggestions. The first is that plug-in users, developers and interested parties research about deobfuscating. Don't just learn about, but actively decode anything you put into your projects. Remember, it's not just about your machine. It's about the players' machines, the servers where you host your projects. The responsibility for anything will be yours.

Finally, I don't see why using a coded plugin if we have a team of excellent programmers making free, open-source code. They are not new members, they have been programmers since the days of VX, with experience and knowledge.

Said it best, 100% fact based, and that's all that needs saying about this topic really, especially the last bits.

 

[Kupotepo]

I am slowly reading the wall of texts and everyone is fast typing lol I think. Since the subject on this thread also touches on the toxicity of the community. I found the website here to help the moderators to think of new ways to deal with the toxicity. I am not telling you to do your job. I am just thinking it might interest you.

Managing Community Toxicity

Are you experiencing toxicity in your community? Not sure how to handle certain issues on your online forum without seeming too heavy-handed? Learn how here.

blog.vanillaforums.com

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Here is the thing though: If there was the connection that people think exists, I would just say it exists.

There is literally nothing wrong with two businesses doing business with each other and coordinating a mutually beneficial situation. Just in this case, that isn't what is happening.

Like, in what world would "Company partners with most prolific third party content creator for their product" be a controversial thing? That is normal business. And Yanfly is the person leading the VS coding, and was the most prolific coder from MV.

We DIDN'T partner with VS, but honestly I would have been for it if it could have been arranged.

 

[Tea's Jams]

Here is the thing though: If there was the connection that people think exists, I would just say it exists.

There is literally nothing wrong with two businesses doing business with each other and coordinating a mutually beneficial situation. Just in this case, that isn't what is happening.

Like, in what world would "Company partners with most prolific third party content creator for their product" be a controversial thing? That is normal business. And Yanfly is the person leading the VS coding, and was the most prolific coder from MV.

We DIDN'T partner with VS, but honestly I would have been for it if it could have been arranged.

This, so much this.