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Phew, actually did some work on my game today... Yay! I really need to do that more often.

In case anyone was confused, I came out a few years ago as NB. Just hadn't got around to changing everything. I'm the same person as before; just figured some things out about myself.

Introduction After finding the excellent Script Disabler (http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/3687-script-disabler/) by TDS, I wrote my own version that handles my needs slightly better - as you can disable random single scripts a lot easier. Simply place this script above all your own scripts (it can't interfere with anything accidentally), and then any scripts you want to disable simply put a # in front of the script name (you know - like a Ruby comment ). The position for the script still exists, but the script content itself is blank - this means you can still debug other scripts properly, and it only needs a single character change to enable them again. http://pastebin.com/bH3hLEMw Screenshot

Finally, couple hours of ranting about bugs and things not working, I managed to write 10 lines of code to implement the ability to summon a chicken on an empty tile on the map (video)

Even if people are honest enough to stick to the terms of use doesn't mean the terms will be read and understood. For example, you may think this is nitpicking, but how do you define 'public/published' here? Officially published in a service such as steam? Available in any form online, even if only as an unfinished beta in someone's google drive to give to some select people? Unless terms like these are clearly and universally defined they may render your terms unenforceable. Also depends on how the terms are communicated and if anyone will bother reading it at all. That's a common problem with all types of 'terms and conditions' really. Also: This is only really going to work if the resource owner can prove his case and/or has clout in the community, and sometimes it may even backfire. Plus people who are most likely to do this on purpose aren't going to really care much what the community thinks anyway.

In that case, my comment about gamedev being expensive is not about them deserving to make money from their games, but about them not having to pay thousands of dollars upfront to get the resources before they even have a game developed (eg: buy RM, buy art packs, buy plugins, etc) For the record, what I disagree with is the notion that gamedev is necessarily expensive and/or/because resource makers necessarily need to always profit from resources. Or in other words that there simply cannot be any other way for it to be, period. This clearly is simply not true, or else free resources and tools wouldn't exist at all. Allow me to offer another explanation: Gamedev is expensive and resource makers can charge a lot for resources for one simple reason: There are people who are willing to pay. That's kinda how economics work you know. There is no such thing as inherent value to anything, people value things the way they do because there are people who are willing to pay. If people were willing to do without and not shell out money for expensive art packs and/or tools, the art packs and/or tools get cheaper. Every time someone says "gamedev is expensive" they reinforce their own conclusion. Yeah often the motivation for profit often increases the over all quality of work, but that's not always people's main motivation and too many people for whom that is the main motivation may be looking for a 'quick buck'. Is there a better way to do things then? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it's worth it to examine what may be.

What, no mention of donation systems like patreon? Honestly if you ask me either something like patreon or commissions is the only real 'fair' way for money to get involved, or at least the only real practical way I can think of that doesn't end up seeming kinda dubious in my eyes. Mostly the problem is in how much finagling that has to be done with the terms of use. I won't really get into the numerous ways 'copyright' as a whole has been systematically abused, and honestly I don't really think I need to at this point. It should be pretty obvious at this point to most people how broken the whole copyright system is. It long ago got to the point where I have gotten pretty cynical about the whole concept of copyright. But even if you believe copyright should exist in some form, the current way it's done often just seems like it has waaaay too many gotchas and vaugeness and generally the exactly way it works for any given resource can be all over the place. I mean, not gonna lie, even base RPG Maker it's self I see as sort of dubious in this way and I rather it would be funded first on kickstarter/patreon and released as free and open source software, but I am willing to put that aside and see the way it is packaged and sold as a 'necessary evil', maybe even big professionally done content packs if I am feeling generous, but at some level it just becomes tedious to deal with all of it.

Ahhh, gotcha. I started the year by getting diagnosed with panic disorder, being pretty much back to normal by mid-February, then having it steadily get worse since March. Medication has either not really helped or put me in a lot of pain, so I'm just trying to take it one day at a time. Anyways, here's quick drawing/painting from earlier today:

@Lord Vectra Thank you! @PhoenixSoul Oh no! Sorry to hear that! It's been a rough year for me, too. :( @Rikifive I lurk every now and then, but I'm so bad at actually posting things lmao. Thanks a bunch! @Kirimash Agreed - this year has been something else, eesh. And thank you!! I haven't been up to too much lately (besides work), but here's a walk sprite I've been working on:

I got 'Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate' for my switch the other day! The Shiren the Wanderer games are one of the main inspiration for my own game project so it's pretty inspiring to play, but it also reminds me of how much I still have to do.

Happy Yule, one and all, but first, a word from our sponsor! ♫Up on the hilltop, yes the hilltop, there's a place to squat, and plop, plop, plop your cares away...♫ (whispers) "Snowy Hills Outhouse" Now, onto the program! Did you know that Starbucks is gonna make bible verse holiday cups this year? Yup! I got one of them before anyone else, and this is the verse on it, it is Ezekiel 23:20....Errrmmmm....I don't think I can read this aloud on the air....okay, but it's on you, GiGi. (clears throat) (immediately goes off air) lolz

I just have an idea on combining DDR played with keyboard, and typing speed exercise. Basically, you need to type a document in English, but each character's typed with the timing in sync with the music used. Maybe with the aid of fast paced music, one's typing speed can reach unprecedented levels :) I'm gonna make a proof of concept when I've tons of free time :D

I actually have been working on my game a widdle bit! I was reworking the intro and stuff. Still not sure I am happy with the basic set up though. Partly because I keep wanting to write my own meta-commentary. XD

Hey! Long time no see! Hope you all are doing well!

Again, I'm not. Humans have also proven to often whine about things they don't like while at the same time helping to enable that thing to stay around. XD

In that case, my comment about gamedev being expensive is not about them deserving to make money from their games, but about them not having to pay thousands of dollars upfront to get the resources before they even have a game developed (eg: buy RM, buy art packs, buy plugins, etc) Could be an issue. It's mostly honor system. Steam is just a distribution platform. If a dev can reach millions of people without needing steam, is willing to deal with all of the tax issues themselves, etc, all the power to them.

The problem with royalty based payment is knowing how many sales or how much money was actually generated. How would you verify that? What if the developer lied & downplayed the amount of money made? How would you find out for sure? And not everyone would distribute it on Steam. Some developers may just put up their own site to distribute from (more profitable to simply cut out the middle man aka Steam), or just compress their game in a password locked, encrypted folder & offer the password to those who paid directly to their account. How would you verify any money made in those situations?

Couple years ago, I switched from a one-time license based model to free use, with option for monthly donations via patreon. Gamedev can get expensive. No matter what reason you're making games, you need funding. So naturally, people would prefer to be able to get as much of it free if possible. Most people probably want to be able to sell their game as an additional revenue stream, or potentially make it their main source of income. Making resources isn't free either: costs time and requires knowledge. Some people do it cause they just enjoy it, but even then, they should get something out of it beyond simply "recognition" cause recognition doesn't pay the bills. For MZ plugins, I am playing around with the idea of a royalty-based model: you only have to pay if you make money. It's not going to be a significant amount (likes pennies on the dollar) so like if you make $100 you would just give me like $2-$5 or something depending on how many plugins you're using.

I for one advocate for free resources, simply because I have 0 income & can't afford to keep throwing money at this flawed as hell engine. I'm already miffed that MZ requires Windows 8.1 or better, giving the finger to anyone still using Windows 7, the best version ever made before Microsoft sold out to the NSA's mass surveillance BS. I also still feel like MZ really is just a properly upgraded MV, offering new features that Kadokawa should've already thought of & implemented a long time ago. I also agree that Donations are the best way to raise money for further developments. It allows those who have money to throw around to help fund further developments for plugins, graphics & music, while keeping it free & available for those who can't afford it, especially considering several people have lost jobs & income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Okay... I'm fine with paying for resources. I'm not fine with... Toxicity (Yanfly's paywalling stunt comes readily to mind-dick move and I still give major kudos to @Animebryan for making an effort to set that right) Paywalls that alienate based on wealth-based privilege (@Kayzee mentioned a big-no-MASSIVE OFFENDER in this regard) False copyright claims over things that must be distributed either as Creative Commons or as Public Domain (ANYTHING THAT USES RUBY/RGSS) Also, charging money for a 'license' to use the above (last I checked that's a FELONY offense here) I avoid marking up what I create myself to generate revenue. That's absolute trite and jaded garbage. I'm not gonna sell a bundle of pixel art with the expectation that the end user won't remake the same art with a few minor edits and resell it, and expect people to pay upwards of more than a few bucks. I most certainly won't tell them not to remake, edit or resell it either because to be honest, we're all damn pirates; we all copy one another in some form, so yeah, I'm calling it a giant hypocrisy. Copyright is greedy and avaricious and those that made the system knew this. I'm fine with paying for resources, but I always go for sales because more often than not, the sale price is the value of the product to me. MV Season Pass/Add-On Pack? $7 tops; I've never seen it for less than $14. I'm going on a rant here, aren't I? Well, yeah, it was bound to happen. The less I have to spend the better. The RM engines I bought, I bought on sale too (2000/2003/VX). I'll be keeping an eye on MZ; it won't run on my current hardware and is 64-bit exclusive, but that's fine, this is arbitrary year and arbitrary era after all...

Methods maybe? Operators in Ruby are really just fancy methods. For example this would be how you actually define '+': class SomeClass def +(value) # do something here end end Really in Ruby 'x + y' kinda translates to 'x.+(y)' Personally I would have probobly used a note tag of some kind. Though really items and skills are basically the same thing. In most cases you could probably just use reusable items instead of skills, but I don't know if that is practical in this case.

Maybe add in if condition def make_item_list if skill = $game_party.members.any? { |actor| actor.skills.include?($data_skills[9]) } @data = $game_party.all_items.select {|item| include?(item) } @data << $data_skills[9] if @category == :item @data.push(nil) if include?(nil) else @data = $game_party.all_items.select {|item| include?(item) } @data.push(nil) if include?(nil) end end

Why not both? That is, why not start the game with passive sea travel and give the player a ship of their own later in the story? This is actually something that's pretty common in JRPGs, particularly the Final Fantasy series. When game starts out, you don't really have a lot of options on where you can travel, and the game can be quite linear. But after a suitably climatic part of the story the player reaches what I have heard described as 'the Freedom Point', where the player can finally go anywhere they wish. This can often happen in stages too, which is why RPG Maker has different vehicle types. A boat for shallow water, a ship for shallow+deep water, and an airship that can go everywhere. Also many Final Fantasy games aren't afraid to give you a ship or airship for a little bit and take it away later, but they eventually give it back for good.

I remember someone asking me about this in a pm not to long ago... I don't know if they ever got their game working again. Anyway here is a slightly condensed/edited version of what I told them: ... How long was a while back? Have you done much with the computer since then? Sometimes checking the disk for errors will be able to fix some files for you. You can do this (in windows) by right clicking a hard drive in 'my computer', then choosing properties, then click on the tools tab thing and the first option should be error checking. Problem is sometimes data might be in places that are incorrectly marked as free, so the computer might overwrite them if you don't check right away. Not sure how common this is though. Be careful though, you might want to make a back up on another disk just in case it screws something up and makes it worse. It's also a good idea to take another backup after the error checking just in case. Okay now we come to the more tricky part: Now, go into your game's data directory, and have a look at all the file sizes. Using View -> Details is helpful here. Anyway, you are looking to see if any files are size zero. If so: Make a new project in RPG Maker and save it. For every file of size zero in your data directory: If it is a map (Mapxxx.rvdata where xxx is the map number), replace it with a copy of the Map001.rvdata from the new project's data directory. If it is not a map, replace it with a copy of the file with the same name from the new project's data directory. Then when you replaced all the size zero files, if any, try and load the project in the editor and/or test it. If it works, great that's this step done! Skip everything else bellow. If it doesn't, now we need to do some grunt work. Make another new project . Yes another one. Now follow these steps: Close the second new project if it's open in RPG Maker. Replace one of the non-map files that you haven't replaced yet in the data directory of the second new project with one from your project. Try opening the second new project in the editor/testing the game. If it gives an error (other then missing images or such) replace the same file with a copy from the first new project. Repeat above until all non-map files are replaced. Close your project if it's open in RPG Maker. Replace all non-map files in the data directory of your project with ones from the second new project. Try opening the your project in the editor/testing the game. If it gives an error, it's probobly something that only a professional data recovery expert can help you with, if anyone can at all. This won't always recover everything, but it's a start!

Duraturo Notte~revised Gang Fedice portrait~revised Viktoria Arcturus portrait Dusk Merloci portrait~Second Act Innocenza story art concept Older drawing for ORION, "The Enlightened Dragon". Innocenca character design for Ilinca Cardinal Runaway Carriage concept Wyvern Knight