[Discussion] Locking up files?

[sadbhav]

I really think that we shouldn't lock up our files, because sometimes there might be something we might to want to look into the data or something like that...yeah I know lame reason, I wouldn't lock up my mod

Spoiler (Click to View)

If I ever make one that is

Spoiler (Click to View)

which might be never

...and yes there's this problem of using somebody's work and not giving credits...we SHOULD learn to give proper credits....I am not forcing you. Or else we could condemn them forever

[snorsorbet]

I understands why zxcv wants to lock his files in a molebox. In these situations it, sadly, is the best things to do. I guess he has to patrol the forums like an admin or something and tell people who post his work under other names etc to stop. So I can really understand him.

On the other hand, it might be intresting to check the data and learn something from it. Perhaps you could make a tutorial of how you made a special and complex move so others can learn from it even if it is moleboxed..?

Now I don't mean that it is the best choice to molebox, only in cases like ntsd.

[Silverthorn]

Yesterday, Silva showed me a website (don't remember which one, though) which was about a contest of c-programs in terms of their difficulty to understand. People messed up style, did hundreds of type-conversions and so on aka. made them ununderstandable. It's possible to do the same with the dat-files, although you cannot mess around so much; but it still is a good prevention against beginners. Beginners are in this case people that steal work from others, sometimes crediting themselves for the work, and trying to analyze the dats and/or people that just started DCing/Spriting. I remember, back in 2004 or so, there were a lot of people in my age group that thought in that way. Messing up the style (writing a whole frame in one line or sorta that) makes it rather complicated for beginners, however, amateurs should have no prob with that. Experts shouldn't even bother.

Mostly, beginners want to lock up their work. That's fine, I don't care. It's just funny to notice that mostly crappy works are being tried to be protected. You don't see so many "good" releases that are actually locked. And if they're locked, then there's a reason behind it. But I guess, nobody would want to steal a yellow-colored Template or sort of that.

As long as you don't have problems with the in-game features, I don't care if the files are locked or not. The only thing that people should stop is asking how they can protect their very own work from pirating because that's just retarded: ask the lf2-community how to lock the stuff, so the lf2-community cannot hack it.

When there's a method which looks appealing to you, you can still try to reproduce it. This makes you more familiar with the DCing matter. It might not really boost your creativity but at least you know how it works (which is sometimes quite satisfying). Just copying the code without knowing how it exactly works is useless as in most cases it won't work because you forgot a little frame. And what comes next: "Help me with this data!!!"
No, thank you.

[Lauli]

I know the following has nothing to do with the above posts.

I really once thought about locking files of LFM. Not all, only those who should not be changed, in order to force some NOT to make it easier for them to play through.
Stage.dat for instance.
Apperently this applies for everything in matter of gameplay.

So yea another reason of why locking files stated (if it hasn't been already).

[1477]

Moleboxing data files and sprite files not only boosts up the security, but it also increases the loading speed. Also, the image files are compressed which make it take up less ROM space without sacrificing RAM space (as with the case of .PNG files). You can always just lock up the sprites and leave the data alone.

Another pro for moleboxing .

~Solomon Leung

[Boop]

Moleboxing data files and sprite files not only boosts up the security, but it also increases the loading speed. Also, the image files are compressed which make it take up less ROM space without sacrificing RAM space (as with the case of .PNG files). You can always just lock up the sprites and leave the data alone.

Another pro for moleboxing .

~Solomon Leung

Citation needed . Doesn't do anything for load time on my side .

[1477]

Citation needed . Doesn't do anything for load time on my side .

Maybe it doesn not make much of a difference for you because your computer is fast (sorry I don't know what type of citations you're looking for). But it definetely goes faster for me because my computer is like 5 years old with a single 2.66 GHz processor .

Maybe the reason is because when loading the EXE program can simply access local, built-in compressed images from the moleboxing instead of having to access full, uncompressed picture files from an outside source (the LF2 directory).

~Solomon Leung

[Boop]

That logic makes no sense... If the images are compressed, then EXE would have to decompress them before it has access to them >.<.

[1477]

Decompressing should be faster than accessing them from outside, I think...

~Solomon Leung

[Silverthorn]

Decompressing should be faster than accessing them from outside, I think...

...which is basically the wrong explanation (sorry to say so). PNGs are compressed, they're being decompressed during loading, making the system a whole lot slower.