I'm making an rpg game using rpg maker xp, and I came up with an idea but im not sure if it's possible.
Is it possible to make addons like map/quest/etc packs? Like say an addon that adds a new area with new monsters, items, and quests in it but as a separate download for the game?
If so how can i do this?
It can be done. But its going to require some scripting. In fact I'm going to go test this out see if its doable. I'm pretty sure it is but ya never know.
Quote from: game_guy on April 10, 2011, 03:41:03 pm
It can be done. But its going to require some scripting. In fact I'm going to go test this out see if its doable. I'm pretty sure it is but ya never know.
Thatd be great it it is possible it would help me out alot. My idea was either that or just keep releasing updates for my game that add more stuff every time but i think that the addon idea would be much better
Its possible and not possible.
Its possible if you want to leave your game unencrypted for everyone to steal your resources. But if you want to encrypt your game and keep it safe then its impossible. Well sorta. Its still possible but the new data you'll have in the add-ons will just stay unencrypted and people will still be able to steal your data.
Quote from: game_guy on April 10, 2011, 04:10:45 pm
Its possible and not possible.
Its possible if you want to leave your game unencrypted for everyone to steal your resources. But if you want to encrypt your game and keep it safe then its impossible. Well sorta. Its still possible but the new data you'll have in the add-ons will just stay unencrypted and people will still be able to steal your data.
So no matter what a part of the game will be unsafe? How would i go about doing this?
Basically, your game will be either open source, partially open source or you won't make any add-ons.
yea but how would i add addons into the game?
Just create a scripts to check for .rb files in a location, and if they are found, "require" them.
Im no good with rgss :facepalm:
Then how do you plan to create the add-ons?
See if ARC had already been made, this wouldn't be a problem since all files will be encrypted individually and you can just have users place new files in your project.
It is possible to make addons without scripting but that will involve overwriting files so it'll be tedious, a bit dangerous and overlapping expansion will probably be quite problematic. Of course you cannot encrypt your game.
For plug'n'play addons you'd really have to script a way to plug in the addons. You'd be perfectly able to encrypt your game and you can create your own encryption for the addons.
Looking at more permanent updates you can also inject changes directly into the encrypted archive. This can be done by looking having the downloadable file only contain the changes. You'll probably save space by actually decrypting, applying the changes and encrypting the archive, but it may not be necessary. (Encrypted data typically doesn't compress well)
*hugs*
Using a simple script to do this would be basically the only way. I have been experimenting using what I call "hacking" into other games. Basically, re-writing the Game_Map setup to load another game's maps and tileset data if a certain switch is on.
if $Extra_Maps == nil
@map = load_data(sprintf("Data/Map%03d.rxdata", @map_id))
else
$data_tilesets = load_data("#{$POOLAREA}/#{$Extra_Maps}/Data/Tilesets.rxdata")
@map = load_data(sprintf("#{$POOLAREA}/#{$Extra_Maps}/Data/Map%03d.rxdata", @map_id))
#!!!! Make script to load extra maps
end
It takes longer to load the map, but you can get into even encrypted games...
The $POOLAREA is where you'd place the name of the folder the extra maps are in. (Just ignore why it's called $POOLAREA, that's something else of mine) Also if you use any sort of Quick Passability, you will need to have that turned off whenever you are in the extra maps or it will cause problems. All of the transfer events will work perfectly normal on any of the add-on maps, because they retain their IDs.
You can do this with anything. Just change the global variable to something like $data_items and the respective file.
From what I've seen, the most $data_(whatever) can be easily altered (they're usually tables) . Just do a Filetest for the add on in a similar area and push the data to the end of the global variable.
Although this is scripting, (which you said you can't do), you can encrypt both files.