An old saying comes to mind about how you cannot shine a piece of something...
imo, after you make the game really high quality, just go ahead and release the code to the brainless masses. Rips wouldn't be as annoying if the ripped content was any good. :P
You'd be better off starting from scratch, I got a Naruto source to either remake or improve, and within two minutes, I decided I needed to remake it. I got the basic game framework in two weeks, but then I got bored with it.
I agree with Jeff. All you'd do by using the source of other games is waste time fixing all of their crappy programming. You'd get far more done far quicker if you just made it yourself.
Hey, why is everyone jumping on the Jeff bandwagon? I suggested it first!
Zaole wrote:
Hey, why is everyone jumping on the Jeff bandwagon? I suggested it first!

I agree with Jeff. You aren't going to teach these rippers anything, so why use a ripped source in the first place?
I have the sources to a couple truly fantastic DBZ games, if you'd like to start from there.
Riva wrote:
An old saying comes to mind about how you cannot shine a piece of something...

Mythbusters did it so the saying is a lie.
It annoys me how people speak ill about games that have been ripped. I seriously reckon it's the fact that they're been ripped that you think of them that way.
Given the quality of some DBZ sources on BYOND, you'll probably find that it's a lot quicker to start from scratch.

The burden of knowledge says you know the proper way to do things. You look at the standard Zeta source, and you'll cry the minute you see obj/dragonball1 obj/dragonball2 obj/namekdragonball1 obj/namekdragonball2...
I guarantee you'll get more done by using the StepBYOND or even the Your first world sources, than you would trying to beef up a ton of unorganized and more-than-likely non commented lines of inefficient programming.Heck you could even utilize and manipulate some free demos.

I understand that this idea of a project revels mostly around taking something popular, and showing how to do it right. But if that's the case why not use those two sources I posted above and advertise that you can make a great game out of something that's been around for this solitary reason, rather than stealing a poorly written source.

If anything I feel this option would be more glorious, and heck if you would even go so far as to use FREE dbz sprites that are made solely for people to utilize, it'll also teach that there are better alternatives to ripping graphics that aren't looked down upon.

I'd give whatever you made a try, I have alot of faith in your game design abilities. There are better ways for you to crusade though, rather than to demonstrating the positive side to a negative thing. Just ponder on this idea.
Hell, you'd be better off writing your own DBZ game frame work and releasing that. At least that way the DBZ games out there would improve 10/fold.
I actually spent a bit of time thinking about a project like this a few years back.
One thing worth thinking about before you set off is that the design across the board is like the art, a mixed bag of what ever they could make/find to fill the bare minimum requirements for the game to be a DragonballZ game. The difference is that the art is (when viewed on its own rather than a whole) pretty good. The design isn't.
This is where the cut and change method fails you. You're essentially cutting things like p-bag training down until they're just the bare minimum concept for any DragonballZ game. You throw away all the garbage in the p-bag system and what are you left with? A vague idea of players being able to train their characters outside of combat. When you're done with it you've implemented a system where you train through little gym mini-games. That's cool, but it isn't linked to the original game anymore than it is to any other DragonballZ game.
Do that with pretty much the entire game and you'll run into two more problems. First, you're game is still made of completely random components. The original was built by going from one idea to the next, without really thinking of the big picture. If the creator was thinking about how cool flying was, flight was added. No thought put into how it will work with the other systems.
Which brings us to the second problem. You're no longer linked to the original material in any significant sense. You might as well have designed it from scratch using the basic formula for a DragonballZ BYOND "MORPG". With a graphical overhaul nobody would know your game was a rip.

If you want to give it a shot then by all means go for it, at the very least you'll have some fun running into problem after problem (if I recall correctly you're someone who enjoys that side of development as much as actually creating something).
Tiberath wrote:
Hell, you'd be better off writing your own DBZ game frame work and releasing that.

This is an excellent idea. Especially if you make it so that you can add/remove libraries made specifically for it to add/remove features. Alternative modules would be cool too. Don't like the way module A does it? Replace it with module B.


Madow wrote:
It annoys me how people speak ill about games that have been ripped. I seriously reckon it's the fact that they're been ripped that you think of them that way.

The games are usually pretty poorly made. I don't want to sound like I'm looking down on people who have had their game ripped, but if you have enough experience to write something good/properly then you've definitely got enough experience to know not to give out your complete source files.
Its extremely rare to find a source code acquired by anything other than the owner falling for some simple trick.

Then you've got the fact they weren't intended to be released. Features that are missing/half implemented, systems that are out of date and in need of rewrites, place holders, massive bugs. All sorts of junk that any programmer encounters while actively working on a project.
Think about Dragonball Zeta. It was (first) ripped when it was at like version 4. Half of the ideas for the core features of the game hadn't even been considered yet.
If I ripped the GTAIV source half-way through development I know it'd be garbage.

I'm not saying its impossible for a ripped game to be any good, just that its extremely unlikely.
Darkview wrote:
Tiberath wrote:
Hell, you'd be better off writing your own DBZ game frame work and releasing that.

This is an excellent idea.

Hey, I suggested that first too. Why is no one listening to me? :'(
Zaole wrote:
Hey, I suggested that first too. Why is no one listening to me? :'(

I'm more charismatic. =D
I dunno... I understand and fully expect any of the usual sources floating around here will likely be enough to make me cry, but I see it in terms of the following analogy:

Say I want a house... I know what rooms I want to be in my house and I know the general layout I'd like for it to have...

At this point, I've got a few options:

1) Design and build a house from scratch... This one obviously gives me all of the control, but is much more expensive and time-consuming, as it includes all of the planning, and all of the execution...

2) Buy a prefab modular home... Sure, I can go out and grab a few all-purpose house modules and stick them together to approximate my preferred configuration, but it can't be an exact match to my desires... I have to use what's available, and settle for generic, and try to patch in some custom touches wherever I can...

3) I can look for an old, beat-up, run-down, fixer-upper that has the potential to fit my needs, and begin an extensive remodeling job... Obviously this is lots of work and lots of headache, but ultimately this gives me a nice blend of freedom without quite as much work as designing and building from scratch... Plus, it offers a nice challenging project to jump into...

------

I'm simply choosing option 3... I'm picking up an old beat-up home that happens to closely match what I'd like my home to eventually be (it has all the right rooms, it's laid out in roughly the way I'd prefer, etc.)

Sure, lots of it will need to be brought up to code, there might be some rotting floors, crumbling foundations, sagging roofs, leaky plumbing, and faulty or insufficient electrical service... And probably quite a bit of it will need to be gutted and rebuilt, and the entire thing will need a cosmetic overhaul with new paint, new siding, new flooring, and plenty of new appliances and furniture inside, but all of this work is part of the fun...

I guess you could also liken it to restoring an old car...

That's mostly what this is about to me... All of my talk about it doing good for the community is all warm and fuzzy dreaming (hence my continual use of "hopefully"... I ultimately know that most of that stuff won't come to reality out of this... it's mostly just a nice potential side effect)

But at any rate, like I've said, this undertaking won't be undertaken for quite some time, and my mind or my ambition may change by then...lol
The problem is, you're 'fixer upper' is a termite infested, 100yr old house in a ghost town that's worth more burning and just selling the land.
Another factor in this crazy scheme is DBTC itself...

If I were to design and build my own second DBZ game, even one that is intended to be radically different from DBTC, I think I'd still find myself copying myself...lol Plus, I'd like to eventually put my best work (in terms of design, artwork, etc.) into DBTC, and I don't want a secondary project to end up competing for my best efforts (obviously, I don't want to reuse the graphics from one in the other, and I don't want to draw a new set, and then decide that I like them more than the existing ones, and feel obligated to use the better set in DBTC, and use DBTC's hand-me-downs in the new project)

So I feel that by limiting myself to remodeling an existing work, I'm free to use my own personal best efforts in DBTC, and don't have the hassle of trying to fully generate another work without being derivative of the first... By "forcing" myself into using the resources that someone else has "given" me, it actually makes things easier...

Basically, the only truly negative connotation that this carries is the term "rip"... If I were to actually be given an existing game, by that game's true owner, and handed the reigns to fixing it up, that wouldn't be a bad thing, right?

Well, the way I see it, grabbing a source that is all but public domain, left for dead by its original owner, and passed around like the village bicycle is really no longer worthy of the term "ripping"...

And the reason I currently look down on other such games is not due to the original act of theft (it's a crime that's now long past its statute of limitations, and the actual criminal is long gone... we're basically dealing with well laundered money... it might have been stolen in the past, but it's more or less clean now), but only due to the act of not putting forth any effort, and pushing out a "new" game that's exactly like the hundreds before it...

And since this undertaking would basically negate that problem, by actually putting forth the effort, and not taking full credit for the result, I feel that there's honestly nothing negative about it...
Tiberath wrote:
The problem is, you're 'fixer upper' is a termite infested, 100yr old house in a ghost town that's worth more burning and just selling the land.

That may be, but I still think the challenge would be worth it... It's more of a labor of love...lol

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