Due to recent events (namely, countless games by many developers in a sub-community I’m part of being stolen and leaked with malicious intent–and yes, we have already reported the people responsible, but this has happened before with the same people and no moderation action was ever taken D:), I would like to look into ways to, at the very least, make it very hard to steal my entire game.
Some ideas I have been tossing around in my head include:
Having a list of known place thieves and kicking them before the game can load (easy to circumvent)
Finding some way to detect place-stealing hacks or scripts and block them (harder but still possible to circumvent)
Having all isolated locations be hidden in server storage unless there are players in them, forcing a would-be thief to either settle for just the locations currently in use or have to travel to each location one at a time in order to steal them (lots of work for the thief, who may not know how to access every location in the game)
Making the game group-only and not accept any new members who joined Roblox recently unless they are verified to be legit (near-foolproof, but forces potential new members to go through a lengthy joining process in order to check out the game to see if they really want to become part of the group)
What other methods are there that I could try? Is there a recommended method?
The best way to prevent such type of exploits is to never ever let strangers into your place before it is finished and released. Only let trusted people see it, and maintain the game closed. Keep in mind that as long as something exists in the player’s machine, it can save it.
This isn’t the case for just Roblox too, there are tools that snatch assets from pretty much every game nowadays (see: 3D Ripper DX) and it’s not something you can counter easily. Don’t hesitate on reporting/issuing a takedown request for stolen assets though, since what they are doing is still illegal and punishable by law.
If Roblox had responded to such reports and takedown requests, I probably wouldn’t need to have made this thread. As I said in the first post, this has happened within the subcommunity I mentioned in the past with no moderation action despite countless reports. The people who did it before are doing it again on the same accounts. I hope that something is done about this in the future.
Long answer: Everything on the client can be stolen. This includes any physical object (i.e. the models and parts of your place), LocalScripts, and ModuleScripts the client can see. The client CANNOT see, and therefore cannot steal, anything in ServerStorage, ServerScriptService, or Scripts (Scripts are special in that they don’t send their Source to clients, so you can have Scripts in your Workspace without fear of getting stolen). This means that nobody will steal your game if it has any game logic, because nobody cares enough to rewrite all the server scripts.
Don’t waste your time worrying about things like this. Nobody is going to even ATTEMPT to steal your game until it’s very popular, and if it’s that popular then enjoy it instead of stressing out about unsolvable issues like people stealing your places/source code.
I’ve seen games with anti-place steal scripts, it’s not 100% secure but it does prevent the average exploiter from using DEX explorer and just clicking steal place
I’d be interested in seeing one of the scripts, might be able to mock up a solution to help prevent it.
Anyone got a copy on hand, or at least could tell me what goes on behind the scenes?
Make sure you close your game at all times. If you were to be leaked; Email ROBLOX to take it down. Make sure you sign contracts with new developers or developers who have no past experiences because if that developer was to leak your game and had access to your game, it means ROBLOX can’t really do anything.
Sorry for the late reply, but the map is what some people like me worry about I spent hard time working on a map, what can the scripts really do not all players know how to get scripts working so just hide it somewhere and make it seem non-resourceful, but the map itself is what concerns me I spent a lot of time building countless hours.
Server scripts do not have their source replicated at all. Do not put your scripts randomly in order to stop exploiters–that doesn’t work and you just make your own work harder for no reason.