Ever since a web API change happened, I haven’t been able to get Crazyblox to whitelist anything on his FE2 Map Test game. So I black-box tested it using others’ maps, created a map-compatible game, and shared it as an uncopylocked file.
The problem is, I’m being plagiarized against by some other Robloxians, and I need to mitigate that, as I’m not in a position to take plagiarism like more famous Robloxians can take.
Because of what the TOS says about sharing creations for free, I’m thinking the options are limited to making it hard to modify out my name, such as with obfuscated code.
Problem
The problem is that some Robloxians are uploading modified copies with my name removed entirely, making it harder for their visitors to find my copy.
Examples:
In one place, the Robloxian replaced my name in every location visible to visitors. He seems to be young and not know better, but it still is annoying. He forgot to break the teleport button in the about window.
In another place, the Robloxian went to extreme lengths to remove my name from the game, including by breaking the teleport button by making it go to an invalid asset ID and say “OOF!” when clicked.
Goal
I want to make it difficult to remove credit information from the game, at least in visitors’ views.
I know nothing can directly be done about the existing copies, but I believe they are likely to pull updates from my copy if they are significant, and unwittingly pull any countermeasures integrated in. For example, if I redesigned the map selection system for the better, I could hide some code in the same script that handles it.
Solutions Attempted
I tried adding a teleport button to the about window before release, and to trick them into leaving it alone, I made it never show up in studio, to place uploaders, or to my own visitors. However, some plagiarizers have found and broken it. Such as what was described earlier.
I considered adding hard-to-find-and-remove ModuleScript backdoors so I could later, for example, display a message to visitors when the teleport button is broken. However, I left it out as I wasn’t sure about the ethical considerations. It bordered malicious.
Other Notes
I put this in the scripting section as I think the solutions most likely involve scripting.
I see 3 small advantages against them:
- My copy is uncopylocked and theirs often aren’t, making it obvious where the reuploads are coming from to anyone who also found my copy. (Thanks default setting!)
- If you Search “FE2 Map Test” in Games, you should see my copy lingering around the 6th spot, however, how likely Flood Escape fans would do that with the exact term seems small.
- I sent a message to Crazyblox earlier, and he tried the game out, so he knows. However, he hasn’t responded to my later messages, so I think he’s very busy.
Despite that, I feel some plagiarizers look up to me like I do Crazyblox and numerous others. This is because I visited one place as myself, and received hype, which scared me, so I later visited the places as an alt-account to avoid more hype.
