Decisions on the accessibility of the YEP Library

I've been a lurker for a while and learning about RPGMMV trough it. You made this choice to provide additional tools for those interested in developing content better than 'out of the box' tools that the RPGMMV forced users to pay for. Personally, the base product is pretty weak without really understanding the backend and javascript. Additionally, the assets given were never meant to be 'final product' quality in the base product. You and several others did A LOT to help with that out of kindness, and that is and will always be appreciated. As someone who gave personal time and resources to help members of other communities in other areas (VBA, DAX, Python, R Lang, Eagle PCB, C++, etc.,) I have a hard time understanding the decision beyond your hurt feelings took the front seat. But, I think the RPGMMV overall community is and has been very broken well ahead of whatever events happened to cause your issue. Overall, the RPG Maker product has with issues which promote entitled users and provides nothing for users to really latch on to in a sense they can feel in control without relying on others and the community for RPG Maker is divided among those with a high degree of specific ability (scripter, artist, writer, etc.,) and those with just enough general ability they can start something but need to acquire more. With an entry price of $90 to use a handful of piecemeal boilerplate assets, it seems appealing but to get the key ingredient requires paying the publisher a lot more. What's the key ingredient? Consistency. RPGM has very little. 1.) The base scripts are very basic and while someone can modify them, they'll have to learn JS. JS has merit, but as a transition from RUBY, the better route would have been Python, IMO**. 2.)The visual assets are largely unchanged from previous versions of RPGM. That's great for familiarity, but how many different face combinations are produced from limited options before it feels ridiculous? Changing the eye color, hairstyle, and ears doesn't do much for variety in context to how the variety includes setting. This significantly narrows the creative ability with the provided tools. 3.) Both of the aforementioned play a role in how writers will shape and tell their stories. The events and dialog need to fit what players see or the suspension of belief and captivation fall through. Add to this, a rather tedious means to add text and present the story beyond generic actions that can't convey direct or explicit points, easily or without risk of misinterpretation. All of this is the formula for developing a proof of concept; It's a potpourri of things without enough of any one part to make anything complete on its own without the compulsion to buy more or take on a much larger task of learning standard skills and apply them in an odd and non-standard workflow. I'm sorry something happened that made you feel pushed in the direction of using a paywall like you were betrayed. That's a risk you take and if you get bitten, well... sorry but... no one is immune. At some point, everyone putting well-made products out there for free will have it abused or deal with entitled people asking for handouts. You have great work, truly. However, if you didn't think they had retail value when you made them or think enough to apply a retail value at the time, I can't support changing the products after the fact. That comes off like bait-and-switch to me, regardless of your unexplained personal reasons and feelings. I feel it would have been better if you took what was free - left it free - and THEN revisited the code to match your true skill level and production quality or wait until the next iteration of RPGM is released and put the scripts and plug-ins made for that version, behind a paywall (provided they decide to stick with JS). **TL;DR Sidenote: There's a lot to say about the ability to script and code mutable and immutable, REPL, indentation, and explicit coding. This isn't the case with JS and makes it harder for someone to grow in to without also facilitating bad habits and sloppy output. That can additionally discourage someone who 'just wants to get something moving' because it's hard to understand why something works in one instance but not another when it's harder to read the code, implicit statements are allowed, and can import dependencies from within. That said, reliance and entitlement shouldn't be a shock or mystery. What would anyone expect from purchasing a product with 3 parts of 3 things, which together can make 1 product but not very well, especially without buying more stylized parts that don't completely mesh with what the original product contained?

That's not how itch.io works. If you pay once, you own it forever.

YF

While I understand your reasoning for paywalling your plugins, I am a little disappointed that I have to pay to have them updated everytime an update for them comes out. Unless you don't plan on updating them anymore then I suppose its not that bad but still... unless I'm massively misunderstanding this message by you and by all means please correct me if I am.