If Enterbrain were to make another RPG Maker...

[KK20]

...what would you want to see?

I'm continuing this conversation off of the Shout Box and into its own thread. Reason being that I was able to convince my members to write a proposal to persuade Enterbrain to make another installment.

So to get you in the mood, assume you have the chance to talk with the lead developers and overall decision-makers. What can you say to persuade them to improve the series? Mainly to make the program more widely known and accepted as a good modern game-making engine.

I would really like them to make the program target the mobile audience as well. Perhaps include the default front-view and ATB battle systems and have the player choose. I'd also like the hidden classes, like the Tilemap class, to be accessible to us programmers. And return to the XP tilesets (everything is a square in VX/A).

Throw me some ideas or issues/bugs you may have.

[winkio]

From repeated comments I have seen over the years:

1. Networked play
2. HUD
3. More robust message system
4. Plugin system for the editor
5. Custom resolution and framerate
6. More layers on maps
7. Optimized code
8. Screenshot command
9. Play video files

Many of these are existing scripts, but they are so commonly used and requested that they should be included by default in a future release. 

[Heretic86]

First thing is that we would BUY it.  Build a good product and it draws more people to purchase it.

First on my wishlist is an RMXP Style Character Generator.  For ANY size Sprites.  Build the Tool, the Community can add to a list of Graphics that are used to generate characters.  We do need some to use as templates, but emphasis that we will build a lot of the content.  It incentivizes it for them.  Make money for less work.

Also included would be to open up access to other parts of the system so we have better access to Audio and Screen Resolutions.  We need to have as few arbitrary limits as possible.  Limiting an Encryption System is understandably off limits, but for other things that are off limits, they need to not be off limits.  We would be well off to have access to parts of code in order to push the product well beyond its design limits.  Thus, accessing Weather needs to be available as well.

Personally, I like the visual style of RMXP due to "normal" sized characters.  I also like that XP offers specific control over what graphics go on what layers.  VX just feels strange to me making nearly every graphic fit inside of a 32x32 tile.  Trees need to be able to be full sized.

They also need to put back in any features that were in XP and were removed in later versions, like FOGS.

If they remove the Limits, the community will do the rest.

[Zexion]

Custom resolution for sure because, wwhat kind of rpg engine even has that limit. Even crappy eclipse origins makes it an easy change -_-

Suport for better collision detection and isometric maps.

An option to scale graphics. I'd like to be able to use 16x16 gfx and set the scale to 2x, rather than resize every game graphic as it is made. It makes spriting things 2x size really tedious.

Basically just get ARC, add midi support, and call it RPG MAKER X or something lol

[R.A.V.S.O]

hmm let's see here...

-multiple forms of battle system to choose from, check
-netplay, check
-better RGSS while maintaining the overall XP design. check
-a character generator check
-(optional) I know they include standard defaults, but I wish they added more futuristic defaults too.
-more eventing options, being able to assign events during any point in a timer instead of just when the timer reaches 0:00

that's about it for me.... btw if you'd slap an Rpg Maker XP: Ace title on it... I'd certainly buy it one more time XD

[Ranquil]

The ability to remove the requirement for RTP. This can be avoided with some simple changes in most of the RPG Makers but it'd be cool if the option was accessible in the editor.

[Blizzard]

It is. There is an option in RMXP in the top menu. IDK about the others.

[KK20]

Lots of ideas that I completely forgot about. Right, some of the popular scripts should be built-in. Online games, changing resolutions, modify how Tilemaps are drawn... and of course breaking the limits.

Thanks for a good list guys. I only needed a few ideas to think of what to say in the report (e.g. "While viewing RPG Maker communities, we have noticed that users want..."). I'll also propose the name to be called RPG Maker Unlimited

[Heretic86]

... or RPG Maker XP Unlimited? :p

I know they look at some of our stuff.

When I tried the VX Ace demo, I noticed a couple of things that they did get from the commuity addons. 

#1: Caterpillars
#2: Turn the Player toward Events
#3: Ladders as Terrain Tags (similar to Bush)
#4: Enhanced Page Conditions
#5: Customizable Title Screens
#6: Movie Playback

I put a Ladder feature in with my Caterpillar for XP, and I think it is the only one in existence for XP.  Ladders just make the Player turn up when moving across a Terrain Tag with a Ladder Flag.  They might have looked at my Ladder stuff, and might not have too.  But in my demo for the Caterpillar, I did also build in the ability to turn the Player toward Events, and mentioned in the demo that I wasnt sure why it wasnt a part of the default game engine.  Well, suprise suprise, now it is.

The point being that as long as they can make their core flexible enough, we can use that flexibility to create everything else that needs to be created.  So above all of our desired features and requests, they can save themselves production costs of enhancing their engine to be Flexible enough for us to fill in the blanks.  I would not have been able to build Ladders the way I did without their built in Terrain Tag feature in XP.  They had the foresight to make it flexible with Terrain Tags.  So they built the Terrain Tags feature in for flexibility for Scripters specifically.

For example, to be Flexible, I think Page Conditions (either Map or Battle Events) need a Script option as opposed to just Switches, Self Switches and Variables or other limiting Conditions.  That allows us to do the rest of the work with minimal effort on their part.  Just provide the Flexibility we need to make the enhancements.  Unlocking as much as is possible is what will make it Flexible. 

[KK20]

So above all of our desired features and requests, they can save themselves production costs of enhancing their engine to be Flexible enough for us to fill in the blanks.

That is so going into the paper <3

Yeah, I think I have a good idea where I want to go with this proposal. Thanks again!

[Heretic86]

Oddly enough, Im still thinking on this.

One thing I think needs to be present is the ability to have a fully packaged game, beginning to end.  Thus, what we get from them needs to allow putting a company and distributer / publisher logos when the game is fired up.  At the end of the game, we need a way to do Credits, not just a "Game Over" screen which is more like a Fail without any option to Win.

You know, since they are a business, they could take the Apple approach to grow the business.  If I ever made a complete game that I wanted to sell commercially, for say 99 cents, I wouldnt mind sharing some of the profits with them.  In the pro market, we'd be the developers more than we are the publishers, and we'd most likely still need a Publisher.  If I made anything commercial in ANY engine, I'd need a Publisher.  I just think it would be nice to have a publisher that would actually consider publishing an RM Game, and who better to do it than those who create the RM engines themselves!  There are a couple, not many, but a couple of RM games that are total success stories!  Something we'd all like the opportunity to be a part of.