I daresay there's a game programmer out there...

[Dechipher]

...who loves Super Mario RPG enough to make an engine and editor. From talking to a professional programmer I have derived at the estimate of a year or so, but it wouldn't be terribly challenging, from what I have heard.
I just need to find a programmer, someone like phantom menace who would actually want to pull something like this off. After that we will work with art guys and all that, getting that crap together, but basically you just need an isometric fake 3d screen with a guy that runs around, jumps and presses the action button. Then you need a way to do battles, which wouldn't be too bad, and then you'd need the menu screen and all that stuff.
But first, is there anyone out there who would maybe consider this? At all?

[MottZilla]

It always starts out seeming easy, but then ussually little annoying things complicate it further. But Super Mario RPG as I recall, shouldn't be too terribly hard to reproduce. But I wouldn't be looking into doing it myself.

[Vagla]

I'd recommend a friend of mine if he wasn't already busy with projects which could very well turn out profitable (and thus are more important). Just FYI, though, a good enough programmer could do that in a few months with no trouble. My friend did an entire and very complex NES engine with level editor (even with the game's complex level format, and it also had lots of various things like sprite frame editing and even music editing) in a month, and I doubt replicating the SMRPG engine on a computer accompanied by an editor would be much worse. So yeah, find a good enough person and this would be done in no time at all.

Good luck.

[Dart Zaidyer]

Assuming you get a programmer who knows what he's doing, it'll run you about a month elapsed.

That is if you don't count the other 6-12 months that will be spent goofing around, toiling endlessly at college/work, and grappling with computer troubles (and lawyer-shy webhosts) that may or may not destroy some very important progress from time to time.
And trust me, this is an accurate statement. It happens to all fan projects. This is the price you pay by working for free in your spare time on misunderstood Intellectual Property grounds.

[Cloral]

The one thing I will say about programming: it always takes longer than you think it will. People always look at just the big picture, and forget all the little details that need to happen to get you to the final product. Well, those little details always end up taking longer than the elements you accounted for. So you should probably triple any time estimates to get a more accurate picture.

[Dechipher]

I understand all that. I believe the year estimate I got would be pretty sound estimate.
Is there anyone willing to undertake this?

[Vagla]

Assuming you get a programmer who knows what he's doing, it'll run you about a month elapsed.

That is if you don't count the other 6-12 months that will be spent goofing around, toiling endlessly at college/work, and grappling with computer troubles (and lawyer-shy webhosts) that may or may not destroy some very important progress from time to time.
And trust me, this is an accurate statement. It happens to all fan projects. This is the price you pay by working for free in your spare time on misunderstood Intellectual Property grounds.
Ah, yes, thank you for informing me that my own personal experience with fan projects is actually incorrect and moreover simply never even happened. I forgot that all fan projects take 6-12 months and that they never get done faster, so it simply slipped my mind that I was daydreaming for that month and that that engine wasn't created in the time I claimed it was. You would definitely know more about my own personal experience, so thanks for setting me straight.

Oh a more helpful note, you (Decipher) probably won't get it done that quickly. It's difficult to find someone who is a quick, efficient, and dedicated homebrew coder who would be willing to take on such a project. However, such people do exist, but that year guesstimate is surely a safe bet. Good luck to you, since I'd be interested in playing around with this myself, should it ever be done. :)