This vs. open-source RPG Maker implementations

[P-Tux7]

I have a question, why is this project being created if there are already several open-source versions of RPG Maker like EasyRPG and Open RPG Maker? Wouldn't it be better to just join up with one of those teams? Since the RM2K and RM2K3 standard can go beyond FF1 clones but even to the SNES games in complexity. I really appreciate that this project is open source which is why I'm suggesting for several open source teams to work together instead of making 2 or 3 incompatible systems that are similar. Thanks for reading!

[Gleeok]

Well, I think I can sum it up pretty succinctly: It's mostly because I absolutely loathe RPG Maker. It's far too generic to make a professional-level game. All the features are too limiting, time consuming, slow, terribly slow, and extremely slow. Performance is, again, terrible. It's closed source. Worst possible engine-level languages (ruby/javascript) and to even start to make something that "doesn't seem like an RPGMaker game" requires you to rewrite most of the scripts and engine. All the FF clones made with RPG Maker are terrible. It's overpriced and overrated. I think the rpg community should make themselves a new program to replace RPG Maker, otherwise it's just going to get worse. Let's be honest, RPGMaker obviously doesn't care about RPG's at all, they just want to sell a rehashed RPGM2K to people with little or no technical know-how. :)


That said, I really need to start working on this again. I managed to get a major amount of important things done last year, but this year has been clumsy to say the least. Right now I'm floating with the possibility of turning it into a ZC "rewrite" in the case that something else IRL comes up which might completely kill it, but we'll see. Right now everything is dependent on the GUI getting done, which is the most painful and slowest part. All I can say about the GUI is I went through over a dozen GUI libs last year and they were all terrible and I ended up writing my own. The downside is that it is much slower to get up and running; the upside is that all data and code is inherent to the system so it's very fast and everything works without having to hack, splice, or couple everything together. I think the time wasted will be made up later on; that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

Cheers.

[MasterSwordUltima]

I gotta say it always kinda bugged me that the ASCII/Enterbrain/whatever company owns it now RPG Maker series went into Ruby for scripting and not even something as simple as LUA.

[Tamamo]

They've switched to javascript as far as I know. Not that It matter.
Rpgmaker MV is freaking loathsome in it's own way.

[ZoriaRPG]

RPGM is a big fat bloated frog of a programme. I'd sooner make my RPGs in ZC--and I do, then buy into their commercialware nonsense.

Until something better comes along, I'll continue pushing forward on an RPG game designer built exclusively in ZC, but there's always room for a completely open RPG designer.

IDK wha tthe status is on FFC, or what any of it looks like at present.

Just please try to avoid branding this as /the/ ZC rewrite for now. I sort of have a long-term goal in mind for that, but it might require using Allegro5 instead of SDL or whatevr.

The short version:

ZC 2.55->2,60: Updates to the engine.
ZC 3.0 -> ZC migrates to Allegro Legacy. This allows bridging allegro 4 stuff while using Allegro 5.
ZC 4.0 -> New engine. Old quests run in a yellowbox-bluebox type of environment. (Think Apple Rhapsody. ack in the 90s.) When a uer loads a classic quest, the engine loads an image of ZC 3.xx, and runs the quest. Because we use ag5 for input, and video at this point, we only use ag4.x for legacy components in this emulation shell. New quests run wholly on the new engine using ag 5.x.

Pretty vague logic diagram


Logic Diagram Premise (https://pastebin.com/tWEHRSqD)

-=SPOILER=-

You can all have a good laugh at this, later.

[cbailey78]

Well, I think I can sum it up pretty succinctly: It's mostly because I absolutely loathe RPG Maker. It's far too generic to make a professional-level game. All the features are too limiting, time consuming, slow, terribly slow, and extremely slow. Performance is, again, terrible. It's closed source. Worst possible engine-level languages (ruby/javascript) and to even start to make something that "doesn't seem like an RPGMaker game" requires you to rewrite most of the scripts and engine. All the FF clones made with RPG Maker are terrible. It's overpriced and overrated. I think the rpg community should make themselves a new program to replace RPG Maker, otherwise it's just going to get worse. Let's be honest, RPGMaker obviously doesn't care about RPG's at all, they just want to sell a rehashed RPGM2K to people with little or no technical know-how. :)


That said, I really need to start working on this again. I managed to get a major amount of important things done last year, but this year has been clumsy to say the least. Right now I'm floating with the possibility of turning it into a ZC "rewrite" in the case that something else IRL comes up which might completely kill it, but we'll see. Right now everything is dependent on the GUI getting done, which is the most painful and slowest part. All I can say about the GUI is I went through over a dozen GUI libs last year and they were all terrible and I ended up writing my own. The downside is that it is much slower to get up and running; the upside is that all data and code is inherent to the system so it's very fast and everything works without having to hack, splice, or couple everything together. I think the time wasted will be made up later on; that's my story and I'm sticking to it. :)

Cheers.

Very well said GLEEOK!

[DannyPhilips]

I think it's right that it's much better not to redesign an old resource, spending a lot of time on changes, but to make a new product from scratch that meets all the parameters of modern requirements.