This week, Olivia put forth a Pair of Promotions and a Resignation, starting off her announcement with the advancement of both MetalRenard and Kore to full Administration positions. Due to their faithfulness, resilience and work this past year, they received this well deserved advance. However, Olivia announced that she was stepping down from Save-Point's administration position. She feels that the forum has a lot of potential, but cannot continue as the factors of her health, college, relationships as well as other considerations make having to juggle the additional responsibility as an administrator a bit too strenuous. However, she steps down satisfied that Save-Point has become a stable and peaceful community, and toasts to the forum's future.

Meanwhile the scheduled forum Upgrades were delayed till Wednesday. Kore made this announcement due to a brown out and could not reach the server upgrades.

yamina-chan discovered another thing wrong with the Forum Scripting List, the script database's topic on the forum's list of scripts, as it pertained to Leon Westbrook's Party Changing System. After she found it sending people to another thread, Taylor came in and found PK8's topic on Pictures Can Scroll Too going elsewhere. As they both supplied the correct links for DerVVulfman, he re-entered the topic, took the info and fixed the damaged links.

Because of the summer holidays coming up, Olivia thought it would be a nice idea to have Save-Point run some Contests and Events, such as a Game of the Week project or something that could increase productivity like making new resources and the like. MetalRenard thought it would be a good idea and wondered if something like the 'What's Up RMers thread posts can be hooked into our Facebook page. Olivia thought that since it was covered in the Gazette, that it wouldn't be necessary, but perhaps an occasional post or screenshot. However, MetalRenard pointed out that the Gazette was still native to the forum itself, and having such material posted be more public could bring more potential fans.

Well, guys. Kristovski has returned after working diligently on getting his restaurant straightened out. But with that behind him, he's back with us and began working on a new RPGMaker XP game. He's excited about returning and gave a congratulatory cheer to Kore and MetalRenard regarding their promotions, and hope that Olivia will still hang around as she was one of his favorite forum administrators.

Meanwhile, it's been some time since Alpha-Mad has been around, but he's been doing teaching gigs and his military career suddenly got him deployed in the Middle East. Odd as it sounds, he found he may have more time while stuck in the desert than he did in the United States and may drop by our IRC chatroom from time to time.

Also back is Samven who returns for the Summer to work on his game and hang out in Save-Point. He claims to be both British and geek combined, and his talents lay in writing other than other RPGMaker-Based skills, but hopes to expand his skills.

And a new member named kiwi612 has joined our collective. Also known as Win and E.T, he's an RPGMaker VX and VXAce user, he has creative skills in music and art and finished a game called My Nightmare, based on one of his own which is how he discovered the RPGMaker line. Though Spanish, his English skills work just fine and joined Save-Point so he could share his first project, Chronicles Miraculous Dimension, with us.

In the meantime, we got to celebrate a good number of birthdays these past two weeks, starting with MegaPowerNinja's. After that, we had the privilege to celebrate scaldwellhu's birthday. Then we had a four-person whammy when firestalker5, frankeira, Nuanla and Hsia_Nu all had the same birthday. After that, Flare Knight's birthday passed.

It s good to know What's on the mind of our community members so we can all relate to one another. Right now, yamina-chan found herself conflicted as she didn't know to be happy or sad. She heralded a day that marked the beginning of something big for her, and something she wished to celebrate with friends. But the same day was the anniversary of a great man's death, a man she respected and was unfairly wronged in his life. Later on, Kain Nobel's found his thoughts were being manipulated by Apple Inc's advertisement machine. It was fair enough that he heard an advertisement for the iPhone. But later that night, Kain Nobel needed to find a pair of earbuds in the dark, and because he couldn't see anything, his mind strayed and wished for a pair of eye phones. Finding himself in the dark too was DerVVulfman as his neighborhood lost power and even the wireless internet signal where he lives disappeared. To his frustration, and apparently Kore's, his copy of the gazette was stuck on his main PC and he figured he might not make posting in time. Insofar as posting, MetalRenard was at a quandry as to what story to post in the Bibliotheca, the hidden writing board of the Literature forum, but later decided upon one. That news caught yamina-chan's attention as she was looking forward to a good read. Meanwhile, she also noticed her mother was making more phone calls in a day than what she makes in a month herself, and wasn't thrilled about an appointment she needed to make later on. What she was thrilled about was a concert performance coming up on that Wednesday. MetalRenard returned, and regrettably said he had to remove his writing from the Bibliotheca as it was too easy to access. Still wanting to get his story out, he said he was going to look into self-publishing. Python Blue wished hm luck, and was pleased to announce he got a music commission, and posted a link Being productive too was Kore, as he began working on plot lines for Space Station Six, something that isn't a game. What is a game, or will be soon, is Lego: Lord of the Rings as yamina-chan laughingly discovered. Planned for release around the same time as the first part of JRR Tolkein's 'The Hobbit', the timing couldn't be better. Seeing the gameplay being tested, yamina-chan couldn't stop laughing, not sure if the game will be the greatest thing or the ultimate fail, but other LEGO adaptions have been pretty good so far. And after being without power for some time, DerVVulfman returned and can once again surf. He caught MetalRenard's disappointment with the Bibliotheca, and figured he missed something in the permissions and properly fixed the issue. Going clinically insane recently was Samven, doing his own spin on a song by Queen. And while Olivia discovered a new diet that got her heart going manically, Samven continued his lunacy by bringing up an odd diet involving vowels. Later, DerVVulfman seemed to continue Samven's dietary trend which pleasantly surprised Samven. Kristovski's diet may be much better as his boss bought beer for everyone and started barbecuing on the beach, loving his island home. Samven decided that the solution to any issue is a good cup of tea, recommending his own blend. Some may find a post by MetalRenard out of place, but his request for people to use the 'report' button regarding inflammatory posts. Because of that, Samven felt like he made tea for one, but MetalRenard said he'd join him. Samven mentioned that when a forum administrator suggests a line of dialog ends, that it should be done. MetalRenard, not wishing to cause any issues, advised Samven not to get involved, as recent issues are to be dealt with by the staff. He also removed, but not deleted, a series of posts that were recently made that the staff may need to see. His intent was to keep the peace. Samven saluted MetalRenard's dedication, and decided to bring up the love of bagels. KasperKalamity didn't recommend them citing their fat building reputation, but recommended beer as he said it actually let him lose some weight. However, MetalRenard felt like having bagels and tea, and just discovered Portal 2's soundtrack. MagitekElite has been working on many things, from her game through her linquistic studies, but has been saddened about her missing kitten. On the opposite end of disappearing, KasperKalamity just noticed the number of stars that appeared under his avatar and wondered if any cartoon existed that was better than Adventure Time. Pherione, while working on a translation of an interview he's working on informed KasperKalamity that the stars were likely indications of the number of posts he's made. MetalRenard confirmed Pherione's theory and says he's now adding voiceover artist to his resume thanks to a gig he did for a short independence film. Python Blue wished him good luck, and says he got word he's gonna be making music for a Portuguese animation series. Samven celebrated with the most awesome team in his university. Meanwhile, DerVVulfman's computer suffered a hard drive crash and lost a lot of his work, though he says he posted most of his demos online. Olivia posted a comic poster describing different stages of artistic mastery and cites her skill is at the third level where she can classify her mistakes as her own revolutionary style she can claim as her own creation. Both Samven and Ace commented on their artistic skills using the chart, as did yamina-chan whose skills run the entire gamut other than stage 3. She also expressed her regret for DerVVulfman's computer problems. In the meantime, Python Blue is becoming annoyed with someone who hopes to be a game producer, as this individual just got his music noticed and possibly affiliated within the Furry community. And with the unusual connotations he sees within that community, it's not something he wants to be publically affiliated.

Python Blue created a thread so members could share their thoughs on Furries, and admits he was disturbed by the sexual themes that surrounds them. MetalRenard replied that furries really have more an affinity with an animal rather than the preconception of having animal sex, and while Python Blue accepted that, he did point out that the sexual side of the community was still there. Meanwhile, yamina-chan pointed out that sexual connotations exist in virtually everything today, from movies and games into clothing and even food. Olivia meowed her reaction, and mentioned that some find an affinity with animals in a normal manner like pets while others do find a form of gratification. It used to surprise her greatly, but it doesn;t bother her that much. Taylor agreed with yamina-chan in how most anything being promoted has a perverse side being affixed to it. He pointed out that kids in general find animals appealing thanks to cartoons, but they aren't furries in any sense. And while his own avatar boasts that he's a slate furry thing, he doesn't brand himself as one, and regrets how humanity affixes labels to everything. Python Blue accepted his arguments and agreed with him, but pointed out that Furries, in general, are more succeptible to innuendos. Meanwhile, RosyPosy just accepts it. And unlike Python Blue's preference of reptiles or the traditional lean to mammals, RosyPosy tends towards things with tentacles. Meanwhile, Taylor just feels it's a small minority anyway. But Python Blue mentioned that artists that draw their fetishes like those seem to be popular. KasperKalamity's reaction was plain and simple... they're nuts. But Python Blue remarked he doesn't consider himself one at all. MetalRenard felt KasperKalamity's post as comically trollish. And Taylor already considers himself a loon, while MetalRenard thinks himself just a bit weird.

Samven is currently craving some more time.

KasperKalamity is saddened he didn't get the chocolate he expected from The Free Stuff Thread, and that fact saddened MetalRenard.

In the meantime, Kore decided to share a little bit of the Music he's listening too, this time venturing into the world of JPop with an artist who thinks she's Raggedy Ann. And Samven's brought up a few names he likes, a few merely actors while one performing 'Outlaw Pete' is known as 'The Boss'. And Python Blue made and posted a cover of "Never Land" by the Sisters of Mercy.

Do you know What's up with our RMers? A while back, DerVVulfman worked on a script for thieves, letting them pickpocket NPCs. Now he returned to working on more thief-based scripts. He began working on a system to let a thief climb walls, hoping to include a grappling rope feature, and planned to work on a new poisoning system. Meanwhile, Kain Nobel is quite overjoyed by how his worldmap tileset is coming along, showing off a screenshot of his work. He's been working mainly on mixing some terrain samples and features for generic needs and intends to touch up the colors of his mountain types as well as other artistic touches soon. He even plans on reworking his water tilesets so the shorelines are less squarish, and showed an early draft of a landlocked water hole done with flat colors. And XP Kobold, having learned some time ago how to use both 24x24 and 32x32 icons, rediscovered this option, and is hoping to get it to work with DerVVulfman's MultiSlots script along with various default Windows from Window Base through to Window_ShopStatus. Kain Nobel posted the premise of his story that revolves around the chef of a military vessel must now act as a substitute for a deceased member of the crew and must now embark on a mission with a reconnaisance team to abduct a bio-chemist. Mind you, he's not the cook from Under Siege and doesn't have that degree of combat training. Meanwhile, Kain Nobel sprited up some mountains later worked on some iceland tiles, though he wasn't too pleased with the mountains. But KasperKalamity liked them, and it made him want to play Tiberian Sun. But map-making was what KasperKalamity eventually talked about as he planned to work on a mine and a few oddities, giving the next chapter of his game a comic spin on the title, Jason and the Argonauts. The deadline for artists to send concepts for the Hartacon Tactics characters has come and gone, and Charlie Fleed hopes to announce who the official character artist will be soon. More artwork came by way of Kain Nobel as he showed off his submarine characterset. And people should be wary, because this tiny vessel carries quite an arsenal. And Kain Nobel continued to work more on his tileset, continuing to organize his thoughts and spriting busily at his mountains. He's hoping to begin work on a Led Zeppelin inspired AirShip theme when he gets the time. MetalRenard was impressed by Kain Nobel's skills and worked hard on his story for a few days, rewriting parts here and there and was pleased with the results. A lot of it was plotted out until chapter nine, so MetalRenard already managed to pen at least five chapters near completion, thanking DerVVulfman for helping him get back into writing. Also putting pen to paper was KasperKalamity, who finally plotted out the rest of his game, though the ending isn't as detailed as his older outlines previously were. He believes he needs only four months of work to finish, not including demos and tileset management. Meanwhile, Taylor got hit by some lag after changing the priority of a wall/ceiling autotile for a small room on a big map with RPGMaker XP. He considered finding a way around it, and did, by using an alternate non-priority tile in its place. On returning to Save-Point, Samven nearly finished a demo he was about to post but got delayed by a glitch in his software. Kain Nobel shouted Happy Independence Day to everyone and said he spent all night working on a his World Map, showing off an overhead map with inlets and small coastal islands. He later plans to add both big city landmarks and increase the natural terrains for his set. Samven wondered about American's slacking off on Independence Day because Will Smith hasn't made an ID4 appearance in a decade. Hybrida brought up that Mr. M.I.B. will be returning later for ID4-2 and ID4-3, and that he's begun working on his game's battlebacks. KasperKalamity marveled at Kain Nobels' map wondering about the possibilities of exploration. KasperKalamity also learned he works best with deadlines. Deadlines aren't the word of the day for Taylor though, as procrastination on his spriting is his thing. He's hoping that he'll eventually get enough material ready that he'll reuse them elsewhere in the game rather than having unique effects for every scene. And MetalRenard got a music gig making a theme for the first episode to Arcan Chronicles, and posted a youtube video of his piece.

The Maps and Screenshots thread was visited this week by Taylor who wished to show off the way his Bestiary system will look in his project. The display currently uses icons ripped from Persona as he's yet to make actual ones. He's also unsure about what information to display for when an enemy is seen or defeated, and has yet to make it show in battle. After that, KasperKalamity showed a before/after shot of a map he worked on. His barebones shot was just the terrain and landscape while his second screenshot showed the location of a mine, a tool shed, and the finished look of a bridge crossing a wide river to the south. KasperKalamity later returned over and over with his map in varying degrees of completion, starting with houses and roads and later adding random foliage and objects that Ace mentioned. Both MetalRenard and Ace were highly impressed with the job to KasperKalamity's elation, now releaved that he made it to the big leagues.

Though it's been a while, KasperKalamity answered the poll that asked if anyone favored Big Maps over Small Maps, as he prefers grandiose areas to explore that can emmerse the player into a game he feels small ones cannot. And insofar as making larger maps, he merely breaks his down in segments and fills in each segment one at a time until he's done.

Samven entered the Game Idea Thread and said he'd like to see a spin-off game of Dragon Age, using characters like Zevran or Isabela rather than the more nobel (or halfway decent) characters in the game. KasperKalamity was unsure who Isabela was, and would be interested in a first person version of Sim City where you could switch between the city's mayor and a principle character. Samven described Isabela as a Pirate with a relatively filled backstory and considers the characters more intersting thaon one from Final Fantasy IX,

Though the game is mostly in Spanish, a new project by Erechel has entered our community. Fading Suns: Crepúsculo Blanco is a space opera based on the tabletop RPG of the same name, and other than a few exceptions, the graphics are all his. You play a mercenary for the Hawkwoods aboard a spaceship going against the Voldrok pirates, but as a Gate goes wrong you end up on a lost planet. The world is caught in a turbulent time after an atomic holocost as three factions vie for power, one holds the last vesteges of nobility, and one with a fleet that could rival the Imperial Fleet of the Known Worlds itself.

And a new project thread has appeared by way of Samven who's unveiling Deceit x Justice, an RPGMaker VX game he's been working on and has been his main project during his creative writing courses. The game takes place on a world where the powerful Fetchers harnessed the power of spirits and ruled the world until a hero rose up and overthrew them and established the Grand Aegis League. The game takes place twenty years later and while the League still maintains the peace, insurgents appear who wish to restore power to the Fetchers.

But if that's not new enough, G.I. Toez would like you to consider the Zombified Stuffed Animal Shooter where you play a teddy bear locked and loaded as he faces zombie barbies or other zombified stuffed toys as he uses nerf guns, yo-yos, and other toy weapons in the place. He received name suggestions from people like Pherione, MetalRenard and Ace, liking MetalRenard's suggestion of Apocalypse Teddy: The Un-stuffing the most. Initially placed in the Recruitment Office board, he asked it to be moved to its now proper locale.

MetalRenard is looking for artists for his Animated Series, Rebirth's Retribution, as he's looking for those who can work on characters and/or locations. He is also looking for a video editor as he admits that while skilled, his talents are still limited. The story of Rebirth's Retribution takes place on a planet with a lush forest environment, and centers on a Prince who's on a quest with his sister to rescue his kidnapped loved one. But unlike your typical Mario/Princess Peach story, things get much darker as his journey progresses and he uncovers many deep secrets. MetalRenard has made money with his own viewing channel and says that money made from Rebirth's Retribution viewing will be shared among those involved in the production. He would also like to point out that anyone involved can add it to their porfolio as well as bring them recognition through the youtube channel links. Pherione volunteered for voiceover work and was familiar with the world thanks to his demo. And MetalRenard was happy that Pherione offered his services and welcomed him to the team.

Argol228 is still getting some advice for his project as Erechel mentioned that he made a hunger/sleeping system event system, using a parallel process common event, and described how he used variables for both hunger, thirst and sleep states.

After he finished composing and importing a number of music tracks into RPGMaker XP, he found that RPGMaker XP isn't playing certain types of MP3 files and doesn't know why. He knows that the music can still play in other media programs, but that these he made appear to not function in his project. But he's unaware if the problem lay with RPGMaker XP Alone or if it happens with RPGMaker VX or VXAce. Taylor too experienced the phenomena and thinks it must be a certain format of MP3 that it cannot handle. However, he noted that after importing his music into Audacity and later exporting new copies for use, the new copies work just fine. However, he's unsure what the problem is either, whether it's the bit rate, or other types of tags.

Not really looking for actual help, Kain Nobel was merely curious about SephirothSpawn's Tilemap Bug that he heard others were encountering. He didn't know what the bug was, whether it caused games to crash or just not show things properly, as he thought he may give fixing it a swing. His curiousity was because he was interested in using SephirothSpawn's Extra Autotiles script which requires the rewrite. Taylor posted a different script, poccils Tilemap Rewrite, an alternative tilemap script which may work out. Thanking Taylor, Kain Nobel snagged Poccil's script as he did with Me™'s, and replied that he was going to begin working on a test build of the scripts and look for any errors he could fix and repost.

Still working hard on a new encryption protection system for RPGMaker XP, Narzew encountered a Depacking Thread Problem. He apparently was able to pack resources such as 'Audio/BGM/Grass.mid', and could use command line operations to depack it, but needs coding help to get it to work in script format and would appreciate the help to solve the problem.

Samven encountered a problem with DerVVulfman's Animated Battlers VX system whereby battlers making a physical attack run into a continuous loop. He's unsure what causes it nor how to remove the bug. And though he learned that DerVVulfman has since upgraded the RPGMaker VX battle script to version 3.7, the server that hosts his demo and scripts were down. DerVVulfman saw the post and too noted that Fileden was down, but replied that the server was now back online and ready for him to download the newer version, much to Samven's relief.

Last week, PK8 posted his technical thread on RPGMaker XP Autotile Data, but has since added material to his report by including information about RPGMaker VX and VXAce's Autotiles. However, he feels that our CSS and Spoiler Tag system won't do the tutorial justice and has instead created links to outside technical files of his own creation.

A couple weeks ago, TSatori said he encountered a possible malware situation with Basic 2D Character Kit and it not installing properly with Windows 7 64-bit. Likewise, ShinGamix, a Win7-64bit user, recently encountered a strange 52 Error message on his system, and would really like to use it. Olivia checked the demo she attached and confirmed that no viruses existed. She suggested running the package in Administrator mode. However, the software was made in 2000 and thinks there's a chance it may not work on newer systems.

Early in the week, PK8 crafted and released his Tile Substitution & Placement system for all three RPGMaker systems. His Tile Substitution system lets game developers use script call commands to substitute the tiles in a given map with others, regardless of layer. Tiles can be obtained from anywhere on the current map or even from the tileset that the map is using.

And later, PK8 returned to post his Halt and Unhalt All Event Movement for all three RPGMaker systems, returning a feature that was last seen with RPGMaker 2003. It lets game developers quickly pause and un-pause the actions of all the events on a map with a few simple calls.

Meanwhile, DerVVulfman continued working on RPGMaker XP scripts by unveiling Zara's Baneful Poisons, a system that lets game designers make multiple poison effects of different intensities that can work together in concert rather than replacing one another.

Victor Sant added another RPGMaker VXAce script to his Victor Engine package, this time being a Pixel Movement system that lets the characters step a mere 4 pixels at a time and improves the collision system.

But Victor Sant didn't stop there as he also added the Terrain States system for his Victor Engine. Now, the game designer can create tiles that can poison, cure, or inflict any other status effect onto the player by merely stepping onto it.

Victor Sant even returned to add an RPGMaker VXAce script called Element Strengthen which lets you set up a trait that changes the power of actions based on their elements. In this way, a player weilding a staff of frost can increase the power of ice spells they use.

And added a new Element Set system for his Victor Engine, as his new element system lets you set more than one element to a skill and lets you change how multiple resistances are handled.

Meanwhile, Olivia graced us with a new HUD Addon for Melly-Mel's Calendar System, a plug and play script with a simple interface that can show the time and date in the corner of your map screen.

DuongCool needed some help as he wanted to be able to Switch Party Members and make Multiple Parties in his game, since Final Fantasy 6 allowed you to make two or three groups. He was aware of such a system for RPGMaker VX, but unsure about one for RPGMaker XP. However, yamina-chan was quite aware that a number of such scripts were available for RMXP, and the first one that came into her mind was the original Party Splitter script from RPG Advocate from 2005, though it only allows for two groups rather than three or more. But she said she would add any other scripts to this topic when she remembers them. Looking at the thread that she posted, DuongCool appreciated the help, but found the demo's link was down. In responce, she posted the script that was in the thread's spoiler. He got the script, but didn't quite know how it worked, so Olivia studied the script and added some instructions that the script itself didn't include.

DuongCool was also looking for system that changes RPGMaker XP's normal audio system so the Background music continues after battle, and sicovered a script by Atoa that used material by poccil. However, he said he needed an audio.dll. DerVVulfman saw a Win32API call that looked for an Audio dll feature and figured it had to be part of the Windows system. He also offered to DuongCool a script that lets the field map to play continuously through the battle rather than stop and restart. But since Ace uses the same script for his own project, he had the actual file DuongCool needed and supplied it. Meanwhile, Taylor thought the script looked useful, but couldn't get the script to work, even with that file.

>>>>>BOFor those wishing to make game screens that look like an actual fantasy pen and paper (or parchment) map, something straight out of The Lord of the Rings, then you may be interested in the Photoshop Map Brushes which buprettyinpink recently discovered. She found a number of such brushes on DeviantArt and felt they could be useful for those wantint to make fanciful worldmaps other than those typically rendered with tiles in an RPG.

He wasn't the first to inquire, but DuongCool was wondering What Happened as he can't access Naramura's Site. A fan of Naramura's art, he found the site unavailable and wondered he changed his site's url. DerVVulfman posted a link in the forum where Woratana cound Naramura's art saved in RMXPUnlimited.net and yamina-chan confitmed that at least most of the artwork is there.

DY<<<<<

In order to navigate through his personal site better, MetalRenard updated his personal site. This heralded the new addition to MetalRenard's Music as he added two more pieces for our listening pleasure. For those nostalgic for the old SNES game, he presents a Chrono Trigger piece. And if you want something peaceful, you are certain to enjoy "Wash It All Away".

We were graced by some more Music by Python Blue as he posted a trailer of sorts for an upcoming album. The piece was presented as a youtube video called Prison of the Mind, and though he doesn't plan to use it for a game, he says anyone could use it for theirs.

And after being requested to make some music for a steampunk RPG game, MetalRenard posed the question as to
What makes Steampunk, Steampunk? The people who asked for the music simply asked that the music he made be of the steampunk style, but wonders what other than the sound of grinding and squealing metal he could put into the piece. Taylor supplied a link to a piece of music for MetalRenard and suggested using a an Industrial genre of music.

New artwork by 60.25 came recently as Jacket again feels the need to update his thread more often. He showed off a a progressive drawing of random head construct he intended was to be a man made of ice, but changed drastically. He drew up the title screen to a retro-styled game that he would like to see as a real game, and drew a shot of a guy saddened by his popped baloon. And along with the progress you can see with his drawing of beth, the lead character in 'I'm Haunted', you can see drawings of Good Sir Crow.

Some more sprites showed up within Karina's Art dump as MagitekElite wanted to show the female characterset she's still remaking. She admits she's still rusty and would like to get opinions from people how her pony-tailed sporting character looks from the back.

We now can enjoy some of Samven's Assorted Doodlewriting stuffz as he presents us with a pair of his works, and in no way was a pint of bitter consumed while penning these works.