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You might have seen it before: RPG Maker VX vs. RPG Maker XP discussions. They're a bit overdone, maybe. But I'm still interested what you think.
What engine do you prefer and why?
And also: How much does the way of mapping influence your choice?
My point of view:
I often see people preferring XP over VX because of the way you create the maps. I was no different before, but I got to thinking.
Why do I prefer XP? Because of the mapping engine? Sure, it does have multiple layers and allows far more tiles than VX does by default. But is that the only thing that matters here?
When using XP, I often got frustrated. Mapping was slow and hard to pull off for me. I was most active in a Dutch community with a lot of XP users and I loved the way they created maps. But I couldn't rival their maps. I lacked the patience to spend several hours on a map that's just 50x50 tiles. Not just that, I also had a lot of trouble with using scripts. A lot of scripts were incompatible with eachother, designed for the (illegal) Postality Knights edition or required the SDK (which some other scripts didn't like).
I got tired of it.
Now I've (almost?) fully switched to RPG Maker VX. Mapping took a little getting used to. But I got the hang of it and started to create a few testing games in which I mapped and fiddled with the database.
Finally, I decided to start working on my current game, Walking The Plank. I used Mack's alternative tilesets for the maps and soon I had a good-looking base for my game (as I mapped a lot of stuff before starting to work on events and other systems). I liked this way of working. The translated KGC scripts gave me a nice base to work on, the Takentai sideview battlesystem was perfect for me and all other scripts which I threw in never clashed with the others. Mapping also took FAR LESS time.
My conclusion? XP isn't worthless, but it does ask a lot of your patience if you can't script well. I prefer VX because I don't like clashing scripts and the mapping system isn't bad at all.
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Indeed, I too prefer VX. I'm not much of a mapper, so I didn't mind the loss of tilesets. :x
Coding is where I have skill, and thus I like the more organized Script Editor in VX. I agree with Ae on liking how VX scripts tend to be more compatible than XP ones were. But my view is rather biased in terms of scripting, as I first decided to learn RGSS2 before moving backwards and looking at RGSS. I have loyalty to my coding roots, as it is. P:
I'm interested in seeing what sorts of responses are posted in here, as I think that both engines have their merits, despite my preference.
-Enelvon
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It's interesting to read an opinion based on scripting from a user who doesn't script.
As far as mapping is concerned between the two systems, I find I spend much less time on maps. The only mapping feature that I found was painful not to have was directional passability, but that feature has been reintroduced with a script.
By use of scripts, you can replicate nearly any map done on XP, it just isn't very easy. In that light, mapping is both simpler and more difficult. It seems to me though, that game developers put way more focus on mapping than is warranted. I find that I prefer simple maps.
RGSS2 is obviously better since it's newer and has a bigger number at the end.
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Not necessarily.
The mapping engine in RMXP still has another advantage in it's copy paste feature in how you can copy a block and paste it elsewhere in a map... without the nagging 'autotile' feature getting in the way.
In RMXP, you can copy some ground terrain drawn with an autotile and paste it into a body of water. The result is a square block of grass, no shoreline or anything. Good if you wanna avoid the autotile edges. If you want shorelines, you can still draw them later.
In RMVX, you can copy some ground terrain drawn with an autotile and paste it into a body of water. The result will always include the surrounding shoreline. No option available for the mapper to avoid it.
So, aside from the terrain tags scripts, the passables scripts, additional autotiles and tileset changers, and this problem.... Yeesh.....
And while there is a difference between RGSS and RGSS2, it is still basically RUBY scripting and the 'organization' of the scripts themselves may be thanks to the SDK team. The original RGSS didn't have a Scene_Base like RGSS2 does. The SDK system had it first. Can Seph and Trickster get royalties? :rolleyes:
It is true that they added a few more hidden classes into RMVX, but removed some. I used to be able to 'un-stretch' windowskins, as in making the graphics tile instead. Cest la vie. And come on... reducing the screensize and number of tiles per map to increase the framerate? Did anyone really have a problem with the refresh rate?
I still dabble with RMVX because we have to keep up with the technology, but for detail work when actually mapping your game, RMXP still holds true. If Enterbrain wanted to do justice to the system, they could have made an EASY mode and an ADVANCED mode. They OWE us...
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I've never really gotten that low-level with my scripting, or have I ever felt I needed to, although I appreciate your insight.
At first, and maybe even still now, I prefer the mapping in XP to VX. On the other hand, I also prefer the larger color palettes and greater ease in scripting I find with VX.
When I first got started in XP, I was doing most of my game-making on an old IBM Thinkpad that I bought on ebay. It wouldn't play games using the "Mode 7" scripts at all, would give the hanging error. Aside from that issue, frame rates were not bad at all - only suffering with an absurd number of events on a map. I agree with you that the reductions to boost frame rates were very unnecessary. In spite of the changes though, I still use VX myself.
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DerVVulfman Wrote: Not necessarily.
The mapping engine in RMXP still has another advantage in it's copy paste feature in how you can copy a block and paste it elsewhere in a map... without the nagging 'autotile' feature getting in the way.
In RMXP, you can copy some ground terrain drawn with an autotile and paste it into a body of water. The result is a square block of grass, no shoreline or anything. Good if you wanna avoid the autotile edges. If you want shorelines, you can still draw them later.
In RMVX, you can copy some ground terrain drawn with an autotile and paste it into a body of water. The result will always include the surrounding shoreline. No option available for the mapper to avoid it.
So, aside from the terrain tags scripts, the passables scripts, additional autotiles and tileset changers, and this problem.... Yeesh..... With scripts and wise use of the SHIFT-key (which does EXACTLY THE SAME as the select tool in RPG Maker XP), that problem is solved. In fact, I love RPG Maker VX for having a lot more autotiles without the use of scripts.
The directional passing always was a bit of an annoyance to me, to be honest. I was always able to set how the player should pass the tiles, but I didn't like how it was hard for me to make tiles where you could walk on but could cross the edges. I never managed to pull that off.
One thing that annoyed me to no end in RPG Maker XP was that events could be set to appear UNDER the player by default. Seriously. It didn't allow the use of switches to step on, magic circles that light up as you walk over them, etc. I almost never need the "Above Player" priority setting (except when two "layers" of tiles don't suffice for mapping), but "Below Player" is loved and treasured by me.
It's the little things that make me prefer VX, really.
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When pasting, use the FREAKIN' SHIFT KEY!!!??? :blink:
<_< Well, that solved that problem. I guess I should continue to work on my tileset terrain tag/passable script. ;) That, and see about adding tileset changing and other lost RPGMaker XP features.
Still... it is a pain to do things like increasing the number of tiles through a changer. Setting the system to only work with a single, unexpandable set of tiles was STOOOOPID! :rolleyes:
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Yeah, the shift key works wonders ^^
I mainly used RPG Maker XP because I mainly do work for people with big projects. (200+ maps)
I have written a script for having 999+ maps because a project would need it.
The mapping engine in RMXP is simply much better suited to projects of such size due to the one tileset per map concept.
For short and sweet games I would in most cases prefer RMVX due to its simplistic nature. The 5 tileset for an entire concept can work fine with small projects.
There are of course exceptions, but in general I see RMXP aimed more at epic game and RMVX more at small and fun games.
You can also view the idea of simplicity and ease in RMVX from the removal of terrain tags and wait for button input. While totally awesome for who knew what they did, newcomers typically have a hard time understanding them.
You can get tileset changers, but I feel mapping with those is much more tedious than using RMXP.
*hugs*
- Zeriab
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Tileset changers don't have to be tedious at all, I think. If you make sure that the new tileset has the same passability settings as the normal one, then there is no problem.
I do agree that the limit on the tilesets was stupid, though. Why wasn't there an option to make TileF, TileG, etc.? We could've gone to TileZ and be very happy about it. This is the only thing of RPG Maker VX that REALLY bugs me.
My own RPG Maker VX project does aim for quite some playtime (my goals is 5-10 hours). I do think it's possible, you just need to find the right resources and have some practice with VX before you can make the best out of it.
And for the people who can't use tileset changers: we also have parallex background maps! Those work perfectly and just need some invisible tiles to indicate what area does what. The only downside is that you can't use normal parallaxes anymore, unless you know how to script that.
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Ah yeah, I forgot about parallaxes. The downside of them is that they can take up quite a lot of space.
Tileset changers may not have to be tedious, but all I have seen so far are tedious.
I guess one could have several projects, one for each TileA-E bundle. That might be bearable.
Even so I still feel that RMVX is not aimed at large games.
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VX versus XP. Your view upon the two engines.
