RPG Maker has gotten progressively worse since XP
07-06-2018, 03:10 AM
RPG Maker XP was released in 2004 coming off the hype train that was RPG Maker 2003 (which was my favorite RPG Maker prior to being able to code) but it removed a few things from 2k/3 mainly facesets. Now, this really isn't a problem considering XP was shooting for a higher resolution and was probably expecting a bubble message system similar to the Final Fantasy series (just a guess).
XP was very much like 2k/3, a lot if not all event code was able to be ported over if someone just wanted to upgrade to XP from 2K/3 back in the day and introduced Ruby which I believe was using 1.8.2 and possibly 1.8.3 in the final updated release (someone quote me on this). This was a first for RPG Maker and brought in a lot of possibilities that were not possible for 2k/3, but I'm going to shatter anyone's dreams if they expect to make an A-RPG with XP or RPG Maker in generall. The sad thing is the first thing that much be gutted is how collisions are handled and moved over to a collision collider system and to use a circles not squares! This makes moving against half or triangle tiles pretty easy.
The next thing is nobody seemed to want to actually clone or implement the knockback function that all a-rpgs generally share and it's pretty easy math, haven't used rgss or even ruby in almost 3 years now so I'm rusty and the code below is not ruby but lua.
This is just plain lua, not linked to any game engine just a simple example of how A-RPGs handled knockbacks when getting hit.
But, that's enough of me talking about A-RPGs with RPG Maker and sadly MV is a total unoptimized mess and I would not touch it or waste time with it at all...
There's still tons of bugs that prior engines did not have because they were native desktop applications, at least shaders are easier to implement so that's a big +...
Once VX was released a lot of familiar things came back which was cool but... the mapping system was slammed dunked by MJ into the unholy garbage bin!
They continued with the same system and still claim people prefer it (prefer it my ass they do, even the Japanese despise that mapping system!) they simply do not listen to their customer base, also enterbrain isn't involved anymore don't blame them.
Pixel Game Maker MV is next in the line of the Maker series, it does bring back 4 layer mapping so XP mapping is back but I did not see anything for auto tiles, you will likely have to hand draw those bits... still better than the MV mapping system right?
Now, they knew they f. up so they created a TileD plugin which basically brings back XP mapping to MV but as I've stated earlier, MV is a unoptimized mess.
i7-6700k @4.8ghz
32gb ram ddr 3GHZ
GTX 1080 EVGA FTW at 2.1GHZ
1.5TB of disk space (I rely on a lot of online storage services... like one drive and google drive)
So, should I have issues with my PC? No not a chance, I actually skoffed and told them it's not the hardware but bad programming which laughably is FIXED by a plugin.
Imagine that.
It seems Kadakowa or even Degica don't care anymore and the magic RPG Maker had back in the day is just gone...dead gone! I did move to Game Maker over the years but even so I'm planning on switching again to something like Defold because well lua... And it uses a proper collider system, I have no problem with custom collisions as I've basically worked out a perfect top-down movement and collision system based on mana/zelda for a-rpgs but I've just been getting bored of GML and I could go to Godot and use C#.. yea no it's broken and not 100% supported by the dev team, it's still semi beta but gdscript is nice but also a "fake language" just semi better.
Anyways, that's enough ranting on how I felt RPG Maker went down the tubes over the years, XP2 or VX-Ace (as that is basically what VX was supposed to be minus it's still awful mapping system) could have been amazing and an actual contender against game maker but that obvious didn't happen and MV technologically is very behind Game Maker. XP was actually pretty good for it's time, actually could compete against game maker if you can script well that is.
Hopefully the next RPG Maker actually incorporates a TileD like level editor, they really need to stop giving excuses as to why variable tile sizes are a bad idea when just about everyone else is doing just THAT! They can set the defaults to what they want, and let users decide, or even just force 8x8, 16x16, 32x32, and 64x64 and call it a day. There excuse is in the RTP and I get that, but that does not mean you have to create resources for all those sizes at all! I mean, Pixel Game Maker is doing just this and everything seems to be 16x16 or 32x32 so I see no reason for excuses here.
I would even take a ported XP map system over what MV has and maybe even upgrade it a bit but it was pretty close to being perfect now that I look back in level editors.
XP was very much like 2k/3, a lot if not all event code was able to be ported over if someone just wanted to upgrade to XP from 2K/3 back in the day and introduced Ruby which I believe was using 1.8.2 and possibly 1.8.3 in the final updated release (someone quote me on this). This was a first for RPG Maker and brought in a lot of possibilities that were not possible for 2k/3, but I'm going to shatter anyone's dreams if they expect to make an A-RPG with XP or RPG Maker in generall. The sad thing is the first thing that much be gutted is how collisions are handled and moved over to a collision collider system and to use a circles not squares! This makes moving against half or triangle tiles pretty easy.
The next thing is nobody seemed to want to actually clone or implement the knockback function that all a-rpgs generally share and it's pretty easy math, haven't used rgss or even ruby in almost 3 years now so I'm rusty and the code below is not ruby but lua.
Code:
local spd = 2
local degree = -1
local dir = degree
local herox = 0
local heroy = 10
local enemyx = 0
local enemyy = 20
x = herox
y = heroy
degree = math.deg(math.atan2(heroy - enemyy, enemyx - herox)) -- radians to degrees and simple x / y placements of hero and enemy
x = x + math.cos(degree) * spd -- lua does not have a += operator
y = y + math.sin(degree) * spd -- lua does not have a += operator
print(x) -0.8961472322583403
print(y) 8.212006672798884This is just plain lua, not linked to any game engine just a simple example of how A-RPGs handled knockbacks when getting hit.
But, that's enough of me talking about A-RPGs with RPG Maker and sadly MV is a total unoptimized mess and I would not touch it or waste time with it at all...
There's still tons of bugs that prior engines did not have because they were native desktop applications, at least shaders are easier to implement so that's a big +...
Once VX was released a lot of familiar things came back which was cool but... the mapping system was slammed dunked by MJ into the unholy garbage bin!
They continued with the same system and still claim people prefer it (prefer it my ass they do, even the Japanese despise that mapping system!) they simply do not listen to their customer base, also enterbrain isn't involved anymore don't blame them.
Pixel Game Maker MV is next in the line of the Maker series, it does bring back 4 layer mapping so XP mapping is back but I did not see anything for auto tiles, you will likely have to hand draw those bits... still better than the MV mapping system right?
Now, they knew they f. up so they created a TileD plugin which basically brings back XP mapping to MV but as I've stated earlier, MV is a unoptimized mess.
i7-6700k @4.8ghz
32gb ram ddr 3GHZ
GTX 1080 EVGA FTW at 2.1GHZ
1.5TB of disk space (I rely on a lot of online storage services... like one drive and google drive)
So, should I have issues with my PC? No not a chance, I actually skoffed and told them it's not the hardware but bad programming which laughably is FIXED by a plugin.
Imagine that.
It seems Kadakowa or even Degica don't care anymore and the magic RPG Maker had back in the day is just gone...dead gone! I did move to Game Maker over the years but even so I'm planning on switching again to something like Defold because well lua... And it uses a proper collider system, I have no problem with custom collisions as I've basically worked out a perfect top-down movement and collision system based on mana/zelda for a-rpgs but I've just been getting bored of GML and I could go to Godot and use C#.. yea no it's broken and not 100% supported by the dev team, it's still semi beta but gdscript is nice but also a "fake language" just semi better.
Anyways, that's enough ranting on how I felt RPG Maker went down the tubes over the years, XP2 or VX-Ace (as that is basically what VX was supposed to be minus it's still awful mapping system) could have been amazing and an actual contender against game maker but that obvious didn't happen and MV technologically is very behind Game Maker. XP was actually pretty good for it's time, actually could compete against game maker if you can script well that is.
Hopefully the next RPG Maker actually incorporates a TileD like level editor, they really need to stop giving excuses as to why variable tile sizes are a bad idea when just about everyone else is doing just THAT! They can set the defaults to what they want, and let users decide, or even just force 8x8, 16x16, 32x32, and 64x64 and call it a day. There excuse is in the RTP and I get that, but that does not mean you have to create resources for all those sizes at all! I mean, Pixel Game Maker is doing just this and everything seems to be 16x16 or 32x32 so I see no reason for excuses here.
I would even take a ported XP map system over what MV has and maybe even upgrade it a bit but it was pretty close to being perfect now that I look back in level editors.
