Future of RPG Maker Speculation

[Valkysas]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

there are content delivery systems in iphone applications already. several comic book publishers have their own applications that you can use to buy digital comics. Free stuff is also available.

So obviously downloading other things through a thing is fine.

but is creating a thing with a thing and uploading it through the thing for other people to download fine? I do not know. I like the word "thing".

I'm just sure that no matter how well the editor worked in a completely touch-based environment, the games would control like garbage. I've tried a lot of games on the platform, including highly-praised top-down RPGs like Zenonia. They all control like crap.

in any game that you need to move a character via any means other than tilting the device, the character will control horribly. if you tap where the character should go, then it can be okay, provided you don't need the character to do anything else, like attack, or talk to people.

you need buttons.

[Thutmose]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

I'm going to address some of these criticisms.

I find it hard to believe out of all the nearly 60 million iPhone and the 2 million iPad users in the world none of them are interested in gaming. Further, projections estimate that the iPhone will have about 100 million users by the end of 2011 - if current iPhone owners aren't intersted in "real" games, who's to say that the 40+ million new ones coming won't be? Or the other millions of future iPhone, Android, and other smart-phone users?

If all the games for Apple's platform suck, then that merely means there is an opportunity to fill a void and make a profit by creating good games. Seeing a poor quality product in the market is not an excuse to stay away from that market; it is, rather, a very good reason to get into that market and do a better job of meeting customer needs than the competition and thus capturing market leadership.

There is a major difference between choosing to adopt a platform as a consumer and choosing to adopt it as a businessman/developer. Seeing poor quality apps as a potential customer is a big, red, flag and a warning to stay away. But when you are in business, seeing poor quality apps is a great indicator that there is tremendous undeveloped potential that you can take advantage of for both your benefit and that of the consumers.

And an absence of perceived quality in presently available games/apps is not a valid indicator of the potential of a platform architecture, nor does a current bad platform architecture implementation mean that all future incarnations of that architecture will be bad as well. i.e. If the Apple iPad sucks, that doesn't mean that iPad 2 will, or all of the other tablets that will be coming out in the future. If there are no good control schemes for top-down RPGs presently, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to do with that architecture, or some future version of it.

If no tablet ever can control games well, then a wise businessperson might develop and market a bluetooth game controller. Or develop some other means of overcoming that obstacle, like a "button bar" that clips onto the tablet, adding buttons.

I don't see any fundamental reason or flaw in tablet computing (or with the iPad specifically) that should entirely prevent something like a tablet RPGM from being both profitable for the developers and enjoyable for the consumers, now and especially not in the future.

Proper design, well thought out user interfaces, and quality software. It's not easy or simple to make software with those three things. But it's certainly worth it and would mostly negate the major issues, imo.

[Wavelength]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Hey Thutmose, some of the stuff you've mentioned in this thread has been absolutely brilliant, but I wanted to give you a little warning, because I feel like you may be falling into a trap with a couple of the things you said in your last post.

See, a lot of what you said sounds great for a game that you make, but not a game that other people make with your program.

One of the greatest criticisms of the iPad is that it's more of a content consumption oriented device than content creation. And Apple's restrictions on free speech are annoying at best and Orwellian at worst. But, I doubt that even Apple will succeed in the long term with policies like that. I think they'll have to change their tune soon enough. If they don't, there is going to be plenty of other, better, tablets shortly that are much more free & open that will take down Apple's restricted platform. imo

Google or others may take it down at some point (anyone know if Richard Branson is looking to get into the portable devices market? lol), but even if they do get better with time, I don't see Apple's free-speech restrictions opening to the point that they'd allow user-made games (not people who purchased the development kit and submitted their game through Apple's months-long standard review) to make it online without some kind of control that would seriously hamstring sharing. I don't think Perversion and Paper would qualify for their content standards if I submitted it as a stand-alone app, for example, and that's tamer than at least a third of the games that are out in our community right now.

When your game (or demo) is ready to be uploaded to the store, you can take screen-shots of different areas, with captions, and add them to a package. You can then add descriptions, set up previews, tags/categories, and other metadata to your package which would be parsed by the central sharing system to generate a web-page/game-page for your game (which could be customized with different styles). Of course there would be a review & ratings system, as well as comments.

Not entirely sure, but my guess is that the iPad can't support this, and if it can, I don't think you'd be allowed to make something big enough (due to the app size restrictions) to make it happen. Then again, you're the technical wizard, so I'll stop my blaring on that point.

Without the traditional buttons to use, how would people be controlling characters? Maybe it's time to think about new, potentially innovative, control schemes.

Touch is the clear and obvious choice for control. But ought it be something like having "buttons" appear on the screen corners? Would that be terribly anachronistic, if not utterly painful? Maybe a combination of on-screen buttons for some things and touch controls for others. Maybe even take advantage of the accelerometer & compass for a more "interactive" gaming experience.

Onscreen buttons work horribly (like Valk mentioned, even good games like Zenonia are horribly clumsy--I probably miss 10% of my button hits in that game). If you could find some way to make a touch-and-drag-to-act control scheme work for any possible application that someone might want to use when they create a game... well, more power to you, because that would be awesome, but I think also nearly impossible. And even then the only way to perfect it would be to use a stylus, which I believe are only available on the aftermarket. I don't see the compass or accelerometer doing anything more than being entertaining minigame gimmicks people could use in game-making; there's a reason the Pokemon Pikachu was a cute little gadget and nothing more.

For things like battles, you could imagine choosing a spell from a spell-wheel (or something like that) using your finger, then tapping the enemy you want to hit.

Or even think of magic & spells in a new way. Like casting a spell involves "connecting" various elemental/magic glyphs by drawing on the screen, allowing you to combine different spell aspect together dynamically:

e.g. You have an enemy that, due to your having cast Libra previously which reveled the enemy's stats, you know is weak against both fire and poison. Instead of having to waste two turns casting first poison, then fire, you hit the "cast spell" button which brings up a "wheel" of spell glyphs. You could then place your finger on "Fire" and drag across the screen to "Poison", which would combine the elements and cast a spell with the attributes of both.

Leveling up spells, then, could mean acquiring new glyphs with different effects (e.g. fire, ice, double elemental damage, paralysis, Demi, etc.), and being able to level up your "wheel" so that you can cast spells that have more glyphs in sequence (so you'd start out with only being able to cast a spell with one or two glyph components but could level up to cast a spell with maybe ten at the highest possible level).

Now, this is where I really feel like you're falling into the trap. Because this kind of stuff would be awesome (and not entirely hard to implement) in an RPG that you made and submitted to the App Store. Like I said, I have complete confidence that you could blow anything there away. But... unless you can program extremely detailed, sensitive recognition into your Maker (maybe people want to just hit a button to cast a spell. Maybe they want the spells to be based off of how many times you can tap the screen instead), there's no way you're going to be able to respond to every kind of touch command a player might want to use in a game, and as a result, the games that people make wouldn't control well. So you'd have to get closer to hard-coding things like the "elemental wheel", and now you're running into the same problems that RPGM3 did, where there are a lot of things you can't control and it takes extreme effort to make games of different genres.

I don't want to sound too negative, because you have some amazing ideas here, and you've proven before that you can actually put your ideas into action, which is awesome. Honestly, you're the kind of guy I could see myself going into business with someday! But I just wanted to say, make sure you thoroughly research whether that sharing platform would be feasible on the iPad before you get to it (and consider working with a more online-friendly system like the Xbox 360, PS3, or maybe the PSP?), and be careful not to include schemes that would only work in the RPG you have in mind, but in any game of any genre.

[Thutmose]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

I don't see Apple's free-speech restrictions opening to the point that they'd allow user-made games (not people who purchased the development kit and submitted their game through Apple's months-long standard review) to make it online without some kind of control that would seriously hamstring sharing. I don't think Perversion and Paper would qualify for their content standards if I submitted it as a stand-alone app, for example, and that's tamer than at least a third of the games that are out in our community right now.

That is an area that I would have to do more research in.

I don't know what Apple would think, but here is my thought process - standalone apps with racy content get denied. But, apps that let you access content from the internet which may or may not be racy get a pass. They don't prevent people from looking at porn with their Safari app, I could only hope that they would have a similar attitude with an app that lets people download and play games made by others.

I have a couple books on the business side of app development, I'm reading them as time permits. And there is other research that I need to do.

But, as I've said, I am interested in making something that is cross platform. And if Apple doesn't want an RPGM app on their platform, I'll be more than happy to look elsewhere. I have no love for Apple (and especially not their censorship of LGBT related apps/books), nor am I specifically committed to the iPad. It's just what I'll be working with for my job - and, guess what? My company is looking to me to make a recommendation on the best platforms for innovative educational software. If Apple won't let us release an app that allows high school students to write, do activities, generate and share other content related to "controversial" topics (which are part of standard curriculum) like the holocaust, civil rights (including LGBT rights), and other such topics, then I won't be recommending the iPad.

TBH I already know what my recommendation will be: the iPad has too much risk associated with it to be a good platform to fully adopt. And Apple's attitude in the past has been "Make the app, invest tons of time and money, and then we'll tell you whether or not we'll allow you in our magical walled garden. If no, then it just sucks to be you". It should only be a part of a much more diverse software development strategy that includes other platforms (like Mac, Windows, Android, Linux, and other devices) as well as a focus on cross-platform compatibility.

Not entirely sure, but my guess is that the iPad can't support this, and if it can, I don't think you'd be allowed to make something big enough (due to the app size restrictions) to make it happen. Then again, you're the technical wizard, so I'll stop my blaring on that point.

Basically, a game "package" (complete game or demo) would just be a dynamically generated text document (or several documents) that includes all the parameters required to make that package playable on another person's iPad, likely taking advantage of the built in SQL engine (being as I already work with SQL). That is, a package would only be a couple megabytes at the most.

Now, when it comes to custom sprites, and other graphics, there are other things to consider. Depending on the limitations of the iPad as a programming platform, it may not be feasible to incorporate large-scale customized graphics. It may work out to be similar to the console RPGMs where there are a limited number of slots for custom elements. This is something that I will have to give more thought to as I learn more about programming the iPad, so I'll have a better idea of the limitations as time goes on.

Onscreen buttons work horribly (like Valk mentioned, even good games like Zenonia are horribly clumsy--I probably miss 10% of my button hits in that game). If you could find some way to make a touch-and-drag-to-act control scheme work for any possible application that someone might want to use when they create a game... well, more power to you, because that would be awesome, but I think also nearly impossible. And even then the only way to perfect it would be to use a stylus, which I believe are only available on the aftermarket. I don't see the compass or accelerometer doing anything more than being entertaining minigame gimmicks people could use in game-making; there's a reason the Pokemon Pikachu was a cute little gadget and nothing more.

That's part of the challenge. And challenges are fun.

And Apple doesn't have an official stylus, but you can buy one for less than ten bucks. I did.

Now, this is where I really feel like you're falling into the trap. Because this kind of stuff would be awesome (and not entirely hard to implement) in an RPG that you made and submitted to the App Store. Like I said, I have complete confidence that you could blow anything there away. But... unless you can program extremely detailed, sensitive recognition into your Maker (maybe people want to just hit a button to cast a spell. Maybe they want the spells to be based off of how many times you can tap the screen instead), there's no way you're going to be able to respond to every kind of touch command a player might want to use in a game, and as a result, the games that people make wouldn't control well. So you'd have to get closer to hard-coding things like the "elemental wheel", and now you're running into the same problems that RPGM3 did, where there are a lot of things you can't control and it takes extreme effort to make games of different genres.

No, I do realize that not every person making a game would like to use my elemental wheel idea. And I am painfully aware of the limitations of RPGM3.

The elemental wheel is just one example of one potential interface for battles - it's not necessarily going to be the only one.

One of people's biggest complaints about battle systems in RPGM is that they are very difficult, if not impossible to customize. That is something that I would like to address in a new RPGM.

In other words - the elemental wheel may be one option, but another option might be a traditional interface, and another might be something more different like using your finger to drag through enemies making "slices" where your character will cut for added damage bonuses or somesuch.

And maybe the person making the game won't want to use MP to fuel magic. Maybe they will want to create spells that reduce both HP, MP, and work in a new point system they called "Blood Lust" or something.

Or maybe they want everything to be a function of available HP. Or perhaps instead of basing battle dynamics on locked-in stats (STR, SPD, AGL, etc.), they want to incorporate new stats that are based on variables. If they want something new added, they can do it. If they want to set up a variable that is used to count steps since the last battle, and have that shown on the battle screen as a new "bar" that appears under the character's name, then they can do it.

If they want each point of damage done to an enemy added to a variable linked to a custom added on-screen display (a bar, gauge, what have you), then they just need to go to "Customize Battle System" and tap "Add New Gauge" then select what variable controls the gauge, what the range is (1 to 500,000 or 1% to 100%, etc.) and then tell the system what happens when the gauge reaches a certain point (e.g. for a "Blood Lust" gauge, at 50% add 10% to battle damage, at 100% turn a switch on, the switch being used by the system to determine whether or not a certain character can execute some special attack, the special attack would then lower the gauge back to 0%).

I want a new RPGM to be customizable, flexible, and powerful. But I do not plan on making it like RPGM2, of which I am also painfully aware how difficult it is to change anything given the complexity of the actions required to do so.

If I make this new RPGM, it's not going to let you completely rewrite the code, and go through all the pain, like RPGM2, but it's not going to lock you in like all the other RPGMs.

You want a new battle gauge? A few taps and you got it. You want to use an ATB system instead of turn based? Tap. Done. A new on-screen indicator based on the value stored by a variable (or multiple variables)? Just tell it what kind of display you want, which variables, and where you want it to appear. Want to remove a built-in gauge or replace it with something else? Make a game with no battles? Use hundreds of variables to create complex puzzles? You get the idea.

I don't want to sound too negative, because you have some amazing ideas here, and you've proven before that you can actually put your ideas into action, which is awesome. Honestly, you're the kind of guy I could see myself going into business with someday! But I just wanted to say, make sure you thoroughly research whether that sharing platform would be feasible on the iPad before you get to it (and consider working with a more online-friendly system like the Xbox 360, PS3, or maybe the PSP?), and be careful not to include schemes that would only work in the RPG you have in mind, but in any game of any genre.

Thanks.

I will be doing the research for my job, anyway. So I will be putting a lot of thought into this before I invest too much time into actually coding things. And I certainly haven't decided whether or not I am going to do this, or whether or not I'll have the time.

[Wavelength]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Well it sounds like you've got it as under control as you want to have it, so even though I have a few reservations, I'll stop with my objections and just wish you the best of luck, at least until you're (if you do go for it) actually designing the Maker and ask for advice.

But I do want to say that the gauges are a good idea, and the XML doc output for an entire game is brilliant.

[Thutmose]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Well it sounds like you've got it as under control as you want to have it, so even though I have a few reservations, I'll stop with my objections and just wish you the best of luck, at least until you're (if you do go for it) actually designing the Maker and ask for advice.

But I do want to say that the gauges are a good idea, and the XML doc output for an entire game is brilliant.

Thanks.

My philosophy is, basically, at some point you have to stop worrying about all the minutia and just do it. When you get caught up in trying to find every flaw and address it before you do something, you will never get around to doing it. Take care and think about what you can, then move on - there's no good reason to try and pick something apart entirely before you even get started.

If going forward without thinking things through 100% means you make some mistakes, it's not the end of the world. Learn from the mistakes and keep going.

Which boils down to this - If you want to get stuff done, rather than only thinking about "how great it would be if", then remember these two points:

• Nothing will ever be perfect. Worrying about it is pointless.
• Mistakes are good (as long as you're learning from them, rather than just letting them upset you), they are desirable, and you will never make any progress if you are not willing to make mistakes.

Not exactly giving advice here, but I know it can seem, at times, like I'm dismissive if criticism - I just want people to understand why I often pass over such things without so much as a second glance. It's not because I don't care, or that I don't value constructive criticism, it is merely that being overly concerned by it isn't at all productive.

The fastest way of getting things done is just walking around the obstacles rather than trying to leap over them.

That's how I think, anyway.

[Spirit]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Cleared by Wavelength:

Please stop derailing the topic, Spirit. This is the third time you've shouted "WHO HAS THE IPHONE" in this topic. That is not what the topic is about.

[Gros Minou]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

I have a LG Wine . Recently I founds it's was a 3G phone .

[Thutmose]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Some updates -

I got my iPad & my new Macbook Pro. I have a lot of work for my job to do, and I am going to be working on some iPad app development as I have a presentation at the big sales-conference at the end of July. I've got four computers in my office now and I use all of them at once. :P

One of the things I'll be investigating is the programming of educational games. So there will be a lot of things I'll be learning with that which could apply to an iPad RPGM.

I'm looking into Cocos2d game engine and it looks promising, so far. I'll keep posting updates when I have something.

[DreamerGuy]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Exciting stuff!!!
Keep up the good work!

[Mcardy]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

I wish Enterbrain would get the hint that their one default "system" that they include per RPG Maker can and should include all the previous systems.

So, I'm tired of the First-Person battle systems, but yet Tsukuru 4 and RPGM2k have ATB side-to-side battle systems. Enterbrain needs to include a choice of 3-5 battle systems, stat systems, and expand the Run-Time Package to include all previous graphics/monsters/characters/sounds/music.

Not very many people are patient enough to learn Ruby, and those that do spend so much time doing that that their actual project has to be put on hold just because they want a side-view battle system. If they could choose that in the interface itself, it would be a LOT more accessible to people.

That, and while using the Ruby script to change things like the way Strength influences attack--there should be a dumbed down version of it in a menu. "Battle Stats", like Attack Power = [2x STR + Weapon / Monster DEF] and you can just plug in the formula given a few simple options.

Also, it seems too hard to program "special attacks", such as a life-stealing attack, or a sword attack that say, does 1/2 damage but always hits in the first turn of battle. Adding simple options such as that into the menu system rather than forcing people to use Ruby would make the series way easier to work with.

[Sejon]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Very much agreed. I think a text-dominated front-view battle system isn't in the slightest bit visually engaging for a player and it perplexes me as to why they scrapped the side-view system in RPG Maker 2003 to revert back to this nonsense. Fighting front-view battles is mind-numbingly boring because everything feels so static -- at least seeing your animated party members lunging forward to attack and casting spells on the screen would add some life to it.

They ought to have built-in option for a few different battle systems, as Blaze said.

Mind you, my ultimate dream is for a Tactical RPG Maker, with choices for flat (ala Fire Emblem) or isometric (ala FF Tactics) playing fields. *swoon* But I doubt that's ever going to happen.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Future of RPG Maker Speculation

Personally I'm a fan of RPGM1's battle system. Speediest first-person system I've ever seen. But having experienced RPG Tsukuru 4's battle system first-hand, that system rules all and they need to bring it back.