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Role Playing (Games)

RPG Maker XP Gets Advanced With 2D RPG Creation 39

Posted by simoniker from the choose-your-own-adventure dept.
Thanks to Insert Credit for its brief news that Enterbrain's "RPG Maker XP has been released [for Japanese PC users]. Lots of features added, lots taken away. You can download the [Japanese-language] demo, or check what's new on Zepy's page, since he went into a bit of detail about it." An in-game screenshot and several example pages show a complex 2D RPG creation utilty, and Zepy elaborates: "This time you can finally have high resolution/full colour graphics! And Ogg sound! No limit to character and map chip sizes! You can directly program your own scripts... with the triple map layers, you can have cloud or fog overlays!" Although the console RPG Maker series has been released in the West by Agetec, the PC version has yet to be officially translated and released.
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RPG Maker XP Gets Advanced With 2D RPG Creation More

RPG Maker XP Gets Advanced With 2D RPG Creation

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  • This is awesome... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ubrkl ( 310861 )
    I can't wait to see (and help make) some of the games that come out of this. It means good things for the homebrew/hobbyist programmers and artists.
    • Looks pretty lame. Maybe decent for those so-called "rpg" console-style games, but how does it compare to a real rpg engine like neverwinter nights? From the brief descriptions it doesn't really seem to compare favourably.

      Daniel

      • Re:This is awesome... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2004 @07:20AM (#9820531)
        It has a combat system and not much else (okay, there are items, monsters, characters, etc defined for your perusal, but you can just delete them all and work from scratch). From there on the creativity of the user is required. You may not be able to fully customize your character, but everything else can be done. If the "DM" (the person making the game) is competent, you'll have a blast playing through a deep story with branching paths, lots of side quests and lots of freedom, if the guy is incompetent you get a bad experience.

        The looks don't mean anything, ask our resident Nethack players.
        • In the announcement they note that Ruby scripting has been added in this version, so presumably you could actually add quite sophisticated game logic. It just depends on how rich they made the scripting API.

  • Bitching about fan translation in 3... 2... 1... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2004 @04:18AM (#9819954) Journal

    I remember RPG Maker 2000... Was translated from japanese to english by some russian fellow. All hell broke loose with the original developer, because everyone was downloading the ripped english version of the game and not the japanese version. They immediately went on a berserk and condemned that they would not release any upcoming version of the game to the US or to Europe and that they wont translate it at all because of what happened with RPGM2k. Brilliant.

    Great product meets small but active niche, gets translated ( rather badly but hey, who cares... ) and the original developer fails to see how potentially lucrative an english release may be, instead claiming they'll never release to the US or Europe again. Seems like they mixed up their bitterness at being outdone by random people with their business sense...

    • i wonder if their scripting engine is so bad at following logic too as their heads.

      1. we have a japanese language only game.
      2. some fan translates it.
      3. the translation gets popular.
      4. we want to stop piracy
      5. so we say we'll never make an official english language version.

    • Agreed. If they released an english language version on the PC I'd buy it the day it comes out. Please no console versions unless you either include a full set of tools (that means a painting program!) or let them interface with the PC. On a second thought, making text heavy games on any console (but the DS maybe) must be a real pain in the ass.
    • /agree

      It doesn't make any sense to NOT release a game that's doing so amazingly well hundreds of thousands of people are willing to download cracked/hacked versions of it.

      That's like saying you don't like money.
    • Wow. That's pretty dissapointing. I found this program series a few years ago, and I've had a blast playing around making my own RPG creations ever since. I haven't finished anything, but that isn't really the point as far as I'm concerned. I had no idea the program was developed by such an oblivious team. I mean, I knew the version I had to use was pirated, but I'd just assumed soon enough that there would be an English version.

      Out of curiousity, can someone a little more familiar with Japanese business
      • First of all, it seems that most everyone who's posted here thus-far have forgotten that Don Miguel (that russian guy who translated RPG Maker 2000 for us years ago) along with other "distributors" of the English version of RPG Maker 2000 had done what Enterbrain asked them to do; take down the files and put up a form where people can email Enterbrain and tell them what they think about the game, if they would be interested in any new versions, and how much they were willing to pay. (I, for one, said I'd p

    • Re:Bitching about fan translation in 3... 2... 1.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A little bird told me that an English version of RPG Maker XP (or only the trial version at first) is in the works at Enterbrain and should be made public (official website) in a few days/weeks.
    • Dear god.

      As someone who was huge in the rpgmaker scene during all of this, this is almost completely wrong.

      They did throw a fit about the translation, but weren't able to shut down the distribution. Prior to the release of RPG Tsukuru 2003, they circulated a survey to gauge interest in an actual translation. Because of this, almost every reputable website in the scene - including that of the original translator - took down the downloadable program.

      2003 was also translated once it was clear it wouldn't se

  • New feature: Ruby-like script (Score:4, Informative)

    by Snowy_loves_you ( 606223 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2004 @04:18AM (#9819956) Homepage Journal

    One of new feature of this version is Ruby [ruby-lang.org]-like script langage "RGSS". This feature gives developers a programing interface.

    A description [enterbrain.co.jp](Japanese) and screenshot [enterbrain.co.jp].

  • let see if they actually release it over here if its not pirated this time, i'd rather pay full price for this than not show my monetary respect for the developer's excellent work

    i may have to learn Japanese and import it if they don't release it here

  • Something I'm worried about (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's a thing built into RPG Maker XP that will periodically go online to submit your registration data, to prevent game copying... this is the primary hinderance to the translation so far. I really hope this is cracked, and soon, so an English version can happen. This looks much nicer than RM2k/2k3.

    RPG Advocate [phylomortis.com] has some nice translations of ASCII/Enterbrain's official pages.

    But it'll finally be nice to develop games in double the resolution (and unlimited colors) of RPG Maker 2000/2003... (I've made a
  • Back in the RPG Maker 95 days (Or was it called something else? I can't remember), I was quite enthusiast about this program (I never managed to do anything good with it though), but since the release of NWN, one must work very hard to try to match it.

    But anyway, I came to the conclusion, after having spent countless hours working on NWN scripts (It was quite fun...), that I was better investing my time coding *real* programs (There's no money to make with NWN games, it's forbidden by the license.)
    • NWN and RPG Maker aren't meant to let you make games for money. The point is to take your ideas and put them into a game for those who can't create their own (RPG Maker) or to translate D&D campaigns from a table-top setting to a computer game so you can play them online with friends (NWN).

  • Alternative RPG makers in North America... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sentack ( 610177 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2004 @08:48AM (#9821134)
    Well I would love to see this system come out in North America / Europe, but in the mean time and if the developer never does release it, at least we have a couple alternatives that I know about at least.

    You have first, Neverwinter Nights. Which everyone pretty much knows about. Some love it, others hate it. It's also DnD which makes some happy and others groan. Over all it's at least one alternative.

    The other, That I know of, is Blades of Avernum (http://www.avernum.com/blades/index.html [avernum.com]), which is by Spiderweb Games developer, Jeff Vogal. For those in the know of small press, independant developer, old school Western Style RPG's, Jeff is often looked at as the current king of such games. Low quality graphics but high quality game play.

    Now, I used to know of a few smaller old DOS apps that where RPG maker-ish applications. And this is beyond Bard's Tale Construction Set and the others like it but, those where far and few between. One of them, if I recall correctly (Verge), had you scripting everything, I mean nearly everything. Combat system and all. But lord knows where those games are like today.

    Sentack
  • Coldstone [ambrosiasw.com] from Ambrosia is very similiar to RPGMaker. I never had the priviledge of trying either system but I think they both have wonderful potential for the creative types.

    Simple graphics is not indicative of a great game. A few console RPG's that come to mind, Shining in the Darkness and the Shining FOrce series on the Sega Genesis, Final Fantasy Tactics on the PSOne and the Fallout series for the PC/Mac.
    If the game is fun, immersive and have minimal bugs to detract from the fun and immersion then we h
  • I would love to see this get released in N.A. with a proper english translation...

    On a side note: Is there any sort of open-source RPG out there with this type of isometric view? ie. NON-3D, 2D - pixel people?
  • Where rpg maker really does stand out is teaching some basic concepts of game design. It takes almost everything technical out of the picture, and leaves you with some simple scripting and dialog box editing. This makes it a great learning tool for kids starting out with programming and computers. I'm speaking from experience, I was 10 or so when I messed with an old version of RPG maker. It got me interested in programming and I went on to DarkBASIC and Cybasic. Then C++, perl, php, and python. The simple

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