A CIVIL GARDEN PARTY ~ 2K3 DISCUSSION

True.

Holy crap Mateui, I had no idea that you were here.

author=Solitayre
My biggest issue with rm2k3 is how casual and accepted it is to use rips from commercial games, but that's an issue with the community, not the program.

Mainly because most people aren't capable of creating custom graphics. So it's use rips or never make a game.

author=Sailerius
Or use some of the abundant creative commons resources that are free for use.

Or that.

author=Sailerius
Or use some of the abundant creative commons resources that are free for use.

Any sets you had in mind?

I would seriously welcome a decent CC collection - even better for knowing it's CC-compatible - rather than have to track dozens of individual files along the lines of "A wants credit, B has no restrictions, C can only be used in games, D was released by Enterbrain for official RMs only so I can't use that, E was on a Japanese site so I'd have to go back and translate it to look for terms, F was on some site but looks like part of it was copied from another tileset, and I don't remember where G-Z are from at all", which is about the patchwork I tend to end up with when I go looking for graphics beyond REFMAP. Though I have some hope for opengameart.org, eventually.


I'd love to be a little less shamelessly offtopic, but I doubt most people using 2k(3) and reluctant about using XP/VX are going to want to jump farther out to programming even more directly...

author=NewBlack
This is my purely subjective experience of games but with a few exceptions (where they're used in a way that's either inventive or in a way that appears very natural or is fitting - say in a fan game) I consider using rips to be a self-inflicted penalty and a blow to your game's overall quality from the outset. Especially in a straight-up RPG.

Your game could be amazing but anyone who has played the game that the resources are from isn't going to be able shake the feeling that your game is wearing another game's clothes, and I think that has a negative effect (to widely varying degrees depending on the game itself and how the resources have been used) on the game as a whole.

I would argue the lack of using rips in recent games has dramatically lowered the overall quality of most games released recently, mostly because without rips no one goes beyond using the RMVX RTP and its simple deriatives like VX REFMAP.

Back in the hayday of RM2K(3) in the mid-2000s, rips were used in abundance alongside custom resources like REFMAP and the RTPs and I felt like those games had character to them. Some games used only rips; some used just RTP; some used just custom resources (ie: REFMAP); some used a combination of rips, custom resources, and RTP; but throughout it all the resulting variation gave each game a sense of identity just by looking at them. Discounting the era where everyone suddenly started using nothing but Rudra rips, each and every game looked different from each other. The games actually looked interesting.

By contrast, most RMXP/VX games ended up using primarily RTP/VX-style REFMAP and nothing else, resulting in an almost constant stream of games that looked identical. Nevermind that the games may actually be good, I simply got tired of looking at one RTP/VX REFMAP/Kaduki infested game after another and I admit I haven't looked deeply into what kind of games are being made in the XP/VX community within the last 2~3 years or so.

Of course, rips have the underlying problem that you're stealing a third-party's work without permission and this is often brought up as an accepted double standard in contrast to stealing custom/original resources. I won't say it's proper to ignore the problem, but the RM community (at least back in the day) had a silent agreement that it was a necessary evil. I'm not sure when we changed to say "No rips! They're evil!", but we certainly haven't come up with a good replacement.

In closing, I guess what I'm trying to say is that rips are a valid means of constructing a game with, despite their faults. Many RM classics have used rips to varying degrees and many owe some of their popularity to the rips for making them stand out from the crowd. Rips shouldn't be discounted simply because they're rips, and I'd honestly prefer seeing games like those from the hayday of RM2K(3) than the current onslaught of RTP XP/VX games.

author=Link
Mainly because most people aren't capable of creating custom graphics. So it's use rips or never make a game.

People are actually, they just want their games to look like a polished SNES rpg. I suppose if there was an unknown force preventing people from using rips there would barely be any RM games to be made due to "it doesn't look like final fantasy ;_;" or too much work trying to make it look like FF. I really want to make a tutorial on how to make your own graphics specifically for RPG Maker, but in the end people are lazy and I doubt it would accomplish the goal of "JUST SLAP IN WHATEVER YOU CAN MAKE, MS PAINT WHAT THE FUCK EVER JUST DO IT DO IT FUCK SQUARESOFT NOSTALGIA FUCK IT"

People who would rather play the same game with rips over original, albeit sub-par graphics are assholes. You are encouraging a lack of creativity and shame on you.

Everybody is capable of making their own graphics, they are just incapable of swallowing their pride and making ugly graphics. Draw your own stuff and learn to settle for, "Well, it looks like a tree at least." The only excuse for using somebody else's material is a lack of time, because any media creation takes a lot of it and many would rather just create their game instead. What is especially depressing are people who spend a lifetime ripping, tweaking, and editing rips--so much time that they could've used it making their own stuff.

author=KingArthur
As a player, I do not care if the stuff I see are original creations, publicly available materials, or rips from other games. What I care about is whether what I see and experience is appealing, whether the game is fun in every sense of the word, whether my time spent was worth it. Is it wrong of me to hold such an attitude?

Yes, it is a wrong. Hold yourself to a better standard.

author=KingArthur
I would like an explanation of why it is wrong. Why am I wrong to expect to be properly entertained by games that I play?

It's wrong because you are encouraging creative laziness for your own petty, selfish impulses. You are capable of being better than the average Gameloft consumer.