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RPGMAKER VX ACE -- WHAT'S NEW AND DIFFERENT AND BETTER (AND WORSE?)
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Lys86
2534
Lys86
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CloseHi everybody! I'm back, and I'm now the proud owner of RPGMaker VX Ace and have the game-making bug again. So... what sort of things does a former user of 2K and 2K3 and (to a lesser extent) XP need to know about VX Ace in order to find success? Tooling around in the editor it seems much the same, but are there any major pitfalls or version-specific deficiencies of which to be aware?
I'm excited. ^_^
Lys
I'm excited. ^_^
Lys
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
2K3 to Ace is pretty much a straight upgrade, unless you really just were in love with the super slow ATB and hate scripting really bad. There are several really good ATB scripts out there that give you a lot more control over how combat flows than 2K3 did. Pre-made scripts aren't hard to use at all.
XP to Ace has one major downside: the mapping. XP is still the best at mapping because it's the only RPG Maker with three layers, and also the only one where tilesets don't have a maximum size. However XP's events and database were missing so many important things that 2K3 had that I can't blame anyone for upgrading to Ace.
New things that weren't in XP or 2K3 are actually kinda rare. There are plenty of features that were missing from one or the other, but few features that are brand new. It's kinda just XP's scripting and graphics but with all the event/database functionality of 2K3 added back in.
There are a few important new things though. You can control damage formulas for all skills (including normal attacks) without any scripting, I guess that's cool. It can finally create a working installer; 2K3 and XP's installers were flawed. There's an awful faceset maker that makes baby Jesus cry. There are a lot of minor new options for event commands, but you'll see them as you use the program.
XP to Ace has one major downside: the mapping. XP is still the best at mapping because it's the only RPG Maker with three layers, and also the only one where tilesets don't have a maximum size. However XP's events and database were missing so many important things that 2K3 had that I can't blame anyone for upgrading to Ace.
New things that weren't in XP or 2K3 are actually kinda rare. There are plenty of features that were missing from one or the other, but few features that are brand new. It's kinda just XP's scripting and graphics but with all the event/database functionality of 2K3 added back in.
There are a few important new things though. You can control damage formulas for all skills (including normal attacks) without any scripting, I guess that's cool. It can finally create a working installer; 2K3 and XP's installers were flawed. There's an awful faceset maker that makes baby Jesus cry. There are a lot of minor new options for event commands, but you'll see them as you use the program.
Lys86
2534
Yeowch, is that true? I don't really like that at all. I guess you can probably work around it if every battle sets a switch and then listen for that switch to restart the music when you come back from it, but... it would be nice to not have to do that.
author=Mihel
BGMs DON'T START OVER AFTER BATTLES.
This doesn't happen with the one Ace project I've worked to near-completion. I've not used any scripts, or event commands, to force this either.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
It sounds like a nice feature, if true! I am sick of only ever hearing the first ten seconds of each song. But I'm sure you can change it to your liking.
author=Marrendauthor=MihelThis doesn't happen with the one Ace project I've worked to near-completion. I've not used any scripts, or event commands, to force this either.
BGMs DON'T START OVER AFTER BATTLES.
I think he's talking about Ace's ability to pause and resume (read: get and set the current position of a BGM in a track) music that Ace finally added. By default Ace will remember the position of the map music when a battle starts and after the fight will resume the map music at the same position.
One downgrade with Ace from 2k3 is the capabilities of events has been downgraded. For example, variables as pointers, inverting switches, and camera control. You can replicate that functionality it with scripts and scripting calls but you really shouldn't have to and it adds to the "two steps forward one step backward" image of RPG Maker.
e:
Forgot, one of the nice new features from VX and is in Ace is the ability to loop OGG file from a certain position instead of a track completing and repeating from the beginning. I don't think it's mentioned in any documentation though. Here's a tutorial of how to do it (thought we had one here, couldn't find it) if you're interested.
Oh yeah, use OGGs over MP3s if the choice is available. I don't think you can loop MP3s and OGGs sound better than MP3s when encoded at lower KBps which saves space if you pay attention to that.
Mihel
0
author=Marrendauthor=MihelThis doesn't happen with the one Ace project I've worked to near-completion. I've not used any scripts, or event commands, to force this either.
BGMs DON'T START OVER AFTER BATTLES.
It doesn't work in test mode (although I've written a little snippet to bypass this, if you're intrested shoot me a PM). If you open the game with the .exe file it works just fine.
Ace is pretty bad with handling fonts if you want to use anything but the default one. If you want to change it, you'll likely need patch scripts to fix the inconsistent tracking and stray boxes that'll appear in description boxes and various other places.
Oddly, VX didn't have this problem. :(
Oddly, VX didn't have this problem. :(
author=Melkino
Ace is pretty bad with handling fonts if you want to use anything but the default one. If you want to change it, you'll likely need patch scripts to fix the inconsistent tracking and stray boxes that'll appear in description boxes and various other places.
Oddly, VX didn't have this problem. :(
Actually I tried VX too, it has a font problem with Qlassik (I would look over the old screenshot I made for comparison but I'm lazy orz). The stray boxes is mostly because the data system is in Japanese and you have to edit it. Otherwise, yeah, making fonts work in VXAce is tricky so you would need Mithran's script for that.
Xenomic
1752
Hmmm...so VX Ace really isn't THAT much different from 2k3 then huh...? Can it use everything that 2k3 uses or no? That's my main concern aside from the scripting process (and the fact that moving a game over from one maker to another would just be headache inducing).
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well, it uses graphics at twice the resolution. So if you want shitty SNES rips, you'll need to convert them. But you can use shitty PSX rips instead now!
All I ask, lys, is : don't use the default sprites, I beg of you!
What lys, Lysander, lysander86..aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh (fainted).
What lys, Lysander, lysander86..aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh (fainted).
author=LockeZ
But you can use shitty PSX rips instead now!
There was nothing stopping anybody from using PSX rips in RM2000. While the PSX can output a 480p signal, most games are still 320x224 and I can't think of a single 2D one that is 640x480 (primarily because the PSX just doesn't have the hardware to support it). Many 2D RPGs, such as Alundra, use 280x224. SNES was commonly 256x224, for comparison. It's not always that simple though, because a lot of games change resolutions for different modules or subsystems. FF7 is 320x240 for the walkabout bits and main menu, but 320x224 for battles. Or maybe it was 320x240 for just the overworld--I am foggy now. Seiken Densetsu 3 on SNES was 256x224 for 99% of what's onscreen, but its main menu is a weird 512x224.
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