CHOOSING A GOOD-LOOKING RPG ENGINE

Go with VXAce.

I would stay away from rpg toolkit, it was used to be good, but it's community fell apart, and the engine only supports software rendering*, and also it's unfinished.

* Yes, VXAce has software rendering also, but in toolkit it's so poorly implemented, that you will lag, as soon as you add content to your game. I think the only way to fix that, is turning off sprite transparency, and turning down hardware acceleration in the control panel... Now you don't want every user to turn off hardware acceleration on their pc, just to be able to play your game.

Your other options are (if you wish to learn some scripting anyway):

"Game Maker 8", Has support for any kind of games, and is actually hardware accelerated. (using directx). This is a really good engine, but creating an rpg with it is harder than with VXAce.
LINK: http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio

"ika", My personal favourite. Uses python scripting (you can even extend it with psyco, for a large speed gain), has openGL rendering, and generally a really powerful engine. The only drawback is, that it doesn't have official finished editor. I have written an editor for ika, and is really full featured now. However a bit harder to use than rpg maker, and I haven't published it yet. (the editor has similar features, as the rpg maker editor).
If someone would like to develop his/her game with ika, I will be glad to send this editor to him/her.
LINK: http://neverbeen.hu/data/ika-win-0.63.zip

I also think, that in game maker, you can have some kind of eventing (there are a lot of tutorial online, just google it), But in ika, you certainly need to know scripting, to write your game logic (there is no default one, like in rpg maker, just a toolset to aid you)

I would also suggest, to stay away from rpg maker 2k and 2k3, and even XP and VX. (VX is pointless, Ace has better support, and is more powerful, and XP is outdated, as well as the old rpgmakers)

I can't think of any more engines right now, but maybe there are better alternatives.

Edit:
Just to note, that if you want a *lot* of eyecandy, and really large sprites in your game, I am pretty sure, that any engine with software rendering will lag to death. At least this is my experience on the subject. But if you really don't want more than 640*480 resolution, and lot of images spinning around the screen, ignore this statement :D

The link contains only the engine, not the editor, If you wish to try it, I will send it by email :)
* There is a reason I didn't published it yet. It has a bit of rough optimization, and requires python 2.5 to be installed. And doesn't have an interpreter (loading the maps ingame, interpreting the event commands), just a custom one, for my game. That was the reason I suggested the engine, to use, only if one wants to learn scripting anyway :)

Anyways, I have used XP in the past. It has rgss1 scripting, which is slower, compared to rgss3. Also, I think that VXAce has support for unlimited tilesets and larger sprites.

I have to say I love that extra layer for mapping in XP. But if I did another game I would probably switch to parallax maps anyway.

Sphere has an advanced map engine which allows for an infinite number of layers of any size at all, parallax and reflective layers, an infinite number of tiles, and animated tiles right out of the box.

It also allows for sophisticated graphics manipulation through surfaces (including blend modes), it can make some really good looking procedurally generated graphics (check out the Particle of Infinite Free Will for an idea of Sphere's procedurally generated graphics capabilities pushed way way out). You can also make the game mechanics as detailed and complex as you want.

It allows for image or sprite zooming, rotation, and transformation (just give it the coordinates for the corner points of an image, and it will draw it with any amount of deformation you want), and all that looks fairly nice.

And it's free.

author=Scalytank
I would also suggest, to stay away from rpg maker 2k and 2k3, and even XP and VX. (VX is pointless, Ace has better support, and is more powerful, and XP is outdated, as well as the old rpgmakers)

Get out of heres, we need more games that aren't your average "RALPH'S VX ACE RTP ADVENTURE"

author=Nightowl

author=Scalytank
I would also suggest, to stay away from rpg maker 2k and 2k3, and even XP and VX. (VX is pointless, Ace has better support, and is more powerful, and XP is outdated, as well as the old rpgmakers)

Get out of heres, we need more games that aren't your average "RALPH'S VX ACE RTP ADVENTURE"

He said, he has no problem drawing a lot of sprites, so I belive, he's not gonna use just standard rtp.

About scripting: I speak from experience: It's worth learning at least one scripting language (preferrably the one, your selected engine uses). This would hinder your actual game production for a while, but in the end, you should be able to:
- create games the way you really want
- learning the concept of programming, and being able to learn more complicated (c++, java c#) languages much more faster

I have learned ruby from scratch (no previous programming experience) in about four-five months, And I really think it was worth.

author=Scalytank
* Yes, VXAce has software rendering also, but in toolkit it's so poorly implemented, that you will lag, as soon as you add content to your game. I think the only way to fix that, is turning off sprite transparency, and turning down hardware acceleration in the control panel... Now you don't want every user to turn off hardware acceleration on their pc, just to be able to play your game.

I believe VXA has hardware acceleration to address the performance issues associated with RMXP/VX due to them having only software rendering. VXA most definitely performs much more smoothly than XP/VX does on CPUs like the good ol' Pentium IV.

author=Scalytank
I would also suggest, to stay away from rpg maker 2k and 2k3, and even XP and VX. (VX is pointless, Ace has better support, and is more powerful, and XP is outdated, as well as the old rpgmakers)

RPG Maker 2000 is still being sold by Enterbrain under the RPG Maker 2000 VALUE! label, granted it's only being sold over in Japan; RM2K also still functions perfectly under Windows 7. RM2K is therefore still a legitimate and possible choice. I personally plan on buying RM2K Value! when I go to Japan later this year to visit relatives over there.

but I read that Ace needs directx compatible hardware

Any video card made within the last decade has appropriate hardware acceleration capabilities that RM would plausibly need. RMXP/VX actually got a lot of flak for their decision to only support software rendering because of this.

Isn't the value! edition japanese only?

Indeed, which is why I said it's "only being sold over in Japan". There's an English translation patch floating around if you know where to look and already have RM2K Value! though.

rm2k still remains an outdated software (its 13 years old now...)

Outdated by what standard though? RM2K still functions perfectly in Windows XP and 7 and it's not subject to any serious bugs (at least that we know of). I can't comment on Windows 8 compatibility as I refuse to buy that piece of garbage, but I don't see why RM2K wouldn't run in W8's desktop. Simply because a piece of software is old doesn't necessarily mean it's outdated.

Whether something is still being sold also has a lot to do with whether something is outdated or not. To sell and distribute a product means the developer and publisher are incurring costs that they look forward to recouping from the product's sales profits. If RM2K is outdated (and would consequently have poor sales) then Enterbrain would've pulled RM2K off the shelves by now.

And what are the benefits of using 2k instead of VXAce?

Among other things that RM2K has over RMVXA:
* 320x240 resolution, friendlier to SNES-era graphics which RM games try to emulate or use most of the time. Doubles to 640x480 in play via a built-in 2x pixel resize filter, larger than RMVXA's default 512x416 (VXA, along with VX, can go up to 640x480 with minor RGSS code modifications).
* A much more refined, diverse event system.
* Better performance, though this is largely due to RMVX/XP/VXA being unjustifiably inefficient at rendering 2D graphics because of no hardware acceleration (with the exception of VXA) and RGSS scaling horribly with the number of events on a map unlike RM2K's map/event system.
* Does not use DirectSound for MIDI playback, which is either a pro or con depending on who you ask. I personally view this as a win for RM2K.

Of course, RM2K also lacks some things that RMVXA has; chief among them are RGSS and OGG support along with a higher resolution (in theory).

People looking at deciding which RM engine to use should carefully consider what each of the engines have to bring to the table. Deciding to disregard a particular engine simply because of its age is frivolous.

Software accelerated?

Sometimes software that is old is actually extremely efficient, and very fast. Correspondingly, sometimes brand new software is very slow and cumbersome.