[POLL] HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WITH RPG MAKER?

...This topic makes me feel old. :(

(I'm actually quite surprised how many people have been at this for more than 10 years +. O_O)

I recall fooling around with 2k3 circa 2007. I was 11/12 then.

Basically, RPG Maker has been christ in earthly form for me. I was always the kid who had a shitty computer that could not run a thing. I remember trying to run the $99.99 newly released, newly bought TES: Oblivion over 10 fps and FAILING. I envied all of my friends who had all the flashy stuff, but then after finding RPG Maker, I don't think I've ever felt that envy since.

author=kentona
....I gotta improve on our recruitment efforts! Nothing but old-has-beens here!

Retention of noobs, I guess, is the bigger question.

Let's see.. I first got into RM after Don Miguel translated 95... so that must have been 98 or 99?

I remember when 2000 first came out, I was absolutely floored at what you could do. As lame as this sounds, I wouldn't say I got "serious" until 2007 after finishing college. I stuck with rm2003 because of the retro style (low resolution, atb, etc).

author=kentona
...I gotta improve on our recruitment efforts! Nothing but old-has-beens here!

...We need a new, hip promotional video -- and fast, just like "this" one.

(Just pretend that Mister Freeman, over here, is really Kentona and replace everything that is going on with people talking about game making and we should be set!)

author=kentona
0-1 Years 1 3%
2-3 Years 1 3%
4-5 Years 5 19%
6-7 Years 2 7%
8-9 Years 1 3%
10+ Years 16 61%


....I gotta improve on our recruitment efforts! Nothing but old-has-beens here!

I think the real problem with retaining new members is that there is a real "good ol' boys" mentality in this community. I've seen it several times, someone posts a review or topic and people bash them because they are a "noob" or have no makerscore. It was a bit off-putting for me initially, but I plan to stick around so I just deal with it.

author=DrMadFellow

author=kentona
0-1 Years 1 3%
2-3 Years 1 3%
4-5 Years 5 19%
6-7 Years 2 7%
8-9 Years 1 3%
10+ Years 16 61%


....I gotta improve on our recruitment efforts! Nothing but old-has-beens here!

I think the real problem with retaining new members is that there is a real "good ol' boys" mentality in this community. I've seen it several times, someone posts a review or topic and people bash them because they are a "noob" or have no makerscore. It was a bit off-putting for me initially, but I plan to stick around so I just deal with it.

:O Can you send me a link to where this is happening? I wish to squash it.

Hm... I picked up the PSX RM when I was 15-16, so if you count that, it's been about 15 years now. It took about a year for me to find a SNES rom of it online, then not long after that I found RM95.

I've been with an RM product since then. So, well over 10 years now.

It's been interesting to watch how the community has evolved during that time, and how games and the standards of them have changed, too.

I felt I should add more about the Community side of things. At the start I just flitted around from forum to forum, not settling in any one place. The ones I visited most were SkyTowerGames, GamingW, Rm2k.net, Blad2K and a few other smaller, easily forgotten forums. I finally started interacting on Gaming World, RM2K.net and Cedar Woods (which got a rename to Epiphany Gaming after it got hacked to bits ;.; RIP CW<3). After a while I got more involved, though I tended to lurk a lot until RMN got re-invented by WIP and Salt World came into being (though it took me a while to fully move over, so around 2007-ish).
Since then, it's been my main base of RM on the internet, though I do and have visited a lot of other sites.

@Link: I'm pretty sure most of what you see as 'ye olde clubbers' comments are tongue-in-cheek or self-depricating. (Hell, I'm kinda-sorta-a-little ashamed when I realised I've spent literally half my life on RMing as a hobby and I'm sure most others are too. >.<;)
That said, I know RMN used to get a lot of flak by other communities as being an old man's club and 'exclusive' but I think we've been addressing the issue fairly well recently, and what newbies we do get through the door who are serious, we keep. The thing is, a lot of people pick up RM products, but find it too 'hard' to use for some reason and just drop it. Looking at some of the comments and threads on Steam for Ace tells a lot about the current people looking to use the program. You should check that out. While there are some who are very enthusiastic, there are quite a few who are very... picky about the program and what it can do for them, especially when it comes to price tag and being able to sell games with it.
Before a legal English copy came out most of us got it for 'free' and messed with it because it was fun and we wanted to recreate the games of our youth. That's not as much the case anymore because to the newer generation picking up the program, the games of their youths aren't the 2D jRPGs that we enjoyed, but 3D, hi-res and complicated. They seek different software.
That said, there are a lot of newbies who pick up the program and love it, but they come to a community and try to post up their attempts at games only to have them hacked up by the standards of that community. RMN is one of the few RM sites that have higher standards for the games that are added to the site, so that seems quite daunting to a new-comer. This is why we probably don't get as many newbies staying as other sites - because the standards are there for intermediate skills and few beginners are at that level. So we tend to get them after they've already learned a few things with the programs.

Not saying we don't get newbies, but that's the reason some leave or never come. Or at least, my interpretation of it.

...and I went a little off-topic. >.<;

I don't know what to answer in the poll o.o, I use rpg maker 2k for the first time about 10 years ago when I was 7 years more or less, then found 2k3, but I use it like a month and then drop it, and then find it again and drop it again, this happen a lot of times and the time for using it again is longer after each time, and the time I spent with it was decreasing as well. Along the way I join here in 2008 I drop out since i took things to seriously and think I was crap, i join with another account months later and the same happen. More later in the 2011 I join with MrChearlie and funny how I got 500 makerscore (the donation doesn't count) when I haven't done any worthy game.

So +10 yeas of knowing it and using it for the first time/5 Years of being involved with rmn

The thing is that I don't think I will use it in the future since i found that I am not really interested in gam making after more than 10 years, but got to thank my brother for downloading it back in the past since this is like my first internet home.

Edit: I put +10 years because of the topic title.