RPG MAKER MV ANNOUNCED FOR PC AND MAC

author=RedAkerston
Praise jeebus there's a transfer system! That probably ensures i'll move over to it.

As long as you don't have any custom systems, you'll be fine. Scripts won't transfer over.

37+ plugins. That sounds impressive! Do we have any idea what they are? Or at least some of them?

I wonder how RMN will handle embedding games in the browser, if at all? While it's cool, I don't see myself using that particular function.

One key lets you activate the
Steam and Non-Steam Version!

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!

author=unity
Even though I was going to be a "wait until like a year after it's released" person, Degica sold me with the free preorder goodies and so I went and preordered >.>;; I guess I'm fickle, but with stuff from coders like Yanfly, Yami, and Neonblack, plus art assets, I just couldn't resist! >.<;;

author=GreatRedSpirit
ahahahahahahaha holy shit the html5 demo game is

I'm having ptsd flashbacks to the PS1 ports of FF6 and CT with these loading screens

What it desperately needs is to plan out the assets that need to be downloaded to run and fetch them when it's free to do so. An effective implementation would require manual work but even a slipshod automated one should be possible. I'd imagine there'll at least be some script to help with that before too long but jesus it's rpgmaker.txt right there.


e: A transfer tool for the Ace maps/database is a good idea, kudos to Enterbrain for getting somebody to make one.

Wait, what? Does this loading problem only apply if you're playing on a mobile device? Pardon me, I don't really understand, but PS1 FF6/CT loading sounds horrendous >.<;;

EDIT: Oh, right, that's just for embedded games. Whew XD;; I hadn't even considered using that

Yeah, it'd be for HTML5 games only. The problem here stems from dealing with the issue of having to download the entire game (insert joke with the tagline of adding an episode of Friends to your game). To avoid waiting for the entire game to download what MX does is simply download what assets it immediately needs but that creates a new problem and that's constantly loading the assets it needs. The first time you open the menu the game doesn't have the assets to show the faces of who's in your party so it throws up a loading screen as it fetches what it needs. Once it has the asset it doesn't need it again so subsequent menu access is fine (the same can't be said for the PS1 ports of the SNES Square games). Same with simply talking to NPCs so similar reasons with face graphics and the music doesn't start right away.

The fix here is essentially to take a middle ground. Downloading all the assets at once defeats a huge advantage of the HTML5 game but only accessing them on demand doesn't help either. I think the best fix is to first crib what Flash and Silverlight and other web plugins have been using for ages: An initial loading screen with a progress bar. The loading here is getting the game files (which it already does except possibly maps) and all common, critical assets. Character assets, common system sound effects, system graphics, etc. with the goal that common game interactions shouldn't induce a loading screen like opening the menu and in a presentable format to the user beyond a nebulous "Now Loading" screen.

From there it's a game of finding out what to download next. When the player enters a new area a rudimentary system could scan all events on the map, detect what assets they show via show faceset, picture, etc. and begin downloading them in the background with the goal of having them downloaded before they are needed (and a loading screen/period occurs). This'll never be perfect nor trivial but it would be a step in the right direction for dealing with the loading screens.

A more robust system would get the developer to start telling the system when loading should occur, what should be loaded, and in what order. If the game changes a party member's assets then the scanning system wouldn't know to download it but the developer can flag the asset as "Download on Load" or so to ensure the game always has the asset available and won't have to load it. Entering areas of a map could tell the system to scan another map and start fetching assets for it. For example, if you're on a world map and get within 40 tiles of a town event the system will scan the town's assets snd begin downloading them before the play gets there. Or a dungeon and the system needs to download the battler and background assets before the player gets in a battle ordered with the enemies the player is likely to fight first ending with the boss.

Again it isn't a trivial solution but one or something similar that's needed to really make the HTML5 games not a chore to play.

e: added quote because I had to actually do work before I could finish my post


e2:

author=Pulits
The fact that it uses JavaScript is really interesting. How feasible would it be to port a 2K3 game to MV? My main problem is that most of my graphics are stuck to the 320x240 resolution.

I'd doubt there'd be any sort of transfer system between the two, you'd have to remake your game content and port your assets over to MX's structure (namely the tilesets, the rest should be easy x2 nearest-neighbor scaling).


e3: I'd probably get the steam version so I can on resources on 75% off sales and end up pirating it so I can get around the stupid Steam restriction of only having one instance open at a time.

As far as I can tell the loading is just for downloading assets (graphics will hold the game up, music is done in the background) and I'd assume the map data itself. It loads them as they are needed so until something is done to intelligently find what assets are going to be shown and prefetch them the developer will have to keep this in mind if they intend to publish to HTML5. For example having a parallel process event is fine unless halfway through it shows a new picture which hasn't been downloaded yet. The engine will pause the game until the asset is retrieved. The prudent choice for now is to probably make an event that will get the engine to retrieve the assets before they're needed. So using the parallel process event example it might show the picture invisible before it needs it so it won't 'randomly' cause the game to load for a player when the event needs it show it.

Of course this is just my analysis from playing the HTML5 game demo mixed with my knowledge of RPG Maker. I haven't done any sort of indepth testing on this or anything since RMMX isn't out yet.

author=kentona
We are working on making embedded games a reality here. I also want to add an "Arcade" section to RMN where people can play all of the embedded games.

May as well, HBgames has one.

Someone over on Webs already beat Rhyme to the punch of finding Archie's ralph. I just don't care enough to bother going and getting that stuff. Also, I've already bought the program and as some of you know I have absolutely no adoration for that orange-haired bum.

As for HTML5 web embedding, it'd be really good for on the fly previews of mechanics. Like just giving players demo previews of what you can do. Ofcourse you'd make it a separate project with any unnecessary strings detached to reduce load times, but that would be the main draw for it to someone like me. An obsessively obsessed developer.

On the local 'What are you thinking about game dev edition' thread I've gone into just a few things I've thought about doing with this engine.

Yeah, I understand the concern, it's not something I personally have to worry much about because my games are notorious for looking bad. My artists however may have different ideals.

Also out of curiosity I decided to see if I could get into it, sure enough was as simple as inspecting element and finding the correlating block, then just tabbing over to resources. Easier than taking candy from a baby, except I didn't take any of it, just admired the weapon animations and got some ideas for my own game using them.

Love the icons, too. That minimalist sort of thing is what I've actually wanted to see for a while.

I didn't get far in the demo because it was just too proud of MV and touting its release that it felt too much like a shameless promotional powergrab for my contempt and too little like a game.

It's cool guys, I'm hyped, alright? You don't need to remind me of that with every single character interaction.

I wonder... if dialogue could actually be edited somehow through element inspection, but i'd wager inspection is as much as can be done. I highly doubt it's possible to change dialogue in the live demo or someone would have found a way to already. I mean by that logic I could draw something silly over arheia's beautiful ralph like power shades or change this to the 'loading' image. But I doubt that's possible.

I'm not a big user of HTML, but I was able to hack the graphics of that demo in under 10 minutes with just basic functions.

That 2GB install size... Fark that. XD I'll stick to VX.

author=Rhyme

author=BizarreMonkey
I wonder... if dialogue could actually be edited somehow through element inspection, but i'd wager inspection is as much as can be done. I highly doubt it's possible to change dialogue in the live demo or someone would have found a way to already.

It isn't. Data is stored in a completely different format (readable only to RMMV?) so we can't edit it.

Figured as much.

author=Luchino
That 2GB install size... Fark that. XD I'll stick to VX.

That's the recommended HDD capacity, not the amount of disk space the game would take up. Considering RPG Maker VX Ace's RTP was barely 112 megabytes, they'd be really pushing it to multiply that by almost twenty.

Think about it, that would make every game with rtp included at least 2 gigs in file size.