NEW ENTERBRAIN MAKER - ACTION GAME MAKER!

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=1867.msg58698#msg58698 date=1233100090

author=Anaryu link=topic=1867.msg58694#msg58694 date=1233099027
Minor bugs (and even the medium ones that are simple like the math bug) exist in every editor.

Except any sort of competent test plan would've weeded out such a rediculously obvious error. It makes it feel like all the testing they did for RMVX was "it compiles, ship it!" trash I'd except from kids in high school, not from a peice of software developed by professionals.

They didn't even bother to fix it.

It is pretty crappy, but there aren't that many other bugs that I know of. If there isn't a plague of them, concentrating on one like that and saying it's terrible because of one bug seems a bit short-sighted.

Who knows, maybe they tracked every bug meticulously and someone accidentally marked that bug as completed or a bug in their bug reporting software missed it! If VX barely ran I'd keep laughing, but it's solid enough otherwise that their testing must have been at least decent (though so simple it'd be pretty hard not to make it run alright...)

It's surprising they haven't bothered to fix it; maybe they're waiting for enough bugs to make development of a patch worthwhile... or maybe their laziness is showing and they just don't care and want to work on their next big sucker-cash-cow, AGM. :)


EDIT:

Basically, compared to the effort required to make a videogame, the effort needed to create a program like Word/Photoshop/RPGMaker/etc. is simply miniscule. And that is why they shouldn't be worth nearly as much.

I'm sorry but that's very, very unlikely. If you look at start date to finish date it could be true (since even the most simple of projects take some people YEARS to finish... or even get a demo of...) but if you compare man-hours? There's no comparison.

author=Neophyte link=topic=1867.msg58702#msg58702 date=1233101374
Not many games have engines written specifcally for them, Fallen-Griever!

$115 isn't that much money when you compare it to other professional computer software. Adobe programs cost way more than this, and the amount of use and value these programs get are almost unparalleled. You can not compare that to a video game. When you add the price of this and a year subscription to the Microsoft XNA Creator's Club, it's about $200. That really isn't much though, especially if you're going to be putting your game out to the the Xbox Marketplace. You'll be spending much more money on the other aspects of the video game than just the price of the software.

Coding for AGM will most likely be C# since that is the framework for XNA.

I'm actually betting you won't be able to code in the engine directly at all. From the screens it looks like maybe plug-ins can be made, it'll be interesting to see what happens with those too.

author=Anaryu link=topic=1867.msg58701#msg58701 date=1233100689
It is pretty crappy, but there aren't that many other bugs that I know of. If there isn't a plague of them, concentrating on one like that and saying it's terrible because of one bug seems a bit short-sighted.

Who knows, maybe they tracked every bug meticulously and someone accidentally marked that bug as completed or a bug in their bug reporting software missed it! If VX barely ran I'd keep laughing, but it's solid enough otherwise that their testing must have been at least decent (though so simple it'd be pretty hard not to make it run alright...)

It's surprising they haven't bothered to fix it; maybe they're waiting for enough bugs to make development of a patch worthwhile... or maybe their laziness is showing and they just don't care and want to work on their next big sucker-cash-cow, AGM. :)

I don't think not being able to do multiplication is a small problem. Other engines have bugs but they're usually fringe scenarios, not something that 90%+ of users would use at some point. (Multiplication, getting number of held items, and getting an actor attribute I think)

A mistake is possible (still a bad test plan. Good unit tests can detect simple errors like these in no time) but the lack of post-release support is one of my main issues. Fixing this can't take much longer than ten minutes and I'm certain that they know that there was a fault in the script. Fix it, redeploy it, and call it the day. It'd be fustrating, but not inexcusable. I completely agree with your last bit: They just dropped RMVX to move onto another product to sell and, IMO, drop as soon as possible.

author=Fallen-Griever link=topic=1867.msg58780#msg58780 date=1233139921
took Computing at A-Level, which isn't exactly the most advanced level of taught programming but was enough for me to realise I had far more difficulty making RPGMaker games than I did writing imitations of Wordpad and writing code to keep track of stock or whatever other stuff I did. And that's just making a game in RPGMaker; making a game from scratch is clearly more difficult, so yes, I am basing my opinion on personal experience.

B-but...have you tried compiling something like GIMP? Compare that to a RM game or at least acknowledge the fact that RPGMaker is not exactly a programming language and that it makes you work to a fixed infrastructure.

bahleted

author=Fallen-Griever link=topic=1867.msg58780#msg58780 date=1233139921
I am saying that an engine like Source takes about as much time and effort to develop as a program like RPGMaker, but since game developers then have to develop the game, on top of developing the engine, the game should be worth more based on the effort required. Developing a program like RPGMaker stops where the game developer has only just finished building an engine to create their game in; you then have to take into account all the extra effort placed into making a game, especially a modern game (voice acting, facial recognition, 3D modelling, all that kind of flashy bollocks).

Ergo, no game-making program should be worth more than a commercial videogame IMO.

The market does not work this way. The usage value (or "demand") of games and productivity tools differ on an astronomical scale. For example, Photoshop is used by nearly all professional graphics workers, as the program really is that expansive. Digital photography people use it to touch up their images, comic artists use it for their works, game graphics people use it for their sprites/GUI images/etc., film studios use it for movie editing along with AfterEffects...the list goes on. This is simple economics 101 here.

Now, how about a game like Team Fortress 2. Does it offer any productivity value? Can anyone else besides gamers see another use for it besides having fun? Can you create something new with it? No, I'm not talking about mods. The market for Team Fortress 2 is directed at people who play video games, more specifically first-person shooters. This is infinitely more narrow than who Photoshop targets. Thus, the demand is lower.

As for the worth of the game, who is the most likely to play these first-person shooters? The average home user, probably someone who's dependent on their parents and has no income of their own. By your logic, these home users should pay for these games more than what people pay for Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office, just because "more effort" (that's such a subjective term...) was placed into it. I'm quite sure if that was done, the game wouldn't sell nearly as well...

And also, game developers usually license another engine for their use. Not all games out there have engines written specifically for them. Therefore the engines themselves have a productivity value associated with them, and thus make them worth more simply because a program that enables the creation of other programs or files is worth more than a static program with no ability to generate new content. Once again, this does not include mods.

I took Computing at A-Level, which isn't exactly the most advanced level of taught programming but was enough for me to realise I had far more difficulty making RPGMaker games than I did writing imitations of Wordpad and writing code to keep track of stock or whatever other stuff I did. And that's just making a game in RPGMaker; making a game from scratch is clearly more difficult, so yes, I am basing my opinion on personal experience.

Microsoft Word is a little more than just typing in text and applying some kind of formatting to it. There are other aspects to it which make it more valuable than a WordPad clone, such as tight integration with other Office programs and working with corporate databases. The same goes for Adobe Photoshop; it's much more than MSPaint with flashy filters and super-cool special effects.

Effort does not equal time. It takes a larger pool of talent to create a commercial videogame than it does to write a program like Photoshop, ergo the game should be worth much more. I don't care how long it took to develop.

Larger pool of talent, if it existed in the first place, still does not outbeat the concept of demand. Read an economics textbook.

Like I said, I don't think any professional computer software is worth that kind of money. For instance, The GIMP and Paint.net do nearly everything Photoshop can do and they're both free. Open Office does nearly everything MS Office can do and it is also free. Etcetera.

GIMP doesn't natively support CMYK color, which is crucial for printing on paper, and its support for raw files from digital cameras is especially lacking. Not to mention the user interface is...something that can be improved on. Those are only a few instances where it's inferior to its professional equivalents; there are much more. Likewise, OpenOffice lacks many features which MSOffice has, that advanced users take advantage of.

If what you do is simple, then OpenOffice or GIMP are fine programs. However, for more advanced work, you will need professional software.

I'm saying that all engines are too expensive, so saying that it is reasonable in comparison doesn't really suit me. Like I said, there are few programs out there I think are worth paying that kind of money for, and those that are worth it are very specific programs used in the private sector and not in home-offices.

It is reasonable in comparison. You get a user-friendly map editor combined with the expansiveness of an entire programming language, as well as a program which combines the two together. For...just a little over $100. Commercial game engines can go up to the hundreds of thousands, depending on the engine you want to get, and not all of them are as easy to use as RPG Maker.

Now, as game-making is more difficult for me than programming is, me being someone who is using a WYSIWYG editor to do the game-making and not someone who is starting a game from scratch, I assume that making a game from scratch is going to be a lot more difficult than simply programming an image editor.

Difficulty is relative; if you were making an image editor with the complexity of MSPaint, then sure, creating a commercial game is more difficult. However, if you were developing an image editor as complex as Photoshop or GIMP, then the amount of work put into these programs could easily exceed a commercial game's effort. Refer to above for the Photoshop example.

And most people use literally 1% of Photoshop anyway. Besides, the fact that a free program can do 1% of something that costs >$100 to buy shows that the >$100 is a complete waste of freakin' money (you know, because percentages stop at 100% and all?).

Have you ever heard of Photoshop Elements?

You sound like you're just bitter here because higher editions of a program, which include more features, are more expensive than lower editions. Which...makes sense. Cars with more powerful engines and stronger designs are of course going to cost more than economy models. It's all about what features you use.

The effort put into making them, regardless of quality, still isn't equal to that of making a console game, so programs like Photoshop still shouldn't be worth in excess of $100. My problem is that I don't like being ripped-off.

I don't actually use either. Spriters need nothing more than MS Paint to get by.

Comparing MSPaint to Photoshop is like comparing RPG Maker to the Crysis engine. It just...does not follow.

bahleted

author=Fallen-Griever link=topic=1867.msg58830#msg58830 date=1233162035
I don't actually use either. Spriters need nothing more than MS Paint to get by.

Amen.

author=Fallen-Griever link=topic=1867.msg58830#msg58830 date=1233162035
In short, I don't care how the market works; I only care how much I think something should be worth based on my own personal standards. Individuals are not markets, this is simple Psychology 101 here.

I'm sorry to say, Griever, but that not how the world works. Sure, you may disagree with the price of a product, or something similar to that, but in the end the opinion one individual doesn't matter to the corporation or company selling the product. They realize it's potential before it's released and they are the only ones who can understand why they chose a particular price for the product.

All I can say is, if you are so annoyed by the price of something, then don't buy it; complaining won't help. The price isn't going to change, short of it being unpopular in sales, of course, forcing the company to lower the price or stop selling it altogether.

author=GameOverGames Productions link=topic=1867.msg58958#msg58958 date=1233188425
Back to talking about how bug filled AGM might be seeing as how the last Enterbrain engine contained several non-working basic functions i.e. the ability to calculate 2*2.

So, VX can't multiply? I wouldn't know, I don't use VX.

author=GameOverGames Productions link=topic=1867.msg58958#msg58958 date=1233188425
Summary of the above arguments: We're who fight over what type of software has the right to be the most expensive, but generally agree that everything is too expensive and the world is unfair.


Back to talking about how bug filled AGM might be seeing as how the last Enterbrain engine contained several non-working basic functions i.e. the ability to calculate 2*2.

Honestly until this topic I didn't even know about the variable multiplier function issue, which I can laugh about but seems like the smallest disadvantage to the program.

What are the other issues? (ps. Yes, I've used VX before.)