WHAT CAN BE DONE TO MAKE RMMZ HAVE OVERWHELMING POSITIVE REVIEWS?

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While RMMZ has already released for about a month, the reviews are still mixed(64% positive among 225 reviews), at least according to Steam(I failed to find any other quantified reviews of comparable significance yet).
Although the overall score shows a slight upward trend overall, it still doesn't seem to look good, at least compared to RMMV, where it received 108 positives and 27 negatives, netting a 80% score, with a much more obvious upward trend later on.

The most obvious thing that can be done for those having bought RMMZ via Steam, is to give a positive review with solid reasons, like what I've done quite a while ago :)
But, maybe more can be done to further boost the review scores legitimately, apart from another obvious thing that resource makers can continue to make more and more awesome resources for the community :D

I've also briefly checked the NEGATIVE REVIEWS FROM STEAM, and here are the summary of all the points I've collected(which is by no means exhaustive):
1. The base price of RMMZ is too expensive compared to what it added and improved over RMMV(But they'd be positive for RMMZ if there will be a big sale)
2. RMMZ isn't even RMMVA, but just RMMV 1.7, because everything "new" in RMMZ are already provided by plugins in RMMV
3. RMMZ improved too little from RMMV, meaning that the RM franchise has become trapped in the past
4. The 3D effekseer doesn't work well with the RMMZ animations, because it's a 2D engine
5. The RMMZ RTP is worse than that of RMMV(images are ugly, audios are unpleasant to listen to, etc), and the former isn't compatible with the latter
6. There are still some unnecessarily hardcoded assumptions, like the tileset size still being fixed to 48
7. RMMZ doesn't work well when the screen size isn't 816 * 624(1280 * 720 can already cause the side view battler sprites to be mis-positioned to the left of the screen), like, ugly scaling of battler sprites
8. The RMMZ character generator still sucks so hard that the generated adults look like kids
9. There's no way to make porting RMMV animations to RMMZ an easy, simple and small task, because of effekseer
10. RMMZ still doesn't make good use of multiple CPU cores nor the GPU, causing inferior performance even with the Pixi v5 upgrades and other performance optimizations over RMMV
11. RMMZ only lets you use 4 map layers, which is far from being enough
12. The hardcoded limit of 2000 items per database type isn't high enough
13. The sprites are still hardcoded to using 3 frame per action
14. There's no way to make exporting to mobile platforms an easy, simple and small task, when RMMZ is advertised for optimized for such platforms
15. Many features that are provided by RMMZ plugins should've been done by RMMZ itself
16. The audio loading still isn't optimized in RMMZ, causing large audio files to have too long to load(and this issue already exists in RMMV and is well-known by the community for years)
17. The amount of resources including by the RTP still isn't large enough, and should've been much, much larger
18. While this engine advertise itself as easy enough for a child, it's not the case when you've to learn effekseer, which is a must to use RMMZ
19. An exported project can be as big as way more than 200MB in RMMZ, while similar projects in RMMV would've been just around 50MB, and 50MB is already too much
20. Sometimes the engine can just suddenly crash, like when clicking edit on a show text event, causing unexpected loss of progresses
21. The default RMMZ JavaScript codebase is so poorly-documented that documentation there is effectively nonexistent
22. The RMMZ is obviously very, very unpolished and just rushed for launch, and the current state of RMMZ is clearly an incomplete product
23. In general, the RMMZ plugins aren't as generous as the RMMV counterparts, because of the pricing, terms of use, and source code accessibility, and RMMZ is nothing without plugins
24. Enemy skill animations aren't displayed in front view battles
25. The battler sprites aren't animated enough, and they're behaving like static ones(no shadows, floating motions, etc)
26. RMMZ just isn't worth it before it has as many plugins as that of RMMV
27. Many improvements in RMMZ should've been implemented in RMMV
28. RMMZ should let you use either effekseer or the traditional RMMV like animations
29. The RM franchise has been working in the form of buying the engine with the use of many scripts/plugins from the same scripter/plugin developer(without him/her RM would be nothing), with tweaks of those scripts/plugins made, and some other scripts/plugins(that are compatible to those made by that particular scripter/plugin developer) from the other scripters/plugin developers to make games, but this formula no longer works in RMMZ, because of the successor of that particular scripter/plugin developers start making closed-source plugins in RMMZ(and some of them are paid too)​
Please note that I'm just trying to summarize the points I've collected from negative Steam reviews, and it has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with any of them.

So, I'd like to open this post to collect ideas on some possible ways to make RMMZ to have overwhelming positive reviews, and this doesn't have to be limited to Steam, because I think later on there will be some other quantified reviews of comparable significance ;)
I mean, you pretty much listed everything that needs to be fixed.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Make it a good engine, then it will get positive reviews.

Note: mostly positive, positive, and overwhelming positive are 3 different categories on Steam. I doubt your going to convince enough people for an overwhelming support for this engine.

The negative reviews are likely coming from customers who already own an older version of RPG Maker and don't see the point.
-And I own VX Ace, still haven't made the leap.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
What the hell happened to the OP? It's formatted all weird now.

I'd wager the complaints about price might not be considering that you gain the rights to use the RTP resources for any other engine you have the license to, or any one you might have in the future. Scaling the resources to fit a particular engine's graphic specifications can be a little awkward if they keep increasing the size of the tiles (and therefore character sprites). Also, this is their latest product. Of course they want to get back whatever it cost them to make it, and then some! I mean, this point should be pretty obvious, but, I'm not sure if people actually consider this kind of thing.

For what it's worth, I never got MV, so, I don't really know what it did to improve the process of gammak from Ace. However, I currently have a trial version of MZ, and find there's a number of quality-of-life components to the database and event commands that I definitely appreciate. Could they have been in MV instead? Probably. However, would that have been the smartest business move? I dunno. I will say that there were a number of people, myself included, that were wondering if we'd even get another RPG Maker engine! I'm not entirely sure if it was MZ that we expected to see if there was another one, but, it's the one we got.
12. The hardcoded limit of 2000 items per database type isn't high enough

Lord, if someone needs more than two thousand pieces of armor in their game there's definitely a scope problem.
AtiyaTheSeeker
In all fairness, bird shrapnel isn't as deadly as wood shrapnel
5424
Holy wall of text, Batman!

author=Sgt M
Lord, if someone needs more than two thousand pieces of armor in their game there's definitely a scope problem.


My sentiments exactly. I tend to go more minimalist anyway, but I'm not impressed by super-ambitious ideas for RPG Maker games. Especially for first-time projects. I had learned to cut down on an excess of Stuff And Things™ because I prefer my games to feel like short fiction. Hell, I just prefer short and episodic tales to begin with. I'd rather have less stuff that matters, than all the options in the world where ~20% of it all is useful.

To address OP's question in a less-sarcastic fashion though? You don't. You work with what's available before you, and pick the thing closest to what you can do. That's life in general, if you ask me. Don't be afraid to stretch the boundaries of your limitations though, which is why scripting and plugins are amazing for XP and onward, but don't feel you have to reinvent the wheel.

Insofar as the negative reviews, well, not everyone is gonna like everything either. I admire MZ from afar, but my budget (and non-upgradeable) desktop can't handle it from system requirements. I wholly believe that anything MV can do, VX Ace can do about as well. I don't believe fancy bells and whistles make a good game, but some can help.

And here's some advice that goes farther than this specific rant. Rather than bemoan what sucks, why not celebrate that which doesn't? I don't mean that you shouldn't be annoyed for your Twenty-Nine Theses of why RPG Maker MZ sucks, as you wrote them for a reason. What I am saying is to accept that maybe MZ isn't for you, and to find something that's a closer fit.
I was initially excited for MZ but its now its released it doesn't do much that really interests me outside of the new predictive cutscene editor. I use all my own assets so the RTP is worthless to me which leaves me with engine level fixes I was hoping for.
- Spritesheet support for enemy battlers? Still not included.
- Nearest neighbor pixel scaling? Still not supported.
- UI customisation options? Still not supported.
- Widescreen support by default? UI in general still breaks and battlers still break in side view.
- No multithreading or GPU support.
These are just a handful of issues I have been complaining about since I got MV at launch, none of them have been attached and all of them effect the games I make and my games compared to most peoples are incredibly simple. MZ isn't a bad engine, but its a pretty underwhelming release in my eyes.
What do you mean with no GPU support? I find that remark interesting, since from reading it I was under the impression that MZ's corescript does almost everything in pixie.js sprites and/or canvases, which usually are GPU accelerated. After all, it does require WebGL now to even run a game.

Also I have to say find MZ's solution for the widescreen problem actually quite elegant: IMHO a 4:3-style centered floating UI looks pretty nice on a widescreen game map. But maybe that's just me. (Although yes, the top-right menu button placement when outside of all menus wandering the map is hideous and weird, obviously it should be in the outer right corner and not somewhere half in the middle.)

For what it's worth, while I also definitely agree on the nearest neighbor, that one isn't too hard to patch if you really want to. But when I tried it text rendering looked surprisingly hideous, which led me to conclude maybe it's not actually that useful for an RPG, at least not on the UI parts.
What do you mean with no GPU support? I find that remark interesting, since from reading it I was under the impression that MZ's corescript does almost everything in pixie.js sprites and/or canvases, which usually are GPU accelerated. After all, it does require WebGL now to even run a game.

That might be the case but it certainly isn't actually optimised for taking advantage of the GPU in any meaningful way. I have a RTX 2080TI and I get frame drops (I also have 32gb RAM and an I7 which it doesnt seem to take any advantage of).

I can run games with raytracing at a locked 60fps (or more in some cases) but I can't play the MZ sample games without stutter? It might be using the GPU for the rendering pipeline but that seems to be it.

Also I have to say find MZ's solution for the widescreen problem actually quite elegant: IMHO a 4:3-style centered floating UI looks pretty nice on a widescreen game map. But maybe that's just me. (Although yes, the top-right menu button placement when outside of all menus wandering the map is hideous and weird, obviously it should be in the outer right corner and not somewhere half in the middle.)]

I like the floating menu as well but the fact the engine (and thus UI) was designed for 4:3 instead of 16:9 in the first place was insane in 2015 when MV released and beyond human comprehension in 2020.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Marrend
I'd wager the complaints about price might not be considering that you gain the rights to use the RTP resources for any other engine you have the license to, or any one you might have in the future.


Umm...You might want to rethink that argument. Enterbrain should frankly pay us to use those dumpster fire resources. I found a few good pieces of music, such as the fabulous Ship 1 and a few of the Themes are very nice, but most of it is amateur and poorly written, often nonsensical gibberish, with broken phrases and inexplicable harmonies that grate on the ears. The faces and character generators are alright, and you get absolutely nothing of value from the sprites that you don't already get from every other engine, and the tilesets are an absolute write-off. Some of it's pretty, but MV (an engine I hate) frankly has better, and if that license were a sale point...you know...every other engine that you will be able to get for a dollar on Humble Bundle come with the same license for their resources.

Ironically, I DO think MZ is a good engine, but I agree that it's basically new and improved MV. As far as mechanics go, this is what I actually wanted from MV and didn't get. Overall, I love MZ as much as I hate MV, but the RTP resources are awful.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Well, okay. Let me re-think that statement.

MZ's tilesets were not something I was wowed by. It kinda looked like they took something formatted for Ace's RTP, and upscaled it to fit the new tilesize? I largely suspect the side-view graphics for MZ, and the character generator parts and it's associated output, are effectively the same as MV's.

I dunno. I mean, as I said before, the quality-of-life upgrades that I saw in the database are good. What little coding I've done so far felt similar to doing it in Ace, but, of course, the references are all different. Like, I'm not 100% sure if I can do something like...


$game_variables[1] += 3

...this in MZ without it looking like...


$gameVariables.setValue(1, $gameVariables.value(1)+3)

...this? I dunno.
RPGMaker nails a very specific market for people who don't like coding yet want to make something ambitious as an RPG or something visual novel/adventure-esque yet I find they are not taking advantage of that niche at all. They are getting lazy because there's no competition I guess.
MZ needs full Linux support !
I know this is an old discussion, can't remember if necro rules apply to RPGMaker.net so much as others.

But I think if RPG Maker wants to move forward, these are things that can potentially fine tune the program:

*Multi-Option Text Box: Click Text Box and get another popup with options that allow you control events within points of text. Example, if I want a balloon icon to pop up on an NPC at a specific moment of somebody's dialogue, something like this would allow me to trigger that point.

*Multi-Option Audio: Similar to above, being able to trigger an event at a spot within a track, rather than trying to test the timing manually.

*Color Slider for tiles and charsets: For all it was not, the Switch version at least had this.

*Tileset creator: Not a must have, but would be nice if you could create a blank tileset in the program and click which tiles from all the various sets you want. Of course, an in-program TileD with pixel movement would be great, but I would still settle for grid based tileset creator so I'm not running out to another software when I want to create a new set.

*RTP Itself: Chairs, beds, drawers, sinks, counters, all face one way. I'd gladly pay for something that gave us these things in all directions. I can get by enough with splicing, coloring, editing, shading through something like GIMP. But it's a pain if you're not a pixel artist trying to alter the directon of some things.
While we're reviving the dead, if they really wanna go through with mouse support, they could at least add the 'if key pressed' conditions to accommodate for mouse buttons, and mouse wheel scrolls. You can do this already with some fiddly plugins or coding, but the fact it isn't baseline is a tad annoying. This problem persist in MV as well.
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