WHAT ARE YOU IN THIS FOR?

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Apologies if a thread like this already exists.

But come on, own up. What are YOU in this for? If you've been around here for at least a little while (or longer) you'll have no doubt learned a fair bit and I'm talking about more than just switches and variables. I mean this whole deal.

Game making, RPG Making, the community. All of it.

Why do you do it? I'd be interested in personal stories/reasons behind your interest in this hobby and more than just that, why it's taken this route in particular and why you do things the way you do. That's the interesting stuff.

Me:

I got back into this after a long break from rpgmaker (because I thought it was fucking lame and pointless to be frank. I dropped RM at around 14 without any knowledge of a community or anything. I picked it up again very briefly at 16 before dropping it again along with most other nerdy things to have an actual non-nerd social life for a few years) I picked it back up around 21, which is when I bothered to look into the communities that exist, finding this place. I'd had ideas for games that could be made in rpgmaker many times over the years and decided to see what was cracking. Once I found rmn and saw what I then thought was RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME stuff being made with it (compared to what I'd thought possible as a kid with no knowledge of a community) I got involved and my standards swiftly shifted in regards to what I should expect from my own projects.

When I was 13/14 I had a couple of irl rm user friends. We used to sometimes say "Nobody has ever finished making an rpgmaker game" - We actually believed this and I did pretty much until I found this place. The shock at being proven wrong so tremendously is part of why I got enamored with this whole thing. Seeing people actually making entertaining full-length games, seeing the crazy workarounds to push and break engine limitations, the meticulous detail, the painstaking design choices, the creativity, seeing the at-times-borderline-ridiculous seriousness with which people take their projects (and sadly the frankly ridiculous community drama, too). It was a whole other world and I wanted in.

(Part of me thinks it's a bit of a raw deal though, that said - you only get out of a community what you put in, obviously.)

These days I see rpgmaker and the community as a centralizing factor when it comes to my creative pursuits. It gives me a place to create context for my otherwise pointless creative impulses. If I want to make a song for no good reason I find it hard to convince myself to follow it up, whereas if I wanna make a song and I have a game to make that song for - it provides context and some leverage, focusing the whole endeavor toward a purpose. Same goes with the impulse to make graphics and such too. Also on the flipside it helps fuel my creativity because it legitimizes otherwise pointless trains of thought and directs my ambling mind - I probably come up with hundreds of game-related or at least game-applicable ideas a week.

That was very vague, I know. Hope that made sense.

Of course the not-so-glamourous other side of my answer would be simply... This gives me something to do with my time and a place with people who have similar interests to talk to.


Discuss? Share? :>
Adon237
if i had an allowance, i would give it to rmn
1743
Adon- A game making history.
I do it because since I started playing videogames when I was 9, I quickly played through most of the final fantasies until I was 11, when I wanted to make a game.
I thought to myself "I wonder if I could make MY own game". Then dad said I would need a lot of programming knowledge and a fair amount of money, both things I was scarce of. Then in a couple of months for my birthday dad surprised me with a PC, and then I googled up "How to make a game". Tons of worthless results appeared, and within the thirty seconds I spent trying to figure this out, I got really frustrated.
I spent tons of time searching on google for my solution. (I did not spend all of my time googling, but usually an hour each day.) It was that way until one day, when my lucky eyes searched up the simplest yet, "Gamemaker 2007", something dad said to search for, though he told me wrong, what I think it was Gamemaker 7, which I downloaded, and disliked because I didn't understand it.
So my relentless search began yet again... So when I was 12, I found RPGmaker 2000 by googling 'rpg maker", which led me to to some website. I downloaded rpgmaker 2000, and I liked it far more than gamemaker 7, and there I go! I started creating a game with all rtp graphics ,audio, monsters, tilesets, etc. And horrible eventing skills. So for about a month I used it, until I came across the magnificent RPGmaker 2003, which to me was revolutionary. I loved it and used that for months, and still use it now, just not as much as VX. I also decided to register for RMN. I loved the interface and all, and I wasn't really to active until I started needing help. Now, I have blabbed about my history, I do it because it is fun, and enjoyable.
Stories eh? In hide tags?


There is the early days story. Which is that I've always wanted to make games, tell stories and whatnot. There was a gaming magazine that talked about a shoot em up maker for the SNES and I thought it was cool. Before that I drew crayon levels in kindergarten and pretended to play through them.

And you know the usual stuff.


There is the middle days story. I found gamemaking stuff. Thought it was awesome. With communities and whatnot. The newbie's excitement. Though before that was also other attempts at boardgame type things. Being introduced to roleplaying games and the dungeon crawler type roleplaying boardgames there were loads and loads of custom campaigns, Blood Bowl leagues and football boardgames that required and arbiter. The idea of a gamemaster was exciting.
And then games could do storytelling suddenly and making an open roleplaying experience in the computer game world wasn't entirely unfeasible. The newbie dream of awesome games.


There is the more recent history. This community. A certain kind of cynisism. I now "know" I can't actually make "that" game. I haven't really made proper games a lot because. Well. There's another thread that I didn't write in. Or I did write but then didn't submit. "What's your audience" My audience is actually me. However I'm insanely hard to please and whenever I have to cut back on stuff to make it doable and sound from a game design perspective I get disappointed in the game. To me it's a shit game.
Nowadays I'm also very interested in game design from a theoretical perspective. I like reading articles on why certain things were decided on. Or interface solutions and presentation of things. What makes for a more pleasant experience in gaming. A good game with a bad interface is a frustrating thing to behold. And a bad game with a good interface can be pleasant enough.


The community. I've been around for a while. It's a fun place to hang out in. Even though I sometimes am obviously an outsider. I don't like anime and jrpgs and people are probably pretty annoyed by my constant ignorant comments and rpg-bashing. I know I would be. But there's the part where there's a lot of awesome people and the fact that it takes time to find your place in a community. It's easy enough to navigate. With an activity level I can manage. It's not too big, not too small.
I'm sort of grandfathered in in a way.

But deep down the dream of making a "significant" game still looms. I need to pull myself together and put in the work needed. Not just complain loudly about never making games. And whatnot.

Of course I'd also like to give back. I'm active enough but often feel like there's so much more I could do. But I'm also scatterbrained so I come up with something then leave it shortly afterwards. (see podcast interviews, This Week in Blogs) But I guess it's better to have tried and... failed than not to have tried at all.

Even if Yoda would disagree.

To be honest at this point I don't even know what I'm writing about. "What am I in this for?" I'm not going to answer it or maybe I already have. In hide tags. Somewhere. I probably want to make games. I also probably would like to be recognised for making games. But like a lot of wannabes I'm still just a wannabe. Most of you others are better than me in that respect.
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
I'm in it for the love not the money.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I do it for the bitches
Thiamor
I assure you I'm no where NEAR as STUPID as one might think.
63
author=LockeZ
I do it for the switches
Starscream
Conquest is made from the ashes of one's enemies.
6110
The $30/month ad revenue, or so I have been told.

Also, the switches.
It's mainly for utilization of various mechanics from other RPGs (yeah, that's basically the main thing). Also, it's because of being inspired to do so by the following freeware projects:

Fenix Blade: An Allegro-made RPG project that (while cancelled) does have a playable demo of it. I think this game's what got me interested in doing pixel art.

Heraldry: Freja (RPG Toolkit): Really, I am surprised that this game is still being made. All the details and stuff, why wouldn't I want to do something like that. Well, not exactly like it.

Surprisingly enough, my discovery of the old RPG classics that everybody knows about has been more of a recent thing (from the GBA era onward), so they don't technically count as main inspirations of mine.
author=LockeZ
I do it for the bitches
I have nothing better to do like 99% of users here.
Starscream
Conquest is made from the ashes of one's enemies.
6110
The reality is that I am heavily invested in the RPG Maker community that I have been a part of for a long time. It's one of the first communities I found/joined when I first got a PC in the late 90's and honestly the only one I have ever been active in. I've never really done more than lurk elsewhere. I've meet a lot of cool people here, many of whom I have known since for a long time now. Some of the oldbies may have become disinterested but they have been replaced over the years by less (or even more) jaded youths. So keeping rpgmaker.net running was kind of my way of giving back for a long time... even though it's the users who keep it going these days.

Some fun facts about my experiences in the community:

- ankylo and I are pretty good friends outside of rpgmaker.net. In 2005 or so I moved to NJ for awhile on a business relocation and I got to live in his hometown (he had since moved). Last year he moved closer this way. My wife routinely invites him to family functions.

- WIP and I don't talk as much as we used to, which is probably my fault because I never use IM anymore. However, we were bros for a long time and have met in real life twice. My sister-in-law was afraid to enter our home while he was there, suggesting that he might be an internet "knife-killer". When he came to visit me in New Orleans, we went looking downtown to get him some souvenirs before he left. Unbeknownst to us, there was a "gay" Mardi Gras going on at the time. Any corruption that has occurred to WIP since that time can be directly attributed to the elderly man wearing pink books, short shorts, and a cowboy hat.

- Current or former rpgmaker community members I have met in person: ankylo, WIP, Gadreel, Brickroad, Lysander86, RPG-Advocate. I also met some #rm2k/Don's forums oldbies like shqua and LordStan.

- narcodis was once known as DragonShadow, who was affectionately referred to as "Holbert Jr." or "Hoju". He has since grown into a fine upstanding man with a beard.

Anyways, yeah, making/playing games is cool and all but I also really enjoy most of the people too.
Two reasons. One simple, one ambitious.

Simple Reason
I'm an artist and I need a creative outlet.


Ambitious Reason
My long term goal is to build a media empire akin to what Walt Disney or George Lucas created for themselves. I'll start with video games created by amateurs with talent, probably some roughnecks from this community or similiar. Then I'll move into other things like animated feature films and series, toys, and other paraphanelia.
But it isn't about money (won't deny fame though ;D). I'm more interested in asserting my values and beliefs through the use of storytelling. That's generally the goal of any artist so nothing new there.
Secondary, I'm interested in living life and loving it, and doing what I do best while creating is the way I see that being accomplished.
As a tertiary benefit, I want to help indie artists develop their abilities. The current system for media is very make-or-break and sometimes is too post-secondary heavy. I don't believe art should be institutionalised.
So how do I intend to accomplish this apart from every other joe with big ideas? My best art talent is writing. I can structure a story from beginning to end, fill it with a colorful cast, and keep the dialogue fresh and fluid (usually). My best practical talent is investing. I know how to build capital.
So unless I do something foolish like knock up a girlfriend or lose all my money in a ponzi scheme, expect to see a big company with "Dy" in the name in the future.
Adon237
if i had an allowance, i would give it to rmn
1743
author=Dyhalto
Two reasons. One simple, one ambitious.

Simple Reason
I'm an artist and I need a creative outlet.


Ambitious Reason
My long term goal is to build a media empire akin to what Walt Disney or George Lucas created for themselves. I'll start with video games created by amateurs with talent, probably some roughnecks from this community or similiar. Then I'll move into other things like animated feature films and series, toys, and other paraphanelia.
But it isn't about money (won't deny fame though ;D). I'm more interested in asserting my values and beliefs through the use of storytelling. That's generally the goal of any artist so nothing new there.
Secondary, I'm interested in living life and loving it, and doing what I do best while creating is the way I see that being accomplished.
As a tertiary benefit, I want to help indie artists develop their abilities. The current system for media is very make-or-break and sometimes is too post-secondary heavy. I don't believe art should be institutionalised.
So how do I intend to accomplish this apart from every other joe with big ideas? My best art talent is writing. I can structure a story from beginning to end, fill it with a colorful cast, and keep the dialogue fresh and fluid (usually). My best practical talent is investing. I know how to build capital.
So unless I do something foolish like knock up a girlfriend or lose all my money in a ponzi scheme, expect to see a big company with "Dy" in the name in the future.

Wow, I see you at a new level. I hope I am talented enough to be part of this ambitious goal! ;)
Here's my hide tag :)

Well I started back in rm2k/Don's old forum. I came across rm2k while looking for stuff to enhance my online rpg I ran way back when i was like 15. I came across rm2k and thought it was cool and started to use it. I only have built and "completed" one game. And luckily I have not seen it surface...yet lol.
But nowadays I just play with it, check out new games, and enjoy the community. I hope one day I will complete my current project and eventually the series, but until then I just hang here and try to participate whenever I can

...and for both the bitches and the switches.
K-hos
whoa You guys are hi-chaining without me? That's just not right. :<
721
I do it for the fair maidens.

Mostly just so I can program something, and pixel.
Despite
When the going gets tough, go fuck yourself.
1340
I stick around because...

I'm secretly in love with k-hos, skie, nessy, ark, mog, dudesoft and rhyme.


I guess it's not so secret anymore.
K-hos
whoa You guys are hi-chaining without me? That's just not right. :<
721
author=Despite
I'm secretly in love with k-hos, skie, nessy, ark, mog, dudesoft and rhyme.



You're not really a fair maiden are you. H:
Despite
When the going gets tough, go fuck yourself.
1340
author=Khos
You're not really a fair maiden are you. H:


Let's find out...shall we?
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