COZZER'S PROFILE

Well... if you are good enough (and have enough time) to make every interactive object visually distinct from the "background", it's the best solution.
Sparklies work in some cases, but sometimes they're just ugly.

It really depends on a lot of things: in a dungeon crawl where you just interact with chests and doors, you can just estabilish that in the beginning; in an adventure game where you can interact with a lot of things it's more complicated.
So I agree that the "press A" picture is not the best solution, but it's effective and simple enough.

Well, there was a person who said he (she?) was thinking about Ace after reading this topic. Doesn't that mean that it wasn't "pointless" or "useless"?

Also, the problem is that you cannot prove any point with action, in this case.
You can make a very good game in RMVXP that couldn't be done in RM2K3, they'll say "yes but it doesn't count".
You can make a very good game in RM2K3, they'll say "if you did it in RMVXP it would be better".

Also,

author=Craze
I AM a pretty cool guy. Here's the thing: here at RMN, I was a cool guy, helping people out, making mediocre games, etc. Then, I became a symbol for THE NEW GENERATION by biting the bullet and fully adopting VX; certain, influential parts of RMN decided that I was an "enemy," somehow (read: #shump). This culture of ATTACK CRAZE continued on, even though I've always thought Ciel was cool, used to get along famously with TFT, like Magi's Balmung Cycle etc. Essentially: all the cool kids were attacking Craze because I had a different viewpoint ("games should have solid gameplay; Rudras graphics aren't everything"). It didn't help that several of those folks were staff members.

Come on, now you want to become a "sob backstory" supervillain? :/

I undersand RM2K3 users, but I also understand Craze, though.
Not having any "emotional" bond nor previous experience with RM2K3, I can't really see any reason why I would ever use it, even supposing I weren't able to script.
Still, time is the most valuable resource and I understand those who do have experience with RM2K3 and don't want to lose time adapting themselves to newer engines.

I can totally understand not liking VX's RTP, not liking the complex process of creating custom VX tiles compared to creating custom tiles in the other makers, and not liking VX mapping. But my solution to all three of those problems would be to use XP, not 2003. If it is graphics you care about, XP is the best at graphics. It's admittedly still slightly more work than 2003, but I think all the extra options make up for it.

Also, this is exactly the thought process I went through in choosing RMXP as a maker.

author=Craze
No. (P3/4 are mundane issues heightened to awkwardly dramatic extremes, so as to make "I can't cook" stretch for ten chapters. P4 is a terrible example of just about anything except all of Kanji's outfits being hot (and Kanji's "amigay?" storyline is pretty bad too, yes).)

You said "done poorly and done well".

It's true, but more than expectations I'd say it's about "trust".

Even without bringing commercial games in the discussion, between indie RM games there are ones I'd stick to (maybe becausa I liked previous games from the same developer, or because the game has a "professional" aura to it, or because the beginning of the story was really interesting, or because people I know assured me that it really would "get better later") and ones I'd discard at the first hurdle.

With commercial games, our "natural trust" is higher because we know the guys who made them are professional and they had way more resources than indies.

Maybe another problem is that with commercial games, you play only the ones you have some trust in (unless you like throwing away your money).
With indie games, it's easy to try a game with medium/high expectations (because you did play other indie games that were really good) but little trust, which leads to early disappointment.