DE'S PROFILE

author=LockeZ
Yeah, no. This doesn't work. The sole point of a movie is to tell a story. A game *can* tell a story, but the primary point is to provide a fun game to play. There's no comparison.

I disagree. A film, in theory, should be all about telling a story, but there are just so many Hollywood movies that prove it is wrong, and are either about eye candy (hello Bay and Cameron!) or celebrity promotion. Notice I didn't say "no story" but "decent story".

As for your question - indeed, i don't play racing games because they bore me to tears and they're all identical to me anyway. I don't play puzz;e games because they're too abstract and the context is simply not there. Heck, I choose my boardgames based on the fluff (backstory, characters etc.) and not mechanics. I guess I'm just more of a "need context or else" type of player.

author=LockeZ
The definition of an RPG is a specific type of gameplay. It has nothing to do with story. Story is great in any game. I totally approve of putting as good a story as possible in every game on the market. Nothing about RPGs is special though. They're just a different type of gameplay. We have chosen to make games with this type of gameplay because we prefer it to other types of gameplay.

An RPG without story is nothing more than an abstract combat simulator, a strategy game of a sort. Instead of making up definitions ask any player what are the most typical aspects of RPGs. I can guarantee you that most will tell you that they're story-driven games with focus on plot and characters instead of gameplay.

Something to consider - the most memorable (and nostalgia-inducing) books, films, and games are those that make you care about what happens to the characters. If you strip those works of the story, you're left with nothing more than character types that do not interact with each other or the world, making them flat and uniteresting, and especially not worth caring about (like some dressed up Barbie dolls). You're essentialy making those works forgettable and, in turn, worthless. The same happens if you put too much emphasis on RPG mechanics and not enough on the characters and the plot. Heck, Doom wasn't just a good shooter, it was a shooter where you played the role of a futuristic uber-marine that fought off a devil invasion from hell with chainsaw and shotgun. If they had replaced the sprites with formless blobs and removed all textures, all the while maintaining the mechanics and level design, no one would play that game. RPGs are even more sensitive when it comes to that.

Yup, we can argue between ourselves whether the games they mention deserve it, but what the article does is make the world aware that there exists such a thing as RPG Maker and that it has a community that produces truly asskicking games (from time to time). I say that's good. Hell, that's awesome!

What I want to know is are you guys actually working on the game and not just fooling around with useless menu scripts (sound test? Really?) and brainstorming ideas on what to add to the game, even though I was convinced this was to be a port and not a remix? For now it seems you don't have anything playable and yet you're asking people what kind of counters to add to the menu... I think you got your priorities wrong.

Someone's getting defensive about their Breath of Fire 2 SNES to RM XP port.
Cool.

One thing I do not understand - you're blogging about this game almost daily and when someone provides tips on how to improve the game and points out which parts need polishing because of graphics clashing or flaws in design (which I guess is the purpose of blogging so much about a game, to get helpful comments), you, instead of acknowledging them, tell them to unsubscribe and troll elsewhere. Am I missing something here? Maybe you don't understand the purpose of RMN and the gamepage system? It seems what you need is a private blog outside of RMN, where you will get all the praise you need from BoF fans and be able to delete all the comments that are not to your liking. Something to consider.

Make sure you fix that Intelligence stat.