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Jabbo here

Thank you. I haven't been lurking in the forums for a year or anything, I just tend to stay away from things, so I didn't try to become active when I signed up. GW disturbs me (as it should) and I just like how everyone on RMN actually seems to care without being an ass about it.

Honestly Equinox will probably cater more to the action-adventure and action-RPG people, even though it'll be fully capable of straight RPG. But it's not done yet and I don't like to hype things, so I shouldn't talk about it anymore. I'm really making it for my own use, anyway. Also, I'm glad my articles aren't completely worthless.

Jabbo here

I guess I probably ought to make one of these intro threads if I plan on actually posting every now and then. I'm Jabbo, and I guess I've actually been in on the whole RPG Maker thing for a long time (I caught the tail end of RM95 before 2k was released and translated). I'm also one of the least active members of the RM community.

I have pretty strong opinions on game design, such as "Random Encounters = I WILL NOT PLAY YOUR GAME." I also consider myself one of the best game designers in this community who hasn't even bothered to TRY making a game in RPG Maker. It's just not good enough for my purposes, I suppose (I'm also arrogant). Still, I love RM games and I feel like I'm a part of the RM community even if no one knows who I am.

I'm a 19-year old Comp Engineering major from South Carolina, although I don't think I would be your go-to-guy in terms of programming knowledge. I also like to improv on the piano and I write music as a hobby.

Right now I'm working on a game engine, Equinox, which is basically RPG Maker 2000 without some of the most noticeable limitations. It includes freeform movement (instead of snap-to-grid) and all events are edited by script (it's not complicated scripting and looks a lot like graphic calculator BASIC). You can also choose your charset and tileset dimensions, as well as screen resolution. I'm writing it in Java (yeah, I know, but I don't have a choice of languages right now), and it's coming along nicely. It's probably about half done, and the biggest thing left is allowing for online multiplayer (again, I don't know how well this is going to work, but I don't have a choice right now). The goal is to be able to do basically anything while still making it as easy or easier to do than RM2k. Once it's finished, this community will be the first to know.

So yeah, RMN is a pretty awesome community and it's probably about time I started participating (You'll notice I made my account almost a year ago, and my first post yesterday). So expect me to post every now and then and write a few articles, but I make no promises of being a very active member. Hopefully once I get Equinox finished, I'll be able to use it to make some games of my own.

High Power=Low Tier?

Well honestly I'm speaking from a practical standpoint. If you feel like you can make the player actually enjoy battles enough that they want them to take forever, then it's all right. But that means fewer battles (because if your player spends 90% of the game in battle, they're going to get bored of battling, no matter what), and harder battles. And if you have fewer, harder battles then you can address each one based on classes, and it all works out. The problem is when people try to keep the battle frequency at normal (aka a LOT of battles) and expect people to want to deal with fighting through them slowly.

High Power=Low Tier?

I think the main problem is the Magic vs Physical issue. In almost every game I've played, magic completely sucks, and you get the MP to cast 5 or 6 spells in the dungeon (without using recovery items, but you never seem to have those anyway), and they never even do enough damage when you do use them. Apparently though FF6 had the opposite problem (Sorry I hacked my way through the game, so I didn't get to experience the battle mechanics... can't deal with random encounters) and magic was just way too good.

So if you ACTUALLY MAKE MAGIC THE RIGHT POWER LEVEL, then suddenly physical fighters become more (or less) useful. And I'm pretty sure the only way to do that is to have an alternative to the traditional MP-oriented system, where MP runs out. Because if you have too little MP, you never get to cast spells, and if you have too much MP, then you can cast spells all the time (and when that happens the only way to physically balance the game is to make magic deal the same damage as physical attacks... which is stupid).

Possible options include a building system (like The Way has, and I think Riviera is another example of it) and a recovery system (Golden Sun comes to mind, even though Golden Sun's basic magic kinda sucked and it was all about the summons). This way you can make sure MP does run out and piss the player off if they try to spam spells, but you can also control the recovery rate to be the same rate that you want them to cast magic.

Of course the Tank class is still a bad class, because it's based on defense. It's all about the offense, finishing battles faster, etc. No one wants to deal with slow, protracted battles that they EVENTUALLY win, when they can win them faster and get the same Exp by using a Berserker-type or any other offensive melee.

In large parties, though, Tanks can work, but you have to make them able to. That means you have to make it so they really do take all or most of the damage (like drawing aggro in MMOs). If the enemies have an equal shot at hitting everyone in the party, then the Tank can't do his job properly and ultimately fails.

Music Requests!

I've always been curious if it's possible to make a regal-sounding Arabian-type theme, like city background music to the bustling capital of a desert empire. Only they're actually ahead of the world in technology (you know, like not the real world) and this city is pretty much the place to be.

Kinetic Cipher (Again)

This game is a design gem. It makes you want to explore around to find all the cleverly-hidden items. It makes you want to play with the systems. And it makes you very satisfied when you complete another cleverly-designed puzzle. If you take anything away from this game, it should be the importance of well-designed gameplay. I want to see another game like this made.

The Way EP 6

Yeah, sorry, I dropped off the guide at the very end. I'm honestly probably never going to get around to finishing that last little bit, and I missed a couple of notch items throughout Ep6. Apologies to all.

The Way has the best battle mechanics of any RPG I've ever played, hands down. I didn't really like Ep6 that much, but I can't deny that it has some of the best battles in the series, both regular and plunges. I would love to see someone take some of the battling ideas from this series and expand upon them elsewhere.