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Thoughts on using RTP.
I'm fond of both the VX Ace and the XP RTP sets, as they are perfect 'upgrades' to the the Dragon Quest aesthetic from the early days of RPGs. Since that is the primary sort of game that RPG Maker is designed for, they work quite well for that purpose. There is also a lot of variety to the RTP, and since recolouring things is easy, you can give your game a fairly unique look just by colouring and mixing the sprites differently from others.
Personally speaking, as an artist I enjoy creating new content from scratch, and I don't mind that creating all of the graphics for my game has taken over a year. However, I don't think original graphics are required for an RPG Maker game to be fun, engaging and unique, as long as the graphics fit the style of the game.
Personally speaking, as an artist I enjoy creating new content from scratch, and I don't mind that creating all of the graphics for my game has taken over a year. However, I don't think original graphics are required for an RPG Maker game to be fun, engaging and unique, as long as the graphics fit the style of the game.
Is expansive too expansive?
Obviously, trying to create detailed and complex environments for more than a few worlds is going to be a tremendous amount of work, so what I propose you do, if you want to feature a universe the player can explore, is to have randomly generated stat-based planets.
For example, the player could come across a Class J planet (a gas giant in Trek lingo), which has certain materials the player can harvest. This essentially turns entire planets into treasure chests, but it is thematically appropriate.
Alternatively, you could use a script to create random dungeons for certain planets, with some random treasures and encounters. Simple things like this would add a great deal to the 'scope' of the gameplay.
For example, the player could come across a Class J planet (a gas giant in Trek lingo), which has certain materials the player can harvest. This essentially turns entire planets into treasure chests, but it is thematically appropriate.
Alternatively, you could use a script to create random dungeons for certain planets, with some random treasures and encounters. Simple things like this would add a great deal to the 'scope' of the gameplay.
What areas of RPG making really hinder your project?
Personally speaking, the aspect I most enjoy about making my current game are the graphics; I love creating custom artwork and doing custom sprite work, and it is rather satisfying to create all of the graphics from scratch. I also enjoy composing the game's music, writing dialogue, creating items, enemies, etc., and mapping areas, and I try to push myself to improve in each of the above areas.
However, for me the most daunting aspect is still scripting. Scripting is something I really need to learn, and something that I am actually enthusiastic about, but my knowledge is still extremely limited. I am slowly learning RGSS 3, celebrating each small victory as my understanding gradually improves, mostly through trial and error. I could really use some good tutorials on RGSS 3, and if you guys know of any I would be extremely grateful.
However, for me the most daunting aspect is still scripting. Scripting is something I really need to learn, and something that I am actually enthusiastic about, but my knowledge is still extremely limited. I am slowly learning RGSS 3, celebrating each small victory as my understanding gradually improves, mostly through trial and error. I could really use some good tutorials on RGSS 3, and if you guys know of any I would be extremely grateful.
What's in a Name?
I actually am fond of the MegaTen series as well, primarily because it does feature such a variety of mythological characters complete with their real-world (or somewhat real world) backgrounds. Of course, God is apparently evil, but that's par for the course in RPGs (plus everyone is kind of a jerk in MegaTen).
We've seen a number of games take historical and cultural elements from one period, and mix them with fantastical or anachronistic elements. One example which immediately comes to mind is the PSP game Jeanne d'Arc, a strategy game based on the story of Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War. The game presents certain details with surprising accuracy...and freely mixes them with magic, monsters, and Japanese anime tropes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqjZp_7vMU
To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about games like this; it's a distortion of history, but its such an obvious and self-referential distortion of history, designed not to skew facts for some political agenda, but to tell an almost-new story using real-world people and locations as a launching point.
Of course, English historians will likely object to King Henry VI being possessed by demons.
We've seen a number of games take historical and cultural elements from one period, and mix them with fantastical or anachronistic elements. One example which immediately comes to mind is the PSP game Jeanne d'Arc, a strategy game based on the story of Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War. The game presents certain details with surprising accuracy...and freely mixes them with magic, monsters, and Japanese anime tropes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqjZp_7vMU
To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about games like this; it's a distortion of history, but its such an obvious and self-referential distortion of history, designed not to skew facts for some political agenda, but to tell an almost-new story using real-world people and locations as a launching point.
Of course, English historians will likely object to King Henry VI being possessed by demons.
What's in a Name?
author=tanakayuuji
Don't say things like that I feel as a linguist, one who's specialty is Germanic languages no less, I might have died a little inside. Latin gave English a nice layer of loanwords through Old Norman & Middle and Modern French, as well as Latin itself during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, but English is a Germanic language descended from Proto-Germanic, it's closest linguistic relatives are Scots (which is descended from Early Middle English), Frisian & Low German (Saxon) with further relatives, in order of linguistic proximity, being Dutch, High German, Alemannic (which includes Swiss "German"), Austro-Bavarian, Danish, Swedish, Elfdalian, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Faroese & Icelandic.
English is very distantly related to Latin and it's descendants only because they are both Indo-European languages descended from Proto-Indo-European along with the Indo-Aryan languages, Greek, Balto-Slavic languages, Albanian and Armenian amongst others. Never thought I'd have to administer a linguistics lesson on a forum about games but that should be enough so that anyone roaming around these parts won't ever have these misconceptions again, thank you, have a nice day.
This is true, and your bringing up the history of the English language helped me to clarify my thoughts about combining cultural elements in video games and other contemporary fiction. Just as English is a fusion of related dialects, with some Latin and Old Norse 'thrown in', so too are many RPGs a fusion of different cultural mythologies and concepts. Look at Final Fantasy; you have characters and elements that are Hindu, Arabic, Christian etc., and they are all part of the same game world. Some have argued, with justification, that this approach is offensive and disingenuous towards real-world religions, 'piggybacking' off of their cultural weight to try and add an epic quality to the narrative being told. It's hard to argue with this line of reasoning, especially when series such as Shin Megami Tensei use deeply cherished religious icons to construct less than reverent narratives. At the end of the day, kids playing these games may only come to know of these cultures through these deeply skewed representations.
Having said that, it is virtually impossible to construct original concepts without a real-world frame of reference, and, if one is trying to create a fantasy world, the above kinds of cultural mutations pretty much have to take place. This is not 'stealing', rather, it is about assembling a new vocabulary to describe the world in which we came from, for the benefit of the world to which we are going. As Professor Tolkien put it, "You call a tree a tree but it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name."
So, getting back to names, I do think it is important to have consistency...Within a specific cultural area. If the hero grew up in a 'medieval style' town where everybody wears woolen trousers, it doesn't make much sense for him to be called 'Ryu' and be sporting a leather jacket! In The Lord of the Rings, The Shire serves as the 'base', familiar location, and everything else is more exotic by comparison because the Shire and the Hobbits are consistently familiar to us throughout the story. Skyrim does something similar, having an 'average' human race in the form of the Bretons, so that even in a fantasy world the audience would have a sense of what is 'normal' and what is to be considered exotic.
Connecticut Shooting
author=harmonic
Show me someone who thinks guns aren't dangerous and should be treated frivolously.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/los-angeles-gun-club-los-angeles?start=40
Some of the comments posted in the link above are unbelievably frivolous, and that's just the first search result.
Of course, far more shocking are the Facebook groups who praise Adam Lanza and other gunmen as heroes, and who openly state that shooting people is a game:
http://www.ibtimes.com/adam-lanza-facebook-pages-celebrate-school-shooter-945088
http://bogleech.tumblr.com/post/37941727334/honeyedlife-reminder-that-these-people-exist
While I am sure that the gun owners you know are all responsible people who know the dangers of guns and the importance of gun safety, there really are plenty of people who treat guns as toys at best and as tools of power and murder at worst.
Connecticut Shooting
Connecticut Shooting
author=KingArthur
The gun was "dangerous" because it was loaded (was there any reason to even load the gun?); any responsible gun owner would know to never improperly handle a gun, much less a loaded gun. A gun will never fire anything unless someone loads ammo into it, and thus the fault again comes back to the unfortunate father who mishandled his gun and paid the price for it. It's the same as knowingly driving a car with a defect in its brakes and then proceeding to rear-end someone because you couldn't brake properly.
The gun was dangerous because it was a gun. Yes, if you keep a gun unloaded in a glass case it isn't going to hurt anyone, but if you use a gun as part of a job or to hunt, then even if you are very careful you run the risk of mechanical failure or other accidents. I believe that man had owned and used guns for years, and I don't believe he had any reason to suspect that his gun was faulty, but that day something went wrong. Even trained soldiers who have worked with guns for years have experienced malfunctions and misfires beyond their control. Guns simply are dangerous, and for that reason their use must be treated with severity.
In order to own a car, an individual must pass a series of tests to prove he/she is competent to use and maintain said vehicle. There are significant monetary penalties for any and all misuse of a vehicle, and because a car can be dangerous when it is not properly handled and maintained, the government keeps track of a person's offenses in a permanent record. For the above reasons, not everyone will be able to own a car during their lifetime, and that's a good thing because not everyone has earned the right to do so.
And yet, owning a gun is far, far easier to accomplish than owning a car, which means that there are people who own guns who are not ready for that responsibility, and even if these people are not deranged lunatics they are still at a greater risk of mishap and injury than a trained professional would be.
In short, guns are dangerous and should be treated as such.
Connecticut Shooting
"I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow."
-William Blake
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow."
-William Blake
Connecticut Shooting
author=KingArthur
And yet removing guns alone won't solve the problem of there being the murderer, which is what many of us are trying to point out. You've removed guns, but there are plenty of other weapons and potential weapons to be used instead; ultimately we need to eventually address the fact that murders won't go away until you deal with the cause, which is murderers being present in society. Cure the cause, not the symptoms.
Yes, it's true that there will be murders committed by people if they lack easy access to guns, but it is also true that the gun is by far the most efficient way to kill people; the gunmen would not have been nearly as successful if he had been armed with a knife or an improvised weapon, and a bomb would have been more difficult to build or otherwise acquire and install.
author=KingArthur
Alright, this statement I find a problem with, especially the bolded part.
A gun cannot and does not kill people, why? Because someone needs to pull the trigger, whether intentionally or not, before the gun actually fires; a gun is just a tool. Taking the unfortunate case of the father shooting himself as an example, that turn of events was caused by careless handling of the gun by the father, the gun is not at fault. All the other examples you have provided are also the same, nowhere is a gun firing spontaenously under its (gun's) own will, someone is pulling the trigger before the gun is finally used to harm or kill someone.
Here's a different example: Assume on a sunny day I am driving a car and there is a person standing on the sidewalk in clear sight of me. I then happen to run over the person on the sidewalk, injuring/killing him. Putting aside the question of whether it was intentional or an accident, who/what is responsible for this turn of events?
A. Me, the driver.
B. The car.
I await your answer.
No, actually in the first case I don't believe the father pulled or otherwise pressed the trigger; the rifle went off spontaneously in his face for some reason, possibly due to a malfunction. You can argue that it was his fault for not properly maintaining the gun or not being careful, but the fact remains that guns can be dangerous all by themselves, like a car.
In your car analogy, you would be responsible if you had steered the car towards the pedestrian, but if you had lost control of the car due to a mechanical error the car would be 'to blame'. Of course, as the owner, questions would be asked whether the mechanical error was due to some factory defect or whether you had neglected to properly maintain the vehicle.
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