WIP'S PROFILE

author=LockeZ

author=Darken
I'm seeing a lot of middle ground posts about "being a little more serious but keep it the way it is" Doesn't sound like a solution or even acknowledgement of the situation.

The way the site is now, is that it doesn't solve anyone's problem. It'll satisfy the 30-40 active people on here as it has for the last 9 years based on sentimentality or coolness. But if you want to make the site bigger or better it requires admitting that things aren't very good now. You either have a niche community or you make the site relevant, this discussion will just be wishy washy talk otherwise.

This is all extremely stupid. The site is valuable to thousands of active users as it is now. You're just apparently not one of them.

Every community is a niche unless you're making Twitter or Reddit. The key is to be as relevant as possible to that niche.

We all know #shmup doesn't like what RMN stands for. That doesn't mean you speak for the entire human race other than Craze and Liberty. If you don't personally find the site relevant any more then... ok, bye? A couple of you said there are other sites that fit your needs better. Maybe use them instead of trying to sabotage this place.

Jesus, how can you people not move on from #shmup? The world is a big place.

Self-critique and introspection is never a bad thing. People have different viewpoints and needs. Nobody needs you to tell them to go away if their ideas are different; I think they can manage it just fine on their own.

Having said that, stop fucking up my thread with your petulant bullshit.

author=kentona
NEED:
The site's codebase needs further enhancements, the frontend needs a complete overhaul to be RWD.

CAN:
anything CAN be done - the tools are out there, we have a server, we have a sysadmin (ankylo).

WE CAN DO:
1) hope someone like a CROS or WIP comes along and wants to completely re-code RMN*
2) putz along and wait while ankylo and I pick at it piecemeal
3) try to organize some massive collaboration and hope that RMNv5 comes out at the end
4) do nothing

ISSUES:
a) Time
b) Effort
c) Will


If someone wants to make a functioning prototype of a responsive web designed RMN and share their CSS/AngularJS/Bootstrap/or whatever tools they used I am open to that. I haven't solicited anyone for it.


*searches for RMN members will fully uppercase names

I'm honestly leaning toward doing my own thing. I don't want to drag a living site through my madness (again). If RMN was still my plaything, I might consider it. But I think that day is long gone. Attitudes as displayed in this very thread show that some people DO like it how it is. That's not something to ignore.

author=LockeZ
There are twenty thousand other people on the site who love what this place is about. Replace the staff members, if you have to. For example maybe we could get rid of WIP in favor of a new head admin. Kentona sounds like a cool dude with a very reasonable vision.

I have some very old news for you...


Originally constructed, this place wasn't supposed to be "newbie's first stop into wasting their summer." Back in the day, it was pretty forward thinking on different ways to connect with people about your game. As TFT so eloquently ribbed me about, I had also planned to take it even further. There haven't really been any changes to this place since the time I left. That isn't inherently bad, but it isn't what I expected. I wasn't trying to get into a doctrine war with this thread.

The way things are these days, I don't know if you can really "get away" with RMN as it is now. Primarily:

-Revenue source. Websites do not run themselves.
-Manpower. There's nobody who's sole "job" is to maintaindevelop the site technically.

Those are killer things. RMN got away with it in the past because I only had a mild interest in MAKING games and preferred making websites. But even casually browsing this place every few months, I can see the exact code I wrote six years ago show up.

author=Darken
My view has mostly to do with me doing RM games back in highschool because I was bored and this was the most exciting of the list of things a teenager like me could do. Nowadays whatever skills and effort I put into game development and art are more 'serious' and very non RM related to the point where making a game for this site is more of a side thing to me while I think about buying groceries and all those other things that make this a "side dream".

It's interesting that I think about making an RM game "for this site" and not care about the rest of the indie scene or w/e. It probably has to do with 2005 GW era standards and this Holy Grail of a cool RPG in my head that I want to do someday that will probably be likened by only RM connoisseurs. Though I think this sort of thinking is really dated and probably bad for the site. At the same time it's kind of part of the "casual side" of the site you people speak of.

Ara Fell is an interesting case of ambitious rm demo coming back from the dead to become complete and let out into the indie scene and even being sold. But what is RMN's role for this game, a link to its steam storepage? Idk it really is centered on this community and its history more than anything.

I can understand a lot of this. We're not really in the same era anymore as what some of us grew up with. kentona made a list of sites that "didn't last", but those were long ago anyway. Just because RMN has stayed around, what does that mean?

Personally, I never wanted RMN to be a place for people to just mess around at. I had big plans back in the day! I don't think those are necessarily opposing ideas for having a fun environment.

But it does raise the question of: just what purpose does RMN serve in its state? RMN killed its primary competitors long ago. Great, we did it. We won that Bartek Wars. So now what does it do? The world of game dev is a way different place these days. You can make a great game and legitimately sell it, and easily. That doesn't mean everyone has to make a commercial project. But as Darken said, how does RMN facilitate Ara Fell?

author=rcholbert
RMN reunion confirmed. GET HYPED.

Easy there, friend!

It just seems a lot of the ideas I had way back in the day for RMN are far more feasible these days. And also way more frictionless. It was a big pain in the ass getting everyone synced up to the same SVN repo, or deploying the site. These days, things like Github take care of that. Cloud hosting is wham-bam amazing slam, too.

The biggest thing being that I am very impressed with the Gamejolt client. I still remember years ago telling Ankylo I wanted a client-side app. But there was pretty much no way for me to create that. There's plenty of viable tools these days.

But also: do my ideas even fit with what RMN is? I like people using RPG Maker, but I have no interest in it myself. How do you get people to play games more than making them?

Also I'm still butthurt that a stupid company bought rmn.com which would have been awesome to own.

author=kentona
By your phrasing it sounded like you wanted to work on RMN's codebase again.

I've thought about it. But I also don't know if the thoughts I have are better suited to something I make myself, or try to drag RMN through it. I did the "drag RMN through it" thing in the past. Worked sometimes.

author=rcholbert
I remember once upon a time when some plucky developer randomly offered to be an admin. That worked out okay.

It did.