DARKWRAITH007'S PROFILE

author=Diedrupo
Dude do you realize how old this game is? You're acting like it was released yesterday. It was one of the author's first games (if not his first), you can't expect it to be perfect from the getgo and you're also not the first to raise such criticisms.

I'm perfectly aware of the date of the first release. I'm also well aware of the fact that the game was patched several times. Unfortunately, it seems dialogue fixes were not a priority for the patches (which may have been focused on more critical bugs, I don't mind).

The reason that I didn't lower the rating of this game via a review is because I didn't feel like bashing an 'old' game from 2009. I'm also not here to expect something to be perfect. I merely expect it to be palatable. Having spelling/grammar errors nearly every other line completely ruins the immersion and professionalism of the rest of the fantastic work.

I've praised the game more than I've criticized it since the music alone is absolutely sublime!
The narrative is well-written and the aesthetics/artwork match the setting very nicely. Every screen feels alive and active (especially during the forest areas) with plenty of NPCs to talk to and houses to explore! The minigames are varied and interesting. The battle system is unique among RM games. :)

The in-game advert/popups that appear during certain puzzles are cringe-worthy. I find it interesting that they remained in the game despite subsequent patching. The forced installation is also something I'd rather not see in future RM games. Part of the beauty of many RM games is that they're able to just 'download and run' without installs.

I've managed to get through up to the part where stuff went to winter before I felt the story kinda resolved and no further reason to keep on going. The 'Aeria' storyline was resolved and the 'Quintessence' storyline was also resolved. *shrug*
After putting in a good 12+ hours into the game with no visible end in sight, I decided to call it. I feel Quintessence makes a fantastic movie at least :)

I'm not here to make demands of anyone, but instead I hope the author can improve their next project to be far superior to this one.

Ok then Link. :P
If you learn something from someone who was not financially compensated for teaching it to you, then you should attribute them in your work.
Obviously I'm referring to RM specific things rather than general mathematics.

Gonna respond to a few.

@ Sated:
Your attitude is unnecessary. Grow up or don't post.

@ Link_2112:
It is unfortunate that the good discussion points you make are marred by personal attacks and dismissal. The #dealwithit moniker had been done to death. This isn't 4chan so please adjust your attitude accordingly. You accuse me of dismissing further discussion when you are doing the very same thing with your 'get over it' at the end. Do you think putting that there somehow makes further discussion irrelevant? You are right in one thing in that I dismiss the points made by those who are unable to tell the difference between discussion and antagonism. If you can 'get over it' on your end and join the discussion then please feel free to do so. I'm not going to 'get over it' anytime soon. I have no problem with anyone using whatever game engine or programming language they like. I merely stated my views based on personal experience. That's what the point of this thread was, was it not? A 'what do you use and why' type of thread?

@ Addit:
My my, aren't we pretentious? Do I need to spell out that something is my opinion with every sentence that I type? Is it not a default assumption that things people say are 'opinions' until they qualify their statements with proof or state that they are facts? "As a matter of fact...blah blah blah" and so on is much easier to do than 'IMHO' in every sentence/paragraph.

I'm curious why my statements in the previous post above were seen as antagonistic in any way whatsoever to anyone. The thread is an opinion thread that invites us to discuss our thoughts on what we feel is better for making RPGs. I feel that the benefits of the RGSS (Ruby Game Scripting System) are powerful enough to outweigh the minor drawbacks in sticking with something because people are used to it. Similar arguments have been made for those people who refuse to update their software despite the newer versions being more secure. Oh, you're used to it? Despite the fact that those still on the internet using an unpatched Win98SE computer are able to get near-instantly zombified into a botnet? But of course we need to not order people around right? Who cares what people do to the detriment of the community as long as they're comfortable with it?

RM2K3 isn't anywhere near as important as an OS (thank god), but the use of RM2K3 is very limiting due to the lack of RGSS. I stated that RMXP and later versions are superior to RM2K3 by virtue of having the RGSS system accessibility. It is a game changer, in far more ways than even the RGSS scripters have fully realized.

TLDR: Everyone can use what they want, but they're missing out on the beauty of the RGSS if they stick with versions older than RMXP.

Riddle me this. Why has this game been front-page featured for so many weeks? Isn't it time to rotate it a bit and give some other hidden gems (Vacant Sky) a chance?

I love good RPGs as much as the next person but giving a monopoly to any one game is a disservice to the entire RMN community!

TLDR: Read it and weep. Or just read it as 'too many games violating GPL and LGPL'. Cut that crap out or get called out as selfish thieving bastards. Learn to properly attribute your scripts/code/stuff so you don't incur the wrath (and possible legal ramifications) in the future. This goes double for artwork, but I'll specifically deal with scripting/code in this post.

I've been exploring the coding/scripting of several popular (and hidden gems) RM2K3 and RMXP games lately. I'm a budding game designer inspired by the fantastic and awe-inspiring work that the RM community has released (for free!).

Unfortunately, I have noticed a very disturbing trend in use of RGSS coding and scripts that are specifically licensed under the GPL or LGPL licenses. For those that don't know what they are, feel free to follow the links.

There are many well-documented cases of large companies (Microsoft, Cisco, and others) that blatantly ignore the provisions of these licenses for their own commercial gain/benefit. They've faced legal action and have paid the price for their transgressions (although they seem unconcerned enough to have repeated violations without learning from the past).

Being the nature of the majority of RM games being 'freeware', the commercial aspect of these games is not in question. However, I've personally dissected the despicable 'commercial' RM games that do use LGPL and GPL-sourced codes/scripts in blatant violation of those licenses without any attribution, source code availability, or even a mention in the readme! Some of the worst offenders of these are (almost all) of the commercial games present on the 'Amaranth Games' website and specifically the 'Aveyond' series of games. Other games on that AG portal also violate these provisions, but the Aveyond series is the most well-known from that site.

In short, the GPL is very restrictive of commercial use of any of the code while the LGPL permits commercial use under certain conditions. One of these conditions is to provide the unedited and full version of the accompanying license and proper attribution for the source code that was used. That isn't asking much, is it? You used it completely free so just attribute it and provide a copy of the license (or if you're keeping file size down, a link to where it can be viewed/downloaded).

Many games across the entire RM community are guilty of this practice. It is trivial to see and know everything that goes on in RM games unless you care to do custom encryption (and even that can be broken fairly easily by certain people if needed).

Budding game developers, don't fall victim to this. The GPL and LGPL are there for the benefit of the entire open-source community. If you use codes/scripts/artwork from other people, then make sure you have permission to do so and ATTRIBUTE properly!

I'm one of you and I would love to see this community grow even further into a wonderful place to learn game development and bring about a new golden age for video games! We cannot fall into the traps of our predecessors and give in to temptation/greed/lethargy by ignoring the need for proper documentation/attribution of what we use from other sources.

That is all. If this is supposed to go into another thread, then feel free to move it there.

EDIT: Those that use 'game rips' as in sprites/artwork from other games. Go DIAFF, all of you. It is despicable for you to do such a thing. Come up with your own ideas or kindly GTFO. We don't need any more 'copyright infringement' non-parody games flooding the games list. If you lack the creativity for your own original ideas and world-building, then perhaps you should keep your games to yourself. If you can create your own unique variation on that material and make it distinct enough to not look like a blatant clone, more power to you. Audio remixes are a notable exception if they're done well, similar to nearly all the remixes at OCRemix.