A New RPG Maker draws near! Command?

[Traverse]

Then, we get to Thursday and we have a name that's very similar to the engine we already have, accompanied by screenshots that seem more-or-less the same as what we have. We expected a brand new RPG Maker engine, and so far this looks like MV Ace. The difference in expectations set and results delivered, alongside a confusing product proposition, is why people are disappointed and confused.

This is the main thing that gets me.

MV had an obvious product proposition over VX/Ace in the flip to Javascript plugins and allowing games to be built for mobile platforms. Even for VX and VXAce, back when VXAce was announced, there was at least a clear value proposition pushed in being able to use "multiple tilesets" in contrast to VX's inane restriction of 9 sets for an entire game.

What is MZ offering over MV? The only thing I can see being touted is a bigger default RTP asset base.

That doesn't encourage me to actually use MZ. All it means is that if, for some reason, I desperately wanted to use any of those assets, I'd be buying a license just to strip out the RTP and import the assets into MV instead.

 

[Chaos17]

I will say that the specific thing I'm referencing is A. Something that has been mentioned multiple times in the thread and B. in the System 2 tab in the database and isn't just an "on/off" switch, and C. Gets rid of the need for a plugin that is very very commonly used for MV.

My guess is :
A) 3D or more realistic speaking XP map layer style
More customization of basic UI, like the title screen, combat result, etc.
C) More option to dialog box, Rpg Maker on Switch has them

 

[KaYsEr]

The event list. When you are in eventing mode, the tile palette is replaced by a list of all the events on the map. Makes it a whole lot easier to find and edit the right one.

This is a really usefull feature. Good news.
It reminds me of one of the "MODS" we have on MV:

Considering MV (and MZ) was created with Qt you can pretty much change stuff directly (by "opening" RM in Qt) and create your own "RPG MAKER ULTIMATE", which means you can quickly change MV's icons to replace them with something more classy like in MZ or make the "map-note" space larger etc.

But anyway, I translated the tileset editor "leaked screenshot" if you're interested:

(the middle boxes I didn't translate are just stuff we have in MV already)

Looks handy. I expect some similar small QoL improvements (prob stuff from MV-trinity) here and there. Nothing that will drastically change your life (or your games), but still very nice.

I’m more interested about performances.
But since I regularly manually update NWJS with the latest (64bits) version, I will probably not see the same performance-boost as people coming from “base-MV” and its 32bits outdated version from 2017.
I mean, that thing gets an update every 2 weeks and it’s basically as hard as copy-pasting files, if you do this (and some other tweaks why not) your MV is also pretty much “from 2020” when I think about it.

 

[Oscar92player]

the translations of the japanese terms have changed between the makers depending on who did the translation. for example traits or features between Ace and MV.

And if you read other parts of the descriptions, the tilesets are called map chips in another sentence of it.
So yes, there is a good chance that the terminology changed again, especially if kodakawa has selected someone else to do the translations.

I hope that means we are going to have better translations this time, since I don't want (or probably I want, but not at this moment) to re-translate 3000-4000 text strings again...

 

[zakthepower]

I'm glad we can have the name box appear without the use of a plugin. That's a feature I've wanted for a while.

 

[SOC]

Does it support side view ATB battles natively? Will MV plugins be supported? Gonna be very difficult without Yanfly.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Does it support side view ATB battles natively?

We don't know yet.

Will MV plugins be supported?

No, MV plugins won't work in MZ.

 

[zakthepower]

Does it support side view ATB battles natively? Will MV plugins be supported? Gonna be very difficult without Yanfly.

I don't think we know the answer to that.
What I've heard is that Yanfly won't be converting their plugins, though.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Saw this translated from someone in Japan...come on make things clean to use.

I don't want to burst your bubble, but I don't think that's a leak, just someone who photoshopped the feature they wanted. (The RTP in both screenshots is 100% the same and we know from official screenshots MZ's RTP has a different colour palette than MV's.)

 

[TWings]

I don't want to burst your bubble, but I don't think that's a leak, just someone who photoshopped the feature they wanted. (The RTP in both screenshots is 100% the same and we know from official screenshots MZ's RTP has a different colour palette than MV's.)

Makes sense with what the guy is saying too. He's bascially complaining about MV's interface.

 

[Zeldashu]

Next Thursday for the big reveal. I'll see what I can get approved for tiny bits here earlier, but like I said. Marketing plan.

(I think the marketing plan helps more with casual users as it keeps it in their mind for longer, this kind of marketing release is actually effective, there are stats to prove it, even if I'm not the happiest about it because I like talking about stuff :B )

This really works. I abandoned the time spent making games and spent more than an hour reading through this 40-page post just to get a hint of new software. If you just announce the new feature directly, I will definitely not contribute so much traffic on this matter, lol.

 

[Creative Ed]

I don't know... From what we know so far, feels like this RPG Maker MZ might as well have been a free update for MV. I honestly don't know how much further than MV they can go with this version. It made sense going from XP to Ace (not VX), made sense going from Ace to MV, but from MV to MZ I don't know, I think they'll really have to out-do themselves to make people drop an already established and complete engine to an incomplete one where you won't even have scripts to hold on to.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I really think Kadokawa should have gone for a 3D RPG Maker this time, there's a market for that, and they could basically 2 main engines. One 2D (MV) and one 3D. Keep both up to date, give them upgrades once in a while and they could feed off these two engines for years.

I don't know, I'm very curious about the new functionalities, but I don't know why, I'm not feeling it. I hope I'm wrong, but I ask myself what will they do on MZ that we can't do already in MV with scripts?

Anyways, here's some fun info we can get from the screenshots:

Spoiler

 

[The Stranger]

I wonder what the icon after the flood fill icon is for? Looks like a brush or pencil hovering over a map.

 

[Lihinel]

I wonder what the icon after the flood fill icon is for? Looks like a brush or pencil hovering over a map.

It's shadow probably.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I would remind people that all the money from the Yanfly plugin sales has gone into a pool to be used to pay coders to create something similar/update the Yanfly plugins to the newest maker when it released.

It isn't a Degica project so it isn't part of our announces clearly, but it is something to keep in mind.

Also, I don't know where that screenshot of the tileset editor is coming from, but it isn't from the version of MZ I have access to, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[gRaViJa]

That's huge news!

 

[Touchfuzzy]

It's shadow probably.

As that is not a new feature or one that is on the timeline of announces, I can actually answer it, this is correct. That is the shadow tool

 

[TheSlyder]

I'm excited to learn more about it, but I feel like making significant quality of life and UI changes hasn't been something high on the priority list. There are things that I feel like should have been put in already like hotkeys for navigating the UI (It feels archaic having to manually click an icon to switch between Map and Event editing modes. Or not being able to change your tools with the press of a key like in graphics programs. I'm hoping for this kind of thing as well as a lot of functions that should be in the software already but require plug-ins to utilize.

If we're talking about dream changes that definitely won't happen, it would be amazing to see out of the box pixel movement or at least 8 directional movement. That alone does a lot to shake off the "RPG Maker look" that has such a stigma attached.

 

[bgillisp]

@TheSlyder : There has always been a hotkey to change between map and event. F5 and F6. Did you not know that? Its present in both ACE and MV.

 

[Marian Hurricane]

With the new screenshots, there's a totally different style of character. More like the current MV chibi style. Is it possible this big new RTP has multiple styles? Is it possible there's a tall character version? Hmmmm. O_O