Can the scripting system be easier?

[Zoltor]

Thanks for advice, but I did, I even wrote all section of switches,variables and common event in Microsoft Word for documentation the use of it one by one. i.e Index 1 - 10 Used as a music switches and something like that. What I emphasize is, what event can done, is limited, compared to script, yet great eventer can overcome this with their own creativity in manipulating variable, switch, and common event(And usually  a lots of it).

For example : I want to give a certain skill a mark, so when it being cast by either actor or enemy(which has the skill), a tint screen effect will appear and also put how many turns should the tint screen last in screen, for each skill can be different in type tint and amount of turn. Now I remember I read a thread someone could do this via eventing that involves common event, conditional branch, and switch, I tried to think how it can be done via common event without touching script, and for almost 1 hour I can't solve it. Then I do it via script, and not more than 1 hours it can be done easily, without involves any common event, conditional or switch. Just give notetags in certain skill and it will do what it should do(really simple), but of course I need to know in which place should the code take place, what is the algorithym and etc, perhaps this is the difficult part in scripting, but again if you can do this at leat one time, next time doing this will be a breeze, especially if you like to give documentation  .

But again it depends on the person, everyone has their superiority and I appreciate it .

No, no, no, and no. There's no need for external documents, notes or even comments, properly naming your switches, variables, and common events, is all you need to do, to know what does what/what goes to what.

That can be done, but since common events can't run as a parallel proc during battle, you'll most likely need the help of a troop event page to put it off(only one page though, so It's not that bad). Needless to say most things involving dynamic effects "during" battle or changing the battle system/menu commands, require coding, however the vast majority of imagineable events, can be done by pure eventing, because just about every possible variable that is needed, to pull off every function imagineable, is a option(there's only 1-2 options needed, to make the variable setup, flawless)

Hell I created a extremely advanced random, module based map generator by pure eventing. It doesn't get much crazier then that(connecting maps that technically don't exist to other maps that don't exist, and locking them in place, is a tricky feat to say the least). As you probally know, someone has figured a way to make a mini map system, just by eventing(sigh, they got to it before me, I wish I started using Ace a few years earlier) too, and just like every "system" created via eventing opposed to scripting, It's byfar more customizeable then the scripted versions of such. With non development tool type scripts, each script pretty much is set in stone as to what they do(you would have to drastically change the script, to change what it does), which makes it alot more easier to change or add a funtion to a evented system, then it is a scripted system. I also created a new type of tracking system, based off the procedure used to connect the modules/rooms, so if I want, I can actually make a mini map system, for a map that doesn't even exist in the database(it will treat all the generated modules combined, as a single map). I don't know if I'll use that for this game, but there's a good chance my next game will be a Rogue-Like, which this kind of mini map will be a must.

Also check the advanced eventing support thread, people are always trying to pull something crazy off, usually revolving around some kind of donkey math, all of which is possible ofcourse(because all the mathmatical options are present as variable options). There's very little you can't do with eventing, plus outside of Battle systems, and menu/hud systems, most of the restrictions are due to bugs/features they removed from the RPG Maker series(for whatever ******ed reason the developers want to use as an excuse).

 

[Andar]

No, no, no, and no. There's no need for external documents, notes or even comments, properly naming your switches, variables, and common events, is all you need to do, to know what does what/what goes to what.

That depends on the type and size of the project - and YES, external documents are sometimes needed and very often helpfull even on single-person-projects (for team projects its absolutely requirement to get everything in proper writing, but even on personal one-person-projects it really helps to plan ahead with external documents, especially if you plan a non-linear game.

 

[Zoltor]

That depends on the type and size of the project - and YES, external documents are sometimes needed and very often helpfull even on single-person-projects (for team projects its absolutely requirement to get everything in proper writing, but even on personal one-person-projects it really helps to plan ahead with external documents, especially if you plan a non-linear game.

For a team project, having such is more viable, but if you assign each person to specific aspects/tags, there shouldn't be a problem(not in a RM project anyway). When I was working in a team for a Byond game, I had to make big readme files(Byond games need to be completed coded from scratch), since as a mapper, I had to tell the coder how to code my maps. This ofcourse is not likely to be a issue in a RM project. As long as people properly name stuff, it should be pretty damn obvious what things are for.

The only time I can see where you might want to do that, is if you have multiple people working on a single system. Then ofcourse you'll want to let the other people know where you left off(It's not smart to have more then one person working on a single system, but if you do have multiple people working on a single system, yea a readme file is pretty much a must).

 

[Andar]

The only time I can see where you might want to do that,

This is something that biases a lot of your answers - if you cannot see how something could be usefull, then it cannot be usefull to anyone in your opinion...
My personal projects are bigger than what other people usually do for fun, and I work on them for a long time. It's simply not possible to remember everything you have decided to do in a project, if that project has a large enough size that you're working on it (and know that you'll work on it) for several years.


Just that you can see what I'm talking about: one of my hobbies is writing PnP-RPG-Rules (similiar to D&D or Rolemaster or such tabletop games), and the last version got to almost 200 pages (DIN A4) as a PDF. Balancing something like that isn't easy.


The RM-Project (set in the same world as the PnP-RPG) I'm currently working on will be multi-lingual and contain a branching story (with a number of actors that each have their own story, not limiting it to a primary storyline). If I don't plan ahead and design everything in external documents, I'll never be able to interconnect those storylines.


Single naming only works if there aren't combination effects depending on multiple player choices...

 

[Tsukihime]

Tagging notes here and there and naming your variables/switches or commenting your common events doesn't help with the big picture, which is what the external documentation is for.


RPG Maker does not provide support for project management, after all.

 

[Zoltor]

This is something that biases a lot of your answers - if you cannot see how something could be usefull, then it cannot be usefull to anyone in your opinion...

My personal projects are bigger than what other people usually do for fun, and I work on them for a long time. It's simply not possible to remember everything you have decided to do in a project, if that project has a large enough size that you're working on it (and know that you'll work on it) for several years.

Just that you can see what I'm talking about: one of my hobbies is writing PnP-RPG-Rules (similiar to D&D or Rolemaster or such tabletop games), and the last version got to almost 200 pages (DIN A4) as a PDF. Balancing something like that isn't easy.

The RM-Project (set in the same world as the PnP-RPG) I'm currently working on will be multi-lingual and contain a branching story (with a number of actors that each have their own story, not limiting it to a primary storyline). If I don't plan ahead and design everything in external documents, I'll never be able to interconnect those storylines.

Single naming only works if there aren't combination effects depending on multiple player choices...

My game is no small project, that's for sure, and also has a braching story(it involves rather or not you get the secret char, you probally have seen me talking about), and I'm not having problems keeping track of things. If I make any external notes, it will be mostly for database stuff(things that gets so long, that It's impssible to remember everything off the top of one's head), but I may not even do that, because when I think of a unique skill or item/piece of equipment, I usually stop what I'm doing, make the skill/item, and then go back to what I was doing beforehand.

Oh I didn't think of a game being multi lingual. Yea to keep track of each translation's progress, that would be the best way to do it.

To Hime: Yea, RM Isn't really made to support team projects at all, so even with the external documents, It's gonna be hard to share the workload anyway. The only thing people can really do, is outsource the creation of resources(everything else is a nightmare to be transfering around, if even possible)

 

[whitesphere]

Tagging notes here and there and naming your variables/switches or commenting your common events doesn't help with the big picture, which is what the external documentation is for.

RPG Maker does not provide support for project management, after all.

This is one thing that would be nice, if it were somehow better at allowing multiple people to work on the same game.

One thing that might help, but which wouldn't be too painful to code, is if maps could be put in specific sub-folders, and the map IDs allocated on a per-folder basis.  So the Map ID would be something like 10000*(folder ID)+(map ID within folder).  This would allow people to, split-up map making work into different sections with each person with his/her own folder.

 

[Napoleon]

Map-regions and map-variables/switches would be nice. The same is needed on an event-level for big projects.

As for variable/switch naming, it indeed is not sufficient. That's why I use a script that monitors what regions, switches & variables each script uses and it reserves 10 regions to use per map as map-specific regions and it crashes the game if scripts overlap. Because I had several scripts/events use the same region or game_switch at some point leading to some hard-to-find-bugs. It could be caused by a simple script-update and then you forget to change the switch number.

Sample:

http://s27.postimg.org/jz0yi7jqr/sample.png

note: the 25 = including the hidden ones from the reserved map regions

Every time I start my project the console outputs a pretty enormous test-sequence of various stuff. This just being a tiny part of it. If we just had a compiler and some build-in sanity-checks...

 

[Mister.Right]

I can't speak for non-programmers, but creating a decent game with no programming knowledge at all and low-budget is a myth. The same goes for RPG Maker. It has never been done. A pure event-coded game engine is just not doable. It will either fail because of performance issues or because of missing features. RPG Maker seems to be somewhere in between.

Also in the end a large event-system is harder to learn than just learning to script imo. For those of you who worked with big enterprise development environments probably know that they first had to spent a lot of time just learning where all the buttons and options are located. Scripting from scratch is sometimes just faster and easier.

I think everyone agreed that RM is great for entry game developers, other than that it is not suitable for serious game developers. The maker is simple enough which one can master within 3 months, after that you either have to learn scripting or find a more powerful alternatives. I think it is wiser to look for an alternative  than spending years to master Ruby and Ruby isn't great for portable and multiplaforms supports anyway. I think a lot people stuck at their projects  progression at the point where they either have to scale down their projects or require to learn scripting. I am developer for enterprise app with bakcground of Java,Javascript,PL/SQL,HTML,CSS though I fam skeptical to learn another full functional programming language such as Ruby due to time consuming what will this be for someone with no programming language background require to know scripting to achieve some desirable features for his/her game? More than likely this is a game over them.

 

[Mister.Right]

I think, if Enterbrain were ever going to do anything major to make the RPG Maker scripting language easier, it would make the most sense to use Java as a base instead of Ruby.  If the base classes were well designed and documented, in theory, it would be far easier to work with and expand.    And if RPG Maker were a pure Java application, it would benefit from any ongoing improvements to the Java language without any effort on Enterbrain's part.  And, of course, cross platform would work well except for Apple (they are changing to their own proprietary language, naturally)

But, since Enterbrain isn't a large company, I really doubt they're going to perform huge changes to their core software.  It's the classic development problem of "Lots of requests, few resources to do those requests."  That one request would probably take a few years for experienced Java developers to do.

I too dont think Enterbrain ever has any intention or direction to develop RM as a real game engine. When you look at their development path, they released a maker version for Nintendo DS instead implemented feature to port Ace projects to Wii and DS platforms. The release of RM is as game development process instead of as an engine; we have 2003, XP, VX, VXace and non compatible with another, no updates and patches to add more features to the maker. I hope some studio take over this project and develop this as full functional light weight game engine make use of HTML 5, WebGL, WebSocket, NodeJS would be a change.

 

[Sharm]

hero2x, please avoid double posting, as it is against the forum rules. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

 

[Bex]

I am not a Scripter, but i learned some rgss3 commands and how to use them within eventcommand script, or moveroute, or set variable or in conditional branch, where that scriptline option also is.

I startet with the Codecademy Ruby Tutorials.

But my Problem as NOOB at the Moment is to find easy stuff about:

Difference Array and Hash. How to Add and Sub stuff from it, and how to Access the Stuff inside properly. To create some kind of Lists or other Stuff.

And most Important NOOBs like me need somewhere Pinned how:

Classes Work , how they get created and how they Work in Ace-Scripteditor. And how to Acess via Eventcommand Script.

There we come to nearly same Point: Explanation of the Ruby Methodes and Classes.

def something

some code

end

sometimes the word after the dev is used other times, some of the Code. And why need this to be in different classes?

The difference and use of @@  , @ , $ , !, in RGSS3 VX-Ace in special.

Maybe a list of which Ruby Commands do work in RGSS3, i figured out that some of the commands on codecademy dont work, like Puts and Print as it seems to me.

Or iam wrong and i have to just to continue codecademy tutorials.

Or we should ask other rgss3 commmand beginners, if they can Agree with the List?

Edit: My Reference Code to Proof iam not Total Noob Its my Eventcommand Script  Code for my Mashine Gun.

The Thread about Scriptequivalents is very Helpfull with this.

dir = $game_player.direction ; ge = $game_map.events ; gp = $game_player    if dir == 2 ; xa = -32  ; xb = 32  ; ya = 32   ; yb = 320 ; gp.animation_id = 116elsif dir == 4 ; xa = -320 ; xb = -32 ; ya = -32  ; yb = 32  ; gp.animation_id = 117elsif dir == 6 ; xa = 32   ; xb = 320 ; ya = -32  ; yb = 32  ; gp.animation_id = 118elsif dir == 8 ; xa = -32  ; xb = 32  ; ya = -320 ; yb = -32 ; gp.animation_id = 119end ; for id in (1..60) #<--Enemy_Ids#if ge[id] != nil &&if ge[id].screen_x - gp.screen_x >= xa && if ge[id].screen_x - gp.screen_x <= xb &&if ge[id].screen_y - gp.screen_y >= ya && if ge[id].screen_y - gp.screen_y <= yb &&if $game_self_switches[[$game_map.map_id, id, 'A']] == falsetar = id   if dir == 2 ; yb = ge[id].screen_y - gp.screen_yelsif dir == 4 ; xa = ge[id].screen_x - gp.screen_x elsif dir == 6 ; xb = ge[id].screen_x - gp.screen_x elsif dir == 8 ; ya = ge[id].screen_y - gp.screen_yend  ; end ; end ; end ; end ; end ; end ; endif tar != nil ; ge[tar].animation_id = 115 if $game_variables[(tar + 100)] >= 2$game_self_switches[[$game_map.map_id, tar, 'A']] = trueelse ; $game_variables[(tar + 100)] += 1end ; end