Well, I currently have 2-3 issues (besides having to learn how to work with Gimp/GCH to create sprites (templates)/faces/etc., scripting and what not).
1.) Vx Ace has a maximum of 999 Maps, which absolutely definetely is not enough for my project at all, even if I'd make 500x500 maps and put 10 different things in a way that it looks to a player as if it's a new map. Besides this being hardly possible for a awful lot of maps...
- I'd assume it's hard coded, otherwise a limit-breaker script would be around... and changing the program isn't legal (and I don't think I'd be able to do that anyway). So the question is if the limitation is "engine only" or not. For example: If I make multiple projects, then rename the maps from 999 to 1999 / 2999 etc., then shove them back in the main folder when finished and put in a event on map_001 to teleport me to map_2500 X, Y,... etc. would that work in the actual game?
2.) I've read that the Compression function doesn't work with when the size exceeds 2 or 3 GB (people weren't clear about it). Most likely, my project is going to exceed this easily. Is the point of failure due to the program being unable to handle more or because the hardware used usually can't archive more? If it's due to the program, is there a different program which could compress the files in the same way?
3.) Is there any serious guideline as to when a game starts to lag?
3.a) How does map size influence lag?
3. Do Events like Teleport or conversations cause lag and to which degree?
3.c) How do NPCs influence lag?
3.d) How does a large, shown (in custom sprites) Party influence lag?
4.) iirc the EULA says 1 Computer... which sorta makes no sense to me, especially given the fact that by default, progress is stored in the steam cloud. Does it really refer to one PC or is it (like one would assume) okay to have it on more than one, as long as it's only used by the person owning the license?
What makes your project so large that it needs more than 999 maps, etc.? Is it your first? Like Andar said, it's best to start small. Trying to make a triple-A-sized game your first time out is liable to end with you abandoning the project.
I'll take a swing at #1: you absolutely could make extra map files in another project and paste them into your original one; however, you wouldn't be able to use them for anything because the actual links between maps are determined by the mapinfos file, and there's no way besides hacking into it to tell it you have more than 999 maps.
That said, I assume that mapinfos basically contains a bunch of instances of RPG::MapInfo, so you could sort of jury-rig a script that sets up the other maps?
Hime has a script that allows you to change the directory of your maps in game. With that, you can have more than 999 maps by changing the directory of the maps mid game. No idea how that works in the editor though, probably would take multiple projects with the same database for it to work (and using script calls to change to the other set of maps).
As for the others...why in the world does your game need 999 maps at 500 x 500? For one, you will never finish (the average person takes 1 month or more to make one *good* 500 x 500 map, take that times 999...83.25 years to finish your game. Good luck). To put this in better perspective, my game is up to about 9 hours of play time, and I'm still under 100 maps, and no map of mine is over 140 x 140.
Also, you can better see this if you look at the completed games. None of them that I know use 500 x 500 maps, and they all manage to get many, many hours of playtime. For example, Tale of a Common Man has many small maps except for towns, and it still has 8 - 20 hours of playtime (depending on how fast you read and how direct of a route you take).
Just remember...large maps =/= good game. In fact, for the most part, it tends to be the opposite, as the player just wanders around lost and loses interest.
1] 999 maps? Why? What are you trying to make here, I might have a solution for you, to make infinite maps maybe, but hey, if I don't know what you wanna make, I can't help you further.
Making 2500 maps? Over 9000 maps maybe? WHY? This is a LOT of work for no real reason.
Do you wanna make a pseudo-random map generator maybe? There are ways to do that. What are you up to?
An RPG Maker game exeeding 3GB, excluding music? Encryption does not contain music at all. A 3 GB VX Ace game?
Something is wrooooong here.
I mean... what will possibly make your game OVER 3GB not being music?
If that would be pictures and tilesets, pngs wouldn't be THAT big.
If it is jpg files... well try not exaggerating with quality here man!
Please give us some feedback on if you evaluated the 3GB including music.
3] Lag? Many things cause lag.
Big maps cause lag. The bigger than a full screen 640 x 480 the worse.
Many events on the same map cause lag.
Parallel proccess scripts can cause lag.
Heavy scripts for light effects for instance can and will cause lag.
NPCs are events.
A shown picture is loaded on RAM and it depends on how it is handled and i fin the end it is disposed, when not needed and stuff like that. Keeping on RAM might cause the game to run faster, while spending a LOT of RAM might cripple a system. This is very complex to answer in just one reply.
Try out though some free anti lag scripts, or get Effectus. It is a fantastic script that it overrides A LOT of the core RGSS3 in a way it eliminates lag.
Take a look on the FPS on the top, at the Title bar.
4] Don't pirate it. That's what the EULA prevents you from. Fair enough right? The license is sold to you, thus the software can be used only by you. I am not with the forum staff so you should wait for an official reply by them to make things clear.
Well, I should have written it in the OP why my Game is going to need that many maps/gb, since I knew people would ask me... so I'll write it here rather than replying to it in each quote individually:
The Game will have at least 100 countries/states which would at least demand 500x500 for itself. = 100+ Maps of 500x500 each.
Each Country/State will have 1 to 8 "City Fortresses" (in lack of a better description), with 4 levels of exterior and interior. = 3200+ Maps of 500x500 each.
For each "City Fortress", there will be about 2 Towns/Harbors with exterior and interior (800~ maps). If I'm going to put various stuff inside one big map, it would be about 100+ 500x500 maps.
For each Town/Harbor, I plan on adding 1-2 Dungeons, which needs at least 1 500x500 map for itself even if I'd put it so close together that you'd see terrain from a other "map"... = ~ 1200 Maps of 500x500 each.
Additionally, there would be about 200 Event maps, which I could place into a single one of 500x500 each.
So, if I'd use 500x500 maps exclusively while being extremely conservative with placing stuff, we'd be talking about roughly 4800 Maps.
That's obviously way outside the 999-Limit and using 500x500 maps isn't really going to work most of the time due to lags... and to be honest, I'd much rather work with smaller maps just for convinience.
Looking at the number of maps, it should be quite self explaining that I have to use A LOT of resources so it doesn't get dull. So by a long shot, I don't think it will really remain below 2-3GB when your average 30 hour-RPG has 200MB~ already.
Of course, there are reasons why I make such a expensive Game:
1. The "Party" will consist of more than 100 Chars. Most Games have like 4 guys doing battle while the rest is on standby... imo, it doesn't really make a lot of sense that 4-10 people conquer entire countries by slaughtering trough thousands of enemies.
2. Each of the Party Members will have dialogue on par with very extensive visual novels, not just with you but also the other party members. I never liked the idea of having people join my party to risk their lives after less than 30s of dialogue... and most games really ended without telling you a lot about the chars. And honestly, just shoving such dialogue into someone's face isn't going to work.
3. The Story I've come up with does actually demand such a large Game, otherwise I'd have to cut out so much parts of it, that it ruins the atmosphere.
What makes your project so large that it needs more than 999 maps, etc.? Is it your first? Like Andar said, it's best to start small. Trying to make a triple-A-sized game your first time out is liable to end with you abandoning the project.
It's my first RPG Maker project, since I've purchased the program recently. I did work with various creation-kits of 3D Games so I do have some basic understanding ( I guess).
Well, the main intention behind purchasing RPG Maker was making the Game I want... the size is just a result of it.
Of course, I can't promise I finish this project, simply because it's going to take a long time and I don't know what happens in the future... but making something different than what I want would be just as bad as not finishing a project imo.
I'll take a swing at #1: you absolutely could make extra map files in another project and paste them into your original one; however, you wouldn't be able to use them for anything because the actual links between maps are determined by the mapinfos file, and there's no way besides hacking into it to tell it you have more than 999 maps.
That said, I assume that mapinfos basically contains a bunch of instances of RPG::MapInfo, so you could sort of jury-rig a script that sets up the other maps?
Hime has a script that allows you to change the directory of your maps in game. With that, you can have more than 999 maps by changing the directory of the maps mid game. No idea how that works in the editor though, probably would take multiple projects with the same database for it to work (and using script calls to change to the other set of maps).
As for the others...why in the world does your game need 999 maps at 500 x 500? For one, you will never finish (the average person takes 1 month or more to make one *good* 500 x 500 map, take that times 999...83.25 years to finish your game. Good luck). To put this in better perspective, my game is up to about 9 hours of play time, and I'm still under 100 maps, and no map of mine is over 140 x 140.
Also, you can better see this if you look at the completed games. None of them that I know use 500 x 500 maps, and they all manage to get many, many hours of playtime. For example, Tale of a Common Man has many small maps except for towns, and it still has 8 - 20 hours of playtime (depending on how fast you read and how direct of a route you take).
Just remember...large maps =/= good game. In fact, for the most part, it tends to be the opposite, as the player just wanders around lost and loses interest.
I've seen the script, but I wanted to see if there are any alternatives... also it's not free for commercial use afaik, and I'd rather not rule out selling a game I work YEARS on right at the start.
A 500x500 map doesn't need to be a map which is just a plain space where you walk on, while I do intend to use a few of such maps for the sake of sending the player on a search-quest. I was just using 500x500 as example, because it's the max. available.
In theory, one could use one map 500x500 for multiple things with enough space between so the player doesn't see the other content, for most RPG I've seen, roughly 10-50 cities would fit into a single 500x500 map. But as previously stated, this will not work for me unless I SERIOUSLY cut down the story.
IF I'd get a option to get around the map limitations, then I'd use MUCH smaller maps for most of the time, not only to avoid lag, but also because they're far more convinient to work with.
1] 999 maps? Why? What are you trying to make here, I might have a solution for you, to make infinite maps maybe, but hey, if I don't know what you wanna make, I can't help you further.
Making 2500 maps? Over 9000 maps maybe? WHY? This is a LOT of work for no real reason.
Do you wanna make a pseudo-random map generator maybe? There are ways to do that. What are you up to?
An RPG Maker game exeeding 3GB, excluding music? Encryption does not contain music at all. A 3 GB VX Ace game?
I mean... what will possibly make your game OVER 3GB not being music?
If that would be pictures and tilesets, pngs wouldn't be THAT big.
If it is jpg files... well try not exaggerating with quality here man!
Please give us some feedback on if you evaluated the 3GB including music.
3] Lag? Many things cause lag.
Big maps cause lag. The bigger than a full screen 640 x 480 the worse.
Many events on the same map cause lag.
Parallel proccess scripts can cause lag.
Heavy scripts for light effects for instance can and will cause lag.
NPCs are events.
A shown picture is loaded on RAM and it depends on how it is handled and i fin the end it is disposed, when not needed and stuff like that. Keeping on RAM might cause the game to run faster, while spending a LOT of RAM might cripple a system. This is very complex to answer in just one reply.
Try out though some free anti lag scripts, or get Effectus. It is a fantastic script that it overrides A LOT of the core RGSS3 in a way it eliminates lag.
Take a look on the FPS on the top, at the Title bar.
4] Don't pirate it. That's what the EULA prevents you from. Fair enough right? The license is sold to you, thus the software can be used only by you. I am not with the forum staff so you should wait for an official reply by them to make things clear.
First of all, I don't know what the final size in GB will be, but I'd rather be on the save side... if I spend more than a year on a project just to find out VX Ace isn't capable of handling it, I'd be seriously upset.
Random maps etc. are not planned at all... details are mentioned above.
Well, the video doesn't really show what's going on on the rest of the map, but I guess big maps for towns etc. wouldn't work out with my project...
Why not break the game up into parts? Save-data can be moved between projects to continue with previous characters. You could probably better organize the story to fit into a string of games: akin to games that require multiple disks *cough* Sqeenix<3 *cough*. There was a thread about this I found a while back, because I wanted to know if it was possible. Here it is: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/16652-episodic-game-with-rpg-maker-vx-ace/
The video shows a part of a map with 10000 moving sprites, running at 60 FPS. That would be enough I suppose.
A game of 30 hours might be 300MB because of music and sound ONLY.
Many games come with the RTP resources that are the default ones. Many people never use them but don't know how to get rid of them, thus their project gets a +180MB for no reason.
Meanwhile, sound fx, voice acts and music, occupy a LOT of space. That varies according to the encoding used of course. Anyway.
The majority of VX Ace games can have full enhanced graphics and keep it under 500MB even being an 80 hours quality game.
Compare this to Final Fantasy 7. It was a 3 CD Rom (duplicating assets on each CD) 3x700MB = 2.1 GB and it was a 3D game with video cut scenes and stuff.
3GB is at least an Exaggeration, but MAYBE not if you plan to use parallax mapping on such an amount of maps. That would need at LEAST a hard decade to be done I suppose, but hey, it's your project.
Man, how many people will make what you just described? Because one year will not be enough, trust me on that. I am impressed though someone would want to do this.
Seriously now, SO many maps? Do you have any idea about the size you are talking about here?
4800 maps (your conservative plan) Let's assume you hire 99 people and yourself. That makes you 100 people. 48 maps of the epic size 500x500 for each of you. A GREAT and experienced mapper might take an exhausting month to make one 500 x 500 map and this is UTOPIC. 48 months for the maps only. That makes it 4 years, hiring the best mappers around. Now assuming you are just one person, that 4 years must be multiplied by 100. So that makes it 400 years. Don't you thing you should think about your project a little more? Look I have absolutely ZERO argument on your ambitions, ideas, decisions and stuff, but this seems a little hard to be done this way, don't you think?
Edit:
"It's my first RPG Maker project, since I've purchased the program recently. I did work with various creation-kits of 3D Games so I do have some basic understanding ( I guess)."
I suggest you take it slow on your first project, as the rest of the people suggested.
"I've seen the script, but I wanted to see if there are any alternatives... also it's not free for commercial use afaik, and I'd rather not rule out selling a game I work YEARS on right at the start".
You work YEARS on a game, but you purchased the engine recently. Sounds a little contradicting don't you think?
1) Map size and number
Basically you can choose the size of your game however you want, but what the other topics above are concernec of is basically the amount of work it takes to make the game. That's why they're asking you to scale down.
It takes time to make a single large map, and it takes time to fill it with reasonable content - and you don't want to repeat yourself.
Commercial games with good quality usually have only a few hundred maps (including smallest house maps) and that result in games that need 20+ hours of playing time and require an entire team to work for months to fill those maps.
Filling 999+ maps of 500x500 size? Especially filling them in a way that they aren't 90% empty or repeatative? That will take a team of two or three dozen mappers several years.
I suggest before ranting about the limits (especially since those limits can be circumvented), make a single one of your 500x500 country maps and fill it - and then consider your scale again. This isn't just about player content like quests - how many different NPCs do you wish to have? And by different I mean that they all need their own show text when the player speaks to them without becoming repetive and so on.
3) Lag
There is no fixed number, because it depends on what your events do exactly.
I once made a test with a "sub-optimal" event to check for lag. I knew from the beginning that this event would cause a lot of lag because it was written intentionally to create lag. And that single event made a small map (one of the sample maps) unplayable (FPS < 5).
On the other hand, if you're using only decorative events and events that minimize lag, there have been reports of maps with a thousand events and no detectable lag - and that was before the effectus script.
4) Licence
Since you say that the project is saved in the steam cloud by default, I'm assuming that you're using the steam version.
In that case there will be no problem, because Steam handles the DRM differently - your Ace is locked to a steam account, and you can only run steam in the same account from one computer at a time, no matter on how many computers you've installed steam.
So go ahead and install steam on several computers and let steam handle the licence and DRM.
Why not break the game up into parts? Save-data can be moved between projects to continue with previous characters. You could probably better organize the story to fit into a string of games: akin to games that require multiple disks *cough* Sqeenix<3 *cough*. There was a thread about this I found a while back, because I wanted to know if it was possible. Here it is: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/16652-episodic-game-with-rpg-maker-vx-ace/
Hm... that's a very interesting approach. Since I've planned on doing the Database-Stuff only once anyway for the sake of "having it out of the way", that should be OK.
I definetely have to spend some braincells on thinking about this and how a possible implementation could look like.
The video shows a part of a map with 10000 moving sprites, running at 60 FPS. That would be enough I suppose.
A game of 30 hours might be 300MB because of music and sound ONLY.
Many games come with the RTP resources that are the default ones. Many people never use them but don't know how to get rid of them, thus their project gets a +180MB for no reason.
Meanwhile, sound fx, voice acts and music, occupy a LOT of space. That varies according to the encoding used of course. Anyway.
The majority of VX Ace games can have full enhanced graphics and keep it under 500MB even being an 80 hours quality game.
Compare this to Final Fantasy 7. It was a 3 CD Rom (duplicating assets on each CD) 3x700MB = 2.1 GB and it was a 3D game with video cut scenes and stuff.
3GB is at least an Exaggeration, but MAYBE not if you plan to use parallax mapping on such an amount of maps. That would need at LEAST a hard decade to be done I suppose, but hey, it's your project.
Man, how many people will make what you just described? Because one year will not be enough, trust me on that. I am impressed though someone would want to do this.
Seriously now, SO many maps? Do you have any idea about the size you are talking about here?
4800 maps (your conservative plan) Let's assume you hire 99 people and yourself. That makes you 100 people. 48 maps of the epic size 500x500 for each of you. A GREAT and experienced mapper might take an exhausting month to make one 500 x 500 map and this is UTOPIC. 48 months for the maps only. That makes it 4 years, hiring the best mappers around. Now assuming you are just one person, that 4 years must be multiplied by 100. So that makes it 400 years. Don't you thing you should think about your project a little more? Look I have absolutely ZERO argument on your ambitions, ideas, decisions and stuff, but this seems a little hard to be done this way, don't you think?
Edit:
"It's my first RPG Maker project, since I've purchased the program recently. I did work with various creation-kits of 3D Games so I do have some basic understanding ( I guess)."
I suggest you take it slow on your first project, as the rest of the people suggested.
"I've seen the script, but I wanted to see if there are any alternatives... also it's not free for commercial use afaik, and I'd rather not rule out selling a game I work YEARS on right at the start".
You work YEARS on a game, but you purchased the engine recently. Sounds a little contradicting don't you think?
Well, the video shows 0-1fps unless you purchase their script for 20$... and I'm reasonably sure that I'm not going to make an awful lot of money with this Project.
Leaving aside quality, even if I'd make it comparable to "average" titles currently sold (not saying I manage that), I'm fully aware of the fact that people won't buy stuff from a "nobody". Same goes for stuff like kickstarter etc. which wouldn't even give me enough to pay a artist.
Just to clearify it: I don't have a clue how much GB the result will actually have (obviously), I just want to be on the save side, rather than sitting on a "finished" product hitting a wall of limitations I have no idea of how to deal with.
The maps are a rather raw estimation and the numbers are more or less just to point out the fact that the 999-Limit would definetely limit me in the way I plan on making the Game.
I think it's worth mentioning that what I do and what a "GREAT Mapper" does is worlds apart... I'm not even trying to hold their standards... so I'd assume I'm done with my maps a lot faster. That said, I'm not going to finish anything in a rush at the cost of quality, I just do it to my own standards.
I don't know how long it will take me, given that I also have to do pretty much everything else besides maps. - But since I'm doing it alone, I don't have anyone to pay or pushing me to get it done... so I can take my time.
Basically you can choose the size of your game however you want, but what the other topics above are concernec of is basically the amount of work it takes to make the game. That's why they're asking you to scale down.
It takes time to make a single large map, and it takes time to fill it with reasonable content - and you don't want to repeat yourself.
Commercial games with good quality usually have only a few hundred maps (including smallest house maps) and that result in games that need 20+ hours of playing time and require an entire team to work for months to fill those maps.
Filling 999+ maps of 500x500 size? Especially filling them in a way that they aren't 90% empty or repeatative? That will take a team of two or three dozen mappers several years.
I suggest before ranting about the limits (especially since those limits can be circumvented), make a single one of your 500x500 country maps and fill it - and then consider your scale again. This isn't just about player content like quests - how many different NPCs do you wish to have? And by different I mean that they all need their own show text when the player speaks to them without becoming repetive and so on.
3) Lag
There is no fixed number, because it depends on what your events do exactly.
I once made a test with a "sub-optimal" event to check for lag. I knew from the beginning that this event would cause a lot of lag because it was written intentionally to create lag. And that single event made a small map (one of the sample maps) unplayable (FPS < 5).
On the other hand, if you're using only decorative events and events that minimize lag, there have been reports of maps with a thousand events and no detectable lag - and that was before the effectus script.
4) Licence
Since you say that the project is saved in the steam cloud by default, I'm assuming that you're using the steam version.
In that case there will be no problem, because Steam handles the DRM differently - your Ace is locked to a steam account, and you can only run steam in the same account from one computer at a time, no matter on how many computers you've installed steam.
So go ahead and install steam on several computers and let steam handle the licence and DRM.
1) I'm fully aware that my ambitions sound insane. And it's quite possible that I'll reduce the size etc. while working on it. Tough, making a Game with gameplay way outside the usual 20-50 hours is one of the main points, which I do not intend to give up on. I just want to be clear about the limitations I have when working with Vx Ace and if/how I can bypass them to which cost.
If I find a solution I like (that one with multiple games using the same save file is a good candidate so far), which doesn't have drawbacks for me/the game or only ones I can live with or work out, then I can make the game with this in mind, rather than potentially being forced to adapt later on.
I'm just the type of person which has to run against a wall to confirm it's solid...
3) In other words, playtesting is key... BD But as previously said, given my lack of expirience and other things, I'd rather use many small maps than placing multiple things inside a big one.
4) While I personally wouldn't intend to do it, as it doesn't make sense, I'm relatively sure that it's possible to launch the program via the same steam account while it's running on a different PC. For example, you could just start it on one, end steam and start it on another one (it's possible that it even works with steam running, didn't test it). If you want, you can also start something directly from the folder (Game Character Hub actually has 3 .exe in the folder, one with everything, one without the workshop and one without steam... whatever that's supposed to mean).
No argument here, except that @SOURCE isn't nobody. He is a good coder here in this very forum. I don't try to sell you anything here, I just wanted to inform you that "hey this thing exist and works" since I am a satisfied owner of it. Anyway.
"1) I'm fully aware that my ambitions sound insane. And it's quite possible that I'll reduce the size etc. while working on it. Tough, making a Game with gameplay way outside the usual 20-50 hours is one of the main points, which I do not intend to give up on. I just want to be clear about the limitations I have when working with Vx Ace and if/how I can bypass them to which cost."
"If I find a solution I like (that one with multiple games using the same save file is a good candidate so far), which doesn't have drawbacks for me/the game or only ones I can live with or work out, then I can make the game with this in mind, rather than potentially being forced to adapt later on."
This sounds great. Yes Chapters is a fantastic idea, and why not making a lot of games based on your story. That would be a great idea.
I'm just the type of person which has to run against a wall to confirm it's solid...
It is an error-proof approach on the other hand. You learn the hard way but YOU LEARN!
Third party EULA is the RPG MAKER VX ACE End User License Agreement – March 15th, 2012
As a general rule it's considered that you need about a hundred hours of development work for each single hour of playing time.
Of course, that changes a lot depending on your experience and on the exact way you handle contents, but it'll give you a starting number to calculate with.
And unless you keep the game very simple, that number will rather go up than down.
You can calculate the rest based on this, and then check how many hours a week you can set aside for working on your game.
As you intend to devote a lot of time to this, could I suggest that you set aside a small amount of time now, and make a very simple game (e.g. one town, 2 dungeons, a side quest and big boss fight) so that you can get the experience of the whole arc of a game. You will be able to see for yourself how switches work, what's needed to ensure that things are rounded off properly and so on, so that when you start a big project, you will have a much better idea of how to set it up - from simple things like how you set up your data base to allow for ease of use by you and a coherent inventory for the player, though to much more complex things like planning your stats, switches etc.
Yes, Hime scripts do cost money, and so does Effectius. But to be honest you aren't going to find a solution to the maps issue without paying out some money (as I know of zero that exist), and same with the lag issue (Though Theo Allen's is a decent free version, I've gotten up to 200+ events on it with minimal issues).
As for the other issues. Just remember that the player only sees 17 x 13 of the map at once (assuming default resolution). So from a players viewpoint, my 120 x 120 overworld map seems HUGE! 500 x 500 will be massive. Maybe try breaking the town down into manageable chunks? For instance, a town, for the player, only really needs the shops. Most will not care about entering every house. Plus, why should they enter every house anyways? Are your players robbers now? So, you might be able to dial down the town size by putting all key shops together, then put the houses together, and when the player tries to go to that part of the city put an event which says "We don't need to go here.". That will dial down your town size significantly.
But, just remember, a small, well planned map is better than a huge map. In my demo of my game I had a 90 x 90 house in it (ksjp17, the poster above me, played that very demo even, so he might remember this). Over time I got so tired of wandering through it (and pretty much everyone who played it though that map was too large), so I cut it down to 36 x 29, with a separate 30 x 30 garden. Most players now like that new version. Plus, from a playtime perspective, it used to take me 5 minutes or so (including the time it took to do the battles) to do the entire sequence on that old 90 x90 map. On the new maps...15 minutes, and now it has no (required) fights too! Condensing down the maps allowed me to make it more detailed, and now there is a ton to look at and search, whereas the old maps were just...empty.
Still, maybe start by sketching in one of those 500 x 500 maps? Maybe the first town in a city fortress? See if you end up really needing all of that space once done.
But, just remember, a small, well planned map is better than a huge map. In my demo of my game I had a 90 x 90 house in it (ksjp17, the poster above me, played that very demo even, so he might remember this).
I do remember - once seen, never forgotten. It is one of the reasons why I am unsure about the wisdom of going for very large maps, and suggested making a short simple game to get the hang of what it's like to make and play maps where it takes the player some significant time just to walk in a straight line across them.
Yep. Good ol' Laura's house. I'll just call that a folly of when I was learning the engine. Now I just laugh at and learn from it. What else can we do, right?
And that is also why we are both suggesting a small practice area, to get the hang of what it is like from the player side of things. I have a feeling if we were to even take the large maps from popular AAA games and make them in tile format they would not be that big in the end. Baulder's Gate 2? Ahm could probably be done in a bunch of 100 x 60 maps at most. Those large dungeons like the shadow dragon lair? Probably 100 x 100 tops (and that is a generous estimate).
Also, keep in mind that whatever you make in the beginning is usually going to be bad compared to what you make later. I'm on my 5th iteration of my game now (though iteration one never made it past the first week). So you might want to ask yourself if you really want to draw and redraw that many large maps?
Yeah and it has the one computer rule... which confuses me.
My Laptop isn't exactly the strongest and I mainly work on a PC in my Livingroom anyway... but it should be able to handle Vx Ace easily and I'd like the tought of being able to work on it (or mostly do playtests...) when I'm out.
As a general rule it's considered that you need about a hundred hours of development work for each single hour of playing time.
Of course, that changes a lot depending on your experience and on the exact way you handle contents, but it'll give you a starting number to calculate with.
And unless you keep the game very simple, that number will rather go up than down.
You can calcuolate the rest based on this, and then check how many hours a week you can set aside for working on your game.
Hm... I find it odd to make such calculations, since I'd have to do the basic stuff anyway no matter how long the game actually is.
Altough I assume most games with 20~30 hours of gameplay won't have anywhere near that many party members...
Anyway defining Gameplay seems quite difficult I guess, I've seen some "speedruns" on YT of games I played for months... tough, I wouldn't really call that playing and I'd kinda want to prevent it from happening in my game.
As you intend to devote a lot of time to this, could I suggest that you set aside a small amount of time now, and make a very simple game (e.g. one town, 2 dungeons, a side quest and big boss fight) so that you can get the experience of the whole arc of a game. You will be able to see for yourself how switches work, what's needed to ensure that things are rounded off properly and so on, so that when you start a big project, you will have a much better idea of how to set it up - from simple things like how you set up your data base to allow for ease of use by you and a coherent inventory for the player, though to much more complex things like planning your stats, switches etc.
I do intend to make such a thing, tough, not as a entirely seperate project.
My current idea is to make some sort of prequel (technically the wrong word I guess) rather than a demo of the actual game.
Tough, atm I'm quite busy with just writing down the story and the basic char design... some of those ideas are from a time when I was kid and played Games like Pokemon / Dragon Quest Monsters (aka Dragon Warrior Monsters) on a old Gameboy... (which btw. still works today). And learning how to use GIMP...
Yes, Hime scripts do cost money, and so does Effectius. But to be honest you aren't going to find a solution to the maps issue without paying out some money (as I know of zero that exist), and same with the lag issue (Though Theo Allen's is a decent free version, I've gotten up to 200+ events on it with minimal issues).
As for the other issues. Just remember that the player only sees 17 x 13 of the map at once (assuming default resolution). So from a players viewpoint, my 120 x 120 overworld map seems HUGE! 500 x 500 will be massive. Maybe try breaking the town down into manageable chunks? For instance, a town, for the player, only really needs the shops. Most will not care about entering every house. Plus, why should they enter every house anyways? Are your players robbers now? So, you might be able to dial down the town size by putting all key shops together, then put the houses together, and when the player tries to go to that part of the city put an event which says "We don't need to go here.". That will dial down your town size significantly.
But, just remember, a small, well planned map is better than a huge map. In my demo of my game I had a 90 x 90 house in it (ksjp17, the poster above me, played that very demo even, so he might remember this). Over time I got so tired of wandering through it (and pretty much everyone who played it though that map was too large), so I cut it down to 36 x 29, with a separate 30 x 30 garden. Most players now like that new version. Plus, from a playtime perspective, it used to take me 5 minutes or so (including the time it took to do the battles) to do the entire sequence on that old 90 x90 map. On the new maps...15 minutes, and now it has no (required) fights too! Condensing down the maps allowed me to make it more detailed, and now there is a ton to look at and search, whereas the old maps were just...empty.
Still, maybe start by sketching in one of those 500 x 500 maps? Maybe the first town in a city fortress? See if you end up really needing all of that space once done.
Well, the way of making many different parts accessing the same save file doesn't sound too bad for me.
Generally speaking, I'd like to leave the choice what to enter or not to the player, rather than saying "most wouldn't go there, so you can't". I also think the ability to move more freely helps with the atmosphere, unless it's made in a way that's just a waste of time. I kinda want to reward players exploring, not exactly with items ("oh, lets enter this house, look under the bed and find a super weapon" is kinda stupid imo) but with events. Using some "don't go there" events would make the game feel extremely repentive imo.
As previously said, a 500x500 map doesn't have to be a large open field. I could also place multiple, non-connected things on one big map to save maps.
The few 500x500 maps I do plan on making as one would not be made in a way that leaves you wandering on them searching for direction unless it's specifically inteded to be something like a search-quest with a appropriate reward, and even then there are limitations as to how difficult I'd be making it.
Also, keep in mind that whatever you make in the beginning is usually going to be bad compared to what you make later. I'm on my 5th iteration of my game now (though iteration one never made it past the first week). So you might want to ask yourself if you really want to draw and redraw that many large maps?
Well, I am fully aware of the fact that my skills will (hopefully) change over time, but I wouldn't start with a next map if I'm not satisfied with the current one.
Something I wonder about is if there's a new-ish rpg maker game that has been sold a lot. I've seen a lot of commercial ones with pricetags well above of what I'd imagine for mine and some of them didn't look exactly good to me. I think it would be nice to have some sort of reference - not that I'd be delusional enough to think I'd even come close to it.
Well, my Tale of a Common Man has sold very well, and that's before it hits Steam. You can click on the image in my signature to get details. But as you don't know how long it will take you to make your game, I wouldn't be thinking of establishing even an estimated price now. Inflation etc. will make a difference to anything you might come up with.
To answer your question on using RPG Maker on another computer, so long as you are the one using it, I've heard that is fine. You can always check the FAQ for the Maker or give a Google/forum search a try
And to just suggest somethings for this game you've in mind:
One reason the others suggest to make a practice sort of game, is due to the fact that as you get more experience with this software, you'll find yourself having to redo a bunch of things you previously completed. This takes a lot of drive out of making a game by yourself in the first place. It will also help to get a general idea of what you'll actually be doing by having such large maps. Something that I do to make things easier for my towns is that I have the inside be a shared space - as in, the inside of houses share the same map, but are spaced out far enough so a player can't see another home. It saves space and can give you ideas for future homes/etc.
Give an option for fast-travel. I think people that have posted are thinking you won't do this, which is why ksjp17 and bgillisp mentioned the size of a map being tedious to traverse from time to time.
Having the practice project is a great way to test out game-play features and scripts, prior to adding them to your main project. It's what I do and it keeps my work safe. I also end up coming up with ideas that I wouldn't have actually thought of for my game: different method for doing something via an event, ideas for the story or level design, mapping ideas, etc etc.
Before putting in anything, plan out where to cut-off a game if you go the route I mentioned earlier. It takes a lot of planning to do it the way I linked to. You have to plan for everything that will be in the database. I suggest that map one acts as a hub of sorts - directing the player to where they have to go and housing an event to trigger the credits of your game. The more you plan out your game, the easier.
A comment I forgot to mention about when you mentioned having so many characters, being able to speak with them all, and your view on a few characters taking over a continent:
All the micro-managing will get tiring for a player. It's also a bunch of work that you don't really need in your life.
Having that many to make backgrounds for, in-depth dialogue, etc will be a major buzz-kill, and likely end up with people just speaking with the characters they will use the most.
For game series such as Fire Emblem and Argarest, you end up leading an army - but you control a select number of units for the battles. It is implied that you are surrounded by soldiers from both sides. I'd suggest doing this, and probably having something like 40 characters at most that are playable. For other games where a few characters take over - the characters are stronger than the average person. As time goes on, they get stronger and stronger. In D&D, once you hit a certain level, your character becomes, essentially, a demi-god.
I suggest you first start making your game, and when you reach the 999 map limit, you can come back to us and look for solutions. You are talking in absolutes ("I need this many maps") without actually having started your work. Your idea to have over 4000 maps is frankly, insane. Not even triple A games with huge teams working on level design have 4000+ maps. So how about you make a few of those '500x500' maps, and then see just how much work you need to put into it and how to be realistic about your ideas?
Hint: I will wager that you will never reach this map limit.
Cartoonier cloud cover that better fits the art style, as well as (slightly) improved blending/fading... fading clouds when there are larger patterns is still somewhat abrupt for some reason.
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Do Events like Teleport or conversations cause lag and to which degree?
