RPG MAKER RESOURCE PACK SURVEY

[D.L. Yomegami]

Finished!

I'd like to second the request for another Parallel Worlds pack. The Fantasy Heroine packs are some of my favorites (lack of down sprites aside, and some of the characters included in Pack 4 were things I wouldn't want to use outside of a porn game), but as much as I love my female characters it'd be really nice to have some more male characters in the same style. It'd also be really nice to have a set of NPCs in that style, as well; both the Fantasy Heroine and Parallel Worlds characters look too main character-y.

In addition to that, it'd also be nice to see more character packs in general that include frontview battlers. And down sprites, because the lack of those is somewhat annoying to work around for we who lack pixel art skills. Heck, even converting Katakara Hibiki's Fantasy Hero/Dark Fantasy Hero packs to MV would be really nice.

I'd love to see the extra characters included with the Karugamo music packs at least get a face graphic, if not the whole package of a character set + emoset + frontview battler. I'd love to use the female mage in something because I find her adorable, but working around the lack of faceset would just be too much of a pain.

It'd also be nice to see an expansion to the FES Pack that includes frontview battlers for all the actors/NPCs. I understand that pack was mostly just FES's RTP converted (I think), but the lack of battlers for the actors is awfully restricting for me. Also for character packs that lack frontview battlers, seeing the Dark Fantasy pack characters (the free ones released not too long ago) get frontview battlers would be nice.

Yeah, I really like character packs. I'm just not fond of the character generator, I guess (plus you can't use that to make frontview battlers).

Come to think of it, it'd be nice in general to get some more frontview battlers that don't clash with the RTP. It feels like most of the ones available are sideview only, and sideview in general seems to be prioritized over frontview stuff.

Also seconding the request for more battlebacks, because they're a pain to find.

I also voted for more plugins. Paid plugins seem to be increasingly common nowadays, and if they're sold through the official store, then they'd also be sold through Steam where I could get at them much easier than I would be otherwise. Granted, that doesn't solve the issue with a paid plugin possibly only being for 1.6.1+ and not working with anything below that, but it'd still be a start.

Keeping the DLC in the store free to use and edit for commercial purposes feels like the best course of action. Who wants to pay money for something that's noncommercial only?

 

[Mrs_Allykat]

I second @D.L. Yomegami on this: "Keeping the DLC in the store free to use and edit for commercial purposes feels like the best course of action. Who wants to pay money for something that's noncommercial only?"

I'm not going to kick up dirt, but I will never knowingly buy any content with the "non commercial" tag.

Also, I'm convinced for the battlebacks, but I'll add that I really like "battlebacks2" since those bring life and versatility to the base battlebacks.

 

[Storyteller-Hero]

Survey filled out. I particularly requested busts and sprites for male characters and NPCs because we've got a ton of fantasy heroines now.

 

[Kokoro Hane]

Survey filled out. I particularly requested busts and sprites for male characters and NPCs because we've got a ton of fantasy heroines now.

I just took the survey and I mentioned that too at the end. I'd love to see a fantasy hero pack to match with the fantasy heroines ^^

 

[Parallax Panda]

Survey done!

Like some have said before, I only buy DLC with a good terms of use and that means I can use if for commercial games if I so wish. I'd never buy anything that hinders my creativity or what I can do with the finished game. Way too much energy goes into creating a game for me to use resources that restrict me in any serious way.

Putting that aside, what we don't need as much is more music DLC, there is SO much music DLC out there already. A few DLC packs with sound effects might be nice though. And when I think about it (I forgot to mention this in the survey but), I'd really like more voice acting packs with pre-recoded one liners like those "Japanese School Girls Vol.1,2,3" etc. Although, it would be nice with some male voices too... not just... schoolgirls.

When it comes to graphics I always appreciate more FSM tiles (and tall character sprites/animals/monsters to go with them would be awesome). But the most needed graphical assets that we're lacking are without a doubt more (high quality!) battle backgrounds. I like the "Tokiwa Graphics" ones (and I bought them), but they're not enough and because of their unique style they don't blend with the RTP backgrounds either. And not a single one of those Tokiwa backgrounds feature any indoors locations which is kinda a bummer.

[EDIT; yeah, might as well mention. In case of DLC with battlers I'd also like to request more front view battlers since most packs as well as the RTP is more geared towards side-view... which is not for everyone.]

 

[Bastrophian]

I WOULD LOVE to see more pixel assets. More Pop! More Fes! More Time Fantasy! More new pixely styles and themes! But I dont feel good asking for them. Its just too much of a hassle to use them in MV, in my opinion, and it dosent even look very nice. Its money I could spend on assets that let me use them in other engines (which I'll grant, I believe a few of the pixel assets on the RM Store do allow use in other engines...though not Pop! and obviously not Fes, which isint the point...). I realize some devs on here seem to make it work, but its not something thats done easily, and it should be. Im sorry, its just annoying seeing all these great pixel assets I want to use...just not in MV or 2k3. Im sorry, I just needed to say that.

With that said, other than pixel assets, I suppose I would like to see a little love for the male side of the heroic spectrum in a "Fantasy Hero" pack, maybe even parts for the character gen. Not that theres anything wrong with more Fantasy Heroine packs, those are welcome too! But theres just alot of them, and I would like to see some Heroes in the same quality.

I want to see a proper Ship/Airship Tileset, and I would love to see more tile sets of different cultural environments, that fits with the MV RTP tiles....I feel I must punctuate that. Maybe its just me, but some of the tilesets that are released appear a bit *off* in terms of style used along side MV's, such as Elemental Dungeons, Town of Seasons... I would say The First Seed tiles too, but I dont think those actually are intended to me used with other style assets (BTW, LOVE! More First Seed Material Assets!!!). I suppose its not terribly dissimilar enough that they cant be used at all, but it just kind of bugs me a little.

ALSO, something else that bugs me, editing a few colors of a wall/ground tileset, slapping it into a pack and calling it new. I have on several occasions purchased a pack that consisted largely of slightly edited RTP or pieces from previous tile packs.... :/ please dont do this... I can do color changes and small edits myself....and for free.

 

[mizumi]

Survey Finished!

For tiles, I would love to have a "For MV" set of tiles. I really loved the "Valentine's titles for MV" and would love to see more of the old VX Ace tiles get the same treatment with some additional titles or animations. Also, We Desperately need more over world tiles, as there are hardly any new ones than the one that come with the MV software.

For character generator, I would also love more kid character generator parts. The ones we have so far are ok, but I would like some more choices for the kids since they are the main focus in the first chapter of my game.

 

[AcosmicDevi]

I would like to see a wider variety of hairstyles in the character generator, especially cultural and ethnic styles such as afros and different types of braided styles.

More modern clothing, particularly for the character portrait portion.

Tilesets featuring stuff from other geographical, cultural, and mythological areas/peoples.

Lifestyle stuff like sports equipment, cooking appliances, pet items, etc.

Medical themed stuff for building a hospital/doctor's office with medical personnel sprites or generator parts to go along

 

[MMMm]

I put in the vote for more generator DLC. Especially expressions and eyes. I eagerly check this section of the forum every Thursday in the hopes that more generator DLC has been released.

 

[jonthefox]

A complete pack for NES and SNES style games. Tiles, monster sprites and battlers, and a revamped generator for characters.

 

[D.L. Yomegami]

Another thing I should have mentioned: the music question on the survey seemed to exclusively mention genre. I'm super bad at identifying genres of music and would prefer to use terms for the "feel" and intended usage (e.g. emotional tracks, boss themes, etc.).

While in general there's a billion-and-a-half music packs available already, it'd be nice to have a pack dedicated exclusively to battle themes/boss themes/final boss themes rather than have those lumped in general music packs.

 

[Starmage]

Oh my! I have done the survey already! ^_^

I kinda highkey wished there were more DS/FES styled resource packs! <3 Cause I'm a huge fan of that art-style! <3 xDD Most esp. Character packs! XD I know there are prolly a lot already, but I'd love to see some more xDD

 

[Marquise*]

Is that survey page official? The link unloged me had way too much spam and didn't held its formatting.

 

[Sharm]

You. . . might need to run a virus scan.

 

[Marquise*]

true

 

[Restart]

The problem I have with most of the existing resources (especially the MV-RTP) is that it is too "sugar-coated", too bright and more geared against children's games.
It simply doesn't fit if you want to try to make a more darker-themed or simply more realistic game.

I agree. Having the survey options be 'pixel' or 'realistic' doesn't really get at what I'm looking for - which is non-chibi pixel art.

 

[Sharm]

Interesting. By non-chibi do you mean realistically proportioned or do you mean less over the top with the stylized big heads and tiny bodies? Because sometimes people just want something more like Alundra than Minish Cap, even though that's still very stylized in proportions compared to something like, I don't know, Balder's Gate I guess. I'm having a hard time coming up with an example of pixel sprited characters with actually realistic proportions. There are some advantages that exaggerated proportions give, especially when working in pixels, so sometimes even when trying for more realistic, it's still good not to abandon those exaggerations entirely.

 

[jonthefox]

@Sharm I can't speak for Andar or Restart but for me, yes, less over the top. The VX Ace RTP is great, and I'm currently using your plugin so that I can use all of Ace's assets in the MV engine, because to me, the MV sprites and battlers are just too "chibi" looking (I don't know if chibi is the right word, but it's a very cartoonish style). What's unfortunate is that by doing this I don't get to take advantage of the far superior character generator in MV.

 

[Sharm]

Are you confusing me with Shaz? I can't program to save my life, I don't have any plugins. I'm the one who does pixel art tiles, which is why this discussion is very interesting to me. It might affect future projects or what I focus on.

Chibi means small or child-like and implies cuteness and is usually the term used for a large head tiny body proportion like MV has, but it's got a really broad range, so it also includes, well, every pixel art RPG character sprite I can think of. That's why I was hoping to pin down what was intended. Maybe it'll help the discussion to have a visual examples of the games mentioned before.

Here's a random person from Minish Cap. Pretty close to MV's scale of the head being almost the same size as the entire body. Depending on how this scale is done, there's usually enough room to put in a few details that make faces different from each other if you want, and show lots of expression. It's almost impossible to figure out what everyone is wearing though. This was probably picked for MV due to the ease of creating new characters with. Swap some colors, add in a different hair style and the person is completely transformed even though you're starting with identical bases. You don't even always need a separate male and female base to start with. This makes animation relatively simple, even with a large cast.
Here's a guy from Alundra. Much more realistically proportioned than the last one, the head 3-4 times the height of the body, but still with a lot of exaggeration. This is the scale I personally prefer. The facial features are too small to be distinctive, which is a shame, but there's still enough room to show expressions, and there's lots more room for wardrobe. You can still cut down work by starting with a sprite base at this size, but you have to make new bases for new body types. A difference between a male and female base is a must, and you start having to worry about weight and age ranges too if you want a more diverse cast. This would still be considered chibi but you can definitely tell darker stories with this. No one would truthfully call Alundra a cheerful game.
And lastly, we have a guy from Baldur's Gate. Realistically proportioned, but no room to distinguish features or expressions or even hairstyle. Sometimes you don't get an indication of a face at all. When you place this one near the Alundra guy, you can see more clearly just how exaggerated that one was. Even though we have a a lot more room devoted to clothes, it can actually be harder to see what he's wearing compared to the inbetween scale, because humans are spindly things. With nothing exaggerated, details get lost. When things are drawn with these proportions, you tend to see a lot more done with body type and posture to define differences between characters, which is why they're not usually built off of an existing base like the others might be. Each character becomes unique. This is great if you've got a sprite artist on your team, but not so great for making characters for a sprite pack.

 

[Johnboy]

Done. I've been scouring the unlimited depths of the internet for decent battlebacks so I tossed those in there. Also I think the FSM tilesets are fantastic but our options for castles is very limited in their packs.