The most recent RPG Makers and where the RM company is heading with this software/game engine series

[stramin]

I don't know the numbers, but It is true that MZ did not make big changes compared to what there were in MV.

I started my project in MV and I bought MZ thinking that there would be more news, I expected many things, like moving from 48px to 64px, improvements in the shadow editor, better handling of scripts, automatic graphics refresh, etc. But none of that happened.

In the end I only used the MZ graphics but I continue to develop in MV.

But I don't lose hope that the next version will be a big change.

 

[SpyroFan67]

I'm hoping the next engine will be better, but I'm honestly not too hopeful about it given what's happened so far with the sequel engines.

 

[JosephSeraph]

The following excerpt from Visustella's statement regarding whether they're making Add-Ons for MZ (they're not) summarizes perfectly all that I've been trying to put to words about their work.

Moving forward, our primary focus will be to invest our energies and resources into the completion of a comprehensive VisuStella MZ plugin library for RPG Maker MZ. Our approach towards this goal is deeply rooted in our intention to treat RPG Maker MZ as the culmination of the RPG Maker series. We aim to shape the VisuStella MZ plugin library with a vision of longevity, creating a resource that withstands the test of time and continues to serve the RPG Maker community for the foreseeable future.
A cornerstone of this strategy is our commitment to ensure extensive coverage of general-purpose plugins within the library. We are dedicated to not only providing a rich and diverse collection of plugins but also to ensuring that these are as comprehensive, versatile, and user-friendly as possible. This ambition involves integrating a significant number of plugins from past iterations of Yanfly Engine (such as Yanfly Engine ReDux, Yanfly Engine Ace, Yanfly Engine Plugins), provided they align with our vision and are technically feasible.
The ultimate goal of these concerted efforts is to create a combination of RPG Maker MZ and VisuStella MZ that stands as a powerful and reliable tool for RPG Maker game development for the present and future. We aim to provide the best mileage out there for developers, effectively meeting the broad spectrum of needs, challenges, and creative ambitions they encounter in their projects. We aspire to be the preferred choice for developers, driving the continued growth and evolution of the RPG Maker community.

Turning MZ into "the culmination of the RPG Maker series" is a noble goal, but also one that I, as an user, feel they have already achieved far before 2023. Yet they have decided to remain working on it, with a goal of, according to the same article:

tl;dr We won't be making plugins for RPG Maker Unite. Instead, we'll focus on RPG Maker MZ up until 130-150 plugins and possibly tools for you to use.

I would guess that would coincide with the release of the next actual mainline RPG Maker, which I assume is anywhere between 1.5 to 4 years away. (Hard to predict, given how no other RPG Maker has received as much support and feature updates as MZ, and how the game development industry is going through a period of hastened restructuring in the current moment)

And it's also precisely the amount of updating and expanding MZ has gotten that pushes back the release date for the next mainline RM in my mind.

My hope is that MZ remains the main RPG Maker for as long as it's sustainable, with its constant patches and updates, only really moving forward when provoked by a significant shift in technology or design. Experiments like RPG Maker Unite, in this sense, are great as a way to test the waters for new technologies (a C# based RPG Maker, working with another engine, interfacing with different game engine workflows, etc) and assuring that whenever a new standalone RPG Maker comes, it'll be justified as fertile grounds for new possibilities not currently allowed by MZ.

I imagine the development team behind RPG Maker Unite (and mostly Yoji Ojima really, i suppose) has learned much from, and will still learn much from, interfacing with Unity. What of this knowledge and paradigm shift, certainly different when compared to RPG Maker, will be brought back to the mainline when we inevitably get a new tool? Perhaps it will be more modular and open like Unity, Godot or Unreal, while managing to keep RPG Maker's core premise of "easy enough for a child"? (Although I reckon this seems to be the opposite of what Unite achieved...)

 

[SpyroFan67]

I'm hoping the next engine will be better, but I'm honestly not too hopeful about it given what's happened so far with the sequel engines.

Ok, after further consideration I think I may have been being a little too overly negative (to the point of being unrealistic) with my statement on this earlier. There's no way to tell whether the next engine will be good or bad; we can all just only hope for the best.

 

[123edc]

that question will largely depend on weather or not, they're capable of actually talking and working together with it's community from the start or not

 

[SpyroFan67]

that question will largely depend on weather or not, they're capable of actually talking and working together with it's community from the start or not

Yeah, you're right. It could go either way.

 

[JosephSeraph]

Depending on just what you mean, this isn't something you should be saying freely

I mean by using the built-in rpg maker console ´u`)/
i don't condone reverse engineering or any attempts at de-obfuscating their code.
Now, on the other hand, if you're trying to figure out or expand on a certain plugin's functionality, you can just open the console and learn how it works, which mechanics are added, etc. You can use that for things as simple as script calls, formulas and conditional branches to as complex as writing your own personal plug-ins, all from learning from the console.

That is, however, obviously on your own, and you can't expect help from a developer to fix your own attempts at code.

edit: even if the plugins were not obfuscated, the console is such a great tool for learning how RPG Maker works. IMO the obfuscation just creates a clear cognitive divide on what is their work (that they're responsible for debugging and maintaining) and what is an user's personal code.

Though funnily enough, RM Unite might be an exception since, technically speaking, it is has access to Unity's entire existing third-party library. By sheer count of all the third-party assets available on the asset store, it probably beats the amount of third-party stuff available for MV and MZ combined. Even if most of it isn't specifically intended or suitable for use with RM Unite.

doubly funnily, as hopeful as I am for RM Unite (i haven't tested it yet) from what i've read it would appear it tries very hard to NOT work with the Unity ecosystem, lol. But yeah, Unity's its own can of worms.

 

[SpyroFan67]

@Traverse Yeah, RPG Maker United might have MANY more Unity assets than MV and MZ combined, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. I mean, a piece of crap completely covered in shiny gold is still no matter how pretty it is outwardly a piece of crap! XD

 

[Tray]

Just my 2cents

As been mentioned time and time again Maker is just a niche engine its not ment to be a mainstream game maker. Is it possible to do so int hem? Yes it is with time and effort and alot of recoding some aspects lol but possible. There has been some that have achieved this. But it still stand its a niche engine

Alot of the big time supporters of Maker have moved on to unity or unreal anymore but for those just wanting to make a fun little niche game or fan game or just to play around without having to learn everything needed for the 2 major engines out there these are great regardless of which you use.

We can argue till were blue in the face about MV vrs MZ and never get anywhere truthfully MZ should of just been an addon/upgrade to MV instead of its own release no one will ever change my mind on this and seems large portion of ppl agree to that.

id say 95% of what can be done in MZ can be done in MV maybe even 1-2% more. MZ thing is they just made a few things easier (even though I'm saying few those few are used almost in everything you do) Which makes a difference. As for plugins Stella just redid yanflys for the biggest part and charges 10x the price of yanfly and plugins for MZ are just ridicules on prices in general

That has prolly one of the biggest factors in MV vs MZ is just the insane price difference for what little change is offered wither those changes do make a bit of a difference or not. Bottom line ppl will go where more support/larger Resorces/cheaper price is almost always.

Figures for MZ might change as mentioned if they ever drop the price on it and if plugin makers stop charging insane amounts for there plugins (and yes asking for 100-200$ for essential the same plugins from MV that were 5-30$ is insane price hike) + to mention there are hundreds of free plugins for MV where MZ doesn't have that many

but as with anything here this is just how i feel and doesn't matter if others feel the same or don't (not trying to make that sound rude just the fact)

Also to mention as this has been pointed out several times. What MZ did add over MV that 5ish % that MV can't do. Can be done with 3rd party programs and then added into MV. This also plays a part in weaither or not its worth paying the price of MZ. Not much point when in the end you "can" still do everything in the cheaper, more supported, larger resorced engine (Don't take me wrong I'm not bashing either engine to each there own lol)

Then as i said before large influencers for the engine moved on from it after there kind of disappointment in MZ and have not come back to the engine series. Which MV had them supporting it in a big way with 100s apon 100s apon 100s if not 1000s of videos for MV and showing how to make a lot of functions in MV all for 100% free for the biggest part where as MZ doesn't have much of this and or as stated they moved on to different engines now

So honestly there's to much to take into account when your trying to compare them and say which one is doing better based on sales as there is so much that effects this its not even funny. As i would almost guarantee if MZ drops its price and plugin makers drop there prices to what they were for MV and more plugins were made for free. MZ would pass MV over night more then likely just for convenance reasons so you don't need 3-4 programs to do it anymore

 

[SpyroFan67]

Just my 2cents

As been mentioned time and time again Maker is just a niche engine its not ment to be a mainstream game maker. Is it possible to do so int hem? Yes it is with time and effort and alot of recoding some aspects lol but possible. There has been some that have achieved this. But it still stand its a niche engine

Alot of the big time supporters of Maker have moved on to unity or unreal anymore but for those just wanting to make a fun little niche game or fan game or just to play around without having to learn everything needed for the 2 major engines out there these are great regardless of which you use.

We can argue till were blue in the face about MV vrs MZ and never get anywhere truthfully MZ should of just been an addon/upgrade to MV instead of its own release no one will ever change my mind on this and seems large portion of ppl agree to that.

id say 95% of what can be done in MZ can be done in MV maybe even 1-2% more. MZ thing is they just made a few things easier (even though I'm saying few those few are used almost in everything you do) Which makes a difference. As for plugins Stella just redid yanflys for the biggest part and charges 10x the price of yanfly and plugins for MZ are just ridicules on prices in general

That has prolly one of the biggest factors in MV vs MZ is just the insane price difference for what little change is offered wither those changes do make a bit of a difference or not. Bottom line ppl will go where more support/larger Resorces/cheaper price is almost always.

Figures for MZ might change as mentioned if they ever drop the price on it and if plugin makers stop charging insane amounts for there plugins (and yes asking for 100-200$ for essential the same plugins from MV that were 5-30$ is insane price hike) + to mention there are hundreds of free plugins for MV where MZ doesn't have that many

but as with anything here this is just how i feel and doesn't matter if others feel the same or don't (not trying to make that sound rude just the fact)

Also to mention as this has been pointed out several times. What MZ did add over MV that 5ish % that MV can't do. Can be done with 3rd party programs and then added into MV. This also plays a part in weaither or not its worth paying the price of MZ. Not much point when in the end you "can" still do everything in the cheaper, more supported, larger resorced engine (Don't take me wrong I'm not bashing either engine to each there own lol)

Then as i said before large influencers for the engine moved on from it after there kind of disappointment in MZ and have not come back to the engine series. Which MV had them supporting it in a big way with 100s apon 100s apon 100s if not 1000s of videos for MV and showing how to make a lot of functions in MV all for 100% free for the biggest part where as MZ doesn't have much of this and or as stated they moved on to different engines now

So honestly there's to much to take into account when your trying to compare them and say which one is doing better based on sales as there is so much that effects this its not even funny. As i would almost guarantee if MZ drops its price and plugin makers drop there prices to what they were for MV and more plugins were made for free. MZ would pass MV over night more then likely just for convenance reasons so you don't need 3-4 programs to do it anymore

It amazes me how much you can do with this engine. Right now I'm making a Spyro fangame and it looks just like a real RPG; I'm using a dragonfire-text looking thing for the font and have fully animated facial portraits of Spyro, Cynder and Sparx, plus for the windowskin, I'm using the fantasy dragon windowskin for MV. The way the interface and everything is laid out, it looks almost like a legit old-school Windows 95-era RPG game from Sierra that you would play back in the day; I even used pixel art of Spyro, Cynder and Sparx's faces for the facial portraits as well. I'm really impressed with how professional it all looks. I even made fully animated facial expressions for Spyro and Cynder and Sparx for dialogue as well and it looks great. THIS is what amazing stuff you can do with RPG Maker MV when you put enough effort into it. I have to say even I'm surprised at how good it all looks.

 

[nio kasgami]

So the main series of rm (mv mz)

Mz is still a young engine and it is still a pretty strong engine.
It has its bad side but in general mz is still stronger than mv.

Reason why most plugin devs didnt all jump from mz to mv is :
We are tired. I dont want to sound mean but the rm community isnt exactly the most grateful.

many time i had to deal with bad apples for plugins is exhauting.
On a game dev stands points its almost better to jump in mz in term of performances and ease of use.
Plugin wise it is still possible to easily convert a mv plugin to mz its not that hard.


For unite i think it was a good idea but it showed it was made from a team who lacked experience.
Tbh they should prob drop unite and focus on the main entry.
I wouldnt be surprised they release a new rm in a year or two.

 

[SpyroFan67]

So the main series of rm (mv mz)

Mz is still a young engine and it is still a pretty strong engine.
It has its bad side but in general mz is still stronger than mv.

Reason why most plugin devs didnt all jump from mz to mv is :
We are tired. I dont want to sound mean but the rm community isnt exactly the most grateful.

many time i had to deal with bad apples for plugins is exhauting.
On a game dev stands points its almost better to jump in mz in term of performances and ease of use.
Plugin wise it is still possible to easily convert a mv plugin to mz its not that hard.


For unite i think it was a good idea but it showed it was made from a team who lacked experience.
Tbh they should prob drop unite and focus on the main entry.
I wouldnt be surprised they release a new rm in a year or two.

RPG Maker Unite looks like complete crap and I don't know why they even bothered making it in the first place; it's not even a sequel to MV and MZ; the developers said it's a spin-off.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I mean...probably was made to experiment, see if they could draw another segment of an already pretty niche market. Probably was smart to call it a spinoff even if the wording doesn't matter that much.

Without community support, it will certainly struggle to thrive though.

 

[JosephSeraph]

RPG Maker Unite looks like complete crap and I don't know why they even bothered making it in the first place; it's not even a sequel to MV and MZ; the developers said it's a spin-off.

It's such a strong idea, though. The day RPG Maker manages to bridge itself into a general-purpose engine will be pretty revolutionary. Unite ain't it, though, apparently.

 

[Danatoth]

I think I'd be on the side of most every rpg maker dev when I say that I hope the next iteration of mainline rpg maker doesn't use chibi sprites.

 

[123edc]

doesn't use chibi sprites.

2k ~ 2k3 ~ xp ~ vx ~ ace ~ mv ~ mz ~ unite (+vrm conversion)
~ ontop of all the community eddits / remakes
~ and their (well, to praise unite [or one of it's dlc's] for a change ... actually good looking, properly sized battlers)

we already have quite a variation ...

and my hope isn't so much, that it "doesn't use chibi sprites" ...
but rather, that it does give us the flexibility needed, to actively choose the style, we want

if they want to pursue their vrm (or char-generator conversion) approach,
it should be possible, to let us convert towards different styles ...

i mean, some (already existing) dlc's for MZ already allow us, to actuall qucik-change the character hight's ... so, yeah, if they do it right, that would actually be my wish ... to have a conversion towards different styles

 

[Danatoth]

I've never met a single person who prefers chibi sprites, and hopes the next version has them, it's always the opposite. Idk why they go for chibi, nobody likes them.

 

[123edc]

Idk why they go for chibi

becouse it's easier / faster to draw,
thus more ($) v ($) from bulk sales

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Time and place for chili (lol, meant chibi but the typo is a little funny), but it does cause a lot of "mood dissonance" if you're not telling a particularly cute story.

 

[kyonides]

I think I'd be on the side of most every rpg maker dev when I say that I hope the next iteration of mainline rpg maker doesn't use chibi sprites.

You got my vote! XD

I've never met a single person who prefers chibi sprites, and hopes the next version has them, it's always the opposite. Idk why they go for chibi, nobody likes them.

Well, me neither. Their bubble heads makes people fear them!

Time and place for chili (lol, meant chibi but the typo is a little funny), but it does cause a lot of "mood dissonance" if you're not telling a particularly cute story.

How can you take a lamia seriously while using the chibi style?
Pretty much impossible! XD