What are the limits of the RPG Maker game engines?

[bgillisp]

Really none if you can code. I've heard of someone recreating Smash Brothers in RPGMaker. And supposedly someone made a pinball game in it. As for why you'd do it, no idea.

 

[peq42_]

Limits? With enough knowledge: none.

I was told you can't make multiplayer online games in RPG Maker MV, then went and within a year learned enough javascript to not only do that, but make it easily able to handle 1000 players/server.

Was told you couldn't do 3D, and a year or so ago saw a plugin that by now may even allow loading 3D models(also MV).

So yea, if you know what you're doing, you can do anything that javascript/node.js allows you to in the latest series(MV/MZ).

 

[lianderson]

In regards to a previous claim on floor damage limitation, that can be resolved in editor. One of the player's stats is floor damage %, which can be applied as a hidden state or class change. I do this to make a certain area do x10 the floor damage.

 

[DrBuni]

It is only limited by one's creativity and willingness to learn. If you can't make the game you want because the engine doesn't give you the option to, go ahead and learn coding. No, it is not easy, but it is not impossible, and no one ever said making games was easier. By learning how to code you can eventually bend the engine to your will, or straight up move to more robust engines.
Can't make art? Pay someone to make it for you, or learn it - I did, I literally learned how to draw in order to make the art for my game, so unless you are physically unable to draw, there are not a lot of excuses you can come up with. Can't make music? Once again, pay for it or learn how to make it. I am just one person with limited time, and I had and still have my fair share of learning with art and writing, so I have been slowly paying for two composers to make music for me.

Can't write? Read, write and practice. There are hundreds of resources on r/writing and on YouTube, and probably on sites such as Skillshare as well. With the willingness to learn, you will go places. Of course, another alternative is to partner up with other people. I prefer to work alone, so I took the time to improve my craft. It has been 4 years since I started my journey, and my project is - modesty be damned - freaking awesome.

So the only limitation really is the person using the engine.

 

[Neptrone]

Theoretically the limit of RPG Maker is what limit of Javascript can do. (i talk specifically about MV and MZ)
Rather than limitation i prefer to consider about convenience/feasible/ economic efficiency instead. Making FPS camera game obviously harder to do in RPG Maker.

 

[Tamina]

Theoretically the limit of RPG Maker is what limit of Javascript can do. (i talk specifically about MV and MZ)
Rather than limitation i prefer to consider about convenience/feasible/ economic efficiency instead. Making FPS camera game obviously harder to do in RPG Maker.

This....in "theory" you can do anything JavaScript can do. In practice it's often inefficient to code everything from scratch when you can use Unity with a premade framework made by someone else instead. Unity just has so many more tools and frameworks to do juicy things because of they have a very very huge user base creating them.

Most cool things people done with RPG Maker are probably done by coders who wants to practice their coding skills by demonstrating what they can do with code, or they want to make money with plugins. But for commercial game development, time is money. Creating everything from scratch takes so much time and players don't care if you code everything from scratch or not. From game development PoV, coding everything from scratch is often not the ideal choice because using a premade framework done by someone else is so much faster.

From my experience with RM, this engine is extremely ideal for prototyping and creating a playable alpha, because you can build a "functional game" very fast. Once you push the game for commercial game level of polish, there is a LOT of problems that just takes too much time to solve in RM. I think this is the main reason why many ambitious commercial RM projects like Ara Fell eventually moved to Unity. It takes too long to do certain things.

In a way that is probably the real RM limitation, IMO.

 

[Arctica]

You're only limited by your skill in JS, how much you know about the editor and your own imagination.

Edit: All the things you've seen people here accomplish isn't because of some outside editor or whatever, that's all rpgmaker and the time they put in to acquire the skills to do it.

 

[Aerosys]

The JS is not the thing thing to limit us, but the Editor is. Sure I can program a Questlog or a Crafting System, but then I have to find a way to integrate it into the Editor so Game Devs can easily add their own Quests and Recipes. Which is possible by Notetags only or, you use a 3rd Party Editor / UI.

Make Randomly Generated Maps that change each time you enter them. Also, you can not randomize the positions or placements of events just by using event commands.

Looking at my Signature, yes you can!

 

[Neptrone]

This....in "theory" you can do anything JavaScript can do. In practice it's often inefficient to code everything from scratch when you can use Unity with a premade framework made by someone else instead. Unity just has so many more tools and frameworks to do juicy things because of they have a very very huge user base creating them.

Most cool things people done with RPG Maker are probably done by coders who wants to practice their coding skills by demonstrating what they can do with code, or they want to make money with plugins. But for commercial game development, time is money. Creating everything from scratch takes so much time and players don't care if you code everything from scratch or not. From game development PoV, coding everything from scratch is often not the ideal choice because using a premade framework done by someone else is so much faster.

From my experience with RM, this engine is extremely ideal for prototyping and creating a playable alpha, because you can build a "functional game" very fast. Once you push the game for commercial game level of polish, there is a LOT of problems that just takes too much time to solve in RM. I think this is the main reason why many ambitious commercial RM projects like Ara Fell eventually moved to Unity. It takes too long to do certain things.

In a way that is probably the real RM limitation, IMO.

Ara Fell was made with RPG Maker 2003 which probably outdated engine compared to unity.

if you don't like deal with C# instead JS you can make large scale project w/ easy maintenance for the team with "Typescript version of RPG MZ" alternatively .


https://github.com/niokasgami/Rpg-Maker-MZ-Typescript