What can be done to make RMMZ to have overwhelming positive reviews?

[Beregon]

One thing they really should work on is proper documentation. The MZ code seems a bit better than MV one since there's an occasional comment here and there, but it's not much. And the documentation that already exists is either incomplete or confusing to navigate.

Also, MZ RTP is overhated. I get that it was hyped up a bit too much for what we got (and I myself also expected more), but it's still better than MV in most aspects (of course, graphical glitches should be fixed). The Frontview and sideview enemies in MZ are basically the same style as in MV. Meaning, there's not much difference between them (and really, there should be a much bigger difference), but it wasn't any better in MV. Btw, I know this is very subjective, but the MZ music is miles above the MV one. I agree about the Sound Effects though. There seem to be a few new ones, but I really hoped for a lot more additions.

 

[nio kasgami]

Man. I feel like I'm the only one around here that likes a lot of MZ's tiles.

That said, mixed reviews on a tool like this are not especially uncommon. People speak the loudest when they're unhappy. The majority of people that hare happy with the program will never leave a review. Those happy with it will largely not say anything at all because content and using what they've got.

TBH I like the artstyle of MZ although I did though they should put a little contrast / brightness adjustment layer to reduce how bright it is ...because jesus I get headache while looking at the tiles ;; they are not bad per say it's just so flashy that it give me headache.


As for improvement, TBH I would just love that we actually get an decent API or documented code or access to the github so we can all just contribute to his improvement.

as for MZ I would love to see a VISUAL way of modifying the UI titlescreen window we can offset it but we can't see it's position in real time which make a lots of guess work and just off better to edit it from code or by using an special plugin *cough* that is totally not in working that allow visual edit of windows.

 

[Frogboy]

I'll be honest. I bought MZ strictly for the new/old layer mapping feature because I hate, hate, hate having to draw maps in MV and leave them bare until I'm 100% sure that I'm not going to make any changes to the floors, walls or layout. I wasn't happy that they made me buy the entire engine all over again to get this one feature but I did it anyway. I wish they would have added a lot more features to their "new" engine but I suppose I can do that. I can't say that I am unhappy. Maybe a little disappointed.

 

[Zaven]

Great games should be made with RMZ in order to get better reviews. I love this kind of game and that's how I discovered rpgmaker years ago. (At a time when Ruby was still a thing). More games could then bring more new users, who could give more positive ratings, as most of the negative reviews come from people who already use RMV. Most of the arguments are certainly correct. But for someone like me who has never used RMV, RMZ is a great piece of software.

 

[Dope]

Nothing. Most of the negative reviews I've seen amount to complaining over hurt feelings as opposed to actual criticism. Not that the complaints are all that unwarranted. MZ IS basically MV 2.0 and people complaining about how it could've/should've been a free/paid update to MV have a point.

That said, after using MZ since release, I'm happy with it. MZ takes what MV did and expands upon it in a way that's beneficial for the dev. If somebody was to offer me MV and MZ but I could only pick one, I'd take MZ every time. MZ works better, has better functionality, and in the future, will have just as many plugins if the dev needs them. You can complain about the price all you want, complain about how it's an MV upgrade or this and that. But at the end of the day, it's a nice piece of software and I do not regret my purchase. The addition of layers and the new plugin changes alone are enough for me to be happy with the software. That's just me though. *shrugs*

 

[Aerosys]

After thinking a bit about this topic, I think a score of 70% is actually what the MZ deserves. At least from the view of a veteran.

MZ is MV Ace. I think we all agree on this. When MV came it was such a Game Changer, we had access to 100% of the code and since then we can upload our games on our webservers! MZ hasn't any features with a high impact. No easy export to Mobile, still a fixed grid..

MZ has nice funtions, the new Plugin Command is worth gold, but all those functions could have been patches for the MV. The 10% for veterans was okay, but IMO it could have been more.

Also, I was lucky that I did more horizontal progress for my game, I'm still at a experimental phase and did changes a lot, so rebuilding my project in MZ won't take too long. But for other people I dunno.

 

[atoms]

I already really like the RTP in MZ. I'm not saying it perfect nor defending the artistic errors others have seen and pointed out, but I still think there is a lot of good content in the RTP and I think that MZ's RTP it's really great.

But if I'm honest, any RTP from the PC RPG Makers other than MV I really like. I.e. VX Ace, VX, XP, 2003, 2000. Have not really used 95 or can remember but otherwise like them all except MV. (Not to say I don't enjoy games made with MV's RTP since I still do enjoy a lot of them but it's just not my preferred style of graphics if that makes sense).

I'm really happy with MZ as it is too, so I think it deserves positive reviews as it is. It might've really been a little bit overhyped, but I think most stuff they hyped (character generator, most new features) really is true and genuine and great.

 

[rinarunine]

I think the main issue that can be summarized with MZ is that it doesn't really feel like an evolution. The changes are fairly minimal, and with so many years between MV and MZ, I think we were all hoping / expecting for so much more.

It honestly feels like a product that should've gotten the VX/VX Ace treatment-- Slap on a "MV Ace" or something and call it an update, and slash the price in half.

As a product in 2020 on its own, it feels far too limited / unchanged from its predecessors.

TLDR: We expected an evolution in 2020 and just got a pricy update instead.

 

[Dalph]

I already said this but I still think it.
With time the gap between MV and MZ will become considerably bigger and the jump in quality will feel more worth it, and that is when the reviews will most likely become all positive.
Question is...when? Maybe after 1 year of updates?

Still I'm having a lot of fun taking advantages of all the new inbuilt features of MZ, in the grand scheme of things every little bit helps.
What I feel that really really improved are mapping and mouse control, like seriously, MZ feels like XP in terms of mapping and the mouse control is excellent.

 

[CHKNRAVE]

Personally, I'm just not tempted to switch over to MZ, mostly because I've already started my big project on MV and the best plugins (and many that are essential to my project) are still only available on MV.

IMO the moment when Yanfly left was the end of the golden age of RPG Maker plugins. VisuStella sort of took over by porting plugins to MZ, they were already doing their own thing with new tools and plugins (which were sold separately), but right now most of the MV plugins haven't been ported yet and the pricing for one "wave" of plugins is just $5 cheaper than the full bundle of MV plugins. That's intimidating for people who are looking into making the transition.

So what can be done right now is to just give it time, and watch the price difference between the $30 bundle and what it's going to cost to have all their MZ equivalents from VisuStella. That's going to determine how many people will be willing to change development tools, because the software + what makes it complete and a lot less limited is going to cost money people just aren't that excited to spend. It's already software that costs 68€, pretty much a full day of work on minimum wage over here in France, and that's without the plugins to help the maker with perfectly matching their vision, making them basically essential but external paid DLC. By the way, that's a price for major changes in my opinion, not a love child of MV and XP without a built-in animation maker.

Visually, the improved editor is neat. I like the drawn path for event movement. But I'm having a major issue with the actors. That's petty as all hell, but a deal breaker for me. I don't want to generate a 10 year old hero who's going to be fighting bandits and other deadly threats. Hell no. And that was in the screencap for the "Male" tab of the character creation tool, so I'm guessing the "Kid" tab has a stroller as the default body part.

It's even worse when you look at the enemy samples, they look like they're really out to kill you so there's a big mismatch there. Looking at the character samples, on the other hand, you need to have drawing skills in order to make a character over the age of 15. If I were to switch my project over to MZ, there'd be either a mismatch between the MV parts and the MZ decor, or my main characters would switch from working for the king to going on adventures after a long day of middle school.

I'm done roasting the character generator and actor art style. For now.

So I guess I'll wait for the next RPG Maker for Kadokawa to get it right on all that. At the end of the day, I'm just not interested in MZ, now that I've put my finger on what's turning me off about it. I can see why people can regret buying it, especially early on because of the lack of plugins.

 

[Dope]

Personally, I'm just not tempted to switch over to MZ, mostly because I've already started my big project on MV and the best plugins (and many that are essential to my project) are still only available on MV.

IMO the moment when Yanfly left was the end of the golden age of RPG Maker plugins. VisuStella sort of took over by porting plugins to MZ, they were already doing their own thing with new tools and plugins (which were sold separately), but right now most of the MV plugins haven't been ported yet and the pricing for one "wave" of plugins is just $5 cheaper than the full bundle of MV plugins. That's intimidating for people who are looking into making the transition.

So what can be done right now is to just give it time, and watch the price difference between the $30 bundle and what it's going to cost to have all their MZ equivalents from VisuStella. That's going to determine how many people will be willing to change development tools, because the software + what makes it complete and a lot less limited is going to cost money people just aren't that excited to spend. It's already software that costs 68€, pretty much a full day of work on minimum wage over here in France, and that's without the plugins to help the maker with perfectly matching their vision, making them basically essential but external paid DLC. By the way, that's a price for major changes in my opinion, not a love child of MV and XP without a built-in animation maker.

Visually, the improved editor is neat. I like the drawn path for event movement. But I'm having a major issue with the actors. That's petty as all hell, but a deal breaker for me. I don't want to generate a 10 year old hero who's going to be fighting bandits and other deadly threats. Hell no. And that was in the screencap for the "Male" tab of the character creation tool, so I'm guessing the "Kid" tab has a stroller as the default body part.

It's even worse when you look at the enemy samples, they look like they're really out to kill you so there's a big mismatch there. Looking at the character samples, on the other hand, you need to have drawing skills in order to make a character over the age of 15. If I were to switch my project over to MZ, there'd be either a mismatch between the MV parts and the MZ decor, or my main characters would switch from working for the king to going on adventures after a long day of middle school.

I'm done roasting the character generator and actor art style. For now.

So I guess I'll wait for the next RPG Maker for Kadokawa to get it right on all that. At the end of the day, I'm just not interested in MZ, now that I've put my finger on what's turning me off about it. I can see why people can regret buying it, especially early on because of the lack of plugins.

I agree with more or less everything you've said. I have a fairly large game in MV, nowhere near finished, that I decided to manually "port" over to MZ. I'm missing a lot of those Yanfly plugins. Badly.

VisuStella will slowly get there but at what expense? I've already bought their Wave 2 pack, which I'll pretty much use everything in, for $25. The wave 3 pack just came out, the stuff in it is hit or miss for me but it's still be better for me to get the pack versus buy the few plugins I'd use individually. So that's $50. But that's not even half, I don't think, of the Yanfly library of plugins. By the time all the plugins are converted/made, if you use a lot of plugins you'll have spent maybe $200-$300+ at the rate they're going. Don't get me wrong, they're great plugins and I'm all for supporting people and what not, but that's crazy. You're spending 3x the initial purchase price just to get a piece of software to work the way it should've worked out the box. Especially if you take MV into account. Kadokawa should've shot Yanfly a check and built all that **** into MZ. Like the whole damn suite of plugins. Dragonbones (which is awesome) too. But I can't control none of that so...

All things aside, I do like MZ. But I am scared of how much I may have to spend on plugins to get my game where I want it to be. Anybody thinking of switching to or picking up MZ should definitely think about that if you think you'll need a lot of plugins.

 

[U.K.L.]

I'm just a lurker and no longer using RPG Maker so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

In my humble opinion, The best way for MZ to get higher scores on steam and fixed a lot of problems with the community was for Degica to either buy VS and ported the plugins into the engine, or if they refuse, make their own based on the most popular features.

1) Would be enough content to qualify as a new RPG Maker.
2) Would by default make all of their plugins free and open source. While ensuring their contributions are properly appreciated.
3) It is a good move for the company. You do not want a third party entity having that much control over if someone buys your product.

That's why Unity/Unreal buys large asset store players out or make their own. You want to avoid anyone having a major influence over if they'll use your product or not.

Again, though I have never used a single VS plugin so my opinion may be an immature statement and lacking context of the community. But, from what I've seen on these forums people use their MV plugins a great deal (and most of the new plugins are ports).

Usually, when a bunch of people begins to use a single plugin creator, the engine will implement that feature itself since obviously it is in high demand! This also prevents third parties from influencing sales of the engine.

 

[Powerise]

I bought the RPG Maker MZ Bundle preorder. Until now, I haven't made a review yet because I haven't used this program enough. Currently it is still neutral, because the positive and negative aspects are balanced in my opinion. Hopefully there can be good updates in the future.

 

[Candacis]

I still think, it was a mistake for MZ to have its own RTP. At least in terms of the actual tilesheets.
Because, with the exception of 1-2 tilesheets, MV RTP is better, handsdown.
This is coming from the perspective of someone having made edits for both and the edits I did for MZ were more struggle than fun and most of them have been attempts to fix certain things in the RTP, like the autotiles which are the worst.

What I wish they would have done, is put the MV RTP in MZ
AND
add the whole Trinity MV RTP to expand upon it. This way they wouldn't have had to spend money for new assets that are not of good quality anyway.

The other thing I don't understand is why they didn't put the new mapping layer system front and center in the UI. It is great that we have manual layers now, but why is this hidden in a dropdown menu? I want this as actual layer buttons in the tool bar. And with shortcuts that make more sense.
MZ has nice ideas, but a lot of them feel like they stopped developing them midway.

 

[Lornsteyn]

We cant change anything, only the devs.
I must say the mixed reviews are probably deserved.
Personally I bought MZ because of the RTP and some upgrades and Im satisfied.
But if I would/could make my own graphics I think the MV or the 2k3 are the better RPG Makers for a game currently.

 

[Sparky89]

So when MZ was announced i was super excited... because i jumped on vx ace in 2019.. Mv 2020..
But so much to catch up on with MV... i was overwhelmed. when it came to plugins etc, BUT i'm now upto date.
I love VX ace for it's RTP content straight away making games... when i got MV i was disappointed and still am at the lack of content given it's all in the form of, DLC - or reliant on other people's work. so MZ for me was the answer as they advertised it to boast the most RTP. well. so i thought.. after reading the steam reviews myself and trying the demo.. and asking around generally.. it is true it lacks RTP Content plugins are few ( for now ). i think the RTP artwork is UGLY! i agree with the reviews, i looked at the resources people were making for MZ 90% of it was RE-WORK due to the ugly originals. or lack of. So we have a shiny new engine with nothing to offer in comparison to MV i want to support it ! even BUY it! but i can't justify it, right now.

 

[Velvela Jade]

Not criticizing, but I think the real problem is MZ for Smart Phone as opposed to MZ for PC needs are opposite each other. Trying to make one game engine editor work Awesome'ist for both, maybe problematic, given the forced limitations that makes the game for PC extremely sub-par given what game players expect in a professional game for PC.

Idea given the above: Change Game editor (I know headache!) such that we the game maker, have to tick a box "making game for PC" or "making game for Smart phone". This then changes the rules. Yes, it means we'd have to make the game twice, or just make the PC game fit Smart Phone rules and just deal with it. This way, everyone gets their needs met.

BTW, some people really did want 2D support, because thats the type of games they make.

Also - I actually did like some of the new tilesets! I got some stuff I desperately needed.

.ps I would NOT be offended by you taking my idea, attaching it to a dart board and tossing darts at it. I get it! My idea would be headache - just as bad of one as my idea about giving us more tabs I had ages ago.

The ROFL comment that does not matter: (Not written the best, sorry! I know what I mean, but I can't write it correctly now.)

What I would have done to make MZ better was overhaul the game system completely and tried to fit in as many requests as possible, while keeping game making for phone separate from game making for PC such that we'd have to tick a box to switch codes. I would have allowed all assets someone owns to show up on as many tabs as necessary and had the game engine keep track of "what image was used" so that all the resources not used, would not get compiled in the final game. I also would have added support for "sokaban or sudoku and sudoku variation game making" and had it come with the most popular plug-ins all ready installed and bug free but can also be swapped with the person's preferred plug-in. Lastly, if you can use the game maker to make any kind of game you want without having to know scripting, that is really ultimate! Some people want battles only while others want quests only, and still others want either a good mix, or just a puzzler game. Its hard to meet everyone's needs.

In short, what I mean is, I'd make the game engine be a one stop shop for whatever type of game someone wants to make and for whatever platform they want to make it for, with the game engine being able to "change the rules when game maker ticks the this game for phone box" instead of "only stuff that works for phone". Anywho, I'm done editing this post now. Thanks!

 

[JLowther]

Two things I was very much hoping for in MZ would've been lighting effects (seriously, having to turn to dead plugins for that sort of thing is a pain) and a free/pixel-based movement system so your characters aren't locked to a grid any longer.

Also, while I'm not put off by complexity, at a certain point you're just better off turning to one of Unity's visual coding plugins like Bolt.

 

[Velvela Jade]

Two things I was very much hoping for in MZ would've been lighting effects (seriously, having to turn to dead plugins for that sort of thing is a pain) and a free/pixel-based movement system so your characters aren't locked to a grid any longer.

Also, while I'm not put off by complexity, at a certain point you're just better off turning to one of Unity's visual coding plugins like Bolt.

I had a look at Unity and they say "make game once for all platforms". And apparently, you can make epic games in Unity without the restrictions that RPG Game Maker 'needs' to have. OTOH, Unity can be pricey once you add up everything one might need. I do like MZ's easy-speasy editor though.

 

[h0tWalker]

I was originally an XP user from way back when, this account was originally made to gather XP resources and lurk on the forums. Due to XP being rather outdated and a struggle with resources, i ended up leaving the RPG Making community (rpgrevolution shut down, never really interacted here at the time). After leaving, I worked a few years with other engines. MZ was what pulled me back as the mapping layer is initially what made me fall in love with XP. I didn't like the restriction in MV.

My main complaint in regards to MZ is the new animation system. Though honestly, pretty early in my project, so haven't checked it out at all. For all I know, I might end up loving it, but looking at the cover, that's the thing i dislike the most. Keep in mind it's pretty new, and it's gonna be a bit till i actually explore this feature as I wanna create the foundation for my project before i play with it.

As for the main complaints I've seen (as i don't really spend time looking for complaints), is in regards to MV plugins not working on MZ, though i can see the pros and cons, thought it's not really a problem. Stuff has come out pretty fast, and it's not slowing down. So I think this generally is just one of those problems that will go away with time.