Final Battle

[Indinera]

You find the material for other games too. Is this any different?

The material for other games doesn't suit the vision I have of LS (and laxius in general).
The latest material have been very cutesy and bright and overcolored.

[Cassiopeia]

I see.
Well, I'm sure you'll get what you need and we'll get a great game one day!
(Hopefully rather sooner than later, hehehe)

[D-Squall]

lol I know this is getting off-topic but I can't controle myself, so I have a question about Laxius S... will you be using an Enterbrain engine like VXace or XP to make the game or a new one?

[Indinera]

lol I know this is getting off-topic but I can't controle myself, so I have a question about Laxius S... will you be using an Enterbrain engine like VXace or XP to make the game or a new one?

That's the difficult part. I'm not sure what to use. XP, no. I've made too many games with it.
Ace? Thanks to Gemelle I was able to release pretty good games with it, but now Enterbrain is gonna release a new RPG Maker, so comes the question whether to use that one or not? That and the fact that Ace only has that type of graphics I'm not a huge fan of, even if a game like ATI pushed the envelope pretty far and managed to deliver beautiful and dark graphics (I like darker atmosphere, not a fan AT ALL of the blocky cutesy style of Ace). That said the next RM will probably have the same shitty default graphics, it seems XP was really a one off.
So I dunno yet...

[D-Squall]

lol I know this is getting off-topic but I can't controle myself, so I have a question about Laxius S... will you be using an Enterbrain engine like VXace or XP to make the game or a new one?

That's the difficult part. I'm not sure what to use. XP, no. I've made too many games with it.
Ace? Thanks to Gemelle I was able to release pretty good games with it, but now Enterbrain is gonna release a new RPG Maker, so comes the question whether to use that one or not? That and the fact that Ace only has that type of graphics I'm not a huge fan of, even if a game like ATI pushed the envelope pretty far and managed to deliver beautiful and dark graphics (I like darker atmosphere, not a fan AT ALL of the blocky cutesy style of Ace). That said the next RM will probably have the same shitty default graphics, it seems XP was really a one off.
So I dunno yet...

I see, nice to see a developer such as yourself to say your standpoints on engines and its resources. Although lots of people are fan of VXace and lots of games were made with XP until now, I still prefer XP... not for me, but for other developer games. Now I'm curious about this new engine that Enterbrain will be releasing soon and I agree about the VXace graphics really doesn't fit the Laxius atmosphere... even though people judge RPGMaker developers for using default graphics in their games, I really don't mind as long as they well used... I thought that your maps in Laxius Force and 3 Stars of Destiny were the most beautiful and well-crafted that I have ever seen in a RPGXP game.

[Kes]

Another possibility might be to use XP graphics in the new engine to take advantage of the better data base, script editor etc. etc. and just avoid the graphics that come with it. It might be tricky, though, as everything will, apparently, be a different scale for the tiles. We'll have to see.

[Cassiopeia]

I also never liked the VX graphics that much. And the sprites, to begin with.
I kinda got used to this style though after playing a bunch of games, but still I'm not a fan.
However, Kes, I have to say, your maps in ATI are very nice. The villages and towns particularly. You did a real good job on that!
As for using XP material in other engines - I would think the resources are quite limited though, aren't they? I reckon they rather work on new stuff for the new engines?

[Kes]

thanks for the compliment about the maps.

Details are a bit hazy but from what we can see from the few official screenshots, the graphics look very, very similar to those of Ace - the same objects, done in the same sort of style with almost identical colours. The big difference is the size of the sprite. In the new engine the tile size changes from 32x32 to 48x48, so the sprite is bigger. But so is everything else, so the proportions remain the same. The only immediate advantage is that it will be possible to put a bit more detail on the sprites and maybe have the head and body in a better proportion.

I don't think people will get the new engine for the graphics. I think it will be because it should run more smoothly and it will have some things which at the moment need complicated additional scripts. For example, it will have mouse support and you can have side view battles if you want it. Those two features alone will remove a couple of massive extra scripts and make the developer's life a bit more straightforward. If it also, for example, has diagonal movement, that takes out another 2 scripts (one for mouse, one for keyboard). If it doesn't come with that, then new additional scripts will have to be written. Having the ability to enable/disable the mouse in-game at the moment needs 2 scripts, so the same there. So just having mouse support will both save a lot of work, but potentially will be limited until any needed extra scripts are written.

Now multiply that out for everything else, and you can see why people might hesitate to get it, at least straight off. No existing script will work with it, everything will have to be rewritten.

[Indinera]

I thought that your maps in Laxius Force and 3 Stars of Destiny were the most beautiful and well-crafted that I have ever seen in a RPGXP game.

Thank you. A lot of work went in some of them for sure.
I wouldn't call them my best but I did try to give a strong atmosphere to those games.

[Indinera]

Another possibility might be to use XP graphics in the new engine to take advantage of the better data base, script editor etc. etc. and just avoid the graphics that come with it. It might be tricky, though, as everything will, apparently, be a different scale for the tiles. We'll have to see.

No, using XP graphics is like making a game in XP again to me.

[Indinera]

Details are a bit hazy but from what we can see from the few official screenshots, the graphics look very, very similar to those of Ace - the same objects, done in the same sort of style with almost identical colours.

Yeah, I would totally call that a major letdown. Maybe they do it as an incentive for the devs to buy the extra packs released by the Degica artists? At the first sight the new RTP seems to have very little value.

Now multiply that out for everything else, and you can see why people might hesitate to get it, at least straight off. No existing script will work with it, everything will have to be rewritten.

And honestly I would have hope we would have gotten new graphics.
VX Ace was already a carbon copy of VX. Now we get a second generation carbon copy of VX...

[Cassiopeia]

I knew that working with the scripts is a pretty complicated thing, but I was never aware of how many scripts you actually need to make things work like they do.
So of course, with the new engine a dev would be quite limited in his possibilities for a while until there are new scripts out there ...

As for sprites being bigger ... well, that's nice, but they are still square, so no improvement there imo.

[Indinera]

Yeah sprites have been the same since VX. And while they are OK I guess, their quality sucks compared to the XP ones (Laxius, Millennium etc.)

And it's not just sprites. Tilesets play a major role and since VX we have had the same style of tileset all the time, and IMO the worst set of tilesets of all RM (especially the VX ones, an RM that I skipped completely, as it happens). Far below the exceptional quality XP had.

[Cassiopeia]

I never liked those sprites. They look so totally out of shape. With the XP sprites I always memorized the sprites that go with the characters. Now I couldn't describe a single sprite of ATI. I don't know, there's something about them that just won't let them stick in my mind.

I wonder why they don't come up with new styles. Maybe there are many people nonetheless who do like the current one.

[Indinera]

I never liked those sprites.

I don't hate them but the XP sprites are vastly superior.

I wonder why they don't come up with new styles.

I think it's to save money. They must have calculated that visually groundbreaking graphics wouldn't increase the sales enough to be worth it. I'm not entirely convinced by this, but hey, I'm not the one producing the RM series...

Maybe there are many people nonetheless who do like the current one.

The consensus is that XP has the better tilesets and sprites.