Next: RPG Maker MZ?

Am I even allowed to use this image?

As some may have noticed I had abruptly disappeared from the RPG Maker scene for a couple years now. Got a bit bored making plugins and couldn’t really think of anything cool to make that I enjoyed working on. There were definitely a lot of ideas out there, but they weren’t too exciting to me. Also didn’t really feel like making any announcements or anything cause that’s just not my thing.

Recently I received an email asking to do a commission which I unfortunately turned down, but then I was informed there was a new maker coming out?! So I had to check it out and indeed, RPG Maker MZ has been announced though information has also been quite sparse.

Which isn’t actually that surprising to be honest; I think when MV came out it was pretty much hyped up the same way, with information slowly trickling out over-time.

Anyways, a post about Frequently Asked Questions for MZ has appeared on the official forums which you should definitely check out if you’re curious to know what’s coming in MZ. It’s not too comprehensive at this point but here are some of my thoughts:

  • Layered Maps

Layered mapping disappeared after XP, but guess it’s coming back? If you’re not sure what layer mapping is about, basically in XP you had three (?) layers for your mapping: bottom, middle, top. This was purely aesthetics, but it meant you could create things like underpasses and stuff where characters would disappear under the textures. Without the need for workarounds like pictures or scripts.

The layered mapping system was purely aesthetic though, and maybe some function? Like passing under a bridge vs walking over the bridge depending on which direction you approached, don’t remember. Some of the scripters in the community had written plugins to address this problem in MV. I had also attempted to address this problem in Ace with a script called Overlay Maps which basically let you load multiple maps onto the screen, effectively creating layered maps.

So for example let’s say you were in a mansion and you walked to the second floor; you could actually load the first floor, have it “scaled down” a bit to make it smaller and blurrier to create an illusion of depth, and you can see a maid on the first floor walking around without actually being on the first floor! Here’s an example:

This screenshot contains three different maps all loaded into the scene, each with a different scale to represent depth. Of course this was purely aesthetic and you couldn’t interact with the events on other layers (never figured out a good way). Also the script had really poor performance cause I don’t know how to write performant code, so it was just not suitable for real games unless you were working with really small layers I think.

Anyways so MZ appears to have layered mapping, which should be nice.

  • MV Project Import

Currently there’s no information on whether you’ll be able to convert your MV project into an MZ project.

As a gamedev you’ve probably had this experience before: you’ve started building your game, getting scripts and resources together, set up your database, fleshed out your maps. And then 2 weeks later a new RPG Maker is announced with all these cool features.

And then you’re wondering, do you continue with your project, or do you wait and switch. From Ace to MV, I think there was considerable value to switching. First, Ace was primarily windows-only. There were some projects that tried to give it mobile support, and I think people could get it to run on mac/linux, but for the most part it was a game engine for building windows games.

MV was the first of its kind that promised support for online games and mobile devices. You know, modern stuff even by 2015 standards. This was a huge sell, because now you suddenly had access to a huge market.

But what about MZ? Well, hard to say at this point. Not really much information. I think there will definitely be unofficial tools developed for project conversion for MV to MZ (I might be interested in making or contributing), but if you’re already well underway with your current projects, you might as well finish it and then think about whether you want to try the new engine for your next project.

  • MV Plugin Support

This is probably what you’re interested in if you’re viewing this article on this website: whether plugins written in MV would be supported in MZ. I don’t know what language the scripting engine will be offered in, but I would expect it to be Javascript like MV because of its easier cross-platform functionality (yes, I assume MZ will continue to have cross-platform capability)

That said, I had also noticed that Yanfly had also retired recently this year which is definitely a huge hit on the community because Yanfly’s work really pushed RPG maker engines forward as a viable solution for gamedev in the face of other excellent game engines like Unity or Unreal, all of which are free, have extensive community support, and also support both 2D and 3D.

At this point, I’m not sure what the state of the scripting community is like for RPG Maker. I took a look at RPGMakerWebs MV Plugins board, sorted by start date descending, and saw there were about 100 plugins released since the beginning of 2020. Looks like there’s a couple plugin developers that have released multiple plugins as well, so it looks pretty good, new/better things are still being built.

That said, if anyone is interested in some of the plugins I’ve written for Ace or MV and would like to have them in MZ, I may be interested in porting them over to MZ. I’ll be putting up some kind of document where people can suggest what they want to see whether it’s a specific plugin, or just some idea they want or need.

  • Patreon

For my patrons, actually I’m kind of surprised I still have patrons given that I haven’t done anything for like 2 years and never gave any explanations. Lol I’m not sure if you just forgot you had a $1 or $5 or $10 monthly pledge going on or perhaps you’ve successfully released commercial products and wanted to share some of your earnings with me.

Either way, I am grateful for all of the donations, really helps to keep this website around since I had decided to release all plugins free-of-charge for commercial and non-commercial use. I used to charge a “licensing fee” to use them but I mean, everyone’s spending their own time, money, and effort to make stuff with the hopes of making a little (or a lot) of money in return and I didn’t particularly enjoy the feeling of being yet another one of those business people that tried to siphon as much money as I could off you before you even saw a single return on your investment especially if it’s just like a 10-line plugin or something that I wrote 3 years ago.

I will be revising the patreon model shortly to better reflect my participation in the RPG Maker and gamedev community.

….

Anyways so those are my thoughts. Hopefully MZ will be good, maybe bring back some familiar names. It’s always exciting to see a new product come out after all.

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44 Responses

  1. MasterTenchi says:

    I’d like to see Layered Maps make a comeback myself.

  2. Powell says:

    Hello, glad to know that you’re interested in MZ too. I am still working on the same game, after upgrading to a AMD 2700x and 32 GB of memory, I decided to buy MZ and I am mostly re-drawing 16 pixel sprites to 48 pixel sprites. I have used your scripts before during my trials of VX Ace…

  3. Anonymous says:

    Welcome back, friend. The rpg community took a big hit with losing yanfly. We can’t possibly afford to lose you as well. You guys are appreciated more than you know. If I was rich, you guys would be taken care of. Thank you for returning.

  4. GalacticGod says:

    It is great to hear that you are thinking about porting over some of your Plugins to the new RPG Maker MZ engine. There are really just an unimaginable amount of great Plugins on MV and my biggest fear about moving to MZ was that many of those would not be ported over. Anyhow, it is great to hear that you are doing well and that you are thinking of porting some of your great Plugins over. Thanks for the update!

  5. Manjini says:

    !Total random comment! Read at your own risk!

    I truly hope I can port my current MV project to MZ even if it means to redo a lot of things. However, it would require a lot of MV plugins to work in MZ. If that’s not the case then I will ditch MZ for a while until the plugins are functional.
    I am not really a fan of the basic combat system. Turn based stuff. It was never my thing.
    So without MogHunter plugins as well as Yanfly plugins, I doubt I will use MZ (I am using a plugin from you as well ”Hime_LevelUpEvents” very useful!).
    And even if it means I still have to use workarounds for the layering in MV (Like walking under things you can also walk on top of – like bridges).

    Anyways it is great to see people like you who are interested to still port their older plugins / work to the new engine.
    So that gives me hope that other people like MogHunter are doing the same in the future.

    And seriously – the way your policy works is absolutely lovely and user friendly! I totally think that plugins provided by people for rpg maker should be free of charge to use for people for their project developement. Because some Plugins are seriously essential to break through several limitations of the rpg maker engines. And many many people who use RPG Maker Engines do not have budget or very low budget and often work totally alone or even as a simple side hobby. So they often are unsure if they will even finish something in the end. Therefore paying a lot of money for several plugins which might be necessary for their ideas to accomplish what they dream of can become difficult or very demotivating and sad. And I think people who make plugins should also do it for fun and as their hobby and not make a business out of it to precisely put it all behind a big pay wall like Yanfly is doing right now. (Yes I understand it in a way, everything is about money in the end, but if you start off something for free and people are used to it and then suddenly whoosh it is suddenly put behind a pay wall, that’s a shitty move. My honest opinion is to make a patreon and let people decide if they wish to add something to it or not).

    I myself would make my game as a hobby and release it for a fair price when it’s done. And from the earnings I would not want to make myself a living or be a independent developer but rather be able to donate a bunch of it to exactly the people who made it possible for me to accomplish this in the end (Like the plugin makers or the ones who provide nice music for free). And the extra I will have left is for a nice cup of coffee or something haha.
    So yeah it is basically a ”give and take” kind of thing. You people help and provide something and we other people use it and maybe create something we have always wanted and are happy on top of it and can give something back in the end (Aside from the obvious credits in the Credits page!).

    And for those who really can afford it and want to support you before even releasing something or having some income from the game they are making, they can still support you on patreon or similar websites already. If I had the money on my bank account to give out extra, I would always do this as well.

    So kudos to you! Stay away from greed~ There are always nice and lovely people who know who deserve some extra treat in the end of the day.

    Best regards and health!

    Manjini

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