[Englisch] Frage

Hallo. Ich bin Karsa, aus Ungarn. Entschuldigung, ich spreche leider minimum Deutsch, deshalb in Englisch:

(Again, I'm sorry for having to resort to English here. I've been hesitant to reach out because of this. And I doubt I'd be able to learn German quickly (even learning English this well took me like a decade of actively using it), but I'd like to get to know German and Austrian RM communities.)

I'm Karsa from Hungary. I discovered RPG Maker in about 2007. Unterwegs in Düsterburg is one of the first games I played (I understood nothing, and found a translated let's play only recently). I like SNES style graphics and use RM2003.

I have the following question:

Are oldschool, SNES style games (mainly made in RM2k/3) still popular among Germans and Austrians? I speak of games like UiD. And in general, games that use REFMAP graphics or assets from Squaresoft's RPGs (FF, CT sounndtracks; Rudra, CT, Seiken 3 tileset rips). I'm working on a game just as oldschool.
When I look at English RM communities, I mainly see people use the modern RPG Makers and it's all about the money and fame. It feels like a business instead of a hobby there, and resource packs have become a business of their own. I guess it might be different for Germans and Austrians (different culture), but I have no information.

Hallo Karsa!

This post has become excruciatingly long and rambling. Maybe somebody else can chime in who's better at formulating the issues (and sentences!) than me.
So here's my summary:

TLDR: Competition from commercial and free indie markets ate a huge bulk of the younger demographics that never played 30 year old classics. But People will still reward truly great games. Copyright issues made distribution of games difficult in many German webforums, so many administrators expect clean games if they are showcased in their forums. People still use the RPG Maker 2000/2003 to develop games but their numbers has been overtaken by users of the newer engines. You will very, very likely find less player with an translated German RPG Maker game than with one translated to English.

It is very much possible that you work on a game demo which 30 people will download and maybe 5 people comment on. So if you don't enjoy interacting with the player communities or the developer forums to make your name known by posting updates and participating in communty activities - AND you don't have a huge ton of fun developing the game, then keep in mind that your game could very well be played by less people than there were pupils in your class at school/university.
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First of all I will always enjoy a nicely made charming game and so will people around here when they have the time.

The variation of RPG-Maker-Engine doesn't really make a difference. Sadly enough since there is already a existing number of RPG Maker games and an ever more expanding list of (cheap) indie games, it has become more and more difficult to find people who play and then actually comment on your game. I think this has mostly something to do with time. All the biggest nostalgia classics (Secret of Mana, Terranigma, Chrono Trigger) must be actively sought out by people today. Younger people, which were the important demographic which played Maker games - since they are often stripped for cash, don't have the impulse to search out for games in the vein of Final Fantasy 6. Mostly since they didn't grow up with them or because they are turned of by such stumbling blocks as the need for a RTP installation and the sometimes bad Windows 10 compatibility issues with older Makers. Instead they are leeching onto newer games in the style of Undertale, To The Moon, Another-Quirky-Earthbound-Game or scary games like Ib. And older players have working jobs, families or spend most of their time developing their own games instead of commenting on other people's games.

Even though the last paragraph might have sounded gloomy, I would disagree with your perception of the English community. While it may very well be true that the developers over there care about turning professional, just in 2019 the RPGMaker.net community awarded the RPG Maker 2003 JRPG-styled Theia The Crimson Eclipse a whole bunch of awards. (https://rpgmaker.net/games/8562/). So it seems that quality is still one of the most persuasive argument if one wants to find new players and recognition.

I will now try to give my estimation of the situation in the german speaking parts of the community.
In Germany there has been a concentrated effort to make maker creations which are copyright-friendly. That means there was less and less toleration of creations that utilized assets from commercial games or pop music. In the last five years that has more or less become an official ban on the use of copyrighted assets for your games. This ban is not born out of malice to torment people who would like to present their often yearlong developed games just because of illegal ressources. It has rather been forced on the administrators out of a fear of the current German law and opportunist attorneys which could try to make them responsible for a game containing massive amounts of rips that a developer publishes in the forum.

So that's the reason why many people no longer use rips. Pure REFMAP or RTP and Theodore are of course no problem since their license agreements are known. Soundtracks usually use tracks from jamendo, newgrounds, incompetech or one of the many japanese composers that created game music for free use.

Since then many people have also changed their primary developer tool to the newer makers or other game engines (At the moment they're mostly using the rpgmaker-mv.de forum). One of the reasons must be the readily available commercial market with its tileset and charset ressources which all have a clear license agreement. And of course with the new engines comes the possibility to port their games to Android and other platforms. This last situation has changed a bit with the release of the latest versions of the easyrpg player. This program, which runs on many platforms, can be used to play many RPG Maker 2000 games flawlessly (https://easyrpg.org/). RPG Maker 2003 games still have some issues when it comes to their standard battle system but the team is actively working on these problems right now.

Over the last few years this forum had a bit of a downturn when it came to activity. But in the last few months a team has been assembled to hopefully revitalize the community with new developers and players, so maybe that will change in the coming months. This forum has been (/is) a traditional stronghold of the RPG Maker 200X generation, so we will see what will happen.

I hope that answers at least some of your questions.

PS: Grandy is working on a remake of Unterwegs in Düsterburg with the RPG Maker VX Ace. He publishes updates mostly on this facebook page -->https://www.facebook.com/UiDuesterburg/

Hi and welcome!

Using ripped sprites was common in the early days for many RPG Maker games. But over time, people mostly stopped using such resources. However, many German games found their own style (which has its own appeal).
One difference I usually notice when playing English RPG-Maker games is that these emphasise graphics & mechanics over everything else in the game. The battle system in English RPG-Maker games is often very polished really flashy. But the dialogues and character development are often lacking. I feel like the German RPG-Maker games focus much more on the story and the characters; this might be because the old RPG Makers are still somewhat popular.

Some people are still working with the old RPG Makers. Here's a short list of some more or less "recent" games you might enjoy; only available in German, though. But this might be a good chance to improve your German :)! You can find a download link on the pages I linked for all games below:
Zauberer und Prinzessin (Screenshots here)
Eterna Remaster (Screenshots original version from 2003 Screenshots from the remastered version
Velsabor (this one is a demo; but you can have fun several hours with it nonetheless)
Licht und Finsternis (Screenshots of the original version can be found here)
Sternenkindsaga (Screenshots here) This is probably the longest RPG-Maker game ever; 12+ years in the making and you can easily play for 80+ hours if you want to finish all quests and find most of the secrets. It contains LOTS of text, though. I know that there is at least a Swedish (or Finnish?) teacher recommending this game to his German class to learn the language.)

Here is a brief list of some old "classics" that were released around the same time as UiD:
Mondschein (Screenshots here)
Eternal Legends (Screenshots here )
Vampires Dawn
Vampires Dawn II (Screenshots here; this one is apparently also available in English)

Then there are RPG Maker games you might like because they are very similar to some old school SNES games (both available in English):
Exit Fate
Lufia - Birth of a Legend (the English link seems to be broken; but you can download the German version and select the English language in-game; then all dialogues will be in English, but the database (items, spells, menu etc.) will be in German. I'll contact the responsible person to fix the link for the English version.)