Will you play a game made with full RTP?

[Galv 1,387]

Some people don't mind playing games with RTP. Others avoid games with RTP. Some people even look down on projects that use it.

There's nothing wrong with making a project with only RTP. There's also nothing wrong with not wanting to play a project that only uses RTP (for whatever reason each individual has).

 

Because of the above, however, it does mean that if you do make a game using only the RTP you will have less potential players than a game made with full custom resources. This is still true even if you don't have time/experience/money/desire to make unique custom resources. So if you want to make a game from RTP, go for it. Don't let anything stop you and enjoy making it! Just keep this in mind.

[Guyver 65]

I generally avoid rtp only games because everyone and their grandmother thinks they can get a game greenlit on steam and make a few bucks. There have been some good games made only with RTP, but most of the ones you see now are just two hour long generic stories with no depth and a gofundme link attached to them on.

[+ Retired 274]

I might play a game with full Rtp but it would depend upon the effort and presentation of the project by the author.

 

There are some Rtp games which look like they were made in 2 hours and some woefully inept dialogue, broken mechanics and wierd bugs.

 

On the other hand there are some great games like Sunken Spire with great mapping and eventing which is excellent at world building.

 

I think an Rtp game with either some minor custom content e.g. clumping tiles custom music or portraits can make a project stand out and be more memorable.

 

It should be noted that any custom graphics should be consistent as well.

[+ Chaosian 617]

Not sure how I missed this topic for so long.

 

For me personally, it boils down to face value and the message you send with your art. Keep in mind, it's a very rare day when I actually get down and play and an RPG Maker game, so if I am playing one, it's because I'm looking for something new. The same goes for regular games. If I'm not 80% sure I'm going to love it, I don't buy it / play it.

If your game looks like it was made with no effort, if you didn't put the energy or resources into making your game look the way you want it to - then how the hell can I reasonably expect the rest of the game to have effort put into it? How can I expect a story that isn't slapped together with tropes and cliches? Music I haven't heard over and over again? Cut and paste gameplay with a low bar for QA? Am I supposed to play every identical looking RTP game and look for a gem, when 95% of them are "Baby's First Project"? No, unless it's from a venerable source, has some reputation behind it, or a very neat concept, I'm not going to play a game so firmly entrenched in RTP.

 

Fortunately the level between, "of no remote interest", and "something I could get into", is fairly thin. Even if your assets are moderately edited or store-bought, it means to me that you are willing to put in effort or pay money to make your game look and feel the way you want it to. That tells me you're willing to deliver something of value to me. 

Edited October 23, 2015 by Chaosian

[Animebryan 139]

I'll never understand or accept that stupid stigma against 'vanilla' RPGs made with RPG Maker. Not everybody is a graphic artist or expert and not everybody is a music composer or scripter either. I believe the original ad for RPG Maker says that 'Simple enough for a child; powerful enough for a developer'. Simple enough meaning that you can make your own RPG 'right out of the box'. Sure, it may not look as pretty as a game with custom & original resources, but graphics aren't everything. And then again, most people who can't create original material resort to using commercial material, especially music, as well as graphics. And no one should be chastized for that either, especially if they're just making a fan-game of a commercial series.

 

Anyway, that my 2 cents on the subject.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Animebryan

[Rezanta 373]

Let's be honest, a game is a game as long as it meets a playable standard. I mean, look at some of the interesting setups with RTP you can do! You can cause Luke to dance with the damaged sprite (If you do that right). Also, I absolutely love the music and graphics that came from Ace, so yay!

 

(I think I became a child again... I don't know.)

[Piyan Glupak 3]

I have neither graphical nor musical skills.  One of the things that I am wary of is graphics of different styles not being compatible.  I prefer graphics to be of consistent style to hodgepodges.

 

Part of what you pay for RPGMaker is for the RTP resources.  There are free-ware role-playing game creators out there; the free ones that I have seen have little or no ready to use resources, though.

 

For my games, there will be very little that is not RTP.  On the other hand, the games are for my own amusement.  I might pass them around to interested friends, or distribute them as free-ware, if I think that they are good enough.

 

On the other hand, I do realise that there are talented artists and musicians.  Some artists and musicians might be particularly interested in other people's creations that they have not come across before.  I also suspect that having a lot of well-done and well-coordinated custom resources might widen the audience for games that have to be paid for.

[Lord Vectra 414]

I guess "Don't judge a book by it's cover" completely went out the window. If you don't play a game because it's rtp, you are very shallow. Here's the message you are sending to anyone who reads some of these comments:

 

"If you have no skills in art or music, don't bother making a game."

 

Then there would be some who would interpret different from that:

 

"If you have no skills in art or music, leave and don't come back until you can."

 

Both will result in Rpg Maker USERS having a bad reputation of being shallow. Just because someone doesn't have the money doesn't mean they should be rejected. Everyone deserves a chance poor or rich. You complain that "RTP has bad reputation" but you guys said it yourself, it was made from lazy people. Why punish everyone for games the lazy one did? I believe that will go under discriminating against RTP users.

[+ Chaosian 617]

I guess "Don't judge a book by it's cover" completely went out the window. If you don't play a game because it's rtp, you are very shallow. Here's the message you are sending to anyone who reads some of these comments:

 

"If you have no skills in art or music, don't bother making a game."

 

Then there would be some who would interpret different from that:

 

"If you have no skills in art or music, leave and don't come back until you can."

 

Both will result in Rpg Maker USERS having a bad reputation of being shallow. Just because someone doesn't have the money doesn't mean they should be rejected. Everyone deserves a chance poor or rich. You complain that "RTP has bad reputation" but you guys said it yourself, it was made from lazy people. Why punish everyone for games the lazy one did? I believe that will go under discriminating against RTP users.

 

Thanks for strawmanning the issue.

I guess then that because I have a fairly busy schedule, have several competing interests, projects of my own, and can use some pretty basic deduction to see that most pure-RTP games aren't worth my time when I can play something that had more time, effort, and professionalism put into it - that makes me very shallow.

Good to know.

[lonequeso 1,921]

@Chaosian-  I'm in the same boat as you. Not a lot of free time to play lots and lots of video games plus other interests. I try to use as much of my free time as possible to work on my (fully RTP) game. I get why you wouldn't want to spend your limited time playing an RTP game. There are some good ones out there (so I've heard), but I really don't feel like trying to sift through all the bad ones (I hear there's a lot more of those) to find a good one. Clearly I haven't even taken much time to browse them let alone try one.

 

I do want to -at some point- make some time to. Especially if I can find a good one. Part for fun; part to see if it inspires me with any part of developing my game. The other reason is to support people. I'll probably play Rikifive's My Little Pony Game. I don't even like MLP, but he's just so damn likable I want to support him. (Is that game even full RTP?) Vectra's, too. I have a bit of an invested interest in it. I also want to see what he does with all those eleventy-billion story elements he wants to incorporate. 

[Lord Vectra 414]

 

I guess "Don't judge a book by it's cover" completely went out the window. If you don't play a game because it's rtp, you are very shallow. Here's the message you are sending to anyone who reads some of these comments:

 

"If you have no skills in art or music, don't bother making a game."

 

Then there would be some who would interpret different from that:

 

"If you have no skills in art or music, leave and don't come back until you can."

 

Both will result in Rpg Maker USERS having a bad reputation of being shallow. Just because someone doesn't have the money doesn't mean they should be rejected. Everyone deserves a chance poor or rich. You complain that "RTP has bad reputation" but you guys said it yourself, it was made from lazy people. Why punish everyone for games the lazy one did? I believe that will go under discriminating against RTP users.

 

Thanks for strawmanning the issue.

I guess then that because I have a fairly busy schedule, have several competing interests, projects of my own, and can use some pretty basic deduction to see that most pure-RTP games aren't worth my time when I can play something that had more time, effort, and professionalism put into it - that makes me very shallow.

Good to know.

 

I'm not saying your shallow for not playing RTP because it has no effort. I'm saying shallow as in, you make an assumption that every game made in full RTP took no time and not effort. Let me put it this way:

 

Then again, that kind of goes under judgmental more than shallow.

 

If someone said...

"I've been making this game for 4 years and I finally finished it. I had to us RTP because I couldn't acquire other resources."

 

Would you...

Play it because it obviously took time and probably took effort?

OR

Toss it to the side because it's full RTP?

Edited October 23, 2015 by Vectra

[+ Chaosian 617]

I will admit to being judgmental over this kind of thing - though I would like to meet the jury that'd convict me over it.

 

Games are hard, they are the arts profession that probably takes more effort and man-hours of any other medium. I know how hard it is to make a game. With three other people, I've worked on an little indie-horror game student project. For it I worked 12 hours a day for 63 days strait - and even that ended up 10 minutes long, and merely 'okay'. I've worked 12 months in a mix of part-time and full-time with five other people for about five minutes of gameplay footage. Games are hard to make - a good game is a sacrifice of your life that takes blood, sweat, and effort to make. Nine months is an impossible turn around time for your average game.

I also know however, how easy RPG Maker makes things, and how much of a free ride RTP is, and that very much devalues it. Pure-RTP tells me that you are not willing to sacrifice that time, effort, or cash that everyone else gives up to make your product unique, or aesthetically interesting. It makes your game easy to categorize with chaff, even if it itself isn't, and that's a huge problem. Otherwise you rely on the charity of others to not just promote how good your game is, but play it in the first place. Games are distributed a product and I would never, ever, want to have to make players have to "take a chance on my game" because it looks close to those other often god-awful RTP games.I respect my audience more than that, and would encourage other developers to put in at least some effort to show they do as well.

 

So, then as an audience member myself, do I choose to play every game that has RTP in it and hope for the best / or do I only play the ones that are really remarkable? Do I as a developer put considerably more effort into my product than I could to make my game? Maybe we can let some numbers tell us?

It's cruel, and it's painful, but it's how the system works.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Chaosian

[Lord Vectra 414]

I'm not complaining that you choose one game over the other. It's the assumption, not the choice of games you play. And graphics don't always = remarkable.

 

It's the function that counts, not the design.

 

Note: Idk if I said dat right but... yeah.

 

The game with rtp had a few flaws, mapping and the battle system. Mapping is like art, you need the right pieces for it to look beautiful. I could be wrong because I'm not a steam user but, from looking at the comments, the main problem was the mapping and the battle system. 

 

I will say that I do see where you're coming from by looking at the trailers. It did look bland but it was obvious the developer had a lot to learn. I, for one, has been using Rpg Maker for 5 years. Wait... actually it's 4 years. Anywho, I feel RTP is good but you have to use it correctly.

 

Then again, I'm an eventer so, in a way, I have a bit of an "edge" when it comes to RTP. I will have to ponder on this for a while. :wacko: 

 

Note: As far as my last post, just in case, because this is the internet, I meant no offense against your personality or ways.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Vectra

[+ Chaosian 617]

Haha, none at all Vectra. These are digs at practice and opinion, nothing more.

I equally hope nothing I've said is too troubling for you as well.

[Lord Vectra 414]

Haha, none at all Vectra. These are digs at practice and opinion, nothing more.

I equally hope nothing I've said is too troubling for you as well.

Nope, I'm fine. 

[xoferew 261]

I play games largely for the graphics.  To me, that's more important than an innovative battle system or an elaborate crafting mechanic, and is on an equal level with storytelling.  (Extra points if a boy takes his pants off at any time, thank you Vagrant Story and Shadow Hearts.)  That's just what makes it fun for me.  I refuse to believe that I am shallow or judgmental because I like beautiful artwork more than I like creative ways to murder pixel creatures.  It's just preference.  It does mean I'm not likely to play RTP only games unless the creator is someone I like, and then I will play it out of real interest and with real enjoyment, not just as a favor or charitable politeness.  I think people who say "don't pre-judge" must be people for whom graphics are just a lower priority.  It's like saying, "You hate first person shooters and only play peaceful, heartwarming farming simulations?  How can you pre-judge all those shooters without trying them?" 

 

My game doesn't have scripts in it.  If someone chooses not to try playing it because it seems simplistic and lacking without the scripts they are used to, do I think that person is shallow or missing out?  Nope.  I think, "This person knows what they like to play, good for them."  (I will pout, but privately.  )

[lonequeso 1,921]

Xoferew- I'm the opposite. I like games with shiny, pretty graphics, too. Who doesn't? I'd still choose a less aesthetically pleasing game over one with poor game play. Looking at you, FF13-2.

After playing that, I'd gladly trade it for a game that looks half as good, but has a better battle system, story, and maps that aren't redundant. 

[xoferew 261]

Yeah, I don't recall any pants coming off in FF13-2, maybe in a timeline I never got unlocked...  I'm not saying pretty graphics justify a bad game, but if I think a game is good, one of the reasons I think so is because of the graphics.  (With rare exceptions like Civilization.) 

[Unishadow 14]

It all depends on the gameplay, The characters, and the story is what draws me in, that combined with a good introduction and decent gameplay and i'll play it all day XD

[Intocabille 21]

I can spare few minutes with reading about the game, then if I like what I read I might give it a try even if it is full RTP.

 

Reasons?

 

They might not be artsy type. Same way I am not, but they might have an interesting story to tell. Same as books, you don't go for them for pretty pictures (use French accent and draw face of Teemo for previous sentence). And while you might say they should pay for it... sometimes that is just not an option. They can use a free art, true, but that might then not mesh together well.

[+ CVincent 234]

Huh, apparently I haven't posted on this thread yet. I've read it about a dozen times now.

 

I'll leave all discussion about whether a commercial game should be made from RTP or not for another time, so I'll keep things mostly short. I will probably not play a game made exclusively with RTP assets for an extended amount of time. The most important thing to me about RM games are the characters and with that said there should be a heavy emphasis on building those characters not only through story and dialogue but also by keeping the player visually engaged with the characters throughout the game.

 

Custom sprites, character art and any other assets (including music) pertaining to the character such as themes should in my perspective of things all be made for the project. I honestly can't really find myself enjoying the RTP assets anymore mostly due to the lack of characterization that it offers. RTP does a great job at giving you a general base to work with but really it's hard not to see repetitions in character traits after a little while.

 

I'd play a game with made with RTP if it had custom character assets, but wouldn't (at least by choice) if it was strictly made with RTP.

[Sofiaki 12]

For my point of view, yes;

 

I recently finished Wild Arms, i love playing 2d and old school RPG, and even if it's not the case, I can manage some hours trying to see what the community has to propose me. 

Then, I might play it, maybe i wouldn't pay it - I know it's not nice saying that, but custom games are really a lot MORE expensive for the producer point of view, so it's a little more worth paying for the product to play, even I'm not saying they are better for sure.

 

Graphic is important: I love pretty things, nice details, ecc. In my point of view, you can achieve that even with RTP!

About the gameplay... I am not an expert about it, and if I even come to that part in my project, maybe i will get some help, so I am not the best person to judge it in the case of others.

 

Sorry for the bad english, was a long day!

[KaosChrist 10]

It might make me seem douchey, but nope. If I see RTP it is an immediate turn off. RTP looks so very basic. Or if I see the first person battle system. Let's face it, the gameplay of RPG Maker is going to be OK at best, what seprates the games that wow me from the ones that don't is 100% the art assets. Any rpg I want to play would have an art style of its own even if it is just a nice side view battle system with custom sprites and parallaxed maps. This is why I'm striving to make my game with as little RTP as possible. I understand it sucks if you are not an artsy person to make nice assets and I sympathize, but if you are going to go full RTP and that is all you can do it almost seems like the game isn't worth making. None of the sprites are YOUR characters for example and that is just lame. I don't want to play a game about RPG Maker's characters, I want to play a game about YOUR characters, feel me? I highly recommend you just try to make unique assets. I had never sprited before or parallaxed, but I learned and was very surprised with myself. Others could be to. Don't be intimidated. Make your games your own folks. My two cents.

Edited November 5, 2015 by KaosChrist