Organization of the Game Creation Section
As you may have noticed, the organizational scheme of the Game Creation section is changing. This is because RPG Maker VX Ace has been released in Japan, and we expect an English version to follow shortly. We are therefore reorganizing the Game Creation section in order to better integrate the new content into the forum. After a public consultation process, I have decided on the following organizational scheme:
- Game Creation General Chat
- Projects
- New Projects
- Substantial Projects
- Abandoned Projects
- Recruitment
- Reviews
- Tutorials & Eventing Help
- Tutorials Database
- RMVXA Event Systems
- RMVX Event Systems
- RMXP Event Systems
- Resources
- Graphics
- Maps
- Actor
- Battle
- System
- Miscellaneous
- Audio
- Movies
- Scripts
- RMVXA Scripts Database
- RMVX Scripts Database
- RMXP Scripts Database
- Script Request
- Program Troubleshooting
- Other Game Making Programs
Notable Changes
The primary changes from the current organization scheme are:
- While the Projects board has always had three tiers (New Projects -> Substantial Projects -> Finished Projects), these had previously been arranged so that there was a separate subforum for substantial projects for each maker. I do not feel it has been a useful organizational paradigm and so now there is only one Substantial Projects subforum, into which projects made in any maker are moved once they have sufficient content.
- The biggest change is to the Resource Boards. Previously, it had been organized so that requests are made in the root forum, and there were four subforums - one for RMVX Resources, one for RMXP Resources, one for RM2k/3 Resources, and one for Multiplatform Resources. This scheme is being replaced since there is too much overlap and it becomes very difficult to actually find resources that one is looking for since (a) there is no organizational scheme within the maker boards themselves; and (b) many resources could be within any of the maker boards. As such, it was hard to navigate. For that reason, it is being replaced by three subforums: Audio, which will hold music and sound effects; Movies, which will hold video files that can be played in RMVXA or RM2k3; and Graphics, which will hold all other visual resources. The Graphics subforum is further divided into five subforums: Maps which holds all map-related graphics such as tilesets, parallaxes, and fogs; Actor, which holds graphics relating to actors, such as character sets and face sets; Battle, which holds graphics relating to battles like battlebacks and battlers; and System, which holds graphics like windowskins, title screen graphics, pictures, and icons. Graphics itself, will hold any graphics that do not fit into those categories or threads which contain graphics which may fit into multiple categories. The root forum, Resources will remain the place to request new resources.
- Previously, there were separate script request boards for both RMXP and RMVX. With the addition of RMVX Ace, I decided it would be best to amalgamate script requests for all three boards into one Script Request board. This is because (a) most scripters can write a script for any maker; and (b) requests can be a source of inspiration for scripters, even if they do not write it in the maker for which it was requested.
- The RMVX Troubleshooting, RMXP Troubleshooting, RM2k/3 Troubleshooting, and Other Makers Troubleshooting will all be dissolved and integrated into the Program Troubleshooting board. This is simply because there is not a lot of activity in those boards and it is a little more condensed to have them all in one.
Additionally, there are a few more minor changes:
- The name of the Tutorials has been changed to Tutorials & Eventing Help; while the Tutorials Board has always been for asking questions on how to do things in the program, including eventing, this new name makes it a little more express.
- An RMVXA Event Systems board will be added to hold plug & play event systems designed in RMVX Ace.
- An RMVXA Scripts Database board has been added to hold completed scripts for RMVX Ace.
- The Technical Support board has been renamed to Program Troubleshooting. The board has always been only for problems relating to the execution of the RM programs themselves, but a lot of people would post topics more appropriately suited to the Tutorials or Scripts boards. The name change will hopefully make the purpose of the Board more clear and avoid all that confusion.
These changes will be happening over the next week. While it will probably be a little disorienting at first, I am hopeful that it will improve the navigability of the forum and I am certain we will all get used to it shortly.