Marked

RMXPUnlimited in 2010 This topic is about the ideas and plans for 2010. The topics mentioned here may or may not come to be in 2010 and merely plans. It is a new direction the site will be taking and may be controversial and should be discussed by the members. Alight then, lets begin. I imagine this topic is going to be rather long so only the more dedicated members will read it through completely, otherwise just read the sections that interest you. I will make headings and clear and distinguish the sections properly. User Submitted Content This is completely related to to the CCK(custom content kit) of the website, which was used to build the RGSS Scripts Archives(RMXP/RMVX). The beauty of a CCK is the ability to create any type of content you want, allowing RMXPUnlimited to have unique one of a kind systems. I. RGSS Scripts Arguably the most attractive attribute an RPG Maker website can have, the RGSS Scripts Archives have already been designed and since their introduction in April of this year, have been reasonably successful. Since then, there have been 66,000 hits on the items alone. Items refer to the individual script 'articles', or basically the content contains the information of the script. I have been working on a Script Submit Component which allows members of RMXPUnlimited to logon and go through a simple form, uploading an .rtf file for the script, and multiple images, and hit submit. That content is then displayed through template to look something, for example, like this: GubiDs Tactical Battle System v1.4(we have permission to host this script). I was actually quite successful and put a good amount of hours into developing this component and got far enough to create a release candidate. To see it in action, here is a video: However, I will not be releasing this component as it operates outside of the websites framework. This is important, but I will not go into detail about it here. Instead of using the component I created I will instead start again from scratch and create the component within the CCK component, using it's code and building it within the framework on the website. The end result will hopefully look exactly like in the video. When this is complete, it will take a very short amount of time for a member to submit their work to the site, and all the display work is done. And that is how members will be able to submit their RGSS Scripts on RMXPUnlimited. To view a mock-up of the form, I have set one up on the website: http://rmxpunlimited.net/contact-us II. Projects Projects are the next thing which will be developed using a CCK, and this will replace the current projects section on the website. This should be one of the most popular parts of the site, and hopefully a lot of people will want to have their projects up on display. Once this is finished it will be a full project display section. There's not a lot I can say about what it is going to look like, of course I have not designed it yet, but it will have a lot of nice features. It will work almost identically to the RGSS Scripts Archive. There will be various textarea forms which you will fill out, and this goes text goes to the template. Just like the scripts explained above. In the project submission form there will be textareas such as storyline, characters, sreenshots, etc. Each section of the project template will be derived from forum topics and how members have done it in the past. Project hosting(the actual game download), for now, is planned to be in the forums Download Manager. Now I know a lot of you are skeptical about it and think it's useless and this won't work for the big projects. However the Downloads Manager is going to be updated and will include a flash uploader which has features such as upload progress. My overall goal of the Projects section is to be like a mini-site for that project, where the member will link to on other sites. Basically a reliable and attractive project hosting place. III. Tutorials I have been wondering about how to create a tutorials section using a CCK. I know that I want an archive of tutorials on the website and with proper styling and CSS. At the moment how I'm thinking of doing is this is creating around 30 sections. Each section is a step in the tutorial and contains a textarea and an option image upload. So, you have the step 1 part: write out step1 text and then upload an image for it if you like. Then step 2: repeat the process. And then at the end when the tutorial is submitted it will come out in the template as a nice step by step tutorial. There are however limitations to this, not all tutorials will follow a direct step by step method. We'll have to see how this goes, but it is planned for 2010. IV. Reviews Section This is me and Arkbennetts little project. He contacted me with how it's going to look, and sent me this mock-up: This is how the category view is going to be. The review itself will have various sections offering critique or praise for various elements of game design. A new staff group will be created for this and they will do the reviews. I would prefer that not any ordinary member attempt a review. They need to be proper and full English, insightful and thorough. V. Make money by submitting your content? This is just an idea, but I had thought of how to do it and it's not actually too hard. Once all the above are launched here on RMXPUnlimited, there may be a radio button asking whether or not to display ads in the item(perhaps not in projects and certainly not in reviews), and if yes then an ad will appear on the page of the script/tutorial you submitted. I do have a google adsense account, but I'm not a fan of ads and at the moment there is no reason for RMXPUnlimited to be raising money, so the site is adless. Anyway, using google analytics it is possible to determine how much revenue is gained on a specific page, and this way it is possible for members to request the revenue earned from submitting their content. The only issue is paying the author, the author would have to be aware that money is available to them. That bit I haven't figured out. However, no one person is likely to earn large amounts of money from us, but it is still a little pay back for their work. R & D R & D for those who don't know stands for Research and Development. Heavily used in the marketing department of a business, the concept is simple, you research what is effective and apply it. So what is the application of this on RMXPUnlimited? As the head of Admin of RMXPUnlimited, or the person who initiates the major changes, it could be said that I operate in a vacuum. That is to say, this forum being the only one I'm active on prohibits the necessary changes to keep with the constantly changing preferences of the entire RPG Maker community. It also means that in creating the various forums and advertising various sections is all guess work, how do I know what is going to be effective or not? So, for future decisions, content and other things on RMXPunlimited are going to be based on the 'users' preferences. How this is possible is rather simple but has been neglected in the past. There is substantial information avaliable, in such detail as to what percentage of clicks each link gets on every page of the site. So it is possible to optimize, shift and create content from the information of browsing preferences of the visitors to RMXPUnlimited. To summarize, R&D = relevant content. The most noticeable effect of this is going to be yet another forum re-structure. Not necessarily the entire forum structure, because those are not what RMXPUnlimited's about, but the RPG Maker forums. We have gone through and through various structures of the RPG Maker sections and I dont think any have been truely effective. In saying this I dont even know what I will end up doing with them yet, there is research to be done. It is necessary to look at other sites which accommodate more than one engine and see how they how they offer support, resources etc. My goal is to find the most effective way to facilitate multiple engines on a forum. This R&D concept will be (hopefully) reflected through most sections of the site, and our visitors will be able to find what they are looking for. A shift Towards RPG Maker VX It is obvious that the majority of members on RMXPUnlimited are RPG Maker XP users. However there is a definite issue with this. This is arguable, but it's my opinion that RPG Maker XP, better or worse than its successor, is fading and will die before RPG Maker VX. My basis for this reasoning is the comparison of the most popular RMXP site with the most popular RMVX site. Their respective traffic ranks suggest that RPG Maker VX is becoming more popular than RPG Maker XP, and therefor it is necessary for RMXPUnlimited to become more RPG Maker VX orientated. That is not to say more so than RMXP, but more so than it is at the moment. I think this is essential for the survival of the forum. This will be reflected in the separation of the engines on the forums. At the moment scripts, tuts and support topics are crammed into the same forums for both engines. For a start, i dont like the prefixing of topics, and also this is demoting RMVX with our clear bias towards RMXP. So this is set to change. How do you guys feel about this? Exclusive Content Can anyone find any exclusive content on the site? I'm sure there are a few nice things we have here, but not nearly enough. That is to say that as a forum of our age(3+ years) we have abnormally low exclusive content. Exclusive content is usually something that is generated from your own pool of 'loyal' members that are active in the operations or purpose of the forum..to offer support(which includes tutorials) and resources(scripts, images, audio). It is therefor a goal of 2010 to create exclusive content that is easily found and accessible(remember, R&D). In reflection of this, it also a goal to, in so many words, train members of community in RPG Maker. Seems pretty obvious and universal, but let me attempt to explain...users come here and learn how to use the program. Perhaps we have a great eventing tutorials section from which members develop and build on, and then they share their eventing systems with he community. What I would like to do is have sortof catalog or tour of the RPG Makers which breaks down RPG Maker starting from the most simple things you can learn, leading on to more and more advanced material and processes. All the new users would go through it and develop their own understanding of the program, which will provide a base for more advanced stuff. I think I will write the RPG Maker XP one myself, but I know very little about RMVX.

This topic has been brought about by the heavy misuse of the Spam forum by the members here. The Rules of RMXPUnlimited define spam as follows... It seems like when members are unsure where a topic will go, they will post it in the spam section. This is not the way to do it, and a lot of topics with an actual topic, don't even belong in the forum. Posting in the spam forum really does not make any sense for a lot of topics with actual points. Thanks for reading :) EDIT: Kiriashi speaking here. A note to all who posted in this. We're trying to clean up RMXPU right now. The least we could do is keep the rule topics clean. Your posts invisible in order to remove any encouragement to spam. Have a nice day. ~Kiriashi

It's good to see that you will try to be active again, we all hope you can come back. I've only just got back myself, and it does seem that a lot has changed... Most noticeably a few original members missing and a particularly large dip in activity(not necessarily the posting kind).

I've been working on a translated version of FaceMaker 3.2, but it's not complete yet. I thought I would post what I've done so far. It took only a few minutes, there's only a few strings that need editing, but I haven't been able to figure out how to edit the parts names. You'll see if you download this. This seems to be a really popular application, especially on this site, so I thought i would try and translate it. If you want to know how I did it, there's a very similar tutorial that I wrote on the website here: Changing RMXPs Icons Here's a screenie of the part I havent been able to translate yet: ' alt=''> And here's the link for FaceMaker 3.2 - nearly English: http://rmxpunlimited.net/Facemaker32.zip

Welcome to RMXPUnlimited Ulty. I'm Mark, one of the admins here. That's quite an interesting intro topic, and sounds like you have some experience. It's good to have more VX members here too. I'm glad you like the look of the forums, I've working on the skin over the past weeek. Though I can't take credit for it, I'm just recreating the previous skin we had which no longer works on this board.

3) The "white square" is the background? I'm not too sure where the white square comes from, but the background does serve a purpose. When you import it into RPG Maker XP a box will come up asking you to define a transparent color and an opaque one. You select the background color, in this case the white square, for the transparent color. This only happens with a solid image, absent of any transparency. That's basic enough and you probably know that. However if there is any transparent part in the PNG file(assuming it is a .png file, it should be), then the box where you select the transparent and opaque color does not show up. I dont know really what is happening from what you posted...but maybe you just need to edit out the white square? If all else fails just post the image and we'll see what's wrong with it. As for the maps, oh, you couldn't find the mapping tutorials? We'll fix you right up: http://www.rmxpunlimited.net/rmxp/rmxp-tutorials/mapping-tutorials There are more around the RMXP Training Center too, you should check them out. It doesn't get easier as you add more scripts in, and im not surprised you're overwhelmed with all the scripts after communities have developing them since 2005. Everyone has their own style when it comes to developing the game and the process, but these scripts shouldn't really be considered extensions(as silly as that sounds), you dont want to chuck in as many scripts as you can, just because you can. I once tried helping this person with their menu system and we couldnt figure out what was wrong and she sent me her project. She had more custom scripts in there than original(slight exaggeration), and any one could be conflicting and its just one big mess. Instead you should go through your game and think of what kind of scripts you could have. For example, you're designing your first town and everything and set up the first shop. You may decide you dont like the default shop system, so you then go looking for a custom shop script. That's opposed to, you've got one map and found a bunch of scripts on the web and go ahead and add them in. Another way to say that would be the scripts should be extensions of the game, not the game being based around the scripts. If that makes sense... In any case, you should be familiar with the program before you add in scripts, that will help and avoid your project being a cocktail of scripts that will eventually cause errors and complications. Scripts do make the game better, but that's not to say you cannot make a good game with default scripts and images. The thing is that how good your game is changes over time. When the first people started making scripts, a simple menu system was considered amazing, now its nothing. So to make a good game in RMXP these days does require, well, advanced use I suppose.

Ah, thanks Hebi Kumo, I found the solution. I knew what the original error was, index.php was being left out of the url, but not how to fix it. It was a skin error...my fault. I replaced the breadcrumb code with the default code and it seems to be fixed. That means friendly URLs are back. Thanks for pointing out this issue, its been a big help :)

Looks really good. Although it is a bit slow for me, I think because of all the flash. But my computer is quite slow to begin with... Also I dont think the main menu animation works properly for me. Its rollover image is just blurry text. Is that suppose to happen?

I had that happened to me once, although it was more of a formatting of my harddrive and forgetting what exactly that would do to my files... So, does this mean your back?? :rolleyes:

This should be interesting. I just hope that people remember members from October to keep things fair. Have you guys seen the MOTM table? I updated it not long ago: http://www.rmxpunlimited.net/index.php/component/content/article/314.html Pol, is the member of the year the person who ends up with the most MOTM wins? Or a final voting including all the winners of MOTM during the year?

Well this is just an idea, to aid the progress and production of user-features. I made it myself as an example: http://www.rmxpunlimited.net/forums/index.php?/tracker/issue-2-comment-no-in-profiles/ The idea behind is similar to a project, such as developing software. I suppose it may be inappropriate to do so with a forum or site as a whole, but i would like to try out the tracker...if it fails to provide any benefit, we'll ditch it. Hey Emily, hope you like it :) I put some good hours into this one. I started with the default skin, so I nearly touched every part of it to get it to look how i want. Although it's not exactly a new skin, it is a replica of the one we used for the majority of the time we've been around. Yeah, it should. We used it for a good 2 and half years. Around the time you were admin.

Yeah, they're also called breadcrumbs. I'm aware of the error and I've been waiting until someone noticed I guess... I did want to keep friendly URLs on, but I guess it's not worth it if they are going to bring up 404s. I'll revert the friendly urls now.

I use Zoom player for music and video, though I rarely listen to music on the computer. Its quite a nice player. Otherwise I use VLC player.

Oh he used that username on other forums while he still used noob saibot here, and also i think he had it as his msn name once...

Oh hmmm, I'll get on to that today. By my own editing I did cause that, so I'm definitely aware of it, and I will try have it fixed by the end of the day. It's one of the tricky parts so I was kindof putting it off, first though I will get to work in the profile view.

Yeah it has been, thanks for the welcome. Last time you completely disappeared, well, glad to have you back here.

Thanks Agckuu_Coceg :) If all goes to plan, everyone will be able to. I'll PM you about it. If anyone finds any errors or abnormalities or just bad looking parts of the skin, please report them in this topic. I will be searching, correctly and altering all the things that need it over the next few days and hopefully we'll up with a nice, complete skin. Also I have added a change log to the first post with some minor things I have and will be doing.

I can't remember ever seeing a script like that before, although perhaps someone else has. To help out though, can tell us if the script it for RMXP or RMVX? This forum supports both, though the majority is RMXP.

Hey Luke, welcome to RMXPUnlimited. I'm one of the admins on the forum and I can assist with any forum related stuff as well as RPG Maker XP matters. I would recommend making topics in the RPG Maker Support forum. Although to answer your question, you can change the autotiles in the Tileset tab of the Database in RMXP. The little orange dot does mean it's an imported resource, but make sure you imported the image to the Autotiles directory. Some people forget to do that.

Nice work Polraudio. I added a tutorial for this ages ago and since it's got over 1k views. I'm not on vista so I don't know much about it, but it may be useful to cross-check your topic with this article and then pin this topic. Here's the article: http://www.rmxpunlimited.net/rmxp/rmxp-tutorials/general-rmxp-tutorials/298-fixing-the-qfailed-to-obtain-a-trial-serial-number-from-ntitles-serverq-error

You asked in this topic? I answered it just now in the announcement topic.

The emoticons is not actually a skin thing, I think its defined somewhere in the settings, but I'll take a look at that for you. As for the tutorials section, that is a complicated matter. When I first introduced the website to RMXPUnlimited you could submit content to all of those sections and I was really proud of getting the bridge to work between the forum and site which allowed for members to login to the website and submit their own content. However it was unpopular and those members who did submit content did it poorly, I think because it was because there was an HTML editor and not a forum-like bbcode one. Since the bridge is gone, it is only possible to submit content to that section in the backend, in the admin control panel. However I am planning on removing that section and replacing it with one similar to how the RGSS Scripts Archives work. Which is basically filling out forms, uploading images. Simple as that, and they come out the other end nice and styled. I think you have seen the video, but its a similar process to this: I will go over this in a lot of detail in my next announcement topic which will be regarding RMXPUnlimited in the future. Glad you like it Gary, though much work to do. Thanks for pointing out the blog error. This is basically a whole bunch of images left out from the images directory somehow. Easy to fix, I'll get to that soon. If it's not too much trouble, that would be great. Just reply to the PM you sent me before.