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I have no idea what forums there will be yet. There will probably be forums related to the app itself for support using it, feature requests, bug reports etc. The site itself isn't intended to rely on the forums at all. Maybe we'd have some general ones relating to game development. We'll see. As for staff, you probably have guessed already that since this site is to carry on as usual there will not necessarily be any cross over between staff. Right now my intention is to recruit staff based on the individual's activity on the site itself, and the usual moderator qualities. So there could be RMU mods that are also mods at GDU but it really comes down to individuals who want to be a part of the site. The overall design isn't actually mine. The truth is that I'm a terrible designer and my photoshop skills are pretty poor. I have no passion for design. The layout design is from a template but of course I can't use a template, so this design is more of a rebuilt design. If you go to a non-forum page (eg homepage, scripts, tuts, etc. etc.) and you look at the source code, then I wrote nearly 100% of that. So if I do get inspiration from elsewhere, I still write the code. The above are pretty much all mine but I get tons of inspiration from all over. Also, the logo is by Chief. He made it some time ago, I'm glad I could actually use it :P

Of course I don't mind. Later on I will sort out some advertising materials. The two sites will advertise each other too of course. I will keep you guys updated on its progress EDIT: Woot. Got the create a game thingy done. This will be on the homepage - that's basically why you're on the site (unless you play them too of course :P). There's some serious validation coding that goes into this single input. It's pretty sweet though. Forces you to enter an alphanumberical value and it will let you know if the title is taken all in one go. It also tells you the URL of your game as you type.

The name of this site came up quite a few times and the majority was always with RMU. So this site is RMU, despite the domain name. Yes the domain does stand for Game dev unlimited, but its something that we're going to have to live with. Moving domain name is too damaging for search engines. Obviously things haven't been going to plan. You are seriously not listening to what I am saying. This is not a fresh start, at all. This site is going to continue on as normal while I develop another site, which is in fact a complimentary web app for a very specific purpose. Yes I am going to stay here at RMU, although I want to find new people to run it who are actually involved in game making, unlike me. RMU won't necessarily sit idle, and by that I suppose you mean that it will not change in terms of features. Well, there's a lot that you can do with a forum. Very few sites get developed like this anyway. The fact that I have said I have stopped developing it isn't the end of it. Although it is more out of my control than before.

Glad to have your support, Pol :) So far it's been way better to develop than RMU since I don't have to rely on any of the forum stuff. Perhaps that's how I should have started. I guess that's what you get when you have an LLB student developing a website. Anyway, a lot of my code will be interchangeable given the core system is exactly the same. The login/sign up systems are pretty much complete: I obviously decided to depart from what the forum software provides. What we have here is extremely simple forms. Getting your account couldn't be easier. You can sign up via facebook or twitter by simply clicking the buttons. You choose a username and give the app permission and away you go. If you don't want to connect your social media accounts then to sign up all you need is a username, password and email. If those are all good then hitting sign up will log you in and take you straight to your profile to get started. Javascript will be relied on for both systems (which I'm hoping will be enough for bot protection). They also use a bunch of CSS3 and JS for a nice user experience. Hmm what's next... the games section?

Sheath the troll. I know that you like it, and I know you know the fact that it was used for 3 months is totally irrelevant. Remember, that GDU was going to encompass everything, but now circumstances have necessitated breaking all of this off from this site. GDU could do more, but it's going to be a very straightforward site in terms of functionality. Very simple. This signup is primarily for an email notification of when the site goes live. Thanks. I can't take credit for any of the design, but I know how to find good looking stuff and I know how to integrate it. It gets better too.

That's not the case at all. The features I mentioned are the only features. There is no mention of RPG Maker, what forums we'd have, it will not have any tutorials, scripts or resources sections. It will play an entirely different role. RMU Currently an RPG Maker website that's focus is support and resources such as the gallery, scripts and tutorials. Depending on the future, it could expand to other engines but the point is: support, tutorials, scripts, resources for specific engines. GDU 1. Games publishing, 2. team management, 3. feedback on games. For the current plans, there are no duplicate functions at all. Still confusion? Sounds good. I'll keep you updated on the site's progress. I will most likely setup a login for early access.

Try here for the music: http://www.sakari-infinity.net/

I thought Kauai might be in Hawaii. Sounds like a japanese or pacific language word. Welcome to RMU :thumbsup: Of course you use XP :P

Hi guys, I would to announce a new website. You've probably heard of it: Game Dev Unlimited. (Logo by Chief) Omg. Traitor! Nah. Game Dev Unlimited will be a complimentary website to RMU. The two will exist side by side and link to one another. Each site will have different roles. RMU right now is for RPG Maker, but I would very much like it to expand into other engines and be the site that provides game-dev resources such as tutorials, graphics, and so on. So what is GDU? GDU is going to be a continuation of the master plan I once had, except I'm breaking it off entirely from this website. That means all new member accounts, an empty forum, etc. GDU is all about games and indie game development, generally. There is no focus on any engine. It will be simple in terms of its main functions, which are: game publishing, team management, indie-game-dev profiles and feedback. The main feature will a highly customizable front-end mini-website for your games. There will be forums but they will play a minimal role. The site's audience will be those who make games and their team members. GDU will have the same design as RMU and use the same framework I've been building over the last few years. It will use the forums as a base for the member system but will largely be a custom made web app that focuses on publishing your games and managing teams. It will be more custom than RMU with more custom-made systems made possible because there is no existing data/forum to tip-toe around. Some Screenshots Domain and subscribe to find out when GDU goes live http://gamedevu.net/

Oooh exotic. You know, we're almost on opposite ends of the earth (Spain and NZ (that's me) are apparently on opposite ends). Although I'm sure you look a lot closer to Spain on a map than in reality. Welcome to RMU :thumbsup:

@Ratty & Moonpeal: two great posts, I basically agree with all points. This website was created for supporting specific engines, thus we have categories in the scripts and tutorials based on engines. Therefore it was created with expansion beyond RPG Maker in mind. I plan to add to the engine tabs and provide some basic info about other indie game-dev possibilities (Right now I'm thinking Ouya and project Spark). But it may be no more than a mere advertisement. It depends. If expansion does happen, it will not be under me. As I said above, I intend to look for passionate game-devs who want to take the reins of this site. I'm just a web developer now. I only ever was an RPG Maker XP user. It may be tough going finding anyone willing to inherit this, but I'm currently planning something else which I will announce in the coming days. The truth is, I might not be able to help developing until I graduate (in exactly 1 year from now). I will announce it soon to offset the effects of this topic (hopefully. I would prefer to keep it more of a secret to things are more clear), but nothing that I have said thus far has changed.

I was thinking about adding Ouya and Project Spark alongside the engine tabs. It might not help our activity, but it will connect indie game dev's to more methods of game making. I'm not sure I can say I have no regrets. I took a risk which didn't pay off. I suspected the changing tides would lead to this result, not matter how hard I worked. I severely underestimated the time it would take to develop what I have. But it was not a waste. People are still coming here, even if they're leeches that are getting some benefit. Here are RMU stats comparing the last month to the month before that. Everything is in the green, except % of new visits, which means there's an ever so slight increase in people coming back. Anyway, I have a deep dark secret. It looks like this: It's certainly not over for RMU. I will soon start looking for a replacement admin who I want to have full discretion over the direction of the site to make it successful. I have not given up on it's success, but I will focus my time on developing elsewhere. Surely there is someone interested in inheriting 22k visits and 76k pageviews per month.

I agree. There's a difference between disliking a culture. It's possible for that to look like racism, because generally only race applies to that culture. For example, my gf is a chinese-malaysian so I know a fair bit about them and their culture and I have reservations about chinese immigration because I know that they that will come here and segregate themselves (even if it's a language barrier) and setup little asia's within NZ and not integrate into NZ society. Obviously I'm not racist towards asians/chinese (even if I was, I have a pass) because I'm quite fond of one, it's a culture thing. The asians who integrate here are just like any other person, you don't even think about race. It's the culture clash and sometimes that comes with being a different race. Northern american's :P I think that there's greater responsibility on the majority race so it naturally happens that you called out more. We had an example of that here where the government plans to implement free lunches for low decile primary schools, and a newspaper cartoonist made a cartoon with the parents of a pacific island family/maori family (the indigenous race of NZ, 15% of NZers) and the cartoon effectively said they were going to have more money for smokes and gambling. Everyone called it racist. If it were a white family, you would never hear about it. And yet the pacific island families are poor and have higher percentages of these types of things. In my opinion it's just stupid to call it racism. Get over it and move on. But it doesn't really bother me that the majority's get called out on it. You know, life must be more difficult for some minorities. Anyway, I will leave my comments toward RPG Maker racist to another post, coz none of you gona read it the wall of text.

This isn't goodbye. The site isn't going down, check posts above. If you really love RMU, why don't you stay?

Yeah, good post Chief. Yeah. I couldn't get around the fact that everything we had was RPG Maker related. I wasn't willing to get rid of that and I'm still not. Perhaps I could have minimized it somewhat. Who knows.

Someone used the best answer feature?? Yay :grin:

Yeah, I thought you had defected over there. I don't go there. Maybe you wouldn't be here if we weren't so accepting of you. I don't know anything about their staff and know anyone on it, but I know whoever runs their facebook page is a little bitch. I duno how they get got in charge of running the official site. I was worried from day 1 about them creating a monopoly with it. It's unfortunate. It takes away choice and the diverse web experience we use to have. At least they knew when to quit. Actually the purpose of GDU when it went live was to be for all game makers, not to get rid of RPG Maker. RPG Maker was always still there and it ended up being an RPG Maker forum branded for all game development. We don't necessarily need members who are using different game development programs, all we need is members who make games.

That's 99% correct, yes. Basically I don't want to waste anymore time and focus on my study and making more money (it's hard to save these days). *discuss :P Lol why? What is it you plan to achieve? No one has argued me on my point that there's longer any point because there's an official site now, sites like these aren't needed anymore for RPG Maker. I said I wouldn't waste me time on another type of game dev site. But if I made that topic, I'd be encouraging people to waste their time on a project I don't have any faith in. There's only so far sentiment will take the site. No one has suggested getting rid of the RPG Maker focus. I guess none of you want that.

No benefits. Once people decide a free account is a good thing, then we could offer some form of subscription. But I don't like the idea of charging people money. All the benefits of the site are available to all users. The subscription was essentially to show that the contest was won. Dolar can't get it coz that would be a demotion :P

There have tons of topics "where has everyone gone!?", this one is slightly different but to a similar effect. All I really said is no more goodies. Actually, no one more goodies for a site focused on RPG Maker. It only cost $12.50 USD, I already earned about $90NZD today and it's just on lunchtime :P Money isn't an issue. Paying that small fee for me isn't going to change my mind on anything. Give the past replies, a few of you will interpret that like I'm shutting the site down, which I'm not. If there are people who actually use it then I will keep it open. Yeah you could be right there. A lot of them are. But I did track the links so i know how many people clicked them, which is around 900. Oh well, it's irrelevant now. On the day we set our visitors record, 1,021, which just beats the previous record 1,002 which was a normal day.

I did that already, weeks ago. It resulted in this one-off topic: http://www.gdunlimited.net/forums/topic/9721-holy-hell-guys/ If a bulk email to our 20,000 barely sparks any interest, it's pretty good evidence the site isn't relevant anymore. In terms of handing over admin duties, sure. But I never said I was leaving the site. The amount of time I spent on the site has been much that I'm working part time as a web developer. What I'm saying here is that I'm not going to be programming anymore. I wrote everything that doesn't include "forums" in the url and spent a ridiculous amount of time, which is spillt milk now, but there's no point in going on, and no one here can do that and we won't get a member who could possibly take over those duties. These are nice ideas and all, someone else can be admin and take them on and see how that pans out, but RPG Maker is over. It is the reason it's not going to work anymore. That's it. I never said it was going down, geez. And you're not even active anymore. Everything is going to stay up for certain until Janurary next year, after that it's less certain and will depend on you guys. There's definitely no immediate threat.

Lol Alexa webstats are completely useless, especially for a site around the 1 mil mark, the stats are extremely inaccurate. People still know about this site, like I've been saying over and over, we get tons of visitors here. With regards to restarting... hmm... No, I don't make games, I mentioned that as an issue above too. In saying that I disagree with all your comments here (I have a final exam in 2 hrs so I'll keep it brief). The site's main focus is NOT RMXP, it was, it is just that most members here use RMXP. We've had solid progress on VXA stuff, and its right on par in pageviews with XP stuff. We also have a lot of stuff. We have 3.5k resource images (all free btw), we have scripts and we have tutorials. Obviously not as much as the official website... But I have created unique sections for all this sort of content to make it easier to find and look better than a mere topic. They were created for members to upload and share their works. So the problem is not a lack of active member of the MOTM. It's extremely easy to have frequent contests when you have so many particpants. otherwise members get discourgaed to start, and you can't expect me to build so much and constantly keep running contests. Contests are a collateral benefit that should be done with there are partipants, not a goal to attract members. You first of all need members, generally. Things may be constantly changing but at least they're getting better, and this design is going to remain for a long time (even if I were still working on the site). That argument may have been something beforehand, but the site just needed to settle on a final design that was good enough. I wouldn't ban you for that post. You really have to distinguish when your posts are useful and have substance and when you're just spamming/trolling.