[Question] Rom Hacking or RPG Maker?

[Varus]

I have never felt so conflicted about a choice in my life.

From what I'm understanding RPG Maker XP/VX (someone is going to have to explain the differences to me) allows a person to add A LOT more to the game. Something I find QUITE attractive seeing as how I don't want it to be a copy pasta of pokemon, I want to advance pokemon! I want to give it individuality!

What are the palette restrictions for RPG maker? (if any)
Do people have to buy RPG maker just to play the game I want to make?
What is Game Dev?

It also seems to me that rom hacks are more popular than rpg made games (which isn't anything when compared to the quality RPG maker can offer)

I just feel so restricted in what I could do in a rom hack, and I honestly don't care if I have to buy RPG maker to get this job done (30/60$ is nothing to me). But I do care about the downfalls it might have.

So please can someone try and explain these to me? It also seems to me that it would be easier to use RPG maker. But I am careful when things seem to be, just because something 'seems' doesn't make it an 'is'.

 

[Riansky]

Rpg Maker XP has the most advanced "starter kit" avaliable which is pretty much up to date with current Pokemon games - and if something is missing, you can add it with a bit knowledge of Ruby.

Rom hacking in other cases pretty much have a lot of limitations. One being palette restrictions, something that RPG XP don't have. I'm not sure about the part if people have to buy rpgxp to play games but I'm 90% they don't need to.

Indeed rom hacking is more popular than Game Dev. But that is something you can't really compare to each other. Because Game Dev is making a fan game, but hacking is actually hacking an existing game which is in most cases illegal.

If I were you, I would go with RPG XP + Pokemon Essentials as you're free to add aynthing you want. Imagination is your only limit.

 

[Varus]

Rpg Maker XP has the most advanced "starter kit" available which is pretty much up to date with current Pokemon games - and if something is missing, you can add it with a bit knowledge of Ruby.

Rom hacking in other cases pretty much have a lot of limitations. One being palette restrictions, something that RPG XP don't have. I'm not sure about the part if people have to buy rpgxp to play games but I'm 90% sure they don't need to.

Indeed rom hacking is more popular than Game Dev. But that is something you can't really compare to each other. Because Game Dev is making a fan game, but hacking is actually hacking an existing game which is in most cases illegal.

If I were you, I would go with RPG XP + Pokemon Essentials as you're free to add anything you want. Imagination is your only limit.

Yeah I kind of noticed the palette restrictions for rom hacking...
What is ruby?
Also I heard something about scripting, and while I don't know any scripting, I am fully willing to try and learn.
Is there a memory limit to RPG XP? and what is the difference between XP and XV?

 

[Riansky]

Ruby is programming language for RPGX.
The scripting you heared about is done with Ruby or RGSS.
The difference between XP and VX I wouldn't know because people who make Pokemon games, usally use XP and Pokemon Essentials as starter kit. VX dosen't have any.

 

[venom12]

Rpg Maker of course! I think the rmxp is better, beacause you're not limitied if you know scripting you can do almost everything, from bw battle to 3d view. Rom hacking is really hard also, i think 7-8 years ago i tryed the rom hacking, i was working with tools, those days and it was pretty cool but alwasy something broke. I was editing maps something broke. So yeah rom hacking actualli is just editing existing game like RianSky said. Rmxp is also editing of Pokemon Essentials Starter kit because you just making maps and events right? Even if you edit scripts you still editing of existing thing here i mean starter kit. So my vote go for Rpg Maker XP.

 

[tImE]

Game Dev is making a fan game, but hacking is actually hacking an existing game which is in most cases illegal.

If I don't remember incorrectly, Nintendo has yet to sue any rom-hacker to date and from what I've heard from when I was hacking, their policy is to shut fan-games/rom-hacks down when they become a financial problem, like making roms available for free, which they want to sell, or you try to sell fan-games. Otherwise, they view rom-hacking as fan-games, not something illegal.

Anyways, on-topic, as a former Rom-hacker who have moved over to Game development, both rom-hacking and game development have their pros and cons, but Game-dev outshines rom-hacking substantially in my opinion.

Game-dev
Pros:
+No limit to custom graphics, color pallettes or animations.
+Complete customizability if you know RGSS. (Still more than rom-hacking without RGSS-knowledge)

Cons:
-Inability to play on a flash-cart.
-Less accurate engine-wise than rom-hacks, if you use Pokémon Essentials. It is very close, but the engine is different, so the feel of the game is slightly different imo.

I say, go for RPG Maker XP. You get more design freedom, not being limited to memory, hex-editing and being able to make events without using that god-forsaken hack-scripting.

RPG Maker XP has a 30-day free trial if you want to try it out, before buying.

 

[Worldslayer608]

Pillars of Destiny actually began as a ROM Hack in 2009 under the project name Pokemon: Dissension.

I was doing all forms of development, from inserting sprites into ROMS to scripting everything out. I did it all.

Scripting was much easier to get a handle on in ROM Hacking. I did not actually need to learn an entire language.

Inserting images was much harder in ROM Hacking than in RMXP. So there is kind of this duality between ROM Hacking and RMXP. I really would say that one is not harder than the other, but instead one is simply more advanced than the other. RMXP (or any engine for that matter) is inherently stronger than that of a ROM which restricts you to colors and memory limits.

 

[Stochastic]

I think the main positive thing about ROM hacking is that you're only modifying the maps and events, and the game engine is already there, but, you can't extend the engine (or at least not easily), and you can potentially screw things up. In RPG maker/Essentials, you can extend the game features however you like with relative ease. I don't know about any memory limits in RMXP (you can always extend the maximum number of variables/switches and you can have as many audio and graphic files as you like). So, my choice is definitely RMXP + Essentials.

 

[G-Master]

I am by no means experienced in either RPG Maker or ROM Hacking, but a few months ago I had to make a decision as to which I was going to use. I decided to go with RPG Maker due to having less restrictions. Even if you don't know (or ever learn) Ruby, you still have a lot of freedom with creating maps and events. Even if you learn Ruby (as I am), it is well worth the learning curve.

 

[Varus]

Okay so I just woke up and started reading some of these comments. I've decided to give RPG XP a shot. What with pokemon essentials, unlimited palettes. unlimited memory, and unlimited potential! It should be pretty easy to create most of it, and I'm patient enough for the parts that won't be so easy.

I think Rom hacking is more popular because people don't pay for the roms (normally), while I am stingy, I value quality a lot more than money.

Might be using this section of the website a lot more from now on. Depends though really. Thanks for all the answers!

 

[Worldslayer608]

We are not as busy as the ROM Hacking section that is for sure. But Essentials is a great kit and has more flexibility than ROMS which is great. Maruno also does a fantastic job not only with Essentials, but also this section.

 

[Varus]

We are not as busy as the ROM Hacking section that is for sure. But Essentials is a great kit and has more flexibility than ROMS which is great. Maruno also does a fantastic job not only with Essentials, but also this section.

Let my game promote itself to the fans based on it's own merit, and not because it's from a more popular form of game making. I'll probably keep the cartoonish feels but I do plan on changing quite a lot of things... which is why I'm going to RPG maker. Why should I get a lot of work done for a rom hack just to find out that some of my core ideas will not be implemented? Weather and Day and Night are certainly able to be implemented in RPG Maker and perhaps even seasons as well! And this time I WON'T 'ave to worry about palettes.

 

[Worldslayer608]

Day and Night is already in Essentials and Seasons was recently taken out and can be added back in without a whole lot of work.

 

[bjacks14]

I know this wasn't one of the options, but if you have any coding experience, I would recommend making your own gaming engine. By far gives you the most options and control. Atleast that's the way I am building my game.

 

[Gamer2020]

You are better off with RPG maker. I'm a fairly good ROM hacker but it can take hours to add a new feature in ROM hacking because of all the debugging of code and stuff. It is much easier to code in a higher level language.

 

[Kincaid]

No doubt RPG Maker. I find that RPG Maker 2003 is better for some reason.