It would appear that the RPG Maker community here at the mag is entering it's fourth revival (according to Ixzion, the other three occurred in 2003, 2005 and 2007).

These revivals are defined by increased activity on the site itself, along with increased activity in the actual RPG Makers.

During this revival, some notable things seem to be the return of Damien and Doyleman, and their work on the RPGM2 Final Fantasy and The Sims Projects, some rare work from Dray, more games from 1ce, further work on SoE from Lantis, and progress being made by Ixzion on Acre Age. There has even been some RPG Making from Shadowfox and myself lately.

Community side, we've seen a lot more activity on the site and forums lately, including the appearance of Thutmose and his work on creating a keyboard for RPG Maker 1 and an RM1 sprite generator, and even posts from Sumisem and Regal...

Discuss your thoughts on the RPG Maker Revival V. 4.

I miss Regal...

Oh, I have my own revived interest, like, three times a year.

He made a post about a month ago.

It's really strange. You can't predict it. It's just something that "happens".

But I think that the biggest boost has been the prospect of the RM1 keyboard.

I even worked a bunch.

Rewrote the intro to my game and even started building it in RMVX as well as RM1 (gotta add that the RM1 work is on my PSP- just feels like a handheld game in this age)

I've been a lot more productive as of late too. I've plugged in over 20 hours in the last week. That will probably end when White Knight Chronicles comes out though.

I sort of like the idea that, ten thousand years from now, there will be Internet Archeologists looking at the early Internet and examining the 4th Revival of the Mag like we look at the Renaissance or the expulsion of the Nubian kings in Ancient Egypt. In ten-thousand years, people might think that I was the first Thutmose.

But I think that it's all part of some natural human cycle. The cyclical rise and fall of civilizations and communities throughout time, all governed by a complex network of interacting human beings, producing results that are chaotic and unpredictable at the micro level, but which can be better seen and understood on the macro scale in later analysis.

What caused the other revivals? What ended them? What caused this one? What will end it? Or will this be the start of golden age for the RPG Maker community?

Interesting to see that I was featured so prominently in this. I hope that everything I'm working on turns out well, and ends up really contributing to the community. I'm sure there's other stuff I can do in the future - it's just a matter of coming up with ideas (even if my brain-controlled RPG Maker idea didn't turn out so hot ).

Once Ix finishes Acre Age, I hope that he'll be able to give some more attention to the aging SSA, which will help to boost and extend this "revival". And he better do it soon before I start my own site. *glares*

It's too bad the archeologists will correctly conclude that this revival is a sausage fest.

I don't think there's ever any key thing that causes revivals. It's more a natural cycle for us. We reach a point where we're like, "oh, remember this RPG Maker thing?" And then we fiddle around once more and talk about what we're up to, inevitably leading to one thing being called out as the momentous start of the revival.

This is the kind of thing I've wanted for a couple of years, woohoo!

No one mentioned the Magcon being put into motion... I think that may have some to do with it as well.

Lol, I meant to to include it in my post Lantis, but completely forgot.

And yeah, these revivals usually happen like Draygone said. It begins with probably one person or maybe a few people who either appear in the RPGM scene, or return to the RPGM scene, and then everyone else takes off from there.

What would you guys say the average length of these revivals is?

Three months, at best.

i need to cap all the crap ive been doing in my life and just get down and finish my scenerio card. i am seeing a bit more activity then normal but nothing too grand to call it a renaissance. id like to see a focused effort from everyone before i call it an uprising.

the key to the revivals is that those reappearances often spark some new creativity or rekindle a desire to build a game. a final release of soe will put enough fire in my kiln to produce for 6 months. i need to just start my next card and let the creativity carry me back into production and then tap off the rest of the past card.

Well there is definitely more forum activity and not just in the way of posting viral videos which for awhile seemed to be the main activity in the forums. But it is true we want to make sure that the RPGM activity itself is really up significantly before going from a revival to a renaissance.

Revival, uprising, renaissance? Let the arguing over semantics, begin!

It's about ten thousand years earlier than I predicted, but we can't all have perfect clarity of foresight.

j/k

Well, there has been revived interest but there certainly has not been a "rebirth". That's all I mean.

I think the only times we actually had a rebirth (or came close) was RPGM2's release, as well as a couple years later and to a lesser extent RPGM3's release.

Incidentally, I see that issue has predictions of five years from then. Well, it's now five years from then.

This quote intrigues me:

Oh god, I've been here for... ages, now.

Scary.