Interview with Valkysas
Interviewer: Lord Ixzion
Many people have RPG Maker 2, and even more are coming. However,
before the game even released, we were receiving information
from the Agetec forums about it (well, as much as possible).
One of the people most responsible for America's pre-RPGM2
info was Agetec forum administrator, Valkysas. We
at RPGMM have managed to secure an exclusive interview
with the RPGM community's intermediary. Read on...
Q1. Who is Valkysas?
Valk: I am Paul Hutchison. I'm 21 years old, currently doing odd jobs.
I became part of the Agetec community on June 11th 2000. I was
appointed moderator in february of 2001. I have currently only
released one game on RPG Maker, "Smitpok". My main game, Legend of
Pants, has been delayed and restarted many times over 2 1/2 years.
Q2. Explain your intermediary position between Agetec and RPG Maker fans.
Valk: Well, I have the luxury of being able to contact agetec whenever
I want/need and get help from them concerning things, asking David Silviera
to do certain little guides on the message board to help people and such.
In the past, during RPG Maker 2's initial development, I talked a lot
with Mark Johnson, the head producer of all of agetec's titles, and
was able to give the fans in-depth information on the title that no
one else was capable of giving. since I came from a fan's standpoint,
I was able to ask questions that we were interested most in hearing. I
also recieved RPG Maker 2 four days early so I could help people with
it, get them ready for their projects, and tell them first-hand about
some of the features, and answer any and all questions they wanted.
Doing this allowed them to get ready for the software, knowing what
they could and could not do, and thus plan their games better and not
waste their time trying things that weren't possible. as of now,
there's really not much I can do for the RPG Maker community concerning
Agetec, but I'm hoping I can learn a bit about RM3 when I go to E3 with
Agetec next year.
Q3. Is RPG Maker 3 (RT6 in Japan) in development right now?
Valk: It's in a very VERY pre-alpha stage. not playable, and the
only person outside of enterbrain to see it so far is Mark Johnson of
Agetec. No information has been released just yet, but I'm sure we'll
get it.
Q4. Let's assume that you were in complete control of the development
of RPG Maker 3. What 3 things would you make sure to include?
Valk: Character creation should be more open-ended. When 2 was
very early in development, they toyed with the idea of the user
building their characters out of parts. Arms, legs, all sorts of things,
I'd bring that back for sure. I'd also let people adjust the size of
every body part, so everyone could have the proportions however they
wanted, and it'd break up the monotony of the games, I'd also allow
people to draw on the parts and customize textures, Magic Pengel
does it, so it is possible. second thing is that I'd add hard
drive (Playstation 2 Hard Drive)support. This way, you could
download characters and monsters
that people have created with the above method directly to the hard
drive and have a HUGE amount of resources available for game creation.
3rd, I'd definately introduce a plan to upgrade the software via
downloads, which would be extremely easy to do if it had hard drive
support.
Q5. Let's bring it back to the present. What are your thoughts about
RPG Maker 2? Favorite aspects? Least favorite aspects?
Valk: I was in love with RPG Maker 2 before I even opened it.
I've known for 2 years what this thing was capable of, so I really
wasnt let down with anything, I saw it all coming. My favorite thing
is how you can screw around with the internal workings of the game if
you're brave enough. the customization in the game is amazing. The Map
Editor is amazing. In fact, the only things that irk me with it is the
constant blur, even on the game creation menus, and that stupid Dragon
Warrior menu system.
Q6. What have you been able to do with our latest RPG Maker?
Valk: In RPG Maker 2 I have built 2 custom battle systems. First
off, an old-school Zelda style system thats actually based on Secret of
Mana for the SNES. Run around, attack enemies, have them attack you,
pull up a magic menu and cast spells from that. I then adjusted it for
fun into a Breath of Fire system. However, for some reason, neither of
these have made it into my current game. There's not really all that
much that I've done thats impressive, because I'm making my first game
pretty basic so I dont use up all my ideas on one game. First thing I
did with RM2 though, was make a giant penguin that stomped through a
town, stepping on babies while townspeople watched and screamed.
When the penguin stepped on the babies, they turned into fairies who
dropped bombs on the people that were watching and screaming. It was
all scripted, but I thought it was extremely cool.
Q7. Quite interesting, to say the least. :P Speaking of games,
could you tell us about one or two of your upcoming projects in the
way of plot or characters?
Valk: Well, first off, I'm remaking Legend of Pants,
which is about 65 percent done right now, and that will be my first
release. I was hoping for a christmas release date, but that doesnt
look possible now. Legend of Pants is a game about a young girl named
Mina that gets pulled into a strange plot revolving around Jesus and
magical pants made from his hair. It was originally made to be
really offensive towards everyone possible, but this time around
its more fun and light-hearted, also, the game now spans 7 years of t
he character's life, instead of having the entire thing happen in a
really short period of time like every other game ever made.. I
re-wrote the entire thing during the summer, event by event, script
by script. So when RM2 arrived, it was just a matter of sticking it
all in the game, the real work had been done for a long time.
Q8. What words of encouragement do you have for new and old
developers (creators) alike?
Valk: Play the other RPG Maker games. See what has been done to
death, so you know what kind of stories to avoid. We don't need more
"Where's Vivi" and "Legend" games, and god forbid "Edward's Quest".
Don't release something until you KNOW it's quality. If your game
isn't going anywhere, don't be afraid to trash it and start over.
If you're the kind of person that goes to forums asking for someone
to give you a story to make into a game, get over to Gamestop or
Babbages and sell your copy so someone else can have a chance with
it, because you are not the type of person who should have that
software. If you can't think of a story and need one given to you,
anything you produce will be crap. I really see too much of that over
at the Agetec board and such, and so my advice to those types of
people is "go away".
Thanks for your time.
Staff Note: We at RPGMM thank Valk for his dedication to the RPGM community.
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