What has happened to Charas?

[Felix-0]

wolf RPG maker is
Pixel movement by default.
Support for scripts
high graphic support
yet runs in 2k3 style graphics.
8 way movement by default
customizable menus
no reliance on RTP
is new.

[Prpl_Mage]

Well, the downside of having no new members and having all old members giving up on game creation is that... well, we can't make games anymore. Still, we can definitely try. I'll tr to jump in, if possible, after it's started.

Well, we did make a couple games for Green's game contest. Just got a bit weird that it was taking place on a different site and that like 5 people actually voted and it seemed more of a popularity contest than actual game content. Nevertheless.
We should grab the links for everyone's submission and force people to play them to get another voting done, or let some people judge them. You guys still have the links lying around?

[DragonBlaze]

Let's be honest, our site is basically based off of rm2k3, which is now 10 years old and never was really *that* popular. Most novice game makers don't use rm2k3 anymore, so this site has no real appeal to many potential new game making enthusiast, and like other people have said, most of our core members have gotten lives and/or moved on. I for one joined this site because I loved making games and didn't know how to program at all. I'm now a professional software engineer and program my own game engines from scratch. I drop in here and there for the occasional off-topic threads, but other than that, this site has little appeal to me anymore.

If we want this site to to thrive again, we need to adapt. We need to make this site more appealing to new game developers using new makers/engines. This isn't an easy task and would pretty much require a complete site redesign, but I don't think Charas will ever recover if it just stays as it is now. :/

[Fisherson]

wolf RPG maker is
Pixel movement by default.
Support for scripts
high graphic support
yet runs in 2k3 style graphics.
8 way movement by default
customizable menus
no reliance on RTP
is new.

Whoa....That sounds impressive o.O Is the code hard to learn?

Well, we did make a couple games for Green's game contest. Just got a bit weird that it was taking place on a different site and that like 5 people actually voted and it seemed more of a popularity contest than actual game content. Nevertheless.
We should grab the links for everyone's submission and force people to play them to get another voting done, or let some people judge them. You guys still have the links lying around?

Another site? Charas stuff is for Charas! XD I think we should pre-plan like we did with the mayoral game. I mean it was going good till I got tardy and then pretty much derailed it. We had a good thing with a common theme, character roles and the whole "make a chapter as you go using one of the three main characters". I mean it was wonderful! As such I think we need something similar, no? In fact why don't we start a theme discussion thread and and get a poll going?

If we want this site to to thrive again, we need to adapt. We need to make this site more appealing to new game developers using new makers/engines.

I agree with this but the truth is I was ojnly distrustful of XP/VX and other makers at first. Later I tired to get them but just can't DL all of the package due to my speed. =( Getting to the library is tricky but I'm going to try RPG maker VX Ace on Monday. If I can I say we start working on some Charas based VX Ace projects or even Game Maker! Anything! I'm willing to start all over and learn coding again if it means saving Charas.

[Archem]

Let's be honest, our site is basically based off of rm2k3, which is now 10 years old and never was really *that* popular. Most novice game makers don't use rm2k3 anymore, so this site has no real appeal to many potential new game making enthusiast, and like other people have said, most of our core members have gotten lives and/or moved on. I for one joined this site because I loved making games and didn't know how to program at all. I'm now a professional software engineer and program my own game engines from scratch. I drop in here and there for the occasional off-topic threads, but other than that, this site has little appeal to me anymore.

If we want this site to to thrive again, we need to adapt. We need to make this site more appealing to new game developers using new makers/engines. This isn't an easy task and would pretty much require a complete site redesign, but I don't think Charas will ever recover if it just stays as it is now. :/

Some members have been making that suggestion for quite some time now. In all honesty, I agree. If the site were to overhaul itself to incorporate a number of other game makers (newer, more popular, more versatile), a new generation of members and game creators will actually have a reason to come here.

Also, DB. Wow.

[fruckert]

We had the project to completely re-do the charset makers into something easier to use, with better sprites, and easier to export to things that aren't RPG Maker. But then due to personal issues, the people involved kind of forgot about it.

Spoiler alert, the project was mine.

I started working on a C# redesign of Charas that was more...adaptable, able to export to all of the RPG Makers as well as to a custom format based off of Ben's sprites.
Actually got a really good headway on the interface and such, but nothing was really wired up, because I have no clue how databases work. Still don't, really need to figure it out.
The project is on my Github if you want to wince at my code.
It's called CharasSharp, or Charas#.

edit: Quality control was a gigantic emphasis for the new plan.
To keep the maker from getting bloated with terrible anime knock-off sprites, I was going to have a pretty strict review policy for sprites that wanted to join the "RTP" so to speak.
This'd also have required a pretty giant housecleaning.

edos: Huh, it appears that I never committed another change to the code repository after the first one.
So, all my fancy changes aren't active.

edtres: Yeah, the Git for the project is all fubar'd.
It doesn't want to commit certain critical files, for some reason.
Most of the code should be alright, though, at least, all the code that's actually THERE.

[SaiKar]

If we want this site to to thrive again, we need to adapt. We need to make this site more appealing to new game developers using new makers/engines. This isn't an easy task and would pretty much require a complete site redesign, but I don't think Charas will ever recover if it just stays as it is now. :/

What cripped us for AGES was Alex's policy of not supporting anything past 2k3, under the idea that sharing resources would encourage piracy downloads and hurt Enterbrain. Which is... true... ish... but it did mean the site couldn't move forward with the times. That policy was later dropped (by me, as one of my desperate plans) but it was too little, too late.

Also, wtf DragonBlaze posting.

[DragonBlaze]

Also, DB. Wow.

Also, wtf DragonBlaze posting.

Haha, I still pop in here an there you know! 

I started working on a C# redesign of Charas that was more...adaptable, able to export to all of the RPG Makers as well as to a custom format based off of Ben's sprites.
Actually got a really good headway on the interface and such, but nothing was really wired up, because I have no clue how databases work. Still don't, really need to figure it out.
The project is on my Github if you want to wince at my code.
It's called CharasSharp, or Charas#.

I'm assuming you're using C# for the back end with a javascript front end? I should be able to you implement all of the database stuff if you like My project at work uses a Java back end, though the principals are the same, and I know C#. I recommend using the Spring framework - http://www.springframework.net/examples.html to take care of most of the database work. From there, we can create DAOs (Data Access Objects), so writing objects to the database can be done by a flush() call, retrieving objects is almost just as easy.

Is this just for the generators? Or is the project for the whole site?

[Felix-0]

http://www.silversecond.com/WolfRPGEditor/
open in gooooogle chrome for translation

[fruckert]

I'm assuming you're using C# for the back end with a javascript front end? I should be able to you implement all of the database stuff if you like My project at work uses a Java back end, though the principals are the same, and I know C#. I recommend using the Spring framework - http://www.springframework.net/examples.html to take care of most of the database work. From there, we can create DAOs (Data Access Objects), so writing objects to the database can be done by a flush() call, retrieving objects is almost just as easy.

Is this just for the generators? Or is the project for the whole site?

Nope, pure C#.
I don't know how to do web stuff, this was a desktop app.

[DragonBlaze]

Nope, pure C#.
I don't know how to do web stuff, this was a desktop app.

Oh I see. Then don't use a database, just use the file system and a custom class to hold information on each of the resources (link to image, size, etc), and a way to search for and retrieve the resources. This could just be a foreach iteration through an array of resources, and returning the resources that meet the criteria. This way you don't need to worry about working with a messy database, and it will actually perform better because all of the information related to the resources will be in memory where as a database usually lives on the hard disk, so accessing information will be much slower.

[HackersTotalMassLaser]

I just popped in to say; DB is still alive? wut?

[Momeka]

If we want this site to to thrive again, we need to adapt. We need to make this site more appealing to new game developers using new makers/engines. This isn't an easy task and would pretty much require a complete site redesign, but I don't think Charas will ever recover if it just stays as it is now. :/

This. The main site needs a complete redesign and throw away all the rpg maker resources and the charas generator. Then set up a blog-ish site where we can post news about gamedev tools, indie games and game jams/competitions etc. Forum wise would be to merge rpg maker and miscellaneous section into one and maybe set up a help forum. Then just try to get the site out there as much as we can.

[Prpl_Mage]

throw away all the rpg maker resources and the charas generator.

Not gonna happen.

[Momeka]

Not gonna happen.

If so, we should keep it rpg maker only and then charas strongest point would be it's generators and vast amount of resources. Then our best bet would be to update the generators to output for the newer rpg makers. Fix the resource page so you can easily find resources for a specific maker (vx, 2003 etc). Make sure people can upload new resources. 
Maybe check if we can host other generators on the site as well such as sfxr. Read about some guy that were making a music generator, if that can output to rpg maker friendly files it would be pretty sweet to have on the site as well.

That said I kinda like it how it is now. A small community with the old members hanging around talking about their interests and posting what they are working on. It was what made me come back here after all.