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Depends on if you can walk behind a piece of gfx .. and I'm not really in favour of drawing some fantasy-RPG in screen 4

The walk behind stuff is not really necessary for a RPG. Nice to have, but on MSX without the 9990... well u know... ;-)

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Quote: Depends on if you can walk behind a piece of gfx .. and I'm not really in favour of drawing some fantasy-RPG in screen 4 The walk behind stuff is not really necessary for a RPG. Nice to have, but on MSX without the 9990... well u know... ;-)

uh.., I know that SD-Snatcher, Dragonslayer 6, Xak 1,2,3, Fray etc. are very nice games without a v9990 ! You can even walk behind walls ..

If someone has good (screen5) graphics I'd be more than happy to code an RPG around it ^_^

Yeah but not very smooth animation (even slow sometime). I prefer the Golvellius/Zelda type of animation.

Hmm, the birdview RPG engine topic sounds like a good discussion on the 'Development' forum (hint hint)

About the revival:

Enribar: Indeed, MRC is reporting on remakes and musical arrangements. It's one of the things we have defended against the 'Complaining Japanese Companies'. Chances are, however, that a company does not like certain remakes or arrangements and contacts the developers (not MRC, the reporters) about it. As far as I know that has not happened so far though.

Now, in reply to JWar:

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Most of us already bought these games back in the 80's no need to buy them twice.

If most of us had indeed been buying these games back in the 80's Metal Gear Solid would have been released on the MSX3. There's a reason why a lot of software developers dropped MSX and that's because they were selling way too little software for it, even when considering 2+ million MSX2 computers had been sold.

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As long as rom spreading and emulation will carry on, we'll raise chances to catch more people who used to be msx freaks and make this community bigger and even more alive !

As far as I know MRC is doing quite a good job at catching people who used to be MSX freaks, making the community bigger and more alive without spreading ROMs. I personally do support emulation though, and so does MSX Association.

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without having now to spend ludicrous amount of money on ebay 'n stuffs.

Indeed, as the games are available for affordable prices at EGG. This seems to be the point where our opinions start to differ. To me, and legally, the only persons to decide whether or not their products are to become freeware are the original developers/publishers of a product. No matter if they dropped MSX years ago or not, no matter if they are still selling the product or not, no matter if they are amateurs or big time companies: they make the decisions on this one. Most companies are very careful about making their products freeware for good reasons. Project EGG and similar projects give these companies the opportunity to keep the products available for non-rediculous prices without running the risk of bankrupcy.

Keep in mind that most people who play illegal MSX games on emulators will never even notice they are playing it on an 'MSX', wonder what 'MSX' is or was, let alone join the MSX community in developing new products or supporting the development of new products. Most of them will remain leechers who want to have everything for free.

I personally think you are generalizing the 'Jap-only' attitude far to much. Nishi is trying to get the international MSX community involved in thinking along with future MSX projects, Nishi did ask for our opinions in Tilburg (and for my opinion when I visited him last year), MSX Association did try to contact several hardware developers who on their turn were not very interested to think along, Sunrise is going to develop the MSX Game Reader... and MSX Association does have the intention to go abroad with their developments.

As Nishi stated in 2001, the current MSX Revival projects are intended as fundraisers for the One Chip MSX project. By raising funds like this (and I can understand people don't like the way it's been done) MSX Association can maintain their independancy. They can create the One Chip MSX in the way (and timespan) they want it to, listening to the demands of the MSX Community. True, we have not seen anything MSX Revivalish outside of Japan -yet-, we have not seen any new products that are of interest to the majority of the current MSX users -yet- (although I know quite a few people who fancy the MSX Magazines) and the MSX Revival has not moved out of Japan -yet- but I for one am quite convinced some interesting things are going to happen (even outside of Japan) in the near future.

At the same time, there is indeed another revival going on. More MSX software is being released (12 games finished in the MSXdev competition. 2 years ago everybody would have laughed out loud when talking about even one new MSX1 game, now there are 12! Things have -really- changed the past few months!), new MSX hardware is announced, the MSX community is growing instead of getting smaller. MRC is showing that it's possible to do anything you like to do with MSX, without getting in the way of the MSX Association. If both the international MSX community and MSX Association keep trying to get along, trying to understand each other, listen to each other and use their knowledge and love for MSX to create instead of to destroy, surprising things can happen.

(boy, I'm in an optimistic mood today! )

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Quote: Depends on if you can walk behind a piece of gfx .. and I'm not really in favour of drawing some fantasy-RPG in screen 4 The walk behind stuff is not really necessary for a RPG. Nice to have, but on MSX without the 9990... well u know... ;-)

Walk behind stuff is easy as long as the stuff isn't see-through. So walking behind a wall simply means copying only the top-part of the player, in stead of the full player. That would in fact be FASTER! o.O

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Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most of us already bought these games back in the 80's no need to buy them twice. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If most of us had indeed been buying these games back in the 80's Metal Gear Solid would have been released on the MSX3. There's a reason why a lot of software developers dropped MSX and that's because they were selling way too little software for it, even when considering 2+ million MSX2 computers had been sold.

When metal gear 2 solid snake was released there wasn't effectively enough msx user to buy it, mainly because people moved to the most interesting hardware available at the same time. (Amiga, X68000, PC Engine, Megadrive etc...)

But i wasn't talking ONLY about metal gear 2 but all games available since the begining of the MSX. We all bought (well the older ones) a lot back then

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Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As long as rom spreading and emulation will carry on, we'll raise chances to catch more people who used to be msx freaks and make this community bigger and even more alive ! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As far as I know MRC is doing quite a good job at catching people who used to be MSX freaks, making the community bigger and more alive without spreading ROMs. I personally do support emulation though, and so does MSX Association.

That's obvious, there are no better place to do so actualy on the whole internet !
I just pointed out roms and emulation were ALSO an important thing to keep msx alive. Because of that, you have a living community, whitout it things would be realy different ! Not many people would have a reason to use emulators, to remember the time they used to have the real thing etc etc etc... there are tons of examples like that.

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Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- without having now to spend ludicrous amount of money on ebay 'n stuffs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indeed, as the games are available for affordable prices at EGG. This seems to be the point where our opinions start to differ. To me, and legally, the only persons to decide whether or not their products are to become freeware are the original developers/publishers of a product. No matter if they dropped MSX years ago or not, no matter if they are still selling the product or not, no matter if they are amateurs or big time companies: they make the decisions on this one. Most companies are very careful about making their products freeware for good reasons. Project EGG and similar projects give these companies the opportunity to keep the products available for non-rediculous prices without running the risk of bankrupcy.

There is no affordable or acceptable prices for a rom ! Still most of people would better buy the real thing with the complete package.
A rom is a rom in most peoples' minds, so why would they pay for it ? Even EGG would have super huge sellings that would still not help the msx revival but just companies to earn money on old titles they don't need to put money into for devello. Those sales are only benefits.

Of course each copyright owner has the right to decide wether or not he will make it freeware... We just know why he won't and that's not because of the love of the MSX.

Speaking of bankrupcy, we are not responsible for it, they have to face the consequences of the wrong commercial choices they did in the past. We haven't to do it in their place !

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Keep in mind that most people who play illegal MSX games on emulators will never even notice they are playing it on an 'MSX', wonder what 'MSX' is or was, let alone join the MSX community in developing new products or supporting the development of new products. Most of them will remain leechers who want to have everything for free.

The people you are talking about are a minority when talking about msx, they become a majority when talking about SNES or N64 for example.

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I personally think you are generalizing the 'Jap-only' attitude far to much. Nishi is trying to get the international MSX community involved in thinking along with future MSX projects, Nishi did ask for our opinions in Tilburg (and for my opinion when I visited him last year), MSX Association did try to contact several hardware developers who on their turn were not very interested to think along, Sunrise is going to develop the MSX Game Reader... and MSX Association does have the intention to go abroad with their developments.

Of course i am generalizing but nishi isn't enough so you could say " far too much". I am not in deny, i know some Jap people can't be catergorized like that.
About opinions, i'd like the same amount of people from both sides working together. About the rest, let's see...

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As Nishi stated in 2001, the current MSX Revival projects are intended as fundraisers for the One Chip MSX project. By raising funds like this (and I can understand people don't like the way it's been done) MSX Association can maintain their independancy. They can create the One Chip MSX in the way (and timespan) they want it to, listening to the demands of the MSX Community. True, we have not seen anything MSX Revivalish outside of Japan -yet-, we have not seen any new products that are of interest to the majority of the current MSX users -yet- (although I know quite a few people who fancy the MSX Magazines) and the MSX Revival has not moved out of Japan -yet- but I for one am quite convinced some interesting things are going to happen (even outside of Japan) in the near future.

As usual, we'll see...
But what this one chip msx is actualy intended for ?

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Wouldn't it be possible to have some meeting/brainstorming with both japanese and european msx revival makers ? (Same amount of peoples for both sides)

This happened in 2001 the day AFTER Tilburg. Nishi wasn't there, it was just the japanese MSX users with their ideas about MSX3, which are REALLY similar to our ideas. (100MHz Z80, sped up VDP, etc)

Really, they are the good guys. After having had more meetings with them in the years following, they have my complete confidence that they know what they're doing.

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When metal gear 2 solid snake was released there wasn't effectively enough msx user to buy it, mainly because people moved to the most interesting hardware available at the same time.

Metal Gear 2 was a revolutionary game from one of the most important game developers in Japan. It did get every MSX users to play the game, but only a small percentage of it actually bought them. However we have discussed the potential influence of piracy on companies dropping MSX in the past.

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We all bought (well the older ones) a lot back then

This is just a sorry excuse for spreading warez. If we all bought them, we would already have them and there would be no need for donwloading them, right? The majority of the MSX users did not buy that much original software.

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There is no affordable or acceptable prices for a rom !

You're not buying a ROM file. You're buying

1) an MSX emulator
2) a game
3) the right to buy the MSX emulator
4) the right to play the game on that MSX emulator
5) support on installation etc.
6) a future for the one chip MSX and other new commercial MSX developments

The more I think about it, the less I understand about the 'Old commercial MSX software should be free'-thing. Gasoline has been around for several decaders. It would sure be easy if gasoline was free, don't you think?

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Even EGG would have super huge sellings that would still not help the msx revival but just companies to earn money on old titles they don't need to put money into for devello. Those sales are only benefits.

You have stated that several times now, but do you really think there are no investments done at all? Can you really say that it is a fact there are no new developments coming in? No, it's an assumption. An assumption based on a gut feeling, while you have not even been in contact with the people who make it all work. You might have noticed the people who have been in contact with the people behind MSX Association are a lot more optimistic about things. There might be a reason for that, you know

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The people you are talking about are a minority when talking about msx, they become a majority when talking about SNES or N64 for example.

We -are- talking about MSX here, aren't we?

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But what this one chip msx is actualy intended for ?

Lets discuss that matter when the next news about the One Chip MSX comes in okay?

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/me still waiting on the ultimate generic scrolling/pageperpage RPG engine that can be used by non-coders

Uhhh... started one long ago... In BASIC/NBASIC. So it'll only run well on MSX Turbo R.

Lets keep this discussion on the MSX revival. If you want to discuss developing RPG engines, check this thread I just started.

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On this thread www.msx.org/forumtopic3577p15.html we had a realy interesting discussion about the actual " Msx Revival ", i'd like to continue it on a brand new (and shrinkwrapped) thread to see what you think about it and how you feel about the so called " Msx Revival ".

To me, the problem of pirating old MSX software is the same with all abandonware, and comes down to a simple question: "you dropped it -- why can't I take it?" Assuming the stuff was _actually_ dropped (that is, is not sold / supported anymore), most people would agree it's the right thing for its original owners to do not persecute the people who still find it useful / amusing. The problem is, although they might be ethicaly wrong, legaly they are on their right.

For we private people, it's always easier to "take matters on our own hands", pirating software mostly because we don't want to pay for it, but also to show those bad companies they can't just go alway and then return to bully us (but then again, wasn't pirating what forced them out in the first place?). Organizations, however, are much more vulnerable: they can't just drop an web host account and start over some weeks later, with a different nickname.

As for Nishi and the MSX Association, from what I see they're going pretty much by the hacker's book -- aiming for developer empowerment, a multi-vendor market, and new technology domains. That naturally implies a decentralization of decisions, and hopefully will avoid the "japanization" of the community, if the japanese ever tries to dominate it.

Just my two cents.

--
XPerroni

Xperroni, sure, it's like that... But every 'pirate' should ask himself the question: Do I care about MSX and the future of MSX?

But would every pirate care more about the msx if they weren't pirates ?

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