作者：Terry Wilson

游戏世界正在进行一场声势浩大的革命，但并非所有人都意识到了。这场革命与游戏和游戏行业的未来有关。但首先我们得了解一下RPG的前世以及一款诞生于世纪之交的RPG游戏制作工具RPG Maker。

过去的RPG制作

用这种工具制作出的第一个游戏成品于1997年问世（事实上比这个时间还早，但这是它真正开始吸引人们目光的时候），它以2D图像系统为基础，制作出来的东西多见于原版游戏掌机。即便如此，RPG Maker仍然是一个完备的系统，使不懂代码和美术的玩家能够制作出自己的游戏。当然，没有那些知识，你就丧失了制作更加个性化体验的可能，即使是使用最新版的《RPG Maker VX Ace》也是一样。

RPG Maker还有一个大问题就是，它只能制作RPG游戏。当然，对于这个软件本身，这不是件坏事，确实不能因此而挑剔RPG Maker。但这意味着人们如果不能显著改变他们最初使用的系统，就无法扩展RPG的内容。所以，你做出来的东西可能自己供自己消遣或者给朋友玩玩，或者如果你确实比较投入，你的作品也许也能受到许多玩家社区的喜爱。

RPG-Maker-2003(from rpg-studio.de)

直到最近，人们才开始使用《我的世界》的Minecraft引擎来制作可以玩的游戏。

Minecraft运动

奇怪的是，Minecraft引擎其实没有引发关于玩家生成内容的革命，因为《Second Life》已经允许玩家生成内容了，但它确实促进了这场运动朝新的方向发展，除了使玩家能够制作自己的内容，还能把那些内容外包给其他游戏。在各种用Minecraft系统制作的MOD中，玩家可以加入声音、动作和NPC，使之成为一个别人可以玩的完整地图。这一切都是在一个比使用RPG Maker还简单的过程中完成的。

正是这种简单使Minecraft大放光彩，成为家喻户晓的工具。你只需要知道如何放置物品，你就能复制出各种现实世界的地方，如北京。

但即使Minecraft已经这么强大了，仍然缺少了点什么。大多数使用Minecraft制作的游戏仍然是RPG类型的，因为是根据RPG机制制作出来的。所以《Everquest Next》和《Everquest Next Landmark》能那样做出来吗？

用户内容的新纪元

距离重新设计过的《Everquest Next》的全面公布才过去几个月，然而又一次，人们称之为MMO类型游戏真正需要的革命。通过合并主题公园和MMO的沙盒方法，可能确实是个新方向。当然，他们正在把这款游戏的主题公园版本和沙盒版本分成两个款不同的游戏，但这种相关性给它们带来一种游戏特别是MMO前所未见的独特魅力，两者之间的元素之间能够互相交换，这多亏了体素。

Landmark甚至催生了一个用它们的引擎做出的内容的市场，这是其他任何游戏都不曾达到的高度——它们的Player Studio（游戏邦注：这是一个允许玩家制作游戏世界道具的软件）其实还允许你通过出售自己在地标游戏中制作的物品来赚钱。这个概念确实大大改进了玩家的MMO和游戏开发，但它仍然将我们置于简单的使用玩家生成的内容的领域，不一定允许用户用相同的游戏制作自己的游戏版本。

但在3D引擎方面，Landmark确实展示了一些RPG Maker可以借鉴的东西。

体素革命

我们才刚听说体素不久，它就已经无处不在了，因为它们是制作3D模型所必需的。然而，我们其实现在才开始通过体素制作东西。《Second Life》允许用户制作游戏世界，但其方法要求先在其他地方制作好东西然后再放进去游戏世界中。体素制作法首先是与Minecraft引擎一起使用的，借用这种思路，RPG Maker允许用户像使用贴图一样用体素制作全新的3D游戏。然而更好的是，我们还获得了由用户制作的基于选项的整个世界的MMO游戏！不只是你做任务后游戏重置，你还可以让任务破坏部分场景，这样另一个玩家做任务时看到的场景就是不同的了。

不你怎么想，显然，《Everquest Next》已经掌握了这个概念。根据它的定义，是否意味着不久我们就能看到没有任何美术和编程才能的用户用3D引擎开发游戏了？Minecraft和新的RPG Makers是否将继续变得简单，使用户能做出更好的游戏？

最重要的是，这对游戏行业有什么影响？我们已经看到大量因“Steam Greenlight”计划而诞生的独立游戏，普通玩家更容易制作3D游戏是否会导致独立游戏世界的拥挤，就像现在许多人都在创作和自主发行小说？

非常有可能，所以虽然我们可能会在游戏世界中看到不少低劣的作品，但精品也会增加。想想有多少好游戏出自独立开发者之手！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Is RPG Maker Blurring the Lines Between Gamer and Game Developer?

by Terry Wilson

There is a loud revolution going on in the gaming world, and yet not everyone is aware of it. And it all has to do with the future of games and the gaming industry at large. But first we have to start with the past and a little game that came out at the turn of the century on the Playstation: RPG Maker.

Making RPGs in the Past

When the first incarnation of this game series came out back in 1997 (Actually way earlier than that but the first real platform it was able to catch people) it was built on 2D graphic systems and produced things you’d mostly just see on the original game boy, if even that. It was still such a stellar system though, allowing gamers to actually make their own games, without having a massive knowledge of coding and you didn’t even need to be an artist. Sure, without that knowledge you missed out on being able to create a more personal experience, but that’s the case even with the most recent RPG Maker VX Ace.

It also had one other major problem, it only dealt with role-playing games. Of course, for the game itself this isn’t a bad thing and RPG Maker definitely shouldn’t be faulted on that. But this meant that people couldn’t really branch out of an RPG without major changes to the system they were initially using. So it was likely to just be one of those things you played around with and maybe made a game for your friends to play, or if you were really invested release a full RPG for others to play through various communities.

That is, until most recently, when people started using the Minecraft engine to make games that people could enjoy too.

The Minecraft Movement

Strangely enough Minecraft wasn’t actually a revolution around user-created content, since Second Life was able to pick up on that, but it did assist the movement in a direction of not only allowing users to create their own content, but also out-sourcing that content to others in the form of various games. All sorts of mods were built around the Minecraft system that allowed people to add in voice acting, and npcs, and create entire maps for others to experience. And all of it was done with a more simple process than RPG Maker and even Second Life had previously produced.

It’s that ease that has made Minecraft shine with such degree as being practically a household name for anyone. All you had to know with that game was how to place blocks and you could learn to do anything, including producing scaled replicas of real life areas of the world, like Beijing.

But even with as far as Minecraft had taken it, there was still a lack in something. The games being produced with Minecraft were still for the most part just RPG since it was using a game built with RPG mechanics. So could that be where Everquest Next and its counterpart Everquest Next Landmark come in?

The Next Era of User-Content

It hasn’t even been a few months since the full reveal of the re-designed Everquest Next and yet once again people are calling it the revolution the MMO genre really needs. And it’s entirely possible that by incorporating both the theme park and sandbox method of an MMO it could actually be the direction needed. Of course they are separating their theme park and sandbox versions of the games into two different games, but the connection gives them a unique power that hasn’t been seen with games before and especially MMOs, and there are elements that are supposedly traded between the two thanks to voxels.

Landmark is even providing something that has yet to be seen with any other game: a market for the content you produce with their engine. Their Player Studio will actually allow you to earn money by selling the stuff you make in the Landmark game. This concept does provide a massive improvement for both MMOs and game development for gamers, but it still puts us in an area of simply using player produced content and not necessarily allowing users to create their own versions of a game simply with the same.

Landmark does present something that RPG Maker can grasp onto though, in the direction of 3D engines.

The Voxel Revolution

We’ve only been hearing about voxels recently but they have been around for a while, since they were required for producing 3d models. It’s only now though that we’ve actually been creating things by building them one voxel at a time though. Second Life allowed users to create the world, but in a method that required producing that creation somewhere else and then bringing it in. With the voxel creation method that was first majorly seen with Minecraft, we can get RPG Maker games that allow users to create fully fleshed 3d games built with preset voxels just like tiles are currently. And better yet, we also get MMO games that are actually entire worlds created by those users based on choices made! It’s not just you do a quest and it resets, the quest can actually end up destroying parts of the scenery when you do it and then further alter the area for the next person.

Regardless of what you may think, it’s clear that Everquest Next has managed to grasp the concept and with it now defined could it mean that soon we will have users developing games with a 3d engine without even having a talent for art or programming or needing a game design degree? Is the ease that was found in Minecraft and the newer RPG Makers going to continue to get easier and offer better games?

And most of all, what kind of impact is this going to have on the game industry? We already have seen a massive influx of indie games from things like Steam Greenlight, would making it easier for the average gamer to make a great 3d game simply overstuff the indie game world, much in the same way that anyone these days can write and self-publish a novel?

It very well could, so while we might have to sift through more crap in the gaming world, there also would be an increase in completely awesome games. Just look at how many great games have come from indie developers already!

What do you think we will see with the voxel revolution and user created content?(source:gamasutra)