I've always been fascinated with this style of graphics, mainly due to Ragnarok, and this guy makes it look so easy. Yet still amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6ISVaM5Ww

What are we discussing here? If this is going to stay in Theory and Design, then raise some questions for consideration.

Ah right, one question I'd really like to discuss is what people think of games like this, would you want to develop games in this style? If not, why would you prefer to do 2D/3D games over 2.5D?

That video was great!
I would love to try something like that. Probably just play around, not actually release a game.
Tho it does look hard to create something like that... Maybe too many hotkeys, commands.
I'll stick to 2D for now... Simplicity at its best

Love the idea of being able to move on a map as you edit it. That's one thing I wish RPGmaker could do.

Agree, a few things RM could do (and probably held off doing so they can do them in a future editor):

Include a better map editor similar to what Omegas7 has in plan.
Collision Events
Map testing without having to save and start the game.
Ability to recolor tilesets right in the editor similar to how we recolor monsters.

In any case, 2D games gives the player a sense of imagination of what's going on. I enjoy 3D, but the problem is that oftentimes game play is sacrificed to make 3D work. 2.5D is fine, because it reminds me of Xenogears.

In any case, playing them, I have no preference, as long as the game is fun. But designing them is an entirely different thing. I'm more skilled at 2D, mainly because I'm not an artist, and the resources are in abundance for 2D. They're also easier to program. Isometric (2.5D) would also work, but RM is not geared to make them work properly without a lot of blood and sweat, especially considering how their tilesets are designed, so that leaves parallaxing, which not everybody is good at, or too lazy to learn. Of course, that takes me back to including a decent map editor.

On the plus side, I'd like to think that SwapXT had something to do with the new VX-Ace, and if so perhaps Omegas7's map editor may be the nudge that Enterbrain needs. In other words, the more popular certain scripted features become in one maker gives it a chance of being included in the next maker.

This is definitely the direction I'm choosing right now....though like amerk says, its not without its headaches.
Have been working towards 2.5D for some time, and slowly getting there, but true, RM is'nt the most user friendly
especially with collision events....if only there was a useful script to combat this problem....but meanwhile its back
to manipulating tilesets. Walking characters are no problem thanks to scripters.
What I'm saying is, 2.5D is certainly quite possible in RM...just keep chipping away at it .
As for the video, that would be a dream come true...alas Iv'e seen so many program makers taking this route, but never
come up with the goods...fact...so its back to RM and the headache.
Enterbrain need to move more along the multi directional path now too...its not asking too much for 2012.

Ummm, perhaps you should clarify. 3D actually means different things than you think it does in video game parlance.

2D is actually another way of saying hand-drawn, and 3D means using models or computer coding the drawing. This sorta thing can be done with movies on rpmaker 2k3, provided it's kept short.



Or it means something literally 3D like Doom that's sorta gridded out from all sides (needs a new tileset).



Or it means that despite it actually being very much a 2D game, there are multiple layers the character can climb.


And fourth wall stuff.

I'd love to be working on 2.5D as well, the only problem would be, like Amerk, I'm not an artist, so the 3D aspect of it would be rather difficult. 2D however is no problem. It's rather simple to make 2D games, which is why I prefer developing 2D games, however if I had the sufficient skills I'd be making an all-out 3D MMORPG right now. And since I don't I stick to Game Maker, RM and MoMinis.

And yes, Enterbrain needs to step their design up a bit, they charge a lot of money for a somewhat 'obsolete' program (I'm using this term loosely). There's VX Ace which indeed does have some much needed new features, but it's still lacking in terms of what they could produce. If] they listened to their consumer base, they'd have a lot more money pooring into their storage vaults. But no, they don't and they don't have to either. Why should they, it's their product after all.

Don't get me started. The reason I do 2k3 games (besides it being free)?

I looked at their list of commands. About four pages for 2k3, most of which I've used at one point or another. XP has about 2 pages, and reduced database amount. To make it do many of the same things, you often have to understand scripting, which I really don't. I understand prebuilt code. I'm definitely not gonna shell out $60 (seems to be the price of a permanent download, which (guess what) only allows one copy, meaning if I haul it around on my flash drive, which I tend to do, it's sometimes voided the subscription on me). VX is even worse, the graphics are munchkins, and yeah, so it predoes stuff like doors and chests. You could just copy/paste that on XP and have the same code.

Without a 3D tileset, there are a few tricks and workarounds you can do (you can for instance, have a blank map with blank charsets, and just keep changing the parallax at every step (along with the "sprite" picture). A good example is a dating sim, where the background is sorta superimposed over what's really going on.