Am I Porting to RMMZ?

When RPG Maker MZ was announced, I wasn't really excited for it. After all, I had spent years developing my current game in MV. The smartest thing to do is finish my project in MV, and move on to MZ when I'm ready to work on a new game... Right?

Well, yeah. That's right. I was staunchly opposed to using MZ because I initially thought the benefits of porting wouldn't be worth while. But I couldn't just say that without at least looking at the feasibility of porting. So I decided to open up MZ and work with it for a bit. Surely the small QoL updates to the engine can be dismissed, right? No way would I notice them.

I was wrong. I did notice them, and they made a bigger difference than I thought.

I noticed that having a list of the named events on the left side of the screen helped streamline the eventing process. 
I noticed that being able to place different tiles on different layers right from the editor allowed me to be more creative and map faster.
I noticed the improvements to in-game performance, where there were much steadier framerates.
I noticed that how great it was to reference plugin commands from a list, which meant spending less time navigating plugin help files for their functions.

Then... I looked at how quickly the Visustella team was working on their MZ plugins, and the features that were being added.

I noticed that they were taking suggestions for improvements to their plugins, and applying changes and fixes at an amazing pace.
Hell, one of the team members made an entire plugin based on a suggestion I made. (Seriously, wtf?)

Lastly, I looked at the rest of the plugin developers in the community and how a lot of them were coming back to the RM scene. Patreons were getting started/rebooted. New forum topics were being added where plugin devs were fixing bugs, adding features, answering questions, etc. That kind of motivation and engagement is something you only see when a new engine launches, and it certainly doesn't last long.

So will I be porting to MZ? Yes. I will. The things mentioned above are negligible when they're looked at individually. But when you look at the sum of the parts, the decision to port seems like a no-brainer. I owe it to myself to ensure an efficient workflow during the development process. Most of all, I owe it to the few of you who are actually looking forward to playing Haven.

Stay Tuned.