Honestly, when it comes to Rom Hacking vs Game Development as a whole, there are no "winners" in that debate.
Rom Hackers have the advantage of accessibility, but become far too complacent with the tools they have, and when something goes wrong and/or they can't do something with the tools, a project usually dies out and gets abandoned. They have documented tutorials that basically rip the engine apart and tell users how to add new features not present in the game. However, Rom Hacking has its downfalls as well: Aside from the complacency, there is also a very confined space to work in - you can only expand the rom so far before you run out of space to throw new mechanics and scripts in. There's also the fact that a lot of the Rom Hackers seem to avoid learning/are incapable of learning how to Hex Edit, and do ASM, which, if you want to make your hack shine beyond the base it uses, you're going to need to figure out how to do. Personally, I also feel like Gen 3 gets far too much showtime and none of the other generations get any spotlight, but Gen 3 is the most documented of the games (and easiest to emulate), though this isn't really a downside.
Game Development has its perks and disadvantages as well. Using RPG Maker and Essentials as the example here (Since this community has the most to offer to Essentials users), the developers can work in a near limitless engine to produce an ideal game. Some people find the tight limitations of Rom Hacking counter-productive to the vision they would like to create. Some people find the scripting language of Pokemon games to be more complicated to understand than the rather basic Event system that RPG Maker has to offer. However, with RPG Maker and Essentials, the engine is not yet complete - I've seen people complaining that it doesn't support basic essential functions, despite claiming to be an Essential Engine (These things usually get rectified in later versions because Essentials is currently in Development, but still). Similar to the Rom Hacking scene, figuring out RGSS for RPG Maker can be tedious, if not impossible, for someone who just doesn't have that type of capability to think in code like that. I'm kind of like that in that regard, that I can't understand the scripting language of Pokemon Games, and RGSS only comes barely better but is still confusing to me. A disadvantage not to the game, but the community itself, is RPG Maker's Near Limitless capabilities. Users get absurdly high ambitions that would need constant focus and dedication to complete, and intricate knowledge of the scripting system sometimes. If they give up, it litters the community with incomplete projects.
In short, to say that Rom Hacking is going to "beat" Game Development is probably foolhardy. People from both sides shift locales every so often because of the perks one offers over the other. Hell, I find myself wanting to do a Generation 4 Rom Hack (Probably wont, because the lack of documentation).
As for claiming that the community is selfish - yeah sure, we do have selfish people in the bunch, but so do all communities and all people. This board is honestly no different than the Rom Hacking one; if it's any different, it's because we have a Requests Thread, and/or people who have a place to post about their... inquiries in a regulated environment. Honestly, the best thing to do is to try and avoid acknowledging the selfish people if it bothers you that much, or let someone else post in the thread; We don't need 5 people raining down a hailstorm in thread saying "You really should learn how to script if you want to get anywhere". There are people I'm looking at that feel the need to do this every so often, as if to assert their superiority and authority over the uneducated masses.
To answer the initial topic of this thread: "Is the Game Development section dying"? If it's dying, it's because you're complacent with letting it die. Personally, I still feel it's thriving. Essentials V14 is out, with 15 in development. We have users still actively working on projects, we have users still contributing their stuff to the community when they can - I know I occasionally contribute small little interesting script changes when I can, to give some additional pizzazz to people's games. Sure, some people are greedy, some people take more than they give. But that's not really uncommon in large development settings. Modding communities have always had a abnormal Take:Give ratio. My stance on that is, we shouldn't be too locked down on our resources, and they should be more publicly posted for those to use them, maybe even learn from them. Observing the Command & Conquer Modding Community, where resources are absurdly locked down unless you're on a development team, it's basically become a Ripper's Paradise, where everyone is ripping assets from other games and other mods because there is barely any public asset distribution anymore. Granted, their reasons for asset lockdown are valid - because people would rip in the first place, but when you keep finding new ways to lock down your assets, people keep finding new and inventive ways to crack open your game and steal them. I suppose this all is an argument for "Should more things be open source", to which I am always in favor for, but not everyone agrees.
Now that my thoughts on the core subject are out of the way, there's a reply or two I'd want to address...
What might help is some kind of project. It could either be a collaboratively-made game, or things like the All Animations Project for Essentials, or even a new game engine.
Obviously this would require a change of attitude in the members here, shifting from "I want" to "what can I give". This can't happen all by itself, though, so getting a community project going will probably be needed to force that change.
A group collaborative project would be interesting, but hard to manage. One of the reasons I prefer to do most of the work on Faith & Prayer version alone is because I don't understand how a group project would work. As far as I'm aware, there's no Source Revision Control software that'll be good for RPG Maker XP itself - maybe for the files in the pbs folder and for graphics, but when it gets down to it, colliding edits in two different versions of a game could override the older edit and deleting the progress one person made. If there's a way to do SRC I'd love to hear how, because it could open up a whole new realm of possibilities.
Getting away from SRC though, having a project where several people work on it, like the All Animations Project, would be ideal. It'd be great if it had something for everyone, and if it had pros in the community working on it as well, to lend support and advice to those who want to use this project as a way to improve and hone their skills. I'm in support of the idea, however I'm not sure where to take the idea that the community as a whole could feel included.
Another thing to consider is the scope of Game Dev. It's not just about making Pokémon computer games with Essentials. It also includes other original games, any medium you can think of (board/card/verbal/etc.), and even game mods. If it's creative and it's about a game, then it belongs in here. I think promoting this diversity can help to liven up the place as people realise just how much they can talk about here. You don't even need to make a game yourself to have an interest in the process of game development and the various disciplines and activities therein.
But does this include games outside the Pokemon spectrum? Like, if I wanted to post about a mod for, say, Command & Conquer. Would that be accepted here? A thing to consider is the notice it would get here. Would a game that isn't Pokemon-centric have a decent following on a forum that is high in Pokemon-related activity? Would it be accepted or even noticed? I think the issue isn't that people don't want to do it, but that this board has become so interconnected with Essentials-related projects that, like said above, any project in a different engine with a different intent of Non-Pokemon just gets shafted to the wayside. I'd love to see more Non-Essentials and Non-Pokemon games here one day.
I was working on a Sinnoh base pack for Essentials a while back. The idea of this pack was to allow people to download an already built and populated Sinnoh region complete with Gen 4 tiles that were ready to go. The project was intended to take out a god chunk of work for anyone wanting to build a game in that region. It's progress has stopped and been halted for some time abut I still have the project backed up and ready to be picked up again. Maybe I will try and open it back up to the community and see if people are interested in helping out with it.
Good idea! Interesting advantage against Rom Hacking! A FrLg/HgSs base kit would be more effective, though.
I think a Sinnoh-Centric Starter Kit would be interesting to see done because, and this is my opinion, Kanto has been done to death in it's repetitive attempts at recreating it. Faith & Prayer recreates Kanto, yeah, but it tries to throw new spins on it by redesigning the maps so it's not the same tedium again and again. Johto is something that everyone and their grandparents tried recreating in the heyday, but it's always good to see Johto development. Something that isn't Kanto or Johto would be a nice change of pace. Sinnoh would probably be a welcome change.
While I believe a fair amount of the inactivity here is due to lack of encouraging things to work on, I also strongly believe that the section has just become less and less entry level friendly. Wichu used to have some fairly in-depth scripting tutorials that were posted if I recall, at least I believe it was Wichu. Anyways, they were basically a script they posted for people to use, but he made YOU actually write it and explained what was doing what as he walked you through writing it. Resources like this seem quite valuable over simply handing over the script, because it helps everyone in the grand scheme of things. It helps the new comer start understanding scripts and it helps the person writing the script by growing the number of people who are scripting so that they are not buried in questions. These are the kinds of resources I would love to see, because they are actually tutorials cleverly disguised as a resource.
With the Touhoumon DevKit, I did some little tidbits in the DevGym where the user cannot advance (unless they use Debug Through Walls) without editing individual events to make them work. It's not on the level you're thinking, but it helps to get the user to understand how mechanics work a little better. Having an Interactive Scripting Lesson would be fantastic for entry-level users, as it could walk them through the basics, and give them "assignments" on how to make things work so they learn for themselves. Honestly, I think the whole "They should learn on their own how to make it work" mantra is just disguised elitism and trying to keep a faulty status quo, and it's
severely counter-productive to the continued life of any game development cycle. If you outright tell a person "I won't help you, figure it out on your own" (Which, granted, many people here don't do unless they get fed up with certain topics), then that kills any sort of potential future that may be had - if you discourage someone from learning, you contribute to your own downfall, and that in itself is selfish.
That's... Pretty much all I have to say, or can say at the moment.
