I am thinking that maybe I should practice a bit but maybe not. I am not a pro so I seek advice from those who know what they are doing. Should I practice by working on a fanmade game (yeah I know this is a very sensitive style of game design the only legal ones I see thus far to be openly distributed is touhou which is not an issue for me I like the art style) or jump right into my own series with no experience possibly wrecking any potential for story and plot and making a bad game.
1. I do have help and this game is going to be an action rpg and he is helping me script game maker studio to make the RPG mechanics built in to it.
2. I have no intent to throw RMXP away when I do go for the main series I plan on making it on multiple genre so RMXP will be my 2D turn based and maker3D will be my 3D turn based.
This is all hard work and I do not expect it to be done over night.
Best First Project?
If you need practice then I would suggest that you do neither of the above and just focus on practice rather than expecting to produce a completed game on your first try; start by following tutorials, working through example exercises, etc. Make small mini-games (that is, just the game-play, without menus, scoring, etc.) to test out your ideas and see how best you could implement specific features you want for your real project.
It's overwhelmingly likely that your first game -- probably your first several games -- will have problems and may not be your best work. That's normal, and is part of learning -- everyone makes crappy games while they're learning.
Once you've learned the basics and had some practice I would then suggest working on your own original games (this is also what I voted for in your poll) rather than potentially wasting your time with "fan" games. If you have your own original ideas why would you waste time working on a fan game that at best you won't be able to make money from, and at worst may not even be allowed to release and which could potentially cost you a lot of money. Be original and make your own game.
I'm not sure how you're planning to divide the work between yourself and your helper, but if you're just starting out I definitely recommend using an original design. Other people will probably tell you about the legality issues (which are real), but I've found it hard to focus on good practices and workable design while getting excited about content. And, if you're using an existing franchise of any kind, 100% of what you're talking about is content.
Even an original design might be too much if you're new to a project like making a game. It's incredibly easy to get ahead of yourself and outpace your game-creation abilities; I know I have. I'd suggest focusing on an extremely small game idea, as in too small to even have much plot at all, and then once you've made that you can start messing around with more exciting features. If you can produce a simple, two-room adventure with a single enemy you'll have something you can build on with story and cool features later. If you go the content-first route you might end up with a pile of half-coded features floating in a mess that's nowhere near playable.
If this is genuinely your first project, even that might be ambitious.
If you need practice then I would suggest that you do neither of the above and just focus on practice rather than expecting to produce a completed game on your first try; start by following tutorials, working through example exercises, etc. Make small mini-games (that is, just the game-play, without menus, scoring, etc.) to test out your ideas and see how best you could implement specific features you want for your real project.
It's overwhelmingly likely that your first game -- probably your first several games -- will have problems and may not be your best work. That's normal, and is part of learning -- everyone makes crappy games while they're learning.
Once you've learned the basics and had some practice I would then suggest working on your own original games (this is also what I voted for in your poll) rather than potentially wasting your time with "fan" games. If you have your own original ideas why would you waste time working on a fan game that at best you won't be able to make money from, and at worst may not even be allowed to release and which could potentially cost you a lot of money. Be original and make your own game.
tutorials are fine if you can comprehend them, and 1 way of teaching does not work with all people and since there is no way to communicate tutorials are one sided and the internet is a vast maze of tutorials I do appreciate the thought but I believe if I am gonna do tutorials I need someone to hold my hand and no one will teach for free that way so the best way for me to learn is to experiment and practice the engine exploring myself and doing projects blindly til I get the money for schooling.
[background=#fffdfa]I am thinking that maybe I should practice a bit but maybe not. ... Should I practice by working on a fanmade game... or jump right into my own series with no experience ...[/background]
This isn't a Game Design question (or, if it is, I don't see it). I'm moving this to For Beginners.
I am thinking that maybe I should practice a bit but maybe not. I am not a pro so I seek advice from those who know what they are doing. Should I practice by working on a fanmade game (yeah I know this is a very sensitive style of game design the only legal ones I see thus far to be openly distributed is touhou which is not an issue for me I like the art style) or jump right into my own series with no experience possibly wrecking any potential for story and plot and making a bad game.
RPGs in general (action or turn based) are not good choices for a first project. Much smaller games like Tetris, Asteroids, Pong, Breakout and other similar small are better games for learning the basics. I strongly recommend this.
That being said, whether you work on your own game using your own creatively artistic ideas, or a illegally steal the intellectual property of a money-focused corporation with teams of lawyers on retainer (
), the theme itself won't change the complexity of the game (n general), only the game design implementing the theme will change the development complexity.
If you are worried about "wrecking" your own intellectual property (but for some reason you think a corporation will be happy with you wrecking theirs? 
), but still don't want to do the smart thing and work on smaller more reasonable projects for practice, you can create a "throw-away" creative idea for a standalone game, instead of immediately pursing your primary series right off the bat. Consider it practice in programming and game design, and use the knowledge you gain to refine your design for your eventual real series.
Also, polls aren't the best way to make important life choices. We're providing knowledge, but it's your job to transform knowledge into concrete intelligent decisions.
Asteroids was my first and is good practice. After you've got the base you can expand (scoring, difficulties, bosses etc).
After you have confidence in your skills and you know the basics very well, you can jump into something more advance but not the next gen MMO.
I think the best first project is a small one. When you are new you don't know how to structure the code in a good way and how much time is needed. If you try to make a big game as the first project the problems will add up until one day, when you have learned enough, you realize that the code is so hard to work with that it's better to rewrite everything from scratch. That is, if you have not given up before that. The patience of beginners are often not so good but something that will improve over time.
Now I don't know how much programming/scripting is needed in the programs that you mentioned but the same applies to almost everything, step it up, don't try to learn high school math if you have not yet learn second grade math, don't try to run a marathon if you have never ran for more than 1 hour before, don't try to build a house if you can't even build a tree house with straight walls.
In any way, good luck with your future game(s)! :)
