Well we all laughed at FV's strategy game colloboration Velox et Astrum, but take a look at this. You may have heard of the RPG series known as ``Broken Sword''. And a small team of ~15 people managed to make a sequel to Broken Sword 2.
Just think what we can accomplish instead of making poitnless spam threads.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:04
Do a strategy RPG. I've had a few brewing in my head for a while myself.
Basically, you just need a reason for a war between countries that isn't entirely retarded, a few interesting characters, some interesting dialogue between battles, a few kickass tunes, and a rock-paper-scissors-style battle system.
Example: The Redditer-Praguean War of 1863
Throw some airships in there along with traces of anti-industrialists themes and you've got yourself the latest indie "masterpiece."
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:08
>>41
So what makes an interesting character? I apologize if that's a dumb or obtuse question.
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Glide2009-12-13 0:10
Well, as for a story, I've had one brewing in my head for a long time... if this thing takes off and anyone wants to hear about it, I'd be happy to drop a synopsis. Is there any interest at all?
Shadowrun takes place in the future and there was some sort of magic that went around and transformed some normal people into orcs, elves, dwarfs, and some people retained their former bodies. There are two worlds, the obvious world that everyone lives on, and then cyber space which you can delve into by jacking yourself into computers. Why it is called Shadowrun is because there are people who are runners, of course they have to keep it a secret because doing these runs are unlawful thus they have to keep it in the shadows, thus Shadowrun. They pick up runs from Johnsons and upon completing them they get paid.
There are three basic classes, Samurai which is most proficient at hand to hand combat and other various forms of combat, Deckers which can easily go through cyber space and hack into companies files and get information needed and good at rewiring building security and unlocking electronic doors, ect., they are the go to guys for anything mechanical, then lastly there are Shaman. Shaman are the magic users and can use various spells against enemies or to help aid him and his party.
There are various stats to upgrade and all of them have their uses, from being more proficient to certain guns, magic, using medikits, throwing grenades, using cyber decks well, interfacing with computers, negotiating prices to hire additional runners and run price, to persuade others, and various other skills.
Combat happens in real time from your one to three man party depending if you hire more runners for your party. You are able to switch runners on the fly and the ones you aren't controlling have their own set of AI to try to keep themselves from dying and to defend their selfs.
There could be a lot more cleared up but I wouldn't know unless asked and the best way to know the game more is to emulate it to see what it is about. But one of my favorite parts of the game is the ambiguous situations that you are faced, you often encounter them multiple times and they always are the same but the outcome always isn't the same. You usually have three choices to choose from, but depending on the ending outcome you could be fighting against the law, seeing someone dragged away by some mobsters, or helping someone try to escape drug dealers that are after them.
The story starts out with a young man; a squire for a less than virtuous knight. He is however, very rich, and popular with the ladies. He's great at putting on airs, and looking good in the public eye, and he's not too bad in a fight. He is however, a terrible person.
This young man eventually can't stand it anymore and casts aside his dreams of eventually becoming a royal knight and instead becomes a serf. He continues to be active as part of the local militia, and after some time becomes well known by the commoners to be a good person. Basically the de-facto law, akin to doc holiday.
In this world, a prophecy was made long ago. The prophecy tells of a great war, between man and demon. In this prophecy is detailed that a great warrior of light will appear from the kingdom and save the world when things look most bleak.
Recently, more and more people have been reported missing, and demon sightings have been on the rise. People start to whisper about the prophecy, and how this great cataclysm might be on the way.
In order to identify this champion, the various lords of the land decide to hold a tournament. The "bad" knight from above emerges as the victor. His first act as the world's greatest champion, is to denounce and banish our main character from his home out of spite. He is labeled as a heretic and deserter.
So begins his quest for vengeance on the so called "hero".
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:25
>>47 >>48
I would think that a third (I prefer third person) or first person style with real time combat would be necessary for the theme. Survival horror doesn't seem like it would work very well with a turn based battle system. Though if somebody managed to pull it off successfully I'd be very impressed.
Complex motives, flaws, interesting interactions with other characters, being genuinely funny, things like that. For example,
Potentially Good Character: I'm fighting in this war because I'
Bad character: HURR DURR I FIGHT FOR MY FRIENDS/I AM THE ULTIMATE EVIL, I WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD HURRRR/moralfag/etc
Similarly, Good Plot: Attempts to tell some sort of message about something through use of metaphor, hypothesis, setting, themes, mood, etc. Always keeps the audience guessing.
Bad Plot: Beats cliches like a dead horse. Uses elements without any thought for consequence, just because it looks cool.
Rather than asking, I'll just dump a potential storyline / character thingy here.
You, the protagonist, are either unconscious or dead. The homeworld of the game is within your mind; an endless void of whitespace, with a small wooden shack floating on a small chunk of earth. Once you float inside the shack, you'll find a cloaked stranger (An older/alternate/etc. version of yourself). He introduces you to this existence, and explains the existence of magic, and other beings like yourselves that "exist" around you. This whitespace area acts as a mana repository; perhaps it can change color or something the more mana you collect in-game. You are given the option to move between this white-space world, and a "community pool of minds" of sorts, where you can see other players (by default, cloaked strangers, until you meet them), and jump into maps with enemies, or temples to learn spells and gather mana.
Tangible objects, like swords, don't exist in this world, so magic is one's only weapon. Each player can spend mana either to increase the power of their spells, to create new spells, or to add to their shield. Default spells can be learned at temples, while more advanced combinations must be experimented with in the homeworld. If a player falls in battle, they are merely sent back to their whitespace, sans shield.
That right there is my dream game, sans a lot of stuff that I don't see any reason to type yet. They might be overused, but alternate selves, death, and being highly unaware of obvious things are some damned good plot additions. I envisioned this game as a 2-d side scroller, something akin to MapleStory (at least, control-wise), but I doubt that a lot of what I wrote here could easily be coded.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:43
>>53
As for an actual plot... I couldn't really think of anything besides character development (Going from quiet, reclusive, meek, unaware to friendly, outgoing, powerful and quite aware that you are probably dead and that guy in the shack is you [and man, are you an asshole or what?]). Perhaps it could follow a Kingdom-Hearts-esque "story", and just follow other generic cliche plots, throwing your budding mage into all sorts of wacky places.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 0:50
/v/irgin here.
Since we're in the "throwing out ideas" phase here, allow me.
My idea is to completely deconstruct the generic fantasy game plot. As such, it would start innocuously.
It would be a simple save-the-princess story where she falls in love with the hero and lives happily ever after, if the player goes through the game oblivious. However, there are subtle hints throughout the game that not is all as it seems, with apparent plot holes in places.
If the player decides to investigate these plot holes, he can eventually learn the real truth behind the game's story. It was all set up by an evil mastermind who somehow found the universe's equivalent of the Triforce. He set up everything needed for the plot to happen, creating a false antagonist and modifying people's memories.
And the identity of the true villain? Why, it is the person who profits most from the story, of course: the main character, prior to modifying his own memory.
Human kind has been eliminated, save for 5000 people. They are hooked up, unaware, to virtual reality machines controlled by a single, all powerful man (a god to them). The irony is that in their virtual reality, the world is in a state of anarchy, and the individual has the power to control everything. Can be seen as an allegory to modern times, a criticism of democracy and the modern way of life, and allows you to use whatever kind of setting you want inside the virtual world (it's not real) while still maintaining respectability.
I'd be damned if it isn't true, but to this day, amnesia / memory loss is one of the best plot devices in existence, second to time-travel. I'm serious
>>58
I dislike both. It would be better if it was kept in place. What about someone who didn't know they had amnesia, and it isn't apparent at all until mid-way or even more into the game.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 1:13
>>60
I admit that my plot has flaws; you're free to dislike or criticize it. It just got to me that this guy did so with such obviously bad motives.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 1:28
What do I think would be fun and easy to get people behind? To take Final Fantasy VI and expand the game by adding content throughout. I can easily imagine people wanting to do the same with other games. What I propose is, instead of making a game, a set of "RPG Maker"-like tools with fewer limitations. Package it with a few prefab clones of existing RPGs, and watch people take notice.
It'll fit right in with other "remix culture" and "mod" headlines, too.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 1:51
>>62
Final Fantasy VI is dull. You are thinking about the wrong kind of RPG. Other RPGs can give you a LOT more choices for the player, and that would be directions they can go to instead of character building like how Final Fantasy games are like and majority of RPGs in Japan tend to be like. Final Fantasy VI does have decisions, but they are limited in scope compared to others, just compare it to something like Deus Ex. Situations can completely change depending on what you do, if you decide to follow orders or kill someone then you may see that person later on and confront them, ect. Makes it a LOT more interesting.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 2:34
>>63
Deus Ex was pretty linear. About all you got control over plot-wise was the final cutscene and your fucking body count.
Most RPGs have a limited story and a reasonably customizable character set
How about we go the other way.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:05
A limited character set with every permutation opening up new possibilities narratively? Say, at every major plot point the game takes note of the player's party, and offers a party-dependent plot advancement, and post-plot-point world state?
Of course, to do this it would HAVE to be done procedurally, otherwise that's a just a shitload of work. I mean, even with just two possible party members, that's three outcomes. One for Member A alone, one for Member B alone, and one with both. It'd effectively be a trinary tree of ending possibilities (assuming none doubled over.)
Of course, I suppose you could also do certain checks at certain points, like "do mission X with Party Member 1, cause World State pi, do it with Party Member 2, cause World State mu."
... No, it'd be better just to go procedurally.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:39
>>63
One well-written plot is better than a shitty choose-your-own-adventure novel.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:54
>>67
To avoid interactivity in narrative has long been the greatest let-down in games. Interactivity is the what makes games different than other mediums. Any game based on a linear plot is better done in another medium.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 3:57
>>68
How does one design an procedural narrative and still have the game enjoyable to play?
NOTE TO THE PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD:
you won't be able to achieve anything more complex than final fantasy 1. don't even bother thinking about trying to emulate the awesomeness of games like deus-ex or morrowind.
now get out
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Anonymous2009-12-13 4:33
>>69
I don't see how the two are diametrically opposed. For instance, ever played Facade? I certainly thought it was fun, considering it was made by two guys. (Sure, over years of time, but, two guys.)
Take such a system that advances from plot point to plot point, allowing the player to influence characters/events in ways that will register as one in a myriad of ways by a "story manager," and choose the next point to begin from. The only part remotely annoying about it (in my admitted estimation,) would be smoothing transitions. But, say, you're charged with watching over an orphanage in a mission.
The means of achieving the next plot point (the actual "game play" could be completely independent of the story manager. It could be anything from an action game to an RPG to an FPS.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 4:47
>>71 here
... Apparently I somehow deleted the entire third paragraph... Just ignore that last sentence in the second, please.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 5:15
>>69
Perhaps give the player a goal to reach. Simply a geographical location will do. There can be a boss fight there if you're into clichés. Or not.
Then fill the world with an assortment of locked doors and impassable rivers, paired respectively with keys and ferries. Add a layer of indirection, so that NPCs must be fellated before you can obtain items or transport. Don't bother with story managers. Some games will be unwinnable. This is called realism. There will be no OMGWTF tweests or engrossing high-school political debates à la Deus Ex, but on the plus side, your actions will have an effect on your success.
He doesn't have amnesia. He modified his own memory, and with good reason: he wanted to think he was the hero, go on the adventure, and live happily ever after. He is completely unaware his memory has been altered until the very end of the secret ending.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 13:39
>>73
your post has just outlined the the greatest flaw in procedural storytelling, as well as the outlying thinking necessary for that flaw to be overlooked. well done.
conversely, your game sounds like it would be neither interesting, or fun. my actions have an effect on the world when i fart on my cat. that would be more fun than your game, and its still the epitome of mundane. "having an effect" is difficult to achieve programmatically, which has made it something of a holy grail, but that sentiment distracts us from more significant goals.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 14:09
why dont we just make a RPG about programing?
a young pupil just finished his training at the MIT dojo and now he goes trough the programing world with his trusted woodstaff, a old mayo sandwich and the words of sensei sussman.
on his pathe he fights javadragons and the evil C++ fanatics who wish to make a dark empire of this beautiful world.
i think you know what i would like to say.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 14:50
>>76
What more significant goals did you have in mind? Storytelling is largely irrelevant to games. History-making is the real goal. Giving the player a multitude of possible paths for every skillset and the power to choose one or screw one is a much better goal than crafting some kind of plot that, let's face it, would be totally ignorable if it were handwritten.
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Anonymous2009-12-13 14:59
>>49
Final Fantasy Tactics almost certainly handled these themes better.