bryce777
Erudite
I, too, am a lunatic former game programmer. In fact, I am even older school than he is. I didn't ever make any rpgs, though.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and have decided what I want in an rpg, and based on that I have made my design. In fact, while I was retired (I just had to start working again due to the divorce) I was coding about 20 hours a week on it and had been for about a year. I was pretty far along in some ways.
For instance, I have an extensive toolset for creating quests and placing characters in the game itself. I also have a lot of quests and dialog created, and though this changes quite a bit I have a toolset for taking characters into combat so I can play around with my ever changing combat system, which I like to think is shaping up to be very nice in that it is easy to use and understand the basics, but very difficult to master.
Unfortunately I have come to a roadblock which has made me decide to make a huge departure. Before, I was trying to make my own object oriented graphics library which automatically called either directx or opengl. It is a good approach in some respects, but I have realized that directx just sucks far too much to even be considered useable for something like portability. it is too messy, and it changes too much from version to version. Once it comes out, I just don't have the resources to make it work on every piece of garbage graphics card out there, either. I remember when people had to be smart to program...oh, SO long ago!!! Now they will give any idiot an IDE and let him go to town.
So, I have made the decision to toss out graphical acceleration completely and start over again from scratch on many(actually most) of the parts. I am also tossing out several of my tools I was using, and I am switching totally to linux, emacs, gcc, and a tiny bit of SDL. I don't think the graphical quality will suffer o'vermuch, to be honest. It will royally suck anyhow, until I have a REAL artist do some work on it. This will force me to make a new map builder, but that is not a terrible thing, and I am not absolutely happy with my current one, anyhow. I will also have to rework a lot of code extensively.
I haven't done any work for a couple months, but I hope to soon force myself to start coding ten hours a week again. I was at the point of all the pieces to make a game, but having to tie them together, but now I am set back quite a way, but I expect that I will be able to do pretty well regarding getting to steam again.
Gameplay:
Here is where I am trying to make my game shine. It will be a combat intensive game, but it will not be so much the VOLUME of combat, but merely the fact that it can be rather involved. In combat, I borrow a bit from betrayal at krondor, a bit from darklands, a tiny bit from geneforge, and a tiny bit from xcom and jagged alliance, with a fair amount of plundering from fallout's special system and DnD 3.5. I also have some unique touches,a nd overall I think that this is the best thing the game will have to offer.
Also, pathfinding algorithms are in effect and work perfectly on all maps. Of course, I will have to redo the way maps work, so I may have to redo some or all of this, as well.
Story:
Without revealing too much and spoiling it (or finding the best parts in some shitass bioware game in 3 years) I will say that I am not a bad writer at all, and that I have been paid quite a bit to do technical writing in the past, and I have a decent imagination. Hell, I think some people liked my star child plot better than cleve's real plot. When I get to the point of release, I will also hire some sort of professional to proof things a bit and give me ideas, and perhaps to flush certain things out a bit. This depends on how good things look. There will be some humor, but not humor that tries too hard(I hope), and there will not be lots of pop culture references or anything, unless they are very deeply hidden. Since I am not a big name, once I start beta I will also take advice on the story and see how it's received. Fortunately, since I do everything with tools it will not be hard to change dialog or quest structure.
I think most people will like the story, and the ones who don't can fuck themselves because they are probably just stupid. I will not reveal any more than that, not even if it is more fantasy or scifi, but I do PROMISE originality.
Replayability:
It will be replayable. As it stands, there are not really classes at all, but some stats will seldom change and they will sort of dictate what characters are good at. So, from that angle, there will be a different experience playing the game.
For many, not all, 'quests' there will be mutiple ways to achieve goals. Also, you can pursue the end of the game through at least two totally unique strategies, which can lead to totally different game areas and quest options. Many quests will only be available in certain circumstances or will be interrelated with other ones and how you handle them, and there are quite a few easter egglike quests which will not be found by most people.
There are no stupid HERE IS THE GOOD GUY OPTION HERE IS THE BADGUY OPTION crap, though. There is also not the inane HERE IS THE MAGE OPTION HERE IS THE THIEF OPTION either. Violence is often a good answer, but in some cases it will get you wiped out utterly, and it will in general make it hard for you to figure out a lot of what's going on in the plot. It will not make the game unplayable, though,a nd there is no YOU BETTER RELOAD NOW nonsense either. BECAUSE I AM NOT A MORON. UNLIKE MOST PEOPLE MAKING GAMES, IT SEEMS.
Also, they will not have a fixed number of solutions. Some could have just one, others 2, others three, some of them half a dozen. Some, it might be wiser not to complete at all, or might have consequences you might not have considered.
Stats and character development:
Darklands or xcom is the best analogy here. Stats increase over time through use. I am also thinking about applying rot, but I think mostly it will be hard to get uberstats in the first place. BUT, as in both mentioned games, especially xcom, stats and skills do not make the characters superpowerful. To win combat, a variety of thinks are needed, including common sense and a sense of strategy. Characters getting killed is something which will happen fairly often in certain game stages, but they will be replaced fairly easily and the game is rather item and knowledge oriented - think xcom in how you lose guys all the time at first. Later on it will be different - one goal is to make the game's gameplay not only good, but different according to different stages of power level and plot developement. This is one part that is very difficult to achieve, but I think it's important and have given this much thought.
Graphics:
Will probably suck. It will be a top down rpg, with no graphical acceleration. Once the game is functional, I will give this more thought and get some genuine artists to help me. For now I am making garbarge myself or else stealing models from other games (which obviously is just for use as a placeholder). I have a lot of ideas, and now I need to rethink things even more since I have to start this part over completely.
When:
This is the worst part. Obviously I have a life to live (of some sort, anyhow) and I also have a job. I jave decided to make my goal for release the end of 2010. This give me plenty of time to make a truly high quality game without either quitting my job or using every second of my freetime. By release I mean beta release. The details of how I release it depend on its reception: if I could get some funding I might try to make it a commercial game, if everyone hates it then I might just delete the fucker. And myself. Somewhere in between I will probably do some kind of internet release ala spider software and see if I can make enough money to develope games full time. Or if I am retired again by then then I may be able to do them full time regardless, if I enjoy it.
Anyway, I just wanted to make this announcement. I don't plan to release any more info or any screenshots (there are none for now anyhow) until I am close to a beta version. I am releasing it as much to spur myself back into action so I don't look like an idiot as anything else.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and have decided what I want in an rpg, and based on that I have made my design. In fact, while I was retired (I just had to start working again due to the divorce) I was coding about 20 hours a week on it and had been for about a year. I was pretty far along in some ways.
For instance, I have an extensive toolset for creating quests and placing characters in the game itself. I also have a lot of quests and dialog created, and though this changes quite a bit I have a toolset for taking characters into combat so I can play around with my ever changing combat system, which I like to think is shaping up to be very nice in that it is easy to use and understand the basics, but very difficult to master.
Unfortunately I have come to a roadblock which has made me decide to make a huge departure. Before, I was trying to make my own object oriented graphics library which automatically called either directx or opengl. It is a good approach in some respects, but I have realized that directx just sucks far too much to even be considered useable for something like portability. it is too messy, and it changes too much from version to version. Once it comes out, I just don't have the resources to make it work on every piece of garbage graphics card out there, either. I remember when people had to be smart to program...oh, SO long ago!!! Now they will give any idiot an IDE and let him go to town.
So, I have made the decision to toss out graphical acceleration completely and start over again from scratch on many(actually most) of the parts. I am also tossing out several of my tools I was using, and I am switching totally to linux, emacs, gcc, and a tiny bit of SDL. I don't think the graphical quality will suffer o'vermuch, to be honest. It will royally suck anyhow, until I have a REAL artist do some work on it. This will force me to make a new map builder, but that is not a terrible thing, and I am not absolutely happy with my current one, anyhow. I will also have to rework a lot of code extensively.
I haven't done any work for a couple months, but I hope to soon force myself to start coding ten hours a week again. I was at the point of all the pieces to make a game, but having to tie them together, but now I am set back quite a way, but I expect that I will be able to do pretty well regarding getting to steam again.
Gameplay:
Here is where I am trying to make my game shine. It will be a combat intensive game, but it will not be so much the VOLUME of combat, but merely the fact that it can be rather involved. In combat, I borrow a bit from betrayal at krondor, a bit from darklands, a tiny bit from geneforge, and a tiny bit from xcom and jagged alliance, with a fair amount of plundering from fallout's special system and DnD 3.5. I also have some unique touches,a nd overall I think that this is the best thing the game will have to offer.
Also, pathfinding algorithms are in effect and work perfectly on all maps. Of course, I will have to redo the way maps work, so I may have to redo some or all of this, as well.
Story:
Without revealing too much and spoiling it (or finding the best parts in some shitass bioware game in 3 years) I will say that I am not a bad writer at all, and that I have been paid quite a bit to do technical writing in the past, and I have a decent imagination. Hell, I think some people liked my star child plot better than cleve's real plot. When I get to the point of release, I will also hire some sort of professional to proof things a bit and give me ideas, and perhaps to flush certain things out a bit. This depends on how good things look. There will be some humor, but not humor that tries too hard(I hope), and there will not be lots of pop culture references or anything, unless they are very deeply hidden. Since I am not a big name, once I start beta I will also take advice on the story and see how it's received. Fortunately, since I do everything with tools it will not be hard to change dialog or quest structure.
I think most people will like the story, and the ones who don't can fuck themselves because they are probably just stupid. I will not reveal any more than that, not even if it is more fantasy or scifi, but I do PROMISE originality.
Replayability:
It will be replayable. As it stands, there are not really classes at all, but some stats will seldom change and they will sort of dictate what characters are good at. So, from that angle, there will be a different experience playing the game.
For many, not all, 'quests' there will be mutiple ways to achieve goals. Also, you can pursue the end of the game through at least two totally unique strategies, which can lead to totally different game areas and quest options. Many quests will only be available in certain circumstances or will be interrelated with other ones and how you handle them, and there are quite a few easter egglike quests which will not be found by most people.
There are no stupid HERE IS THE GOOD GUY OPTION HERE IS THE BADGUY OPTION crap, though. There is also not the inane HERE IS THE MAGE OPTION HERE IS THE THIEF OPTION either. Violence is often a good answer, but in some cases it will get you wiped out utterly, and it will in general make it hard for you to figure out a lot of what's going on in the plot. It will not make the game unplayable, though,a nd there is no YOU BETTER RELOAD NOW nonsense either. BECAUSE I AM NOT A MORON. UNLIKE MOST PEOPLE MAKING GAMES, IT SEEMS.
Also, they will not have a fixed number of solutions. Some could have just one, others 2, others three, some of them half a dozen. Some, it might be wiser not to complete at all, or might have consequences you might not have considered.
Stats and character development:
Darklands or xcom is the best analogy here. Stats increase over time through use. I am also thinking about applying rot, but I think mostly it will be hard to get uberstats in the first place. BUT, as in both mentioned games, especially xcom, stats and skills do not make the characters superpowerful. To win combat, a variety of thinks are needed, including common sense and a sense of strategy. Characters getting killed is something which will happen fairly often in certain game stages, but they will be replaced fairly easily and the game is rather item and knowledge oriented - think xcom in how you lose guys all the time at first. Later on it will be different - one goal is to make the game's gameplay not only good, but different according to different stages of power level and plot developement. This is one part that is very difficult to achieve, but I think it's important and have given this much thought.
Graphics:
Will probably suck. It will be a top down rpg, with no graphical acceleration. Once the game is functional, I will give this more thought and get some genuine artists to help me. For now I am making garbarge myself or else stealing models from other games (which obviously is just for use as a placeholder). I have a lot of ideas, and now I need to rethink things even more since I have to start this part over completely.
When:
This is the worst part. Obviously I have a life to live (of some sort, anyhow) and I also have a job. I jave decided to make my goal for release the end of 2010. This give me plenty of time to make a truly high quality game without either quitting my job or using every second of my freetime. By release I mean beta release. The details of how I release it depend on its reception: if I could get some funding I might try to make it a commercial game, if everyone hates it then I might just delete the fucker. And myself. Somewhere in between I will probably do some kind of internet release ala spider software and see if I can make enough money to develope games full time. Or if I am retired again by then then I may be able to do them full time regardless, if I enjoy it.
Anyway, I just wanted to make this announcement. I don't plan to release any more info or any screenshots (there are none for now anyhow) until I am close to a beta version. I am releasing it as much to spur myself back into action so I don't look like an idiot as anything else.
