New idea for CRPG!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

After carefull consideration, planning, and of course marketing research (er, I mean reading all kinda wacky posts here ) I present you with an idea for a CRPG that incorporates many features from your wish lists.

It's a game where a player assumes the role of Joe the office clerk, starting from temporary data entry position and trying to work his way up to the top, gaining levels (positions) and earning perks. While the game promotes non-violent way of playing, an option to go postal and shoot everyone will be provided. The game will support different alignments allowing an evil character to plot office intrigues, while giving a good character an opportunity to help everybody. Characters will low intelligence will be able to work harder not smarter. Technically inclined characters will be able to upgrade Joe's computer thus increasing his work rate and theoretically gaining positions faster.

As Joe gains positions, he would be able to have his own followers that he will hire. Unfortunately, players will have no control over the followers. The followers will have their own agendas and will do any work only if Joe is around (we call the sphere of personal influence that will grow as Joe gains levels).

The game also addresses recently discussed "loot and uber items issues" as there will be none.

I can see it now... There could be skills like Water Cooler Chat, Time Wasting, Sucking Up, and even Stapling! There's potential here.

Marketing and the suits would probably get involved and royally screw it up. Next thing you know Joe's boss would actually be some horrible demon lord thought banished to void in one of the game companies earlier titles. Then they'd replace the magic loot with technological loot and ole Joe would spend most of his time and paycheck upgrading his computer and office supplies.

Why do I have to be this Joe? I want to make my own character. Sorry, try again

Hanoverf said:

Why do I have to be this Joe? I want to make my own character

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You WILL make your own character DURING the gameplay. You start with nothing, no skills, no experience (he-he), not even a name. People call you Joe. However, once you get their attention by helping, gaining power or sucking up, you get to pick your name through a dialogue

Office dude: Thanks, Joe, you da man
PC: No problem, and by the way, my actual name is......

We've received many questions about quests, so rest assured there will be plenty of fedex-type quests, finding missing items, etc. But don't be alarmed, almost all quests will be open ended which means Joe does not really give a shit about them.

I dont want to start as Joe the Office Clerk, I want to start as Hal the Mail Room guy

HanoverF said:

I dont want to start as Joe the Office Clerk, I want to start as Hal the Mail Room guy

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Dear Sir, please, you are making a scene.

You are missing the point. You CAN start as Hal the Mail Room guy, only at first nobody gives a fuck what you name is, so they will keep calling you Joe REGARDLESS of the name you chose for your character. As for playing the Mail Room guy, the terms 'office clerk' is a very general one. It means only that your character works in an office-type environment as of opposite to a uranium mine, or the Congress.

How you develop and guide your character is entirely up to you, whether you take your tiger to the top through the Admin, Marketing, or Mail departments. Remember, all roads lead to Rome

Also, we have developed unique starting locations, called vignettes, so yes, starting in the mail room will be possible. Interesting enough, these vignettes had became so popular in the gaming industry that the famous designer Tom Kain decided to use them in his latest creation.

There's a book by Clive Barker where the antigonist of the plot starts out as a mail room clerk for the post office, in the dead mail department. Over the course of many years of working there and reading and sorting this mail, he comes up with a way of altering himself and reality. He commissions a scientist to help him work on some formula, which alters himself in to a powerful being. He alters himself, the scientist figures out he's a bad guy, so the scientist alters himself as well.

I can't remember the name of the book, but it's fairly interesting.

Has anyone played Executive Suite? Its kind of like how you described it. You make a guy, and try to race him up the corporate ladder. I think you can find it on www. the-underdogs.org

I'm sorry Mr. Vault Dweller but I've talked it over with mangement and marketing and what your suggesting deviates from "THE Formula". I understand your young and idealistic but if you'll just face reality and take at look these sales figures for Diablo, BG, IWD, etc. you'll plainly see "THE Formula" sells NOT original ideas. Now go back and rewrite it so this Joe saves the world or universe. Maybe his boss is trying take over the world or is some alien in disguise and make this Joe a secret agent or intergalatic bounty hunter. Hmmm yes now those are good ideas. Why don't you take them back to cubicle and flesh them out and report back in a few days. That should be enough time for you to rewrite the basic script, not like we're doing anything original HA HA HA.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to attend a meeting so we can decide on a catchy name for our new graphics engine that will require the majority of our consumers to upgrade their PC's and graphics cards to get even mediocre performance from it.

Ok, here is the list of changes:

1. We've added a starting dungeon-tutorial. Office manager asks Joe to get the files from the basement storeroom infested with rats, spiders, and filth. The box Joe is looking for is on the highest shelf. That would require some box stacking and jumping while fighting off rats and spiders with a sharp pencil.

2. The company Joe's working for is trying to take over the world by controlling minds with subliminal messages contained in low-quality RPG titles. Joe is the only hardcore RPG fan in the company who carries inside the ancient knowledge of old-school RPGs that will help him in his quest to reach the top. He has a loaded D20 dice that always rolls a critical if things get tough

3. The game is populated with more traditional easily recognizable characters. During the gameplay Joe can meet bloodsucking vampires from the Payroll, bitch from hell or hellmaiden as the CEO's secretary, the underground drows who formed Network Support Clans, ploting against all surface dwellers from the darkness of the server rooms; no human can withstand the treachery and deception of marketing departments, and there is a crazy old guy at the corner who says that he is Elminster :shock: Obviously we have quite a few surprises packed for players.

4. We revised our original position on loot. While we can do nothng about Joe's crappy salary, we've added many secret rooms with office loot, payrolls computers that could be hacked into, not to mention numerious opportunities to practice Joe's pickpocket skill

So if you sign the design doc here, and here, and initial here, we can move ahead...

Vault Dweller said:

3. The game is populated with more traditional easily recognizable characters. During the gameplay Joe can meet bloodsucking vampires from the Payroll, bitch from hell or hellmaiden as the CEO's secretary, the underground drows who formed Network Support Clans, ploting against all surface dwellers from the darkness of the server rooms; no human can withstand the treachery and deception of marketing departments, and there is a crazy old guy at the corner who says that he is Elminster :shock:

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What? No nice guy underdog at the customer service that gets shoved around too much and ends up going to work with a shotgun?

Anyways, good luck. If you actually pull it off, I'll spread it amonst my friends.

No nice guy underdog at the customer service that gets shoved around too much and ends up going to work with a shotgun?

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Here is a quote from our 'official press-release':

While the game promotes non-violent way of playing, an option to go postal and shoot everyone will be provided

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Vault Dweller said:

1. We've added a starting dungeon-tutorial. Office manager asks Joe to get the files from the basement storeroom infested with rats, spiders, and filth. The box Joe is looking for is on the highest shelf. That would require some box stacking and jumping while fighting off rats and spiders with a sharp pencil.

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Other dungeony areas...

Service Tunnels, areas that run between buildings, underground, and provide housing for various vermin like snakes, rats, violent psychotic homeless people seeking shelter, and so on.

Machine Rooms where the back up generators, water tanks and pumps, heating and cooling units, and other things of an engineering nature are housed. These can be the environmental hazard areas, with steam vents, gas leaks, and numerous other problems for the lowly office worker wandering through the twisted mess of pipes, machines, and other things. Hidden deep within this floor would be the engineer's office, where he's barricaded himself in and dispatched his maintenance crew minions to keep the building functioning.

Loading dock areas can also be dungeonesque, depending on the number of passaged to and from the dock that allow the dock to service the building. This area would have a high loot potential for the office worker because this is where all the supplies for the building come in. The hazard would be getting caught by maintenance workers and security should he choose to take it upon himself to fetch what he needs himself.

2. The company Joe's working for is trying to take over the world by controlling minds with subliminal messages contained in low-quality RPG titles. Joe is the only hardcore RPG fan in the company who carries inside the ancient knowledge of old-school RPGs that will help him in his quest to reach the top. He has a loaded D20 dice that always rolls a critical if things get tough

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The building could be divided in to factions, like Legal, Marketting/Focus, Human Resources, Management, and so on. Each being like it's own, individual town with it's own wants and desires and it's own goals.

3. The game is populated with more traditional easily recognizable characters. During the gameplay Joe can meet bloodsucking vampires from the Payroll, bitch from hell or hellmaiden as the CEO's secretary, the underground drows who formed Network Support Clans, ploting against all surface dwellers from the darkness of the server rooms; no human can withstand the treachery and deception of marketing departments, and there is a crazy old guy at the corner who says that he is Elminster :shock: Obviously we have quite a few surprises packed for players.

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To expand on the above, there could be multiple businesses in the high rise. Businesses could even compete with one another for people entering the building looking for services, thus allowing cold war type situations between them and even allow the office guy or girl to switch sides and join in the frey.

4. We revised our original position on loot. While we can do nothng about Joe's crappy salary, we've added many secret rooms with office loot, payrolls computers that could be hacked into, not to mention numerious opportunities to practice Joe's pickpocket skill

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Don't forget the lucritive petty cash box, corporate expense credit cards, and other forms of loot.

Wonder if this how CRPG's are really developed?

One person/group comes up with an idea possessing original elements and then its horribly mangled by the suits, marketing, forum fanboys and lesser talent brownnosers. End product comes out the same as any other cliched CRPG.

LCJr. said:

One person/group comes up with an idea possessing original elements and then its horribly mangled by the suits, marketing, forum fanboys and lesser talent brownnosers. End product comes out the same as any other cliched CRPG.

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Most CRPGs these days seem to be Okay, we have a fantasy setting, so let's take elements from other games and make one or We have acquired this license to this existing system, so let's make one.

Saint_Proverbius said:

Most CRPGs these days seem to be Okay, we have a fantasy setting, so let's take elements from other games and make one or We have acquired this license to this existing system, so let's make one.

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You mean a medievil setting ?
Because a rpg is pretty hard to make in a reality setting .

And as for taking elements from other games is there another way ?

Can anybody really make something totally original ?

As for license to existing system it is my understanding that the license is not only used for its promotional value but it also helps with the balance issues and with the time that it takes to actually make that game.


Plus i really believe that single player games will die in 5 years .

CRPG will simply not be made in a few years .

And i believe that i know now what exactly the devs of these games have gotten wrong and how they can fix it .

In these games it is people that matter not the game quality.

So what these game developers will do in the future is to make sure that you meet tthe people that you like people that have the same interests with you or interests that complement yours.

To do that they will probably have you fill a real life questionaire about your interests and belief and after you completed the test the computer would recommend that you be placed on that shard and that those 3 clans out of say 50 would be recommended for you for those reasons.

Are you an atheist ? We will put you with others atheists . Are you a woman ? With other womans . Are you a catholic ?We will put you with other catholics.Do you believe in free trade trade or are you a liberal or mayby a socialist ? What do you worry about ? Are you employed unemployed or what ?

The report would come like this

We recommend clan red penguin in the Eastern Moon shard because
all people there are males liberals all work in IT all hate microsoft all love Linux and everybody is non smoker.

Or in a case of a young woman that wants to marry

We recommend clan White pigeon in the Dove Sun shard because
all people there are 50 % males 50 females % all vote republicans all
young all looking to get married the next 5 years all middle class with a good income as evidenced by the use of premium plastic cards used by everyone all totally believe in god and go to church and all are smokers and almost everybody is less than 500 km from your location in texas usa.



I know that this idea has great potentional pity that i am not a great multinational company and cannot patent it like "amazon 1 click patent"
so i give it to you guys for free.

But once those game devs understand this and actually do it actually match the people in clans and shards so that the people FIT toghether MMORPG will become extremely popular and CRPG will die so very fast .

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Fake sig
I just want Fallout 3 made by Tim Cain .

What about those of us who play computer games in part to get away from other people?

chrisbeddoes said:

You mean a medievil setting ?

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No, I mean the traditional high fantasy setting with dwarves, orcs, and so on.

Because a rpg is pretty hard to make in a reality setting.

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Yet there's a shitload of settings out there.. Cyberpunk, Post Apocalyptic, Space fairing, near future sci-fi, western, World War 1-2, Roman, Chinese, Sumerian, <insert other untapped cultural setting here>, and so on.

And as for taking elements from other games is there another way ?

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Apparently there is. Zero-Sum's combat system for Prelude to Darkness was pretty damned innovative, for example. This as opposed to all the CRPGs with the real time with pause schema that's exactly the same as every other one before it.

As for license to existing system it is my understanding that the license is not only used for its promotional value but it also helps with the balance issues and with the time that it takes to actually make that game.

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It also puts a nice stranglehold on innovation.

Plus i really believe that single player games will die in 5 years .

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Funny, I've heard people say that since 1995, when Quake came out. That prophecy about in a few years, all games will be multiplayer hasn't panned out, has it? In fact, if you look at the best selling games of the passed several years, single player seems to be holding strong.

CRPG will simply not be made in a few years .

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This prediction was also made when Ultima Online came out. Five years later, the majority of RPG titles that are made are single player.

I'll tell you why this is a false prediction. The main reason is money. When it comes down to it, a publisher that makes an unsuccessful MMO is going to be out of a LOT of money. Hell, The Sims Online cost $25,000,000 to make and they even reused a lot of content from The Sims and it's expansion. We're also talking about EA, which has made the infrastructure for MMO games with things like Motor City Online. Not too many developers and publishers can afford to have those things tank on them.

In these games it is people that matter not the game quality.

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Which is another reason this prediction won't pan out, because you can't expect people to behave the way you want them to in a pay to play situation.

Saint_Proverbius said:

Machine Rooms where the back up generators, water tanks and pumps, heating and cooling units....with steam vents, gas leaks, and numerous other problems for the lowly office worker wandering through the twisted mess of pipes, machines, and other things. Hidden deep within this floor would be the engineer's office, where he's barricaded himself in and dispatched his maintenance crew minions to keep the building functioning.

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Thanks, SP, excellent idea, perfect fit into this twisted setting. You are one hell of a story teller.

The building could be divided in to factions, like Legal, Marketting/Focus, Human Resources, Management, and so on. Each being like it's own, individual town with it's own wants and desires and it's own goals.

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I would say that a high level Lore skill is required to be able to comprehend the different languages (like Legalese) and cultural traditions (folks from Marketing would hype everything and lie about anything out of habit, etc).

Businesses could even compete with one another for people entering the building looking for services, thus allowing cold war type situations

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Everybody loves cold war type situations

As for the discussion about making a RPG, the future of single-player games, etc I am with SP on that one. There is no sense repeating him, so I will cover whatever SP missed.

chrisbeddoes said:

Can anybody really make something totally original ?

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Arcanum was very original. Sure it had all familiar elements like Orcs, magics, guns, trains, but it was twisted into totally new concept. Fallout and Starcraft universes are very original as well. What's your definition of 'original'?

So what these game developers will do in the future is to make sure that you meet tthe people that you like people that have the same interests with you or interests that complement yours

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The whole concept of role-playing disagrees with you. When I play a game, a PnP or a CRPG, I play a certain char depending on a setting, that has nothing to do with my own interests, beliefs, gender, etc. People who may chose to side with my char would do so based on the qualities and/or potential benefits. In fact, a person with similar interests may chose to role-play a similar char in a similar way, where is fun in that?

But once those game devs understand this and actually do it actually match the people in clans and shards so that the people FIT toghether MMORPG will become extremely popular and CRPG will die so very fast

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I highly doubt that MMORPG will rule the world one day. First, It's not everybody's cup of tea. Some people like to play alone, some people like to have an actual story, etc. Second, MMORPGs are expensive to make, and expensive to play.There are many people who would always chose to spend their money on several different games then to pay a monthly fee for one. Third, all MMORPG are basically about leveling and loot hunting, which make them all the same, which makes competing really really hard. I would say in a few years there are going to be 5-7 MMORPGS left standing. EQ for early start, Star Wars and Warcraft for settings, etc. The rest of the developers would be forced to stick with more affordable games including CRPGs.

You mean a medievil setting ?
Because a rpg is pretty hard to make in a reality setting .

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Whats your definition of a "reality setting"?



By mine reality settings are quite popular in PnP RPG games for example:

TSR- Gangland and Boot Hill, "Roaring 20's" and "Wild West" settings.
GDW- Twilight 2000 and MERC 2000, military/mercenary in either a mild hard science post apoclypstic setting(Anarchy and radiation but no mutants or other sci-fi elements.) Merc 2000 was set in the "real world".

Add to that TSR's Top Secret in the spy genre. Maybe pushing the bounds of reality but someone published an RPG based on James Bond.

GURPS-take your pick of god knows how many different reality settings.

Alternate reality games like Call of Cthulu or Bureau 13 combined realistic settings with the occult/paranormal.

Twilight 2000, Bureau 13 were made into computer RPG's. Not sure what happened to the recent Call of Cthulu project.

Another good alternate reality CRPG game would be Darklands. It has fantasy elements but everything is based on common beliefs/superstitions of the period.

Anyway thats all I can think of off the top of my head.

Plus i really believe that single player games will die in 5 years .

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Plus I really believe that "fill in the blank" games will die in 5 years.

LOL I've heard this so many times for every single genre of game out there. I remember when all the pundits predicted the end of flight sims and next thing you know the market was flooded with them.

Arcanum was very original. Sure it had all familiar elements like Orcs, magics, guns, trains, but it was twisted into totally new concept.

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Not really. I think it falls under the "steampunk" genre. The first PnP I ran across that did it was Castle Falkenstein. Not saying its THE first just the first one like it I ran across.
http://www.talsorian.com/cfindex.shtml

The second was Deadlands. You should check out some of the inventor/mad scientist creations and see if they don't remind you of any techs from Arcanum.

Automatons http://home.att.net/~mmdeforrest/deadla ... is/bot.htm
Clockwork Tarantulas http://home.att.net/~mmdeforrest/deadla ... ntulas.jpg

And of course you have the high tech version of the setting in Shadowrun.

I think that this game needs social combat. It's the idea from pnp games, it's like a normal combat, but instead of trying to kill enemy you're trying to convince him. Of course that kind of combat needs some degree of abstraction, but it's still I think it's better than a skill check.

I think there should be necromancy in it. Maybe BearBomber could be in the game.

I want my caracter with him own voice ala gothic.

sex in game?