An Action-RPG of my very own

[Crichton]

I'm playing through Gothic for the 2nd time now, this time as a fire-mage / 1-handed swordsman and even though the plot's identical to my playthrough as a templar, I'd really like to try my hand at writing my own little story and creating warring factions and whatnot.

I'm not planning on quiting my day-job, so I plan to just mod an existing action-RPG and I've narrowed the choices down to Mount and Blade, Oblivious and Gothic.

Mount and Blade (good)

-lots of other people are modding it so I'll have company
-excellent melee combat system (+horsies!)
-very adaptable

Mount and Blade (Bad)
-no stealth system
-no magic system (I've heard RPGmod has one in development)

Oblivious (good)
-nice controls
-pretty
-well documented CS
-lots of other modders

Oblivious (Bad)
-annoying hardcoded shit
-CS probably not well suited for total conversions

Gothic (good)
-no glaring engine problems

Gothic (bad)
-difficult to use tools
-no one plays gothic mods
-stealth system only works if I limit hostile animals to guard dogs (fine with me)

At the moment I'm leaning toward Mount and Blade, but the complete lack of a stealth element is a bit of a downer. I could probably live without combat magic, but I'd still prefer it. Oblivious solves those problems at the cost of having to fight the engine's short-sighted limitations. Opinions?

 

[LCJr.]

Mount and Blade.

I'm sure Yoshiboy will figure out how to get magic working. As his Pirates mod showed he thinks "outside the box".

How is sneaking into town handled? That might be an indicator he plans on adding stealth. Of course if you start a mod and it gains a following you could probably request it. Armagan seems to be very open to requests.

The bad side to M&B is every single version breaks compatiability and requires you to convert your mod to the new version. Definate potential for burnout there.

 

[sheek]

Mount and Blade.

I'm sure Yoshiboy will figure out how to get magic working. As his Pirates mod showed he thinks "outside the box".

How is sneaking into town handled? That might be an indicator he plans on adding stealth. Of course if you start a mod and it gains a following you could probably request it. Armagan seems to be very open to requests.

Stealth works simply through a menu and a message saying if you succeeded or not. If you didn't you get teleported to a fight/escape scene, if you did you teleport into the town. I worked a bit on an assassin type mod, basically you have to do all the roleplaying through menus and use 'hidden' skills assigned as variables. Also things like lockpicking, persuasion can be done the same way. I doubt you'll ever get Thief style gameplay.

The bad side to M&B is every single version breaks compatiability and requires you to convert your mod to the new version. Definate potential for burnout there.

Those problems should be over.

 

[bryce777]

Another good thing about M&B is there is a repository site that's easy to use and an easy to use packager.

If you do make a mod, definitely don't just throw on a skin and a couple little bits of story.

There are a lot of gameplay enhancements in the last days mod such as not just the factions but also forcing units to camp so youa ren't perpetually running at or away from the enemy

 

[RuySan]

i don't think the lack of magic is a problem in Mount and Blade. The game strives for realism, and that something that is needed in RPGs these days

 

[Kraszu]

I personlay like the most low magic setting Gothic is fine, summoning and transferring scrolls are nice addon. As for the mods most are in German language, onces that were translated were dowlanded couple k- times so you could get better if it would be only English.

 

[denizsi]

-excellent melee combat system

While I like it and think it's fun, the on-foot melee combat is a piece of shit. Despite the relatively slow pace of performing moves, seeing them coming and acting accordingly, it's still twitchy and quite primitive. Morrowind done better. Action RPG my ass, come up with something new, non-twitchy and still working.

 

[Romanian_Dude2005]

I agree, I would hardly call Oblivions combat "fun". Morrowind was "dull", but it wasn't iritating, when you ingaged someone in combat, the first thing you thought of was how to make the combat more entertaining then the game allows it, while in Oblivion the combat is annoying and iritating, rather then exploring the combat, you allwais try to finish it has quick has possible or even avoid it.

 

[Claw]

-stealth system only works if I limit hostile animals to guard dogs (fine with me)

I ain't even sure what you're trying to say, but it's probably wrong.

 

[Crichton]

I ain't even sure what you're trying to say, but it's probably wrong.

All non-humanoids (including all animals of course) completely ignore stealth in G2 (that is, it doesn't work at all, you can't sneak past them no matter what the circumstances), I assumed it was the same in G1, but I haven't tried it.

This is cool as long as the only enemies are humanoids and guard dogs since staying away from guard dogs is part of stealth, but if someone tries to sneak through a valley filled with snappers, they system's broken.

 

[sheek]

-excellent melee combat system

While I like it and think it's fun, the on-foot melee combat is a piece of shit. Despite the relatively slow pace of performing moves, seeing them coming and acting accordingly, it's still twitchy and quite primitive. Morrowind done better. Action RPG my ass, come up with something new, non-twitchy and still working.

Foot combat is great.