Choice-Oriented RPG Creation

[HotfireLegend]

@polar_fawkes: I'm liking your posting style, but why am I am ass? XD

Gratz, OP!

 

[polar_fawkes]

@BlacksmithMV ok one more, i know this seems unrelated but if you do everything in this tutorial you should be up to speed re: gameloops/functions/procs. super easy to do. http://www.tutorialspoint.com/pascal/ chapters on the left
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@polar_fawkes: I'm liking your posting style, but why am I am ass? XD

Gratz, OP!

because now i see what u did there :P

 

[BlacksmithMV]

I have excellent news on the progress so far! I have succeeded in laying the foundation of my game, that being the living world system that I had wanted to implement. It's in the rudimentary form now, composing basically of the eat, sleep, rest and work cycles, but is rather flexible in how it can be expanded. It's simple and streamlined, taking only one variable, four self-switches and relying on a randomization variable which both use conditional branches to remember the state in which the NPC was in whilst the player moves to and from the map. It runs even when the player is not around, allowing the NPC to be found in a different place each time depending on the variable.

I want to make a game that is unpredictable and has lots of replay value. The unpredictability of the NPC's routine, aside from the appointed times of meals and rest, is a small part of it. With much complexity and work the activities cannot be run twice.

The foundation is laid, then! Still, there is much work to do. I've still gotta find ways to make local and world events more random and include more options to alter them. Although I do have a fairly good conversation template laid out. There's a start.

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

Good luck, if you are perseverant, you can do anything.

I know this, because I am both things you are, ambitious, and perseverant.

From one home-G to another, I wish you the best.

 

[BlacksmithMV]

Good luck, if you are perseverant, you can do anything.

I know this, because I am both things you are, ambitious, and perseverant.

From one home-G to another, I wish you the best.

Thank you very much, my friend. I will, by all means, keep up the good work. With one of the difficult challenges now mastered, I'm sure I can keep it up and fill it out with detail to amaze. Although I must admit that I'm on hiatus right now, working now on a fanfiction, but I will be certain to return to work soon enough. I know what I need to do, so yes; there is a direction and a means of taking it.

 

[samorious]

Hello, my new friends, and thank you for choosing to take a look at this. Within this thread I wish to discuss matters of an RPG which I intend to make on MV. But first I need some feedback to ensure that it would be a desired RPG. To cut to the chase, skip the History section.

History:
Alright, so to let you know, it has always been my desire to make an RP where the character's choices affect the whole game world. Everything from conversations with NPCs to interactions with influential figures and performing quests will have some kind of lasting effect in a freeform-style play. I had always disliked making NPCs that said a single line and that being it, and so I had easily developed a system where a random number is rolled and they say a given thing based on that number. Pretty basic.

Later I had developed an enhanced system that allows the player to have a full-fledged conversation with an NPC, composing of randomized text from both parties composing of realistic properties like first introducing oneself and then asking about things. The downside to this is that it is a whole lot of writing work to be done. A single NPC could probably take hours to fully program.

The Chase:
So what I had in mind would be to, overall, make a system based rather on Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Anyone who had ever played that game would know what I'm talking about. It's a pretty good system where normal, faceless NPCs probably say a few lines without any real interaction, and the more important NPCs are the ones you can have conversations with. It'd be at least a good step up from the basic system and a step below an enhanced system where you can do literally anything you want.

Best of all, consequences! Consequences, consequences, consequences. That's what this is about. What I want to make is a game where your choices have consequences, good or bad. Based on the aforementioned system like Fallout 3-4, do you think that this would make a good RPG? I badly want to make something original and desirable- something that many folks would want to play, rather than just another story. Why not make a game where the player can make their own story?

Your thoughts?

Ever heard of the karma/morality system? Very easily achieved with some variables and also easy to implement in your npc's. A.t.m. I don't have the exact video link for it but you should be able to google it and find tutorials :-)

 

[BlacksmithMV]

In order to keep ya'll updated, I'd better comment here so you know what's going on. First, my apologies for going so long without word. Second, my apologies for having made little to no progress in that time frame due to inspirational deficit. I'm working on that. Third, I'm still intent on making this RPG, but I need materials.

Among things, I need graphics. Lots of em. MV.

Although at the present time, what I really want is some kind of skill script where I can let the player develop skills- like in Skyrim and Oblivion. The more you practice them, the better they get. That's what I need. But I can't find them. If anyone can link me to something of the sort, I'd appreciate it.

 

[ejronin]

The Chase:
So what I had in mind would be to, overall, make a system based rather on Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Anyone who had ever played that game would know what I'm talking about. It's a pretty good system where normal, faceless NPCs probably say a few lines without any real interaction, and the more important NPCs are the ones you can have conversations with. It'd be at least a good step up from the basic system and a step below an enhanced system where you can do literally anything you want.

Best of all, consequences! Consequences, consequences, consequences. That's what this is about. What I want to make is a game where your choices have consequences, good or bad. Based on the aforementioned system like Fallout 3-4, do you think that this would make a good RPG? I badly want to make something original and desirable- something that many folks would want to play, rather than just another story. Why not make a game where the player can make their own story?

Your thoughts?

The biggest hurdle is understanding that you're looking at two massive illusions:

1.) freedom to choose in a game - there's a single start, many stems, but eventually all the strands have to end and leave the player with one of 2-3 really basic outcomes: death, life with something, or a life without something. How the choices impact the story and shape the character to the player is what you may want to focus on more. You may find it interesting to explore a more Divinity: Original Sin style of choices regarding the manipulation of character perception of the world and of themselves. Quantic Dream pulled that off in a way beyond words with Heavy Rain.

2.) originality as a whole is almost non-existent. This isn't to say you're going to, or should make a replica. That's not my point at all. What I'm saying is that essentially, influences will show up in your title. Embrace the influence and acknowledge them but understand that they'll be there and it may be that players gravitate to your title for that very reason. I gravitate toward most things that have an FFVI flavor because, nostalgia.

From this, I think you're over complicating the design form-factor here and looking for advice on what to do rather than the more important, "why" to do something. You can have the greatest system in place with the nifty-est (not a word, but...) mechanics and beautiful eye candy. But, does all of that accomplish the goal of your game? Does it assist the player or character reach their potential?

These are commonly unasked questions until the later stages of development. Always hash out your story, then your characters, then the mechanics; because the why and how will appear as you develop the story and characters. You may find that your character design is too robust for the mechanics capable or that only one character has the maximum potential making the NPCs irrelevant, or worse, the world. So, is your game about a group that can change the world or how they manage the way the world is changing?