I am doing a game proposal for class.
It’s posted at STL Gamer stlgamer.com as “Shining Darkness”. If you want, and preferably, register their and comment or if you don’t want to, post here. I’d like as much feedback as possible.
I’m not registering at their site just to post a comment, since I probably won’t start going there regularly.
There are a bunch of general observations that I have, all of which boil down to this: One must learn to walk before one may run. You appear to be attempting to run a marathon. The features listed are impressive, but would be very painful to implement. Shining Darkness appears to be more appropriate for a team of professionals.
Before I get more specific, could you provide some more information?
Have you ever created a game before?
Are you actually intending to make this game?
You mentioned this was for a school project. If you are intending to make this game, does it need to be done next week? Next month? Next semester? Or is it open ended?
You mentioned this was for a school project. Is this a group project? If so, how many are involved. If not, where is the art and music going to come from?
Do you realize that levels have been used for so long because they vastly simplify making a balanced game? Eliminating them will create a hornet’s nest of gameplay issues related to the fact that it will be far too easy to create invincible gods of annihilation.
Edit: Do not get discouraged. I am simply giving my honest opinion, because you asked for it; to not give it is a disservice to you. By all means, don’t let me convince you it’s hopeless. The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. I, in fact, am currently creating a TRPG in my spare time; but if you are planning on making this, you need to consider whether this is practical, and you need to do it now while changing things is easy.
[ 10-25-2006, 11:06 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
This actually is meant to be, as all of them are, for proffessionals. Remember this is a class project, game proposal. As such a game company would expect something more than a casual game.
As for myself, I helped make games and mods for games. I am not a programmer, so i have not programmed.
The proposal istelf needs to be fleshed out by this semester for a 5-6 pages or so. However I plan to do my senior overview with a more through version of this which will need to be 40 or so pages. Essentially if I can ever get to do so, i’d like to use whatever comes out for a game proposal idea to a company.
Now onto the critique itself…
I realize levels do make things simpler, but they create problems. They do not always balance out the games as you say anymore than stat raisings can. I will not use levels at all, period. You will never be able to convince me of this. 15 years of playing RPGs, both video-game and table-top, has taught be that levels offer more downsides than up.
I like the idea. It sounds like a combination of Adventure Quest and Dungeon Siege. Do you intend to have this as a 3D or 2D game? I have been playing tabletop RPGs and I have been modding games for a while and the level system is is not required. It simply makes the coding easier. The skill specialization would eliminate the demigod aspect of the game.
I have been creating game ideas myself for a few years but always ended up tossing them out. It’s one of the reasons I like tabletop RP; all my stories come to be. 
What kind of class is this? Screenplay?
[ 10-27-2006, 06:27 AM: Message edited by: Scipoten ]
OK. So you’re just working on the proposal itself. I was worried you were thinking you could get a whole game with this idea done in a semester
Especially if you’re going to do battles based on where the person is as they’re walking thru the dungeon, I would recommend not having a full-on tactical RPG-style fight for every monster. First, unless you’re only going to have a few fights in one dungeon, it will take FOREVER. Second, given the style of advancement you are selecting, it will be easier to get a feel for game balance without TRPG considerations. (Third, this makes your enemy AI much easier to write.)
Are you planning on having a full-on branching plotline? Or are the “more than yes-no” decisions going to be more limited in scope (say, opening a sidequest here or there)?
If this only has 5 or 6 pages, you should have at most half a page, I think, detailing the story. The meat of an RPG is the battle system. However, you should at least have a general idea of the overall story, not just the beginning. (I really have no idea what that story might be, though.) Be aware that your beginning is very similar to the beginning of many RPGs.
Also you should discuss at least briefly the graphics and music. Definitely at least as much space should be devoted to what “feel” and technologies you want, as you devote to the story. No real game proposal would ever be accepted that didn’t at least address this, as in most modern game development creating the art and music takes most of the staff and money.
Finally, you should start getting specific. The party composition should be decided, so you can describe each one of them and their gameplay niche (that is, what the character adds to the gameplay and how they’re different from the rest.
That’s all I can think of for now … I’m off to do some more work (ugh) on my own project.
[ 10-27-2006, 10:52 PM: Message edited by: Nandemonai ]
The game is intended as 3D, although with anime-ish graphics. I’d like to have the cutscenes with 2D anime scenes pre-rendered with 3D technology.
My skill specialization is suppose to do that. Yes, characters should become more powerful in an RPG, however they shouldn’t become demi-gods (baldur’s gate being an exception for specific reasons). You should not be able to become a master-of-all-traits. No one ever was, even in mythology.
This is for a “Gaming Seminar” class. Basically we just play video games in class. We do have to do some studying, especially early on, but the last two weeks its just been playing video games, while critiquing them for how they use gameplay, storyline, etc. what they did good, bad and if something was good/bad, was it just in general good/bad or was it just that you liked/didn’t like it bad.
Yes,if i do it with the same screen it will not be tactical. Even I realize how repetative that could be. However, you can have a dungeon with a lot of monsters and still have the player go through it onscreen. Chrono Trigger even went so far as to tell the player in one dungeon there will be 100 battles you have to beat to get to the boss (or maybe it was monsters…but i believe battles because i know i killed more than 100 bad guys),
Because of the scope of what i want to do, having full-on branching storyline like Oblivion would be nigh impossible. However, I do want multiple paths and multiple endings and the possibility of having different alternate worlds based on your choices. However it will likely be several different endings with variatons within those endings in the end.
At the beginning it will be more structured where you must to world X all the time, but as the game progresses more potential for variation will occur.
I don’t agree here. My games will be story driven. My favorite games are Xenosaga/Xenogears, .hack (minus dungeon crawling), Grandia I, Lunar 1 & 2, Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest. Only Dragon Quest (and if you include the dungeon crawling of .hack (which i don’t like) are those mostly combat related. That does not mean battle is extremely simplified (well it does for Lunar…that was a basic combat system), but that will not be what my RPG is. I adhore RPGs that rely on their combat system to drive things forward. However I also dislike RPGs that are all storyline and no character development for non-major characters. Sure the major character should get more attention, but everyone should have good character development.
Also the combat system is not action-oriented like dungeon siege or Zelda. At most I might do semi-action based like Grandia.
And yea, the beginning is similar. In fact, it is based a lot on Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, but with some twists. However, in this case i think similarity is not a downfall because a lot of stories you IRL have similar beginnings.
Yes. I plan to discuss that as well. I am not so familiar with music, but I can say i did like the music from Chrono Trigger and Xenosage/Xenogears the best of the games I’ve played. .hack has some good ones as well. It will not be pop or techno though. Even if you’re in a futuristic world. This isn’t the kind of game.
Graphics i’ve already explained a bit when i talked with Scipoten. I don’t want to go for hyper-realism feal. I like anime feel. It will definatly be more detailed and have a element of reality to it. FE: cell shading for the entire world to give better feel.
Yea. Right now my idea is:
You pick your character’s base class. The first character, a temp, comes along when you do your first specialization (i will force one level of specialization for the player, so you can’t remain the base class for the entire game, even if you want to). This character leaves somehow, permenantly (probably death). Then the next characters are from the other two groups specializaed once, you can at some point chose one of them. whoever you chose will be permenant and the opposite will be unpickable (if you chose a ranged fighter you can’t get the melee fighter for that game). Then you do the same for the last person, all through storyline.
Thus there are 6 permantly joinable characters in the game, of which you can only get 2 in any one playthrough. The temp will always be the same, or maybe not. I might just have them as one of three, ie one for each base class.
That’s my current idea. It has yet to be raked ove the coals. However, I do not want it to be like FF games where you can have a whole party and essentially everyone can be like everyone else (except in FF for weapons and LB…note post FF6) nor do I want players picking all of one character type, ie all warriors for battles.
Thanks! GL and please both of you continue to comment. As well as others.
[ 10-28-2006, 05:26 AM: Message edited by: Jinnai ]
I am agreeing with you. Demigods should not be allowed and the skill specialization would insure this with the need for leveling.
Man this sounds a lot like Dungeon Siege 2 with the skill speciaization. Unfortunately, I have not played all the games you have mentioned so my comments will be somewhat limited. 
Ozzie said that Magus’ Castle had 100 monsters. But I remember reading somewhere that there were actually 104.
Did you just say you’re taking a class where you sit around and play video games? I’m sorry. You aren’t going to like this very much, but I’m going to have to kill you now. Could you do me a favor and let me know your address? I could find it myself, but it’s such a pain.
[Note to the humor impaired: The preceding is a joke. You may laugh, and do not feel alarmed. This will not hurt me a bit.]
I do not believe this will be as simple as you are thinking. Having different alternate worlds based on player choices will mean you are creating a branching plotline. Unless the worlds are nothing more than a group of dungeons, you will have to script entirely new storylines for each world.
This is, in a way, even harder than creating one world, where the plot changes based on your decisions; because it is impossible to reuse characters, or the setting, or even have events in common. You will need to create all of that from scratch every time you say “based on previous choices, the player can go to either world A or world B”.
Even Chrono Trigger didn’t do a branching plotline; instead the endings were based on how far you were in the storyline (with variants based on a few other variables). I suspect Square might have initially planned on such a thing, because at one point Azala asks you why you’re so much more intelligent than the humans he has experience with, and you have a choice (“Tell him” or “say nothing”). This choice doesn’t appear to do anything; but we know there was a dungeon cut. Perhaps they had intended you be able to do some sort of sidequest only if you answered one way, or the other.
I had considered how to tackle “sort-of branching plotline”, and came up with something like the following. The story is roughly linear, with multiple paths to accomplish any given goal in the story. E.g. you need to find Amulet of Yendor; you can a) meander aimlessly looking for it, b) commission the mage academy to try to find the likely place, or c) hire mercenaries to find it for you. Each option has different effects (hiring mercs might introduce a new party member, but costs a lot of money) and may make things easier or harder later on, but everything generally follows the same route.
Be prepared for people to attempt this. Doing what the creators did not anticipate is the easiest way to become a demigod.
For example, in Xenosaga (listed as one of your favorites), you get the item that is “DMG UP as HP DOWN”, equip it on Momo, use a Hemlock (set HP to 1) and use her physical-based attack-all. Because she is the fastest character in the game, she will destroy anything. The final boss never even got an opportunity to attack; when all its flunkies are dead, it spends its turn respawning them, but I would kill them in one hit.
In fact, if you design the game with the idea that this isn’t going to happen, but fail to ensure it is impossible, one of two things will probably occur:
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Doing so anyway will make the game a cakewalk, or
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Doing so anyway will make the game frustratingly difficult; possibly even literally impossible (e.g. you create a required boss that is only harmed by magic, someone creates an all-warrior party, they’re BORKED).
I don’t remember that question, but I do remember her asking what it was that she was holding when you first meet her, which is the Gate Key.
Ah. I believe you are correct. I guess I don’t remember exactly what he asked, but he did ask a question, and the answer didn’t appear to do anything.
Yea, people might be able to think up new ideas, but I will specifically not allow such blatant exploitsive things. And the fact they made such an item with hemlock as a somewhat common items means the company obviously thought of it.
Also part of the way to counter this is to have bosses level up as your party does or have some other leveling up system.
Well, many times it will be. Only in the later games will it matter. However i do not like games with purely linear plotlines and only one ending possible, or one true ending (i also don’t like games that have default romance as i ususally don’t like the choice of character).
Our opinions are identical. Why am I not suprised?
Here is an idea: if you die, you are transported to an alternate dimention to another you that hasn’t died yet in the coming battle.
Final Fantasy VIII tried that. Monsters levelled up with you. Apparently, it didn’t work.
I think The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion also used that system and it DOES NOT work. Or they weren’t implimented well enough because I can envision the same system that does work. How? I don’t know I just think it’s a good system but has been poorly implimented in the pass.
Monsters = yes, bosses = no.
Actually i want to have a monster eco-system, but not for this game. Lunar uses boss leveling system and it does work well. FF7 also used a similiar, albeit not quite a pure leveling system for Sephrioth.
Actually what i’d like to do is a combination of level, time, battles, #sidequests completed and their success, maybe your euupment rating as well. It sounds complex and it is, but its mostly just assigning variables to things a a forumala for bosses. I also want bosses to get new techniques the higher powered they are, well some of them.
Enemies that level up with you have always annoyed me. Mostly because it’s always implemented in odd ways.
In Oblivion, it is the source of several annoying problems related to a) keeping important NPCs alive, and b) breaking the game by staying level 1, but getting access to custom spell creation.