Why RPGS?

My game only has RPG elements (e.g. stats to try and improve the replay value); RPG purists would shriek and throw their 3rd edition AD&D manuals at it. My last two RPG-ish games (CSRPG/CSRPG2) were either unfinished or very short. I've more or less learned my lesson about content. [wink]

RPGs are some of the more immersive games in the commercial gaming space; Oblivion latches onto my brain and makes me want to play it in a way that something more indie-achievable, like Shi Sen (which is also absoludicrously badass) does not.

My next game is probably going to be significantly less content-powered, because writing the tools and all of the work to make content easier to build is a pain.

RPGs are viable for indies to make; just don't end up like the guy who made that enormous RPG over seven years for the Tapwave and Palm and then got to watch the Tapwave market collapse and everyone die. The game is fine gamemakers' art, but it looks very dated and was only originally available for some very poor platform choices (as the market shifted very quickly away from Palms to other PDA types for gaming).

I think a good RPG engine backed with free episodic content and micropayments for some modules would actually be relatively profitable -- think NWN with some for-pay episodes. That way you can cut it off as soon as you get sick of it or people stop buying into it. Spiderweb Software's doing pretty well with their indie RPGs, though I think their star is fading after so many sequels and aged engines.

Last, some of my favourite games are RPGs: Taskmaker/Tomb of the Taskmaker (which CSRPG is an obvious ripoff of), Daggerfall/Morrowind/Oblivion, Ultima VII. It is a huge trap and I often have to force myself away from doing a "giant" game with an overarching storyline. I have at least two or three entire RPGs stuck in my head, but I'll be damned if I'm ever going to spend the effort to make them!

id just like to comment i enjoyed castle of the winds a lot more than many newer rpg games

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Original post by Ravuya My game only has RPG elements (e.g. stats to try and improve the replay value); RPG purists would shriek and throw their 3rd edition AD&D manuals at it.

(Side rant, off topic)

That's why I hate the term RPG :) Role Playing? You play a role in Mario! AD&D is a stat-driven rules system that is best integrated into action and strategy games. In Final Fantasy you don't even play a role, you control a group of characters who each have a predetermined role in a story.

Anyway, my point with this off topic rant is to say that RPG purists can suck it. If it was good for your gameplay, then good for you! :)

(End off topic rant)

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Original post by Kaze id just like to comment i enjoyed castle of the winds a lot more than many newer rpg games

That game was alot of fun :)

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Original post by Ravuya [...]RPG purists would shriek and throw their 3rd edition AD&D manuals at it.[...]

Of course they'd throw their AD&D manuals - they certainly wouldn't want to throw away any of their RPG supplies =-P

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Original post by Extrarius Quote: Original post by Ravuya [...]RPG purists would shriek and throw their 3rd edition AD&D manuals at it.[...] Of course they'd throw their AD&D manuals - they certainly wouldn't want to throw away any of their RPG books =-P

I always enjoy it when a reader picks up one of my less obvious jokes. Help yourself to a gold star.

I'd make a Xbox360 Shadowrun joke here, but it'd be like beating a clown.

The first RPGs (actually I can't provide an RPG example, but I can give games like Wolfenstein 3D and Biomenace as an example but there probably were RPGs in those days too), weren't made with huge teams and budgets at all, only with a few people, 1 programmer, 1 level designer, a few graphics artists, and that's almost it.

And those games weren't any worse than modern games, I'd even say that some were better.

So why can't a beginning developer try to make an RPG game? Make a tile engine, make NPC interaction and a little quest, that's very possible, even if it won't be near a commercial game.

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Original post by Lode So why can't a beginning developer try to make an RPG game? Make a tile engine, make NPC interaction and a little quest, that's very possible, even if it won't be near a commercial game.

Of course it's possible, but his point is that perhaps you shouldn't, because there's wads of content to it (100+ hour gameplay times anyone?) and it's a crowded "market".

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Original post by Ravuya Quote: Original post by Lode So why can't a beginning developer try to make an RPG game? Make a tile engine, make NPC interaction and a little quest, that's very possible, even if it won't be near a commercial game. Of course it's possible, but his point is that perhaps you shouldn't, because there's wads of content to it (100+ hour gameplay times anyone?) and it's a crowded "market".

Honestly, how many games have 100+ hours of true content. I'm not talking filler (like pure grinding). Actual, real, content.

IE: Cheat to give your character max skills & stats in everything, and watch how that Final Fantasy style game turns from a 100 hour game into 2 hours.


Anyways, back on topic, why RPGs? Because that's the fad right now. When I first joined GameDev in 2000, and when I was visiting its predecessor, the usual topic wasn't "I need help making the next big RPG", rather, "I need help making the next Quake/Unreal Tournament". And sometimes its good to let people fail on their own, and come up with ideas that are better suited to what they want.

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Original post by Nytegard And sometimes its good to let people fail on their own, and come up with ideas that are better suited to what they want.

Oh yes, of course. I believe that JBourrie was getting tired of seeing all the RPG projects kicking around. I know a few very qualified and talented developers who have had their tiny spirits crushed by not being able to produce the reams of content an average RPG would want.

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Original post by Ravuya Quote: Original post by Lode So why can't a beginning developer try to make an RPG game? Make a tile engine, make NPC interaction and a little quest, that's very possible, even if it won't be near a commercial game. Of course it's possible, but his point is that perhaps you shouldn't, because there's wads of content to it (100+ hour gameplay times anyone?) and it's a crowded "market".

That was my point exactly. My quote: "Most new developers' idea of an RPG is influenced by Final Fantasy or Baldurs Gate or Ultima." The pitches that I tend to see are more influenced by these games, and less by the smaller games (the first Ultima games, Castle of the Winds, Hydlide, etc.

Procedural/Generative content could be a great way for small teams to get the "role playing" feel without the content, Diablo as a good example. Interactive Storytelling (even simple versions) could be a great replacement for the massive stories requiring hours of animations and cut scenes to create. But if you just try to do Final Fantasy without the resources, you get a half-assed game that can't compete in an overcrowded market.

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Anyways, back on topic, why RPGs? Because that's the fad right now. When I first joined GameDev in 2000, and when I was visiting its predecessor, the usual topic wasn't "I need help making the next big RPG", rather, "I need help making the next Quake/Unreal Tournament". And sometimes its good to let people fail on their own, and come up with ideas that are better suited to what they want.

The way I look at it, though, indies would make much more progress if they could learn from the mistakes of the past instead of repeating them. So I feel obligated to share the (few) experiences that I've had to try and get people on a better track to success.

Even the first Ultima games were huge. I remember spending weeks exploring the countryside of Ultima III and hoping that I wouldn't die terribly. I could probably build a game of similar scale if it were my full time job, but my ADHD would kick in and I'd end up making a game with a very small map.

I suppose I got lucky, as Taskmaker and Tomb of the Taskmaker were relatively small games to draw inspiration from (shareware, 16 hours to play through more or less, relatively small but insanely detailed world).

Perhaps that's the key -- to make a small world but one with deep amounts of interactivity. Taskmaker was an independently built game to start with and featured not only Ultima-style "friends of the developer" NPCs but probably thousands of secrets in every possible configuration. When I was younger playing it for the first time, I remember spending about five hours a day for a solid week just exploring the first castle you come across, trying to dig up/steal/find all of the hidden treasures and easter eggs and steal a boat, before even embarking on a quest.

This "small world, deep complexity" is the policy I believe you implemented in Rumble Box, come to think of it.

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Original post by Ravuya Oh yes, of course. I believe that JBourrie was getting tired of seeing all the RPG projects kicking around. I know a few very qualified and talented developers who have had their tiny spirits crushed by not being able to produce the reams of content an average RPG would want.

Well, it's unrealistic to even expect to succeed making a simple puzzle. The person who created the Exile & Avernum series, he once made a very long post on the comp.sys...rpg newsgroup about what it took to succeed. The main thing I remember was him stating that it wasn't the ability to create a good game (that definately didn't hurt though), but the ability to market it to your target audience.

I think the first questions people ask when creating a game shouldn't be what type of game will I be creating, be it an RPG, or whatever, rather, who am I creating a game for, and why am I creating it. If it's for yourself, who cares if it's the absolute worst RPG out there if your satisfied with results. Like most people here, I have 8 gazillion unfinished projects, but I'm proud about most of them, because I've learned something from most of them. Some have been RPGs, some haven't. And usually if I ever release anything for the public to see, I have a very specific audience I'm targetting.

i believe any really content driven game can be made by a semi-small team of experienced people. too many noobs (man i hate that word but i have no ther word to use) try to create content involved, in depth games for thier first try! so of course this is going to fail. however if you look at experienced graphic artist and programmers, they can get a lot done in a short amount of time if they're dedicated.
i would say the problem has more to do with the teams than the game they're trying to make.
the only exception is for mmorpg's... they're an exception due to thier generally insane scale of thier worlds and thier type of world exploration.

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Perhaps that's the key -- to make a small world but one with deep amounts of interactivity.

Exactly what I'm talking about. That's why I brought up Interactive Storytelling, which is one way to add a huge amount of depth without the necessary resources to do a huge complex story. Procedural content will give you the replayability and size without the need for a level/art team.

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This "small world, deep complexity" is the policy I believe you implemented in Rumble Box, come to think of it.

It's how I approach all of my games. Even if I had a huge budget, I'd be aiming at a streamlined experience, because I just feel that a tightly balanced game is much more enjoyable than a huge sprawling mess.

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Well, it's unrealistic to even expect to succeed making a simple puzzle.

Well that's a pessimistic way to look at things :( (Yeah, I know what you're talking about, and sadly you are somewhat right)

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I think the first questions people ask when creating a game shouldn't be what type of game will I be creating, be it an RPG, or whatever, rather, who am I creating a game for, and why am I creating it. If it's for yourself, who cares if it's the absolute worst RPG out there if your satisfied with results. Like most people here, I have 8 gazillion unfinished projects, but I'm proud about most of them, because I've learned something from most of them. Some have been RPGs, some haven't. And usually if I ever release anything for the public to see, I have a very specific audience I'm targetting.

True, and sometimes I see people who straight-up say it's just for a learning/fun experience. But too often I see new developers decide to do a heavily content-driven game and be absolutely convinced that it's going to be saleable.

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Original post by JBourrie Quote: This "small world, deep complexity" is the policy I believe you implemented in Rumble Box, come to think of it. It's how I approach all of my games. Even if I had a huge budget, I'd be aiming at a streamlined experience, because I just feel that a tightly balanced game is much more enjoyable than a huge sprawling mess.

This is the lesson I've more or less discovered with my current game -- it has a wealth of complex options and strategies and I'm still writing lots of code to take care of every dependency. I'm going to have to look at my ideas with a more critical eye from now on; try to build something smaller scale but with more 'whole' gameplay.

one of my favorite RPGs of all time has to be the Quest for Glory series. Not a hardcore RPG but to me it captures a great blend of Adventure, Storytelling, and stats to create a compelling gameplay experience.

I've toyed with the idea of a episodic (internet-based delivery) game in the spirit of Quest for Glory for years... It ranks right up there with an episodic Perry Mason-esque game.

But those aren't one-man-team projects. The ammount of art/story/scripting would be staggering for each episode, unless they were very-very small episodes. Even then, it would be a major undertaking.

You would realistically need one team making episodes, and another maintaining and updating the engine. Each team would progress almost independant of each other. The engine team would implement new features, and keep the engine looking good, the other would keep cranking out content.

It would be a never-ending development cycle... In other words: Hell.

Another problem with an episodic RPG type game would be scaling the quests/episodes to different skill levels.

Ultima VII has to be my favourite rpg (most favourite game, even!) and yet it's a very strange animal. It appears to break all the rules, and yet it still works. Combat isn't that good. Inventory management is a nightmare. It isn't very stat heavy, so the levelling up motivation that most rpgs have isn't really a driving factor. Make a game like this these days, and critics will be all over it, condemning it as a bad idea.

But what works for me (and is something that makes me keep playing rpgs, hoping for a semblance of what Ultima VII had), is the immersiveness. The game world wasn't very big, and yet it feels massive. You feel as if you are actually a small entity on a very big continent. The fact that you could walk from Trinsic to Britain in a couple of minutes didn't seem to detract from this somehow. I think the continuously seamless land tiling helped give this feeling. You got no "loading area" messages which would break the illusion.

Also, the interactiveness of the environment. The mundane fact that you could collect water and roll flour and make bread. You could pinch the cannon from the castle and blow someone's door down. But finally, the NPCs. Very rarely do you see in an rpg a game that is populated by individual characters. You don't get the generic "villager" with the same generic responses. They have their own lives. And their own schedules.

So what I am getting at in this long discourse is - an rpg for me, doesn't appear to be about levelling up, or even about combat. It is about immersiveness and a fully realised game world that you can lose yourself in.

However, that same feeling could therefore be given by an adventure game. Which is apparently true, because two other favourite games of mine are Omikron: The Nomad Soul, and Outcast both 3rd person adventure games (with perhaps very minor rpg elements).

So the lesson learned for me here is that an rpg doesn't have to be about stats or even have addictive combat. It's about the epic feel. The immersiveness. The storyline. And realistic characters with whom you can engage with and sympathise with.

And another favourite rpg of mine are the Fallout games. Which are very stat heavy and the combat is addictive as anything I've ever come across. But it does have an immersive game world and the storyline and the characters. So it would appear, by my definition, Fallout 1 and 2 are the perfect rpgs.

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Original post by JBourrie So I'm posting this for two reasons: one, am I wrong? Are RPGs and other content driven games a viable option for indies?

Well, I suppose one point in their favor is that they can technically be pretty simple to make. (Assuming you dont want Oblivion-graphics, of course.)
You can do simple turnbased gameplay, with 2d sprites and so on. Doesn't have to be very challenging for the programmer(s).
Of course, what people tend to forget is that this is compensated for by requiring a *ton* of content, like you said.
but hey, if you have a team of 6 storywriters, but only one part-time programmer, it might make sense to make a simple RPG... [wink]

I love RPGs too, both the Western "interactive" games and the Eastern/Japanese story-on-a-rail variety. I'm not entirely sure why - there's something about the combination of story, character, art etc. that draws me in.

However, I do agree that it's a huge trap to start a mega-RPG as an indie project. The problem hinges on the 40 plus hour game time and the need to fill that with different content. Not only does that require huge content creation resources, it's also a mammoth task to test.

But I do think that RPGs can be a viable game idea for a small group, as long as it isn't in the same vein as Final Fantasy or Morrowind. And of course, there's variety hybrids or cousins (such as interactive fiction) that are feasible as well.