StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

2. Yea, I wanna be evil sometimes. Or I want to focus on ripping people off in a good-natured way. More variety in attitude and outcome! Will I slay the evil overlord and restore good? Or will I steal his power? Or maybe I'll just be his underling.

3. Property. Yea, I have cool equipment, but I want more! A home, where I can admire the picture of the huge Troll I slew. Or maybe I'll upgrade it into a castle, grow a town around it. Why not?

4. Full. Frontal. Nudity. I think we all see the advantage there.

Most of these are possible in RPGMaker. Maybe I'll add them in Final Flameware: Revenge Of The Trollking. But I wish I could put them in a commercial RPG.

Morrowind and expanisions should make you a happy camper .

...but no nudity

Ghost Rider wrote:Morrowind and expanisions should make you a happy camper .

...but no nudity

Don't be ridiculous.

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

Fallout had this - when you gained a level it let you spend points on various things. Certain sidequests in Fallout 2 let you boost your basic stats as well.

2. Yea, I wanna be evil sometimes. Or I want to focus on ripping people off in a good-natured way. More variety in attitude and outcome! Will I slay the evil overlord and restore good? Or will I steal his power? Or maybe I'll just be his underling.

Fallout 2 was supposed to have an Evil Ending, I hear, but Interplay released the game before it was fully finished

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

Sangband, SCthangband and ToME all do this.

2. Yea, I wanna be evil sometimes. Or I want to focus on ripping people off in a good-natured way. More variety in attitude and outcome! Will I slay the evil overlord and restore good? Or will I steal his power? Or maybe I'll just be his underling.

Adom lets you replace Andor Drakon as the Ultimate Chaos God in one of the alternate endings.

4. Full. Frontal. Nudity. I think we all see the advantage there.

Most of these are possible in RPGMaker. Maybe I'll add them in Final Flameware: Revenge Of The Trollking. But I wish I could put them in a commercial RPG.

In Adom there are actual game effects to being completely nude.

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

L5R 2ed has this kinda. It's a PnP RPG by Alderac.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

Xenosaga has this also; in addition to a regular leveling-up system, you also receive skill points, tech points, and ether points, which you use for various purposes.

ARcanum has a lot of what you're looking for.

But-

I, and now, I guess you will be too, shall be desperately awaiting Fable.

X-Box "only", but it was originally shown as a PC game.

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

2. Yea, I wanna be evil sometimes. Or I want to focus on ripping people off in a good-natured way. More variety in attitude and outcome! Will I slay the evil overlord and restore good? Or will I steal his power? Or maybe I'll just be his underling.

3. Property. Yea, I have cool equipment, but I want more! A home, where I can admire the picture of the huge Troll I slew. Or maybe I'll upgrade it into a castle, grow a town around it. Why not?

4. Full. Frontal. Nudity. I think we all see the advantage there.

Most of these are possible in RPGMaker. Maybe I'll add them in Final Flameware: Revenge Of The Trollking. But I wish I could put them in a commercial RPG.

You just described Daggerfall.

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels? Build up points, spend them on more strength, more hitpoints, or a new spell. Offer different paths, or combine them as you want. Hell, you could even tempt a player to the Dark Side by offering potent powers and training for low cost, but damming them to a life of evil and distrust.

Final Fantasy 2 did this. I hated the game for it. Ofcourse it was a really basic version of what you were thinking.

2. Yea, I wanna be evil sometimes. Or I want to focus on ripping people off in a good-natured way. More variety in attitude and outcome! Will I slay the evil overlord and restore good? Or will I steal his power? Or maybe I'll just be his underling.

Grand Theft Auto 4?

3. Property. Yea, I have cool equipment, but I want more! A home, where I can admire the picture of the huge Troll I slew. Or maybe I'll upgrade it into a castle, grow a town around it. Why not?

Didn't Dark Cloud or something do this? I know the new Ultima Online is going heavy on that angle though.

4. Full. Frontal. Nudity. I think we all see the advantage there.

I think that you'll have to wait til Final Fanatasy 30(note that the Final Fantasy series alwasys uses roman numerals)

Arcanum has the first two. Excellant damn game.

SirNitram wrote:3. Property. Yea, I have cool equipment, but I want more! A home, where I can admire the picture of the huge Troll I slew. Or maybe I'll upgrade it into a castle, grow a town around it. Why not?

Skies of Arcadia and SOA: Legends...

Here's what I would put in a console (FF, etc) -style RPG...

Characters

Characters start out with perferred elements, traits, stats and a skill tree.

Preferred elements affects your starting and max resistances to certain things, your spell set and the strength of an elemental-based spell/skill.

Traits more or less stay with a character and properly wouldn't be changed much. A character might be hunter and thus gets an automatic bonus against any creature. A character may have a fallen loved one that follows around and occasinally casts an extra spell in battle. Et cetera.

Stats more or less are what you think.

The skill tree is what I would put in place instead of levels. It's easier to tell by example. (For clarification - a stance is not an active skill by itself, but a passive, changable thing that describes the footwork, mindset, etc of the user. Certain stances are good for certain situations.)

example 1 :

large, physically intimidating barbarian type. Primary Element Fire with a Minor in Earth.

Starts out with a Neutral Stance, which doesn't really offer anything interesting in advantages or disadvantages. In terms of stat growth it's even.

He gets to use the Bear Stance if he meets the following requirements : level 5, 50 strength, 50 consistution. It's a powerful stance that relies on the user's height and power to overwhelm enemies with crushing blows. It's espically good with axes and hammers. Using this form ups the rate of strength and stamina gain, lowers the rate of mental growth. There is also a higher chance in using this to spontaneously become bezerk. By using this Stance often, you get levels in it, which increase it's effectiveness and lower it's downsides.

Or, at level 7 with 55 strength, 65 agility and 70 speed he can use the Spin Strike, a stamina-draining attack that is done by leaping forward and using the spinning motion of your body to enhance the blow. It's best done with large swords or axes, and rather ineffective with spears.

At oh, level 10 with 75 strength, 90 agility and 80 speed and assuming he has the Spin Strike at a decent level, he can start using the odd-form the Tornado Dance. This is an extremely fast, but draining stance that involves the attacker spinning into the group of enemies. It's nearly impossible to think while using this, so any spell cast in this stance would probably be greatly reduced in power and stat growth for mental ability would be low using this. However, attacks in this form come at higher power and can do multiple enemies although at a lower hit rate. It enhances damage done by slashing and perhaps bludgeon but not really any other types. It also increases the evade rate but lowers defense slightly. Because it relies strongly on recycling angular momentum, the power of the attacks is effected by the speed stat and the strength stat in this case increases the evade rate, etc. As the name also suggests wind-type skills are enhanced by this stance. He gets to learn a few attacks that go well with the Tornado Dance as he gets better with it.

If he ups his mental stats enough in a way that most people wouldn't bother, he gets to learn the Heaven's Wheel Stance, which is an even better version of the Tornado Dance. A little bit slower than the Tornado Dance, it's much more graceful and offers an even better hit rate. In this stance, fire-based skills are enhanced.

example 2 :

more thoughtful and collected warrior that perfers spears, with a powerful Triple Element of Lightning, Ice, and Dark (or possibly Light).

Skill - Hyperfocus. Focus on one enemy to the exclusion of the others. Damage, Hit, Defense and Evade are enhanced when moves are directed against the said foe but attacks to and from others are worsened. Only way to wear this off is for you or the enemy to die.

Leaf Step Stance - A tricky stance that has the user stay on his toes, increasing evade by a respectible amount. Requires speed and agility to pull off, and enhances their stat growth. Attack power is slightly lowered. Footwork is deceptively lazy=looking, like a falling leaf.

Falling Rock Stance - The opposite of the Leaf Step, here the feet are firmly planted on the ground and the legs are used to provide a bit of extra power to the attack.

Falling Rock (Defensive) - A short subset of the Falling Rock Stance, here the block/redirection is increased. Used to buy time for the other players. Mental Stat growth is enhanced.

Overhand Thrust - A powerful overhand thrust. Requires strength to pull off, and a decent level in both Leaf Step and Falling Rock.

Icicle Strike - A more powerful version of the overhand thrust. Freeezing the tip of the spear enhances damaged caused in both piercing type damage and freezing type. This skill is a prerequistite to learning other cold-based skills.

Small Cloud - Requires decent levels in Leaf Step and Icicle Strike, as well as good dexterity. Create a small cloud by freezing the moisture in the air. The cloud can temporarially confuse enemies or slightly defuse fire and lightning attacks. Dissapates quickly. Not very useful by itself, but can open up options for a Storm skill (given a Wizardry or Fury Seed) or an Illusion skill (given a Ninja or an Artistic Seed).

Charge - Requires some levels in Falling Rock (Defensive), Strength and Intelligence. Use a turn charging up static electricity in your weapon, which can be later be released on it's own, in a spell or more often than not enhancing the damage done by the weapon. Obviously, a prerequistite to alot of lightning-based skills.

and so on and so forth. You would also be able to learn other people's selected skills if they're skilled enough in it - I supposed that at a high enough level certain branches of the skill tree would bear discrete 'seeds' which can be permanantly put into another character's skill tree in certain slots - such as giving a fighter a White Magic Seed can give him the ability to cast lower level curative spells. There would chances to completely change a character around with the right seeds. Let's say you have a washed-out old drunk in your party that doesn't seem to do anything. You gather hints (or read a hint guide) and in his slots put in the the Courage, Leadership, and Will seeds into them. He then transforms from a drunkard into a once-famous general, with greatly boosted stats and drastically changed options on the skill tree.

Battles

I would use a system like in Grandia II - Active Time Battles/Turn Based, and the characters actually run around on the screen in a horizontal plane. I also like the system in the SaGa series with formations and multitechs, although I'm not too sure how to combine the two. I haven't thought about this as much as the character development system....

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels?

Ah, a nice idea, like in Quest for Glory series, where your statictics raise incrementally with training and experience instead of levels. I always though it is a more realistic way to role-play than levels.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

SirNitram wrote:Or, what I would do if I could make a commercial RPG.

1. Nonlinear advancement. Why not allow yourself to train, instead of levels?

Ah, a nice idea, like in Quest for Glory series, where your statictics raise incrementally with training and experience instead of levels. I always though it is a more realistic way to role-play than levels.

Damn, but I loved Quest for Glory...though I never really was that effective as a thief. I had to be the Fighter or Mage.