Think of some gameplay gimmicks or tricks you'd like to see.

[Fabricated]

In any genre. Just something you'd like to see done in a game for the sake of originality, fun, or just surprising the hell out of the player.

Something I've always wanted to see in an RPG is the game culminating in a mono-a-mono swordfight. I'm not talking in the cheesy just-for-show asswhooping FF7 endgame, I mean a real swordfight.

Your 31337 supa ultimate equipment means nothing, your arsenal of magic is gone, no HP meters, no summons, no stats, no items, no saves. You beat the "final" nasty with your party in the traditional FF sense, and then it comes down to a Bushido Blade style duel between you and the villain. Don't even mention MGS2, because it was something of an action game to begin with. :P

Something like that would just be awesome beyond all belief, and a complete kick in the pants to people who play RPGs like DND munchkins, since it comes down to pure skill in the end.

[Lost in Time]

Do you mean like a turn based sword fight, or a X = horizontal slash like fight?

[Forever Zero]

If he means turn-based, look no further than the Suikoden series. Otherwise, I'm not sure if any RPGs have done that before.

Ironically, the gameplay gimmicks I could think of are mostly covered by Fable, like getting tattoos, how you act effects appearence, not getting proper healing causes scars, learnign weapons and all, ect. The only other gimmick I can think of would be make all of that a MMORPG without a montly fee (never going to happen...) and add in an element where you can take over towns and stuff an rule from a strategic perspective, slowly conquering a village and having a guard made of villagers with pitchforks, to being a major trade capital with a massive castle, advanced technological objects like airships and Magitek Armor (Yup, I'm a FFVI fan), and teh ability to lead you armies to war and conquer other cities and nations from a cross between Dynasty Warriors and a turn based battle system, ie normally it is DW and you fight in the trenches with your troops, but if you pause you can give new orders to your generals, prepare tricks, traps, and ploys, and other things of that nature.

I think the game would end up mixing Fable, Dynasty Warriors, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Seven Kingdoms II (an oldy but a goody), Dungeon Keeper (If you wanted to be evil, you could build your own dungeon and hire/lure creatures in to join you, build traps, etc.), and Stronghold, and it needs multiplayer. It would be as complex as heck, but I would still love it...

[Fabricated]

Do you mean like a turn based sword fight, or a X = horizontal slash like fight?
Something like the X=Horizontal Slash type fight. Basically, like Bushido Blade. Body specific damage, one hit to anything important and you're done. Parrying, stances, staredowns, etc. etc.

[Bezo]

I'd like to see an RPG where instead of a good night's sleep at the inn, there's a percentage chance (like 5% or 10%) that you'll have to fight a nightmare boss fight.

If you lose (which is likely), nothing happens; it was just a nightmare. But if you win, you get to keep the spoils. :D

[Lost in Time]

Yeah thats a nice idea.

Drat, can't think of anything right now.... *poot*
Ya know, it would be cool if you could have like a karoke RPG. (what i mean by that is like you could use your mic to have your a voice as the main characters voice.) it would be nice at first, but then it would get old. That'll be an optional idea. Woo post 300. Thats my idea of the day.

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

something that i always wanted to see, but figured was impossible, was a 2nd person view game. 2nd person, of course, is where there is another character in the story that you see everything from. its hard enough to write, and i figured it wouldnt be any easier to do in a video game.

suprize surprize, theres a sequence in Jak II where you're being chased by a security tank, and you watch yourself run around from the tank's perspective as it tries to shoot you.

[Bezo]

Well, I've always thought it'd be cool to play an RPG where you are the villain. :D

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

isnt that the idea behind that Dungeon Master (or was it Dungeon Keeper?) game? you're a evil lord of some kind and you design a death trap of a dungeon to kill off the heros with?

[Dante]

It's not an RPG, it's a strategy game.

But it would be sooo cool to be an RPG villain - your life becomes missions where you do short-term 3biL or do set-ups for long-term 3biL!

Would be cool, especially the succubus slave part.

[Truce]

How about, during an FMV, you can press buttons to activate a different sequence, like a hidden ending or special feature?

I'll use FF7 as an example.
When Aeris was about to be killed, if you pressed a certain button combination Cloud or Aeris would stop Sephiroth in the FMV. That would be cool! I think.

[Priest4hire]

Dungeon Keeper isn't really a RPG though. Wizardry 4 though did have you playing as Werdna, the arch-villian of the Wizardry series.

Anyway, one thing I'd like to see would be characters in a RPG actually fencing. And the weapon hits modeled based on weapon characteristics, force of impact, direction of impact, armor and other such factors. So that unlike KotOR, in this game the characters wouldn't just go though canned movements while rolls determine hits, but would instead actually fence with the blows that get through doing damage.

To get it fast enough the game would probably have to use indirect control. I imagine a control scheme where you can influence the tactics and movement of your hero in real-time, but he picks the actual implemention. For example, if you were fighting and pushed away from the opponent on the stick, the hero would do a tactical retreat until he decided it was safe to turn and run.

This would make armor act like real armor, and make weapon characteristics more important.

[Dante]

KOTOR simulated this pretty well... different attack animations depending on your attack modes...

Well, another thing I'd like to see are highl;y detailed NPCs (I mean as in the ultimate in character interactions... you can spend 20% of the game just talking to the NPCs... like PST)

[Priest4hire]

One cool idea that was/is supposed to be a feature of Xavier Fox (should the game ever materialize) was the ability to alter your character's mood during conversations and cutscenes, and thus alter their outcome. Being able to change the mood of youir character and having that in turn affect how he reacts is quite neat.

I'd like to see another attempt at the Ultima style inventory. (Where objects take up space and have mass) Somewhere down the road it would even be nice if characters could actually carry all the stuff they cart around. Weapons in sheaths or hanging from loops, items in pouches or packs, armor and clothes all acounted for and so on.

Something else that just came to mind are ships. Sailing ship with cannons. I remember how cool it was in Ultima 5 to have a ship complete with longboat for exploring rivers and going ashore. Having full on ship to ship battles would be cool, especially fighting melee from ship to ship while grapeshot and canonballs hurtle around you. Or imagine capturing your first ship: Ambushing a pirate ship's longboat then using that boat to slip aboard the ship itself and capture it. They'd have to be fairly small ships, but that's just fine.

One last idea: An enemy that acutally hunts you down. So that they might be waiting in every town or attack you when you're resting at an inn. Not preset either, but running some kind of actual hunting program that takes into account your actions and how easy you are to find. Try and really give the player a sense that he's just a small force who has to constantly run and hide from his vastly superior foe.

[Fabricated]

Anyway, one thing I'd like to see would be characters in a RPG actually fencing.

Play the original Bushido Blade. It's about as realistic as you can get, you can even get a first-person viewpoint for even more realism. Weapons bounce off eachother, there's multiple stances and attacks (for every weapon), bodily damage his handled nicely (take a solid hit to an arm and it becomes useless, get hit in the leg and you limp or have to fight kneeling, lose BOTH legs and you have to fight on the ground, a solid hit to the chest or head is gameover).

You even have to follow the code of the Bushido. No dishonorable attacks, no killing your opponent during his opening speech. Do so in single player and the game ends.

The second Bushido Blade controls and looks a bit better but the fighting system is slightly dumbed down and more arcade-like in damage to prevent the sometimes 1-2 second swordfights from the original.

[BMHadoken]

I'd like a platformer that lives and works around my actions...like in Ratchet and Clank, if I go through an abandoned plant and clear out all the bio-engineered freaks and restore the power, I want to come back and see the local population rebuilding and thanking me for stuff...and I want to destroy more stuff in the enviroment for no reason...

[Futae No Kiwami]

I'd like an MMORPG..where you can actually dictate your fighting style as opposed to picking a specific type of character and using the pre-determined attacks they get. That, and I'd like the fighting sequences in said MMORPGs to play alot different. Heres my idea for online RPG, that will more than likely never happen, but its something to shoot for. You start off making your character, what they do is give you a well drawn 2D sprite for fights, and more simplistic looking 2D sprite for walking(it'd be 2D/3D ala Ragnarok Online). You can customize the clothes your character wears at anytime, but basically you change clothes on a basic 2D sprite. Customize the hair, ect. After that, you go into a technique selector type of thing(Im not sure how a company would make this work..)...but you select around 5-7 techniques, and maybe a few base animations for things such as blocking or falling...and you set out. The only thing I haven't figured out is how you'd deal with multiple enemies at once...but the basic concept is when you choose to fight someone, or say an enemy, you'd go into a 2D fighting game type of thing(the game would be better off being on PS2)...and thats how fighting is done. At the end you divy up your EXP, and say at every set amount of levels you get to learn more techniques..maybe you could actually train under people to learn other techniques if you'd like.

As long as they'd keep the fighting system balanced it'd be fine. It needs kinks worked out in some places, but I think it'd work out quite alright. Especially seeing as it'd be an innovation on those things..

the only thing that would be better if you could design your own techniques like THUG's create-a-trick where they give you base moves and such.

some feedback?

[Priest4hire]

Play the original Bushido Blade. It's about as realistic as you can get, you can even get a first-person viewpoint for even more realism. Weapons bounce off eachother, there's multiple stances and attacks (for every weapon), bodily damage his handled nicely (take a solid hit to an arm and it becomes useless, get hit in the leg and you limp or have to fight kneeling, lose BOTH legs and you have to fight on the ground, a solid hit to the chest or head is gameover).

You even have to follow the code of the Bushido. No dishonorable attacks, no killing your opponent during his opening speech. Do so in single player and the game ends.

The second Bushido Blade controls and looks a bit better but the fighting system is slightly dumbed down and more arcade-like in damage to prevent the sometimes 1-2 second swordfights from the original.

I've played both Bushido Blades. I remember the really short fights. I had a knack for ending a fight real quick like with a thrust of my long sword to the opponents head. It was the closest thing to a sword fighting sim I've seen. With the three stances and the whole methodical approach you needed to take, along with the lethality of the weapons. When I played Bushide Blade I thought that was exactly what I wanted in a RPG. Not necessarily with the fighter controls. But it should look more like that.

On the other hand the western swords were way, way off. A rapier that's shorter than a katana? Even if it's a smallsword misidentified as a rapier it's still awefully short. The long sword is also shorter than the katana, as well as being lighter. And then there's the Conan inspired 'broad sword' that's also shorter than a katana and it weighs some 10 pounds! As a sword it would be useless. The thing is that western blades tend to be longer. Hell, even Silver's short sword was longer than any one of those western blades.

As a sword fighting sim there isn't enough footwork or voiding. The timing that's so important to sword fighting isn't really represented. Also with the light weapons you'd expect a parry/riposte approach which isn't really possible in a fighting game. On the other hand you can't get the flashy swordfighting like movies have either, since the player's wouldn't be quick enough.

That's why I liked the idea of indirect control. The sword fighting would actually be a result of you and the enemy communicating behind the scenes. What I mean is that the game would be constantly figuring out how you and your opponent are doing, Then when your character picks an attack the enemy picks a defense based on the balance between the two of you. So that if you've overwhelmed him he'd end up picking a defense that ends with him losing his head. That would all be mechanics of course. The player wouldn't be made aware of that communication. It should look like a fast swordfight with the enemy being defeated in some cool fasion. Like Aragorn taking out the Urukai at the end of Fellowship.

[ATIP]

I'd like an RPG battle system that's like a cross between FF and an action game. You select a command like magic or fight and after you select it then you and the moster go into a 10-20 second fighting game like fight if you select magic then you have to use magic if you use fight then you have to use fight. It would be complete w/ special moves and such.

[Priest4hire]

Oh, one more thing I'd like to see in a RPG: Ranged combat that actually resembles ranged combat. This shooting bows off when the enemy is within 20 feet deal really sucks. It would be really cool to be able to fire on an enemy at 100 yards from the top of a hill.

[Dante]

Operation Flashpoint did the trick for ranged combat. I can assure you that at 100 feet, everything is almost invisible unless they're silhouetted against something else.

Interesting feature: A game where you can do *anything*. IE I get off a plane, then hop into a tank, then crash it into an enemy base, then hack control of the security system to kill off everyone inside, then make my way to the control room to deploy an army of robotic death dealers, etc. etc. I think Operation Flashpoint succeeded with this to a limited degree, but the controls were far too complex for me.

[Priest4hire]

Operation Flashpoint did the trick for ranged combat. I can assure you that at 100 feet, everything is almost invisible unless they're silhouetted against something else.

Hell, FPS have had long range for a while Delta Force is quite a bit older than Flashpoint, and I fondly remember dropping bad guys at 500+ yards. But if I wanted a FPS I'd go play one. Besides, arrows are much more cool because you can see them. It would be very cool to go running down the hill and see the arrows of your archers sail overhead and slam into the enemies.

But invisible at a lousy 100 feet? Hardly. That's just about 40 strides or so. Hell, I remember when a MP ended some scum's killing spree by shooting him in the head from 70 yards (210 feet). Very long shot with a handgun. Archery is practiced up to at least 100 yards, which is 300 feet.

If anything 100 feet was really short. From the top of a tall hill overlooking a plain you could shoot at enemies from a lot farther than that. Certainly you could see them from even farther away.

[Dante]

Yeah, but spotting camouflaged targets against drab backgrounds isn't easy. Prone targets in light grassland are nearly invisible if they keep still enough and the wind is only slight. Then again, modern war is vastly different from medieval warfare, and I'm all into city-fighting mdoe anyways.

I know what you mean about arrows. Still love the intro scenes from Gladiator and LOTR which featured much arrow storm madness. Going over the top with a cavalry charge, barreling into a shattered line shortly after a black rain falls upon them...

Your MP was probably shooting in an urban environment, and the guyw as most likely not using cover, being on a killing spree and all. Anyone who knows cover and concealment most likely wouldn't go on a killing spree in the first place.

But I digress. Another thing I'd like to see - boarding actions in third or first person. For example, let's say you're a marine trooper aboard a three-master and you're assailed by pirates. You get to fire cannons into them, then grapple with their vessel and board them! Kind of like ROTK at sea, combined with weather, crazy bastards firng cannon, etc. Or you could do it for a space sim as well, boarding a vessel in power armor, plasma rifles blazing.

[Priest4hire]

Ohh, space ships. Yeah, that's something else that it's about time to see. A RPG where you have a space ship and can have ship to ship battles as well as boarding or being boarded. Oh, and don't forget beaming down to planets and other such places. Galactic charts and ship upgrades and ancient alien ruins oh my.

Another idea I always thought would be cool would be a game where you could start out as a basic grunt but then choose your path ending up in one of a whole slew of possible positions from sniper to pilot to operative to stratagist.

[Jagos]

doesn't Homeworld 2 come close to that?

[Dante]

doesn't Homeworld 2 come close to that?

HW2 is ship to ship. I want to experience space combat from a grunt's perspective, IE useing magnetic boots and jetpacks to traverse the cratered hull of a Star Destroyer, having a nearby fighter blast the windows in and slaughtering all bridge resistance as the hapless crew decompresses... although I can do without the fight for the reactor core, that would take weeks with all the damn bulkheads in the way.

[Jagos]

The ideas you all have are pretty similar to mine.

I just wish there was one set in the future that had land sea, (outer)space, and air connected...

Plasma grenades, pulse beams, plasma swords, you name it. that's for the grunts. But going up in rank you begin commanding the crew. "Thrusters at half power, shields at 150%"

And you actually have to enlist in your selected service. There's been kind of a mergiing of Air Force, with the Navy and Marines. But they get mad and point fingers too. You're on a mission as a future Army grunt to clean up the mess of the Marines. Using the current ranking system for the actual military, you go up as you survive. As you get older, some things deteriorate (say... endurance for you running to that next base) but some things get better with time (You become trusted by those at the top and take more difficult missions for an extra 10% commision on your pay. Yeah... the Army still sucks... :P)

[Priest4hire]

HW2 is ship to ship. I want to experience space combat from a grunt's perspective, IE useing magnetic boots and jetpacks to traverse the cratered hull of a Star Destroyer, having a nearby fighter blast the windows in and slaughtering all bridge resistance as the hapless crew decompresses... although I can do without the fight for the reactor core, that would take weeks with all the damn bulkheads in the way.

Yeah, the closest to that I can think of would be Space Hulk. SH is a Warhammer 40,000 game in which you control up to 4 space marines as they fight on enemy ships. The sequel allows you to control up to 10 marines. Both have a FPS view, the first has each marine having their own 3D view window, and the second allowing you to switch to any marine and control him FPS style.

But the genre has been really dry recently, and there are more ideas that could be used. Just like there used to be some spaceship flying RPGs like Planet's Edge, but they are all but extinct now.

[Dante]

I've heard of Space Hulk. Glory to the Emperor!

I always wondered exactly how chainswords were better than power swords, in any case...

If only they could retool KOTOR for a much more open-ended story, we could combine a lot of your ideas... the varied combat, the spaceship boarding, the ability to do many things... The Ebon hawk would be your armed longboat, and it would be great if there were a platformer style minigame where you had to go from one point to another and you could call the EH in to give fire support (HK-47: Exclamation: THIS IS WHAT I LIVE FOR, MEATBAGS!)

[Jagos]

or better yet, someone controls the ship while you got three guys firing. No scripts just the randomness that is war. One game you could lose two guys on the right side and make a decision that you have to go over to another gun and man it while more troops surround you and your ship. Another game you could have your ship blown up by some kinda RPG... Now that's what I'm talkin' about!!!

-edit- sentence didn't make sense...

[Jack of Spades]

I think there should be a game where it reads how loud you yell and curse at the charecters and that effects how they act.
ex: In FF7 if you constantly yell during Aeris' scenes it will make her dislike you. Or you could interrupt the enemy's long boring speech and get to the fight.

[Krylo]

I'd like to see a game where the battle abilities of your characters carries over into the story. No more of that "Oh no! We're surrounded by twenty guards, guess we'll give up!" or "We're vastly outnumbered, and being chased! Run!" when I know damn well I could kill twenty guards with one spell from one of the people in my current group... and just got down fighting one hundred of them in random battles. Every place you have something like that the game would let you choose between running or killing them, and have an alternate story arc for that part of the game if you manage to beat everything they try to capture you with. Like, in the Geblar base in Xenogears, near the beginning, if you could just fight off all the soldiers chasing you, and explore the base... and then it'd have a little cutscene showing the hallways all covered in blood (kinda like Elly's 'it wasn't me' scene) and Ramses cursing about it, and wondering who could have done that... and going crazy with his 'it's him' bit again, like he tends to do around Fei anyway. That kinda thing would be neat.

I'd also like to see one where you can be either a hero or an anti-hero, if you like. For instance, when the villain captures your love interest, instead of doing whatever he asks you could just tell him to kill her (ala the guys in the movies), and sometimes he would, sometimes he'd get pissed and throw her away and escape, depending on how well your character bluffs (maybe some kind of bluffing skill that you could raise in the game). Or when he says stop or I'll kill innocent x, you charge him anyway. You're still the hero, but you're also a bad guy, instead of the perfectly honorable tool they usually have you playing.

Basically, I'd just like to see much more open endedness on CRPGS.

[The Devil Himself]

I think one of the best ideas ever in an RPG would be that if you die, there's a small chance you'll go to Hell instead of getting a game over. And you can do stuff there.

[Futae No Kiwami]

...And no feedback on my ideas. Oh well.

[Fabricated]

Speaking of ship-to-ship combat and FPS melding, I think that this could definitely be done with today's gaming hardware, at least on PC. The problem is making two separate interfaces for very different aims.

For most game companys it's hard enough to make one interface work right on time, much less two, so any FPS/Sim hybrids usually have one or the other as a glorified shooting gallery.

[Forever Zero]

Futae, sounds sort of like a game I like for N64 that was an RPG/Fighting hybrid. It sounds interesting, but the implementation sounds awkward, and I would probably need to see it in action to understand it better. Since none of our hopes will be fulfilled anyway, I'm surprised many people are responding at all.

Oh, and someone mentioned a future space game that was extremely detailed and you could do anything. Look for Battlecruiser 3000: Gold Edition (I think) or wait a year or so and get Battlecruiser Generations when it comes out. It is a wierd game, and I never really decided if I like it or not, but if nothing else, it is the most in depth simulation of piloting a ship in the future, ANY ship (starfighters, cruisers, space carriers, ground vehicles, ground planes, ground troops, you can literally do it all... if you ever figure out how...). You have to manage crew and supplies, take missions, destroy pirates, trade cargo, you can gather ancient alien artifacts and use them on your ship, and more. Like I said, it is insanely complex, but as I veeery slowly started to figure it out (I still haven't figured it all out) it is pretty entertaining when you do (Favorite time was piloting my cruiser from space onto earth and battling with a rebel base with my massive cruiser. I just wish I had figured out how to deploy land troops...).

[Fabricated]

...Basically, I'd just like to see much more open endedness on CRPGS.

Only the Baldur's Gate PC series and NWN tend to have fun options like that, which is a bummer, because the only thing in the way of cool ideas like yours is just extra writing.

I mean, even goodguys should be able to play dirty every once in a while. For once I'd like to see a goodguy kick the villain in the jimmies during a scuffle over a weapon or something. Humans just aren't as perfect as most of these CRPG heroes are. There's more to being a "flawed" character than hating your dad or being scared of the dark, or fearing commitment or something stupid like that.

One thing I would like to see in a CRPG now that I think of it, is something I saw in an amazingly impressive RPGMaker2000 creation. One of the characters had multiple personality disorder, and whatever 'person' she was would determine what skills she had and her dialogue, and they could either be changed with drugs (dangerous), or by outside stimulus.

[Priest4hire]

I'd also like to see one where you can be either a hero or an anti-hero, if you like. For instance, when the villain captures your love interest, instead of doing whatever he asks you could just tell him to kill her (ala the guys in the movies), and sometimes he would, sometimes he'd get pissed and throw her away and escape, depending on how well your character bluffs (maybe some kind of bluffing skill that you could raise in the game). Or when he says stop or I'll kill innocent x, you charge him anyway. You're still the hero, but you're also a bad guy, instead of the perfectly honorable tool they usually have you playing.

Basically, I'd just like to see much more open endedness on CRPGS.

Well, Fable is doing something like that. In Fable you can be good or evil, but you are still the hero and still very popular. Bad guys can also be big stars back home and all that. That's interesting since the usualy approach is just a straight evil=hated in games. I know Fable won't be openended, but the world simulation sounds really cool. If they pull it off.

Speaking of ship-to-ship combat and FPS melding, I think that this could definitely be done with today's gaming hardware, at least on PC. The problem is making two separate interfaces for very different aims.

For most game companys it's hard enough to make one interface work right on time, much less two, so any FPS/Sim hybrids usually have one or the other as a glorified shooting gallery.

Indeed that is so, and yet I wonder why they can't just borrow the interface of another. I mean, why couldn't MS just take the Halo interface and give it to Digital Anvil and have them make the whole game with the Halo interface and engine for the FPS and the Freelancer interface for the ship to ship?

[Dante]

Because MS is a greedy megacorp trying to dominate the world and Digital Anvil can't use the Supreme COurt to get it from them?

XD

[Anarchy_Balsac]

Only the Baldur's Gate PC series and NWN tend to have fun options like that, which is a bummer, because the only thing in the way of cool ideas like yours is just extra writing.

actually i heard that baldur's gate didn't allow you to kill civilians as a bad guy

krylo pretty much covered what i'd like to see only i'd also like to see less bug patching. if it's to prevent winning online games through bug exploitation that's fine but otherwise they should just fuck off

[Priest4hire]

Because MS is a greedy megacorp trying to dominate the world and Digital Anvil can't use the Supreme COurt to get it from them?

XD

No question that MS is greedy, but Digital Anvil is a 1st party MS dev. So they'd be giving it from themselves to themselves.

[Gerad]

I found this thread very inspiring.

So much, in fact, that I wanted to pull up RPG Maker 2000 and make a game with some of the ideas that came up on this thread, including alternate story arcs and the whole "being the villain" idea in an RPG.

Then, the bad news...

I looked and saw that I was never using the RPG Maker 2000 character-maker programs (you know, the ones that are like paint only worse?-IMO) so I went to delete them, but deleted the RTP (engine) by mistake. Yes, very clumsy of me, but I need to get another copy of RPG maker 2000 (and the RTP). I can't find it anywhere. When I got it about a year ago it was on eagleeyerpg.com, but no longer. I looked at the list of the other RPG makers online, but none of them were just what I wanted. Can anyone help me out?

EDIT: Thanks, Johnny. I'll look into it. I didn't need to say more than that, and I'd rather not spam the list

[Fabricated]

actually i heard that baldur's gate didn't allow you to kill civilians as a bad guy

You heard wrong. You can kill damn near anyone you can stick a sword in. You might possibly break the main quest if you hack up the wrong people though.

In Baldur's Gate 2 I blew up a little girl for a snide comment to one of my companions.

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

dont get RPGM 2k, well...technicaly you cant anyway, most of the host sites took the download options away when (whatever production company) said they'd never release the game in the US since so many websites offered it for free.

instead, get RPG maker 2k3. heres a link: http://rm2k3.timecircuits.net/news.php

[Priest4hire]

One last idea that took way too long for me to think of, especially since I've a large CM Russell print right by my computer: Horses. I'd really like to see some decent horseback fighting, and not just archery like in OoT. Spears and lances and swords would be very cool.

PS. In pretty much every Ultima you could kill anyone or everyone. In U4 there was even an evil artifact that if used would instantly kill everyone in the town or castle you were in.

[Tor]

romance of three kingdoms (or what it was called) had that option.
You could choose to duel the enemy leader, but that was snes and you didn't do the fighting

[Dante]

One last idea that took way too long for me to think of, especially since I've a large CM Russell print right by my computer: Horses. I'd really like to see some decent horseback fighting, and not just archery like in OoT. Spears and lances and swords would be very cool.


First: Who's CM Russel? Does he like swords?

Second: It would be rather hard to do horseback fighting, given that horses move too fast for serious battles and they don't reap a path of carnage as most would imagine... Players would want to feel empowered when they're riding an armored engine of DEATH, so neither of the above would be very appealing... Thus horseplay, if it is to prosper, will need to be semi-realistic.


PS. In pretty much every Ultima you could kill anyone or everyone. In U4 there was even an evil artifact that if used would instantly kill everyone in the town or castle you were in.

I could use one of those for my office... *evil grin*

[Jagos]

This would be good...

You actually have people that wanna just take you out because you're their competition.

You're the hero and it's always one main bad guy sending out dozens of cronies. Then on top of that you got to save all the good guys and they're all on your side to go for the ultimate evil.

Screw that... You get a thief and a paladin in the same boat and unless they're absolutely on the same side there should be friction there!

[Priest4hire]

First: Who's CM Russel? Does he like swords?

Heh, no such luck that I know of. Russell is a renowned Western painter from the late 1800's and very early 1900's. The painting in question has a cowboy on horseback in the foreground overseeing a train of cattle and wagons.

Second: It would be rather hard to do horseback fighting, given that horses move too fast for serious battles and they don't reap a path of carnage as most would imagine... Players would want to feel empowered when they're riding an armored engine of DEATH, so neither of the above would be very appealing... Thus horseplay, if it is to prosper, will need to be semi-realistic.

That's a given. Hell, everything in games (and even movies) tends to be semi-realistic at best anyway.

It's just that if you have a Medieval like setting and all, then horses should be a factor. For riding and carrying provisions and combat.

You actually have people that wanna just take you out because you're their competition.

You're the hero and it's always one main bad guy sending out dozens of cronies. Then on top of that you got to save all the good guys and they're all on your side to go for the ultimate evil.

Screw that... You get a thief and a paladin in the same boat and unless they're absolutely on the same side there should be friction there!

Yeah, it would be nice to see some ambiguity in games rather than the simple 2 sided deals one often ends up with.

[Anarchy_Balsac]

Second: It would be rather hard to do horseback fighting, given that horses move too fast for serious battles and they don't reap a path of carnage as most would imagine... Players would want to feel empowered when they're riding an armored engine of DEATH, so neither of the above would be very appealing... Thus horseplay, if it is to prosper, will need to be semi-realistic.

i've actually seen it, albiet in primitive games like defender of the crown where they had jousting. and of course it hows up in RTS's but i'm geussing we're talking action games

[Priest4hire]

and of course it hows up in RTS's but i'm geussing we're talking action games

Nah, I myself am talking about RPGs. Given it's my favorite genre and all. Though action would be cool as well.

But I'd love to see horses in RPGs done better. How cool it would be to be able to buy horses, pack and saddle, and then travel out across the world on them. Then if you were attacked while riding you could fight back while on horseback. I could see horseback combat working pretty good in a turn-based tactical combat system.

[Krylo]

Wild Arms 3 has it, with guns. You're riding along on the horses and fighting... nothing really changes other than the types of monsters (sometimes) and the battle sprites. Oh, and how they die... they kinda skid along the ground and then stop... bwahahaha.

[Batman]

The word of the day is multiplayer. Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto, Alien vs Predator, Wrestling, and something to do with ninjas. Now that would be good.

[Mog]

you could kill innocents in baulders gate, but if you werent around level 20 yet you were a dead man when all the gaurds showed up and kicked your ass.

In nwn usually doing one evil act every once in a while completely shifts your alignment since they "fixed" fireballs or any other AOE spell not affecting things that werent yet hostile to you. Instead of picking one guy off, i have to get him hostile, everyone swarms around me, they all die, alignment shifted -60 points evil or something outragous like that.

I also hate the, oh no! 2 gaurds lets run and not greater missile storm them!

Locked doors also urk me........"damn the doors locked, now even if its protected from my spells i could easily just destroy all the walls around it but i wont because im the main character and i wouldnt do that even though my gf is in there right now being raped, im going to find the 30 switches to unlock it first"

I want an RPG where in the begining of the game you can chose two ways out of a single chatistrophic event. Either path is potrayed to the player as good, and through both you can do good or bad acts, but to figure out which one is truly evil you have to play through both, since most adventurers good or evil, have only the concept that they are doing the right thing.

[Gerad]

Locked doors also urk me........"damn the doors locked, now even if its protected from my spells i could easily just destroy all the walls around it but i wont because im the main character and i wouldnt do that even though my gf is in there right now being raped, im going to find the 30 switches to unlock it first"

I want an RPG where in the begining of the game you can chose two ways out of a single chatistrophic event. Either path is potrayed to the player as good, and through both you can do good or bad acts, but to figure out which one is truly evil you have to play through both, since most adventurers good or evil, have only the concept that they are doing the right thing.

I totally agree on the locked doors thing. Sometimes a good shoulder is all it needs.

Thanks to Johnny Socko, I now have RPG Maker 2k3 and I can finally get to work on some of these great ideas we've been speaking of. Obviously, some graphics capabilities will be out of my reach, but I really want to delve into the alternate story arcs idea - some things like Mog's idea and the others that were mentioned. Did you have something particular in mind, Mog? I could probably incorporate it since I don't have many things set in stone yet.

Would anyone else care to contribute their ideas on this project? I don't mind bowing to the creative juices of the forum, and maybe (just maybe) we can work together to make an innovative game. What setting? Well, I think it's gotta have swords (that's just the fighter in me speaking - I KNOW, sooo cliche), so maybe medieval or medieval-with-machines (like a FF setting). Although, this could all change if someone convinces me to change it...

[Dante]

I can do plot. I am the master of all things plotty. FEar the Plotmaster!

Seriously though, I should be able to come up with a script given a theme. I'm not good with making stuff up out of nothing.

[Priest4hire]

Well, I think it's gotta have swords (that's just the fighter in me speaking - I KNOW, sooo cliche), so maybe medieval or medieval-with-machines (like a FF setting). Although, this could all change if someone convinces me to change it...

Hmm. Well, there are other possibilities. How about post-Apocalyptic/dark ages kind of setting? After the empire/civilization has fallen and things are really, really desperate. That's a setting that even lends itself to moral ambiguity.

Or how about a 'during the fall of Rome' kind of setting. When things are both unbelievably decedent and rotten at the same time, and the inevitable doom is coming really quick like. Fighting just to not go down the crapper with the rest of civilization would be cool.

[Jagos]

i'm telling ya... if it's more modern like the 19XX or 200X, you could show all that and have great swords. Then get a sweet ride (I'm looking in the direction of a WRX [hint hint...]) and cause more mayhem.

The word of the day is multiplayer. Multiplayer Grand Theft Auto, Alien vs Predator, Wrestling, and something to do with ninjas. Now that would be good.
GTA multi... For me to jack a car that gets rejacked in 2 seconds while a third guy throws a bazooka in the area is just a little too chaotic for me...