Many of today''s RPGs put you into the role of a hero out to save the world, but few actually give you a compelling reason to save the world, do they? I mean, most of the time when you do things to save the world, all you get is some gold, experience points, and maybe a few items. That wouldn''t make ME want to save the world. The people of the world don''t really have problems, you never see the NPCs get attacked by monsters, or starve to death, or anything like that, nor does it ever happen to the hero. If you don''t eat, you die, if you don''t drink, you die faster. Heroes of RPGs seem to have an infinite amount of food and water, or have no need for them at all. That''s crazy. When I play an RPG, it doesn''t actually seem to me that the world is in danger, everyone''s still alive, the numbers of NPCs in villages stays the same, no diseases seem to break out at random throughout villages, which was something very common in medieval times. What I would like to see is a post-apocalyptic RPG, something like Fallout, where everyone''s just starting to go back out into the surface, and the world or country needs to be rebuilt. I mean, you could set it up, so that at Character Generation, you get to choose what year you ventured forth into the wastes, and that would dictate how much of the world had been rebuilt. Now it would work better as an MMORPG, but could be pulled off as a single player game with really good AI. If there''s nothing there, that''s a good motivation to start rebuilding, and people will try to work together to have some illusion of comfort (after that''s been achieved, they''ll usually start killing each other again) and try to bring the world back to it''s former glory. RPG stands for Role Playing Game...and I have not played an active role in a Role Playing Game in some time. Why?!?

"Heroes of RPGs seem to have an infinite amount of food and water, or have no need for them at all."

Most developers consider this kind of game element to be boring and therefore should not be in games. It has been in a few RPGs of the past though - I cant remember exactly, but Bloodwych and Dungeon Master may have had food and water in them.

well, if the NPCs had problems such as monster attacks, starvation, and plagues, over half of them would be dead before the player character ever reached that town. the game would run out of NPCs... and there goes any storyline or quests the player could get. the only way around this is to create more NPCs, in which case they must be assigned all the "clues" and items and quests that once belonged to the dead NPCs, to allow the player to do anything. it is easier on the developer and the player to just let them live.
i have played RPGs where you had to eat and drink regularly, and let me tell you, it annoyed the hell out of me. you don''t have to take a dump in RPGs, but in real life if you didn''t i doubt you could continue thinking straight much less saving the world! good games only include parts of reality that add to the game.

quote: What I would like to see is a post-apocalyptic RPG, something like Fallout, where everyone''s just starting to go back out into the surface, and the world or country needs to be rebuilt. I mean, you could set it up, so that at Character Generation, you get to choose what year you ventured forth into the wastes, and that would dictate how much of the world had been rebuilt. Now it would work better as an MMORPG, but could be pulled off as a single player game with really good AI. If there''s nothing there, that''s a good motivation to start rebuilding, and people will try to work together to have some illusion of comfort (after that''s been achieved, they''ll usually start killing each other again) and try to bring the world back to it''s former glory.

hey, this sounds good... even though i just bitched about having to eat in an RPG, it might be appropriate in your game; finding (non-radioactive) food and water could be a major goal, as opposed to an annoying thing you have to do like it is in most games. since there is no world left to save, it would be about survival.

yep trade one cliche for another. the post apocliptic thing as been done to death as well.

your idea (while quite difficult to create do to the shear raw power and man power to create) is more of a RTS mixed with the Sims then a RPG as we know.

things like food and water are micro managment stuff that would make the game more tedious to play. also plenty of early rpgs on the pc and console used the idea of the player needing food and water. those were ussually boring due to frustration of having now to not only fight for gold for weapons, items, armour, etc, but for food as well. naturally you seem to be the type of person that thinks games should encompass ever aspect of real life. i dont. games should be fun, and i should not have to deal with petty things like food and water which are "automatic" in a sense. next thing you know you will have the player going to the toliet and having to watch the player sleep instead of fast forwarding. heck why not force the player to buy new clothes as they get worn out in battle, need to bathe to keep from being smelly and offending the NPCs.

heck why should the NPCs even trust you? why not you have to earn their trust, and actually spend hours learning to fight. i mean if some nobody can rise up destroying monsters, certainly anyone can. insead you should have to train long hours. heck might as well add day night cycle as well. oops, people get scared so must take that into account with a fright meter, nervous meter, etc.

oops, NPC with the special knowledge of how to stop the massive nuclear weapon died by slime. uh oh, now i cant disarm it. booom, game over. heck, player did not even konw the guy was killed until he needed to disarm the bomb. he thought that old guy fending off the slime was just another nobody. oh well, time to start the game from scratch.

illness strikes! the plague and radiation posining start kill ppl by the masses. you get infected you die. too bad noone could find a cure. game over. maybe next time you would wear your hazmat suit. oops, those blew up in the devestating event.

you want micro managment and rebuilding, play games like civ.

unless you have a good story the game wont be too fun to play (ie if its an rpg). RPGs are epic tales where players complete quests. not strategy games in which you must decide where to put the chamber of commerce and who to elect as mayor.

oh yeah, tell us again why the players character would be able to help out more then the NPCs?

anyhoo i merely am pointing out the major flaws of your "idea". unless you have solid bounderies you cant make good gameplay.

also Role Playing Game can mean ANY game in which you take up a role to act out. thus any game fits the description if you want to be all technical. it dont mean the game has to be anal retentive about the details.

besides, the more open ended you make the game with more details and varibles that can affect story (if there even is one) the more cpu and ram is required. ai currently cant be implemented to a degree you would need currently.

as an MMORPG it has possiblities. groups of ppl could create "tribes" and build there own towns and such. implement their own judicial system, etc. though there are plenty of design problems (ie you cant really jail players since they are paying for the game and they want to play not sit in a cell).

i think you just watched one too many movies and think it will fit in a game perfectly.

though in the end unless you will actually go forth and implement this, you wont consider the real problems you would face in creation and gameplay. instead of story talking, speak of gameplay elements.

aslo ussually total annhilation of the world is a good reason for saving it. in fact many rpgs start of with a smaller goal in mind, which leads to saving the world. i think you need to play a few more console rpgs (ie ff4, ff6, chrono trigger, etc).

why would i want to save the world in your game? why not just try to survive and live how things are? why not let someone else save the world? i am sure others can become the hero to help. since rebuilding is a group effort (you aint building houses on your own, just not possible) you have major problems with consistency and gameplay issues. work on it a bit, hoefully you can clear up some of the problems that you may not have seen (or just forgot to write down).

i aint flaming you, just pointing out problems.

I''ve played and beaten every Final Fantasy except for 8, I''ve played and beaten Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, Grandia, and countless other console RPGs. I like them, but I would never play through any of them again. You already know what is going to happen, and that''s boring. You have to have some sort of randomness in a game to make it fun. As for food and water, I meant you have a numerical amount of food and water, such as so many ounces of food and water, and your character automatically eats when he/she is hungry. I''m not saying every aspect of life should be implemented, that''s just incredibly tedious, but some do to add to the realism of the game world. As for saving the world, it is highly unlikely that any sequence of events could ultimately result in saving the world. In a role-playing game, I don''t want to save the world, I want to play a role. There are other roles than the sword-waving hero. There''s the villain, the petty thief, the assassin out to get the hero, hired by the villain, there is the blacksmith who forged the Hero''s legendary sword. It''s more than just saving the world. Most worlds, I frankly wouldn''t care if they were destroyed or not.



Why?!?

Most RPGs are boring the second time around, simply since you know how the story is going to come out, if nothing else, because of the way you want to play. Baldur''s Gate, for example, the first hour will play either with good or evil party members, and the rest is filler. Most MUDs that I''ve seen (nope, no gMUDs) involve going back and killing the same batch of monsters repeatedly after getting gear or directions from comrades, who you''ll be chatting with as you auto-splurch said monsters. Deus Ex was nice, with skills that affected your game path, but the conversations are mostly the same and the locales railroaded. DX deserves note for the fact that NPCs can get killed, specific actions pop up later in the story, and that there''s some mystery as to who''s who in the game.
So what''d help? Horizontal storyline bases (multiple threads to wind down that might weave back and forth; try Escape Velocity by Ambrosia SW), limited access, limited knowledge, lasting actions, and dynamic NPCs (that you CAN kill, and DO have that note/warrant/picture/bomb on them). Feedback helps, either internally (Diablo gives gold, gold means more gear, more gear means more spells/potions/splurching power) or externally (you drive Halo''s Warthog over a grunt, Gunner yells "Roadkill!" or passanger complains "Damnit, I just washed this thing!"), encouraging exploration or continued survival of NPCs (for information, warning, or entertainment -- "Hey! See that thing on the left? It''s a brake! USE IT!").

-Sta7ic

I can appreciate giving characters a personal reason to go out and save the world. However, when you get down to it, ordinary people lead ordinary lives. If a character''s biggest concern is next month''s rent, and food (ie: me) then you can bet they won''t go galavanting off to spain to compete in a tournament to gain some aincient relic. It''s just not what matters to them.

The reason I see this is from a recent pen and paper RPG I was in. Two party members wanted to stay in their rooms and read. Another stayed in the bar, the last would sit around and wait for something to happen. Needless to say, when opertunities came up for doing interesting things, they were passed over (unless under heavy coersion).

Now, as far as the post apocalyptic, pseudo random RPG goes, I think it could be fun. Could be, mind you. It''d be very easy, from a role-playing standpoint, to have large stretches of little to no direction. So, if you could have something dynamically generating them based off of the current state, and leving little downtime, that could be ideal.

And though a person brings up some very good points, I do think that it''s possible to make some pretty damn sophisistacated large scale AI on current boxes. 500 megahertz. That''s a lot of calculating, and it''s getting to be low end.

And, as you play those various roles you listed in an RPG, ask yourself if they can''t fall into the same traps as normal RPG''s.

And lastly, the reason you havn''t played an active role in a role playing game is because it''s hard for a team of programmers and designers to make the computer properly reactive while still giving you plenty to do.

Anyway, good luck on planning out a game you can enjoy.

Yep. Ye can nae make ah troo role-playin game, laddy! Ye needs more AI then anybody's eva seen afore, or ye needs great heapin' mounds o' dialogue trees, which could take years ta write!

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"Is the size of project directly proportional to the amount of stupidity to be demonstrated?"
-SabreMan


[edited by - OOProgrammer on July 17, 2002 12:36:10 AM]

Verek I completely agree with you

If you want to include food as a necessity in your RPG, why not make your characters dragons or something. That would be an interesting twist, save the world, but dont eat the princess fod goodness sake

http://www.spectre-software.com