But RPGs are about characters. Role-playing. It's kinda the core element of the game: You aren't being you.

FPS games are about players. Different ballgame all together.

As for the originality talk: Look at Call of Duty 4. I read a review that summed it up, "The game brings nothing new to the genre. Instead, it has perfected the genre." Perhaps a bit too high praise, but it's a good point: It may not be innovative, but it what it does do is get almost everything right.

You aren't really going to find an innovative RPG element nowadays, so the best RPG isn't going to be (and never really was going to be) the one that brings the most innovation.

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Original post by MrMorley You aren't really going to find an innovative RPG element nowadays, so the best RPG isn't going to be (and never really was going to be) the one that brings the most innovation.

Exactly. I believe I even made that distinction in my "quality document" in the other thread. In building an RPG, my focus is on making a collectively satisfying experience. I do not have some earth-shattering idea that will shake up the foundations of RPGs. I just want to make an RPG that gets lots of things right.

What cracks me up is how many games try to target innovation at the XP system. Every so often, you'll hear about some new RPG that "doesn't have any form of XP" in it! Upon closer inspection, you find that it's just been renamed "ability points", "power gems", or something like that. As long as there is progression, there is an XP mechanism somewhere.

On level up and XP system, for single player games with focus on role playing, I think that less levels and more rewards for each is a much better way to go.

Also, Ive seen many games which allows 99 levels but has a way of keeping enemies at a more or less constant challenge level, always matching the level the player was supposed to be on certain parts.

Since level up works almost always in a logarithmic scale, even if you try to level up on the early stages of the game, as you go on ahead through the story, you will end up more or less at the same level you would be if just you rush through it.

This creates a very linear game play. Whatever you do: if you want to level up, you will have to do it when your ending the game, or else it will just not make any difference.

So, I think that maybe a different way to calc levels would be welcome and I also think that the player should be exposed from the begining to higher level dangers and situations, requiring him to flee if thats the case.

[Edited by - shoyoninja on June 9, 2010 7:50:11 AM]

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On level up and XP system, for single player games with focus on role playing, I think that less levels and more rewards for each is a much better way to go.

XP systems are hard to get away from, but it can be done. The only problem with doing this is in most current cRPGs it would remove all ties to "Role" playing games form the game.

In cRPGs when they think of the Role Playing Elements of the game, they only really include character stats and advancement and conversation trees (and the conversation tree is not actually necesary, it just helps). These seem to be the only 2 elements needed for a game to get labled as an RPG.

Now, this is a problem if you want to make an RPG but without the stats and leveling. You effectivly remove most of what causes players to label a game as RPG. SO you remove level and the game is no longer considdered an RPG because the RPG elements have been removed.

About the journal system and releasing current hand-held systems.

Although I like to make my own notes, I recon that it isnt a very friendly solution. With all the processor power we currently have, a computer game that requires a piece of paper to play is not going to be very impressive to most players.

A system to allow the player to write down what he needs in game, in the quickest and easier way it can be done, allowing access to map notes and journal entries.

So, why not mix both worlds? Adding a little automation to make life easier... Actually adding as much as possible:

Lets say your talking to a NPC, besides the voice acting(if there is one, I dont really mind reading), you would have a text box showing what he is saying(absolutely required if the player is supposed to take notes). If he says anything usefull, instead of writing down your note on a piece of paper, the player selects with the mouse what he wants to write down, press mouse right-click, select "write to journal". The game then generates an auto-note, with the NPC name, if known, your current location, if known, time (if known?) and the text you selected.

Then, right-clicking on the journal could allow linking notes to tags on a map, if the player is supposed to have one. The tags could be just numbers which links to journal entries, allowing the player to place a text in it also if he thinks its better this way. The tag placement would be done by the player. An option to "create map tag from current location" during the game would be nice too.

Custom notes should be allowed too.

This would make the process of taking notes easier and more user friendly, without just making everything auto and definnign paths to the player. This will also be possible for the player to pin down wrong spots on the map, or to take useless notes, making the game considerably harder to solve without needing to resort to move-the-damn-block-puzzles or 4 lines riddles.

Resuming the game on a later day, you could just read out what you have done so far.

I would really love a system like this.

No need to say that both the journal and map editors should be top quality, so that we dont have to struggle with it to write stuff down or else you would make people angry trying to play.

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So, why not mix both worlds? Adding a little automation to make life easier... Actually adding as much as possible:

From what I remember, there were early attempts at adding integrated note taking features into RPGs and they're what led to the quest logging that we have today. I think someone figured, "if we're going to make the user right click on the conversation text to copy it, why not just copy the whole conversation every time?"

The notes that I used to take were often just the location of the next place I had to go. If it was a game like Ultima, that had a lot of stuff that you could pick up, I'd probably write down items involved in fetch quests. In the days I played Bard's Tale there were several maps I'd drawn. If you're going to have any kind of note system in your game, it's hard to justify not recording that kind of information for a player automatically.

I guess the hard part is figuring out how to make your automated note taker record vital info in enough detail to make the quest possible after coming back from a break, but also have it record useless info in the same level of detail so that it isn't obvious. How do you decide what to make the game record or not record?

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Original post by kseh Quote: So, why not mix both worlds? Adding a little automation to make life easier... Actually adding as much as possible: From what I remember, there were early attempts at adding integrated note taking features into RPGs and they're what led to the quest logging that we have today. I think someone figured, "if we're going to make the user right click on the conversation text to copy it, why not just copy the whole conversation every time?" The notes that I used to take were often just the location of the next place I had to go. If it was a game like Ultima, that had a lot of stuff that you could pick up, I'd probably write down items involved in fetch quests. In the days I played Bard's Tale there were several maps I'd drawn. If you're going to have any kind of note system in your game, it's hard to justify not recording that kind of information for a player automatically.

Yes, a very good point. You can always move on a little bit, and make another small thing auto, and another, and another, and soon you got the auto-quest. But was there a real attempt to make it work? I dont recall it... Could you tell me of an example (really curious)?

Still, you have to agree with me that the "magic" is not on the paper+pen combination, right? It has to be something else. We can define a line in here.

I believe that this "magic" is the need to recon important info, keep track of it, and, most important, take right conclusions. Also it is on the flexibility that the game gains from it: Besides the player side effect, in which he will need to do the notes and decide what to do next on his own, there is a considerable relief on the design side, because you dont have to define everything anymore, you can do many things expecting the player to explore and figure it out.

When you make quests automatic, you limit the way you can expose them to the player. Also in many cases you will only have a limited number of ways to solve them, and these ways will have to be defined also.

What I propose is just a helping hand automation. When you take the next step and make the conclusions and decisions automated, you take that away from the player, and its much, much harder to not show to the world that "this is the main quest way" and this is the "sidequest way"... What if you dont want to show the main quest at all?

Oh yes, logging ALL conversations is very different from journal systems we were talking about. When you simply log, you dont give directions or orders, you dont have the goals, you just have access to a bunch of text and you still have to figure what to do with it.

I dont like the log solution very much, but to me, its a much better way than the "go there, do that" system Ive seen on all games ive played recently.

And yet again, Im sure that these kinds of approachs would only work well on games designed with lots of focus on the Role-Playing side of the game. I also know that there not many players who enjoy games designed like this. A game designed this way requires more brainwork to solve, will take much longer (guessing here) and will not please most. not because you need to be a genius to complete the game, but because thats simply not what they are looking for.

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Original post by Storyyeller I guess the hard part is figuring out how to make your automated note taker record vital info in enough detail to make the quest possible after coming back from a break, but also have it record useless info in the same level of detail so that it isn't obvious. How do you decide what to make the game record or not record?

I really think that the solution is letting the player decide what to record or not. At least, thats what I would like.

Hmmm... Methinks we are starting to veer away from "hand-holding" and more into "logical features of the game". I realize the line dividing those isn't the clearest, but I guess I just don't consider an automated journal or quest log as a hand-holding technique. I think it is plenty fair that there be a system that automatically records only the vital points of information to keep the player on the right track. Yes, you could argue it is a "hand-holding mechanism", but it doesn't actually do the work for the player. It just reminds the player what he/she needs to do. That is the issue I take with quest compasses: they remove the need for the player to think at all.

In Borderlands, 9 times out of 10, I have no idea whether I am going to fight something, talk to something, or grab something. I just follow the diamond (quest compass) until I cannot follow it anymore. Again, in Borderlands, this is forgiveable because the emphasis is on the combat, the loot, and XP gained from rapid quest completion. Nothing about Borderlands' story makes it notable or memorable. It's just super fun to dig through.

In building a "core RPG", I am OK with an automated quest journal and even the quest-giver marking your map for you, but I just dislike the idea of this beacon above your head saying "go this way".