Hello GameDev Community,

My name is Henrique, and I am a Project Manager on a company over Brazil, and we have started the development of a action RPG game. We have experience with much more casual things and products outside the game industry but since here, everybody loves games we decided to start our own project.
We are in the documents phase still, and I started looking online for informations and people who could help me out with info.

The genre we choose is Action RPG, so it's more fast paced then a traditional RPG, and our game will happen in the future. I've never seen a Sci-Fi Action RPG, believe we will make the first one. We are developing our game design as I said, but I would like to talk with people for more information and preferences. For instance, I would like to start asking you the following:

- Things you have seen in other Action RPG's that you liked and must have in a game like this to be a sucess, and things you DIDN't like also;
- Things you have never seen in another game but you think it would be a good idea to add in a game like this;

This is a good start for us, hope to hear a lot of ideas and suggestions, and that this is the beginning of a healthy discussion.

Im opened to any question you may have,

Thank you,
Henrique

Well, it may be the first Sci-fi Action-RPG you have seen, but others like Mass Effect have been made.

I think the important thing for your audience hook would be to not be a generic Sci-fi concept (Mass Effect felt a lot like Star Trek and Star Wars in its mythology and gameplay). Neither should your setting and characters be too bizarre or overly culturally influenced (RPGs from Japan seem to get lauded for their Japanese values in story, gameplay, and art-style) unless you can present these elements in a way that would have many people of various personalities to be able to sympathize with the elements. Movies I have seen that do Sci-fi in unique ways that are presented to be entertaining and thought provoking to the audience are The Matrix, Minority Report, The Thirteenth Floor, Surrogates, and charmingly, WALL-E.

Looking back at older computer RPGs to the current day's variety it seems the details of a story do not have to be overly complex or original (see the book "Hero with a Thousand Faces" for what many of the best-selling RPGs do) as long as the details are not confusing or redundant in some way that shows poor story-telling. Some interesting context for one's actions in the game and making the story or just the gameplay relevant in some ways to the human condition (for example, you are going with Action-RPG, which is quite popular currently) is often the least amount of story needed to make an Action-RPG feel involving.

I assume you will be making a PC exclusive game, so for the controls I suggest starting with the simplest interface to be able to enjoy the game and adding more use of the keyboard and mouse only as what feels intuitive and adds to the game experience.

Last, but probably what I feel should most be included, is extensive bug, grammar/spelling, and other quality checks. It's really something when someone who promotes indie games like The Rampant Coyote can note that your game launched with a relatively no bugs/bug-free release.

Hope this helped your thought process if only vaguely.

If by action RPG you mean games like Diablo and DoTa you should probably know that there is a game in development called Darkspore which is very much like Diablo with a sci-fi skin. So you won't necessarily be the first but you'll be one of the first, assuming that there are probably other, lesser-known ones out there already.
A suggestion I have for you (if you are making a Diablo-like game) is to take advantage of the sci-fi setting to make a game that stands out from the mold. Many action RPGs are being released right now so you should make your combat system, (and not just superficial things like story and setting) different to reflect the change.
Will the game support cooperative multiplayer? Players in classes such as sniper, soldier, spy could fill various roles and coordinate tactics.
The classes should stand out from the mold, not just by name, but by the way that they work together, adding some variation to the tried and true formula.
Don't just use typical archetypes like tank, spell-caster, striker, make nuanced classes with very different gameplay. If you combine concepts like medic and sniper, you could have a long-ranged class that also must swoop in to buff and heal other players. The fighter with the closest range could have little health but a regenerating shield so that he/she must apply hit-and-run tactics to attack, take some damage, and then run out to recharge. If you balance the classes correctly teams would need to split aggro and damage appropriately creating fast-paced and varied action.