quote: Original post by simbiant
hmeaning, to get better, you need more advanced weaponry and gadgets. therefore, it feels like it doesnt require skill, just enough money to buy the best stuff.

what i love about FF7 is that its in very technological world, but the look and feel has a quaint medieval style to it (all the world''s villages, etc). so it feels almost as if you''re playing a fantasy game, and the technology is just a bonus.

That surely is a point.
But I think AngelStar''s suggestions are GREAT!
Only point with that is, it requires LOT''s of research...
For most Europeans it''s quite easy to imagine life in the medieval ages. Both, players and developers have easy access to information on it whereas any "exotic" scenarios may suffer from
lacking background information.

It requires alot of knowlegde to understand i.e. ancient African
or Asian cultures. On the other side it would surely be fun
exploring such a world and gaining some knowlegde by playing
a great RGG

There are 2 relatively recent games for you (one previously mentioned):

Arcanum: Has both magic and technology. The cool thing is that the more you embrace one, the less useful you are in the other (there''s a sliding scale). If I improve my technological skills a lot, suddenly my effectiveness with magic is lessened. Plus, if you embrace magic, certain NPCs will barely even talk to you (and the same the other way). There are a whole slew of spells, and on the converse side, there are a lot of technological "disciplines" which allow you to construct inventions and complete other technological tasks.

Wizardry 8:
Set in a future world with magic and swords. Right now I have a "normal" team, but also have a robot in tow. The base concept is that your spaceship has crash-landed on a planet, and both technology and swords and sorcery are amply involved. You can play your normal classes, and things such as "gadgeteers", which can combine various items to form new ones (and has a really cool gun which he improves as his engineering skill improves)

I like a lot in both models, and as my engine progresses, so will my idea as to how my RPG world will run.

-Chris

Wow..good thing posts never really "die" (see dates).

Anyway, as far as I see it what it really comes down to in the scifi vs dnd style fantasy or the merge is really just balancing. As I and another stated it uses the mix of guns, steam engines, mechanical creatures with magic, swords and chain mail. While I have actually played this game through pretty far I only now realize something. As these sorts of games try to be relatively realistic, relatively mind you, with encumbrance, strength and so forth, the fact that one of my characters'' elephant guns does little more damage than another''s ordinary axe is rather puzzling. I understand balancing, but couldn''t balancing be better achieved if such weapons were scarce? Its not feasible to ever balance daggers with chain guns other than to make one less likely to come across, and perhaps give it very limited ammo even once acquired...I found the rifles etc. quite easy to acquire if you concentrate on them.

Just my ramblings on the topic.