Been trying to search as I know this has been discussed before, but coming up blank.

My wife has some ideas on a game she wants to make, but she is more from a graphics / writing perspective - But part of the project is that she wants to learn some programming.

First she was looking at Unity, but I think that might be to much from the ground up for her - We're looking to build an quite free form RPG experience, with elements of trades killing, character development, questing (driving a story).

Ideally, she wants the game to be first perspective as well.

So, looking for ideas on game engines, or even highly mod able games we can work with (Neverwinter night I thought could be an option, but it feels quite dated).

Many thanks

Skyrim maybe?

Skyrim maybe?

Can you create a entire new world there, or just mod into theirs?

Not entirely sure, you can add entirely new lands and edit their lands, seems like it should give you enough control. Worse comes to worse, modding in some a teleporter at the beginning that sends the player to your custom lands might be enough.

I was thinking skyrim too maybe. but TESedit 5.0 looks to be almost like using unity.

and given that:

she wants the game to be first perspective as well

and

she was looking at Unity, but I think that might be to much from the ground up for her

she may be SOL.

If you want to build a rocket, you're going to have to learn rocket science.

Thanks for the input so far, any other ideas?

What if easing up some requirements like first person? Anyone got experience with RPG Maker MV? Or something similar?

How big a world are we talking about? Anyway I second Skyrim since there have been total conversion mods for it: see skywind and http://sureai.net/games/enderal/?lang=en

Thanks, will have a look at Skyrim for sure since that seems a re-occuring thought :)

As for world size, I think that fairly small is fine at this stage. I'm sure long term big would be great, but as a starting point anything is likely to do.

As for world size, I think that fairly small is fine at this stage. I'm sure long term big would be great, but as a starting point anything is likely to do.

Yeah you can start small but if you want to go real big that will affect your choice of engine/game to mod. Luckily Skyrim can handle large worlds.