Chris F:

I re-read all of your posts and still came up with the same conclusion.

Your using statements such as "a western FPS is still a Doom clone" and "you can make any RPG that you want, and it is still a clone" lead to my opinion about you believing any game with graphics is a clone (of course, I was exaggerating).

Obviously, with the limited input capabilities of the computer, and the limits to which graphics can excel any more, there is very little we can do about making original gameplay. Any game can be considered based on a single Genre, or a combination of Genres. That''s because the genres have been expanded to include pretty much anything. Even "original" games are based on games of the past (the ultra-original Tomb Raider, which defined the third-person adventure game, can be claimed to be simply an Action-Adventure game along the lines of MDK, even though the game was more puzzle-oriented than shooting-oriented).

Since there is very little innovation left in how games look and play, we''re left with making the back-end and AI more innovative. Hopefully, this will make the game more fun to play.

-Chris

---<<>>---
Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

OK I realise some of my statements were a bit exagerated aswell, but the point I was trying to get across is that there are still some "original" games out there waiting to be made we just need to think of them. I'm not saying I'm going to come with the next tetris I'm saying we should at least try and make something unique and I see from some of the posts here that is what some people are trying to do.

Edited by - Chris F on 3/10/00 3:12:52 PM

I just wanted to share that also i, am making an CRPG.
Im trying to make it skill-based. it''s gonna be like 120 different skills to improve (you get character points at levelup)

and about 1-7 sub-skills to each main-skill
Ie:
MainSkill : Meat preparation
SubSkills: Pig meat
Dragon meat etc...

it''s kinda complicated, if anyones intrested in the graphics part, contact me! plz do... =)

/Jonatan Hedborg myb558j@tninet.se

JH:

I would recommend lessening the number of skills available in your game -- I have about 60, and I think that I''m pushing it. If you have too many skills, gameplay will get too convoluted. Besides that, you need to have some way in your game to utilize all of those skills (I''ll probably be pruning my list down to 40-50 distinct skills). Having Dragon Meat Preparation is cool, and all, but how often during the game will you actually need to use it?

Too much detail can hurt playability as much as too little detail.

-Chris

---<<>>---
Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

perhaps you are right, i will test all that when the graphics engine is ready...in like a year or so...

I''d agree with Chris on cutting the skill list back. You''ve got to remember that it''s no good just having each skill named - you''ve also got to define what effects and limits it has in the game and make sure that the skills list is balanced and complete for the gameplay you''re intending.

For reference I ran a paper RPG for over ten years which allowed players completely free-form character development based on an extensive skills list. Now even with every major weapon and spell-casting style as a skill *and* skills like Crop Farming, Embalming, Camouflage, Debating, etc (etc, etc) *and* base skills for every major language and culture the base skills list is only 184 skills (full list of 484). That suggests to me that your 120 base skills is probably (as Chris says) at least twice what you need to define a character within the game. Assuming you ever plan on finishing

Anyone who thinks that there''s no room for creating new genre''s is just wrong. Here''s two examples, one recent, one not so recent.

1)Thief. Yeah, its first person, and yeah, you can shoot shoot things, but the gameplay is so wildly different that I certainly wouldn''t consider it a Doom-clone or even 50% alike to any other game out there.

2) Floor 13. This one''s kind of old and obscure, but this game absolutely defies description so I''m not really should even try to offer a game description, but here we go: Its a secret police organization in the UK with all the traditional KGB powers so you can torture people, order assasination, have people abducted, etc. Warped, yes. But definitely unique.

Later,
The Timdog

isnt that last game called Bearu 13 (or something like that)
and what does those has to do withj rpg''s?

Why am I programming a CRPG?

Because it''s about the only type of game that still has place for innovations. Without a budget I can''t compete with the companies on the visual effects side. I can''t afford to pay for a 3D engine or 3D models or 3D graphics. Turn based games don''t require the latest computer resources so I don''t have to learn Direct X. And since I''m the only programmer in my project I don''t have much time to spend on programming a 3D world (not even simili-2D-3D isometric / overhead / whatever). I will spend much of my little spare time concentrating on the "meat" of the program wich is A.I. I will also be able to pay a little for an artist to do pictures to give some visual attraction. It will be more of an interactive novel in wich the story is important but also the player''s freedom and NPCs interactions. Like in the movies, if I can''t do Star Wars I will do something more profound.

As for originality, like in the movies, most stories have been told. It''s the treatment that differ from one movie to the other.

Cheers!

http://pages.infinit.net/bprezeau/CRPG.html

I''m guilty. I am currently programming an RPG, Ultima 5-6 Style, with DJGPP and Allegro, for *GASP* DOS! Can you imaginge how frustrated I am, getting said day for day how senseless what I do is, cause DOS is dead, and only flashy DX-3D-Games with Bump-mapping and 3D-Card support are cool anymore? But no, I won''t stop making my game. It may be technically totally outdated, it won''t have anything which makes it really outstanding, any neural-net AI, non-scripted dynamic environment or such, it will be a corny little game set in a Tolkienesque world, having an engine similar to U6, which is outdated in every way nowadays, it will even be in german, meaning nearly nobody will be able to understand the text in my game. But you know what? I''ve always wanted to make this game, since I''ve played Ultima 5 many, many years ago, and it took me 2 years to be good enough for programing it, and there did so much effort, and so much of my own sweat and blood (dramatic, ey?) run into this stupid little project, that I will definitely NOT stop making it. Am I ranting? Good. What was I saying? Oh yeah, why I make this game then, when there obviously seems to be no sensible reason for it:

*First, I always loved fantasy, and Tolkiens stories touched me from when I read them the first time when I was ten, and I have also been hooked to computer games since about that time.
But I know about cliches and how much they suck (oh my, I live in the world of aldrion and am the lost son of a king, growing up in a little village, having to save the world of a great evil because I am...um...say...the chosen one by killing monsters, gaining XP and finding the sword of...well, you know what I mean!), and I''m really trying to avoid them, trying not to make another clone, but well, it''s difficult to make a truly original game with never-seen-before features when you have so few technical possibilitys (and programming skills) than I have!

*Second, it is simply FUN to create a little virtual world, even if only with the restricted possibilitys I have, it is much more fun than making a Quake-Dungeon where everything''s only about where to place which monsters or weapons. It is just a joy nobody creating a DOOM-Clone will ever know, when you see the weather system in your world work, and your Characters cach a flu when walking around int the rain, and you have to go to a healer, and you see the NPCs moving around, and if you are able to talk to them, and if the quest-system works and you implement your first quest into the game, and if it''s only a simple "smash-the-9-eyed-beast-of-xyz"-quest.

*Third, I *CAN* do it. I can make a game nobody wants except for myself (and I really do!), because I do it as a hobby and not for a living.

Well, I guess all this didn''t make any sense, but I just had to say it!