You see, I've been rather disappointed with the current availability of RPing games. Not only in Byond, but in the rest as well. I've searched through many games, trying to find an environment that would satisfy my hunger for Roleplaying in a fantastic world; but then I was forced to face at least one of two unpleasant facts: the game's demand of my time and/or the lack of proper emphasis in Roleplay. It even made me think that making an online RPing game was like swimming against the waves...
Then I've come with the decision of making my own RPing game, while trying to solve all the problems I've noticed on this desperate search for satisfying this "addiction" for interpretation games. I will insert here a few guidelines of what I'm planning to do.
Cooperation vs Competition:
I've noticed that the Roleplay is easier to implement and handle in a cooperative environment. It's more due to the players' behavior than the game itself. It's rather awkward and stressful if you have to write any lines of text when you're dealing with enemies; however, when roleplaying with friends, people tend to be more creative and to enjoy the brilliance of a good RP to larger extents.
I've been sketching a system (yet in paper) that won't allow players to hurt others just for any reason. Like, when attempting to strike, receiving a message "You lack the courage to harm a person that holds no Threat to you". This doesn't mean that the game is a ride amongst flowers and butterflies, though; just that the players will be very capable of quickly detecting danger, while not interfering with their personal Roleplay, specially when typing. Evil players (who will require High RP Levels) will be allowed to freely attack, but they will also be easily recognized. Also, the players will be constantly worrying themselves with the danger of invasions, loots, environmental disasters, etc., which are handled by AI.
Map and World:
I find the old distinction of Regular Maps and World Maps to be quite effective. Having a World Map with smaller scales - meaning that the gap between two tiles actually represent a big distance - and Regular - of much bigger scale - would increase the chances of building a quite believable environment; which's quite useful for RPing games. This might seem a bit odd, but think: how good is a RPing game that doesn't demand imagination? It's nearly impossible to build all the maps of a realistic world in Byond's engine without causing problems; so, we just drop off the desperate attempt of making the game sketch every rock and leaf of the world and throw a bit of this responsability to the player's imagination, a situation that work very well with RPing environments.
Also, something rather unexplored in Byond's RPGs are scripts that randomly generates maps. Specially in RPGs. Although it's a rather complicated matter (which, by the way, can compensate the time spent in drawing hard-coded maps), it can be very useful for games whose emphasis lies in Roleplay.
Open ended customization:
The players must have full control of their characters. I don't plan to drop away the class concept, which could generate excessive chunks of complexity to be digested by the player, but to change the way classes are used and seen. If you are of a given class, you will be better in the given skills more than other characters. Just that.
Also, since the emphasis won't be guided by competition, the players are free to try "builds" just for the sake of fun, without compromising their overall experience.
A world about crafting:
Not only crafting stuff. But a game about crafting characters, outposts, villages, armies, kingdoms, dungeons, anything! It's not a game just about becoming strong, specially because actual strength is a quite relative concept here. The best swordsman equiped with the best weapons and armors could be easily brought down by four or five middle level soldiers armed with regular equipment, assuming they work together. You can't become a King if you don't have people handing you significant support. You won't be a good soldier if good blacksmiths don't forge good weapons for you. You can't explore a world if the people don't craft! So, it's a game about crafting, in a world that enriches out of it's crafting with characters that live for crafting.
Current State:
Right now, everything's being sketched in paper. In order to not waste the time and effort of any people that I call for the project, I want to have everything written before the start. With a solid direction, the odds for the survival of the development increases greatly, along with the effectiveness of the development itself.
So, this isn't the time to recruit yet. However, I'm curious to know what the community thinks about these general lines. I've being sketching this game in ideas over years, being writing the plans over two months; so many things are determined in the paper already.
I believe that RPing experiences aren't receiving the deserved emphasis in the gaming world, and I want to contribute with something to change that at least a little bit.
Dec 15 2012, 7:18 pm
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A.T.H.K
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Have you seen - http://www.byond.com/games/WritingANewOne/EterniaPrologue - by any chance?
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Yes, I did, although it was some time ago. I will check it again to see what has changed since, now that you spiced my curiosity, specially because I was expecting someone to compare this brief description to Hazordhu rather than Eternia. Yet, my inspiration mostly comes from Dwarf Fortress, although I don't want to come even close to that degree of complexity, but to mimic and adapt many of it's concepts in an online RPing game.
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Now, this is funny. As I was having these ideas about forging a game, I ended up finding a kickstarter for a project of similar guideline. Too bad it doesn't seem to encourage roleplay and these traditional aspects of a RPG. If it comes to light, it might end up becoming a great inspiration for what I'm trying to sketch.
http://www.topiaonline.com/Home?redirectPath=%2F | |
The difficult thing about creating a video game where true roleplaying is possible, is giving the players the ability to influence the world in a significant way without ruining the game. It just doesn't work if you have any "static" entities in the game - such as a big boss monster that can be defeated multiple times. So you make the boss monster actually disappear once defeated...and then what? Does a player take their place? If so, how can they be defeated in a way that they are no longer the "boss" of this area?
Getting that truly dynamic gameplay to work, however, would result in an awesome game... | |
Yes, I completely agree with you that it's quite a challenge. Specially (and almost the only, since I will pay way more attention to mechanics than to graphics) for the programming. My intention is quite close to forging an interactive environment where everything is built and crafted by players . Some games have successfully managed to perform this, although they lack something...the actual immersion of a RP game. Without this, I believe that the experience is not complete. I'm also sketching a different approach from the "play with the mechanics available and roleplay with them", heading more towards "take this raw piece of world; now build the rest". The only AI controlled creatures will be the ones of small importance, like wolves, deers, rabbits, etc., while the threats of bigger relevance, like orc leaders, necromancers, trolls, would be controlled by players.
It's also worth mentioning a different approach for the idea of "balancing" that has been used in a few games/mods quite wonderfully. It's simple, there's no balance, but a degree of difficulty. Of course, things will be designed in order to develop a good cohesion between each other, but not to precisely compensate pros and cons. Specially because the players won't be directly competing for power with each other, gaining levels and stuff; the point is to actually leave your piece of craft and name in a constantly growing environment. | |
Sounds good to me, I think you have good ideas on this.
I dislike games that have RP basically as part of the chat. I can appreciate the fun in that, and I've played a bit of Dungeons and Dragons myself, but really in a video game it just feels weird to be saying things in chat that aren't actually part of the game mechanics | |
What you're saying is more or less how I feel about the RP games I've played so far. They over use the emote verb, even to my taste, making the process VERY repetitive in the long run. I don't want the players to be constantly writing whatever they are willing to do; instead I wish that they feel the immersion through their actions and style of play. SS13 is a game that performs that to a degree, since you're more worried to somehow attach yourself with the course of the gameplay, in a IC manner, than typing everything you do (even because you would be likely dead by the time you typed everything).
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An RPing game*
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what?
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While all of these concepts look great on paper, a lot of them don't exactly stand up to the scrutiny of real game play. The only true way that I've found to create a perfect RP environment is in an environment that allows for literally infinite possibilities and actions. So far, the only way to possibly do this is through text-based RP.
The fact of the matter is not how you implement the various elements, it's where the focus of the RP is located. Even with Eternia, I think it would do better as an MORPG than an RP Game. The reason being is that there's still statistical mechanics that control the pace of combat and skills. Mitadake High is an unpolished example of a good RP (In my personal opinion). It's very simple, not stat based, an doesn't require any actual progression. The focus on the game is the interaction between the characters in the school, trying to figure out who the killer is and deal with them once they find them. Eternia on the other hand places the emphasis on the combat and character progression. All good in theory, but fall apart when actually implemented. | |
Magicsofa wrote:
The difficult thing about creating a video game where true roleplaying is possible, is giving the players the ability to influence the world in a significant way without ruining the game. It just doesn't work if you have any "static" entities in the game - such as a big boss monster that can be defeated multiple times. So you make the boss monster actually disappear once defeated...and then what? Does a player take their place? If so, how can they be defeated in a way that they are no longer the "boss" of this area? I actually have an idea for that. Just get rid of quests completely. Really, most of them on BYOND are just about fetching an item guarded by a bunch of monsters in a labyrinth, or finding someone in a forest. I think you should put players in a position where they will kinda need the help of other players, which would be the quests. The awesome thing about this is that these "quests" are more dynamic. However, most people wouldn't really offer quests in an RP game, either. | |
That would be very cool. I have thought of some ideas in that regard. For example, you might have characters that are not very good at defending themselves, at least in certain areas/against certain creatures. These types of characters would hire other players with better combat or defence abilities to escort them to other places.
If skills were varied enough, and had just the right balancing, you may have characters who just can't do certain things because they have been focusing on something else. Maybe it takes a long time to be able to build good houses...these players would be hired and payed well for their services, rather than just everyone building their own. So I guess it would be more like "jobs" than "quests." There is still potential for more quest-like player interactions though. What if a player got a highly valuable item stolen from them, by another player who ran away to an area not traversible by the victim. They might hire another player to track them down, someone who can travel in this particular area (I dunno, maybe it's the icy north and you need special equipment and abilities to survive). | |
I believe that you're catching the idea I've more or less sketched in this brief topic. Indeed, GamerMania, one of the inspirations I had was precisely about my distaste on the so overly used quest system; I think that a system developed to attend the players' needs using the own players is a much more effective one, specially when dealing with RP contexts. And since this is something that at least I haven't seen anywhere, it requires a LOT of planning and discussion, before the actual development.
My idea is not to provide an immense list of content and mechanics for the players to play, but to develop an open-ended system, with many gaps here and there for the players to fill in their own way. Instead of developing quests, creating an environment where the players are encouraged to exchange favors and services; instead of providing the contents, have the players to craft them; instead of elaborating a lore, give this role for the players to tell. It's a scheme that eases a bit on the hard-coded scripts and uses much more of the open ended, interactive codes. When all my ideas are defined, and a step-by-step guide that the development will follow until the final version, I will look for experienced programmers to work with me, since my little knowledge on languages would hardly provide anything, although not as big as a mmorpg, highly delicated to work with. | |
Another way to approach the possibility of a scenario like this would probably be to allow theft, but that would annoy the crap out of some players.
The main problem I see most RP games, like Cow RP or Eternia, is that the enviroment lacks character socialization. People in Cow RP are too busy digging and building to really talk to people. People in Eternia are too busy trying to kill monsters. This is because of the lack of need for cooperation and the lack of dangerous environments. Look at Space Station 13. It has a dangerous environment, therefore leading to the need or cooperation. The coop gives you a chance to socialize and become attached to the people around you, opening a door for quests. (He back stabbed me, I can't find him, send him a message.) I also think it's the Admins' responsibility to kinda enforce depth by constantly starting events. Put 50% of your players into Battle Royale. Mysteriously disappear. Code in a disease that gets everyone sick, with a very rare cure. EDIT: You're working on a project that fits these criteria? I consider myself and Adept programmer, if you're interested. | |
Yes, once again the idea I sketched here was caught with precision. The cooperative environment is a solution I've come with to ease the problems you've just mentioned. This, with a few other features, will help to create a truly joyful game. I did thought about building something near thievery, but not in the standard way. Instead of individually stealing something, you would create a bandit group focused in pillaging cities and villages; otherwise, it wouldn't make much sense, because you would be stealing from your own group, disturbing the progress of your own settlement. If a settlement is pillaged, however, where the players run the risk of losing their goods, then the thing will work more like a player-guided event than someone trying to steal just for the sake of trolling; which's much worse for the RPing experience.
And, yes, I am interested. However, I must first finish my plannings over what exactly I will be wanting to do, in order to avoid situations caused by lack of critical directions. Once I'm done with the general lines, I will get in contact. If you wish, you can tell me your e-mail, and I will definitely enter in contact when I'm ready to start development. | |
My email is [email protected] for future contact.
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