But speaking from a realistic standpoint, what do you like to see in an RPG? Is it being able to kill things? Because able to find rare, powerful equipment? Being able to just explore the game world, or just sit around bragging about your stats or what? What are some RPG elements that make-or-break a game for you?

I want different things from a hack-and-slash RPG than from a roleplaying RPG, but I like and play both, so I'll outline both.

Hack-and-slash RPG:
Lots and lots and lots of items! Random generators can be employed to increase variety. I like to be able to play over a period of weeks and still be finding new and better things to outfit my character with at the end of that period.

I enjoy the standard progression whereby you kill things to get points to increase your stats so you can go to harder areas and kill harder things with better treasure. Rewards should be fairly frequent whether levels or treasure. The gameworld should also be easy to socialize in, have nice commands to chat or boot out annoying people.

Uber-realism is just a means to an end, and games can be perfectly enjoyable without it. My two main requirements are some AI to challenge me and the ability to keep upgrading and customizing my character.

Roleplaying RPG:
Some basic world and race history so I know what I'm playing is very important. Now, of course, I'm an absolute roleplaying genius and I can create fascinating characters with nothing more than a gender and an age, but nothing that lacks context is as enjoyable as it could be.

Here I also like combat, skill progression and lots of items to outfit my character (though this time, for looks as well as uberness). The rewards do not have to come as often, but I still want challenges I can meet in order to gain something, usually exp or treasure.

Things that facilitate my attachment to my character should be plenty. Looks customizations, homes, special titles I might get through roleplaying... and the ability to keep meeting challenges and earning stuff, since no matter how great the RP is, having a character that's stagnant mechanically takes some fun out of it for me.

Some snertproofing mechanics are required in roleplaying RPGs too (what a strange term I've invented).

More things I thought of after reading the rest... quests are good, even if it's as simple as the generic "fetch me [random item]" quest. It's good to have goals (another way to do this is to make sure money is never worthless, but can always buy some fantastic item or other once you have a little more).

I also like a certain amount of safeness in the games I play. If permadeath is possible, there should be concrete things I can do to avoid it. If item or home loss is possible, allow me to pay a price to keep from losing them. A good portion of the fun for me in an RPG is having a character (and her items) for a long, long time.

Z

Well let's see.

Random generators are great, but do you mean new and better thans as in "this sword does 30 damage when my last sword did 20", or "this sword shoots fireballs when my last sword didn't"? Do you mean better things as in just being more powerful than the last things you had, or better in that they have something that's niftier about them than the last item?

All that, though the simplest way ("this sword does 30 damage when my last sword did 20") all by itself can add a good deal to the fun of the game.

I always imagine a system like, say, Diablo II. Where there's a predetermined set of extra abilities a weapon can have. Elemental damage, um, increased damage, increased durability, lower weight, stuff like that.

Concrete things such as not wandering into the cave that everyone knows houses a big nasty dragon that eats experienced players for breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes a late night snack?

More like concrete things I can do, rather than things I should not do. Pray to this god before going in the dungeon, and no permadeath for 15 minutes. Pay the town wizard to cast an item-binding spell, and my things will be stuck to my corpse next time I die.

Z

Deadron wrote:

If you handle this incorrectly, you go the EQ route: Adding extra levels that are real hard to attain, adding monsters with 10x the hit points to make things harder...then having to add stronger swords and stuff to make things interesting for players, then having to add tougher monsters, in a never-ending, destructive loop. As you add this tougher loot, all the old loot in the game becomes worthless.

DAoC has a good answer for this in it's realm vs. realm PvP model, in which the end game is to try and grab the keeps and special relics owned by the other side, which gives your realm extra abilities. And if you control enough of the world, one of the best areas of the world opens up for your realm only. So there is a constant fight back and forth that engages the long-time players.

This underlies one of the major issues of RPG design that often gets overlooked: regardless of what goals you set for players, getting there is supposed to be half the fun. Regardless of what goals you set, if they're obtained by repetitively killing monsters for hundreds of hours, not many players are going to even bother trying to reach them. If you reward your players by giving them an engaging, interesting game to play, then there's not so much need to tempt them to play by handing out massively overpowered items and abilities.

Foomer wrote:

Concrete things such as not wandering into the cave that everyone knows houses a big nasty dragon that eats experienced players for breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes a late night snack?

And logging off when the evil admin Foomer logs in?

And yet I have yet to play a single game of yours :P

Release them! And not JUST slurpy!

I'd release them if I could persevere on any project long enough to bring it to a state where the developer isn't the only one who can mess around with the game's systems. =P

Fortunately, I do have five games that I've released so far, though they're iffy in the "game" department. Namely, Take 15 (not much of a game), Knight's Bridge (which was actually a misimplementation), Switcheroo (not much of a game), the Slurpy Demo (obviously incomplete), and Hunter. Hunter was and is a true game, at least, but I decommissioned the old version after browser-based functionality was implemented in BYOND (yes, it's that old -- the new version is, like most of my other projects, only partially complete).

Foomer wrote:

The evil administrator, feeling especially evil one night, decides to tamper with the mental powers of the local shopkeepers in the village-city, causing them to lower their prices. He then commands the guards to declare, "All items in the village are now on sale!" Once the players have gathered together to purchase these cheap goods, he summons hordes and hordes of midnight creatures, the most feared monsters in existence (short of the evil admin himself), just outside the gates of the village...

As the players' screams of frustration reach his ears, he cackles to himself, his job well done, and logs off.

(And oh so much more fun with permadeath!)

Sounds like you don't want anyone to play your game. =P

Fine, I'll stay away.

There is a mud I played a while back that was based off of the Warcraft genre. You would really enjoy it if you like random equipment and constant questing and things of the sort. It had 75 levels, 50 before you remort then 75 after that, but you could only reach past 50 by pking if I remember correctly, but then again you could also join up in groups and work against the hordes in the different realms for great equipment. All of it was random and it's values determined what it was good for. Such as, "A Venomous Leeching Two-Handed Sword", would have poison damage and leech life with its normal attack, and since it is a two handed sword it would be slightly stronger than one carried in a single hand.

The big theme, though, was trying to create a good group of different characters. Basically you didn't get to explore the mud to its full fundamentals until you remorted and reached max mob-killing level, which only takes a few hours mind you. Depending on your kingdom(Three Kingdoms, Human Alliance, Orc Alliance, Sentinel Alliance, aka Night Elves.) is who you would be able to group with, since you had almost no contact to other kingdoms except through say, but usually when 2 opposing kingdom dwellers are in the same room, they are buisy fighting for their kingdom rather than chatting away. After each playerkill depending on who is the victor is who will gain equipment, or the person could be nice and let the defeated keep their eq for later on. Groups usually have 1 Cleric, 1 Assassin, and 2 tanks. Assassin's can lay traps, clerics can heal, and tanks are basically Barbarians or Warriors who deal out the damage and protect the Assassin's/Clerics. Then again Wizards and Amazons are vital at times, yet rare, since they are hard to get up to optimum levels.

The roleplay included was communicating with your own war council and learning what moves the other kingdoms had made earlier, usually posted notes on the mud boards give you clues to whats going on, and updates within the mud. And there are many administrative events where arena mode is activated, and remorted players from each kingdom currently online can choose to join in and are randomly set into colored teams which stick together and use their own skills in the skirmish that goes on between the four corners.


<<>>Kusanagi<<>>

A GOOD one, which is rare nowadays. Something new and original, like living the life of a rockstar or something and making songs in the game and having concerts and such. (You could name it virtual rockstar ;p)

~ your <FONT SIZE = 1>non-</FONT>friendly Neibourhood Jermman