Dragonball RTS in Off Topic

ID:104027
 
Oct 31 2010, 4:50 pm
Keywords: dbz
So, roughly a couple months ago I had made an article relating to the ideal of an RTS Dragonball-themed game that would potentially benefit y'all in one way or another. The ideal of this article, is not to have you think I'm going to be developing such a game, but to get anyone of you that wants something to do, a head-start or a push in the right direction. Not all of this article is to be taken 100% to the T. You may, obviously, change some things around to better suite your needs.

So, onward to the juice of the fruit. When thinking about Dragonball based games on BYOND, we stereotypically think of the wanna-be MMO's and the RPGs, and there are a few new styles coming out that are Team-Based/Round-Based. These games are nice and all, but only if it's done correctly. Some of you may have known Dragonball Zeta in it's glory years. The game today has no beneficial value due to it's shoddy work and highly out-dated mechanics of a video game. But back in it's origins, Dragonball Zeta broke into the Anime scene, and in my opinion started the Anime-Based BYOND Games, with a hard-hitting fact that this was an Anime game which you could play.

I'm not much of an RPG/MMO kind of gamer, hell I'm not really much of a gamer to begin with. But when I think of these games, I think there's no real content other than the ability to simulate a single character to fulfill your desires and dreams of being an Anime character in the series/franchise. Well, simulators are nice, but do we really want to grind down to hitting P-Bags and Saibamen all day? Yeah, not so much fun when you get past a certain playing point.

A good game genre, ironically I don't favor too much, is RTS or Real-Time-Strategy. This sort of game-play offers a potentially unlimited amount of fun if you don't limit the players to playing linear quests and objectives.

Now, we can sit here and debate about this more, or we can get something done:

-- A list of facts to take into consideration --

(A) - Playable Characters Pt.1.

There is a variety of characters in the Anime that range in various differences such as race, appearance, abilities and so on. But one that sticks out is Alignment. Good and Evil. When categorizing your playable characters, start with the sub-category of Good and Evil. The ideal is to have a Good Side and an Evil Side in the game.

(B) - Two Factions / Two Forces.

Since we have organized the playable characters into two sides, we can now place the characters where they belong and maybe, if you really wanted to get in-depth, add more sub-categories for their Race/Origin Planet.
Frieza would obviously be placed in Evil while Goku is in Good. This way, only Evil Players can buy Frieza and only Good Players can buy Goku. Some characters are difficult such as Vegeta since he switches teams from Evil to Good. So maybe offer a time-line so to speak. Saiyan-Saga Vegeta is evil while Cell-Saga Vegeta is good.
You can do this either from an In-Game Time-Line or just let players use the past, present and future to their disposal.

(C) - The Grunt Life.

Obviously you don't want a bunch of Gokus and Vegetas running around. Have each side as a set-team. By this I mean if Player A from Good Side purchased Goku and Goku is already on the Field, Player B from Good cannot purchase Goku until the current Goku is dead and re-unlocked from Revival. After-Life Goku would be a separate pawn from regular Goku.
You'll also want some normal builder pawns. These can be Saibaman for Planet Vegeta, Humans for Planet Earth, Spirits for After-Life and so forth. They have the ability to build structures, re-plant the world and so on. They are easily killed by most main characters.

(D) - The World Pt.1.

Each planet, for the most part, as the ability to grow plants, maintain water, and so on. These wouldn't serve much use to the common newbie but they will serve a lot of use because resources turns into build-able items like Food, Structures and so on. Food will be able to regenerate a character's health. Structures can be built for Characters to Train, Travel, Build Technology and etc.

(E) - The World Pt.2.

Technology would be a focal point. Scouters can be made, space pods, dragon radars, advanced clothing/weights, training machines. You get the ideal. Weights would slow down a character, but offer more experience. Experience should be gained only from fighting. Fighting will improve experience and certain statistics significantly. Training is only for means of improving certain statistics when there is no fighting going on.
There are some key structures that shouldn't be build-able to keep in mind. The Hyperbolic Time Chamber, a.k.a. the HTC -- Do NOT spell it HBTC. It's HTC -- for example can only be opened if a Guardian is on the field and alive/active. The HTC would offer a sort of time-travel so that characters can go forward to unlock other characters ahead of time like Majin Vegeta or SS2 Gohan this way players can't directly ruin the gameplay of others by taking their sweet time.

(F) - Playable Characters Pt.2.
Now, to unlock a certain character, events must either unfold or a player needs to gain enough Points. I would recommend a Points system but do not over-power characters in exchange for little to no Points. The strong are strong, so you must be strong to get them unlocked... so to speak.
I would offer a huge variety of characters at players' disposal. From Saibamen to Demons to Frieza to Lord Slug. We all have our favorite characters and many games don't take into consideration that we aren't all golden-hair, monkey-obsessed freaks.
Characters should also have at the minimum 4 Attacks.
<> The standard Melee -- I would recommend basing your attack system to loop the Melee attack when you select a Character and then target an Enemy.

<> Basic Ki/Energy Attack (Maybe Fly or Ki-Blast or Power-Control)

<> Special 1. (Saiyan-Saga Goku's primary might be Kaioken).

<> Special 2. (Saiyan-Saga Goku's secondary might be Kamehameha).

(G) - Conclusion.

Just when a story gets good, you are interrupted, no? Well, I'm going to leave this as a cliff-hanger. Let your imaginations soar wild and have a good time developing.

Also, on a side note, although I don't like to participate in holidays... Have a safe and wonderful Halloween.

-- Maximus_Alex
(Editor Note: My apologies to the author, I mis-clicked)
#1 Oct 31 2010, 4:54 pm
#2 Oct 31 2010, 5:04 pm
No worries, Stephen. I wasn't originally going to post the article on BYOND Anime but I figured it would be put to more use here than on my blog.
#3 Nov 1 2010, 7:23 am
All the ideas fit in nicely however, I have noticed development flaws. No one will want to be a saibaman/human. People with a character preference of say vegeta will not want to play as goku instead...
Technology itself will transform the game into a more runescape type of game not a rts dbz.

My suggestions are to remove training and the whole rpg concept and instead focus on the action. Make it more similar to a multi-player fps... This drastically increases the games value and it is easy for new players to be just as good as the older players.
#4 Nov 1 2010, 8:52 am
Rapmaster wrote:
All the ideas fit in nicely however, I have noticed development flaws. No one will want to be a saibaman/human.

I don't know if you haven't read or not, but Saibaman and Human were meant to be pawns. Just like in the traditional RTS game you have "builders" that have no combat value at all but are the back-bone to your societies.

Technology itself will transform the game into a more runescape type of game not a rts dbz.

Not at all. I don't see how Runescape has anything to do with technology, since the time eras are quite remarkably different, and the way things would be handed is significantly different. You wouldn't focus on a single character, otherwise you'll be trampled to death. You focus on a wide range of characters at your disposal, and you can use technology for their gain. Using a Spacepod on a Goku will allow Goku to travel half-way across the planet or to another planet in no time. A Scouter will allow you to detect the statistics of enemy players, and gain more detailed information about artifacts and etc. Not anywhere close to the mechanics in Runescape.

My suggestions are to remove training and the whole rpg concept and instead focus on the action.

That's exactly the point of this article.
Real-Time-Strategy contains more action than you would find in just about a great majority of BYOND games. The fact that things may change, events may occur at any time and you have to react to it quickly or plan your moves before anything happens. It's not a grind-fest full of forest creatures and castles. It's a slaughter-fest of opposing teams dominating to be victorious. That last sentence alone sounds pretty action-packed, if you ask me.
I'm doubting you took the time to read, at this point.
#5 Nov 1 2010, 9:24 am
Action or not, I think the real key is in realizing that anime is just a theme. Making an "anime game" is more than just making a game as a way of presenting anime content, you can still make the game fun too.

This is kind of why I made a sidescroller demo. People could use it to make anime-based sidescrollers, at least it adds to the diversity of BYOND's anime-based content. Unfortunately I've only seen two people try this approach: Bravo1's NSS2 (which is built on this) and Koriami's DBZ: Fighter's Universe.

It would be nice if we had a quality RTS demo that developers could use to more easily create their own RTS. I'm sure many people have thought to create a DBZ RTS but for many reasons it's easier to create a DBZ RPG.
#6 Nov 1 2010, 9:44 am
I'm doubting you took the time to read, at this point.

i generaly dont reply to things that im not interested in or did not understand fully.

Technology would be a focal point. Scouters can be made, space pods, dragon radars, advanced clothing/weights, training machine

advanced clothing..weights eventually the game would be more about who has the best tech rather than the actual fighting... i agree poor link to runescape but it seemed appropriate at the time.

I would offer a huge variety of characters at players' disposal. From Saibamen to Demons to Frieza to Lord Slug.

Thats why i made the saibaman remark.

#7 Nov 1 2010, 11:45 am
Rapmaster wrote:
advanced clothing..weights eventually the game would be more about who has the best tech rather than the actual fighting... i agree poor link to runescape but it seemed appropriate at the time.

If done correctly, I'm pretty sure a bunch of Super Saiyans could overpower a Namekian who is wearing weights and clothing.

Thats why i made the saibaman remark.

Under "(C) - The Grunt Life," it explains how you would handle the minor characters such as humans and saibaman. Advanced humans and saibaman would be warriors, but still have the ability to create. Lower saibaman and humans would just have the ability to create but are only good in combat for their numbers.
#8 Nov 1 2010, 1:24 pm
Alpha Tour was originally rts, but that's all in the past.
#9 Nov 12 2010, 5:31 pm
We(Whoever) could sort of make the training system like the Shining Force or Final Fantasy(The first is better) style, where after every attack/win you gain a certain amount of EXP in proportion to the two characters/PCS/PC-CPU's that are combating.

Also, it could be a cut-scene turnbased SRTRPG (Strategic Real Time Role(Programmers choice) Playing Game). Where there is a theme and/or storyline behind the game that is meld-able depending on user choices, like the old-styled good quality SRPGs(They weren't a specific storyline you had to follow, you could choose to get characters or not, you could choose to complete battles or not, and occasionally choose to take on a quest/mission or not; but start in a pre-determined way, and end in a user defined one based on the PC's choices and wins/completions/paths).