LITTLE EFFORTS IN YOUR RPG GO A LONG WAY... RIGHT?

It's funny you made this now, just last night I was working on my super secret project and I've been thinking about the little details on the map.
Just to add some life, I'm adding some birds flying off screen as you enter the map and thinking about some other little things that add to the environment.

I personally like seeing it! I also think it's always worth the effort!

If you can help it, I think it's a good rule to never have a static map when possible. I realize not everything has to have some small details that animate or move, etc.
You definitely don't want to overdo it, like you said.

Chrono Trigger is an excellent example of having areas full of life!

Little things definitely add a lot. For example one of my favorites is that weird symbol that appears in Majora's Mask's Clock Tower that only reappears again in Ikana Castle. Does that mean Ikana had a hand in constructing Clock Town? Maybe.

This is the kind of thing I'll leave out when making areas or cut scenes, and then go back and add later if I get time. You'll end up with the same game without it, it just will look a little less polished.

With a good code structure you can make it with less effort... like all treasure chests call the same script that automatically drawn the item picture from the description and shows that picture popping out of the treasure chest.
It's harder if you use an engine which doesn't supports such things and you have to do it for each and every chest manually.

@LockeZ
The problem with that "tactic" is that I've seen plenty of developers that were so tired of their game the time they "finally" finished it that they ended up just never doing the "polish" at the end (despite having said they will do it when the game core is done) and just released the game never to touch it again.

I think it's better to first make a demo of your game, one town, one dungeon, a bit of the world map and then polish it to perfection before continuing.

author=RyaReisender
@LockeZ
The problem with that "tactic" is that I've seen plenty of developers that were so tired of their game the time they "finally" finished it that they ended up just never doing the "polish" at the end (despite having said they will do it when the game core is done) and just released the game never to touch it again.

I think it's better to first make a demo of your game, one town, one dungeon, a bit of the world map and then polish it to perfection before continuing.

Yeah, but it's polish. It helps the game, but it's not vital. It's better to get sick of the rest of the development and not have time for polish than to get sick of polishing it and not have time to finish the core development.

author=RyaReisender
I'd rather have a perfectly polished demo than a non-polished finished game (as creator).

I have to side with RyaReisender on this one. A short but sweet demo is better for demonstrating what you're capable of as well as not consuming as much of your audience's time as compared to something that they would have to replay in its entirety if they want the full experience (once you've gone back to polish). You could choose to not release the full but unpolished game until you go back and polish all the parts, but you might be cutting yourself short of potential feedback as a developer.

Then again, you might want feedback on a certain game system played out over a longer time span, something that a short n' sweet demo couldn't provide. And this is more assuming that the 'polish' includes stuff like graphic assets, better mapping etc. You really shouldn't leave bugs in your game for very long especially if they are known bugs because further down the road, they may become more and more troublesome and potentially harder to debug. Basically, you should squash your bugs as soon as you can, and removing them should not be considered 'polish', just good programming habits.

I do all those things already for my RPG. Didn't know they were small, impactful things though...

author=eplipswich

author=RyaReisender
I think it's better to first make a demo of your game, one town, one dungeon, a bit of the world map and then polish it to perfection before continuing.

If game creators do that, chances are they'll stop and won't even finish the game...

Yes, but then they'd at least have a fully polished demo to show others what they are capable off.

Still better than a finished game you didn't have motivation to polish in the end and is consequently worse than what you actually could do.

Yes, if you don't care what others think about your game, than only what YOU want matters (which can be any of the two, you might want to see how much you can do or you want to just finish a game no matter what).

You also go through all the fundamentals of game development if you do a completely polished demo, though. As long as it includes everything - a town, a field map, a dungeon, dialogues, battles.

Alternatively you can just plan a really small scope project with a good message. Then you can do both, finish it and polish it.