STORY VS. FEATURES

Features I'd say. However, if no one feels any story attachment, they might not see much incentive in plodding through a game. RPGers like goals. Go do X. But it can't feel like a fetch quest, which is why story comes into play.

It's definitely possible to do both, but some designers are better at one than the other, or at least faster at one than the other. But I think almost every good RPG excels at both.

In my last game I focused primarily on the story at first, creating the game with the default battle system. Then once I was done, once I knew the layout and order of all the dungeons, I could play the game and see the weak points. I could release it and get feedback from players. So I went back and added more interesting gameplay anywhere it was needed. Changed this character from generic magic to blue magic, gave new skills to these other ones, rebalanced the way XP works, added puzzles to these two dungeons, added about ten more bosses, added three new dungeons at the end, etc.

It wasn't that I hadn't tried to make the game fun the first time around - it was just that I hadn't succeeded. But the nice thing about amateur RPGs is that you never have to be done. You can always update them with more changes, more additions, and update the download to a new version.

In my next game I'm trying to focus far more on fun and balanced gameplay from the get-go, and de-emphasizing the story. But I'm not making there be any less story. I'm just reusing a story I've already used in another game, with some minor changes, so that I don't have to put as much time into it. I already put my time into this story years ago, and that saves me from spending as much time now.

Some people team up for the same reason - one designer handles the story and dungeons, and another designer handles the gameplay and scripting, so they don't have to spend time on those things themselves. You might be surprised how many people are good at the things you're bad at and bad at the things you're good at, and would enjoy teaming up.

IMO its better to set out a basic solid story more like a direction not yet a full detailed plot. This might be the hardest part. You can build on the plot letting the character chose maybe different paths for a more open immersible story. Think of it like building a house, you have your basic game-play as the foundation, the game world, setting and atmosphere as the exterior but the plot is like the interior, a game with absolutely no plot or objective is hollow, theirs nothing in it.
Your plot doesn't have to come at the expense of features ( which are like decor or maybe paint, you can still live in a house without paint and decor ) first build the base game add features second, i think thats how most people get it done anyway.

The rest is just my explanation:
Features should be like a crafting system, a cooking system, an age system or time system ( day and night, month and years e.t.c ) try not to make some crazy system to soon like a full out city creation system or something thats like making a game in a game for a game it will get complex so its best to do it one at a time adding each feature when its needed like you can make a city creation system and turn out you never even needed it, but just because it was an idea you run with it.

Its best to work on a system in parallel to when its needed e.g your working on the battle system and need some extra features to make it just how you want it but not before or after, after making a game and adding a system IMO feels like hard boring work especially getting everything to fit last minute. Most of the times I get lazy.

One good thing about old-school games is they don't let everything slide just for the sake of having the more features and best graphics.
If your doing a non-linear game however features are important if the plots weak or insignificant ( has no real importance ) but you might risk making a shallow game unless your features are either creative or advanced like a full advanced character creating and age system for a game with no story ( hence you still need a dirsction/objective more if you don't have a story ) will still be a great game,
then a game with a great story but no objective won't need gameplay and would be best as a movie or animation e.t.c,

Guitaromancer Ranchomizer.

I see many games that are designed around an amazing feature, like a custom battle system, menu system, fusion system etc. There is nothing wrong with this at all, however, the focus of games should be story and/or game-play.

A game (or RPG to be more specific) is about achieving a goal or completing a task for entertainment and a good time. If a game lacks story and is focused around a custom menu system or something of that nature, where is the goal. You cannot complete a system. Your story doesn't need to be epic, plot twisting, drawing your player back for more, but it should be interesting to say the least.

Game-play is also an important feature. If you have an amazing story with antagonist vs. antagonist and mental conflict, but the dungeon mapping sucks, you have a problem. Even if your story is kick-a&&, bad game-play will weaken the magnetic effect that the player should have toward the game.

So where do features come in?

We now know just because you found a cool script doesn't mean you need to make a game for it, (That's what script demo's are for), but features are never-the-less important. A game can get boring if you are used to that blue-wall message screen that you see in every VX game. It can get disappointing when your game has a great story, but, unlike your MMO, you cannot change your class. Features add jazz to a game, they're a very useful feature. (no pun intended.)

author=Emanzi
I like games with custom everything although its harder to make. I've played to many games with rtp and endless features ( scripts ).

custom everything.

I like that term.

I don't think he means that the player can customize the game.

Although that would be... a really interesting system.

I personally feel that I'm in the same boat with my game, Fey. I have spent countless months on the details, polish and feel alone. But when it comedown to it, it's really about the story. It's how you control the information flow and the pacing. How you marry te story to enjoyable none repetive game play and tired mechanics and gimmics. Getting the right balance is almost impossible. I find the most disheartening part is when you put so much time, effort, heart, thought and soul into something and have it generally get the same review score as something that someone put half the time and thought into with a quarter of the polish. But I digress. There are only a few games that have really ever got this right and I feel that the most notable one is assassins creed brotherhood. The game marries parkour, strategic combat, a plethora of diverse weapons, side missions, challenges, micro managing your assassins, upgrading, collecting, download content and still manages to have one of the most captivating and unique storylines I have ever seen. See there are just a few things that make a game fun and addictive. The gamer alway like to feel smart and like they are making progress. So puzzles that aren't hard and are ridiculously easy tend to be the best wy to go. They are easy enough that the player never gets stuck and still gets that small boost of accomplishment. Rewarding combat I the next. Who honestly doesn't enjoy taking their frustrations out on some poor weak(slightly challenging) enemy. It evokes a sense of power. Te best way to do this is to always over power the hero. Make the enemies easy to destroy and kill but marry this with making the hero half as easyto kill. So there's still the challenge but the sense of power remains in tact. The next part is probably by far the most important part. Collectables. It's just like gambling or any kind o obsession or hobby. It's addictive. Collecting thing through exploration is one o the reasons player explore the world your created at all. Now collectibles don't mean anything if they don't have a purpose. Either experience orbs (like in enslaved) or something to drive a certain aspect of the game or character progression forward, like the feathers in assassins creed. You collect them in loving memory of you sick little brother that was hung. This task when completed helps your comatose mother over come some of the shock and trauma. The final thi with games, well story heavy game is the flow. The story can be short or cheesy or even clique. But if the pacing is bad then it breaks te entire game play and flow. Story progression should always be treated like the collectibles. The player watches a short but interesting cutscene then is let free to play the game for a short to medium while. This allows them to work towards findin out what's going to happen next. This helps keep the player interested and makes it feel like there is a reason to continue.
The other thing I feel that's worth mentioning is the characters. The story and game only stay as interesting as the characters. They ate actor and they carry your story. I have a lot more to say on this subject and some more personal opinions but for now I feel I got what I wanted to say out.

author=Atmaweapon
Presently, I am working on the game "Durance of Magic". This game is designed to be both unique and cliche enough to provide original world and story for effective immersion as well as that refreshing cup of nostalgia and remembrance to evoke whatever feelings drew us to the old RPG genre in the first place... A hard task to accomplish, indeed.

In my attempt to accomplish this, I have focused heavily on the flow of story, the storyline itself, character design, dialogue, and the world itself. As I neared the completion of the game's first chapter I sent out demos to my tester friends and then played through it myself. I also played through a couple highly praised games on this site to see "what I am up against", so to speak. The results were disheartening.

I was missing the hook, first of all, and the pizazz to boot. Features! Holy hell, I had forgotten the allure of the features. Even my dungeons were simply a walk-through-and-random-encounter mess. After a solid facepalm, I went back to my written notes to try and find my feature ideas. I began to implement my ideas and realized... Oh my god... by doing this I may have pushed back my completion deadline by as much as a third. Another palm to face jogged my mind enough to realize that I would have to cut down the features not only to save time, but to save immersion.

Some games are for story. Some games are for gameplay and features. Can they coexist? It is my concern that, given too many different things to do, a player can lose sight of the story and characters and get swept up in the this or that.

So my question is this:

Is it possible to have a -quality- game that is rich in both storyline and feature? Or is too much of one or the other a hindrance to each other? And what game can you think of that has married the two successfully?

P.S.
- sorry for the text wall.

(Game Play > Story) When I play an RPG I am not there to read a book. I am there to be immersed into my own choices and how I can change the world with MY character, not some character given to me and that's it. That's why I love Final Fantasy 1. I can actually create my own damn party in that with my own creations. Some people think it's awesome to use a million cut scenes and write a novel without having good battles, features or anything else to make it an actual game. I'm honestly not sure what people are thinking when they do this. That's not an RPG it's a Graphic Novel and needs to be put in that category.

Most of the final fantasy series was greatly successful because they had the right amount of story and game play. However, there was no personal choices in those games. Just follow the yellow brick road to the END. I wouldn't really call most JRPGs RPGs at all. They are more like Action Story Games. ASG. Some true RPGs as an example are: Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1/2/3, Morrowind/Oblivion, and most dungeons and dragons games and many others that let you actually make choices on how your character changes the world around them.

Not to go off topic with my thoughts on this stuff but my point is you have to give players choices through a good linear main story line with great game play to actually have a good RPG. People love to have awesome powers or classes to make them different on every play through. By the way, you can keep shit simple with menus and things as long as you make the game fun. Just because you see some flashy shit this chump puts in his game over here doesn't mean his game is actually good.

Think of all the horrible PS3/XBOX 360 games you have played. Graphics don't make a game fun. They only improve it a bit by having nice ones. If that game has anything that would piss a player off they would immediately start hating the game and sadly I have played shit just like that. Dragon Age 2 for an example. What a horrible piece of shit. (E.A. Ruined the fucking series. BioWare are a bunch of drones now.)

The only exception for JRPGs are alternate endings.