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Guardian Frontier
An RPG with classic-style gameplay and a non-classic premise, inspired by the history of exploration and colonialism of the 19th century.

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What elements from existing games would you like to see reused?

Describe some elements (mechanical, story based, etc.) which you've seen in specific games, which you'd like to see used elsewhere. If it's an element that you've seen in numerous games, try to pick a game which you think did it in a particularly interesting way, and what you think was so good about it that you think it deserves imitation.

I'll offer a couple of mine to start.


Private Actions as used in the first and second Star Ocean Games:
Private Actions were a game mechanic which gave the option of splitting up your party when you entered a town, and wandering around with your main character to engage in interactions with NPCs or your own party members which wouldn't occur when visiting the town as a group. These events sometimes offered material rewards, but mostly offered a chance to watch your characters interact with each other and affect the relationships between them. It gave much more depth to the cultivation of relationship values between characters (another mechanic I like a lot when done well,) than the simple choices of "which character will you be nice to and spend time with?" offered by many other games, and made the chance to see the interplay between characters its own reward. Plus, new Private Actions become available over time in towns which have already been visited before as the plot progresses, encouraging a level of nonlinearity in gameplay.

(The paired character scenes in the epilogue of the game if you've built their relationship values high enough, on the other hand, I think are an inadequate payoff for the level of investment that goes into cultivating those relationship values, and I don't consider that to be an element worth copying.)

The character customization system from Suikoden III:
While a single player character with blank slate abilities can make for fun gameplay, giving the player leeway to customize a large cast risks making them boring and interchangeable in combat. Suikoden III, though, managed to offer the players significant leeway for customization while leaving a cast of several dozen combat characters meaningfully distinct in gameplay terms. Each character has a number of skills, which can be leveled up at training locations (martial instructors for fighting skills, rune instructors for magic skills) with skill points gained in battle. Skills enhance in-battle characteristics such as dodge rate, parry rate, running speed, number of times the character swings at the enemy per attack, speed and power with which you cast fire spells, wind spells water spells, etc., level of spell resistance or odds of nullifying spells outright, and so on. Simple and generic enough so far. But characters differ in

*How many skill slots they have available. Some characters may only have two or three skills to develop, while others may have as many as eight.
*Whether their slots are free or fixed. Some characters are stuck with certain skills; you can decide whether or not you want to sink your points into them, but you can't remove them and replace them with other skills. Other spaces will be blank, and can be filled by any skills available at the training center, or have default skills which can be removed and replaced if you so choose.
*How talented they are at various skills. Depending on a character's level of talent at a skill, the amount of skill points they need to level it up, and the maximum level they can attain in it, will differ. A character with the minimum level of talent in a skill will only be able to raise it as high as C class, and character's limits can fall at any of the intervening points on the way to the top, B, B+, A, A+, and S.
*Whether or not they have special skills. Some characters start with, or acquire as they level up, skills which cannot simply be selected at a training center to fill blank spaces. Note that just because a character gets a special skill doesn't necessarily mean that you have to choose to keep it.

All of this is apart from their differences in base stats, equipment types, and how many runes (which allow further customization) they can equip.

Suikoden III was my first game in the series, and I was tremendously disappointed when I found that the others didn't allow me to tweak characters in this way. Suikoden V attempts something like this, with skills affecting a character's stats, but it doesn't offer nearly as much leeway over characters' performance in battle.

[Poll] What do you think about multiple endings?

I know a lot of players like them, but personally, I'm not a fan of "good" and "evil" endings. I mean, yes, they offer a substantial divergence in content which usually goes beyond a difference in some single choice at the end of the game, but I feel like a more nuanced or novel basis for distinguishing between endings is almost always more interesting. Besides, in life, who really decides between "good" and "evil?" Overwhelmingly, people decide between different conceptions of what's right, and trade their principles off against each other. Usually the game's writers have some particular ending in mind which they think is right, and if they let players do something else, it's jumping off some slippery slope of iniquity, but I'm more interested in games that offer the player multiple essentially viable ways to address the game's core conflict.

For example, suppose that you have the choice between saving a kingdom and returning the throne to the rightful heir, versus saving the kingdom and ruling it yourself. Conventionally, the latter would probably be the "evil" end, where you become some kind of decadent tyrant. But what if I want to rule the kingdom and do a better job? Maybe reform the country's infrastructure, and ultimately dismantle the monarchy from the top and then step down? I'd be much more interested in a game which offers a choice between passing up power in an attempt to stay morally pure, versus taking it in an attempt to accomplish greater good.

On the mechanical side, I'll add that if your multiple endings require replay to achieve, you should offer players an abundance of reasons to want to replay the game. The worst you can do is offer a highly linear game with consistent gameplay from playthrough to playthrough, where the most motivation the player will have is to get things they "missed" the first time. Offering choices which generate substantially different scenes is better, but will usually leave playthroughs mostly rather than almost completely identical. Multiple endings are most effective when you make your gameplay, plot, or both, sufficiently open ended that your audience would want to replay the game even if you didn't have them. For instance, the Elder Scrolls games tend to allow character creation with sufficient leeway that it dramatically alters how you play through the game; with that much incentive to play multiple times, leaving out multiple endings would be a major oversight. Many of the Might and Magic games offer options for party setup which make for a wide variety of different playstyles, but since most of them have only one ending, you're liable to end up playing through the same exact storyline repeatedly just to explore the different mechanical challenges.

How to add fun to grinding?

author=RyaReisender
But that falls in the category: You don't actually enjoy grinding but you really enjoy the rewarding feeling of being stronger through effort afterwards.


Eh, sometimes I find the actual repetitive activity itself kind of soothing, but I won't contest that repetitive activity is very rarely the most desirable way to give players the opportunity to strengthen their characters.

How to add fun to grinding?

I actually wrote the other part of this comment first, but since this part actually addresses the topic question of the thread, I might as well put it on top.

I'd suggest adding a framework to the grinding which makes it feel like you're accomplishing something else in-story aside from grinding, in order to give the activity more of a sense of significance.

Here's an idea of my own for illustration. I'd like to see a game where, rather than getting money from killing ordinary enemies, your party gets money from delivering packages from one city to another. Since trips of any significant length tend to result in encounters with monsters, it's too dangerous for most people to travel casually between cities, so post is reliant on hardened warriors for delivery. Some delivery requests are scripted and appear only once at a specific time and place, but other deliveries are randomly generated on a continuing basis, so you can travel back and forth between cities carrying mail in order to earn money, and gain extra experience on the side.

Of course, different contexts call for different frameworks, but it should usually be possible to develop some sort of in-story significance to the activity of wandering around killing lots of stuff, so it doesn't feel so much like you're doing it for the hell of it.

(If anyone wants to use the specific idea I described above, I have far too many such ideas to get possessive of any particular one, but please let me know you're interested in using it.)

author=LockeZ
I can believe there are people out there who legitimately enjoy grinding and repetition. What they're looking for in a game isn't excitement or challenge or discovery, it's catharsis. They want to chill out and do something brainless and effortless.


Speaking as a player who often does enjoy grinding, while I also enjoy excitement and challenge and discovery in other elements of the game, it's true that there's a degree of catharsis involved, but I think there's more to it than that. I grind in video games for pretty much the same reason I work out in real life. If you go to a gym, you can spend substantial periods of time moving pieces of metal with numbers on them up and down, over and over, and if you keep it up long enough, you can move bigger numbers, or move the same numbers more times. It's a very simple way to feel like you've accomplished something. Afterwards, other people may admire your ability to move heavy objects, or the appearance of your muscles, and it reinforces your sense that you have something to feel proud about.

Grinding in video games accomplishes something very similar. You engage in a repetitive activity, become able to do something you couldn't do before, and it gives you something to feel proud about. Sure, the "you" which gains new capabilities might be virtual, and so one might argue that they shouldn't carry that sort of significance, but if we never ascribed significance to the actions of these virtual characters, we probably wouldn't play video games at all.

It's not just that putting in time offers returns in growth. It's easy to implement systems where the characters get stronger while eliminating grinding entirely. It's that grinding offers an opportunity to exceed expecations, even if only the implicit expectations of the game designers.

I wouldn't fault anyone who doesn't like doing it, but I tend to miss it when it's gone.

Are achievements a poor way to increase game length?

author=LockeZ
I know people who absolutely despise achievements and everything they represent, though I've never been entirely sure why. Personally, I like them as long as they're not things that require tons of grinding. Usually I see this in the form of achievements like "Capture every pokemon" or "Create every craftable item" or whatever. Requiring grinding for an achievement is perhaps the only thing more offensive than requiring grinding for a real reward. The OCD players are equally likely to do it either way, so at least give them something tangible for their trouble. Getting the best pokemon and the best crafted items is a meaningful challenge with a good reward, and fitting for an achievement - getting the other hundred also is just a boring, time-consuming pain in the ass.

Some games have achievements for hard tasks that you'd probably do anyway because they have their own rewards, and other games have achievements for the equivalent of wearing a traffic cone on your head. I'm okay with either style.

Speaking as a player who does despise achievements and everything they stand for, I feel that perhaps I should explain my point of view here.

On the scale of OCD players, I'm pretty high up there, but definitely not at the top. I'll rarely leave an Infinity Plus One sword unacquired, a bonus boss unbeaten, or bonus dungeon unexplored. Even without material reward, I'll often create self imposed challenges which the programmers did not clearly intend to be part of the experience of the game. I like doing this, and it makes me feel pretty good, but there are limits; I'm not going to sink hundreds of hours into a game just for the sake of one final self imposed challenge when I've already experienced just about everything else the game has to offer.

Achievements fundamentally reframe the relationship between my playstyle and game completion.

Take a game like Final Fantasy Tactics. It has an interesting story worth playing for, open-ended class system which offers player huge opportunity for customization, plenty of optional content, and is difficult enough to make completing the game in an ordinary manner challenging for most players. I've played through the game a few times, beaten all of the various optional battles, gotten all the best equipment, may or may not have unlocked every skill in the game (I don't really remember anymore,) and worked out some effective class/skill combinations which allow me to win battles which I once found challenging with various self imposed limitations such as using only one character, never using items, etc. By my standards, I've pretty thoroughly completed the game, and while I might want to revisit it as some point, it probably won't be any time soon, as I've pretty well tapped what I have to get out of it.

On the other hand, there's a sizable community of players dedicated to exploring the opportunities for self imposed challenges that the game offers. There are challenges involving never mixing skills from multiple class types on a character, playing the entire game with only the main character in every allowable fight (which is most,) never using characters with unique class types, and so on and so forth. Some of them are ludicrously difficult or time consuming, many of them are mutually exclusive in a single playthrough, and frankly, they exceed the extent of my interest in finding new approaches to the game's content.

Suppose that the developers of Final Fantasy Tactics had exhibited extraordinary prescience with respect to the trends of the gaming industry, and equipped it with an Achievement system. Not only the bonus bosses and unlockable events, but also the various self imposed challenges created by the players become achievements to unlock. Now, with my currently level of time investment into the game, I can see that I've unlocked 104/188 achievements. I'm being offered a visible notification that I've left this game, which I already considered largely tapped out, substantially incomplete. Instead of the pride that I once felt in exceeding the ordinary play parameters of the game, I feel frustration at not measuring up to the obsessiveness of the most hardcore players.

This reflects my feelings about every implementation of an achievement system I've ever encountered. It removes my ability to define on my own terms what constitutes a reasonable level of accomplishment in the game. Since I derive satisfaction from going above and beyond the basic expectations of game completion, I'll always do more than the bare minimum necessary to finish a game I enjoy, but an Achievement system redefines how I perceive the expectations of completion, to a standard I can't achieve without playing the game long past the point where it's ceased to be fun.

Even if attaining the sum of all achievements in a game doesn't constitute an obscene level of time investment, if the game developers and I disagree on what constitutes interesting and worthwhile things to achieve in the course of gameplay, I don't like having their standards rubbed in my face.

I'm sure there are players for whom an achievement system substantially enhances their enjoyment, but I am one of those for whom it does the reverse. Attempting to ignore them in the games where they appear does me no more good than it would for players who like them to pretend that games that don't have them do. So, my own input is very biased, but consider for what it's worth that such a system may serve to alienate some of your players.

Offering writing services

The only video game related work I've done is unfortunately not saved on my computer. I was part of a game making group that spun off of the tvtropes forums which died out due to lack of commitment, and the work I contributed is no longer archived; ideally I'd like to work with someone more committed to bringing their work to fruition.

If you'd like to see some short examples of my work, I can link to a few tvtropes pages I've created:

Grail In The Garbage

Martial Medic

Slap On The Wrist Nuke

The End (webcomic)

I've written up plenty of others, but some of them now showcase other people's work as much as my own. In terms of willingness to do large scale monotonous grunt work, I was responsible for manually switching every instance of Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Realism to Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism when the trope was renamed.

If you want something more substantial, or demonstrative of my fiction writing abilities, the work I currently have online is old and no longer satisfying to me, but if anyone wants to offer some sort of prompt indicative of the sort of work they want done, I'd be happy to write up something new to show them.

The reason I don't have a solid portfolio to offer up is the same as the reason I'm looking for people to offer my services to right now; I find it much easier and more satisfying to work when I have other people counting on me than when I'm working entirely under my own volition. So rather than writing something up and showing it to people on demand, it comes easier to me to write something up on demand and show it to people.

I'm prepared to respond to any sort of prompts any member here might offer, at any level of open endedness (as long as it doesn't demand familiarity with existing characters I don't know.) If anyone has any interest in this, I'm looking forward to it.

Offering writing services

I'd like to offer my services as a writer to anyone in need of assistance with any sort of writing tasks, from heavy loads of NPC dialogue to big picture story writing and anything in between.

I'm a newcomer to the RPGMaker community, and I'm hoping to get some experience working with some people who know the ropes of game design better than I do (not a high bar to clear,) and hopefully build up a reputation to attract future collaborators.

I'm a longtime tvtropes editor (if you frequent the site, there's a good chance you've read some of the pages I've written,) and I'm happy to take on large workloads. Want to make every character in a town of 200 interesting to talk to? Want a novel description for every piece of equipment in the game? Want to give your game a dose of Always Check Behind The Chair and offer up entertaining character/scenery interactions? I'm glad to help.

Looking to deepen your characters, inject some believable statesmanship into a political plot, or turn a generic sword and sorcery premise into something more? I'd love to be a part of it.

I hate letting other people down, and I'm unlikely to suffer constraints on my time which will prevent me from working, so you can expect me to stick out projects to completion. If you're unsure about the level of quality I'll bring to the project, I'm happy to join in on a trial basis.

Hope I can be of service.