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LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
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The Unofficial Squaresoft MUD is a free online game based on the worlds and combat systems of your favorite Squaresoft games. UOSSMUD includes job trees from FFT and FF5, advanced classes from multiple other Square games, and worlds based extremely accurately upon Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Final Fantasies 5, 6, and 7. Travel through the original worlds and experience events that mirror those of the original games in an online, multiplayer format.
If a large, highly customized MUD, now over 10 years old and still being expanded, with a job system and worlds based on some of the most popular console RPGs seems interesting to you, feel free to log on and check it out. Visit uossmud.sandwich.net for information about logging on.
If a large, highly customized MUD, now over 10 years old and still being expanded, with a job system and worlds based on some of the most popular console RPGs seems interesting to you, feel free to log on and check it out. Visit uossmud.sandwich.net for information about logging on.
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How do you tell if a game is bad?
post=208082
Crimson_legionnaire asked if instant gratification is the norm nowadays, implying that it once wasn't. What I wanted to point out is that old games were very much designed with instant gratification in mind. Those 40+ hour games you're talking about are relative recent additions. That makes them rather irrelevant to the "nowadays" comment.
If you go back to, like, the Atari and NES and crap, then yeah, games started off quickly. Starting off at full blast and staying there has always been a defining feature of the "arcade" genre of games. But I think people are talking more about the PSX era of games.
I'd like to point out that this topic is now the same topic as the >New Game topic.
cutscenes
post=207872post=207816RM2k3 does not have this command.I do have the problems of having no clue how long Waits should be, and also of not mapping out my movements enough beforehand though, so I end up running through the scene about 100 times before I'm done.Just a helpful tip. Waiting after movements is generally not the best way to wait until movements finish. There is an actual event command called "Wait until movement finishes" (or whatever it's called in whichever version of RPG Maker you use). Try it out, it's infinitely easier.
Only time I use waits during movements is when I want multiple movements that begin at different times but overlap. Even then you should still use "wait until movement finishes" once the last event starts moving.
Uh... yes. Yes it does. I used it a few thousand times in my RM2K3 game. RM2K has it also. RM95 might not...
In RM2K3 it's directly under Move Event, and its name is Proceed With Movement. In RM2K, it's called something else, but it's in the same place.
Something Need Doing?
Uh, hmm. How competent? Could you make a battle system that allows for moving enemies, and for attacks with geometric areas of effect? Like the Chrono Trigger attacks that hit a circle area around an enemy, or hit everything along a line out from the caster?
Because that would pretty much make my year, and you should seriously message me if so. But I have a feeling that an entire battle system is probably not what you had in mind.
Because that would pretty much make my year, and you should seriously message me if so. But I have a feeling that an entire battle system is probably not what you had in mind.
cutscenes
I do have the problems of having no clue how long Waits should be, and also of not mapping out my movements enough beforehand though, so I end up running through the scene about 100 times before I'm done.
Just a helpful tip. Waiting after movements is generally not the best way to wait until movements finish. There is an actual event command called "Wait until movement finishes" (or whatever it's called in whichever version of RPG Maker you use). Try it out, it's infinitely easier.
Only time I use waits during movements is when I want multiple movements that begin at different times but overlap. Even then you should still use "wait until movement finishes" once the last event starts moving.
Chrono Trigger: Prelude to a Dream
Honestly, I love Chrono Trigger to death, but about 5 minutes into this game I had to turn it off. I was expecting a fan game of Chrono Trigger, not a fan game of another fan game.
Later I decided to get over it, and I came back to play through to the end of the demo. Some of the issues I found were already mentioned by other people. I'll mail you a list of things I spotted though.
Overall, not completely terrible. You did a great job of recreating the areas in RM2K3, and the dialogue was good. It could just stand to be a lot less like Crimson Echoes. I have nothing against Crimson Echoes, mind you. But I already played it. And it was good, but man, it wasn't good enough to have its own fan games based on it.
Later I decided to get over it, and I came back to play through to the end of the demo. Some of the issues I found were already mentioned by other people. I'll mail you a list of things I spotted though.
Overall, not completely terrible. You did a great job of recreating the areas in RM2K3, and the dialogue was good. It could just stand to be a lot less like Crimson Echoes. I have nothing against Crimson Echoes, mind you. But I already played it. And it was good, but man, it wasn't good enough to have its own fan games based on it.
>New Game
Pacing is good, backstory is nice but if you don't show me something very quickly I might just head back to the internet and download another game. The one hour mark seems to be the key turning point. If you haven't gotten the player involved by then it is very likely they will not even attempt to play farther into your game.
I'm not sure I've never played a single RPG in my life that got the player fully involved in the gameplay before the last 25% of the game. Usually it's the last 5%, as that's when the last sidequests tend to open up, and those sidequests always reward you with some sort of new power ups. Until you have access to every combat ability and every customization option, you're not really playing the full game.
Can the game be just as fun when you don't have access to everything? Well, people enjoy unlocking those things, and that's an aspect of fun that disappears once you have them all. So, I suppose you're trading one aspect of the game for another. Some people will find it more fun when they have the most tactical options, and other people will find it more fun when they have the most goals in front of them.
I guess it would be more accurate to say that combat becomes more fun the further into a game you get.
>New Game
I definitely think that games should start with action. Oh my god, lack of opening action can make a game unbearable, especially for replays. Fuck hometowns forever.
However, starting with action and interesting battles is not the same thing as starting with the player having access to all his abilities and to all the game's complex systems. These are actually terrible ideas. You wouldn't want to start Final Fantasy Tactics with every job unlocked. You wouldn't want to start Chrono Trigger with every accessory, every ability, and all seven party members. These are things that the player should have to progress in the game to obtain.
RPGs are based around a concept that the player gets more options and more abilities as the game goes on. The game's complexity increases over time, and only at the end is the player making full use of all the available tactics in the game.
What this means, necessarily, is that the gameplay at the beginning of the game will be incredibly simplified, and lacking in many options. You won't have all your build options available, you won't have all your abilities. And thus, the combat and customization won't really reach its peak of interestingness until much later.
This isn't a bad thing.
However, starting with action and interesting battles is not the same thing as starting with the player having access to all his abilities and to all the game's complex systems. These are actually terrible ideas. You wouldn't want to start Final Fantasy Tactics with every job unlocked. You wouldn't want to start Chrono Trigger with every accessory, every ability, and all seven party members. These are things that the player should have to progress in the game to obtain.
RPGs are based around a concept that the player gets more options and more abilities as the game goes on. The game's complexity increases over time, and only at the end is the player making full use of all the available tactics in the game.
What this means, necessarily, is that the gameplay at the beginning of the game will be incredibly simplified, and lacking in many options. You won't have all your build options available, you won't have all your abilities. And thus, the combat and customization won't really reach its peak of interestingness until much later.
This isn't a bad thing.
"Customer is always right" - taking feedback
Sometimes I do get suggestions that conflict with my design and yet I am forced to admit that my design is causing problems. This is pretty painful sometimes. But if my well-intended plans are causing side-effects that are more problematic than I had imagined they would be, I sometimes have no choice but to change the game away from my original design.
A good example would be a riddle I had included in one of my dungeons. Solving it was required to continue, but it was so difficult that people didn't even realize that it was a riddle. They thought it was just a bug, that I'd forgotten to add a way to open the door. I got about 10 different emails or messages from people saying they'd found this game-breaking bug that kept them from continuing.
So yeah, I had to change it. But I found a compromise. I left the riddle in, but made it so that if the player solved it, they unlocked a room full of treasure chests. The player can now pass through the dungeon without solving this riddle. Overall this solution makes me unhappy, but it clearly improves the game. And the moral of this story is that I should not be allowed to design riddles and puzzles, it should be against the fucking law to let me.
A good example would be a riddle I had included in one of my dungeons. Solving it was required to continue, but it was so difficult that people didn't even realize that it was a riddle. They thought it was just a bug, that I'd forgotten to add a way to open the door. I got about 10 different emails or messages from people saying they'd found this game-breaking bug that kept them from continuing.
So yeah, I had to change it. But I found a compromise. I left the riddle in, but made it so that if the player solved it, they unlocked a room full of treasure chests. The player can now pass through the dungeon without solving this riddle. Overall this solution makes me unhappy, but it clearly improves the game. And the moral of this story is that I should not be allowed to design riddles and puzzles, it should be against the fucking law to let me.
YDS' Let's Try Thread
It's not even just opening cut scenes and tutorials. It's about the gameplay being introduced gradually. First you introduce the basic combat system, and then after a mini-dungeon you introduce something more advanced like learning skills or using spell combinations, and then after the end of a real dungeon or two you let the player start customizing their team.
Final Fantasy 6 is a good example. It throws you straight into the action, but you're invincible until Vicks and Wedge get vaporized, and it takes until South Figaro before you can buy equipment and actually have to start managing your gold. That's when the game really starts. Anything before South Figaro is not really indicative of how you'll play the rest of the game. And then later in the game you get magic, summon spells, characters who learn abilities in different ways, and the ability to change your party members. And enemies start using strategies, being weak or strong to elements, and you get status effects and accessories to let you change your tactics.
To give the player access to every single aspect of gameplay from the get go would not only overwhelm them, but also make your game get stale too fast. A game that has you do exactly the same thing for 30 hours is not going to be as fun as one where the gameplay builds up and subtly changes.
This is true of almost any genre of video game, not just RPGs. And this, not the tutorials or slow moving plot, is what makes the beginning of any game not really worth evaluating.
Final Fantasy 6 is a good example. It throws you straight into the action, but you're invincible until Vicks and Wedge get vaporized, and it takes until South Figaro before you can buy equipment and actually have to start managing your gold. That's when the game really starts. Anything before South Figaro is not really indicative of how you'll play the rest of the game. And then later in the game you get magic, summon spells, characters who learn abilities in different ways, and the ability to change your party members. And enemies start using strategies, being weak or strong to elements, and you get status effects and accessories to let you change your tactics.
To give the player access to every single aspect of gameplay from the get go would not only overwhelm them, but also make your game get stale too fast. A game that has you do exactly the same thing for 30 hours is not going to be as fun as one where the gameplay builds up and subtly changes.
This is true of almost any genre of video game, not just RPGs. And this, not the tutorials or slow moving plot, is what makes the beginning of any game not really worth evaluating.
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