UPRC'S PROFILE

For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of making an RPG usually comes in the form of adding mini-games. Are they required? Not at all, but they help break up the repetitive nature of RPGs. We (mostly) all use them, so I figured we could come together to explain what our favourite mini-games are, which ones we're using in our own projects, or ideas for mini-games that we've never incorporated into a project but think it would be cool to see someone have a go at using in their own game.

My favourite? Battle arenas and such. FF6 and FF7 have my favourite examples where you're just up against a slew of tough fights with attractive rewards being waved over your head if you win. I even had a go at adding something like that to Blackmoon Prophecy and it seemed to do a decent job of distracting some players.

I also intend on using an arena sort of mini-game in my current project (Shattered Wings) that will involve the player having to defeat super powered versions of defeated bosses. As specific individual bosses are defeated, their powered up version will be unlocked in the arena. I'm still working out this idea, but I'm looking forward to having a go at adding it.

Auction houses are lots of fun as well since you never know what's up next for auction. I also like simplistic little games like what the Breath of Fire games routinely pull off such as minor races through towns, finding and collecting things in a time limit, etc. Speaking of Breath of Fire, the fishing was quite fun in the PS1 games. I could sink HOURS into fishing in Breath of Fire 4.

What mini-games do you guys like and what mini-games are you adding to your own projects?

There's a belief that has been going around for a little while now that the MMORPG genre, as a whole, is becoming pretty stagnant. The genre itself hasn't changed significantly in roughly ten years now, and each game that claims to be ground breaking or innovative instead only adds a few little things to make life for the player easier as they grind quests and such.

Guild Wars 2 is perhaps the MMO that has come the closest to reinventing anything about the genre, but all it did mostly did was give the players more freedom to level up their characters since Guild Wars 2 awards players with experience for doing pretty much everything imaginable.

I feel like Guild Wars 2 is probably the best MMO out there right now, but I won't discount the benefits of WoW even though I don't play it anymore (you can't ignore its strengths). Even still, Guild Wars 2 doesn't do anything significantly different from the competition. Story cutscenes are perhaps the most unique thing about Guild Wars 2, but even that is starting to become the norm after games like The Old Republic did it as well.

I feel like there are two major problems facing the genre that is holding it back from evolving further.
1. Most MMOs are trying to leech off of the success of WoW. They're not being overly original (ahem, Rift!) and are simply copying off of the formula that works, but are still providing a few tweaks... just not enough to make the product unique.
2. Nobody really knows what to do. Some developers (ArenaNet and Trion) know that actively involving the player in the game world via dynamic events and such is a step in the right direction but, beyond that, there hasn't been much innovation. It just seems like nobody knows what to do.

Should developers step outside of their comfort zones and apply some VERY risky design choices to their MMORPGs? It seems like, at the current moment, the MMOs that are put on a pedestal are merely the ones that do things differently rather than being unique and adding interesting new gameplay elements.

TERA was lauded as the next big thing simply because the combat was more akin to an action game than a standard MMORPG, but the rest of the game seemed to be painfully generic and repetitive from what I've heard.

The Old Republic was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread, but instead it ended up being WoW in the Star Wars universe. It has some pretty interesting stories but, as far as gameplay was concerned, it did nothing that we already haven't seen. The only reason to play it is if you happen to be a big Star Wars fan.

Now we have Guild Wars 2, another MMO that was hyped to ridiculous levels. I feel that Guild Wars 2 has succeeded in standing out a bit, but does it offer anything truly unique? It certainly has the best dynamic events out of every MMO I've played, and the ability to fast travel all over the world instantly is very nice, but I strive to find anything really unique about it. Guild Wars 2 simply perfects MMO elements that have been around for years now rather than pushing the envelope. It's fortunate that Guild Wars 2 has a beautiful world, and that it is free to play like the first game, otherwise I'm afraid that people would already write it off.


So what do MMORPGs need to do in order to be really engaging and unique again? As it stands now, they all feel as if they're coming off the same conveyer belt, don't they? A few MMORPGS have had good ideas over the years such as the customization in City of Heroes and Champions Online, or the fiercely open-ended character progression system present in The Secret World, but nobody is really throwing any genius ideas out there anymore. Unless developers actually strive to evolve the genre, it's going to remain as a solar system-type arrangement (WoW as the sun, other MMOs as planets revolving around it).

If you guys were in charge of the development of a new MMO, what would you do to set it apart? What needs to happen to this genre to prevent it from stagnating further?

I just had an idea for a podcast and wanted to know what you guys think and/or if anyone would be interested in taking part.

Basically what I'm thinking of is a sort of debate podcast. I know that the word "debate" might make it sound a bit serious, but it wouldn't be to any great extent. I just think it would be cool to get people involved in discussions about various aspects of game making in regards to what is right, what is wrong, etc. I think that this could be pretty cool if done right, because it's always more enjoyable to HEAR people discussing interesting topics rather than reading/writing them (or at least I think so).

Here are some topic ideas I can think of off the top of my head:

Should we still be using rips?
Should we really be doing kickstarters for RPG Maker games?
Just how far can criticism on a project go before it just becomes malicious or unhelpful?
How do you keep players from growing bored of <insert aspect of game here>?
Why do some people take criticism and feedback for their game so seriously that they leave the community entirely?
Can old makers still be completely viable to use over the newer makers? Why? Why not?
When does a game become too reliant on public features/scripts than on its own creativity?
Where do we draw the line between being inspired by a game and plagiarizing a game?
Should the creation of fangames be discouraged or encouraged?
How do you make boss battles and/or dungeons fun? How do you lots of variety for each?
What are the advantages AND disadvantages to working in a group? And working solo?
When is someone (or their project) too good for the confines of RPG Maker?
How should we treat newcomers to the community who struggle with basic design as well as grammar (English not their second language, etc.)?

Those are just some off the top of my head. Just about ANY kind of discussion could spawn from those topics. The podcasts could be 30-40 minutes long and could cover two topics each.

What do you guys think of this idea? Would anyone be interested in trying it out, or does any have any topic ideas yourselves?

To those who think it sounds like a good idea, how many people do you think would be adequate for each podcast? Two could perhaps get a little dull, but even just a few more than that and some people may not get to say as much as they want, or people may talk over each other. I think that the magic number would be three or four, personally. DISCUSS.

Also I am debating with myself on what a snappy title would be for such a thing. I am thinking that an RPG Maker term would work best since it's something we'd all know. Maybe a term like "Conditional Branch" or something, I don't know. Still brainstorming that part!

Didn't know where else I could post something like this, but I figure that there's probably a few people on RMN who are savvy in the way of Windows fuck ups, so here we go.


Yesterday morning I was having a grand ol' time playing Skyrim. I did absolutely nothing else and shut my computer down around noon. I came back two hours later, turned it on, and waited. Windows 7 was loading up as it usually does but... then something happened! The loading process finished and, just before the computer actually went into Windows, it just rebooted suddenly. I was a few feet from the computer so I didn't know what was wrong at first. I sat in front of the computer and waited for it to boot back up again. This time it didn't even reach the loading screen for Windows, and I was halted by THIS:



Now, I didn't make any changes to the computer at all. I played Skyrim for an hour and a half or so and that was it. The computer had turned on normally, it operated properly, there were no indications of any problems.

Anyway, I first tried the second option (Start Windows Normally) and it did the whole Windows 7 loading screen again before rebooting without entering Windows. After getting back to the Windows Error Recovery again, I chose the top option (Launch Startup Repair). I received this:



The progress bar filled almost IMMEDIATELY and then I was on a black screen with a mouse cursor. It remained like this for a good 30 minutes doing absolutely nothing before I just shut the computer off.

I've tried to open the disc drive so that I can toss my Windows CD in and boot from that in an effort to resolve what's going on, but the drive isn't opening outside of Windows for whatever reason.

Anyone ever deal with a problem like this or have any idea how to proceed? I've done some research and I've read a lot of topics that end in absolutely no resolutions. It's always just people saying that it's probably this or that. I've seen people say bad memory, faulty video cards, and general Windows screw ups. I know that my memory is fine because I did a memory test in the BIOS. The video cards (I do SLI) have never caused me any issues and looked fairly clean for three and a half year old cards when I cleaned the computer a month ago.

So... anyone know what the heck might be going on?

Since I'm sure we're pretty much all gamers here, it's not unlikely that a good many of us routinely get video game tunes stuck in our heads. Maybe we even start humming them. So what tunes do you guys find repeating in your head the most?

Ignoring the obvious Mario 1 themes/Final Fantasy fanfare that I'm sure many others share, here's one that has been in my god damn head all day long:



I can't get it out! I was at work in the locker room and almost started whistling that theme. It was by far my favourite song to play in Sim City 2000 and I'd often set the game to play only that track. Years later and I have paid the price for doing so. It has... become a part of me...