What do you NOT want to see in an RPG

[hamalnamal]

yes that would be good, but you could still refuse and be forced to go on a quest or something to get "bob" so that you can eventully beat the game

[IsmAvatar]

Autosave, that's a very good idea.

And, Morrowind requires you keep revisiting the same guy to keep getting your different quests, and basically, if you don't do what he asks you to, you just don't beat the game, it's that simple.

[hamalnamal]

yes thats fine as long as you can do what he asks in different ways and stuff like that. say he tells you to get the "magic gem" there should be a few ways to find this "magic gem".

IA spelling: jem = gem. learn it.

[dwmitch]

Problem: Lack of animations for enemies in 2D turn based games.

Solution: Add some animations for the enemies instead of just having them flash. If you can have the PCs' attack animated you should be able to have the enemies' attacks animated.

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Problem: Four directions of movement.

Solution: Allow the player to move on diagonals.

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Problem: player faces North when walking Northwest, etc. in rare 2D games with 8 direction movement.

Solution: I personally handle this by having one sprite with all walking frames and some code to determine the frame range. Will also work with a sprite for each direction.

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Problem: Game starts out melodramatic (comedic aspects thrown in to the action/drama), but gets extremely serious around the halfway point.

Solution: Life is rarely 100% serious. There is always humor to be found somewhere. For example, at the reception following my grandmother's funeral the family and her old friends found things to laugh about (not the funeral, but old memories, etc.).

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Problem: Save points in dungeons.

Solution: Lagoon handled this nicely by allowing you to save at any point other than boss battles. Of course, there was no world map as there are in most turn based games, so that may have been a factor.

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I'll edit to add more as I think of them.

[Noadi]

Okay, I mostly agree with you. I'll give you my reasons for disagreeing with a few in a moment ^_^

Animations: Yep. However in SNES RPGs there was a reason for that, there were file size limits for cartridges but for a game maker rpg there is no excuse.

4 directions: I see this as a minor issue. 4 directions is classic so if you are going for the classic feel it's good but other styles like isometric should have 8 directions.

8 directions but 4 animations: I agree with you it's just looks bad.

Humor: sure not everything is serious but often in a serious game humor would ruin the mood trying to be created. It's better to stick with the comedic parts being in the less serious moments of the game.

Save Points: I firmly believe in not allowing people to save everywhere. Save points are used because it makes the game harder. However many games don't have save points frequently enough. I particularly dislike games where you have to replay like 1/2 an hour of the game because there isn't a save point nearer to a boss.
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Okay for a complaint from me. This may be because I'm a girl but I really really dislike when games have female characters in ridiculous skimpy outfits and heels trying to fight battles. Sexy is fine I have no problem with beautiful women in games but not when they are dressed in a way that would be impossible to fight or sometimes even walk comfortably in. The new FF game that is comeing out the screenshots I've seen of one character just completely made me lose interest in playing when I saw she was a bunny girl in high heels and a super short super tight skirt.

[hamalnamal]

i totally agree, it doesn't make sense for a character to be wearing something she couldn't fight in when the point of the game is basically to fight

IA: I'm guessing you weren't very awake when you wrote this.
HN: not really, i had just woke up

[megamushroom]

i just bought it, and yes, they have ruined the series!
The characters are all "sexy" in skimpy clothes, and it totally ruins the game!

IA: characters

[IsmAvatar]

Yes, but let's try to keep on topic of things in general that ruin an rpg, not the fact that skimpy clothes ruins FF, that'll just lead to FF discussion, which is off topic.

[Flashback]

1) NPCs that look EXACTLY like the player. I mean, if there's supposed to be some sort of clone, sure! But how realistic is it that every single thing is Identical?

Solution: vary the design of you characters - if they are twins, have a pimple different, slightly different fur/skin color, hair a different shade, etc.

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2) Shops that work strangely, for example when you go in and have to talk to the shopkeeper to access the store's inventory. What, is the guy carrying the stuff in his jacket? How do you fit several (maybe hundreds) suits of armour into your shirt pocket?

Solution: Store Racks - like a clothing store in the real world, you take something off the rack. you can have the player pay there, or pay at a counter.

[IsmAvatar]

Now there's a neat idea. Have it so you pick what you want to buy off the rack, and take it up to the counter to pay for it.

In morrowind, the shopkeepers kept all their stuff right near them, like at their feet, or sometimes even wore them. Also a lot of the times the stuff was kept in boxes. You could try to steal stuff, or to look in the box, but the shopkeeper wouldn't be too happy about it, heh.

[Noadi]

Ism: I think it is on topic. A lot of games have very skimpy ridiculous clothing on women, not just FFXII that's just the most recent example and I'm totally sick of seeing it in RPGs. I don't want to debate FF, in general I like the games but the clothing in this new one has turned me off to one of my favorite series of games. The issue though isn't FF itself but the clothing in the game and many others. It's something I strongly dislike in RPGs or any other game.


About the shop thing. If you know much about old fashioned shops you'd know that you would have to speak to the shopkeeper because they didn't keep things that are dangerous or expensive where people could just steal stuff off a rack (kinda like a jewelry store). Also I personally think shopkeepers should be like other NPCs where you can get information from them, simply because who would best know what's going on in a town than the shopkeeper or innkeeper who see the most strangers passing through? Of course this only applies to medieval or fantasy settings, sci fi or modern might be different (though at gun shops you still have to talk to the salesman before they take the gun out of the case or from behind the counter)

[Flashback]

Interesting point. but still, do you realise how heavy armor is? nearly a ton, if it's Iron! try Carrying that around in you jacket, might as well lots of them.

Of course, since I am doing a game with a bizzare culture, I can just say "that's how they do it here".

[megamushroom]

Yea the shop idea is a good one. Interactive shops would be better, like Ism said, where you could steal as well as buy.

I think having the same looking sprites is mainly due to laziness or a very demanding deadline. It isn't hard to change a few details about the character to make them seem different, even if it means cutting and pasting bits off each, like Noadi mentions on her site.

I also do not like it when the game makes it unclear where to go. there were a few times on ff8 where i was unsure where to go, however, i bet this is mainly due to user stupidity ;D.

[IsmAvatar]

also do not like it when the game makes it unclear where to go. there were a few times on ff8 where i was unsure where to go, however, i bet this is mainly due to user stupidity.

same deal for LOZ: OOT (Zelda). The main idea of course is to challenge you, but there are some parts where it's simply too challenging where you either spend a week trying to figure out where to go or what to do, or you bug one of your friends who has played it. Either that or just pop out your trusty walkthrough and hope that this section is written in plain english with minimal typos

So the point is to make it challenging, but not to the point where you have to rely on last resorts or else you'll be playing the game forever (albeit I'm sure game makers would like that)

[dwmitch]

The problem I have with save points is that if you make a fair bit of progress and you have to leave to cut the grass, look for/go to work, etc. and you don't know there's a save point ahead or you have to go on for more than half a minute to reach the next one you have to shut down and lose the progress you've made so far.

Now the appeal of the RPG to me is that it doesn't go along with this tripe of unnecessary speed (i.e. people thinking they have to do everything as fast as they can, even when there's no reason to (would elaborate further and go into a rant, but there's no off topic board here)), but sometimes duties interfere and people shouldn't be penalized in games because of that.

I know I said I would edit my first post with additions, but it's been pushed so far up it probably won't be read anymore, and I just thought of a new one.

Games that build up a battle on disk two of a four disk set as the last battle. Final Fantasy 8 did this.

Now some people would argue that they didn't realize it would take four disks (plus the install disk if you play on PC), but if they would have checked the resources early in the game they could have extrapolated and estimated the number of disks it would have taken.

Of course, the story was more than likely written before the modelling/rendering/audio software was even fired up, but a few changes to the dialog and some minor story shifting when they had an idea how big the final size was going to be would have avoided the embarassing situation they had by saying that a disk two battle would be the final battle when the player knew that two disks remained.