#153201 - Flam - Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:50 am
I'm *attempting* to make a fun 2D isometric mmorpg. As some people on IRC know, I'm new to programming so this will take me ages to finish. I just figured I'd share my idea in full over here, in case anyone felt like working with me on this.
So let's get to it :)
-Story-
Not developped yet, but something along the lines of having to collect 8 magical scrolls to reach Hell. Each scroll has awesome abilities too, which gives the game a certain modhacks feel. Scrolls will be extremely hard to find, making players unwiling to share the information with ohers. Competitive and fun. Finding a scroll will be something very rewarding.
Scroll ideas:
Blue = Heal player
Red = Cast a fireball
Green = turn into a random tree
Brown = turn into a random rock
pink = Appear as another class
purple = ?
yellow = Turn into a random statue
black = ?
The transforming scrolls are cool because you can hide in an area and listen in on people's conversations (spies :O). Some also make you immune to attacks, while others make you recover faster.
-Gameplay-
It won't have useless stats that you upgrade each level because, let's be honest, everyone increases stats in the same way. ?It'll be like WoW in the sense that you gain HP, MP, and stam on level-ups and equipment can increase those 3 stats as well. ?Players will also gain skill points upon leveling.
Movement will be tile to tile, and there will be 4 classes. ?Each class has different movement speeds which they can improve with skill points. ?I like tile to tile movement because I imagine it will be more fun in PvP ?(if you can't imagine it, don't worry... one day I'll get this done.)
Stats:
- HP
- MP
- Stam
- Atk
- Def
- Atk speed
- Mov speed
More info about classes:
Soldier:
---Attacks directly infront of him (tile he's facing)
---Move speed: 1tile / .3 seconds
---atk speed: 1atk / .8 seconds
Skills:
----HP up
----Pierce (pierces through armor, disabling enemy armor for a few seconds)
----move speed +
----Criple (slows enemy movement)
Druid:
---Attacks 3 tiles infront of him (with zap or water or w/e - undecided)
---Move speed: 1tile / .3 seconds
---atk speed: 1atk / 2 seconds
Skills:
----Heal (%HP healed - 3min cooldown)
----Pushback (special attack around caster. ?small dmg and pushed enemies back)
----move speed +
----Barrier (immune to a certain amount of damage. 3 min cooldown)
Merchant:
---Attacks to his direct left OR direct right (sneaky :P)
---Move speed: 1tile / .3 seconds
---atk speed: 1atk / 1.2 seconds
Skills:
----Pickpocket (Steal % of gold from enemy. ?Does dmg at higher level)
----Bribe (reduces dmg taken by enemy)
----move speed +
----Emprison (Paralyze target for 2 seconds. ?Cooldown 15(?) seconds)
----Stretch (Attack 2 tiles to the left and 2 to the right (maybe))
Tactician:
---Instantly plants a trap on the floor. ?Viewable by enemy and himself. ?When the enemy walks over it, instantly blows. ?Hurts player too.
---Move speed: 1tile / .2 seconds
---atk speed: 1atk / 3 seconds
Skills:
----HP up
----Trap skills (makes traps unseeable by both enemy and player. ?higher level viewable by player but not enemy. ?higher level doesn't damage player.)
----seeker pods (maybe)
----Chain (limits bomb victims movements to a 2x2 tile square for 10 seconds)
----increase amount of traps planted (max 3 - level requirement)
Who knows how these stats/skills will play out in the game, these are just my many ideas thrown into a topic.
My game will also be open source, so that if anyone knows how to improve on my game I can learn more and the end result is a better overall game.
-Graphics-
I hope my graphics end up looking something like:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
But that's the least of my worries right now :)
-Audio-
I'm also probably going to borrow some earthbound and wild arms music for the game.
-Controls-
-Directional keys are for movement by 1 tile.
-Hold L + direction pressed = rotate character to face that tile
-R uses item currently in hand
-Select whois' players infront of you. Every player has a little summary they can write about themselves.
-A,B,X,Y are bindable for attacks.
-Start brings down the menu from the upper screen and shows the game in the upper screen. Menu controlled by touchscreen maybe.. not sure.
Last edited by Flam on Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
#153216 - gauauu - Wed Mar 26, 2008 2:57 pm
What platform are you writing this for? The mm in your mmorpg description is going to make things nasty (or almost impossible, depending on your platform)
Sounds like a neat game, BUT:
If you are new to programming, massively multiplayer is NOT the way to start. Multiplayer at all is not the way to start. Even a single player RPG is beyond the scope of most new programmers. I highly recommend starting as small as possible.
#153218 - Flam - Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:41 pm
Well, I plan on making this on the PC first using directX, C++, and rakkar (www.jenkinssoftware.com/) for online. I'm hoping that by the time I finish and start porting this to the DS that sgstair will have released the newer and better wifilib which will make porting this easier.
I understand how you could say starting with an RPG is insane, but it's the only thing I have any interest in. I have done a basic C++ course so I'm somewhat familiar (not fully, learning about structs now) with the language and I plan on going through patater's guide. I'm also doing http://www.rdxgames.com/videotutorials.html when I'm tired of regular C++ learning for more help.
I think I'll be able to get this done eventually... I really have no interest in making a pong or tic tac toe or whatever.
#153221 - Rajveer - Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:20 pm
I'd suggest using OpenGL on the PC rather than DirectX, as if you're aim is to port this to the DS it would make it simpler and easier.
#153227 - gauauu - Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:41 pm
| Flam wrote: |
| I think I'll be able to get this done eventually... I really have no interest in making a pong or tic tac toe or whatever. |
That's fair. But starting small still applies. You might first shoot for the smallest subset of your game that would be somewhat cool. Not to be discouraging, but tons of people show up here doing what you do: planning to make this great large RPG. And it never gets done. What would be better is if they shot for something smaller, and had a little bit to show for their efforts in the end.
For example, design for extensibility, but first get a single-player "walk around and explore the dungeon" working first. Then add a little bit of combat. If the project dies at that point, at least you have a cool mini-rpg to show for it.
#153228 - Flam - Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:41 pm
Oh, yeah definitly.
I got a window working, designed an icon for the executable, and made a "logger" which will help me with debugging and writting to files.
Right now I think I'm about 30% done on the actual engine. I know how I want to design it but the code is being troublesome. The internet is helping me though, so I hope to be done the actual engine in a week or so.
All this and I just started programming in C++ 2 weeks ago. I have faith in myself :)
Step by step I'll piece this monster together :)
[edit] just saw the OpenGL suggestion. I'll keep that in mind... I may have found someone who wants to work on this with me who knows some OpenGL so I might work with that instead :)
#153243 - Miked0801 - Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:33 pm
Programming for 2 weeks and doing an RPG with MM parts? You are setting yourself up to fail so hard I cannot even tell you. Please, PLEASE, program a couple of pong/asteroids/tetris style games first. The insight in game design and code organization will be well worth the time spent not working on your pet project.
#153779 - sgeos - Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:39 am
RPGs are expensive in terms of time and/or money. (The two can be exchanged either way.) How much time/money do you have to throw at this project?
Commercial studios are looking 5 full time people people working for a year at a *minimum*, plus SFX/BGMs which are typically outsourced or created by a person who does all of this kind of work for the studio.
5 people * 2000 hours / year * 1 year = 10,000 people-hours
Generally speaking RPGs *do not get done* by a single person. Roguelikes get done by single people once in a blue moon, but not RPGs. You are looking at a team that consists of ...
1) Programmer - field/battle/menu/tools
2) Scripter - field/battle
3) Data Planner - monsters/items/other custom stuff your game has
4) Writer
5) Artist - field/battle; tiles/sprites/fullscreen images (battle BGs)
6) Someone who can secure and insert SFX/BGMs
Assuming 5 people, this is your team:
A) Battle/menu programmer, battle scripts
B) Field/tool programmer
C) Data planner - everything, writer
D) Artist - tiles/full screen images
E) Artist - animated sprites
A commercial team also needs...
F) Director - Manages project / handles publisher / oversees QA / etc.
G) QA testers (can be outsourced, but you want a few in-house QA-ers)
If you can't do everything on the above list, you either need to learn how to do it (and project takes even longer because you can not learn and be super productive at the same time) or you find somebody else to do it. Volunteers *can* be found. Good volunteers are *hard* to find though. =) Sometimes volunteers can not be found at all. If all else fails, you can throw money at the problem. This is what publishers do. =)
Assuming you do have the mad skills to do everything, you can take of advantage of the fact that small teams are more efficient than large teams, with a team of one being the most efficient team possible. Even with the added efficiency, I still think you are looking at 6000 to 8000 people-hours (3-4 years full time) unless have preexisting libraries and tools. If you have your tools and libraries written already? Maybe a half a year to two years (depending on your project scope) if you happen to be that crazy guy? Some of them are out there.
Good luck!
-Brendan
#153789 - SevenString - Sun Apr 06, 2008 9:36 am
If you haven't seen this site, it has a STAGGERING amount of great iso graphic assets you can use in your project. Frankly, this is one of the best 2D game asset sites I've ever seen.
http://reinerstileset.4players.de/englisch.html
| Quote: |
| All the graphics and meshes are freeware. Even for commercial Games. I just want my name in the Credits in the commercial case: Reiner "Tiles" Prokein. You can modify my graphics in every needed way to fit it to your needs: size, colour, fileformat, ... |
So, no copyright violation issues here, as this isn't a sight where someone ripped a bunch of FF graphics or something.
Have fun!
_________________
"Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."
#155958 - nsm333 - Tue May 06, 2008 1:54 am
| sgeos wrote: |
RPGs are expensive in terms of time and/or money. (The two can be exchanged either way.) How much time/money do you have to throw at this project?
Commercial studios are looking 5 full time people people working for a year at a *minimum*, plus SFX/BGMs which are typically outsourced or created by a person who does all of this kind of work for the studio.
5 people * 2000 hours / year * 1 year = 10,000 people-hours
Generally speaking RPGs *do not get done* by a single person. Roguelikes get done by single people once in a blue moon, but not RPGs. You are looking at a team that consists of ...
1) Programmer - field/battle/menu/tools
2) Scripter - field/battle
3) Data Planner - monsters/items/other custom stuff your game has
4) Writer
5) Artist - field/battle; tiles/sprites/fullscreen images (battle BGs)
6) Someone who can secure and insert SFX/BGMs
Assuming 5 people, this is your team:
A) Battle/menu programmer, battle scripts
B) Field/tool programmer
C) Data planner - everything, writer
D) Artist - tiles/full screen images
E) Artist - animated sprites
A commercial team also needs...
F) Director - Manages project / handles publisher / oversees QA / etc.
G) QA testers (can be outsourced, but you want a few in-house QA-ers)
If you can't do everything on the above list, you either need to learn how to do it (and project takes even longer because you can not learn and be super productive at the same time) or you find somebody else to do it. Volunteers *can* be found. Good volunteers are *hard* to find though. =) Sometimes volunteers can not be found at all. If all else fails, you can throw money at the problem. This is what publishers do. =)
Assuming you do have the mad skills to do everything, you can take of advantage of the fact that small teams are more efficient than large teams, with a team of one being the most efficient team possible. Even with the added efficiency, I still think you are looking at 6000 to 8000 people-hours (3-4 years full time) unless have preexisting libraries and tools. If you have your tools and libraries written already? Maybe a half a year to two years (depending on your project scope) if you happen to be that crazy guy? Some of them are out there.
Good luck!
-Brendan |
what are you talking about? 3-4 years? i didn't think he meant a full game. just a small dungon thing... although, i guess that would be a rouge-like. i agree with mike, mmorpg is a bad idea. crash and burn. but, why would he need to do pong? just a small version of this game would be fine. gauauu had a good idea. i would be happy to help.
#155960 - Miked0801 - Tue May 06, 2008 1:59 am
Why Pong? Because it is a simple, easy to execute game. He has never created anything before. Pong teaches you about getting player input, basic game state management, simple AI, and coding in a way that allows you to understand what you wrote 3 months ago. He also has a chance of completing Pong and using that positive reinforcement towards creating another game.
#155963 - nsm333 - Tue May 06, 2008 2:03 am
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| Why Pong? Because it is a simple, easy to execute game. He has never created anything before. Pong teaches you about getting player input, basic game state management, simple AI, and coding in a way that allows you to understand what you wrote 3 months ago. He also has a chance of completing Pong and using that positive reinforcement towards creating another game. |
lol. true. ai would help him. (i might want to try that. never done ai code.) you sound mad or somthing.
#155994 - sgeos - Tue May 06, 2008 4:19 am
| nsm333 wrote: |
| what are you talking about? 3-4 years? |
I was talking about a full game. I'm also not joking. There is a reason why there are basically no homebrew RPGs.
| nsm333 wrote: |
| i didn't think he meant a full game. just a small dungon thing... |
If you limit your scope, you can complete something that looks like an RPG in a reasonable amount of time, but I'll bet it will not amount to much more than a tech demo. That doesn't mean a mini RPG isn't going to happen, it just means I'd place money against it. Also, unless pre-existing scripting systems are used, I'll also bet that the game will not be scalable in any sort of wildly useful way.
| Quote: |
| but, why would he need to do pong? |
You do realize that 95% of the pong code is going to exist somewhere in the RPG code, right? You could even do things right and script the AI. Even if it is overkill for pong, it makes a very good test project for all the fun stuff you need to do to get your RPG up and running. These are tasks you need to do anyway. Frankly, I don't see why you wouldn't do pong (or something on that level).
-Brendan
#156010 - keldon - Tue May 06, 2008 8:32 am
Well even tetris can become quite complex when you want it to be designed well and operate properly! And in the same way that DaVinci did not start painting by creating 20 metre masterpieces, you [too] should begin with smaller paintings before you start working on the Sistine Chapel =)
See the following links ...
- http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/makegames/
- http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2259.asp
Some more useful links may be available at: http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=13662
#156018 - sgeos - Tue May 06, 2008 9:21 am
| keldon wrote: |
| Well even tetris can become quite complex when you want it to be designed well and operate properly! |
95% of what goes into Tetris Done Right, also goes anything else Done Right.
This is a nice article. I think this challenge should only be attempted using languages on the level of python/perl/ruby/actionscript. I want to try this challenge at some point...
Hours ~10 Design and Planning
Hours ~20 Core Features
Hours ~30 Cut Features & Wrap Up
Hours ~40 Balance / Polish
-Brendan
#156038 - gauauu - Tue May 06, 2008 3:28 pm
| sgeos wrote: |
| nsm333 wrote: | | what are you talking about? 3-4 years? |
I was talking about a full game. I'm also not joking. There is a reason why there are basically no homebrew RPGs.
|
I can attest to this. I'm finally finishing up with an action adventure game that I've been working on for 3 years. These things take time.
#156054 - nsm333 - Tue May 06, 2008 8:48 pm
yah, i know guys. sorry if i made it seem like i was saying that it wouldn't take that long for a full game, i know that is not true. but, 3-4 years is way too long. unless he makes everything from scratch. i agree(as i already said...) that pong is good to start with, but is this really his first time coding? at all? well, if it is, than i would say that he should do something really simple, simpler even that 2 player pong. no ai, just some sprites.
#156145 - tepples - Wed May 07, 2008 2:33 am
| sgeos wrote: |
| keldon wrote: | | Well even tetris can become quite complex when you want it to be designed well and operate properly! |
95% of what goes into Tetris Done Right, also goes anything else Done Right. |
I'd like to see you take Lockjaw Engine and make a DDR clone or a Final Fantasy clone or even a Mario clone out of it >;)
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#156171 - silent_code - Wed May 07, 2008 12:29 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| sgeos wrote: | | keldon wrote: | | Well even tetris can become quite complex when you want it to be designed well and operate properly! |
95% of what goes into Tetris Done Right, also goes anything else Done Right. |
I'd like to see you take Lockjaw Engine and make a DDR clone or a Final Fantasy clone or even a Mario clone out of it >;) |
lol, no tepples, i think he was saying that the theory and design and all the "good" coding practices apply to any game you make. :^D
#156187 - elwing - Wed May 07, 2008 3:05 pm
without direct relation to this thread, but still related to isometric engine... I am trying to write a little isometric engine for the GBA, nothing more than a tech demo really... but I'm starting to wonder how I'll arrange my tiles on the different screen layers... the base iso ground already use 2 layers...I only have 2 layer left for GUI, walls and roof...
I'm a bit puzzled on what I should draw on each layer to allow my hero (and other inhabitant) to stand behind wall and under roofs...
I'm starting to think that I will draw the whole iso map, including wall and roof on layer 0+1, GUI on layer 3 and redraw wall/roof on layer 2 when needed (when I have to hide something) is that a good idea? or does someone have some advise on that?
#156190 - silent_code - Wed May 07, 2008 3:25 pm
you could also use sprites to cover certain things. but normally, 2 bds should be enough. i can't give you any specific advises, though. sorry.
#156194 - Miked0801 - Wed May 07, 2008 4:42 pm
You will never be able to completely solve the overlapping issues that can occur with ISO in 2D mode. The good news is we've shipped quite a few games where we were able to fake and the few sorting errors that occured could be managed by careful map construction.
We used BG 3 layers: One always behind, one always in front, and one that actors could move in front of or behind depending on how we tagged the ground. Bascially, whenever we wanted an actor to move in behind an object sometimes and in front of one at other times, we setup special tagging info on the ground behind the object they needed to sort behind. It would move their sprite priority lower (number higher) so that they would sort behind the object when touching these tiles. It does cause sorting issues with other sprites though.
The 4th layer was reserved for global special effects like rain and such. If we needed a HUD, we either used sprites or HBlank Split screen tricks to get a "5th" layer out of the special effects layer.
#156271 - elwing - Thu May 08, 2008 7:34 am
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| You will never be able to completely solve the overlapping issues that can occur with ISO in 2D mode. The good news is we've shipped quite a few games where we were able to fake and the few sorting errors that occured could be managed by careful map construction. |
hum I was afraid that I will not be able to solve everything... at least i know it is normal...
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| We used BG 3 layers: One always behind, one always in front, and one that actors could move in front of or behind depending on how we tagged the ground. Bascially, whenever we wanted an actor to move in behind an object sometimes and in front of one at other times, we setup special tagging info on the ground behind the object they needed to sort behind. It would move their sprite priority lower (number higher) so that they would sort behind the object when touching these tiles. It does cause sorting issues with other sprites though. |
was thinking of something like that... one bg for the top half of the ISO cell, one bg for the bottom half of the ISO cells+wall+roof, and a third BG to redraw wall and roof when I need to put them in front of other sprite... but using sprite to represent wall and roof would allow easier sorting I think...
many thanks
#156291 - Miked0801 - Thu May 08, 2008 4:51 pm
Depending in your game, you generally have a lot more BG VRAM that sprite VRAM available. At least we did as we double buffered most of sprite RAM.
#156522 - sgeos - Sun May 11, 2008 6:42 am
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| Depending in your game, you generally have a lot more BG VRAM that sprite VRAM available. At least we did as we double buffered most of sprite RAM. |
Also, BGs do not line over, but sprites do. If you start using sprites as bg supplements all over the place, you risk graphical glitches.
-Brendan
#156533 - tepples - Sun May 11, 2008 11:46 am
True, but it's not like on the NES whose PPU supported only 25 percent sprite coverage on a scanline (64 sprite pixels per 256-pixel scanline). GBA video supports roughly 400 percent coverage unless you use rot/scale sprites, in which case this percentage decreases.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#156681 - Miked0801 - Mon May 12, 2008 6:34 pm
Yep - the only time we ever really had sprite drop-out was when we tried to do more than 4 (it might have been 2) double sized 64x64 sprites on a scanline. We got around this by using larger graphics and scaling down. More VRAM, better quality images and better performance.
#157509 - AerosolSP - Mon May 26, 2008 6:28 am
Someone in this thread said something about RPGs not being done by a single person, and I just wanted to add my opinion to that.
RPGs are another form of story telling, in my opinion. Just like how a writer is committed to developing and writing a story, so can an artist or a programmer. It's possible for one person to complete an RPG, but they have to be emotionally invested in that RPG. They have to be emotionally invested enough to WANT to see the project through to completion because as far as they are concerned, they are telling a story. Your desire to complete the RPG has to reach deeper than a monetary goal.
As far as making an MMORPG is concerned, there are so many issues with designing such a game that it is nigh on impossible to completed by a small team, let alone one person. Balance of power issues are amongst the toughest issues to deal with when making such a game. I don't know if this has been said already, but I'm saying it now.
_________________
Uh oh, it's an oreo!
#157544 - gauauu - Mon May 26, 2008 4:51 pm
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| Someone in this thread said something about RPGs not being done by a single person, and I just wanted to add my opinion to that |
Oh dear, this debate again. Let me sum up the result of discussing this over and over:
1. Every development noobie comes in and wants to make an RPG. Not going to happen.
2. A full, modern-style RPG is not going to happen by a single homebrew developer. It's maybe theoretically possible if he's talented, dedicated, and has loads of time to invest -- although we haven't really seen it happen yet, and probably won't.
3. Depending on what you expect out of the definition of "RPG" it would be possible for a homebrew developer to create something that is scaled down from modern commerical RPGs but still fits the definition of RPG. For example, Rogue-like games have been created/ported for gba -- or some people have (incorrectly, imho) labeled my Anguna game as an RPG.
There, now we don't need to spend 50 posts rehashing this old debate.
#157548 - tepples - Mon May 26, 2008 5:14 pm
Given today's platforms and development tools, how many man-hours would go into something at the level of Final Fantasy 1 for NES?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#157556 - gauauu - Mon May 26, 2008 6:46 pm
That's an excellent question, which I'm curious of myself.
Thinking aloud: For a game at that level, you could probably get something done in a relatively reasonable amount of time if you had a 3-person team:
1 decent programmer could probably put together the main engine, battle engine, menus, and fairly simple NPC scripting system (simple by today's RPG standards)
1 talented artist. Not being an artist myself, this seems like the hardest part, but I don't really know. A few map tilesets would be necessary, and a boat-load of enemy pictures. If we assume a number of palette-swaps (FF1 did), then this seems doable.
A level/content designer. I guess this could be done by the programmer or artist or both, but it's tedious work if you're not good at it (I found this out the hard way)
Then assuming the entire team worked together for playtesting and balancing, you could finish up the thing. There's a few holes in my timeline (where does music come from, etc), but that's a general overview.
Here's, in my opinion, the interesting corollary question, though:
Why doesn't this happen more often? There's loads of kids out there making big RPGs with tools like RPG maker (or whatever it's called now). There are a number of sprite artists working on these things also. Then you've got us programmers over on this end who enjoy writing the code, but consider that other stuff somewhere between impossible and sheer misery. I think if we could somehow get collaboration between these different types of people, we could end up with a whole lot more finished, polished, full and enjoyable homebrew games. So the question: how to get people from these communities to work together more?
#157598 - sgeos - Tue May 27, 2008 12:20 am
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| RPGs are another form of story telling, in my opinion. Just like how a writer is committed to developing and writing a story, so can an artist or a programmer. It's possible for one person to complete an RPG, but they have to be emotionally invested in that RPG. |
How many RPGs have you completed by yourself? Very few people out there can pull off an RPG alone.
It is impossible for one person to compete with the scale and quality of a commercial RPG in a reasonable amount time. Completing a couple maps at a (smoke and mirrors) commercial level or an entire roguelike could probably be done in a reasonable amount of time, but even getting these finished is non-trivial.
You are motived and talented. Why can't you complete? When commercial RPGs are made, they hire a few highly paid people to build the tools and the engine. Then they hire a bunch of relatively cheap, motivated, creative people and use human wave tactics to build the content using those tools. If you are a tech person, and you try to do this alone, you are down a couple more tech people and an army of content creators. If you are a motivated writer or artist and you try to do it alone, you are out a panel of technical gurus and you are competing against an army of creative talent. Some of those people are going to be better than you, and there are more of them.
No matter who you are, commercial RPG shops hire teams of people with similar or better talent. The army of one can not compete in a reasonable time frame. Even a bunch of people working for free probably can't compete, although I won't rule out volunteer or low budget collaborative effort as impossible.
Is it impossible to make an RPG alone? No, but you literally have to be able to take on an army. I know I can't take an army of talent by myself at this time. You would need to have your tools and core engine built and an existing asset base on top of a bunch of free time to give it a shot. RPG Maker provides tools, an engine, and a pool of assets if you are happy with an out of the box RPG Maker game.
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| Your desire to complete the RPG has to reach deeper than a monetary goal. |
If you can get the job done alone, you can get the job done- it does not really matter what drives you. If you expect to get rich off your lone wolf RPG, I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
| gauauu wrote: |
| Why doesn't this happen more often? ... I think if we could somehow get collaboration between these different types of people, we could end up with a whole lot more finished, polished, full and enjoyable homebrew games. So the question: how to get people from these communities to work together more? |
Programmers, artist, and writers are different folkes and they gravitate to different places. Getting them to work together is a non-trivial task.
| tepples wrote: |
| Given today's platforms and development tools, how many man-hours would go into something at the level of Final Fantasy 1 for NES? |
First reaction- three people, three months, but your tools need to be in place and the team will need to consist of the right people. All three people would need to be excellent multi-talents; just plain good probably won't cut it. Most teams will not be able to pull it off due to feature creep. This does not include beta testing.
| gauauu wrote: |
| You could probably get something done in a relatively reasonable amount of time if you had a 3-person team |
I agree. I don't think it matters how the work is split so long as all the bases are covered and the project fits the team. Also, tools for an RPG are a big deal.
| gauauu wrote: |
| 1 talented artist. |
Frankly, FF NES art was basically horrible by today's standards. I think you just need one person with some latent artistic abilities if you are happy with NES FF level graphics.
| gauauu wrote: |
| where does music come from, etc |
"Outsourced" music at the last minute ought to work, so long as the engine is implemented and tested during the normal development cycle.
Now for a more reasonable assessment. Your RPG project is basically as good as your tools and the time you spend making content with them. Everything below will neglect tools- your schedule will either have to grow to facilitate tools or your project will reflect what you can shoehorn to work with your project.
Core Development Team
Team Size: 2 ~ 4 tech people and 1+ content designers (you probably want at least 3).
Tech Duties: backend PC to target data encoding and conversion, field engine, battle engine, scripting engines, menus (unless you have a menu scripting language; never seen one), sound programming, and other misc programming.
Art Duties (tech or content person, depending on the team): tileset art, battle backgrounds, monster pictures, and spell effects.
Content Duties: writing, proofreading (done by a different person), data planning, data creation, level design, battle design, and scripting.
Other Duties: Sound effects, music, and project oversight/creative vision.
Phase I: Project Definition (20 ~ 150+ collective hours)
Spend a week to month or so figuring out what you are going to work on in general terms. This is not really part of the development cycple proper. People participate as they have time, and wrap up other things in their life to prepare for the core development cycle.
Phase II: Core Development (1500 ~ 3000+ collective hours)
Spend three to five months putting something together. At first, everything will be a mess. Features will need to be cropped in the last month or so if you want to actually finish.
Phase III: Testing and Maintenance (1000 ~ 5000+ collective hours)
Depending on how the cropping went, the game may be a mess at this point. Set up a bug reporting system and then release the game to friends, family and the general public. Next wait for bug reports to fill the system. =) Fix important bugs, call unimportant bugs "features". =P Because so many people are playing the game, the man hour figure for testing is high.
If anyone is interested, I'm willing to lead a small team to see if this can or can not be done. I won't have any time to put into it until the beginning of June though- I have friends coming from Japan, and I am finishing a class in management techniques. Given a moderate amount of interest, I'll start a new thread in the help wanted forum.
-Brendan
#157612 - gauauu - Tue May 27, 2008 3:31 am
| sgeos wrote: |
| Frankly, FF NES art was basically horrible by today's standards. I think you just need one person with some latent artistic abilities if you are happy with NES FF level graphics. |
Well, I'm no artist, so I can't say much, but I always thought the enemy art in the original FF was pretty good looking for what they had to work with.
| sgeos wrote: |
If anyone is interested, I'm willing to lead a small team to see if this can or can not be done. I won't have any time to put into it until the beginning of June though- I have friends coming from Japan, and I am finishing a class in management techniques. Given a moderate amount of interest, I'll start a new thread in the help wanted forum.
-Brendan |
Very interesting...keep us/me posted. I'm not sure I have the time (with new twins, and other fun projects that keep catching my eye) or the talent, but it's the kind of challenge that sounds like fun.
#157615 - AerosolSP - Tue May 27, 2008 4:27 am
sgeos, you have a very confrontational way of getting your point across. Did I say that I've ever completed an rpg by myself? I don't recall. That initial point could've done without that comment, thank you.
Yea, it's true that one person probably can't get a commercial quality rpg completed by themself within a reasonable time frame, but maybe the time it takes isn't the point. There's more to enjoy than just the end product, and even more to gain from it. If someone seriously wants to take a crack at something by themself, I'd say "well gee, go for it man!" instead of "dude, you're never gonna finish". It doesn't hurt at all to try, for god sake. And it wouldn't hurt for people interested in what one person is trying to accomplish to pitch in a little something here and there.
And if anyone from SFGHQ catches me saying this, they'll kill me. But some of the games being created by the sonic fangaming community run CIRCLES around anything sonic related that Sega has created in the past decade or so, and these teams don't ever consist of more than a few people. Ikaruga, one of the greatest shoot em ups created for the DC, was made by what....3? 4 people? The size of the team isn't everything....
EDIT: I think you also underestimate how hard it is to work with a limited color pallete. Final Fantasy for the NES had, and STILL has beautiful graphics, considering what hardware limitations were in place.
EDIT2: Noobie wants to make an RPG...ok I get that I don't really have anything to back myself up right now, so I'm not going to argue my specific case. What I will say though, is that I agree that somebody that wants to go ahead and make a game that imitates something like the recent final fantasy games in terms of complexity is either sorely mistaken, or incredibly brace (and hopefully, determined). I can't help but feel that you guys might see more people remain determined enough to complete their idea if you all weren't so negative. I'm not blaming anyone specific, or even this particular community, cause I see this kind of thing everywhere.
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#157619 - keldon - Tue May 27, 2008 9:00 am
@Aero; you need to change your approach. If you are arguing I would suggest to stop and listen; rather than drive in your current direction, stop and ask for directions.
You know what your goal is, so at this point in time you should lay out what you can do with the intention of being told what to do. Assume good intention with everyone's post (as tone is lost over the net so it is hard to know intent at all times).
| keldon wrote: |
| AerosolSP wrote: | | It's easier to tell someone how to build a pyramid and give them the tools than it is to build it myself. I'm wondering if this would be the same with programming an rpg, that's all. |
It is quite the same, although note that telling thousands of skilled scribes how to construct a pyramid (with the tools of the time) is still somewhat harder than developing a bug free operating system comparible to Windows <_< |
What I was pointing out here is that yes, telling an army of scribes how to build a pyramid is much easier than building the pyramid by yourself; but even telling how to do so is extremely difficult (as is project management, and telling a programmer how to write code, or anything on that level of thought).
You write as if you have a bandwagon to follow; like I said you need to change direction. If there was an opportunity to bet I would bet at this not happening; something rare happened from the off-topic forum with Jorge, and I can tell you that it "just happened" to be interesting by sheer luck. Of course it's a much more achievable task than this, so I can see it being finished.
But back to direction; ask the experienced what you should do from here and start afresh. Also you don't need any more topics; bearing in mind they are all of the same overall topic (your future game), I think every one of them should be locked and only one remain (instead of having a multi-thread discussion of the same subject matter).
#157640 - AerosolSP - Tue May 27, 2008 4:39 pm
Check your pms, please. I was gonna say something but it goes slightly off topic.
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#157701 - Miked0801 - Tue May 27, 2008 9:58 pm
Weeee. The RPG thread again :)
Ok, I'll tackle the FF1 problem and see what's involved. Yes, this is a simple RPG by today's standards, but my gut feeling is that it is still well beyond the scope of a hobbiest.
Hardware:
Good news, the GBA/DS can pull off this game rather easily in terms of hardware power and features. Nothing stopping you here.
Menu Code:
Front End Menus
Character Selection Menu
View World Map menu
Shop buy/sell code
You died.
You won
Cutscene for exiting first island - credits.
Overworld/dungeon code:
Scrolling tiled map for getting around
tent/cabin code.
Start fight code.
BG/collision Subbing code for bridge/TNT etc.
NPC wander code
Conversation popup code.
Battle system:
Menu with the 4 basic commands then all sub-commands.
All item abilities
All weapon abilities
All Spell abilities
Table of all monsters, stats, special abilities and damage calcs (should be google-able)
Post combat reward system and level up code
2-stage character attacks (pre and post rat tail)
Misc code
Tileset/palette loading per map code.
Saving game
Palette flashing/tweening code for special effects
Screen Shakes.
SFX/Music playing and creation.
Creation of some sort of scripting tagging system and any supporting tools.
Creation or exploitation of existing tools for artwork creation and importing.
Oter glue code to put everything together (memory management, VRAM management, sprite loading and management, control polling and management, Interrupt handlers, etc. The basic stuff needed for any sort of game from pong to grand theft auto. The stuff that someone should write and completely understand before attempting something as grand as this.)
Scripting:
Creation of every single map/town/dungeon and the scripted events per area.
Creation of every single converstaion and triggers that get you between multiple conversation states per NPC.
Creation of monster, items, spells, misc. statistics tables for whole game. Be it code tables or some sort of external importing.
Art:
Ripping all FF1 sprite graphics from the internet and hopefully having them in a GBA/DS friendly format for using. Drawing and processing anything else missing.
Creation of Tilesets needed for creating the maps/towns/dungeons. May be able to just rip whole BMP maps off the internet for this.
Creation of cutscenes, fonts, and other menu assets.
Creation of Spell, Item, Swing/Hit/Miss GFX for combat system.
Any other assets I missed in my 5 minute evaluation.
Music:
Rip the FF1 theme/battle/etc and convert it into something usable by GBA/DS.
Create/Rip battle, menu SFX.
And I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other stuff along the way. Anways, here's what I would guess an experienced, professional team would require to do the above:
Menu Code:
about 2 man weeks
Overworld/dungeon code:
about 4 man weeks
Battle system:
about 12 man weeks
Misc code
Hard to say here as my above estimates were assuming a mature engine from which to begin. Saving about a week. Porting a new sound engine about 2 weeks. Misc special effects another week or so. Creating the base engine from which to work, 3-12 months by itself depending on how much you needed to build from scratch and how much you were learning as you go. It's this one step that pretty much dooms new programmers from day 1 when creating an RPG as their first title. How can you build anything without a base engine from which to work?
Scripting:
I'll guess around 4 man months. That's assuming about 40 different maps and a map complete every 2 days. Some will go faster, so slower. Also assuming the use of non-professional tools that will slow things way down. This doesn't include any design time because all the levels have been layed out for you already.
Art:
Who knows. If you can rip 95% of what you need off the net, then maybe only 1 man month or so. If not, it could take 6 months to create all the needed assets to an acceptable level.
Music:
1 - 3 man months depending on how much can be ripped and used in a format on the GBA/DS. Yes, this long for even simple bleep/blop simple music and SFX.
So, lets add it up.
Assuming that you have an engine from which to work that has already made a couple of pong/tetris/etc games:
Code: 5 man months
Scripting: 4 man months
Art: I'll go middle and choose 3 man months
Music: Ditto - 2 man months.
Add 1 man month debug and polish time.
So if one person had all the correct skills and a decent engine to start working from and most of the graphical/music assets from the net, they could recreate FF1 in about 15 months if they knew exactly what they were doing.
If you had 1 coder, 1 scripter, and 1 music/art person, you could get it done in around 6 months (higher total than 1 person due to overlaps and communication inefficiencies.)
Oh, and if this is a first ever game with no nothing to start from, re-add in the 3-12 months of basic engine design and platform learning.
This is why RPGs, even as 'simple' as FF1 will never get done by a hobbiest. There is no such thing as a simple RPG.
#157707 - silent_code - Tue May 27, 2008 10:30 pm
and mike, you're already being *very* optimistic, i might add! :^)
EDIT: (which was meant to fully support your statement!) ;^D
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Last edited by silent_code on Tue May 27, 2008 11:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
#157711 - Miked0801 - Tue May 27, 2008 11:51 pm
Probably, but even so, it should become clear to everyone why RPG + Hobbiest = incomplete demo.
#157938 - sgeos - Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:33 am
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| If someone seriously wants to take a crack at something by themself, I'd say "well gee, go for it man!" instead of "dude, you're never gonna finish". |
If somebody wants to give it a shot, I honestly wish them the best, but they ought to know what they are getting themselves into. For what it is worth, many commercial shops avoid RPGs because of the human resource investment required (VS projected ROI, of course).
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| sgeos, you have a very confrontational way of getting your point across. Did I say that I've ever completed an rpg by myself? I don't recall. |
I was under the impression you thought an RPG by one person would be possible. I do not disagree, I just do not know of anyone who has managed to do that. Thomas Biskup is the lone wolf I know of who finished something like an RPG alone- ADOM. ADOM is a roguelike, not an RPG. It has no graphics or sound. It took him about 5 years or so to get it to the state when he stopping developing it.
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| Yea, it's true that one person probably can't get a commercial quality rpg completed by themself within a reasonable time frame, but maybe the time it takes isn't the point. |
My message, in a nutshell, is "proceed with caution". I do not know of anyone who has finished an RPG alone. If finishing is not your goal, then by all means give it a shot. Unfinished projects do teach people a lot. If you know anyone who has pulled of a completely original lone wolf RPG, please tell me. I do not. Someone is probably out there who can do it, and I would like to meet them. =)
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| Ikaruga, one of the greatest shoot em ups created for the DC, was made by what....3? 4 people? The size of the team isn't everything.... |
When it comes to putting an RPG together, a team of 3 people is very different from a lone wolf. Small cohesive teams can get a lot done.
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| I think you also underestimate how hard it is to work with a limited color pallete. Final Fantasy for the NES had, and STILL has beautiful graphics, considering what hardware limitations were in place. |
These days we have scanners and color reduction algorithms. Put these in the hands of an artist, and they ought to be able to churn out decent 3 color sprites.
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| What I will say though, is that I agree that somebody that wants to go ahead and make a game that imitates something like the recent final fantasy games in terms of complexity is either sorely mistaken, or incredibly brace (and hopefully, determined). |
We have yet to see anyone pull something off on the level of Final Fantasy I or Dragon Quest I here, let alone whatever the latest Square game is. Square uses human wave tactics to the extreme, and most commercial groups can not compete. People are debugging games around the clock, even when the developers are sleeping. The people I know who have been there think it is literally insane.
| AerosolSP wrote: |
| I can't help but feel that you guys might see more people remain determined enough to complete their idea if you all weren't so negative. |
You are confusing negativity with reality. The goal is not to discourage, but to inform. Putting an RPG together is non-trivial and having realistic expectations is very important. If the estimated project scope is daunting, then I suspect that the actual project scope will be even more daunting. If anyone is going to make a homebrew RPG, it is going to be someone who is aware of the scope of the project (timeframe, human resources, needed expertise, etc) and remains undaunted and determined to succeed. Every hurdle will need to be jumped, and there are a lot of them.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| Ok, I'll tackle the FF1 problem and see what's involved. |
The question was not "what would it take to clone FF1", but I still think your assessment is valid.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| tent/cabin code. |
Basic scripted event, although your scripting system needs to support swapping graphics. Trivial to the extent you have a working ship.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| BG/collision Subbing code for bridge/TNT etc. |
Ie, map patching code.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
All item abilities
All weapon abilities
All Spell abilities |
More scripting, although your engine needs to support all of this.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
Scripting:
Creation of every single map/town/dungeon and the scripted events per area. |
Without the spec or source, I wonder if making an original game from scratch would be less work than an accurate FF1 clone. Testing the behavior of FF1 would take a fair amount of time.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
Creation of every single converstaion and triggers that get you between multiple conversation states per NPC.
Creation of monster, items, spells, misc. statistics tables for whole game. Be it code tables or some sort of external importing. |
Ditto, unless you have a dump.
FFI probably has 1000 ~ 2000 messages.
I'll guess ~100 maps (including dungeons, etc) while I'm at it.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| It's this one step that pretty much dooms new programmers from day 1 when creating an RPG as their first title. How can you build anything without a base engine from which to work? |
Strongly agree.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
Scripting:
I'll guess around 4 man months. That's assuming about 40 different maps and a map complete every 2 days. Some will go faster, so slower. Also assuming the use of non-professional tools that will slow things way down. This doesn't include any design time because all the levels have been layed out for you already. |
This is a case where custom tools will save you time. They allow existing team members to work faster, and they allow you to grow your team so that you can actually finish the project.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| If you had 1 coder, 1 scripter, and 1 music/art person, you could get it done in around 6 months |
That sounds about right. With the right design choices (few features), I think an original title could take about the same amount of programmer/tech time. An original title would require a few pseudo skilled content creators.
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| it should become clear to everyone why RPG + Hobbiest = incomplete demo |
Mission complete.
-Brendan
#169647 - Karatorian - Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:23 pm
Ah yes, the classic RPG thread. All the newbies want to do RPGs and nowadays, they all want to do MMOs. And, of course, someone's got to toss the poor guy a clue. Then of course, the whole indy RPG thing comes up.
Well, not to knock on the OP's spirts any more, I have to agree with the general consensus on the original topic. RPGs are hardcore, MMOs are super hardcore. They're not newbie projects. I've been programming for 20 years now and I put my MMO project on hiatus because I need to learn more.
That said, I am working on an RPG (tactical RPG with some strategy elements actually) as a one man team, so clearly I think it can be done, and I'm not the guy fresh off the boat. That said, I think I have a realistic idea of what's actually required. (I may be just another dreamer with a tech demo and have to eat my hat, but I think I can do it.)
I've actually dug around the Final Fantasy code quite a bit for an off and on rom hacking project and I'd say that the estimate that a three man team in three to six months could build a game similar to it (or even it's GBA or PS ports) is about right. (At times I wonder why I bother with ROM hacking it. It'd probably be easier to clone it.)
Of course, I'm not silly either. I'm not saying that a homebrew team could hack together Fallout 3, Final Fantasy XII, or World of Warcraft. Just that I belive RPGs are possible.
I think the real reason you don't see any homebrew RPGs is more complex than just the difficulty and time requirements. I think most people talented and experianced enough to pull it off have gone pro.
One man and small team rougelikes get written all the time. Now some might say, yeah, but that's a rougelike, it's not an RPG. Well, as a tabletop role-player, I'd say CRPGs aren't RPGs either =_= Seriously though, most of the hard parts of an RPG are not the graphics or the music or even the (often vapid) storyline. It's the core game engine, which is what rouglikes build, often to a degree of complexity far beyond any commercial production.
To Flam, you say you figure you've got the engine about a third done. If so, you ought to be able to answer a few simple questions then:
- What is the average bandwidth usage per connected user?
- How much database space does the average character consume?
- Likewise, the average mob?
- How many players can connect to a single server node before it starts thrashing? (Bonus points if it doesn't because of the dynamic load balancing.)
- What method are you using to deal with client desyncronization?
- How long is a game tick and how many script events does a server have to proccess in that time frame under a design standard load?
I could go on, but I won't.
#169669 - sgeos - Tue Jul 28, 2009 5:01 pm
| Karatorian wrote: |
| I've actually dug around the Final Fantasy code quite a bit for an off and on rom hacking project and I'd say that the estimate that a three man team in three to six months could build a game similar to it (or even it's GBA or PS ports) is about right. |
I think this would be a fun project, although at this point I do firmly believe that RPGs are not homebrew projects. I think something like the iPhone would be a good target for a low spec RPG.
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