Castle Paradox

[Balthazar]

Hello everyone,

I am new to these boards, but have been in the IRC chat for quite some time now.

I am here to ask for your ideas and suggestions on features/ideas/etc. that you would like to see in an RPG creation engine.

It can be a neat idea from another editor you like, or a feature you feel is lacking from any editor. Or a wholly original idea. If possible, I would like to incorporate these into my design, so as to create the best engine I can. It can be from something as simple as having spell descriptions, to what resoultions you would like the game to run at, to a fundamental look and feel issue.

Thanks for your help.

[Machu]

Woah, you're making your own RPG creation engine? Sounds spiffy! Of course, I don't know what method/programming language/operating system/whatever you're working with, so I'm not sure what's possible. I mean, I'm sure a windows-based engine can easily support MP3 music and sounds, as well as extremely high color count. Well, as far as the actual designing, I want the stats to be entirely custom. As in, the player should have to say "Hero becomes (Dead) when (CurrentHP) is (less than or equal to) (0)", and "Attack (reduces) (Target_CurrentHP) using the formula (User_Atk -- Target_Def)". You can make presets if you'd like, but don't make them mandatory. Status effects would be cool as well. They could be defined like "Every (20) ticks, increase (CurrentHP) by (MaxHP/20)", or "disable all (Spell) abilities". Oh yeah, and each stat, ability, hero, and enemy should have a set of "constant checks" and strings to define what they are. For example, under CurrentHP: "If (greater than or equal to) (MaxHP), (set to) (MaxHP)", under a fire spell, type the string "Spell" so that the status that disables it will affect it, and a monster could have the string "Undead" so that certain abilities will do additional or different effects. For example, to make a spell that only hurts Undead, you could say "Attack (reduces) (Target_CurrentHP) by (0): If (Target) is (Undead), do (User_Mnd) (instead)". Well, this is getting rather complex. I'm leaving this up to you to organize, but I can elaborate further if need be.

Now that I think about it, this format I'm using for examples looks a lot like the triggers for the Starcraft editor. Perhaps you should take a gander at that for a little bit, since I think it's very flexible for what it is.
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[Balthazar]

I didn't want to put down too many features, so as not to prejudice the responses, but perhaps that wasn't the best idea. Therefore, here are some things I have on the design:

Music will be Ogg Vorbis (similar to mp3, but an open standard, anything you can do with mp3, you can do with ogg)

Normal resolution will be 640x480 or 800x600, and will probably be adjustable.

Graphics will be done with PNG files. I am also looking into FMV's, and an "in-game" movie engine (think the scripted parts from the early FF's).

Status and elemental weaknesses and resistance, that will be user definable of course.

Hoping for a custom experience curve, though this is not a high priority item.

Probably will have the option of both ATB and turn based battle systems.

Perhaps this list will help spur some discussion.

[Uncommon]

Those were the resolutions I would've suggested. Also, PNG is a plus.

Machu's idea sounds good. User-definable attacks would be nice. Also, a user-definable enemy AI would be neat.
In other words, flexibilty. The freedom of pure-programming, but the structure and stability of an engine.

If it's feasible, at least.

[Machu]

As I said, it'd be great to leave anything open as possible. "Elementals" can be one of those presets, but you can easily use those string things I mentioned earlier to implement it. A monster that is weak to fire can have the string "Fireweak" and every fire ability would be along the lines of "Attack (reduces) (Target_CurrentHP) by (User_Mnd): If (Target) is (Fireweak), do (User_Mnd) (in addition); If (Target) is (Firestrong), do (User_Mnd / 2) (less)". This formula would apply double damage to any monster with the string "Fireweak" and half with the string "Firestrong". If you don't know what I mean by strings, I don't mean a list of words to choose; I mean lots of blank that can be manually typed in to define the monster. I'd also like each slot for abilities that take strings to also accept things like "NOT Fireweak" that would effect enemies that don't have the string. Don't worry too much about compile errors or whatever; I predict if "Fireweak" was spelled wrong on the monster he just won't take additional damage from abilities with the intended spelling, and abilities that have it spelled wrong just won't use the additional effect. Of course, places that require stats can have a list of already defined stats to choose [every stat as User_Stat and Target_Stat if required]. Putting those in manually for each ability would be tedious, so allow copying of abilities. To make a stronger fire spell, you could just copy it and insert a * 2 by each instance of User_Mnd.

Oh, and I'd really like having a choice between ATB and turn-based. Of course, those system should a have a bit of customization as well. Just as each hero needs to have death defined as a lack of CurrentHP, each hero needs their turn defined something like "Hero gets turn when (Count) is (greater than or equal to) (500)". Oh yeah, each stat would need an option to be hidden in any stat menus, and Count would be one of them. Right inside the turn system, you can say choose between ATB or Turn and say "Every tick, (increase) every creature's (Count) by (Speed)". In ATB, this happens every system tick, and in turn, as many ticks as need for a turn pass by instantly in order for people to have a turn and waits for all turns to pass before running more ticks.

Man, I really need to stop getting ahead of myself here. Sheesh, if I knew how, I would make an engine!
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[Setu_Firestorm]

Well, I hope you're not going to do the evil Ascii thing and make it where you can only use the craptacular, hard to manage, drawing program to make the PNGs in, and that you can make them in any drawing program that saves PNGs, `cause that's the major problem I had with RPG2k and 2k3.
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[rpgspotKahn]

Thats really cool that someone is making a new RPG engine. OHR RPG CE is the best... maybe there will be something to acctually compete with it.

An Idea of my would be like in Sphere, although I dont really know how to use it, to let the user decide how many walkabout graphics he wants for each direction. Maybe even add some more directions (NE, SE, SW, NW) a few diagonals for a nicer game experience.

There must be maybe more stuff for us to define our main character by. A Bio screen where the player can visit whenever he wants. Where he can read up on the character and such. A personalised biography on the hero. Maybe also can be defined by the player, if he/she wants.

More customisable spells. More frames, joins between spells. Definable ways of casting spells. Like Make 10 of lightning spell shoot from the sky at this angle and such. And then be able to set some pics of few cracks apearing in the ground where it hit... ect. (Probably is a bit complex, but it would be cool)

Being able to draw the Hero with the weapon in its hand. It will enable us to make perfected attacks with many different weapons.

Make it that when a certain armour is worn then the hero graphics changes. I know you can do this with OHRRPGCE but it doesnt go into effect immidietly, there is no "when equipped play script". It would be cool.

Those are just a few ideas of mine. Correct me if I said something that the OHR can already do. I would like to know.
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2nd Edition out now!

[Balthazar]

[MultiColoredWizard]

"I know you can do this with OHRRPGCE but it doesnt go into effect immidietly, there is no "when equipped play script". It would be cool."
Um.. there doesn't have to be. Just have an autorun script that changes the hero depending on the armor and weapon...
Then find a math equation of it.
It's not hard at all.
Actually KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN, just about everything you asked for is easy to do.

Oh, and Main Character != good. Don't develop just 1 person, because that's retarded.

[Setu_Firestorm]

[junahu]

Don't forget about the people who would want to use the engine creatively to make games of genres other than rpgs. Almost all of the decent games for the OHR aren't true rpgs.
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[Kenji Murasame]

The most important thing about a game engine is intergration.

As in, make it more a creation engine than a simple game compilier, this is why OHR is good, and what would make any game maker good.

For something to make RPG's specifically, I'd suggest:

make the battle engine flexible, allowing real time or not, different perspectives and systems, yet don't make it coded, give it "switches".

I'd like to see a powerful map making tool. Some ideas: allow several tiles to be copied into new areas (like sorta a mega-copy), allow the tile drawer to draw 2x2, 4x4,etc sections as well as 1x1 (but become 1x1 nontheless), give the option in the map to stretch areas (kind of like hitting space bar, you know?)

That's all ^_^

[msw188]

Just a few suggestions.

1. Leave one or two open, completely unused stats. Something like what Counter has become on the OHR. I think this can really help a game-maker.

2. Please do everything you can to let battles be turn-based or real-time. This is what I consider to be the OHR's main flaw. I would easily give up all the memory used for battle animations if that could be implemented in the OHR.

3. If possible, don't make spells a battle-based menu. Spells should be able to be linked to outside of battle scripting kinds of things, to allow for warping spells, or spells that light up a cave, or spells that somehow alter the environment.

4. I'm a much bigger fan of the old DW style of items where each character is given an item carrying limit. This just makes so much more sense than the FF system of one general item menu. Do any newer games have separate item menus for each character?

5. An easily customizable main menu would be awesome. I don't know how feasible that is.

That was a lot. I hope some of this can be used. Regardless though, I think that it is very cool that you are making an engine, and asking for ideas before going about it. Good luck!

[Balthazar]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I appreciate it. Well I realize that there are all of these features that you want (and I asked for), let me address some of them now.

Games Other Than RPG's
This is currently not planned. If people can use what exists to create a new type of game, more power to them, but currently this is not in the plans.

Unused Stats
Hadn't occured to me, but simple enough to do, so no problem.

Spell Interface
You will be able to cast spells both in and out of battle.

Main Menu
What do you mean by this? The opening screen for the game? Or the in game menu screen (ie with Items, Equip, Status, etc.)

Battle Engine Flexibility
The code is being designed to be modular, so that you can plug battle system in and out. The only requirement would be to conform to a specification to ensure the code operates correctly (an interface basically).

[msw188]

By main menu, I do mean the menu that is brought up during walkabout mode with things like item, magic, equip, and stuff. I'm not sure what I would do with it, but it would be cool to have an empty slot or two on the main menu that can be named by the game-maker and be attached directly to a script, say.

I thought of another thing just as I was typing this, and that is coding for text boxes. It wasn't too long ago that James allowed variables to be called upon and placed in text boxes. It would be even cooler if you could manipulate them within the text box as well. I believe that people here have done some tricky things with the "show value" command here to try and emulate this. Just another thing I was thinking.