[gameprogrammer] Re: COMMENTS PLEASE, CCRPG-[intro]

I agree with Alan, it's about fun, not realism. Yet RPGs sometime lack
challenge, and inbetween battles become tedious in areas one returns, so in
this case a bit of realism would be better (not uber characters).
A good solution is to make characters have very low skill roofs, like you
said, give them human limits, so they can't improve that much. So still some
more or less big creeps are strong.
 About uber-equip: well just don't make the uber-equip so uber. Sure with a
sword it's waaay easier to kill a, say, wolf, than with a stick. Still a
dragon is a dragon, and that could even need an army.
It's about making every battle intensive.
 About skills, that's ok, but still give some limitation, (eg. some skills
have other skills as requirements, but generally you can learn any skill
independently of class). Also you would want to control how many skills, and
how varied, a character can get. A good way would be a tax system: If you
stop using a skill you start loosing point till say, 10% of the original
skill, of course you drop to different percents at different speeds (you
could even add a short spanned "warmed up" bonus).
 Balance the skills, so magic maybe is much stronger than a sword (because
of human stats), but maybe magic is random, maybe it can even be dangerous,
at some points it could backfire and one would have to deal with the
backfires.
 Levels still are needed, I think they are some of the things that add fun
to RPGs, they give us this sense of achievement. Maybe you could, though,
make the level independent of stats by making it something like "Fame", it
would vary with different factions and could be negative. The more fame you
have the more rights and bonuses you are given by a certain faction. Doing
anything productive gives you fame, and you could even make this fame as a
certain class or job (just because you are famous as a warrior you are not
expected to be a good mage or a good blacksmith, though you could be). So it
would just be another stat.
Characters MUST have the aspect of "favor of God" it's part of story (an
essential part of a RPG). It doesn't have to be Deus Ex Machina, it just
means that the character must be stronger in some form or another. Right
from the beggining, a good hero has a mysterious background, so you choose a
class, which kinda gives you a direction and go on from there. It's not that
you are stronger, it's that the situation around you has made you stronger.
Not godlike though.
 Hitpoints, my DM (I play D&D) and my friends who play, consider HP the
ability to block an attack. So when you pass the AC, you blocked, parried or
doged an attack really well. If you are hit, you block the hit but either
get hurt, or get tired. After your HP's 0 you get tired, fail to block and
get wounded. At -7hp you are dead. So maybe you could make the game about
blocking an attack. After enough blocking you get damaged, and then wounded
(which has consequences already). Of course in real life once you got
wounded you would drop and not move for sometime, but this is a game ;)
 I like the skill using idea. For simple obvious actions, such as attacking
I would recommend something simple, like using the mouse buttons. Not
linearly like in diablo, but using both right and left mouse buttons (once
you beggin attacking of course) to attack and even making combos, something
like in ONI. Magic could use the gesture drawing system like B&W has, that
would be fun, you draw the symbol and then you throw the spell.
 About connecting with the character: it can never happen. It just is like
that with games, because you make the actions you connect with your action.
If you're character is simple, or chaotic enought, to be able to do ANYTHING
(kinda of like the characters in GTA) the maybe, MAYBE, you will connect
with the character (I did with Tony). Why? because players will do anything,
and if it is an out of character action, then it breaks the illusion. In
literature this hasn't been a problem because you can't do anything about
it, but the great and terrible thing about games is YOU CAN do something
about it. So really focus on making the player feel really proud of his
achievements (make them at least seem epic, even if they are not).
 That's my little opinion, but from there I'm open to see what others think
of this.

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