Indie-Resource.com

you get the source with RC so you can edit anything and everything but unity is also very good.

hallsofvallhalla wrote:you get the source with RC so you can edit anything and everything but unity is also very good.

Mmm, yeah, but you need to pay for RC while Unity is free. Is RC better in anyway then?

speed and easy. About it.

jeroenV wrote: Finding the right NPC that sells armor for your class, your level, ...
...

Economy, important feature

I find the Economy of a game one of the most important features because just gaining exp isen't everything, i want them to become tradesman or raiders, i want them to work for their money so they can buy the armor, mount that they have always wanted. Creating an good economy is difficult tough.

I don't want to sound like a spoilsport, but have you looked at the design of EVE or some of the old school text MUDs? I say this because the shop/creature thingee is clearly a player convenience item intended for combat oriented achiever types. The problem is that it is in direct opposition to the economy part, as trade relies on local scarcity and worlds not being "spatially fungible". Fungible goods are ones where each is completely interchangeable with any other and it does not matter who the source was. Oil is used as the classic example of a fungible good in the real world. What I mean by "spatially fungible" is that any location is pretty much interchangeable with any other. And finding that shop with the armor... that is explorer oriented gameplay.

At first glance, your ideas look like post WoW convenience-casual gameplay. This is neither a good or bad thing as the masses tend to be attracted to convenience-casual and the niche player types tend to be attracted to arthouse (which is often old school mainstream, from the EQ1, UO or MUD days or yore). Just bear in mind that when Keven Smith shot Clerks for $25,000. Clerks was wildly successful for an indie film and spawned a whole franchise. Had he tried to film a Speed or Forest Gump (to name two blockbuster films released in the same year) on that budget, he probably would still be running the comic book store.

I Get the idea your saying here,.. you'd like to see more RPGs and less CRaPaGe's

jeroenV wrote:
Games that require skill to play

Many MMORPG's are Wow related, press a button and you cast your spell, skill, ... Go to the city to buy new armor, weapons, skils, ...

I agree with this concept.. but disagree also..

I like the idea that a spell or combat skill might require you to press some set of combo's in order.. and yes, over time you might become better at it and the concept of having to press the order of things faster to get the spell to happen sure.. but what if your not that quick a person? or you just want to PLAY the game.. not master key presses..

I would say that the first few times you cast a spell, or maybe when your skill in the spell is low.. you have to press a combo of buttons.. but, as your character becomes more skilled.. reduce the buttons you need to press, BUT, your character should still go through the process of swinging his arms around and making the incantations.. Many spells should NOT be so quick to cast. what ever happened to enchanting? bubble bubble toil and trouble?

jeroenV wrote:
Finding the right NPC that sells armor for your class, your level, ...

This kills the fun of the game, i know you got games that show you on the map where the NPC you need to find is but then it still is difficult. I want the players to just go to the menu, press "shop" choose armor and get a list of the armor they can get with their level, their class, ... Then when you found the armor you wish for, you just press buy and then a message pops up that says "summon your creature to buy the item" you press yes, and then you can see you're creature summon itself and run towards the city, gets back to you in 1-5 minuts and you have your item (Ofcourse the creature does not run all the way for real) But if you will only use this menu shop then it would be pretty boring because everbody would look the same. Thats why you will still have some sellers at (non city) places that sell items that you can't buy in the menu shop, like a trader on its way to a big city. And ofcourse you will be able to get special stats armor and weapons from monsters.

This.. I either don;t understand what your trying to say.. OR I completely disagree..

Torchlight has a feature to 'sell' all your creature held gear in a minute.. ok.. but thats a hack and slash game.. not an RPG.

Your asking to turn 'spell casting' and 'weapon manuevers' and 'skill attempts' into longer drawn out events, that usually involves player interaction, rather than just 1 press events.. and yet.. you seem to be asking to turn shopping into a '1 press event' ??

Partially I think that the idea I'll conjecture with your economics thread below..

jeroenV wrote:
Economy, important feature

I find the Economy of a game one of the most important features because just gaining exp isn't everything, i want them to become tradesman or raiders, i want them to work for their money so they can buy the armor, mount that they have always wanted. Creating an good economy is difficult tough.

This is something I completely agree with, yet its the hardest thing for any given game to achieve.. How to make Economy real, but simple, fun but unable to be broken..

I'd love to discuss just your Economics concept in an entire thread.. If this thread can be high-jacked into an Gaming Economics thread ..

hallsofvallhalla wrote:i like your ideas alot and me and you think a lot alike. I have spent much time on the economy of Urban Realms. Players have two choices on getting items they want.

1. Work your butt of to get the money needed then find a player owned shop that has one.

2. Build up your crafting skill and find the right materials and build one yourself.

Even buying shops in Urban Realms is something to strive for and takes a while. The economy is somewhat player run. Since they craft most of the items they set the prices.

I would love to see a game make the magic system as you said. Where each spell has its own requirements that are more than a button push.

If anyone remembers Asherons call, while not a browser game, it did have a unique spell economy and research system.

The way it worked was players were given one or two spells and thats it, everything else you had to research yourself by trying different components, very much guess work at first, but after a while you could see a pattern.

So because of this spell formula's were heavily guarded secrets. When you add the spell economy things got very interesting, basically the less people that knew a particular spell, the bigger the bonus would be, when a certain number knew the spell there would be no bonus.

While being a beginner, I think this could be achieved with some work, from what I have seen you do so far. Even for a text game, 4 or so drop down boxes with components could be your research part, when they submit their choices, it gets checked against the db for match's, if it matches they get the new spell. They may not be able to cast it though depending on the spell level and their skill.

I would try limit the number of try's per day, by either having a set limit or by having them buy "research components" which are not cheap and get consumed on failed attempts.