Why do indie developers want to do RPG's

#1 I'm with you on this one: you should *not* try and do indie games which have huge amounts of content, they just won'tbe finished. FPSs and MMORPGs are the prime offenders here to my mind.

Ian
Mode 7 Games

#2 Yeah , the project was supposed to be a for a 10 week competition to produce a prototype


*rolls eye*

think ill stick to playign with TSe for the mean time

#3 I will answer from my own perspective.
Coding games is fun, playing with 3d art is fun. Therefore, I want to make a game. I do not however, wish to be a game developer, nor am I trying to break into the industry. Personally, I can't think of a much worse job. The hours are way too long, and the pay is a fair amount lower than I currently make.
So, if I'm going to spend my free time having fun, it's going to be working on something I enjoy. I do not find puzzle games fun, and most other genres are done better by the pros. That leaves me with RPG. That is the only genre that is both extremely fun to work on, and has rarely ever been done properly by the pros. Those few that were great, were also short. The developers never followed them up with new areas, new adventures. Instead they scrap everything and start over on a new job (money).
So yes, I can do it better. Realism tells me the odds of finishing such a huge project are slim to a micron above none, but thats okay. Its fun, and if you're going to work for free, thats all that really matters.

#4 Yeah but if you where going to be apply to a competition to work on a 10 week project to then show publishers and judges at the end of it , would u work on a RPG ?

#5 No, if it was for a competition, I wouldn't choose any form of RPG at all :)

#6 Some indies chose RPGs because that is what they want to play, and they want to make a game they want to play.

That's what it's all about, isn't it?

#7 I think you CAN make an RPG without alot of art and stuff. Just because current "RPG" computer and video games contain a ton of content doesnt mean that the one you make has too.

No, you cant make a game like Final Fantasy 13 or Morrowind 4 or Fable 3. But what you CAN do is something like Nethack, or a MUD, or something totally different and new and cool. What really makes a tabletop RPG fun? What kind of restrictions can you put on the environment that you roleplay in to reduce the amount of art needed? Maybe you could have a game where you roleplay pirates. You would need maybe a few ship models and a few player and weapon models and voila! you're pirates. :)

Or you could do something totally different. But RPGs arent fun because they have lots of art. They are fun because of the unique experience that you get from pretending to be someone else for a while. So is it bad for an indie to do an RPG game for their first game? Certainly not if they have a cool idea that fits with the resources they have.

#8 You know, it really depends on what the RPG is going to be... the scale of it and all those details.

Any game can be easy to make *if* you only have a few things to make and you have a team of people to work on it.

Like, let's say a small RPG, where there is only one major character (player) and he has a sword... and then there's 2 or 3 monsters or whatever... then make a map/level, and you're practically done.

Certainly nothing to cry over.

#9 Hmm good points everyone, kinda changed my thinking a bit


think maybe its not the RPG aspect thats annoying me , just something else .....

#10 Well I am the fan of RPG games, however If I am making a prototype for a competition I would follow competition rules, if I want to won the competition then I would start with the game(prototype) that could be done in less than 10 weeks. Creating a RPG is fun, but you must have a good storry backing up that kind of genre, you also have to convince player that he is that character.

Writing a great story(not good but great) and great AI will take a lot of time and I am not sure if is possible to do that in less than 10 weeks(if you are on low budget).

Creating a prototype, where you have two monsters and player who's hunting them with sword is not really interresting (done that and get dissapointed). But having a great story behind those monsters & player isn't something that is easilly achived.
Don't get me wrong, if you can recreate a small part of the game like diablo then go for it, but if you can't then stick to something that you can achive in less then 10 weeks, win the competition, and then create whatever you want in your free time. 10 weeks is VERY tight schedule and your team hasn't even agree on what type of game you want to create.
Anyway good luck, I hope you will success.

P.S. Sorry for my english but it's not my native language.

#11 I agree, it's not so much creating an RPG that's the problem, it's simply making a game that's overly ambitious. You can easily be an offender in this area in any number of genres: racing, space, action, platform, sports, whatever. Instead of trying to "outsmart" the big publishers by making a more innovative slice of bread, they try to "outwork" the big publishers by putting more bread in one package... an endeavor that one can never win at as an indie.

One of the draws of a RPG is that you get to role play as a completely different character. In real life, we have few opportunities for this -- we are expected to behave a certain way at work, with friends, etc. It's funny because there's tons of games considered RPG's because of the gameplay (turn based statistics fighting), but aren't really role playing games because they don't give you a role to play (you just watch an interactive movie). In many ways, a game like GTA3 is more of a role playing game than any. So I think that's a big draw of making a RPG game -- it goes back to when we were kids and would pretend that sticks were swords and our dog was a mighty demon beast. Games like Orbz and Super Mario are fun for different reasons, but don't have that role-playing element to it (who wants to be a marble or a plumber?).

#12 I would love to be a plumber that maybe lost his marbles

#13 Kenneth: I think one of the main reasons that so many new developers want to start with a CRPG is that so many of them enjoy playing them. A CRPG player has much in common with a programmer/coder: they both have to deal with numbers, pay attention to detail and take things a step at a time.

Problems generally occur when the creation process is handled too differently to the way in which a CRPG is played. In other words, if any of the stages are rushed.

Playing and creating are also two different things, and very few players have experience as a dungeon master.

Creating a CRPG requires a great deal of planning and work, but it is not an impossible goal for a smart and determined indie development team, particularly if they choose a realistic size for their first effort and reuse existing technology (such as a game engine) and/or materials.

However, many underestimate the amount of work involved and/or misunderstand how important it is to plan carefully and set realistic goals.

As for your team changing their plans, I personally would be wary of working with people who want to abandon a simple project to work on a more complex one. Doing the opposite would be acceptable (and possibly even welcome) though.

#14 Yeah , maybe im more thinking about the team then RPG's .

to be honest i think im going to pull out of the team (not fualt of the guys they are a good bunch ) becuase i am wary of stuff at the momment like you say Wysardry.

I might develop the racing idea on my own and see if anyone wants to help on the art side (or i could have programmer art :D)

oh and also work with TSE , got a couple of shaders i wanna try out with it

#15 I ask myself that question every time I see a MMORPG thread...

They need an article to read to tell them how hard game design, development and deployment is

#16 Heh, funny we're working on a racing title here at Leadfoot Productions. FINALLY, it is afterall the whole reason I learned to program.

#17 Indies CAN DO RPGS.

www.spiderwebsoftware.com/


Indies CAN DO MMORPGS:

www.atitd.com/


It's all a matter of scale. The problem new developers (and even experienced ones) face is understanding the scope of any given project and managing this. A lot of things sound easy from the 30,000 foot view, but with games you have to get down and handle every little detail - and that's what buries you if you aren't careful.

#18 @jay Awesome, pulling out the old exile 1-3. Good reply. :)

I think that indies can do rpgs if they keep in mind the limits of what they can achieve and understand the time frame, and to answer the question as to why, because I think most devs get into games like rpgs that they have played that blew their minds. And then suddenly they didn't want to be a fireman anymore. Now they want to make games.

RPG's in my opinion are first and foremost interactive stories, and some are powerful enough to evoke strong emotional ties to it. I think we all as game devs and story tellers want that type of thing to be said about our games. So in a nut shell, thats probably why devs want to make RPG's. For me thats a dream project. And I would lay down my genitailia into a meat grinder if I could work on a project like Fallout 3. Madden 2004 doesn't have fans like that...

#19 A much smaller percentage of completed CRPGs/MMORPGs were first projects though (indie or not).

#20

Quote:And I would lay down my genitailia into a meat grinder if I could work on a project like Fallout 3.

Now that fanaticism. Whew. Don't think I've ever thought about this.