Variety in location, genre etc.

In oldschool text rpgs and basic 2d ones there was an rpg for EVERY possible situation. Now all devs work from the same fantasy freeware model, texture and sound pack it seems.

The one thing I miss from older games is how tile based maps let developers create unique maps easily or even allowed random map generation. Nothing ruins exploration quicker than discovering a new area that's a literal copy paste of a previous one.

I'd always like to see more procedural generation. "Action RPGs" (e.g. Diablo) take this to an extreme, but I think even in story driven games PG could have a place. Area layouts, items, even small details such as names could be generated on a per-PC basis. Perhaps the constraints available to the generators would adjust slightly to the choice of class or difficulty level.

Of course, I can foresee this adding challenges with balancing, eliminating exploits, and fitting a complex story into the generated world. However, even a small number of PG content could add replay value, I think.

Compare Fallout to Fallout 3. Do I really need to elaborate on this point further?

I like to have a big world with lots of different optional stuff in it. Stuff that fits the story and the setting. For example, if the story contains a ancient culture that once thrived etc. I expect to see marks of this culture when I stroll through the woods. It can be a stone poking out of the ground with some text on it, such as "[text worn off] ... the battle of Calamdier where pla pla..." Having one temple left of the once-great such-and-such civilisation doensn't cut it if the game has free-roam.

I also dislike that when some random grandmother tells of a legend of the Elephant-faced man who appears at night and sucks out your innards if you burn 10 crow feather praising his name and you cannot really go and do it showing the Elephant-man who's the boss. In short, I like in-game legends and lore that can actually happen in the game. That you could listen to people talk and gather REAL information this way. "My uncle always told me the reason he moved here was because of the screams he thought he heard near Egtema Falls. I never believed him, really. He said no one else ever heard anything. My uncle has been dead for years, but just last summer I heard the village near Egtema Falls has steadily lost it's population. Now it's almost a ghost town. It was such a thriving village back then..." Then you could go and take a look. Or something similar.

I get a strong sense of exploration when I can just and explore. A good example for this could be Morrowind. After a few minutes of constrained gameplay you can just take a hike into the wilderness and get killed. You can take a safe ride into the big city or walk. Or you can find that one dude's ring and kill the bandits or not. On the other hand, it's also silly when you come back at level 30 and the same guy still hasn't found his ring and the bandits are still holed up in the cave.

I have nothing against combat really. It just cannot be too easy or too hard. For example, when you every 10 seconds fight a monster that you can slay in one strike in an RPG Maker -game it's just completely pointless and annoying.

I like multiple endings if they are derived from the player actions throughout the whole game. Multiple endings such as whether you write the future with Dark Savant or just kill him are nice (especially given Dark Savant's history) but they add very little to the game. I mean, by the time you get your multiple ending, the game is almost over. Derived from this I also like if I feel my actions in the game make a difference in some way.

Hi, newbie here :D


I think what I really miss is the game treating me like I have a brain.

Really, I think that nothing is better to ruin a RPG than a quest system to guide you throgh EVERY DAMN quest. Or even worse, a RPG where there is not even quests, you just have to walk forward and kill monsters/level up.

Ive been playing Final Fantasy XIII, the graphics are gorgeous... but damn, so far all I did was reading and pressing X (L1 sometimes)...

I know the Final Fantasy series was never meant to be open ended, and they ARE linear, but this is ridiculous. They should have made a movie out of it. So far, Im just pushing my way through battles just to see how the history unfold, the battles are plain boring.

The most imersive game I ever played was Ultima V. Graphics were good for the time, but compared to Final Fantasy XIII they are plain trash. It wasnt open ended (you had 2 endings depending on just one item). Some people give credit to the non linear system and the fantastic NPC schedules. I really dont think thats it either.

What I really miss from the Ultima series is that the games actualy expected some effort from the players, you had to think, take a few notes if you wanted to (no quest system to just walk you through the game as if you had no memory or couldnt think by yourself). The game was gorgeous, with short but interesting dialogs with the NPCs. And by all means, all the data that could be hidden from the players WAS hidden. I mean, really, how immersive is a "+55atk,30def double speed" sword? Is there really any need for all this info? Do I need to know the exact amount of damage points Ive done to a monster or even have a bar that shows the health monsters have? If we are using a computer why not let the machine handle the numbers and show this info in a more human friendly way? Do you see people with health bars on the street? Do you see movies/mangas/comics/ with heroes that have a +30 atack bonus?

Ultima V had a nice and simple health system for the monsters, If you took just some of the HP, it would say the thing was "lightly wounded", you took more, "barely wounded", some more, "heavily wounded", a little more, "near death". Weapons didnt have all stats saying how much damage they did, instead, you had a guide telling you which weapon did which kind of damage. You see, the game had the data, monsters had a discrete ammount of hit points, it was simply hidden.

I dont suggest a system where monsters would say in text "HEY YOU, IM LIGHTLY WOUNDED", but, if it is possible to do games with the level of graphics detail that final fantasy XIII has, Im sure its quite possible to implement graphics solutions to show when a monster is half way dead, with scars and blood showing it, I dont really need a visual health bar for it (this also opens a lot of possibilities).

There is one thing in Final Fantasy XIII that I really liked and I think it is the best improvement Ive seen so far in the game. When you load it, it gaves you a small resume of what happened so far in the story, but it does it like it was TELLING a story, not just a bunch of triggered/untriggered events. Too bad you never need it, you could just follow some lights on the map, kill the monsters on your way and it would be just the same.

Im not saying that they did a poor job with the game, Im sure they did the best they could to please their audience, and the graphics and the storyline is good. I just used it as an example. Nor Im trying to put the blame on the audience or imply that those who like Final Fantasy XIII are worse persons in ANY way. Its just the way things are. And Im sure that those things do not help to create an immersive game.

So, in a resume: graphics details are good, as long as the game is still challenging in other ways than just hard strategic battles (which is good TOO). Also, it should have lots of data and stats for all its weapons and characters, lots of triggers and events all around the world, but thats for the development team use only: the player should have access to more solid models with only the data he needs and the rest should make its way out in more subtle ways.

If this worked with the poor 16bit 320x240 low res graphics in Starflight, im sure it can work just as well with the level of graphic detail we have at our disposal now. Events and triggers should not be treated as a quest list, its dumb to develop a whole dialog system and lots of NPCs interactions if the player doesnt need it, he just have to follow the journal which has just a list of the game triggers.

Anyways, its my 2 cents, sorry if I got carried away. Im not trying to teach anyone how to build and SELL games, but thats what I miss and I know it would work well with me;

Role Playing Games should focus on the Role. Even if it is a linear game, if you make the player feel like he made a choice, it will feel like he has control. Instead of great story-bending choices, give the player small rewards, like stealling food, turning lights on and off... simple stuff just to make the player feel like he is really taking part on the events, instead of just fighting and watching.

PS:Sorry for the poor english :P.