when i l realized i couldn’t make Full RPG in unity that easy like RPG maker i decided to split my game chapters into episodes. But is a good idea for a Turn based Rpgs or is it only good for adventure games?
Why can’t you make a full rpg in unity?
Maybe he thinks its to complex and would take to much time.
You should probably not use a Multiple Choice Poll for a yes/no question : p
Episodic is good for every genre.
You can make a full RPG in Unity. But episodic is fine, just make sure your game length is long enough for each episode.
the reason i went with episodic is wont have to focus that much on making a game without eating my life and show others for help along the way
The thing about an RPG is that it’s all about building your character over the course of a game by making decisions and/or gaining strength and/or earning more powerful equipment. When you go episodic, you’re splitting up one game into several games, and while your players’ progress through the story of the game will obviously be preserved, their personal progress - all the decisions they made, all of the levels they gained - are gone when they start the next episode, unless you do something like in Mass Effect where you can import a save file into new games. (But even in Mass Effect, only the decisions are transferred - your character level is still reset. On the bright side, this allows them to drastically update the combat system between games)
dude the Episodes are treated like DLC. what make you think im going to reset there stats.
My mistake, the only episodic games I’ve seen so far are treated as seperate installments of the same game. In that case, I think the episodic approach works quite well - as long as you’re open with players up front that they’ll have to buy subsequent chapters.
look the first episode will be released for free and i will ask for ‘Donations’ for more episodes.
I’m thinking of something similar and its not quite that straightforward for what I had in mind. An RPG gives this feeling of an open world, that being at least in the game I have planned, there’s a world map.
It would be quite awkward to be travelling in the world map, get to some place only to be greeted “you cannot visit this until episode 4” or something less blunt.
So what I had in mind was the player selects episodes from the map itself, and the story plays out that episode in that part of the map. Something similar to the old PS1 game: Saga Frontier 2.
To get rid of the feeling that you are being cajoled linearly, eventually I’m thinking of making a “hub” city where everything else is connected. New pathways in the hub emerge as more episodes are played. Newer episodes get the advantage of being able to reuse parts of the world that have already been unlocked by previous episodes.
I feel its important to give the feeling that the player is exploring a vast open world even though he is getting it bit by bit in episodes. Also, while not playing an episode (i.e. a main quest), he’s free to explore all the areas he has currently unlocked.
I imagine this would require very meticulous planning on the areas of the game, as you are releasing content when other areas probably have not been made yet.
Would be curious to know what you guys think.
You and me need to talk via PM because your idea could work.
the hub" city could replace the open world aproach
The thing that would worry me most about an episodic/multi-DLC RPG would be how you handle character progression. If you let the character grind and level up forever in episode 1 then there’s a risk that when he finally buys episode 2 he’s far too powerful for it. So you could level cap each episode, but that limits how much playtime you can actually get out of it. You could level-scale everything like Oblivion, but that can get weird and break immersion, especially if you have a storyline that involves fighting specific people or creatures. You’d need Episode 4 to be beatable by both the people who rushed through 1-3 and just did the main quest, while still being challenging to the guy who spent 300 hours maxing out his level and finding every single item.
This is the reason a lot of sequels that let you import a character still do something to balance you and not let you keep all of your power. Lots of sequels start with the imported character conveniently being stripped of all of his items and having some kind of injury/imprisonment that causes him to lose much of his power. You could do that each episode, but players would get awfully sick of it.
My plan is to have a cataclysmic event happen like a comet hits the planet
This way I can use the same world but have different stories and events.
Maybe an island gets blown up and important people were there and now you have to find if they’re still alive
Or something like that.
This way you keep the same world but it’s different.
One less thing to worry about for that episode.
Well maybe a level cap per episode could balance things out
Episodic for RPGs doesn’t sound intuitive. I guess you would be able to activate quests for each episode and even unlock areas, but if you are trying to make an open world type of experience you need the world to exist before hand or you will have to find another way to limit access.
This can be done in the script of course. (I mean the story here, not code, some magical barrier, plague etc)
Obviously you will need to create a system that controls enemy stats based on user stats, same way Guild Wars does it I guess.
The good things about episodic are:
- get your game out there faster
- fund development using the game
- incorporate feedback into the game
- make short, enjoyable slices of game with attention to start, middle and end (cliff-hanger)
- hype that promotes the game, that doesn’t die out just after release
- in the end the whole thing can still be sold as a unit and still be enjoyable
Now the downsides are:
- basically getting people to believe in the title, solution: fair price is needed here
- maintaining momentum, solution: I guess at least 3 episodes should be ready when the first one hits the market.
- better have a good story to move things along
anyway have to go now.
the idea i had was the game world was covered in deadly fog and completing an episode would remove some of the fog.
It could work; my advice in that case would be to make sure there’s still something that the guy who wants to play Episode 1 for 300 hours can do to progress. Maybe some kind of collectible minigame that requires fighting hundreds of monsters or a repeatable dungeon that gives you a random chance each time you beat it for slightly better or just rare and cooler-looking loot. Or repeatable quests with a “reputation” grind like WoW. Something optional that will give people a reason to keep playing the same episode after they complete its main storyline.
okay even in Preproduction i need assemble a team but i dont know how to set up chats.