When I was younger I used to design alot of Rpgs.
I was thinking, would it be that hard to do a simple Rpg on Unity? Not Like the Complexity of Final Fantasy X or Balders Gate but Like Final Fantasy one or Dragon Quest anyway. What are your opinions? If anybody would want someone to help out with a story or system for a project, I think I would be interested.
Gant
RPGs are by far the hardest genre normally.
There are technical requirements that are often not too simple (depending on the game more or less complex quest systems, more or less intelligent AI, in any case a lot of medium to very complex mathematical formulas for the combat, items and especially balancing them) but the really hard thing with RPG is that they will not be played if their story is as trash as the story of 99% of the FPS games. So you will have to invest a lot of time in the story and the world to make it even somewhere believable enough to the player that he is willing to play the game commonly.
I was wondering also is the technology able to produce such a title. Granted yes the story is what drives the game play but is anyone developing Rpg type games using the Unity Development package?
Making an RPG like the examples you mentioned is certainly doable with Unity.
Keep in mind that Unity is first and foremost a 3D engine. That doesn’t preclude using 2D by any means, but it means there is a tad more work involved if you are trying to do 2D. Many 2D games are now “2.5D” (2D game mechanics with 3D geometry) of course, and Unity is a great foundation for that.
Check out the wiki for details on using Unity for 2D and 2.5D there’s some good stuff that has been added just recently:
If you don’t have plans to mix with 3D in this game or go into 3D in later games, there are some other tools that would streamline the process for 2D. Otherwise, Unity is a great option, IMO.
Any more specific questions?
I’ve been pondering how to do this and am planning to create and license an RPG game shell, though probably not until a little later in the year. If you’re interested, and have suggestions or comments regarding it, I have a Uservoice forum for it.
I’m not talking about a complete 2d Sprite Rpg but one with 3d Parts in it like when walking to towns and 2.5 parts in Battles, Or even in just 3d, But even in that it does not need to be overly complicated to be a great game as I just finished Final Fantasy 1 again and had an enjoyable doing so. Right now I’m toying with Ideas. Some of the things Ive been thinking about are pretty simple in complexity. I believe that Dreamora is right in his thoughts about rpgs. It all ways takes time to come up with something that is good and original. The Easy part for me would be the story and how eveything lines up and the systems that the game includes. Although in me saying that it is easy doesn’t meen it’s not a lot of hard work involved in the creation process. I’m in the process of one called God Like that is a table top Rpg That has taken me 6 months of me putting together Ideas of how everything works. I’m still working on it.
I’m working on a “light” RPG/Adventure game. In my game the player is an indigenous woman from the Caribbean before and after Columbus arrives. The story and character dialog is very important but fighting is not a core part of the game. Also accuracy is essential so we are consulting with a historical expert. If you’re interested please send me a PM.
Josh
Depends on the approach. The tricky part is probably going to be planning versus execution.
RPGs are typically very story driven, so just about every character needs to have a back story that defines their motivation, rather than just “being there” as a prop.
Locations also tend to be planned out and arranged in such a way that user can return to the same place later on and access new areas they couldn’t before, either because they lacked an ability or tool, or a barrier tied to some other event in another location is blocking progress.
At the very least, you are going to want to draft out the story to completion, starting from the ultimate goal for the character, on down to any individual goals the character needs to achieve in order to reach the ultimate goal. If you haven’t done any creative writing in a while, it may help to brush up on basic story structure elements (antagonist, protagonist, conflict, etc…).
Also, you’ll probably want to figure out some system of organization for geting your ideas together. You might want to get some index cards to jot down various game and story elements onto so you can juggle these items around while constructing your game concept. This is not unlike how animators use storyboards to flesh out their ideas before going into production.
Drawing out flowcharts of your story may also prove helpful .
All good tips and info, but… I’m pretty sure the OP is trying to say that the RPG planning, i.e. story, mechanics, etc. are something he has done for a long time and is not his concern. It’s the tech, in particular Unity’s abilities, that he was interested in. 
It is interesting how things change I started off seeing if anybody would want help on designing a rpg, to being more curious on the technical. As I said I have a bit of experience on table top rpgs. I also really enjoy the older console rpgs. I have been wanting to move to making console rpgs. After you have every thing down pat story and all, what are the dificulties. Lets say I wanted to use a gui interface of lets say the original final fantasy for example where it is preaty much a gui with characters on the right, who when they attack they do an attaching motion and that’s it and the oponit takes damage. you have a tree to tell them what to do as in (if then) statements and would it be much different then a 3d scene with the smae set up like final fantasy x. I’m thinking I could set a couple of basic system’s for attacking and defending magic and magic defence or whatexer then have varibles for each enimies and then just load the variables into the different equation’s. the same allmost with a text tree just a lot move text. Build several different gui’s like Ivetory Item Selection. and so on Am I looking at this correctly how hard would setting up systems like this would be?
I’m also considering to use Unity for a 2D image based project.
@aaronsullivan: what other tools would you recommend.
Thank you.