JRPG Design/Development

[krypto]

OK So the last post for this project got a little lengthy (11 pages) So I think people lost interest in that thread. Our Project has been approved and quite a few of you signed up to be members. However no that we are ready to start assigning issues, I would like your preferred mailing addresses so that I can place you all on the dev mailing list.

I do hope you are all still interested. So Far our progress is as follows:

Everything builds with new Package Naming:
org.javagaming.rpg.*

Editors have been combined into a single IDE which is shaping up quite nicely. I still have many improvements for the editor and hope to post a usable version soon. Then hopefully people will start building content for us.

Kevin Glass... Project Founder has been very helpful through all this transition, and has been looking into helping me get the server running somewhere.

Sputter is taking a stab at a website (I Think)

Basically if you want to help sign up for hte project, we'll create an issue, and assign it.

Thanks Again Everybody.

[dsellars]

I've just started playing WoW (along with the rest of europe I think , it's good fun though) and one thing I have noticed that is the same as everyother MMORG I've playe dis that there is very little in the way of NPC's going about their daily business.  While this is probable due to bandwidth, it would be nice to have the feeling that an adventure game world was populated by more that just pc adventurers.  i don't know if you agree?  I think the scripting is in to cope with this from talking to Kev back when it was first being developed.

Some way of involving players in adventures that is more than just walking up to some one with an exclamation mark on their head would be good too

I also think that jrpg will be a good test ground for ideas with out having a heavy weight 3d client to maintain, so good luck

Dan.  

[krypto]

I agree.. An Ideal world would have many npcs performing scripted actions to do whatever.. I mean an Tavern Keeper doesn't just stand behind the bar all day.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[dsellars]

Another thing about MMORPG is that they all (the ones I've seen any way) have a town you start in then when you look outside the town gates it's full of people slaughtering bunnies or wolf cubs or something.

Surely thats not a good message for the kids out there And wouldn't the bunnies would eventually get wise and not live there? natural selection and all that.

I know newbies have to learn the ropes and get some experience (and killing bunnies is fun for a while, err I didn't just say that ) but surely there are more subtle ways of doing it.

[Malohkan]

Harvest Moon.  Try out those games.  I can hook you up with an emulated SNES version to try out.  In the neighborhood the NPC's have lives that go about and even town events that they're a part of.  You can't always go to certain places because they have their own days off or times when they go to bed and such.  I think that would be a great way to handle it.

As for low level training, I think initial quests vs random trouble making humans is always a good start to introduce the plot and the gloom native to the world which makes people do bad things.  Classic RPG style ya know

Beyond that, I like the Might and Magic II/III approach.  Have training arena's.  You pay money to have a trainer work with you.  You could make that as quick and simple or as vast and complex as you want, but at any rate, it would look realistic and understandable and not retarded like slaughtering bunnies.

[z.e.r.o]

Why not trying to implement a time based progression system (like the one on EVE online) instead using the old & boring XP system fantasy rpg use over & over?

[dsellars]

Hmmm.... I like the idea of going to a Fencing school( with a Maister of Defence ) to learn/practice fighting styles. Cool.

I don't mind simple quests to go kill trouble makers, get me a wolf pelt as long as it means going some where and looking for one.  I guess it's just the abattoir out side the city gates that I object to.  

Things like having to use a tracking skill to find the prey (glowing footsteps if your successful in tracking would be cool).

Also why do you have to start so weak?  I guess that's just a hang up of DnD.  Some way of getting rewarded for doing things inline with your character would be good (not just good characters doing good things), may be a way of selectign from a list of character values in character creation?

Doing quests that help those values progress you doing the opposite slows you down/hinders you.  See a pnp game called Riddle of Steel to get an idea of what I'm going on about.  Would be very hard to implement well though I think

Being given choices to change during the course of a quest might be cool to.  For example one trat you selected at start up could be "Loyalty to King Bob" (NPC) so doing quests he gives out gets you more progression.  In one adventure you could find out that he is really evil!! or be offerd lots of money to turn traitor so you could then change that trait to "Loyalty to King Fred" while in the short term this would hinder you, slow done progression, it could also open up a whole new set of adventures from King Fred.

Ok I'll stop my random ideas now  I think that the above might get too complicated to manage but maybe worth thinking about.

dan

[gojira]

I like the ideas here.  Was it Ultima 6 that had towns where people went about their business during the day, and went home at night?  Something like that would be cool.

I'm interested in your project, although I don't know how much I can contribute.  I'm still learning Java.  Do you have anything easy?

[krypto]

yes, Sign up for the project and I'll assign you something.

[gojira]

Woo! I signed up!

So what's the best way to keep in touch with people?

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Breakfast]

Daggerfall was good for having people wandering about in the day and locking up their doors at night. You did need the "loiter for six hours until this shop is open" option, though, to save on extreme boredom.

dsellars, Are you taking the Maister of Defence title from a game somewhere or have you been doing some serious historical reading?

[dsellars]

@Breakfast

I wouldn't say serious but I do I have a few interests that converge the aformention role playing game (Riddle of Steel and historical fencing for a start) as of yet I've not been able to persue many of them.  

If your curious here are some interesting web links.  If you dig around a bit you can get some interesting history.

http://www.maisters.demon.co.uk/
http://www.thehaca.com/
http://www.theriddleofsteel.net/ the guy that wrote this is a senior student at the arma
http://www.aemma.org/

There is more out there

Regards,
Dan.

[Breakfast]

I read Terry Brown's book a few month's back and Christopher Amberger's before that. I have never heard anyone else mention the Maisters of Defence before. At some point I would be very interested to study some of the historical western defence styles, but until the opportunity arises I'm keeping learning the basics of Ninjutsu which as far as I can tell are very similar in nature.

In the meantime, apologies for dragging the thread OT...

[somerville32]

Hey,
I am interested in this project (in fact, it is the reason why I joined this forum) and would like to help out though I'm only learning Java (and hoping I can learn more from reading the source of this game). I have requested to be an observer for the project and hopefuly will soon be a developer. Someone above me already made a simple post asking for simple things to do and you said there were some avaiable, so I would also like to take a shot at this.

Thanks,

~Me