🚀 go-pugleaf

Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Friday, January 24, 2014 12:52:35 PM UTC-8, Xocyll wrote:
>> Gerry Quinn <ger...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
>> 
>> the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>> 
>> >In article <0ic2e9ds94q5kg7sc...@4ax.com>, Xoc...@gmx.com 
>> >says...
>> 
>> >> A shooter maybe could be done by hobbyists, but an RPG would take years
>> >> and years for a small unpaid shop and likely would get sidelined as
>> >> those hobbyists get jobs in the industry and can't work on it anymore
>> >> (seen quite a few freeware projects end up like this - goes strong for a
>> 
>> >> couple years, then half the crew are gone and it just stops.)
>> 
>> >
>> 
>> >It depends - not everyone is so hard to please in terms of graphics etc.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Yeah, but a fully developed RPG with decent level graphics would still
>> take a hobbyist crew 5-10 years to get done, if they ever finished.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sure you can do simple 8-bit graphic and make a simple shooter or
>> platformer, but a major 3d rpg is far more work.
>> 
>> Even recreating Daggerfall, with Daggerfall level graphics (1996) on
>> Windows would likely take a freeware crew 5 years minimum, and they'd
>> probably never finish.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> As I said I watched several of these over the years - ambitious freeware
>> rpg projects, and they'd get sometimes to early alpha builds, and then
>> nothing as the projects fell apart with the crews being too busy with
>> the work that feeds and houses them.
>> That or they'd realize that they couldn't actually pull off the job and
>> would either have to cancel the project, or scale things back into
>> something none of them wanted to play or make.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Would you want to play an RPG that's as scaled back (in RPG terms) as
>> Skyrim, if it only had 8-bit graphics?
>> 
>> 
>> That's the problem with a lot of freeware stuff, old school graphics
>> without the old school content that would make those graphics endurable.
>
>I'm not sure about RPGs or shooters, but I've played a number of new indy 8-bit games that were amazing.  Retro Rampage is one, it's a semi-clone of GTA I, and far better, and Rogue Legacy, a platformer with some rogue like inspiration, and some novel ideas, and the JRPG clone Breath of Death.  I'd think a full RPG on the order of Fallout or at least the old gold box game would be possible.
>
>First person - I doubt it, it relies too much on graphics, although there's the raging success of Minecraft to point to, though I don't get it.
>
>It wouldn't surprise me if someone could pull off isometric, something like diablo 2 for instance, although there's been a lot of trying since it came out that mostly failed. There's already PoE as you mentioned, the graphics are pretty reasonable on that, though I still find D3 looks far better.  Torchlight gameplay was pretty good too, which is semi-indy and not 8-bit, although I personally didn't like the graphics as appearing too cartoony.
>
>A lot appears to depend upon how much funding one can get.

What you and Gerry seemed to have missed was the earlier comment I was
addressing;

ME:
I'm afraid the Elder Scrolls series is going to be killed off the same
way, they'll remove everything that actually made Elder Scrolls unique. 

Warewolf:
And then a (group of) hobbyist(s) will come along and invent an even
better title/franchise (if they haven't already).

Such is the way of software evolution (with or without the retail 
distribution method and/or DRM/DLC debacle)



Even better to my mind means it's going to have advanced graphics, since
recent Elder Scrolls games have that, and has at least as much RPG
content and choices as Daggerfall.

That's a tall order for a well funded commercial house, much less a
group of "In my spare time" hobbyists.

Making a game that has the depth and breadth and customization of
Daggerfall, but Might and Magic 1 level graphics (or Diablo1) would not
be "better".

The whole point of the better graphics and 1st person view in a single
player, single character RPG is immersion.
Isometric, you're watching from above, not in the game, good for party
games (whether single or multiplayer.)

Daggerfall had:
Many classes and the ability to custom design your own, complete with
advantages and disadvantages
Multiple guilds to join
Multiple City states and faction reputations
Custom spell creation
Custom item creation
Horses AND carts, and a ship (although you couldn't sail anywhere.)
Banks and letters of credit, because gold is HEAVY
Houses (and many of them) that you could own, and no hoops to jump
through - you bought them from the bank.
Multiple ways to do things; Locked door, the thiefly types pick the
lock, the mages cast an unlock spell and the warrior types bash it down.
If you happened to be a very strong thief with bad picking skill, you
could bash it instead. - From Morrowind on, everybody MUST learn how to
pick a lock or be locked out of various loot.
Multiple metal types, and this didn't just mean that elven was
equivalent to +1 and Dwarven to +2, things were IMMUNE to various types
of metal - better have something good or you're shit out of luck.
Even the starter dungeon sometime had an imp immune to iron or steel
weapons - if you didn't find elven or silver, you weren't killing that.
Cities with Day/Night schedules and gates that locked at night.
Climbing ability, you could climb walls if you were good enough and
escape guards by jumping rooftop to rooftop (in places.)
Werewolves and vampires and the possibility of being turned into one
(and 13 different clans of vampires at that.)
Hunters that would come after you if you were turned.
Different architecture styles and building variety.
No Skyrim style random NPC walks up to you, initiates dialog and now you
have a new quest whether you want it or not.
You initiated dialog and even when you didn't, you could choose to say
"fuck off you old biddy, I don't care about your missing son, go bother
someone else," instead of having her quest added to your queue no matter
what.
No pick up a random object and suddenly have a new quest or be unable to
drop the item because it's a quest item for a quest you don't have yet
and have no idea where to get.


And perhaps anathema to the console and ADD teen audience (mostly the
same)
No "YOU GO HERE" arrows leading directly to your target - you had to
talk to NPCs and ask them about the person you were looking for and
narrow it down until you found their house.

The biggest difference I could see between old PC RPGs and console type
(I knew people who played those final fantasy ones and others like
that,) is that the PC RPGs, YOU chose your role to play, in the console
ones, and various later FMV/full voiced PC games, you were given a role
to play as though you were an actor who was not allowed to improvise in
any way.

Role playing and an actor playing a role are not at all the same thing.

Tabletop D&D or whatever wouldn't be much fun if you showed up and the
DM gave you a script of every action and dialog you'd be allowed to do
in the game.

Xocyll