An Open RPG

[JayRay]

While storylines are always good for linear style RPGs, I've been toying with having my next project be an Open RPG. I have started brainstorming, and came across this article. I thought I'd simply share it...

Introduction

Making an Open Rpg is pretty easy, but making a good one can be very
hard. An Open Rpg should have more then one race, should have quests and
an extra inventry system.



Planning, Terraining, Object Data and Hero Selection System

The first thing that should be done is to plan what you want your Open
Rpg to turn out as. What races, classes and places do you want in your
map? One other thing that I surgest you do is make up names for your
towns/cities/places. When you have finished planning you need to have a
basic idea in your head where different places will be. If possible try
drawing a map or write some notes down on a peice of paper. The first
part of the terraining will be the starting city/town. I surgest that
you use a normel town as the starting location and not a major city.
Also suround a small area of the town with forest/desert/plains. This
will also be the time to import units/building/doodads/ect. Now its time
to start the Object Data. A basic tuorial for Object Data can be found
Here. For now just do any doodads/destructables that will be needed in
the starting town and the heros players can select from. Now for the
Hero Selection System it can be done in a number of ways. You can have a
wisp or some other unit that you move into a circle of power infront of
a hero, selecting that hero.



You can also use Dialogs. And then choosing the race and class.



Making Cp's, Quests and systems

The next thing to do is the make the object data for the Cps. Create
gaurds, civillions, workers and bosses. Bosses are heros that can either
be on a team or be a creep. Bosses on a team should have a rank (eg,
captain, luitenant, king, ect). Now all you have to do is place them
around the city. Now the quests will mostly wait for a while but for now
we will make a story quest. Story quests are things that should lead up
to some event happening. Even though it will be a multiplayer Open Rpg
it should have some sought of story to it.

A basic quest. Although the conditions, ect will be
different for quest the trigger should mostly be the same. Now this is
also time to import systems. These will include things like extra
inventory systems, weapon wielding systems and camera systems (all are
optional).



Creeps

Now its time to add Creeps to the area of terrain you have already
finished. In starting locations there should be creeps that can be
killed by levels 1-10, cities 5-20, forests, plains, deserts, ect 5-40,
dungeons, creep bosses 40-60. You should also increase the maxinum hero
level to 60 through the Advanced-Game Interface menu.



Finish the map

Now you just have to fill in the rest of the map. Finish the terrain,
quests, cps, systems and races in a simular way to what is said above.

Now, while I believe in both Open and Closed RPGs, I feel this can really add to the playability of an area in RM, because with the switches and variable systems, we could literally have dozens of NPCs sending out characters on hundreds of quests.