Aspects of 2D ORPG Game Development

[SkywardRiver]

Hello Eclipse.

So, I wanted to open an Eclipse-wide discussion on the aspects of 2D ORPG Game Development and what makes a great 2D ORPG to you guys.

Personally, I find it to be well developed content and features that drives a 2D ORPG. I find a solid story, while always welcome in the genre, isn't usually done right in an _O_RPG. It's _online_. To truly tell a riveting story I find throwing the Online feature into the mix can be terribly disrupting. For an ORPG, I should think it's the immersion in some grand fantasy world that really makes the player feel attached to the game, not a story. This is one of my biggest problem with online rpgs. Why are there several thousand "chosen ones" running around?

It just gets to a point where it's too much. Now, to truly make a grand ORPG, I think that it must feel like a real world, with real problems, and that you the player are just one of many who can make a difference.

So, we have a well developed world with boundless lore and unique non-player characters, locations, and enemies. What next?

I think the next thing you need, or even possibly the first, is a nice feature list; hopefully bug free.

If you simply have an amazing world but little to no unique features, what good is your amazing world?

Anyways, just some stuff I was thinking about while I'm developing EOO. I look forward to seeing your thoughts and opinions.

[Nate Melo]

Interesting topic!
Here's my two cents:

I feel that people who play any sort of Adventure Game, or ORPG/MMO are in one way or another fulfilling the need of **_progression_** and to see that progression. Whether it's economic in gathering the most currency, hoarding with the best of the best equipment, stat building, or progressing in the story. It's an incredible feeling in both real life and in a game to see how you start off with nothing, or with very little, and move on to be a huge mogul in your area of interest.
Zezima is the extreme case - and I'm hoping everyone knows who I'm talking about.

I for one enjoy watching my characters come to life through equipment that reflects its power on your character model, as well as establishing a loyal guild. Seeing my character build up from a character of zero value to someone who can do extensive damage or has a lot of 'gold' in the bank to help other players is where I thrive - and even today I am developing a game that is based solely on economic growth, rather than provide text/dialogue of a story which players filter through quickly and miss out on an event I work so hard to implement into the story. Not to say all players are like this though - I respect people who can dive into a game and play it 3 or 4 times through in order to understand the story.
Players also need a comparison to remind them of where they started off - which is why online is so great because you are constantly seeing new players.

This brings me to my next point. If we wanted to play a game with all of these features at its best, we'd all be playing Skyrim by ourselves 24/7.

Instead, people want that effect of community.

So to sum it up; I love games that allow a constant view on how you grow. Diablo 3 is a good example for me because it's a linear storyline, has seemingly-infinite items, all of which improve the look of your character as you level up. The thing that lacks though is the economy; because items drop at random, its a 'risk' to purchase an item. They are usually purchased out of impatience for the drop, or an immediate need to defeat an enemy the player is stuck on.

Even simpler for the sake of 2D Games made w/ Eclipse Engines:
- Items
- Skill sets
- Minorly intriguing story
- Structured and attractive maps that flow nicely
- At least a solid 15-20 player levels of gameplay before the "BETA-grind" kicks in to level up.

- This one is a long shot, but I really am tired of the same old graphics. Over the past 6 or so years all games using recycled graphics seem to come off as the same. Custom graphics is large for me, which is why I never seem to play anything from these forums anymore.

[YourBestNightmare]

Everything is about great trailer, well-written info about the game and catchy gifs, screenies, gameplays. And of course, no grammar mistakes, it can really distract people from even downloading your game. Imo very few even bothers to read the story. Good atmosphere is more important (but I agree that story is also part of it). Also, marketing. That is 80% of game success.

* * *

@'Nate:

> - This one is a long shot, but I really am tired of the same old graphics. Over the past 6 or so years all games using recycled graphics seem to come off as the same. Custom graphics is large for me, which is why I never seem to play anything from these forums anymore.

I totally do not agree with this. There are tons of games made with RPG Maker graphics (f.e even on Android store, with millions of downloads). If you know how to use them properly, it is okay.

[Colonello]

@'Nate:

> Zezima is the extreme case - and I'm hoping everyone knows who I'm talking about.

To this day after years of playing RS I still have no idea how to properly pronounce Zezima.

Anyway, what makes a good ORPG for me is having options. If I get bored training my skills I don't want to feel as if there is nothing else to do. Things such as minigames, random events, holiday quests, admin events, etc are very important. For example, holiday events are something most players will participate in but there's many reasons why. Some will participate for the XP, others the items, and others just for the sake that it exists. Having multiple options is also good for community building. With games like Castle Wars in RuneScape there are clans devoted to just that one game. This builds friendships and allows players to enjoy themselves while getting to participate in the social aspect of the game as well as gaining rewards from playing. 

When it comes to a storyline I feel as if having one main story line isn't great. There should multiple different quests and stories within the game. Although a main lore should exist it shouldn't have to be something you're forced to know in order to get an understanding about the game. Some quests can be short one time things where you have to slay a dragon and others can be expanded in to multiple quests to form a quest line. This once again gives players options. If they don't want to slay the dragon and wish to collect items for someone they can. For people who love to do quests there could be quests that tie in with the lore as well. 

Skills/Grinding are also very important in modern ORPGS. Tons of people who don't care about the story, minigames, or anything else just focus entirely on gaining stats. These are the people that are on the top of the leaderboards and will do anything to keep their positions. Competition is huge in ORPGS and having skills is the main reason for that. 

Lasting Botters/Hacking. Although only the most experienced programmers could possibly make a bot detecting system in an Eclipse game it's still quite important for other larger ORPGS. If you're running an Eclipse game I don't think you'll need to worry too much about this though seeing as how most bots exist to try and gain real life profits by selling their items/gold/accounts. Anyway bots have been a huge problem for ORPGs. For years RuneScape was plagued with them (and at times still can be). Bots, if they get out of hand, can ruin an entire game. They ruin the playerbase, community, economy, skills, minigames, etc. It's gotten so bad for some games that 50%+ of the active playerbase is filled with bots. Bots seriously turn me away from games. If I know someone else can accomplish what I'm doing with no effort and get away with it then I have no reason to play the game.

[Mohenjo Daro]

For me, I've found that there's a few things that will drive me to continue playing a game or completely ditching it after one try. (For the most part, this is the order I judge a game when I start playing it)

I don't mind the same old graphics, but I do want them to look nice, the graphics need to flow together and need to have some though, one field per map that's filled with grass and a building is boring and I'll stop playing the game. You might think it's childish to stop over a simple map, but I'm stopping because if they can't put in the time to make a decent map, I'd hate to see the time they put into a game. If you can take the time for a alright map, then the game means something to you and I'll give it some more time.

After that initial judgement, I like seeing what the point of the world is. Seeing the normal "You are the chosen one" just doesn't work in MMOs because you'll have 50 chosen ones. It might work for a cool single player game, but it doesn't work well for multiplayer, picture if Skyrim was multiplayer, "Come, Dragonborn(s), we have a task for you," *everyone runs off trying to get the tablet*. You'd be tripping over yourself and it's be annoying to know that you're just a number basically.
If you have a main story, which I don't think the better MMOs usually have, then make sure it is meant for a lot of people (otherwise go with a single player game) and make sure there are a LOT of side quests, I for one hate having one quest to do, doing it, and then having nothing to do in the game. If you don't want a main quest, then cool, make a lot of side quests for people, they are more fun, and they also don't make you dread finishing the quest and fearing that you'll be bored of the game.

So if you pass those main two tests, then I'll have a look at your economy, because I think that's an important area, even if most don't. I gave one game a try (Runescape I think) and had some fun, but they lacked a stable economy as I remember, like it so so broken I didn't know what I was doing, most of the players had a few million pr more gold while I was a noob with 100\. You need to make sure there are good money inflows, which most games have, but also good money outflows, or money sinks. This is where people fall short. While an inflow can be as simple as kill an NPC and gain 10 gold, but sinks can be a lot harder, especially when NPC bosses drop the best gear, you have no reason to buy anything if the NPCs drop the best stuff. This isn't a bad thing, but it takes away one possible money sink. Now, you can have "player built" areas, like a house. Just put a sign up that offers land for someone for 100,000 gold and a player can buy it, have a mapper build their house, and then the mapper builds the inside to how the player wants. It's a good drain and will keep some more content for the older players, it gives them something to do.
If you don't have sinks, and only inflows, then the game just becomes chaotic and will drive people away when you have trolls running around dropping 1 gold all over a map because they have a million to spare. (Yes, I have watched that happen)

To close, there is one more thing I do look for (brought up already), but I hate seeing hackers and bots. It is worth getting systems later on, when your game is a hit, to stop hackers and bots. It annoys me that they do nothing and I work my butt off trying to get crap and still fall behind. Also, Cheat Engine, which everyone for the most part knows about, has their speed hack, which completely pisses me off to watch one player be able to save 10 minutes of walk time to get to a boss, beat me there, use their bow that shoots 10 shots a second thanks to the hack, and then take out the boss and I get nothing for playing fairly. You really do need an antispeed hack, because it takes no effort to get Cheat Engine and a lot of player who play Eclipse games do use it.

So that's just my two-cents and hopefully it can help designers make a better game.