The BoM's Hypothetical Game

Remove all ads!

If you need any incredibly handsome, heavily muscled models, just let me know...

 

You can be the handsome heavily muscled model, but stay away from the Smiling! That's my domain

 

I think our leaders have cut and run ... usually happens the other way around.

This is why strong central leadership is key. The pawns can discuss things all they like, but without that leadership, all it will ever be is discussion. It's a good thing we haven't made our Team BoM dev project plans public yet - at least we won't look too stupid when we don't deliver.

 

I don't necessarily think we ever had a central leader on this project, so it's not so much that they cut and run, but that they never showed up to begin with.

I'm gearing up to slide into that role if need be. I don't know jack about creating a game from scratch, but my fall back plan will be to borrow from other games when in doubt (this worked okay for Microsoft). Even still, I'm not sure we have all the contributor resources we need, but let's see who turns up. Rome wasn't built in a night, and all that.

 

8 makes a good point - I work in QA for a living. I'll be doing that instead, I guess. Seems to make sense.

 

Cool CJ. We may have to have some folks wearing more than one hat on this, out of necessity.

 

@Marceror, why would we need a shared development environment? Can't we just use git instead?

 

Morgoth, in all honesty, we may not need any sort of shared dev environment. I threw out Amazon as a possible approach to consider incase we do. I didn't specify any sort of version management tool, but this will certainly be needed. I haven't used GIT before, but the price is right (being that I have no idea what our budget constraints are... and this tool appears to be free).

Depending on how large our project becomes (in terms of GBs of space), we may want to consider launching a dedicated FTP server of some sort, but we can cross that bridge when we get there. I'm assuming GIT is something you've worked with and have had good experience with. Based on that, I can add this to our list of software tools.

 

There is a thing called github, which offers a free git server. Here we can upload some parts of our project to (excluding certain large resources such as images and sounds,) but including code and documentation. If we take the free one, it will remain public, but for a small sum (I think less than what Amazon requires) we get a project that isn't public.

 

Assuming we're going to do an isometric game, we're going to need at least one 2D artist to do game maps. Preferably two.

 

Actually, I quite liked the hamster idea and it might actually work as an indie game or as a casual flash/app game. And in fact, BTA’s crayon map idea would work well into it, giving it a lighthearted feel to it similar to some handheld games (NDS and the like). That would also widen our target demographic of younger kids. Just that the idea went too far south into a crazed parody of BG that would land a lawsuit in no time.

Regarding engines, aren’t there quite a few good ones that are easily moddable like the Unreal Engine?
Mechanics wise… would WOTC even let us touch D&D? That seems highly unlikely to me really.

I would vote for a isometric game as well and in fact, a tactical RPG would be a good idea (Final Fantasy Tactics etc.). Graphics won’t be too much of an emphasis in these games which would save us a lot of time/money. Hopefully, mechanics would be simpler in a turn based game too.

I do have quite a few ideas floating around regarding lore, story and so on if people don’t mind. I am just crazy busy with work these 2 weeks I have not been able to put the ideas together in my head to post on the boards.

 

WotC is known to be distinctly inflexible regarding their properties. They might let us and BIL make and market a D&D game (assuming Atari didn't have an exclusive deal) if we paid them the entirety of our budget. Otherwise they would beat us all to death with a stick if they found we had used their IP without permission and made a dollar. Still, I think we should just trust in their good will.

 

Hmm ... should we switch back to taking the piss out of BG/DA?

 

People are welcome, and certainly encouraged to start dropping story ideas. While I seemed to have a fair amount of time on Monday to participate in this topic, it's been 16+ hour work days every day since, so while I have more to add to the discussion, I'll have to wait until I have more than 30 - 60 seconds to spare.

 

For engine, I would suggest FIFE. It has active development, permissive license, and is specifically focused on isometric games.

Licensing the Infinity Engine would be, I think, a terrible mess. It's obsolete and we have no idea about the state of its documentation.

For code sharing and version control - I'd say Subversion is the way to go ... but only because that's what I'm most familiar with. I guess Git is fine too.

Is anyone going to volunteer as an artist? If not we really need to start considering our options and limitations there. Stick drawings are fine and all, but isometric stick drawings are harder and we still need some dedicated people. If we wanted to go the naive art route we'd probably have to switch to some kind of sidescroller.

 

Here’s my current game idea. Sorry in advance to the hamster lovers, but there are none in this concept.

Game: The Sorcerer’s Hold (working title only)

Prologue
You are young village lad (or lass) who has just come of age, and been told a long-guarded secret by the town seer. You have lived in your rural village all of your life, and have no memories of ever being far from your home. But you are informed that you are actually from another world and, should you wish, you will be given a series of tools to help you unlock your true identity.

You have always shown a great knack for all manner of athletics, sword play, and have even dabbled in the magical arts as part of your studies, but you have never had time to focus or excel in these pursuits. You will choose a path to focus on (warrior, rogue or mage – and can become a mixture of all 3 if you wish) and go through a period of training, during which you will excel with uncommon ease and speed.

Once you are trained up and ready, you will leave your village in search of answers, and begin your adventure.

General Story
The game will take you to a variety of locations in search of relics that will uncover part of the mystery of your past. Along the way, you will meet other adventurers, some of whom will offer to travel with you. Do not trust every one you meet along the road.

You will eventually learn that in order for you to unlock all of the secrets of your identity, you must seek out the fabled high sorcerer of the deep marsh. No one knows for sure if he truly exists, but all of the clues seem to be pointing you to him. The journey to find the sorcerer will mark some of the most dangerous periods of the game, and you will want to have a full, trustworthy party at your side (6 person party sounds about right).

You will eventually discover the sorcerer, Taluntain, and he will share the final key secrets of your past. Depending on how you play the game, you will learn that you have angelic ancestry (if you were mostly good), demonic ancestry (if you were truly evil) or, perhaps, draconic ancestry if you were neutral. This knowledge will unlock different new abilities depending on your heritage.

You will learn that the seer from your village is he who kidnapped you from your home when you were but a babe. He is not at all what you have known him to be—he is something altogether more powerful (what he is will change based on who you are). Your final task is to return home and confront him, now as a powerful, otherworldly adventurer in your own right.

The final confrontation may end in violence or may end peacefully depending on your choices. At the end of this, you will be given the choice to return to the life you have always known, or to accept the mantle of adventurer and continue to learn of yourself, and your potential.

A possible sequel is a game where you attempt to find passage back to your home realm.

More Information
All of the important characters in this game will be characters from the Boards of Magic. We will try to match their online personas, as much as we realistically can, and build a game world comprised of the SP community.

Well, this is a very early, rough idea, but I think it has promise. None of my ideas are set in stone and can, and should, change and morph as this develops. That said, is this a concept that majority of the “development team” can get behind?

PS: I'm purposely ignoring the engine/resource questions for the moment, as we really need to get a general game concept going, and we can figure out how we are going to accomplish it from there. Since we'll not actually develop this game, I think the story and ideas surrounding it are the most important part of this exercise anyway (though certainly not the most important part of a true game development).

 

Now that the weekend is here, I have some time to actually post some ideas. Sorry for the long post =p

To be realistic, if we are going to have only a development time of 1 year, and considering how fragmented the development team currently is, I think the hamster idea is the best (doesn’t have to be hamsters but its an excellent starting point since the rough framework has been set by Marceror and Gaear). It is simple and we can make it a casual (handheld-like) indie game (and indie games are becoming all the rage). We can make it a hack-n-slash RPG (with isometric view ala Diablo, but we can even make it a 2d side scroller if we have major time constraints). We can up the cute factor by having the hamsters armed with every day tiny items (coin for a shield, knitting needle for a spear, thimble as helm) and we can make their enemies other animals (like cockroaches and mice, we can even make a cat like a boss or something). You play as a hamster with 2 AI companions following around (or make it possible to recruit other animals as NPCS) and anyone can join in to control the other 2 hamsters for co-op play (something that, till this day, sorely lacking in PC games). And a simple story would suffice for a hack-n-slash game starring hamsters therefore, saving us more time.

Then IF this game makes it big, we can use the money to actually develop an epic RPG.

Otherwise, here is my idea on lore and story for an actual epic RPG - sorry Marceror, hope you don't mind (I tried to make it a little more unique than a standard fantasy game). The main character will be a human, to make it easier to tell a good story (as opposed to coming up with many storylines to accommodate the different races):

Lore (lets start with lore to get an idea of setting. I will post an actual story later – I am not good with names though, so left some quite generic):
We can set it on a huge continent with lush forests in the west, plains and forests in the middle, frozen mountains in the north, volcanic islands and mountains in the northeast, barren and desert in the east and lots of chains of islands in the south. The world will be a mix of fantasy with a slight twist of steampunk (similar to Arcanum). There are guns, trains and zeppelins and even light lamps, but the twist is that they are powered by magic. In this world, the denizens have learned to manipulate magic as an energy source from an ancient civilization.

The main races of the world are:
Humans – live mostly in the central and southern part of the continent. A highly adaptable race that learns quickly and have an empire that has expanded much over the years. The kingdom is a unified government under an emperor and ruled over by a circle of councillors after much civil war. Most states are loyal to the government except for the southern states and island chains, that is ruled with an iron fist by a prince who thirsts for power. The southern states are famous for its lawlessness and pirates but the empire lacks the man power to keep the lands in line. Additionally, the trade from shipping from the southern states are much too profitable and the empire mostly turns a blind eye to the prince’s activities. The empire has three special divisions in the military - Tiger (the peacekeepers, mostly consists of warriors), Phoenix (the diplomats, researchers, philosophers, mostly consists of mages/healers) and Scorpion (the assassins, spies, mostly consists of rogues/assassins). The most prominent group being the Tiger as they are often seen in the cities, investigating crime, keeping the peace and defending the citizens. The members of the Phoenix are mostly sent as diplomats to other states or races as well as researchers/teachers in the academies. The Scorpions operate mostly in the shadows, killing political threats or when stealth and subterfuge is called for.

Forest dwelling race (imagine if you will, a mix of orcs and elves – they have the brute strength of the orcs but grace of the elves) – A shamanistic green-skinned race that live in the eastern forests and are closely related to humans (perhaps even the original ancestors). They believe in living in harmony with nature and are divided into numerous clans. They are mostly in conflict with the human civilization due to their rampant expansion that has been encroaching into their eastern forests. What they lack in technology, they make up in strength and numbers. Fortunately for humans, the clans often fight for territory and are hardly unified so they do not pose an immediate threat. Some clans are friendly with humans and have allowed their villages to be trade posts with humans but they are frequently under threat from the other clans that see them as traitors to their kind.

Feral race (humanoid orc like race) – Bloodthirsty and often crazed, this fearsome race lives mostly in the barren wastes of the east mostly warring amongst themselves. In recent years however, they have rallied under a mysterious leader (revealed to be a surviving member of the ancient race – read below) and have started sending wars and raiding parties to the eastern lands of the human empire. They have posed such a threat in the past few centuries that the cities on the east are mostly fortresses and the borders are mostly walled off (similar to the Great Wall of China). Mostly engineered by the evil side of the ancient race to be better soldiers.


Rat race – Large bipedal rats that live underground, mostly in the catacombs and crypts beneath the human empire. A much maligned but misunderstood race that have endured much hardships. A scavenger race but highly resourceful, as they survive mainly on scavenging the leftovers of humans. Exists in large numbers of scattered packs underground. Ruled by a council made up of the elders of each pack. While scattered, they are very unified as a whole as they know it is hard enough to survive in this world that is prejudiced against them without needing to worry about the rat standing next to you. More than willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the pack.

Dragons – Fallen far from its throne of power, this powerful race now lives mostly in the northern mountainous lands. These dragons are very intelligent beings and wise beyond their years, being able to live for thousands upon thousands of years. The good dragons mostly live in the cold north while the evil dragons live in the volcanic northeast. They mostly live in seclusion, preferring to stay away from the quibbles of the minor race ever since its ancient fall of its great civilization. One exception is a dragon that lives in the magic academy of the humans, acting as a source of wisdom who enjoys the attention showered on it by humans but mostly act as an amused observer – happy to just lose itself in the ancient texts collected there.

Ancient race - Thousands of years ago, a very advanced humanoid ancient civilization existed. The people were master manipulators of magic and technology. They are immortal and are connected in mind (similar to a shared consciousness but not quite a hive mind). In the world there are other primitive beings (namely, the ancestors of the other races) and dragons, who at this time were numerous. This ancient race are masters of manipulating planar technology, creating planar gates that are able to link them to other universes/planes and drawing power from them. At the height of their power they had numerous cities all over the continent, each linked with these planar gates. They manipulated much of the lesser races, using them as slaves/tools and so on, experimenting on them to make them better workers/soldiers (one of them being normal humans and the feral race that have diverged from the forest dwelling ones). The race split into two factions, a good (against slavery and manipulation) and evil side (interested in only power and research) leading to civil war. The evil side created a giant planar device on the north mountains for use in their war and the good side in their desperation sacrificed much of their life force, destroying the evil side but causing them to lose some of their life essence driving them into hibernation. The dragon civilization that fought as spearheads in their armies were devastated leading to their decline and withdrawal from the world. Ruins of their once grand civilization now dot the land (above/underground). Some ruins were discovered by humans and much of their existing knowledge and technology were derived from this (and expeditions are often carried out to find more ruins). One large ancient city lies in a haunted forest south east of human lands – lives remnants of the good side of the ancient race that have awoken from their slumber due to human manipulation of their artifacts in the other ruins. They now send out members to observe this flourishing race, to make sure we do not gain too much power from their technology before we are have the responsibility/capacity to use it for good. The race are now fused with technology to keep themselves alive (imagine if you will, a humanoid fused with plates of armor).

---------- Added 3 hours, 22 minutes and 8 seconds later... ----------

I wanted to make a more personal story instead of putting the protagonist in the middle of some epic quest. Additionally, the story is more constrained like Mass Effect or Dragon Age where you can’t go around doing whatever you like, but with one major story arc - you can be mean (like Renegade Shephard) but not downright evil (burn a few cities, kill a few innocents) to make a more compelling story. Additionally, I wanted the story to be interwoven into the lore to create a more immersive game and realised world – opening opportunities for sequels or an MMO.


Story:
You start as a new recruit in one of the special military divisions of the human empire (Tiger, Phoenix, Scorpion). Your job is to escort a diplomatic mission (both from Phoenix order, a healer as diplomat and a warrior as bodyguard) to one of the outposts of the forest dwelling race who are interested in peace and trade with the human empire. A legendary warrior from the Tiger order has already cleared a way there and is waiting for your party in the outpost. The trip there will serve as a tutorial/start area to teach players the game (hence healer and warrior class allies available). Your party is ambushed by some hostile members of the forest dwelling race against this alliance (tutorial for combat – earn a few levels). Later, when it looks like you are overwhelmed, you are saved by the legendary warrior. He becomes your mentor and good friend after this.

Skip ahead, several years. You have become a much respected member of the order (in a leadership position, you have a loyal lieutenant, party member – possible romance candidate, loves PC in secret?). You are sent on a mission with legendary warrior to protect and investigate newly discovered ruin of ancient civilization (along with researcher from Phoenix order as healer/mage to balance game). A raid from brigands (possibly men of the Prince who rules the southern state, hoping to secure something of value in the ruins?). Mysterious figures follows/helps. Boss battle with mysterious figure – turn out to be members of ancient race sent to protect/destroy ruins. You fight them off thanks to help of legendary warrior. Legendary warrior is intrigued by knowledge in ancient ruins. Cue ominous music.

Legendary warrior’s love interest somehow dies. Working on this part of the story – betrayal? Resurrection from actual death impossible in current time.

Legendary warrior becomes obsessed and crazed with knowledge of ancient civilization, hoping to find a way to resurrect loved one. He goes rogue, and due to his legendary status many of his loyalists in all three divisions join him. He goes from ruin to ruin found scattered throughout the land, causing much destruction in his quest.

Due to war on two fronts (east and west of human lands) and large number of defections to legendary warrior’s side, government lacks resources to stop him. PC is one of the teams ordered to hunt him down (conflict in hunting and killing friend/mentor/hero - more personal, maybe legendary warrior in crazed quest kills people close to PC?). PC goes around the land, chasing him from ruin to ruin as well as to investigate. Joined by/recruits different people from other divisions (Tiger, Phoenix, Scorpion) as well as other characters in travels/hunt. One of the character from ancient race joins (maybe one of the ones you fought with earlier at the ruins). Reveals that they were on mission to stop humans from discovering too much lost knowledge of their civilizations. Some of the ruins hold clues to location of main city of evil side of ancient race as well as ways to revive old technology. Possible to resurrect a person with their planar gates but much of original technology of ancient race lost in civil war and their sacrifice to stop war. One of the side effects of reviving technology to resurrect loved one is that planar gates in different ruins will come to life and without guardians to watch the portals, denizens from other planes might pour into this world.

Other possible characters to join party:
Person whom village is devastated by legendary warrior’s rampage.
Rat race member who helps guide party to ruins located in catacomb (have PC help his pack to solve a problem they are facing? Maybe rat pack has problems with undead or some other threat in catacombs where they live).
Member of forest dwelling race (ruins also found in forests).
Golem that looks like human but is clockwork inside (plotline – find humanity? Love? Maybe romance within party members – researcher in Phoenix order?)
Etc. Open to suggestions.

Possible plotlines would be to find ruins in forest, catacombs, barren lands to west. Perhaps Prince down south secretly supports legendary warrior in power play to rebel/secede while empire is weakened and possible quest involves stopping his plot.

Betrayal in game by one of party members. Perhaps one of the party member is secretly a loyalist to legendary warrior (motivated by love rivalry?). In ambush, romance/love interest party member saves your life by blocking a lethal blow meant for you (dies – some way for betraying member to redeem self by sacrifice if was love rival?). If not, maybe lieutenant who loves PC in secret sacrifices self to save PC?

End game, comes a good/evil choice – after defeating legendary warrior, PC can choose to instead use technology to resurrect loved one or destroy technology.

 

Faye, no apology needed! One of the best "problems" we could have is to have an overabundance of good ideas, where we get to pick the best one, or perhaps the best elements of different concepts and create something even better. Like you, I chose to do something that was more personal, rather than an epic save the world story, so I think we're on the same wave length there.

When I have a few moments (I'm still working) I'll give your write up a read. Thanks for taking the time to put this down and share it with us!

If others have story ideas, I encourage you to share them. If there's one part of the process I don't want us to skimp on, it's the story.

 

Faye,

First off, I have no interest in the hamster idea. I was just goofing around with that. If I’m going to spend my time on a CRPG, I want it to be a legitimate, serious story. It doesn’t necessarily have to be “epic,” but I want it to be something that will move players. Because this is a SP game, I also want to make sure it reflects what Sorcerer’s Place is… which is a fairly hardcore, traditional fantasy game site. With that out of the way, here are my observations about your ideas:

• World: I like the world, and the way you have described the geography of the main island. This gives us a nice picture of the world you envision.
• Story: The story has plenty of promise, but needs a bit more fleshing out. Figuring out your ending and making sure it has a strong emotional impact is one key area I’d encourage you to focus on.
• Dragons: One small observation with regards to dragons, if they live for “thousands upon thousands of years” the idea that they are “wise beyond their years” seems pointless. How long must a being live to be truly and exceptionally wise? I would suggest changing this to something like “they are among the wisest of all living things.”
• Dwarves: I like the races you present. I’d like to see some sort of Dwarven equivalent option, since Dwarves are such an important option for our community. They don’t necessarily have to have much of a presence in the game. They can be isolationists off in the mountains or something. But I’d like to leave room for these guys to emerge in an expansion or sequel, should we be fortunate enough to make it that far.
• Steampunk: Steampunk is cool, really it is. I just don’t see this as being the quintessential setting for a Sorcerers place CRPG. Whatever we do, I feel we should strive to create a game that is the sort of game most SP members hunger for, but can’t seem to find anywhere these days. This means a more traditional fantasy setting. Your setting works well as a fantasy setting… but I might suggest that we minimize or even remove the steampunk elements. I’m still wrestling with this, but I wanted to share my initial take with you.

o By the way, I like the idea of the portal technology (which I don’t consider steampunk)… my concern is more around things like trains and the like.​

I enjoyed reading your write up overall. Regardless of which story we go with, I’d like to stick with my idea of using the names of BoM community members in our game. As long as we’re doing this as a BoM project, let’s make something that is relevant to this community.

Note to the project team (and Boards of Magic members): We have 2 story ideas on the table, mine and Faye’s, both of which are relatively undeveloped at this point. If you’d like to have a say in this project, please let me know which story you prefer by Friday, March 11. If you have your own story idea, share it with us ASAP for consideration!! If you haven’t replied by Friday, March 11 I will assume that you are either too busy to participate, don’t care, or don’t have an opinion, and we will move on without your input.

Since I seem to be filling the creative director role, I will ultimately make the final call on which story we go with. I’d like for that call to be the result of the shared thoughts and ideas of our team, and community, as much as possible.

Note: as long as I’m leading we will not have a true democratic process on decision making. I will generally give team members the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions, and make a case for why detail x, y, or z should be a certain way, but if we can’t reach consensus as a team, I will make the final creative decision, or may defer the decision to the team member that is most qualified (e.g. a coding decision might be defer to a senior programmer). This will be necessary to keep us moving forward with our short deadline.