Previous threads i have made or read recently got me thinking about RPG's.

Ive played quite a lot in my time, a keen fan of the final fantasy franchise, enjoyed fable, played oblivion and back before consoles were the big thing played various text adventures on various platforms. The one thing i have noticed that all of the above lack, is something ive always wanted to see. CHOICE

By that i mean the choice to make your game character exactly how you want to.
the closest any of the above come to any real form of choice is fable / fable II and i suppose fallout. But even then the choice is only a two fork one. You are good or evil, scary or not. This to me is a shame as with todays current technology and the sheer power of most game platforms there are an infinite number of possibilities. A sense of added realism, not the sort of thing you tend to see in these "Open world" RPG's where each choice effects the entire world, lets face it when we decide to have our morning coffee before we have our morning number two, the world doesnt really care. If i speak in a friendly way to one person and rudely to a different person, they will form different opinions of me naturally.

Before anyone screams at me for taking a hatchet to their favourite games, please dont get me wrong, i love all the aforementioned games dearly. But i always feel like the games were rushed, which of course they are, all the major game devs have deadlines.
But in a perfect world, what aspects of realism would be positive things to put into an rpg, and what ones would be a waste of time and effort?

If i was more then one man and had a team of developers backing me up what would i want to put in?

heres a short list of my thoughts on the matter, feel free to add to the list or argue the case for or against any of mine.

Personal opinion effecting the way an NPC reacts to you rather then just a base good/evil, scary/not scary value, allowing you to make "Friends" with some npcs and to scare the living poop out of another without worrying about how it will effect the rest of the game world.

less linear plot lines. Argue the toss about this if you want, but ALL the major rpg's still have very linear approaches, hundreds of side quests are fine, but basically once you get bored of crafting, hunting etc etc its back to the story. Perhaps a more free feel would be nice, where you can effect the outcome of the story in various ways depending on how and when you finish doing something, and instead of "Sidequests" have additional stories that unfold and you can follow through as you move along. im expecting the few World of warcraft fanboys to come out of the woodwork here and start harping on about how every quest giver has their own storyline that they follow, well thats fine and dandy, but having played WoW myself for an extended period of time, i can say without doubt that between level 15 and 58 there is nothing new going on, talk to x, kill x, find x. yawn

Open world meaning OPEN world. having a game world that you really can explore. Anyone remember "Shadow of the Collosus"? that game was pretty epic. Not because the plot was particularly complicated, or the gameplay was exciting, but because the world was open to run / ride around and just take in the atmosphere.
Most rpg's have quite tight boundaries, and you are quite restricted in where you can go. I want to see a game world where, if you can see it, you can go to it. with carefully thought out maps, rather then the unimaginative random chasm or raging torrent that prevents you from geting outside the boundaries.

Consistency. If your character can swim in one part of the game, he should be able to swim through all of it, not suddenly drown in a puddle. The same goes for flying, and loads of other things.

versatility in Mission objectives and AI reponses. The problem i see here is that you have missions that ask you to defeat all of the enemies in an area, so off you go, engage the enemy, they attack back, their AI dictates sometimes that they run off, but eventually they come back you kill them, end of mission. What about if that enemy didnt come back, they realised it was a fight they couldnt win and ran for the hills, or ran back to base to alert their boss, and them getting away doesnt mean that you fail, or cant complete the mission, but it makes a mission later in game a little more difficult. I know there are a few games out there that have something similar to this, but not to the extent that i would like to see it.

Puzzles that make more sense. This might sound a bit daft but ive always wondered where some of the in game puzzles in rpg's come from. some of them seem just random and out of place. Imagine if Indianna Jones went into the temple of doom and found out he had to play pictionary with a talking monkey to get further inside. This also leads me to my next item, NPCs that are useful, Now what im talking about here is that altho being told how awesome i am when i enter a populated area is wonderful, but what if an npc had been somewhere that i was looking for, or had heard a story about it, and wanted to share that story with the player, or if he didnt like them much, sell the information to them. And not some cryptic Dungeon master type of clue, actual information that could come in handy. Again this is something i see in some games, but not usually more then one npc who might as well be wearing a neon sign saying "Get your clue here" what if a lot of npcs knew things that might be useful, and they share that information with each other as well as with the player so that if you talk to different npc they might have the same information but with differences like a chinese whisper effect. so you have to do your detective work to find out which is the most reliable source

Research and developement, technology that evolves as time progresses, perhaps the player can assist the developement by testing equipment for the makers. the players tests can effect how technology developes too, so that the "best" in game equipment isnt just one item that once you have it, theres no point trying to get better. Inventions and discoveries of new alloys or ways of making things improve the effectiveness, price and so on.

Craft skills that have practical uses rather then just making money, this i expect will flare up the fan boys, but lets be honest, no game uses craft skill for anything else. If im a Grand Master Blacksmith, shouldnt i be able to make Grand master weapons, rather then just a semi ok item that ill replace as soon as i get it drop from a boss. Also if my armour gets damaged, why do i have to pay to have it repaired when i can make stuff thats just as good?

I feel again at this point, i should re-itterate that this thread is in no way meant to be a snipe at any of the games out there, its simply a list of things i would love to see, or be able to code if i had the resources, all in one game. im interested to hear what other game designers think about the topic and what people think would be nice to have if they could create the perfect rpg.

feel free to ship in with your thoughts. :)

Thundy:

This to me is a shame as with todays current technology and the sheer power of most game platforms there are an infinite number of possibilities

That quote seems to be the core of your concept. And the simple truth is... yes, we do have the technology. But we don't have the infinite resources to do so. You need a lot of content for RPGs as it is, and most use tricks like changing colors of items to make them different. The simple truth is that the game has to get released. The companies can only afford to keep paying the developers so long before it needs to release the game. So while some games plan for these things I'm sure, they get cut in favour of a deadline. Because the bottom line is that games are an industry and you can't make money on a game that never gets released.

i agree with your point, i even eluded to it at one point. this is more me just wanting to see what other peoples wish list of things are if time and resources werent an issue. I know its a purely hypothetical situation but im interested to hear peoples thoughts.

You describe life.
 
Your subject already answers your question.  I am sure scientists are trying to work on the sort of AI required to automate the process you describe but the only other way to code it for your normal game developer would be to think of every possibility that anyone could possibly do.  

Don't get me wrong, in the most part I agree with what you say, I just disagree that modern techniques can do it.  The nearest are the online games, that are regularly updated.  In all cases I eventually get bored with the repetitive missions.  In oblivion I would always stop leveling up at about level 15 because the character was developed enough by then and the leveling up process became dull.

On that basis I think I would find a game a bit boring if it mimicked life too closely.

Thundy:

i even eluded to it at one point

elude
allude

In addition to the fact that games need to ship, and can't spend infinite amounts of time (== money) to do so, there is a quite significant gameplay design problem with too open-ended systems. A game needs to be fun for almost all its players. To make sure that it delivers fun, the designer constrains the choices you can do to keep the experience controlled. Without a controlled experience, you can very easily end up making choices that cut out large parts of the game content, make it impossible to advance the story, etc.

There was a great developer interview from the AI programmer on The Chronicles of Spellborn (an MMORPG). He was talking about programming a detailed creature AI that was highly configurable. You could set things like avoidance, aggressiveness and other properties of the animal that would, in effect, produce a very realistic carnivorous animal that would interact with other animals.

After a lot of tweaking, he found out that the AI really did start behaving like carnivorous animals, in that they never wanted to attack humans, avoided combat in general and did the bare minimum to exist. These are all behaviors exhibited by actual animals.

They are also very boring, un-fun characteristics. I don't think you would enjoy a game where animals acted like animals and humans acted like humans. It takes a hunter with a rifle a few hours to bag a deer. Could you really kill 10 of them in 5 minutes for your quest? Would you want to spend about an hour tracking and killing an animal? Thats what a realisitic AI would essentially mean.

As for your point about choices, yes, I think we should have many choices in games. The dynamics of most games are going down by the day. A lot of AAA titles are basically movies which require you to do things in a very linear way. It seems most game designers have a genuine hatred of human ingenuity.
 
I was recently playing Red Faction III and one of the missions required me to destroy a vehicle. I thought I was being smart when before the mission, I destroyed a bridge that would essentially force the car to take a side road where it would be easier to ram/destroy. As the mission began, I found that the bridge had been respawned.

I don't think its realistic for a single man with a sledge hammer to go around exploding bridges and fighting hordes of professional soldiers, but I don't want realism in my games.

I want a fun experience with lots of options, but those options don't have realistic and should'nt be.

i agree, different people have different ideas of whats fun, and of course a fully real AI in an animal like a lion would be pretty boring to work with as they are inactive most of the time, and also your problem with Red faction kind of speaks for itself.
But something that emphasizes my point is once again Shadow of the collossus. Some people loved it for its explorability and atmosphere, and it got stunning reviews based on exactly that. Other people hated it because it wasnt a button mashing slaughter fest.
What im trying to get out of people, (apart from spelling corrections :P) is what would they want to see/put into a game, if time and resources werent a constraint, some people play fantasy football leagues, i want to play  fantasy RPG coding. what aspects do people want, or think would be nice, and what aspects do people think would be a bit too far a push in the opposite direction?

Gotta agree with the replies about realism vs. fun.  Most gamers want a fun diversion AWAY from reality, at least to some extent.  That's one of gaming's most appealing aspects.

There are some good recent examples of games that allow for quite a lot of *choice* though.  (I do believe that is a much different topic)

You mentioned Fallout, but Fallout 3 does deserve a special mention in that area.  It does have a "go anywhere" type of open world, and you can approach objectives in any number of ways.  There are factions that you can earn favor with or anger, and in many cases, your choices can impact the world significantly.

Another one is Far Cry 2 (quite underrated I think).  It's not an RPG, but it does have a pretty open world and you can approach missions in all sorts of creative ways.  There is one element I thought was more realistic than fun though.  Your character has malaria.  Wow, what a blast. :)

But yeah, I don't know if a "realistic world simulation" would be something that 99% of gamers would enjoy, even if it was possible.

Of course, fallout 3 has been a big success with a lot of rpg fans who like the open scope world. But you said so yourself, that the choice really still only boils down to the good and the bad. People put too much emphasis on the button mashing distraction factor. The reason FFVII was so successful was because people got totally immersed in the story line, and you have to admit that a HUGE portion of that game was based on walking about and watching npc interractions. The idea of a roleplay is pure escapism, which doesnt necessarily mean that it has to be unrealistic. You want to live a different life in a cyber world, why shouldnt you be able to become friends with someone who should be your enemy because of who they are affiliated with. Some of the greatest stories ever told are about people who become friends or lovers in spite of who they are, Romeo and Juliet springs to mind, the good samaritan and so on.
i think we have ascertained that some people wouldnt want to see an npc with such AI that it behaves completely as a real animal/human would, but it wouldnt take much to allow an individual npc to react to you based on personal feeling rather then collective reputation.
There are so many options that arent available or taken into account. Fallout 3, do you disarm the bomb or blow it up? well what about if you try to disarm the bomb but fail and it goes off anyway? are the npcs going to treat you as friend or foe based on the fact that you at least had a crack at it?

What I want an RPG to be: Final Fantasy XII without the confusing egg-shaped rock cavern towards the end.
Really: polish the game, and smooth it until it does not depend on confusing or misleading the player in frustrating and annoying ways.
I want a well balanced, enjoyable experience that challenges but doesn't frustrate. I want high production values. I don't particularly want re-playability, or full world modification, or 10,000 swords that mainly differ in the seventeenth consonant used to name them.

Thundy:

What aspects do people want, or think would be nice, and what aspects do people think would be a bit too far a push in the opposite direction?

I think everyone is different.  My gaming experience is always tainted by real life getting in the way so I may want shorter chapters and less time wandering about soaking up the atmosphere than others.  However, the set of friends I always game with, tend to have similar views.

A summary of the things I would like to see in say an RPG:
- NPC and players should all have unique faces (Oblivion felt odd as every few paces you saw the same person again)
- Clothes should be varied.  In the real world it is rare to meet people wearing identical clothes unless it is a uniform.

What I would want to see less of:
- Repitition for the sake of it.  The need for Malaria tablets in Far Cry 2 is a good example.  I was looking for a mission  to do, I didn't need to be forced to return to specific points by an annoyance.  That stopped me playing what was otherwise an entertaining game.
- Linear game play.  Oblivion was good, as soon as you were past the jail break you could do the side quests in nearly any order.  There was a space adventure that I disliked (I've forgotten the name but it's a popular one) because at the start, I had a wander round and met some of the people in the story only to be forced to go back to them a few minutes latter to get information which they didn't give me previously because I had done it in the wrong order.  I am told I should have played on, but I have a low tollerance for games if they don't entertain me from the start.
- Cut scenes and similar interludes.  The Cortana bits in Halo 3 were just a pain in the head.  Especially when playing through again in Co-op.

Things that could stay the same:
- In RPG's the limited conversation is probably enough.  All you need to establish is:
Do I like them
Do they like me
Are they going to be helpful to me

That's probably enough as most people don't read long posts fully.

www.itchstudios.com/psg

I like the game ideas of this guy a lot as well as his various panty themed renditions of classic video game characters. If he could somehow find the technology to clone himself several hundreds of times, I'm sure I would be able to play one of his concepts within the next couple of decades.

andorov:

I was recently playing Red Faction III and one of the missions required me to destroy a vehicle. I thought I was being smart when before the mission, I destroyed a bridge that would essentially force the car to take a side road where it would be easier to ram/destroy. As the mission began, I found that the bridge had been respawned.

If you haven't already seen the link above, then you would love his concepts. A frequent rant of his is how big of a control freak modern game designers are. Fun outside the game designers vision is not allowed. As you've seen, this becomes very annoying as well as very disruptive to immersion when the game designer goes to correct your "mistakes."



As for my own desires, I want to see more games like Dwarf Fortress where only 1/100 [or less] of the hardware processing power is being used to compute stuff that is happening on the players screen.