Post by Variaz on Sept 19, 2012 19:59:21 GMT -5
This is a thread to explain why I haven't been working on the game lately, and to talk about the things that made me step away from the project.
To start, I want to reply to Gando's last post in the other thread... thanks for your post! Don't feel responsible or anything. You have always been very helpful around here, and it's very appreciated. In fact, part of what pushed me away is that you were pretty much the only real active player around here, and my last update didn't really spark some new life around here as I had expected. Then again, it's also my fault for not updating more consistently. As I've said, I can't expect players to keep up if I cannot keep up myself.
There are other problems that made me lose interest, however. For example, the last months that I worked on this game were spent revamping the whole system, to make things more balanced. However, tweaking mechanics is fun for a while, but becomes annoying when nothing else is moving forward. Despite the mechanics tweak, very little content was added. You never got to see the chaos cult and their leader, you never got to visit Rhyzendal, Karingen and Nimbraya, Devlings never got their own questline, etc...
And let's talk about the story itself. Over the years, I have lost interest in the original story, almost completely so. Part of it is due to having played it many times, and after watching Udor's destruction so many times, it became rather dull.
But really, in the end, the story became out of control. It started like a classic fantasy rpg, where you have orcs and goblins attacking a town, only to find out there is a more sinister villain behind them. But then, the power of Chaos these villain have turned out to be more complex than your average "power of darkness", as it isn't darkness, rather a twist in reality, etc... far more complex that your typical "dark mage" and his orcs. And then other concepts such as the Flow were introduced(and references that the Nightmares were related to it), which in theory would have brought more complexity to the Portralis universe. But in the end, nothing worked as intended. Too many story elements went into too many directions, with little synergy between them. The most satisfying storyline ended up being the Stealthy Vipers storyline, which was about Kobolds trying to break from the "dungeon dwellers" stereotype. It was a fun storyline, which unfortunately had nothing to do with chaos, the Flow or any of the major plot points.
The story would need a reboot, with new towns, and possibly a less ambitious scope, which would make it easier to finish. Here's some of my opinions:
- Orcs and goblins really have no place in this game. They were originally put there because they are fantasy staples, but they just made no sense. We have Kobolds to replace goblins, and orcs... well, they're not necessary. A game doesn't have to have every creatures of the "cliché RPG creatures" book.
- The Flow should be more than just a gimmick to provide random monsters and some item enhancing options. The concept should be an integral part of the storyline! With something like the Flow, as described in the game, it's really not difficult to image chaos being a result of it, or chaos causing the Flow to be disrupted and affecting space and time... Instead, we got a "flow machine" leading to randomly generated generic monsters. Meh. So much wasted potential here...
- Did Licialhyds ever served ANY purpose? Nope. Let's just drop them altogether.
- Story should focus on some regions or cities of Portralis, rather than a gigantic but ultimately bland world. Let's just take Jindar. How many hours of gameplay can we get out of this city? A lot. We don't necessarely need four more cities. More content can always be added later after the main game is finished.
As far as gameplay is concerned, the 0.5 system needs some tweaks, but overall I'm rather satisfied with it. However, there are certain gameplay elements that should probably be dropped:
- The Flow as it is right now. Randomly generated monsters were an interesting experiment, and were fun.... for about 15 minutes. Then you realize that despite some variations between each species, they are ultimately all the same, and very generic, with no thematic whatsoever... I still like random monsters for dungeon bosses, but an entire place based around them, that's not needed. This also means to drop "indigo" items, and one less source of balance concerns.
- Green items. Have you EVER found one? Probably not, but if you did, you know they basically make everything else look pathetic. And they are also a pain to balance in regards to cursed items and crafted items. Balancing curseds and crafteds means that we need to raise their numbers. Now, what was 0.5 made for? Lowering the numbers. Rather than having uber, imbalanced items, more artifacts with unique(but not necessarely game breaking) properties would be more interesting, and much easier to balance.
The items model I'm aiming for is basically this:
* Purples are your common magic items that are easy to come by.
* Blue items are your more powerful, customizable items, and will eventually be what you will use most of the time.
* Artifacts are there to have unique properties and abilities that sets them apart from the random stuff. Their power would vary from "situational gimmick" to "amongst the best items in the game", though their power would be generally kept competitive with blues.
* Cursed items should be the most powerful items, because they are so risky to use. However, they shouldn't be gamebreaking either, and the player should not be forced to use them to win the game.
* Crafted items would be somewhere between all of these. It would depend on your skill. And really, crafted items should just be levelable, like all other items, to remain competitive, and easier to balance.
- Some skills could be dropped. There's probably a lot of stuff to debate here, but I can think of two on top of my head:
* Alchemy sucks. Let's just make potions heal a percent of your health, making them always useful, and then drop this skill.
* Divination is worthless. Some of it's spells are fun, but are mostly gimmicks, and the fun ones could be moved to Mysticism. The Divination attack type is one of the most messed up, boring, impractical and useless attack type.
The less skill we have, the less stuff there is to work on and to balance.
These are my thoughts. I do not know when I will resume work on the game, but when I do, these are courses of actions that I will consider. Feel free to comment.
To start, I want to reply to Gando's last post in the other thread... thanks for your post! Don't feel responsible or anything. You have always been very helpful around here, and it's very appreciated. In fact, part of what pushed me away is that you were pretty much the only real active player around here, and my last update didn't really spark some new life around here as I had expected. Then again, it's also my fault for not updating more consistently. As I've said, I can't expect players to keep up if I cannot keep up myself.
There are other problems that made me lose interest, however. For example, the last months that I worked on this game were spent revamping the whole system, to make things more balanced. However, tweaking mechanics is fun for a while, but becomes annoying when nothing else is moving forward. Despite the mechanics tweak, very little content was added. You never got to see the chaos cult and their leader, you never got to visit Rhyzendal, Karingen and Nimbraya, Devlings never got their own questline, etc...
And let's talk about the story itself. Over the years, I have lost interest in the original story, almost completely so. Part of it is due to having played it many times, and after watching Udor's destruction so many times, it became rather dull.
But really, in the end, the story became out of control. It started like a classic fantasy rpg, where you have orcs and goblins attacking a town, only to find out there is a more sinister villain behind them. But then, the power of Chaos these villain have turned out to be more complex than your average "power of darkness", as it isn't darkness, rather a twist in reality, etc... far more complex that your typical "dark mage" and his orcs. And then other concepts such as the Flow were introduced(and references that the Nightmares were related to it), which in theory would have brought more complexity to the Portralis universe. But in the end, nothing worked as intended. Too many story elements went into too many directions, with little synergy between them. The most satisfying storyline ended up being the Stealthy Vipers storyline, which was about Kobolds trying to break from the "dungeon dwellers" stereotype. It was a fun storyline, which unfortunately had nothing to do with chaos, the Flow or any of the major plot points.
The story would need a reboot, with new towns, and possibly a less ambitious scope, which would make it easier to finish. Here's some of my opinions:
- Orcs and goblins really have no place in this game. They were originally put there because they are fantasy staples, but they just made no sense. We have Kobolds to replace goblins, and orcs... well, they're not necessary. A game doesn't have to have every creatures of the "cliché RPG creatures" book.
- The Flow should be more than just a gimmick to provide random monsters and some item enhancing options. The concept should be an integral part of the storyline! With something like the Flow, as described in the game, it's really not difficult to image chaos being a result of it, or chaos causing the Flow to be disrupted and affecting space and time... Instead, we got a "flow machine" leading to randomly generated generic monsters. Meh. So much wasted potential here...
- Did Licialhyds ever served ANY purpose? Nope. Let's just drop them altogether.
- Story should focus on some regions or cities of Portralis, rather than a gigantic but ultimately bland world. Let's just take Jindar. How many hours of gameplay can we get out of this city? A lot. We don't necessarely need four more cities. More content can always be added later after the main game is finished.
As far as gameplay is concerned, the 0.5 system needs some tweaks, but overall I'm rather satisfied with it. However, there are certain gameplay elements that should probably be dropped:
- The Flow as it is right now. Randomly generated monsters were an interesting experiment, and were fun.... for about 15 minutes. Then you realize that despite some variations between each species, they are ultimately all the same, and very generic, with no thematic whatsoever... I still like random monsters for dungeon bosses, but an entire place based around them, that's not needed. This also means to drop "indigo" items, and one less source of balance concerns.
- Green items. Have you EVER found one? Probably not, but if you did, you know they basically make everything else look pathetic. And they are also a pain to balance in regards to cursed items and crafted items. Balancing curseds and crafteds means that we need to raise their numbers. Now, what was 0.5 made for? Lowering the numbers. Rather than having uber, imbalanced items, more artifacts with unique(but not necessarely game breaking) properties would be more interesting, and much easier to balance.
The items model I'm aiming for is basically this:
* Purples are your common magic items that are easy to come by.
* Blue items are your more powerful, customizable items, and will eventually be what you will use most of the time.
* Artifacts are there to have unique properties and abilities that sets them apart from the random stuff. Their power would vary from "situational gimmick" to "amongst the best items in the game", though their power would be generally kept competitive with blues.
* Cursed items should be the most powerful items, because they are so risky to use. However, they shouldn't be gamebreaking either, and the player should not be forced to use them to win the game.
* Crafted items would be somewhere between all of these. It would depend on your skill. And really, crafted items should just be levelable, like all other items, to remain competitive, and easier to balance.
- Some skills could be dropped. There's probably a lot of stuff to debate here, but I can think of two on top of my head:
* Alchemy sucks. Let's just make potions heal a percent of your health, making them always useful, and then drop this skill.
* Divination is worthless. Some of it's spells are fun, but are mostly gimmicks, and the fun ones could be moved to Mysticism. The Divination attack type is one of the most messed up, boring, impractical and useless attack type.
The less skill we have, the less stuff there is to work on and to balance.
These are my thoughts. I do not know when I will resume work on the game, but when I do, these are courses of actions that I will consider. Feel free to comment.