Thread: If You Could Design a Game...

[I'm putting this thread here since this seems to be the most appropriate place for it, since it's basically off-topic games discussion. Move it if it's in the wrong spot, please.]

What if you had the opportunity to be the ideaman for a new, high-budget game? It could be a new entry to an established series, a completely new game, or even a major expansion to an existing game. What would you do? What would you change about it, if it's an expansion or addition to an existing series? What, do you think, would be some of the major hurdles you'd face in making a new game?

I've been playing the Fallout games again, and I'm about 70% through Fallout 2, having already completed Fallout in only two nights of play (never realized the first one was so damn short.) Can't seem to find my Fallout Tactics CDs

I know they're already developing a Fallout 3, but they're supposedly going to be doing something like Fallout-meets-Oblivion, and I hated Oblivion, even more than Morrowind - I want my $50 and 40 hours back.

Personally, I'd like to see a Fallout MMORPG, one that's heavy on instanced areas (think missions in Guild Wars or dungeons in World of Warcraft) and plays a bit like a shooter. I don't know how effective governing ranged, first-person combat with stats would be (which is exactly what you'd be doing), but I'm sure it can be done.

I do think that the Fallout universe is perfectly capable for this kind of game, and maybe even ideal for it. Fallout and Fallout 2 take place in the southwestern United States, and even then, it's mostly just California, Arizona, and Nevada. What about the other part of the US, let alone the rest of North America and the other continents?

You could have the original game just focus on the US alone, and have subsequent expansions add on other continents and major gameplay areas - lots of potential.

I'd probably try to use a slightly more intelligent clone of WoW's questing system, and would honestly borrow a lot of ideas from WoW - on the whole, WoW is more accessible and easier to get into (and addicted to, as a result) than pretty much every other MMO ever made.

Combat would be handled in psuedo real-time; you would have APs (Action Points), just like in the original Fallout games, but they'd be spent and regenerated in real time, much like you would use a Rogue's Energy bar in World of Warcraft, or a Mana bar in most other RPGs. You'd have a set rate of AP regeneration, based on stats (I'm thinking a combination of Endurance and Agility), and gain more AP based on both your Agility stat and your level.

There wouldn't be specific classes - just like in the original Fallout games, you'd have a complete list of skills, and you'd choose tag skills (for those that didn't play or don't remember, these skills started at a higher level and increased twice as fast as non-tag skills) as you level up - I'm thinking you'd pick two at character creation to help define your character, get a third maybe five or ten levels in, and then be able to get a final, fourth one via Perks (just as you could in the original games.) I'm thinking there'd be a level cap somewhere around 20 or 25 - leveling would be somewhat slow, so that you're spending a lot of time at each invidual level and doing a lot during that process, rather than blasting through to maximum level to actually play the game (which is basically how WoW handles it.)

The Perk system (which I'm betting heavily influenced D&D 3.x's Feat system) would remain, and you'd gain a new Perk every 2-5 levels, depending on your race. Likewise, the Trait system would remain in as well.

As for races, you'd obviously be able to be Human, but I'm also thinking it'd be nice to be able to play as a Ghoul, Super Mutant, Robot (all races usable during Fallout Tactics), and maybe even non-humanoid races - Deathclaws and dogs, anyone? And don't tell me it'd suck being a dog - remember how good Dogmeat (Fallout), K-9 (the cybernetic dog in Fallout 2), and Pariah (the very rare encounter in Fallout 2) were? Well, they were good until you started fighting goons in power armor, anyway.

Running out of time here at the library, so I'm gonna have to finish this later. But what kinds of games would you guys design, if you were given everything necessary to do it?

FIRST!

I'd make a battlefield style game that has a lot more focus on infantry and making the engine maybe feel a bit more like source. I hate how slow bullets seem to fly in 2142.

As far as focusing on infantry, I think vehicles can be fun... but they really pull away from the cohesion and teamwork that squad-based infantry versus infantry combat brings out. And that is a bit disappointing.

Either that... Or I'd make a high budget game based on this idea:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron

I can't believe how much fun those puzzles are. It's a VERY interesting concept.

I'd do a sequel to Planetside.

A persistent universe, First Person Shooter MMO. Update the engine, drop the monthly fee to $5.99 and add in missions and NPC enemies for "questing" purposes.

Huxley seems to have purpose but a team-based FPS that is hosted in a massive online environment would get my vote.

I can't wait to see how Huxley delivers.

They're already apparently at work on a 40k MMORPG, but I can't see how you could do that effectively - a Tactical Marine is going to be much beefier than some random Imperial Guardsman or a single Ork. Not really psyched about Age of Reckoning, the Warhammer MMORPG - I'm getting sick of the swords-and-sorcery crap, honestly.

As for a Fallout MMO, I don't even know if it'd be possible... the task of taking a turn-based single-player RPG and turning it into a real-time MMORPG seems impossible. I keep running into a wall where you find a way of making both melee combat and ranged combat viable (it was mostly viable in the original games, though nothing even came close to the sheer power of the pulse rifle in Fallout 2) and fun.

At any rate, I'd like to see more games use Guild Wars format, because while I don't particularly care for Guild Wars itself (the Magic-like pick-your-skills thing is the only thing I really do like), I think the format it's presented in and the lack of monthly fees is a good thing and should be seen more frequently. Major towns and such would be the MMO part of it, and where you'd do trading, find people for missions, and whatnot. Once you choose a mission, you'd grab a group of people (or just use NPCs that hopefully wouldn't be as brain-dead as the ones in Guild Wars) and get to it.

While Fallout didn't have the strength of story or character development that some of Black Isle's later RPGs did, like Torment and the Baldur's Gate series, it did have solid NPC interaction and a pretty decent plot, and I think it'd be a crime to make a Fallout game that doesn't possess those features - and traditional MMOs like WoW and Everquest simply can't do that because of the way they're presented. In pay-to-play MMOs like WoW, the end-game has to be a mindless, repetitive grind, because otherwise people aren't going to keep plunking down monthly fees if they reach the end and that's it.

With a Guild Wars-like presentation, you don't need to add pointless grinding to the game - just release a new expansion (in this case, it'd be a new continent or new area of a continent, and maybe some new perks and skills or a level-cap increase.) This would allow you to add in meaningful NPC interaction and plot advancement within missions - you're not going to be doing those same missions over and over again (unlike raid instances in WoW.) You could even have missions where you only get a single chance to succeed, and whether or not you do affects missions you're eligible for later on.

hmmmm......

I am thinking a BF2/2142 CoD4 type of battlefield with COMPLETE character customization. You can change, height, weight, add abilities, longer springing time etc. Change your character's facial features, uniform, camouflage, Equipment load out. Pick and choose any three guns, primary, secondary and sidearms. All the characteristics of the guns in real life. You unlock features via points. Need X amount of points for a certain gun or ability which will deduct points after you purchase as well as a rank requirement, ranks cost points as well. Makes you manage your points as well. Not to mention medals and awards for achievements and the like.

Tribes 4

I would make it almost exactly like Tribes 2, but with updated graphics. This is the perfect game for TTP style play. If you ever played Tribes 2 before the patches messed it up, you know what I am talking about.

TTP style play in Siege mode would be awe-inspiring... Man I miss that game...