Keiron

I have been thinking about this a lot and was recently talking about it with a friend of mine. What would you do if you were rich? I wouldn't want anything too big for myself, or a family, just enough to make us comfortable. I'd want to be able to have no debt and support my family (parents included).

Now what would I do with the rest of this money? Donate some of it most likely. The majority of it I'd most likely want to invest, specifically in starting my own business. I'd want to create my own game developer company. Perhaps do publishing as well. We all complain about how poor the industry is in general so I'd want to fix that. My main focus would be RPGs first and foremost as I love them. FPSs would be a secondary concern once we were a large enough company to support multiple projects and genres.

For RPGs though, my focus would be on developing the gameplay to interest both old school gamers and modern gamers. Give a great story to keep everyone interested, with great scenery and graphics, music that works well with the setting and doesn't sound like crap or is horribly misplaced or overdone. Go back to some of the basics that made me fall in love with RPGs in the first place. Bring back actual world maps you can walk around and explore. Vehicles you can use to transverse these massive worlds as you progress in the game. Make your objective hard to find and make people explore and find the right path to take, leaving plenty of "oh shit, I'm not supposed to be here!" type of moments.

Think of the classic Final Fantasy games as a mold, but it something new, better, but just as epic. Allow you to actually control 4 characters instead of 3 with no AI involved at all. Make it just you, your characters, and the enemy. Remove the fast paced ATB system that exists now since that seems to be a problem. Slow it down some so you actually have time to give your characters commands, but not so slow that battles take forever when they shouldn't be that long. Having 4 characters adds a unique twist since you can make fights harder later on and give you more things to do. Give each character a single specialty to make them unique and worth using. Don't have any one spell or ability that is pretty much instant win after you get it (Knights of the Round? Ultima?) but at the same time making them still badass and a great boon to have.

Another thing is I would probably want to remove voice acting. Make people actual have to read again as it gives the story more depth and involvement. Just use CG for voice as needed and when appropriate.

I'd need a group of like minded individuals to make it work obviously. People who want what I want and are dedicated to making it happen. Compile our thoughts together to make a great story, with great gameplay, that is a lasting, long game that you don't want to put down or have end (like 60+ hr game without sidequests, much longer with, similar to Xenogears). I'd want to build it from the ground up and make something truely epic and great that I'd love doing and never feel like I was working a day in my life, but rather doing something I really cared about and enjoyed.

Does anyone here have any similar ideas or dreams? Do you think this is a good idea and something you'd want to see and something you think others would want to see?