Video game daydreaming

I like your idea.

Of course, when I was a kid, Chrono Trigger was enough to make me ignore my social life.

 

I'd like to play a Racing RPG set in the California Valley circa 1963-64. (Think American Graffiti with way more racing.) You'd start with a set amount of money with which to buy a hot rod, soup it up, and drag race your way to wealth and notoriety. Of course, you'd have to occasionally outrun cops, fix damage to the vehicle. There was an old DOS game called Street Rods that did what I'd like to see pretty well for it's day, but the concept needs to be updated.

 

A Legend of Zelda game for more mature audiences. I want it to be dark, with blood and Ganondorf (or someone) to be extremely hard to beat. A game like this would be a brilliant one to bring back Dark Link.

I also want Final Fantasy to go back to how it was in FF9 (my favourate ff game)

 

I've found that The Elder Scrolls has been the best fantasy RPG in my experience. However, since the release of TES Oblivion, the games have been dulled down and made easier so that it reaches a more small-minded audience who do not have much experience in the actual process of leveling and working towards a goal. If they could understand that people would buy their game even if it were made more difficult, it would be the perfect franchise. This also goes for most games these days. You never found it easy while playing Zelda OOT. When I completed that game, the satisfaction was amazing (apart from feeling like I had lost a best friend, as is what always happens when you complete a great game).

 

My ideal cRPG would be a cross of Gothic (3D, open world), Baldur's Gate (world map, NPCs, companions, romances) and Witcher (fighting engine)

 

Awwe, thanks - Oblivion and Skyrim are two of my favourite games because of their accessibility and immersion potential. Saying that, I am a wuss and just like to go along for the story/roleplay rather than the difficulty, so I will concede on this point.

 

YOUR IDEA (the person who started this thread) IS PERFECT GO TO DAMN KICKSTARTER OR I WILL -_____-

 

Calm down make it unique so far you gotten my attention with your great ideas. Make it something that isn't medevel age crap focus on what game you want to make and go on kickstarter make the epic fantasy game to rule them all

 

I would want a background option in character creation like Mass Effect, A prologue tied into that choice like Dragon Age:Origins, Open world with multiple environments and fantastic creatures like Morrowind, Fighting Engine from the Batman: Arkham games, interesting companions with lives and goals of their own, and the ability to make an impact on the world and have a life other than Hack/slash/fireball like Fable. Crafting options for armor,weapons,enchantments and spells. Plus a dynamic story that doesn't stall until I get around to doing the quest that trips it. Have the war start x days after I leave on my quest whether I join the army or not.

 

That sounds quite lovely, actually. I like you're thinking. I don't know if the Arkham combat would be what I'd want, but it does have a certain synergy and impact to it.

 

I like the Arkham engine, and they're actually using a modified version of it for the next LotR game. For third person it would allow for nice cinematic style fights.

 

Or, here's something for a change of pace: the ideal turn-based RPG would spend some quality time learning from Grandia's clever planning. When time freezes to give you a character's action, you still look at your enemies' distances, times to their actions, and planned attacks and decide if you have time to use slow or fast attacks, Interrupt attacks, evasion or blocking. Turn-based was never so lively.

 

I've played The Elder Scrolls since Arena, the first one, and I think immersion and, let's say, possibility, are the main goals of the games.

As they've progressed down the years, what's really changed the most - and the greatest change was in Skyrim - are the way stats and skills are handled.

On the one hand, they limit a player from tweaking a character "just so." In other words, you can't have an incredibly strong, less than bright character. No "strong like ox, smart like tractor" warriors.

You also can't, say, specialize in small bladed weapons - you can to some degree, but not as much as you could have in the past.

What you gain, however, is more of a playing-the-game-on-the-fly feel. I know that for Morrowind and even Oblivion, when I got close to level, I started really gaming my level-up. I wanted max stat bonuses on the three stats that were going to raise. If that meant I had to spend an hour jumping to improve acrobatics, so be it. If i had to go spar with the orc trainer in the DLC castle to improve shield or blade, I did it.

Honestly, that was rather tedious.

I miss having stats to improve like strength and speed, but I do appreciate not having to game my level-ups.

The greatest failing of Skyrim, though, was the absence of the spell-maker in the official releases. That I really felt. That being said, I did feel more "into" the world of Skyrim. It reached out to envelope me in a way that I hadn't felt since Daggerfall.

 

It's not quite ready for prime-time, but I do have hopes for Divinity: Original Sin for turn-based combat. What I've played so far shows a great deal of promise.

 

I think that's a good way of putting it - "playing-the-game-on-the-fly". I think that's what I liked about. I didn't feel I had to force level to play - I could just go about it as I liked and let things happen. I don't always have a lot of time or attention span, but I can usually jump into Skyrim, run around as I please, and enjoy myself.

And I agree on spell-making. Even in Oblivion, I was disappointed that it had been reduced, as I'd watched friends play Morrowind and essentially make Kamehameha's and levitation spells that sent them across the world in a single bound. Not very realistic, but still fun to tinker with.

 

Recently I've been thinking about how a Total War style game with magic and fantasy elements incorporated into it would work.

Depending on the legal status of magic in your nation, you could be raising mage levies in defense of your territories. An enemy is attacking your settlement, you force all known magic users in town into platoons to support your line infantry. Cheap, versatile units capable of offensive magic, buffing and debuffing units, although ill-equipped and ill-disciplined.

Necromancers would almost make your army overpowered, at least until a volley of arrows or a cavalry charge decimates them and you lose control over your undead forces.

Nations where necromancy is legal would receive a massive economic boost due to all the cheap labor, but rogue necromancers and masterless undead could crop up throughout your lands causing unrest and rebellion.
But would slave rebellions be any better?

 

Back before Total War, there was a game close to what you describe: Warhammer: Dark Omen. It's actually a great tragedy that the series and style never continued. I can't remember if it had much in the way of the turn-based strategic level map, but the real-time battles were amazing - complete with charges (which had to be manually turned - as opposed to point and click).

The undead faction was pretty powerful, more for the fear they instilled in other armies, but still...