Dream team to develop the next great RPG

This is my dream team for RPG production.

Bethesda programmers (for a living breathing world complete with NPC schedules and global impacts)

Bioware/Obsidian writers (you knew this was coming)

Blizzard Advertisement Team (for the monies)

Rockstar designers (to give that living, breathing world a sandbox)

Valve physics engine (for the lulz)

Eidos ([now owners of the Thief franchise] to oversee stealth gameplay)

The one I'm still stumped on is who to give the combat system to. Any ideas?

edited 4th Aug '11 10:39:19 AM by Carbonpillow

The Blood God's design consultant.

Source Engine.

EDIT:Makes sense we don't have a page on it.

edited 4th Aug '11 1:17:11 AM by thespacephantom

UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI

Troika + Obsidian - Bugs

In the quiet of the night, the Neocount of Merentha mused: How long does evolution take, among the damned?

The combat system in Soul of the Ultimate Nation is apparently pretty cool.

There are too many toasters in my chimney!

Bioware writers? ewwww give it to obsidian. Everything else i'm okay with though. Combat engine I would give to Bioware if Sci-fi, but for fantasy I'd like to see a mix of Mount and blade and Dark Messiah.

"Delenda est." "Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed." -Common Roman saying at the end of speeches.

"Bethesda programmers (for a living breathing world complete with NPC schedules and global impacts)

Bioware writers (you knew this was coming) "

Gahahahahahahahaa

No.

Bethesda is the only company to produce games that need 3 separate fan patches to work remotely right. Keep them away from coding.

Bioware can't write either. Emotional baggage dropping->"I'm madly and thoughtlessly in love with you" party member, dialog choices that don't mean anything and worse.

The best would be something like

• Obsidian writing the dialog and story.
• The Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 team doing combat design.
• Nehrim's world designers and or Richard Bailey Gray III/Levellord (that man's map design in Duke Nukem 3D will always be some of the best in an FPS, mmmhhh, non-linearity) doing map design.
• For coding, no idea right now.

"Troika + Obsidian - Bugs "

Isn't that called "Black Isle"?

edited 4th Aug '11 2:03:55 AM by deuxhero

World design and anything dictating atmosphere by Troika, based on a pre-existing universe. Music by Mark Morgan.

Dialog by ex-BIS/ex-Troika/Obsidian's best.

Running on a heavily modified Cry Engine.

Blizzard to take care of QA for decades after release.

Todd Howard as design consultant (write down everything he says and do the opposite) and coffee-fetcher.

Combat engine with two modes, selectable when opening a new game: For the action-RPG player, real time with (optional) pause in first/third person over the shoulder with programmable AI. For the strategy RPG bros: Temple of Elemental Evil's combat system adapted into this setting.

Ex-Looking Glass Studios developers thrown in a snake pit with Blood Money-era IO interactive to decide who makes the stealth system.

Microsoft for big pile of ad monies. No concessions made for the game to be ported to their console, PC is primary platform (but consoles get it too, no dumbing down because of publisher underestimation of player intelligence). Also no DRM.

When I think of an RPG "Dream Team" I think of Chrono Trigger.

Hell, that's what the dev team actually called themselves IIRC.

I don't see how Obsidian are supposed to be any better than Bioware. Except to satisfy the hate-on that certain people have for Bioware.

edited 4th Aug '11 2:11:33 AM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Obsidian (MCA mainly)

1. Avoids the horrible romances. They never worked well, so why the bloody hell do fiction authors keep doing them!
2. Implements game mechanics into the story well.
3. Makes player choice actually matter beyond the next line of dialog.
4. has an aversion to the typical fantasy story and works interesting things as a result. Bioware makes some of the most typical space opera and "high" fantasy settings out there (Jade Empire was a neat exception, but too little).

Just compare the two Knights of the Old Republic games.

• Save the universe by collecting 5 plot coupons so you can defeat the mustache twirling Malak. Plot is largely Neverwinter Nights IN SPACE!.
• An interesting (in my opinion anyways) discussion upon the nature of The Force and the Star Wars universe as a whole, philosophy and game mechanics. You largely wind up "saving" (if it can even be called that) the universe for your own benefit, light or dark side. Has its own plot and pulls deeply from the setting. The vilians are all unique and the main one is even sympathetic.

edited 4th Aug '11 3:11:52 AM by deuxhero

KOTOR 2 was large uninteresting. Also it seemed more like Obsidian hated Star Wars, which is rather weird considering that it's a SW game. Even with it's complete lack of any originalty, I liked KOTOR more.

Actually, I have the feeling that Obsidian is more a cheap copy of Black Isle than a successor. Sure, they make good stuff, but they were better in BI times. Back then, they surely could have made the concept of KOTOR 2 work interesting.

New Vegas is actually the first Obsidian game that didn't disappoint me in some way. And even then it wasn't as good as the first two Fallout games.

edited 4th Aug '11 4:02:29 AM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

How about whoever did the writing for Planescape Torment for the plot? That'd definitely work.

I never saw it as "hating" SW, some parts of it yes (A large portion was apparently admitted to be inspired by a lifelong dislike of the Jedi Truth), but the universe itself comes off as well liked. Besides, if personally having researched all the EU works of the time to prepare for it is true, MCA is the only person who should be allowed to hate it.

That would be Obsidian's Mr. Chris Avellone (MCA).

edited 4th Aug '11 4:31:08 AM by deuxhero

^^That'd be Mr Chris Avellone, one of the main writers at Obsidian. EDIT: Ninja'd

For me it'd be Obsidian writing + Tim Cain and the other guys who worked on Fallout 1 (so...Troika basically? Haven't played any Troika games yet).

If it's an Action RPG then Diablo 2 or Divinity 2 style combat (so, Larian or Blizzard I guess...tbh I haven't seen many ARP Gs with genuinely amazing combat). Alternatively if it's an ARPG as in a more FPS/RPG hybrid then Eidos Montreal seems to be doing a good job with DXHR (minus cover + leaning anyway) and then the Ion Storm who worked on the original DX can do the map design.

If it's a more traditional turn based rpg then I guess Jagged Alliance devs although I haven't played any JA games yet but I hear they have the best turn based strategy combat.

Finally a good publisher who won't screw people over with stupidly intrusive DRM and won't screw the devs over by pushing for rushed deadlines and the like (I'm looking at you Lucas Arts/Sega). I guess that'd be whoever published Witcher 2 (CD Projekt themselves?)

Or perhaps Valve, I can bear Steam and they have some of the best QA testing and they clearly aren't in a rush to get games out.

edited 4th Aug '11 4:40:41 AM by ShadowScythe

I know that they didn't actually hate it, but it comes across as this to me.

That's not to say that I have given up Obsidian completely. New Vegas is good and my main beef with Alpha Protocol is the gameplay, which too much shows that they never made an action game before, not the story.

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Only in Poland.

In the US they got screwed by Atari (comparivily mild, but the translation job was wow..., at least they allowed the enhanced edition), then Namco Bandai (demanded DRM that mad the game lag horibly)

The best choice now would be digital distribution.

edited 4th Aug '11 4:40:02 AM by deuxhero

^Oh yeah I forgot about Namco suing them for whatever reason...yeesh, it'll have to be Valve then.

Bioware and Troika for worldbuilding...

Obsidian and CD Projekt RED (Witcher) to do the storywriting...

Bethesda, Rockstar, and GSC Game World (STALKER) for world / sandbox programming...

Piranha Bytes (Gothic, Risen) and Sting Entertainment (Dept Heaven) to design game / combat system...

Looking Glass and Ion Storm Austin for some special / specific gameplay design...

Valve for overall programming and mod tool development and integration...

edited 4th Aug '11 4:57:58 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

ohgodnoohgodnoOHGODNO

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Eh, while Gothic's combat was OK (and one of the few action RP Gs to make you completely and utterly screwed without player AND character skills), it often wound up very gamey.

I'd take Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 stuff anyday.

^^ What? I rather like Risen (although combat's hard as hell)...

edited 4th Aug '11 4:49:21 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

Eh, Risen was the easiest PB game to cheese the combat of by a long way.

edited 4th Aug '11 4:53:26 AM by deuxhero

I can't talk about Risen, but Gothic felt as if it actively tried to prevent me to win a battle. As in, not the game world and the dangers were fighting against me, but the controls.

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Gothic 1 I can understand, but G2 fixes that.

Cheesing combat in G1 or G2 always required you use up something (scrolls, arrows). Risen doesn't.

edited 4th Aug '11 4:54:48 AM by deuxhero

Yeah, that one is better, but not by much. It was at least tolerable, though. Although it seemed that the creators actually didn't want to fix this.

edited 4th Aug '11 4:56:11 AM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.