Eww, gross. Everything you just said is like the opposite of something you want. You want the game to be fun at the start.
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what makes a game good is the same as what makes a book good.
A, a decent plot. kill slime, get exp, level up, kill slime+1 does not a good game make, in and of it self. why do you kill slime? king randomdude tells you to, to save the princes, ect B, nice hooks. toy with the plot, do unexpected stuff. make interesting concepts that let the player feel the need to do whats asked C, interaction. let the player choose good or evil, let him have a role outside of "hero". PvP is always nice, but in the case of Mr-lvl-100, you need interesting ways of defeating him without waisting even more of your life than him, and without outright n00b tactics. gang warfare, guild wars, attacks that do damage based on the difference in level; all ideas. D, origonality and customization. do you level up at the set exp, or can you stay at level one and build thousands of exp, and get different skills accordingly? is everything cliche, or is it too new and unfamiliar so people are confused? give the person a sense of self; make it so they have every opportunity to make a character their own. color, skills, anything. E, dependency. allow for support from other players, so they can make a team. let certain types of characters get certain items, to develop an economy of sorts. inter player spell fusion and multi-techs were an awesome part of ChronoTrigger and Crystal Chronicles F, classics. dont be affraid to go back to your roots. you can put 10 levels with 25 different gun into some fancy 3-D deal and try something Halo, or you could pour hours upon hours of marrowind-caliber quests by simply stretching gameplay out onto an 8-bit Final Fantasy style world. be intricate, but dont try and be so complicated it'll confuse people. there is a reason cliche are what they are. G, lastly, replay value. sure, you beat the elite four and your arch rival; now what? go train for PvP; or catch Mewtwo? when you beat the final boss, do new quests open up; do new options become available? or do you start over from the beginning, with all your old super-powerful stuff as a munchkin? in my humble opinion, if you just go through and address these, you will have a "good" game. like i said, graphics arn't important; the good ol' 8-bit can create some nostalgia and attract an older generation that will keep your games n00b-free. just make sure their quality, dont throw blocks together and think you've got Mario. plot can be hard on MMORPGs because players come and go randomly, and we cant all be the hero; but setting up towns with barrons and mayors that send you on quests can be just what you need to provide a sense of purpose outside of being top dog. The important thing is to just take a step back and look around. see how your game is comming, see how everything runs together, compair it to other games, and make sure you have fun playing it. | |
I like lots of interesting features, any storyline at all (as long as it's present), and origanal sprites, even if they suck. I'm fairly easy to please.
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R34ct10n wrote:
What makes a popular game? And what makes a game average? Look on http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=23 It has all kinds of articles that pertain to game design. | |
Yeah, well if you strip everything from an RPG except "train" and "rest" and then once you get to level 100 or whatever the NPC says "CONGRATS YOU WIN!!" You can imagine that nobody would play it.
What keeps people playing Mystic Journey or any naruto/dbz/bleach/PvP game is the time that Mr.-lvl-100 comes into your noobie level area and slaughters you, and then you say to yourself "I need to get stronger! The next time I see Mr.-lvl-100 he'll crap his pants when I kill him!" And then you keep training
The part about disguising the formula is the fact that if you take a naruto game, change the names of the NPCs and the icons of the moves, then congrats, you just made ANOTHER naruto rip! The biggest fanbase you'll get is about 1/2 of the fanbase of the game you copied.
You need to make a game that's different in some way to attract a bigger fanbase