Wasted Brilliance

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The CRPG Question of the Day

I'm a huge console era RPG fan. Secret of Mana, EarthBound, Lunar, Chrono Trigger and of course the ever popular Final Fantasy series. The list goes on.

Not to bog this post down too much with details, but it has long been my dream to develop my own entry in the genre. A cinematic epic entrenched firmly in the gameplay standards of tile based maps, turn based combat, and sweeping storylines of good vs evil. While nothing much that's too impressive has actually resulted from this fanboy dream, it has provided me plenty of opportunity to hone my programmer and artist skills in a myriad of fashions over the years. And now, at this strange point in my life, I'm making another run at it.

Again during this process I find myself attempting to apply my current level of technological knowledge, and my other infatuations online by bringing my quest to the social media circle. Specifically in this case, by including my use of the popular aggregation and conversation site FriendFeed.

Yesterday I posted a tweet (expressly to have it imported to friendfeed) asking "A question for any Console RPG fans out there: How important is being able to name the playable characters to you?" and I got a lot of great responses, as well as a lot of interesting new people to follow who share my passion for console roleplaying games in some way. Today again I posted "Console RPG question of the day: What's your preferred party size? Chrono Trigger used three. EarthBound, BoF and most FFs used four. But FF4 had you use up to five." and again received a good many responses, including one for an idea that would be awesome to implement in a more focused game built specifically for the premise.

Since I think this idea definitely has some steam, I've decided to pose a new question to the FriendFeed crowd concerning CRPGs every day at about 11 to 12noon (US Pacific), to which I'll follow up throughout the day and onward. I think the responses are insightful, and all around good fun, and will undoubtedly help me make decisions regarding my own game as it is developed. After a few weeks of this (depending on how long I can keep coming up with good questions, and how long interest remains) I hope to do a new blog post outlining things I've learned over the course of the whole thing and how they've influenced my design process.

Hope to see you all in the CRPG Question of the Day comments!


The Question List:

1. How important is being able to name the playable characters to you?
2. What's your preferred party size? Chrono Trigger used three. EarthBound, BoF and most FFs used four. But FF4 had you use up to five.
3. How do you feel about losing a character permanently? Shadow of FF6 could be left behind if you didn't wait for him, Luna of Lunar ended up the villain, and who can forget Aeris. Should that never happen, or is it ok as long as the plot requires it?
4. What's your favorite setting? High Fantasy, transitional fantasy/low tech, high tech with magic or just plain high tech, modern life or historical? Feel free to add your own, quantify this list, or cite examples.
5. What traits make for the best villain?
6. What traits make for the best playable characters?
7. Do twitch mechanics have a place in menu driven RPGs?
8. What plot device do you dislike most or feel is most cliched?
9. How do you feel about random battles?
10. How many playable characters do you expect? At least? At most?
11. What is your favorite type of world map?
12. How do you like your exposition? Something up front describing the current situation, or do you prefer to get tossed in the middle of it all and find your own way?
13. Is re-playability important for an RPG, or are you content to have experienced the story once?

Labels: gaming, rpgs, social media