RPG Creator

[kasain 3]

Well, I myself have always enjoyed video games. RPGS are some of my favorite games.  Saying that, when I grew up in the 2000's and played Blue mage in FFXI, I found a job I liked playing.  Sadly no offline rpg really has a blue mage, or if they do anything more then a side.  So I have been working on a script or story per say, but I don't know anything about programming.  I am much better at making money.

 

So I thought I would try to get a ballpark on how much a rpg game would take to make and perhaps hire one or two people.  I can always share a more detailed script of my game to potential contractors.  But basically a world full of magic had it removed overnight.  Thus most magic users and tech vanished.  This caused hardship on the world.  But a few people found that through the animals, due to them living off the land they had abilities that could be learned and used as magic, hence blue mage was born. 

 

The story follows one to three toons and there quest across the world learning magic and helping people along the way.  And in the end deciding if magic is good for the world or if it is better off without.     

[That One NPC 137]

Project budget estimates will vary depending on the project. Each team member will have a price. Going commercial you'll probably need a composer to make sure your music is original and created for your game specifically. The composers price may be a negotiation, so there's factors to work into that figure. If you're planning to release commercially - and if you're hiring bodies, I assume you are - it may be a good idea to look into paid resource packs around steam and RPG Maker sites, if you're using RPG Maker. Resources are important, unless you want to comb through the free stuff. if you find any packs you know want and can use for your game, factor those prices into the budget.

 

Other site members may have a better estimate on the cost of the average indie project.

 

There are some games I can direct you toward that have blue mages job classes, or characters that are blue mages.

 

Final Fantasy 5: Blue Mage Job

Final Fantasy 6: Character Strago uses Blue Magic

Final Fantasy Tactics: Blue Mage Job

Final Fantasy 8: Character Questis uses Blue Magic

Final Fantasy 9: Character Quina uses Blue Magic

Final Fantasy 10: Character Kimahri uses Blue Magic

 

These are some other games you can play for more inspiration, as 5-8 had the best story lines and characters of the entire franchise. 5 was the birth of the blue mage. The best part about V and Tactics is with the job system, anyone can learn blue magic and keep it on hand even when they switch jobs.

 

 

 

 

[PhoenixSoul 937]

(Noting VII has an Enemy Skill Materia which replicates the Blue Mage/Syne Sorcerel class, though the number of useful skills is a little dull...)
(pretty sure III has a Blue Mage class too...)

I can pretty much second that resources are going to be the bread and butter of your project, no matter the engine.

 

[Kayzee 2,993]

10 hours ago, That One NPC said:

There are some games I can direct you toward that have blue mages job classes, or characters that are blue mages.

 

Acccctuuuuly *gets on nerd glasses* The original Final Fantasy Tactics didn't have a blue mage job, only the sequels. Also, you forgot the Enemy Skill materia in Final Final Fantasy 7, but okay I guess it's never actually called blue magic in that game.

 

Also, 5-8? Wait... You... You actually like FF8's story?!? The same FF8 that had a sudden revelation about all the characters growing up in the same orphanage and then forgetting about it because GFs ate their memories? The same FF8 staring a dippy emo Gary Stu who gets girls throwing themselves at him while he is like 'whatever'? That FF8? I thought I knew you man... I thought I knew you!

 

... Hehe just messing with ya, honestly FF8 has it's hokey moments but don't they all?

[That One NPC 137]

Yeah, 7's was a complete failure. I hate materia, period.

 

 

Oh and yeah, parts of 8's story fall apart, but I loved aspects of the overall plot. The concepts to do with time, the gardens, and it was a really good coming of age FF...as good as you can do FF with a coming of age story...lol.

 

But the raw gameplay picked up the slack and carried it. Sandbox job system based from your summons. Just golden.

Edited December 2 by That One NPC

[PhoenixSoul 937]

13 hours ago, That One NPC said:

Yeah, 7's was a complete failure. I hate materia, period.

Materia was something that had far more potential than it was given, but I can definitely see why you're not a fan, lol

 

[Kayzee 2,993]

Let's not get into it here. Huge nerds like us will just end up arguing about it for days. XD

[That One NPC 137]

Nonsense, there's nothing else to do or talk about.

 

Materia was a really bad evolution of the job system. It was nonsensical, disjointed, awkward at the very best of times, and quickly becomes a quest to master every materia on every character, because you've got to something with them, and they keep cloning themselves, so why not put virtually everything on everyone??

 

And that was the main issue. With materia, any classing, job or ability customization lost all meaning, period (with some personal exceptions bound to pop up).

 

It was not a good idea, nor was it executed well. The GF system fixed this and actually did it properly. GFs developed a bond with characters, and nothing was taught directly to the character. You could customize you actual GFs abilities, and you could put some strategy into how you distributed and used them, without being able to just say, "Everything for everyone, because it's inevitable! Muahahahaha!!!!"

 

I much rather being presented with limited options I can use to build unique character classes that don't become a redundancy. Say what you want about the Junction system they threw in, but GFs were materia done properly.

Edited Saturday at 10:40 PM by That One NPC

[Kayzee 2,993]

Not sure if it's fair to clutter up someone's introduction thread with nerd arguments... ...But so tempting... Argh! Okay fine. I will give you one nerd argument reply. Just one.

 

I for one like the materia system. Was it perfect? No, not really. I hear what you are saying about it's problems, but really it comes down to one glaring flaw in an otherwise pretty awesome system. Would it make be perfect without the flaw? Still no, but by far the number one complaint I hear about materia is how it invalidates individual character progression, and okay, I'll give you that one. The thing is though is that can be fixed with one simple change: Instead of the materia it's self gaining AP and leveling up, use AP to level up the character's affinity for that kind of materia. Really, that's all you need to do to allow characters to have their own unique builds while preserving everything else about the system.

 

And is there anything worth preserving? Hell yeah there is. If the materia system was only used to gain spells/abilities and nothing else, then yeah I wouldn't see the point. But it's not. The cool thing about materia is that they can be equipped and chain them together in interesting ways. Adding effects and elemental attributes to weapons and armor, adding draining or an extra attack or the ability to steal stuff to other magic/abilities, stuff like that. That's what makes the materia system so unique and interesting to me, not it being yet another way to learn abilities. If getting abilities were all I cared about, honestly I don't see that much difference between the job system, magicite, and GFs (Junction system notwithstanding, that's it's own kettle of worms) except for being slightly different ways of packaging the abilities together. Materia though had the potential (as underutilized as it may have been in FF7) for whole new aspects of customization beyond that though.

 

Also, as a side note I like the way materia is connected to the lore of FF7. Of course the job system in FF5, magicite in FF6, and (I think, been a while) GFs of FF8 were also connected to the lore pretty well, so not saying materia are special there. Just saying it's hard to imagine FF7 without at least some form of materia.

 

There, that's my case. I am going to try and not clutter things up beyond this.

Edited Sunday at 01:19 AM by Kayzee

[That One NPC 137]

This isn't an introduction thread... It's an inquiry to the community in the Recruitment section.

 

Any activity is good activity?

 

Again, pretty much every last thing about materia is fundamentally flawed and broken. The only plus it has is total control over character abilities, which again, is also one of its major flaws.

[kasain 3]

Well I can;t say I got much info on rpg maker or advice on cost, game or hire.  but hey, I did see that this website and forum is not dead and got to know a few of you.  I am not trying to make the next blockbuster but rather a fun game.  And some games you listed above are not rpg maker games.  Though maybe with my idea I will be better suited for a different game creation or engine.   

 

I won't post must of my story context here, or game but give a short idea what I want to make.

 

 

The world of Phap Su “means mage in Vietnamese” was a highly developed magic world.

One day a ship enters Phap Su’s orbit and descends on the planet shortly after.  On this ship a lone man exits and plants a relic into the ground itself.  This device delves down to the core of the planet itself.  Within minutes this contraption “drains all the mana” from the planet.  The man states his name is Mazar, and he has come to take the mana force to help him with an ongoing battle elsewhere.  In addition, he states, many worlds have become to reliant on magic, some even destroyed over it, hence he hopes his actions will preserve this world.  With that, he gets back on his ship and leaves the orbit and solar system. 

 

While the worlds mana dried up and made magic all but useless, the wanderer Mazar did not, or perhaps did know that some magic still existed.  In this case he drained the mana, from the land, but animals had been living off the land for centuries and their life skills and abilities were magic based.   

 

The story will follow one main and two side protagonist players. How they accidentally stumble upon blue magic, learn it from mobs. On occasion use it to solve a person or towns problem.  In addition, try to bring stability to the world again, and ultimately make a decision at the end of the game to decide the planets fate.

 

.  This is one story of learning a blue spell and the quest that one of the soon to be mages will take.  

Rand will visit a town and the town informs him bad weather has happened and a supply cargo with supplies and people is trapped on a steep mountain with no way down.  In the old days they would use magic to make strong silk ropes.  But due to no mana, and at the current silk gathering from normal spiders it would take 100 years to gather enough resources to reach the people to help.

In this quest, Rand will go in a cave or forest and learn the spell from the Queen spider.  This quest is important though, as Rand will learn the spell but kill the queen.  An older townsman tells him, thanks for helping us out, but what will happen next time?  You know the spell and can help us, but you won’t always be here and you killed the monster that can generate the most silk for us.  In addition, no one else can learn this spell now that the monster is dead.  So, Rand does see the conflict his magic and spells can cost.  He asks someone for help.  They give him a device that if used on a mob will give him a timer to learn the spell and win the fight, but not kill the monster.

 

 

Rand and the other other two toons will have a growth story, mob spell hunting.  I have seen s a few good rpgs off rpg maker funded on kickstarter, though thats not my plan as i backed them and played them, But seeing others bring their idea or story to life encouraged me to try. 

 

I am not trying to be the next Final Fantasy mega game, but rather make fun game with a good story. 

 

 

[That One NPC 137]

5 hours ago, kasain said:

I am not trying to be the next Final Fantasy mega game, but rather make fun game with a good story. 

 

I get what you're saying, I really do, but toss that out the window. Love what you're doing, beleive in what you're doing, and swing for those fences. If you just try to make some fun game with a good story, that's what it will be. Some fun game with a good enough story.

 

If you don't look at a game concept and think to yourself, "this is something special and people are going to love it," I don't recommend investing money in it. How you feel about this game, how invested YOU are in it, will bleed through every last aspect of the game, and that energy is what fuels your players.

 

You have to sell your concepts as the next Final Fantasy. 

[Kayzee 2,993]

4 hours ago, That One NPC said:

 

I get what you're saying, I really do, but toss that out the window. Love what you're doing, beleive in what you're doing, and swing for those fences. If you just try to make some fun game with a good story, that's what it will be. Some fun game with a good enough story.

 

If you don't look at a game concept and think to yourself, "this is something special and people are going to love it," I don't recommend investing money in it. How you feel about this game, how invested YOU are in it, will bleed through every last aspect of the game, and that energy is what fuels your players.

 

You have to sell your concepts as the next Final Fantasy. 

 

I don't think it's always a matter of if you believe in what you're doing or not. Some people just don't want to make the next Final Fantasy. Some people rather make the next SaGa instead! Or maybe the next Dragon Quest? Next Earthbound? Or heck maybe the next Treasure of the Rudras or Live-A-Live or one of the other more obscure Japanese only RPGs that only super nerds like me have played!

 

Heck, the game I have been working on is a Mystery Dungeon-style roguelike. While I am often lazy at the best of times and find it hard to motivate myself to work on it a lot of the time, I still believe in the idea and the work I have done so far. I even think that when/if it's finally released that there are enough fans of that sort of game that it might gather a small fanbase. That would be great! Realistically though I don't expect it to be noticed that much even if I do finish it. Not because I wouldn't seriously try and make the best game I can, but simply because my game will be pretty niche.

 

That being said, I am also not really investing any money into my game at all and don't see myself doing so any time soon. I mean, unless you count the cost of RPG Maker it's self, but by the time I started really working on my game I have had RPG Maker for a few years already and I never really got it with any particular goal in mind. It was just on sale and I happened to kind of enjoy fiddling around in RPG Makers of the past. I always personally thought of the RPG Maker series as more toys then tools, and honestly I still kinda think that way. To me it's mostly about having fun and I kinda feel that's for the best.

 

Honestly though, you would be surprised how much you can do without needing any money at all! There is a lot of free stuff you can use out there after all if you look for it. Though I might think about hiring a good pixel artist someday to replace most or all of my sprites, that's something I will only really consider doing after the game is basically finished. If you ask me it makes a lot more sense to basically do everything you can with free tools/assets to finish at least a basic outline/prototype of the game before you even think of investing any money into it. Not all game ideas really work out the way you want, so it's better to know how well something will work before polishing it up.

[That One NPC 137]

Perhaps read my post again, it wasn't about being like FF. He used FF as an example so I did too.

 

You can't take things like that so litetally, how little

do you really think of me? No seriously...

 

The point of this thread was about game cost, so kasian is most likely planning to spend money.

 

 

How a game is made, the energy that goes into the process of development and creation can be felt by the (right) player. Make no mistake. If you force yourself to work, rushing and settling for enough, that shows.

 

All I'm saying is, give some serious thought to how you invest time amd money.

 

Edited 21 hours ago by That One NPC

[Kayzee 2,993]

Who's taking who literally? I wasn't implying you thought his game should literally be like FF. The point I was trying to get at was that not all games necessarily have mainstream appeal or are made for the same audience and that that's okay. All of my examples are less flashy and more niche then FF and have less of a following, but still great games in their own right. Or maybe even more broadly, that there is more then one measure for success. I don't disagree with you that serious thought should be put into how you invest time and money, I am just saying there are a lot of different ways to measure if that time and expense is worth it. You don't have to make it an all or nothing type of thing where you either go for broke and become the next big success story or go home.

 

I'm just saying, sometimes it's not about being popular or selling a concept, sometimes it's just creating something you want to create and you aren't worried so much about reception or cost.

Edited 19 hours ago by Kayzee

[That One NPC 137]

5 hours ago, Kayzee said:

Who's taking who literally? I wasn't implying you thought his game should literally be like FF.

 

 

You dedicated a paragraph to pointing out how FF shouldn't be the standard we have to strive toward, elaborating by throwing out some of my favorite games to sort of nudge me along toward your point. :P It seemed you literally wanted to point out that FF shouldn't be the golden standard.

 

5 hours ago, Kayzee said:

The point I was trying to get at was that not all games necessarily have mainstream appeal or are made for the same audience and that that's okay.

 

The point of this thread was the cost of a project, meaning money may be invested in the project. All I was saying was, if you plan to spend money, come up with the best idea you can, and try to hit that mainstream appeal.

 

Of course, it's entirely kasian's choice. As it is yours, and mine. I was just trying to give some friendly advice, and encourage everyone to treat their ideas as if they are special. People today often associate mainstream appeal with negativity, lack of quality, or being generic, uninspired, uninteresting crap. It's just as unfair to discredit  mainstream stuff as if it's somehow creatively inferior, as it is to not give indie stuff a chance because it's not mainstream.

 

I don't see streams, I see quality. As a developer who wants my art to reach as many people as possible, I do care about "success" as it's traditionally measured. It's fine if a only a few people play my game, but I would much rather thousands play it because the story was good enough, because it was fun enough. I want people to say, "You have to try this game, it has a really good story."

 

 

To me this is about more than making fun stuff for people to play. It's about giving back a bit of what my rpgs gave to me. Not only inspiration and entertainment. but a bit of education and wisdom. It's about telling stories that will impact people in a real way; the way my rpgs impacted me growing up. An rpg is not a game like Street Fighter or Mario is a game. An rpg  is a playable story. That's what it comes down to. 

[Kayzee 2,993]

3 hours ago, That One NPC said:

You dedicated a paragraph to pointing out how FF shouldn't be the standard we have to strive toward, elaborating by throwing out some of my favorite games to sort of nudge me along toward your point. :P It seemed you literally wanted to point out that FF shouldn't be the golden standard.

 

I wanted to point out that we shouldn't necessarily have a rigid set of golden standards in general, not that FF in particular is a bad one. I used some of your favorite games because I figured you would know what I am talking about.

 

3 hours ago, That One NPC said:

The point of this thread was the cost of a project, meaning money may be invested in the project. All I was saying was, if you plan to spend money, come up with the best idea you can, and try to hit that mainstream appeal.

 

... 

 

I'm just saying that you also shouldn't trap yourself into thinking that something with mainstream appeal is the only thing worth doing, especially if you really don't want to do something mainstream in the first place. People today often associate mainstream appeal with lack of quality because 'mainstream appeal' is often forced upon games by marketing gurus that really know nothing about games in response to crappy focus testing. There is nothing wrong with appealing to lots of people in general. Though really the idea of 'mainstream appeal' is pretty much an illusion if you ask me. Everything is a niche, it's just that some niches are bigger then others. But that's a whole other topic.

 

Point is, I don't think people should be afraid to make the type of game they want to make, even if it wouldn't sell as well or be as popular as some other type of game.

 

3 hours ago, That One NPC said:

To me this is about more than making fun stuff for people to play. It's about giving back a bit of what my rpgs gave to me. Not only inspiration and entertainment. but a bit of education and wisdom. It's about telling stories that will impact people in a real way; the way my rpgs impacted me growing up. An rpg is not a game like Street Fighter or Mario is a game. An rpg  is a playable story. That's what it comes down to. 

 

And I won't argue with that motivation. That's not a bad attitude to have all things considered! But it isn't the only motivation people have, and I think it's a mistake to say that there is one and only one point in doing anything.

 

Also: A 'playable story' sounds more like an Adventure game to me, or even a Visual Novel if your definition of 'playable' is somewhat loose. :P I have always been drawn more to the simulation side of GNS theory though. To me RPGs were always better at simulating a world then telling a story.

 

... Wait a moment... Didn't I not want to end up having a big argument Here? AHHH! NOOO! I ended up having a argument with you anyway! You tricked me! >_<

Edited 10 hours ago by Kayzee

[PhoenixSoul 937]

GIRLS!

 

Quit your bickering! You'll scare off the newbie...if they've not been scared off as is...lol


Anyway, I wish @kasain the best of luck. It's not ever easy, but it is fun, or well, it should be, because if you're not having fun in the process, you're gonna hate the end product later...

[That One NPC 137]

@PhoenixSoul If I'm made to feel as though I have to explain myself, you better believe I will. I'm not letting anyone dictate my narrative. Either understand what I'm saying, or don't speak to it at all.

Edited 7 hours ago by That One NPC

[Kayzee 2,993]

3 hours ago, That One NPC said:

@PhoenixSoul If I'm made to feel as though I have to explain myself, you better believe I will. I'm not letting anyone dictate my narrative. Either understand what I'm saying, or don't speak to it at all.

 

I pretty much feel the same way... But I also often feel like it's kind of a lost cause honestly. It often feels like the more I try to explain myself, the less anyone actually pays attention to what I am saying. Or that I am just bad at explaining things, that might be the case too.