What do you like in a game maker?

[DragonBlaze]

So lots of you have used various versions of RPG Maker or other game makers. What makes you choose one maker over another? Are there any features you need to have or things you find really annoying to use?

Reason I'm asking is because I'm making an MMO game maker of sorts and I'm thinking of the best way to make the editor dead simple while still having the important features, and I feel like you all are the experts here

[Prpl_Mage]

First of all the graphics and animations should be easy to make. Like in rpgm2k3 where you only have to import a file and everything is solved. No need to code every enemy's walking sprite for each direction and such.
A way to check variables easily, to keep track of them of course.
Item management with everything you need
Some premade material, like in rpgm2k3 where you have some heroes, skills, status, items made already to help out the beginners.
A way to change the menu a bit more than in rpgm2k3, it looks kinda terrible.
Easy to make quests and shops and such, if they can be made quite easily then people might use them.
A simple map editor easy to use but still leaving room for more complex designs if desirable.

[Kilyle]

I know with certain editors, I've gotten into them, tried a few buttons, and then left, because I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to do it.  Even on some highly recommended versatile engines.  So examples of stuff is definitely a must.  Having good tutorials is also important -- in both video and text-with-screenshot form, so people like me who want to skim for details can get the info they need fast, while those who want to step-by-step it can watch exactly what is being done.

There should be a set of resources included that make it possible to make a full game without designing a single resource yourself, and ideally the terms and conditions would be set up that anyone with a legitimate copy of the engine can make use of these resources to make a regular game for the public, and be able to charge a fee or get advertising revenue (because server hosting isn't cost-free).  Being clear and chain-free with your EULA is one way to avoid turning away part of your userbase.

As I'm getting older, with less tolerance for time-wasting details, I'm appreciating the kind of user-friendliness that allows me to repeat actions with only a couple clicks, instead of having to open a multi-click menu to perform the same operation I just did.  Like trying to change colors on something, or to format it differently, or flip it upside-down, whatever, it should be possible to repeat the same little stack of options I just did, but on a new object, and I should be able to select multiple objects and manipulate them as a group.

There's a certain amount of functionality that should be accomplished within the program, even if there are other, better programs for doing those things.  Like, if I find out that my texture has a stray pixel on it, it'd be nice to be able to edit it right then and then, and just paint or erase the pixel, instead of having to hop into GIMP to do that.  But it depends how big you're going as to how much of this sort of thing you'd want to include.  But being able to edit things fast and see the changes in the larger scope you're working in, rather than pausing workflow to run off and fix a thing, that's important.  (I've lately been unable to find a program that lets me create a tiled background in real-time.  Everything I've tried wants me to guess at the seams, then do a process to check the seams, conclude they don't work, go back into guesswork mode, and repeat.  I want a program that throws up 9 copies of the same image, thus demonstrating the seams, and lets me paint normally but in a way that affects the main image and thus all 9 copies at once.  The guesswork-and-check process is intensely irritating and time-consuming.)

Being able to establish a database is important, and it should be easy to move database objects between projects, or, my preference, have a master database and be able to specify a subset database for each project.  Or at least, allow the user to specify a master database from which they can draw the subset, so for example I might have a Cartoony master database for all my cartoony projects and a Gritty master database for all my gritty realism projects.  Then I could easily swap out characters I'd already created, set pieces for the environment, numbers for the character classes, items the players could get, etc.

The subset thing is important for me given the way my brain tackles projects.  It is difficult for me to wrap my head around projects when there are too many things in the list.  I like being able to make folders and close them, and I also like being able to see only a subset of the material I'm using, like all the NPCs, or all the NPCs who are of the cat race, or things like that.  I need to be able to sort them in a way that makes sense to me, and not have too many things all at once.  (I don't think I'd do this with an MMO generator, but in college I'd get to the point where something on the computer was just too much data to wrap my head around, so I'd print it all up and lay the pages out in front of me on the ground, so I could visualize how it all worked together, and get them placed in my head correctly.)

I'd suggest you look into Extra Credits' episodes on MMORPGs, most notably the Quest Design ones.  Make sure that your system is set up to account for a variety of quest possibilities.  You might look at the styles offered by Hardcore Quest Mode (HQM), a Minecraft mod, which has a neat variety of variables that the game can check for, including that you've killed so many monsters, gathered the right kind of items (and either turn them in or just have them in your inventory), are in the right place, have completed the right prerequisite tasks, and so on.

Additionally, go to TV Tropes and look up "So You Want To/Write a Minor MMORPG" (I started this page and a few like it).  It's got a fair amount of detail about considerations when making a game, and the sort of compromises you need when you don't have the budget or resources to make a major MMORPG.  Hope it gives you some good ideas.

Good luck!

[DragonBlaze]

Thanks for the input!

So the maker I'm making is just as much as an actual game as an editor/maker. In the initial phase it will basically be a sandbox, there will be a single world where everyone is both a player and a maker. As you're playing, you can create new areas, quests, etc for areas that you have access to. All creations will immediately be visible to other players since the game and maker will be running in a browser with webGL, so no one will have to download updates (or anything for that matter). In terms of resources, players can create new content such as items, enemies, skills, graphics, and possibly their own races. I do need to figure out a way to prevent players from creating god items, free xp, and free gold though. While possible to create private content that only the player can add to their own areas (still viewable by everyone), they will be encouraged to make content public by getting more points for the more people that use the content. There should be a wide variety of content to use when making your own areas unless you're one of the first people to use the system.

Phase 2 would be to allow other people to use the system to create private worlds/games outside of the main one. In these private worlds, the admin will have the ability to specify who (if any) other players have edit/creation rights, so they could have just themselves or a small team making the game vs having every player create content. Two possible models for this would be to have a subscription based model where I host their game on the same system as the main one, they would have access to all of the public content already created but could also create content only usable in their world. They would also get any updates to the system automatically. Another model would be to distribute the source code and require the person to host the system themselves. In this case they could sell their game, but they wouldn't be able to use the publicly created content by other players (I'm sure there will be legal issues with that).

First of all the graphics and animations should be easy to make. Like in rpgm2k3 where you only have to import a file and everything is solved. No need to code every enemy's walking sprite for each direction and such.
Easy to make quests and shops and such, if they can be made quite easily then people might use them.
A simple map editor easy to use but still leaving room for more complex designs if desirable.

Agreed. I was thinking about doing things in a similar way to rm2k3, but with a tad more flexibility. When creating a character, you can upload 3x4 (or maybe a 4x4) walking/running animations, but then you could also upload 1xN or 1x1 animations or static poses. Each animation/pose is labeled such as walking, running, victory pose, etc, and then in the editor, you just specify which pose you want to use for an NPC instead of selecting which sprites on a sprite sheet.

I think the map editor will be very similar to rm2k3, except not being limited to one tile set. I'll probably add more layers too, but adding N layers may make the browser cry.

Still need to figure out the best way to make custom quests and such...

I know with certain editors, I've gotten into them, tried a few buttons, and then left, because I had absolutely no idea what to do or how to do it.  Even on some highly recommended versatile engines.  So examples of stuff is definitely a must.  Having good tutorials is also important -- in both video and text-with-screenshot form, so people like me who want to skim for details can get the info they need fast, while those who want to step-by-step it can watch exactly what is being done.

The same thing has happened to me. I'm hoping to have a near seamless transition from playing to making, especially with things such as editing maps and adding npcs/enemies. I haven't decided the best way to do more advanced stuff yet..

I'm writing down your other comments, but I think most of them may be too advanced or time consuming to include in a v1.

[Kilyle]

In terms of resources, players can create new content such as items, enemies, skills, graphics, and possibly their own races. I do need to figure out a way to prevent players from creating god items, free xp, and free gold though.

...

Another model would be to distribute the source code and require the person to host the system themselves. In this case they could sell their game, but they wouldn't be able to use the publicly created content by other players (I'm sure there will be legal issues with that).

That's quite ambitious!  Definitely your biggest obstacle in the beginning will be staying aware of limitations and not biting off more than you can chew.  At this point I can DEFINITELY recommend that you spend a lot of time with the Extra Credits series, especially the episodes that discuss designing your first game (I don't have time to look up links right now, might do that later).

As for the player-created resources, you could set up your terms to reduce legal issues from borrowed content.  And you don't need to have the same terms for different types of content.  There's visuals, sounds, data (like classes and races), and quests/writing/narrative.  Perhaps one or more types of content are submitted in an open source format, freely copied by other users, while other types of content maintain copyright.  Or that submitting your content to the main/everybody server makes it free for anyone to copy, but submitting it to a private server doesn't let people freely copy it.  Or perhaps it's best if people can specify when they submit something if it's submitted on a free software basis or a copyright basis -- let users opt in or opt out as a base setting that applies to all their content.

...gotta go, will add to this message later.

Aaand I'm back!

So, the thing with designing objects that aren't god objects might be setting up a point-buy kind of system.  Have you ever played tabletops?  When you design a character, you get a certain number of rolls, or a certain number of points, whereby to buy things, and then you can add detrimental traits that grant you points to offset the penalty.  For example, my current character gets +1 Charisma checks during the day, but I bought that by getting -1 Save Throws when in darkness or dim light.  I didn't have to choose balancing thematic ones like that, but I like the symmetry.

For a more extreme example, check out Minmax from the Goblins comic, who traded in every possible thing he could for extra combat skills.  For example, he can't rhyme on purpose, can't read, and can't wink.

Consider designing a weapon.  You set it up as an Epic weapon, say, so the game will automatically make it occur only in monsters that can drop that kind of loot (say, minor bosses), and it has some basic stats and then you get 9 points to spend.  You can put all 9 into Bonus Damage, or put a couple into Spell Point Regen, maybe a couple in Critical Hit Chance, maybe go for Cleave so it also hits nearby enemies, or Splash Damage upon hit or the like.  Maybe you use a point to have it deal two types of damage (Slashing AND Bashing), or to have an elemental attack.  And you get two special effects with an Epic weapon, so maybe a colored glow and when you confirm a critical hit it gives off a fireworks effect.

Designing a monster: You set it up as a Wandering Mini-Boss, so it's got high stats but also some limitations such as kinda low aggro range, a specific walk pattern (maybe you get to choose one of three types of wandering), has to be seen from a distance (can't be invisible), etc.  And its loot is from a specific pool of loot, but you can give it a specific type of drop that's, say, either one Epic item or two (one less than Epic) items, and you can also balance its gold pool against the items it drops (a lot less gold but one more item, a lot more gold but one fewer item, etc.).  And you get a dozen points to add in to its stat pool, and a certain number of extra skills or attacks or specials it's got, maybe the ability to call in nearby birds to help attack.

If you're designing an area, maybe there's a limit on the number of monsters, the number of quests (that are exclusive to that area), the number of loot spawn points, gatherable resources, and so on.

If you set this system up well -- and you're not going to set it up well at first, just accept that and do a bunch of play-testing before release -- then being able to design a certain item will usually go over fine, with little in the way of overpowered stuff.  I hate to keep hitting the same point, but: Extra Credits.  They recently had a series on Power Curve, and how to balance randomness, which lasted about a month (four episodes, I think).  It was quite informative.


!! I just had the idea of having players who are playing the game run across loot items that are "make a new X" kind of items.  Which they could also auction.  Can you imagine getting an item that lets you design a new monster for the major castle in the area, or something like that?  Maybe also there's a certain type of drop where enough people have to come together with that drop (one per player) that they can all at that time work together on a new thing, like a new area.  So say 11 people get the "design a new area" scroll, and they all congregate at the town's Design Center, and get into this little chat room and design center, and get to vote on a few settings, such as which unexplored part of the continent they're designing, and then they kind of Wiki-process a bit of the description, vote on the terrain specifics and general feel of the place, the most common monster types, and so on -- basic settings.  And then they get to draw up a map for that area (connected by certain pathways to neighboring areas, and including new pathways for areas beyond), and place a few structures, set up names and so on.

Then they've got the basics together, and once they've finalized it, the call goes out through the kingdom that a new area has been discovered, and players with certain creation scrolls get a chance to run to town and add details to the new area.  Maybe some of them have Monster scrolls, others have Loot scrolls, others have Resource scrolls, and so on.  The new zone has a certain number of items that can be added, and once the roster is filled up, it becomes an official zone, and starts generating Map Scrolls whereby to find the nearby zones.  During the creation process, when a player uses a Creation Scroll, it reserves a little time for them to put together all the details, before opening the slot for someone else to use.

...note that if they're creating gatherable resources, there needs to be some parallel process for creating things that make use of the resources.  That's a more questionable thing.  But it should work a bit like Alchemy, that players can stick together two or more items and either create a thing that it makes, or have the game throw a semi-random item at that combo (Silverleaf and Goldenrod make... Power Potion!).  There should be some underlying structure that makes it not entirely random, or that allows only certain combos to work, like you can't get a Speed Potion without having Swiftroot in there, or whatever.  Or maybe it's easier and less expensive to make a simple thing (like turning sweets into healing) and harder and more expensive to make a more complex or weird thing (turning sweets into explosives).

...maybe resources shouldn't be customizable by players?  Could be that you have a set of resources and the things they can make, and the world spawns a set of resources across the different locations, so that when you're deciding where to put a new zone, you'd be like "But Gold is cheap right now, we don't need a mountain area, let's go for that swamp because Moorweed is so dang expensive and this'd be a new way to get it...."

And, the game's utilities should be set up such that players can easily make the visual and sound resources ahead of time, so that when the call is put out, they can have them ready to go, maybe already loaded in a player-specific set of resources they made, so they can instantly add them to the things they're creating.

This may not be the direction you want to go, but it was instantly interesting to me as an idea.  I know a long time ago, back when I played World of Warcraft regularly, I always thought it'd be neat to have a server where the players in some fashion created the landscape, a little like in Civilization where the player decides where the major cities are that later are the landscape on which the rest of the game is played.

So it could be that the game starts out with travelers/pilgrims coming to a new land and establishing a settlement on that one corner of an unknown world, and as the players explore the immediate area they get the stuff necessary to create the nearby areas, and after a certain amount of exploration has happened, the settlement gets a chance to be upgraded to a town, then a city, then a castle or kingdom, thus letting players repeatedly upgrade or uproot the existing area and make it cooler and have more stuff available.  Like, when you reach Town status, maybe then you have a Market, where before you only had a Trading Post, and you also now have a Blacksmith.  And when you reach City status, maybe you have a bunch of cosmetic features, and the people upgrading the area can choose whether to add a Potion Shop or an Enchanter or a Tinker, but can only choose one until more upgrade stuff has been earned by the players.  Bigger area, more cool stuff, but never all the cool stuff (unless you want the biggest expansion to include 100% of all the cool stuff).

I think this would be a lot of fun, if you could make it work.

[Fisherson]

First of all the graphics and animations should be easy to make. Like in rpgm2k3 where you only have to import a file and everything is solved. No need to code every enemy's walking sprite for each direction and such.

Or coding it to STOP walking and not embarrass you in front of your friends when it walks off the freakin screen. >O< OOoooH I hate Game Maker so much for that. When making a maker I think it's important to have built in instructions and plug in tutorials personally. I mean if it weren't for the help book recently when they changed all the terms in RPG maker I would have had a tempremental fit of rage. As it is the book cleared up some misunderstandings and lead to a working real-time weapon change system that allows for unique attack animations and an fully working ammo system once I get it educated in how bullets are spent and not to reload unless a physical copy exists in the player's items. Menu has to be a little re-arrangable. I think another valuable asset to any maker is a way to list notes where only you can see it. One f my favorite things in VX was leaving notes on characters to help me write their backstory without using my physical notebook. I know it's small but it really was  life saver and makes me miss that program. Another thing I liked about VX compared to 2003? Longer descriptions. Ughhhh I hope they make it so you can have two paragraphs in a item or skill description or at least ten or more letters in Elements and classes. @_@ Also just gotta say this: Icons. Seriously they pretty up the menu with both your skills and weapons and stuff! It's just amazing how cool they look if you mess with them. What'd be really cool is if you could animate them even with two or three frames. Seriously would just kick butt so hard! Okay gonna stop now.....must.....stop....people are only human. We can't use DB to make the ultimate maker with no interest in helping him...
.............Rats! Alright one more thing. If you had basic attack options one thing I'd love to see? Multiple attacks from multiple vectors with more options than RPG maker 2003's weapon range. Don't get me wrong it's fun but to tweak it to work to do like a convincing Omni Slash you'd have to use an huge battle animation with specefic timing AND you'd never get that multi-damage feel or effect. -  -; I mean all of us who played the game and used either Omni Slash, Renzokouken or even Zell and Tifa's limits to near on endlessly combo really would love to see even a slightly simular effect in a maker without resorting to making CBSes with huge shelves of code. @_@ Okay! Stopping now.

[Kilyle]

a way to list notes where only you can see it.

Hell yeah, notes!  One of the biggest blocks for me as a very unorganized writer is that I have tons of notes everywhere and if I take a hiatus from a project for any reason I forget where I put my notes (files or paperwork), no matter how reasonably I tried to organize them ahead of time.  Being able to have the notes right there in the project is a VITAL mechanic for reducing the amount of time spent trying to figure out what you were trying to do with that stuff.

With regard to icons, make sure that every icon has a tool tip text on hoverover.  I've encountered several programs that had weird icons where I didn't know what it did until I pressed it; this should never be the case in a modern program.  Also, you might consider having the tool tip text alter in some fashion if the program is in a state where that button isn't going to work -- such as if you need to create an object before you can add an instance of that object, so on hovering over or trying to press the instance button it might remind you to go make an object first.  That's not a great example but gives the idea.  If you need to make a new game before you can add a part of the game, have the program indicate that in a way that's obvious to new users but unobtrusive to experienced users.

That, or do like Game Maker where you can switch to newbie mode or experienced mode.  Because as an experienced user or gamer, I hate it whenever a game assumes I'm a moron, or reminds me of things I already know.  I prefer opt-in help, where you click something to get help, rather than opt-out, where you have to tell the computer that yes, you do know what you're doing.  Even tutorial sections, I think the game should give you some space to experiment with the controls before it assumes you need to be told to press space to jump... like, maybe if you get to a certain spot without having jumped at all, there could be a message there about jumping or about trying the space bar, but if you've already jumped a couple times the message isn't there.  Games should reserve tutorials for the bits that are distinct to that game, unless the game has reason to believe the player is a newbie at the genre.

As far as Fisherson's annoyance with GameMaker not having a guy stop walking when you let go of the controls... it's this feature that let me explain to my nephews that you need to tell the computer exactly what to do because it doesn't guess on its own.  On the other hand, it also means I have to code the walking stuff instead of using the drag-and-drop bits, or else I have to put "stop moving" under "no buttons" which means if you're still pressing Fire or something, it won't stop.  So yes, there should be a basic Default Controls kind of thing, like an option where you set which arrow keys are used (so you could do all four, or left-right only, or up-down only, or in some weirder games have other combinations) and that when no directional keys are pressed the character either stops immediately or glides to a stop.  But then, I don't know that that sort of utility is something useful to the program we're discussing.

[Zoltar]

Use of any size of sprite. One of the things I hate is having to use pictures when I a charaset that's humongous and my RPG 2003 can't use Dyn to break this anymore.    Also it'd be tubular if  you can have friendly fire in battle. My favorite thing about old Final Fantasy games was all the neat in battle strategies you can make using such a simple thing as targeting your allies. Multiple bars as an option. HP, MP and Time are great but I'd love it if you had some more options. Like in Drenrin2120's Opus how you had two MP types or in Final Fantasy 7 how the limit gauge filled up where you could see it. Also more ways to tweak those bars without using in battle code would be nice. More options with the Run system. Ohhh and more party formations that are wild and unusual. Like in Persona how you surrounded them. In game Templates to export!! Seriously not everyone knows where to find these.... Actually in game character Maker would just be gnarly! Although that would render us obsolete wouldn't it? 

[DragonBlaze]

That's quite ambitious!  Definitely your biggest obstacle in the beginning will be staying aware of limitations and not biting off more than you can chew.  At this point I can DEFINITELY recommend that you spend a lot of time with the Extra Credits series, especially the episodes that discuss designing your first game (I don't have time to look up links right now, might do that later).

And so much more content

Perhaps a bit ambitious, but in terms of game development I think it's cheating a bit and much easier than creating an actual MMO or game in general since players are the primary source of the content and I just provide an engine to enable them. I originally started this off as a 3D project and developed a large portion of the rendering engine that would load models and textures into a native browser, create scenes, move objects around, check collision, etc. I quickly realized that I was biting off more than I could chew. The current approach is the result of thinking through what I would need for a minimal viable product. To be honest I think the coding the editor itself should be fairly easy. My main concern is the core MMO stuff especially since all of the graphics and music will be streamed from a server. If I don't do that efficiently, the server (and my wallet) will cry.

I really like your ideas on designing content (And I watched several Extra Credits videos already). My initial thought would be that items will have minimum levels needed to use or equip them. That way if a player does create a god item, they can't actually use it until their level is high enough to equip it, and by that point hopefully it wouldn't be considered a god item anymore. Exp and enemies would work in a similar way where the max exp, gold, items, etc that an enemy gives is based off of their stats. It will also help balance game play between different areas created by different players.

I love the idea of the "make new x" types of items! Like if a party does something really epic such as beat the super tough beast wandering through the plains, they get the right to make a settlement there. Or even after achieving things, you get the ability to create higher level items or skills. I'm not too fond of not having players upload their own content or having to collect resources to build. There are a lot of great games that implement game play mechanics like this especially now that Minecraft is really popular. I think EverQuest Next/Landmark may use that system to build things, but I'm not too familiar with the game though.

Now I'm thinking how neat it would be to implement your city building idea. I'm planning on expanding the world out from a small number of base cities. As players build areas further and further out, inevitably some will create settlements. If a lot of players start going to a settlement, staying at an inn, buying items, etc, it can grow and expand until it has all of the features as one of the base cities plus custom features if the player creates them.

Balancing playing vs making will be very difficult. If making is restrictive, then people can't create the content they want to, but if making completely open, then it may lead to poor game play. Initially I think it'll remain mainly open, and if problem areas arise, they can be addressed.

Or coding it to STOP walking and not embarrass you in front of your friends when it walks off the freakin screen. >O< OOoooH I hate Game Maker so much for that. When making a maker I think it's important to have built in instructions and plug in tutorials personally. I mean if it weren't for the help book recently when they changed all the terms in RPG maker I would have had a tempremental fit of rage. As it is the book cleared up some misunderstandings and lead to a working real-time weapon change system that allows for unique attack animations and an fully working ammo system once I get it educated in how bullets are spent and not to reload unless a physical copy exists in the player's items. Menu has to be a little re-arrangable. I think another valuable asset to any maker is a way to list notes where only you can see it. One f my favorite things in VX was leaving notes on characters to help me write their backstory without using my physical notebook. I know it's small but it really was  life saver and makes me miss that program. Another thing I liked about VX compared to 2003? Longer descriptions. Ughhhh I hope they make it so you can have two paragraphs in a item or skill description or at least ten or more letters in Elements and classes. @_@ Also just gotta say this: Icons. Seriously they pretty up the menu with both your skills and weapons and stuff! It's just amazing how cool they look if you mess with them. What'd be really cool is if you could animate them even with two or three frames. Seriously would just kick butt so hard! Okay gonna stop now.....must.....stop....people are only human. We can't use DB to make the ultimate maker with no interest in helping him...
.............Rats! Alright one more thing. If you had basic attack options one thing I'd love to see? Multiple attacks from multiple vectors with more options than RPG maker 2003's weapon range. Don't get me wrong it's fun but to tweak it to work to do like a convincing Omni Slash you'd have to use an huge battle animation with specefic timing AND you'd never get that multi-damage feel or effect. -  -; I mean all of us who played the game and used either Omni Slash, Renzokouken or even Zell and Tifa's limits to near on endlessly combo really would love to see even a slightly simular effect in a maker without resorting to making CBSes with huge shelves of code. @_@ Okay! Stopping now.

First off, making an ultimate maker should be one of the goals :p And all ideas help. If there is an idea that is too complicated to implement at this point it's still nice to have the idea in mind so that I program the system in such a way that they can be added in the future without having to rewrite the system.

I've actually been thinking a lot about which type of battle system to use. Typically MMOs don't have turned based battle systems because it's harder to manage with a party, so originally I wanted to implement more of an ABS system. At the same time, there are some creative things I can do in a turn based system such as when a player initiates a battle, they go to another screen and are fighting the monster solo. On the main map, you say some graphic of the player and enemy in a fight, and other players can join in the fight by entering the battle from the main map. When they enter the fight, they show up with the other players in the fight. You could also do a pincer attack or something if the player enters the fight on the main map from the opposite direction. Of course makers could create an event that will initiate a fight with all players in a party/area.

And notes will be added! It would be nice for both playing and making. Now that I think about it, I wish games in general had this. When I play minecraft I have to write down the coordinates of all the cool stuff, then I throw out the paper and get lost. Adding notes is technically very easy to implement. Perhaps anywhere in the game (both playing and creating), there will be a hotkey you can press to bring up a notepad to just jot things down. There could also be a notes section where you can create folders and notes and organize things.

Use of any size of sprite. One of the things I hate is having to use pictures when I a charaset that's humongous and my RPG 2003 can't use Dyn to break this anymore.    Also it'd be tubular if  you can have friendly fire in battle. My favorite thing about old Final Fantasy games was all the neat in battle strategies you can make using such a simple thing as targeting your allies. Multiple bars as an option. HP, MP and Time are great but I'd love it if you had some more options. Like in Drenrin2120's Opus how you had two MP types or in Final Fantasy 7 how the limit gauge filled up where you could see it. Also more ways to tweak those bars without using in battle code would be nice. More options with the Run system. Ohhh and more party formations that are wild and unusual. Like in Persona how you surrounded them. In game Templates to export!! Seriously not everyone knows where to find these.... Actually in game character Maker would just be gnarly! Although that would render us obsolete wouldn't it? 

The resolution of the game would have to be fixed, but the sprites or resources can be any size. I hate trying to have large characters and then spanning them across multiple character sets! There will have to be some sort of size limit so that players aren't uploading 10mb images, but I don't imagine makers will run into this issue unless they do something extraordinarily crazy.

I'm a fan of having essentially drag and drop/point and click for creating areas, battles, etc, but it is very hard to have a point and click system make really flexible systems. I would probably take the approach of rmxp (and probably later rpg makers) where you can write actual scripts if you want to get really creative. The entire system is programmed in JavaScript, so I imagine allowing players to create a copy of the existing script that runs the battle system, they can modify it as much as they want, and then save it as a custom version they can use.

As for an in game character maker, I would pretty much have to make one at some point anyway :p Ideally the system would have a character generator for your player and eventually maybe have graphics for equipment you where. Initially I will probably just have several sprites to choose from, but at some point character customization will be a requirement. And if the system is there for player creation, there's no reason it can't be used for NPC creation.

[Prpl_Mage]

Guilds, make a guildsystem. Also, make most rewards only available to guilds rather than individual characters. At least if you are going to create an instance for each one winning those contests.

Database of monsters, chests and other map items. Obviously make this more like gamemaker than rpgm so players can just make a generic slime and then drag and drop them unto a map and they will all live in harmony and not share the same variables.

[DragonBlaze]

Guilds, make a guildsystem. Also, make most rewards only available to guilds rather than individual characters. At least if you are going to create an instance for each one winning those contests.

Database of monsters, chests and other map items. Obviously make this more like gamemaker than rpgm so players can just make a generic slime and then drag and drop them unto a map and they will all live in harmony and not share the same variables.

Guilds is a nice call out. It would be nice for areas to be controlled by a group/guild rather than an individual. In a system like this I would make sure there are different levels/classes in a guild so guilds can invite newbies without worrying about them messing up their creations. Creating a good guild system requires a lot of careful thought, so it may not be something I release initially, but I'll code access levels for areas in a way that supports guilds.

I've never used gamemaker, or rather I opened it up once, didn't understand, and then gave up. How does gamemaker handle the database? In gamemaker do you define what a slime is and give it default stats, but then when you create individual slimes you can customize the stats and what not?

What do you feel about dialogue in the database? Personally I like dialogue and most content in a central location vs in rpg maker where it's scattered through many events and very hard to find. I was thinking of creating a system similar to that used in an application called Android Studio. All of the text is stored in one central location, and you can add text to an individual screen instead, but when you do that, it will prompt you if you want to move the text to the centralized place and do the entire process for you. Basically I want to make a system where when the player starts making a conversation/dialogue, it will actually be stored in a central place instead of in the events. If you want to review or modify dialogue, you can do it all from a single place.

[Kilyle]

You're gonna need to think in terms of at minimum three basic states: What the first players who encounter the place get to do, what the people in the middle before it's become commonplace get to do, and what the later "ugh, just get through this, we've got better stuff to do" people do.

For example, The Deadmines were a major event in my gaming life, but to many players who are used to higher-level stuff it's more of a "just get through this" area.  When you talk about having the first group to beat an area get the right to make a settlement there, remember that this restricts the enjoyment of the original area to just the first group -- other groups will have a different area to use.  This might not be ideal.

You're going to want to be thinking on multiple levels of layout, as well.  The overall terrain setup, along the lines of Civilization, if you're going to let players choose new areas to open up and design -- I'm recalling at least a couple games that have used the mechanic of letting you stick new areas on the map in your own patterns (can't recall the name, though I can envision the large cartoony icons you dropped into new areas before you could explore them).  The more zoomed-in zone-by-zone setup, or maybe even a layer before that where you consider sets of zones as a unit.  And then individual parts of the zone.

Consider how it might be if you have factions -- and I recommend considering at least three (maybe even five) distinct factions, where each faction can set a policy toward the other two factions (war, neutral, allies).  The two-faction setup got boring for me, and I think having an odd number would be more dynamic.  So each faction gets to enter the board on a specific side, and decide which of these initial 3-5 zones becomes their settlement.  Then as the faction grows and spreads out, it has no idea where the other factions have already spread out to.  And eventually they discover each other when one side explores a zone the other has already laid claim to.  Then some new faction-based mechanics get to work, including trying to lay claim to resource-heavy spots before the other factions do.

The only thing about this sort of broad-scale faction play that would be insanely difficult to work out mechanically is that players are not going to choose factions in equal numbers.  So on some servers you'll have a lot of people in the Alpha faction, fewer people in the Beta faction, next to none in the Gamma faction.  This can have a self-reinforcing effect where lots of people join Alpha just because Alpha is big, and nobody new joins Gamma because Gamma is tiny.  You might want to have some rubber-banding effects that allow the smaller factions to benefit in some way that keeps them competitive with the larger factions... maybe even letting them spread out faster (higher drop rate for zone-building items?) or the like.  And you'd want to balance how the factions have combat and consider how (and whether) one faction can capture the location another faction has a foothold in.

(ETA: It occurs to me that rubber-banding could be more organic if you just based the number of required Creation Scrolls on a percentage of the existing faction population.  So like, if it takes 1%, then a faction with 1000 members needs to get 10 of the item to make use of it, whereas a smaller faction with just 200 members only needs 2 items to do the same thing.  Only you might also want to figure out the number of active members, vs. the number of actual members, because otherwise you might make it too difficult for a faction with a lot of actual members but not so many active members.  Not sure how you'd balance for that.)

With regard to dialog, I remember being really irritated when going to old games and finding I had to hunt through individual bits to find the speech -- there was no way to dump all the dialog and narrative description into a text file or document, or to print it out.  And these were pretty small games, so it's even worse as the games get big.  So yeah, provide a way to store the dialog, or at least look up the dialog, in a central location.  Maybe you set up a conversation tree in the Dialog Database, and refer to it by the name you gave it, so you tell the NPC to just use Dialog Tree "Merchant Trader Bismarck Alpha" or whatever.  That might be insanely useful.  Bonus in that when you're looking through the code, you're not paging through tons of text, just the specific code-related details instead.

With regard to notes, try to keep it Object-Oriented.  All the notes on an object should be stored within the object.  Also, to avoid losing lots of data, make sure that you take the Wiki route of storing old copies of things, and anything that got deleted -- use an out-game utility to look through deleted objects and decide whether you ought to delete them altogether or save them for later use.  Same with outdated copies, comparing them to the current versions.

Most items and enemies should be put into a common pool under certain headings.  And the game should reward players for filling out new entries for any category that "needs more love" (has few entries).  But like, instead of specifically saying that an area has this guy and that guy, say that it has Slimes or Vermin or Humanoids (specific baddie faction) or Birds or Undead or whatever, and it'll spawn randomly among the choices from that group and from the appropriate levels for that area (the further from home base, the higher the level).  Specific rarer monsters and items aren't a common pool like this, but the pool covers most monsters and items.

You know, maybe players can also create special abilities that work like a common pool as well.  Maybe they make a bunch of Undead abilities, a bunch of Slime abilities, and the like, where there are like three abilities per level, and the monsters when generated have the abilities for their specific level and a couple chosen from previous levels, or something.  This could make monster generation less predictable and more interesting.

[Prpl_Mage]

I've never used gamemaker, or rather I opened it up once, didn't understand, and then gave up. How does gamemaker handle the database? In gamemaker do you define what a slime is and give it default stats, but then when you create individual slimes you can customize the stats and what not?

You create all objects in the database and then you add them to the maps. So you create a slime with all it's coding and stuff, it's saved in the database. You want a room with 6 slimes, you drag them there. If you want a slime that drops a certain item, say a key, then you need to create a new object, or just copy the slime object and then change the "loot table" and add that one to the map. But each different object will be saved in a folder in the database.
So everything in the game is an object, whether it's a projectile, enemy, treasure chest or a npc

[desiderata]

In terms of resources, players can create new content such as items, enemies, skills, graphics, and possibly their own races. I do need to figure out a way to prevent players from creating god items, free xp, and free gold though. While possible to create private content that only the player can add to their own areas (still viewable by everyone), they will be encouraged to make content public by getting more points for the more people that use the content.

One thing to get around the free XP/gold problem might be to have these things auto-scale to how strong the user makes the creatures, so that they correspond to changes in stats, attacks, etc.  Having pre-made archetypes would be cool, as there are some enemies in games which are weird (if you've ever played Dragon Warrior, think of Metaly). Also, being able to set levels which scale stats for monsters might not be a bad idea.  As for god items... limits?  Or possibly detriments which also accrue as you add perks after so many have been added.

For in-game char maker, something like Charas.EX would be great.  That way, people can just make their own accessories/outfits based on different templates and then import them, modify them with RGB sliders and what have you.  I imagine you have something like a top-down view in mind, and that sort of system would work well for quick-edit and churning out a variety of NCPs.  If you're going for 3D or something else, I'm not sure.

Hope that helps.

[Zesher]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I have a lot to consider in terms of balancing and gameplay @.@ I'm hoping that as I'm developing, there will be a small group of loyal players, and I can use their experience to design the balancing and gameplay. Many years ago I had a similar project that was just text based, and the small community really helped shape the mechanics.

After researching what front end javascript frameworks would be ideal to code this in, I realized that I probably couldn't much from my previous project that used ThreeJS. Luckily the framework I'm leaning towards (createJS) seems to have a lot of build in functionality, so it should be easy to work with. I'm still evaluating if I want to tie in other frameworks, but I started creating the foundation and set up my github repo. I hate that I have to redo most of my work , but I guess it's a necessity since I want something that can handle 2D very well instead of 3D.

I'm not going to work on it anymore until I finish my chapter in the charas chain game, but then after that I hope to make steady (but perhaps slow) progress.