by AcetheSuperVillain » Fri Nov 17, 2017 6:03 am
Whelp, thought I'd try using the legit RPG Maker forum for advice, but they are complete douchebags. You know, kudos to Legend of Krystal for running a decent forum here, and thanks for indulging me and my ramblings.
I am going to repeat some non sexual stuff here now:
Thinking about a little world-building right now, I'm remembering an old space adventure campaign setting that I thought up ages ago for an all-human setting, I think it could work for anthros as well. There are several factions that are pretty shamelessly derived from popular space opera.
Star Patrol - A multi-planetary police/peace-keeping force similar to Star Trek's Federation and Star Fleet.
Imperium - A authoritarian empire, similar to Star Wars' Galactic Empire, it is fueled by propaganda, its soldiers and citizens believe wholeheartedly that only the Imperator is capable of ruling. They are possibly run by Genobles.
Corsortium - A merchant organization obsessed with wealth. Kinda like Star Trek's Ferengi Alliance, but a more serious satire of the dangers of unfettered capitalism. They are possibly run by Genobles.
Pirate Alliance - Space pirates with a code of ethics and loose organization. Possibly more of a privateer force, or a former privateer force that has spiraled out of control. Possibly like Outlaw Star's space pirates which are more like the Mafia.
Hunters Alliance - An organization of Bounty Hunters that organizes jobs and payment for its members.
Space Barbarians - A warrior culture with might-makes-right ethics. They believe that living by instinct is the true purpose of life. Kinda like Star Trek's Klingons, but more extreme.
Genobles - "Genetically Enhanced Nobility" A real-life fear of genetic enhancement is that only the wealthiest will be able to afford the best enhancements and then they will use their enhancements to grow more wealthy and use their wealth to prevent others from having what they have. This could either be a faction on its own or the ruling leaders of the Imperium or Consortium.
Academy of Exploration - Kind of like an old Victorian era scientific society, they are, on paper, purely interested in the pursuit of science, but internal rivalries and lack of concern for life can cause them to act cold heartedly and destructively. The Academy can also have some Mad Scientist type characters.
*Psionic Knighthood - A cross between Star Wars' Jedi Knights and Star Trek's Klingons, they have a very strict code of honor, which may seem barbaric to outsiders. Having psionic/jedi powers supposes the existense of "magic" which I'm not sure I want for this game. They might be combined with or replaced with Space Barbarians.
*Oblivion Order - A faction that is opposed to the Psionic Knighthood, like Star Wars' Sith.
*Swarm - A race of robots that have gone berzerk and try to take over the galaxy or kill all humans or whatever. Implies the existence of at least quasi-intelligent robots, which I'm not sure I want for this game.
Possible counter idea to either the Psionic Knights or the Swarm is an organization that specializes in cybernetic enhancements and augmentations. Possibly a little like Star Trek's Borg, but I never liked how the Borg is an invincible force of nature. They should have some sense of humanity and ability to negotiate.
To keep the work load low, you're probably not going to be able to officially join any of these organizations, but they might give you missions or you might fight against them at some points. Like Star Patrol might ask for help against an invasion of Space Barbarians or the Consortium might ask you to defend a shipping lane from Pirates.
There's also the thought of having homeworlds and racial empires, like the Foxoid Homeworld, Sharkoid Empire, etc, but I feel like this is more limiting. It'd be kinda like the Gym Leaders in Pokemon, if you're fighting the Sharkoid Empire and all the Sharkoids have a specific set of strengths and weaknesses, all you have to do is adjust your party and equipment and you can breeze through them. And storywise, if the Sharkoid Empire is the antagonist, then how do you get Sharkoid party members? So it might still be fun to find a Foxoid colony on the frontiers of space, or the Imperium might send a Sharkoid legion to attack a water world, but I think the major factions should be multi-racial.
While I'm at it, let me share my current lists of animals. I've actually got 2 lists, one which I felt was more generic, and then another which was more piratey, since another version of this game concept was pirates or space pirates. Since I'm not a traditional furry, I want to offer a selection of different animal types, so I settled on 3 mammals, 3 birds, 3 herps, 3 sea creatures. My rules for animals is that I want to use only wild animals, and only small animals, since I feel weird if something like a cat and a bear are the same size.
Generic List: Fox, Hare, Wildcat, Raven, Falcon, Swan, Lacerta, Tortoise, Tree Frog, Spurdog (a small shark), Squid, Lobster.
Piratey List: Raccoon, Monkey, Rat, Parrot, Seagull, Flamingo, Iguana, Sea Turtle, Tree Frog, Spurdog, Squid, Lobster.
I'm torn. On the one hand, part of my profit plan is to sell the character graphics on the side, so being generic with the characters should give people more of what they want, but I feel like the piratey animals are a little more fun. Although for mammals, ditching foxes, hares and cats seems like a mistake.
(This post is sort of a repeat, but there are a few new thoughts)
Another thing I've been thinking about is space battles vs away team battles. Having both was one of the features I really enjoyed about Star Trek Online. In STO, you have a party of about 4-5 people. On away missions (i.e. exploring an alien planet on foot, boarding another starship) your crew hangs around with you, a lot like a JRPG party. In Space Battles, your ship has bridge stations, and you can assign your crew to them to get different abilities. So for example, if a tactical officer might have abilities that charge phasers faster, while engineers can buff shields or engines.
Doing something like this in RPGMaker would be an interesting challenge. My first thought is that away missions use the side-view battle system while ship battles use the first person battle view. Your ship has 4 stations like Bridge, Guns, Engineering, Medical or Laser Turret, Torpedo Tubes, Command Center, Shields, etc, that are really RPGM Actors and each station can equip items, like weapons, shields and a character or two that mans the station and gives it some kind of stat boost or abilities to use.
The tricky thing is switching between the two systems. For equipping a party member to the station, it's simple enough to make an equipment item with the party member's name, but if you want the party member to gain experience for space battles, or if you want the character to gain new ship battle abilities by leveling up, I don't really know how to do that. Or if you want different names for the stats of people and stations, like if you want people to have Intelligence and Health and stations to have Shields and Hull. Very interested to hear any ideas on this.
I fear that even if I came up with a way to switch, it would be buggy or feel odd, so in the end it might be best to skip one of the battle systems or keep one of the two battle systems very very simple. There's a certain sense is skipping away the away team battles, since those require extra graphics (although I'm making the graphics with 3D, so it's less arduous than spriting). I would still like to have maps to explore, but the actual encounters could be resolved through text and skill checks instead of the RPG Maker combat system, akin to FTL or Into the Stars. Or something like that could be done for ship battles, the ships roll dice a few times, and if you win ship-to-ship combat, your away team boards the enemy ship to finish them off and loot it, or if you lose ship-to-ship, the enemy boards you and you fight them off of your own ship. Or I might be able to put together a simple ship-to-ship combat system using the menu selection dialog and some variables.
Also, I've been being introspective, and I think maybe part of why I keep losing interest in things is because I keep trying to do small projects so I can get something done quickly, but the small projects still have hang-ups and take a long time and I get frustrated working on something that's just a stepping stone to the kinds of huge crazy projects I really want to work on. So hopefully, going all in on a project like this is the boost that I need.