Although I've already got one project currently in the works, an idea came to me the other day for an RMXP project. As far as I know/have seen, no one has made a game quite like the one I have in mind. I don't think I could pull this one off on my own,
but I am positive it can be done, done well, and possibly with no custom scripting (thought if it does it won't be too much of a problem.) So, here are the basics for the projects, and below that the help I would need to make this work.
Concept: You are the captain of your own starship. You choose your name, sex, ships' name, and possibly uniform and so on. The idea is to create a game that gives the player total control of what they do. While there would be some structure to progress certain key elements as far as a story goes, most of what the player does is up to the player. Take the jobs you want, forget the ones you don't. You can do both illeagal and legal jobs, while the legal ones are safer since you don't have to worry about run-ins with the authorities, the illeagal ones will offer a higher payout.
Story: As I mentioned above, there is no "story" in the conventional sense. That doesn't mean that there won't be any story, but by players making their own adventures they develop their own relationship with their crew. Some will end up being heroes to the galaxy, while other will become powerfull and reviled crime lords. See Mission Structure for more details.
Gameplay: The player will be able to explore many different planets (I'm aiming for at least 20-25), their own ship, and space stations (aiming for at least 5, up to 10). Space stations will be where jobs are excepted, either from the authorities or from criminals. This is also where parts for ships can be purchased and attached, as well as many other items.
Instead of normal leveling to increase a players attributes, items and equipment will be used. I believe this will add a different kind of depth to the game if it is implemented correctly. The legal ways of raising stats will be through training classes and similar ways of paying for somone to teach your characters, while dealing with the black market dealers will offer implants and drugs to artificially beef up your characters.
While EXP will not be in the game, REP -or Reputation Points- will. REP will increase your Reputation Level. This will not make the characters stronger, but instead will unlock new opportunities and jobs that the player can accept to earn more money.
At this point, I would like to keep ground battles in the classic battle mode that is standard with RMXP, but I would like to change the damage formulas. I would like to change it so that the only stat used when the normal Attack option is used is strength (agility will be used for defense), as this will have the character use their fists. SP will become AP, or ammo points and Skills will become Weapons. Each character can equip one weapon and the only stat that will be used to calculate damage with weapons will be dexterity (intelligence will be used for defense against weapons). Handguns will use 1 AP to fire, while weapons like rocket launchers will use about 35 AP with a characters normal MAX AP being about 100. Of course there will also be weapons that can be used from the item menu, like grenades for example.
Space battles will be one-on-one bouts against other ships. Instead of the default battle system, a new custom system will be created that takes place on a map. Up to three weapons can be equiped on your ship, and they will change in appearance based on what is equipped, i.e., if you change a turret to a missile launcher in slot 1, slot 1 on your ship will change to a missle launcher. The space battles will be turn based.
Mission Structure: The current goal is to have five difficulty levels of missions, with five random missions that can be assigned via a criminal or authority on a certain space station, one unique mission to advance to each REP level/mission difficulty, and one local mission that can be found on each planet. That comes up to about 50 missions that can be accomplished by the player, some of them requiring difficult moral choices. Example: You are given a job to rob a transport vehicle and bring the goods to Planet A for Crime Boss A. Then you find out that the goods you snagged was desperately needed medicine for the people on Planet B. Do you give Crime Boss A the goods and get a hefty sum, or do the right thing and give it back to the people who need it for next to nothing? Either way you earn REP, but you might also have to deal with a very upset crime syndicate who wants nothing more than to take you out for intentionally failing the job.
I'm 99.99% positive I can make all the mechanics for the game and battle system work out like I intend them too, but what I would really need help with would be the visuals. I would need new tilesets, characters, images of the ships and things like that. I believe I could make the animations without too much difficulty, but I may need those as well. Also, I'm going to need help coming up with ideas for 50+ missions. I would like to keep them from becoming too repetitive, but I also have some ideas to keep even the similar ones from being too predictable.
That's pretty much the basics. If anyone is interested at all or has any questions, let me know. Like I said, I already have one project in the works, but I'm willing to put it on hold if I can get enough people excited about this one. I really think that if we got this thing up and running, that it could very well be one of, if not the most, impressive RMXP game out there, not too mention extremely fun to play. Let me know what you think! :D
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