I've been thinking about what would be the ultimate game for me. That means the one that has everything a person wants in a game. Gotta say nearly each and every aspect of a good game is already present somewhere.
- First of all, the character development; There has to be something happening to your character, just like in real life you learn new stuff and such.
- Then we'd need an open world. You could go everywhere if you wanted. Needless to say getting from Europe to America without any means of transportation would be nearly impossible, but you should be allowed to try it if you wanted, just like in real life.
- The encounter system: I'm not saying fighting although it's present in nearly every game. There has to be some confrontation, be it either wrestling, a gun fight or even a game of chess. Those three things pretty much define a good game. I'll go a bit deeper into each category.
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CHARACTER: You need to be able to define your character enough so that it feels like you're in the game yourself. Of course playing a pre-defined character is nice it rarely creates a feeling of being there. This is why I need a character editor that would let me play a char just like me. I rarely create my own alter ego, but if the game allows that then it's enough.
Fallout series for example has a nice character creation process. You can define your abilities pretty much the way you want and also pick some special talents and some skills you are really good at. Also The Elder Scrolls series has nice character creation. Especially was it Daggerfall or Morrowind where you could answer the questions and that would define your character without having to roll any numbers. Same kind of character creation system was used in Ultima series. ADOM and Incursion (ASCII RPG's for those who don't know the games) have brilliant character creation system too. Editing the looks of the character is a nice thing to have but not overly important. Many games have done it in different ways.
Then to character development; It doesn't matter that much if your skills grow by gaining levels (like most games) or by using the skills (Elder Scrolls), but even though in real life you get better by doing things I'd say in a game the leveling method would be better. In Elder Scrolls games and in Quest For Glory series you could jump or climb up and down a tree for an hour or two to increase your skills to maximum before doing anything else. That kind of thing ruins the game. In Oblivion (or was it Morrowind) it was cleverly avoided by giving player a skill multiplier at level up on the skills he/she had used.
More to my liking though, would be the leveling method like in Anarchy Online or Fallout in which you'd get a set amount of points to spend. That would reflect a training you have done but not necessarily as an activity on screen. You could have for example imagine throwing daggers during your free time and then spend the points on throwing weapons at level up. In Fallout your Intelligence defines the amount of skill points.
I'd like to see a system where each of your abilities would define some of your skill points. For example Intelligence would affect learning and computer usage and stuff while Agility would affect on things like running or climbing. In ADOM your skills with weapons increased according to amount of swings you did with the weapon. Higher level enemies would give a higher increase multiplier while too low level enemies wouldn't give anything. This way the skills would only increase while they were used in serious situations, not in a safe enviroment in your backyard. This would prevent the skill abuse I mentioned earlier.
Skill families are also an important factor. For example if you're really good with one handed slashing swords then you would have easier time learning two handed slashing swords skills. A good doctor would automatically be decent in some first-aid things. That's enough about character creation/development. I bet a perfect system has already been introduced but I've missed it. Fallout isn't far behind in that, it just requires more skills.
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WORLD: A big world is needed. People want to explore. Even if there's nothing there it doesn't mean you couldn't go there. In Final Fantasy series you could go nearly everywhere, even though the place would mean certain death. With a great danger there's great treasure. If you could tackle the opposition in this harder place you'd get better rewards.
There's nothing wrong in having a let's say lv20 place right next to starting village. People in the village could tell you not to go into that forest and if you still went there and died it would be your own stupidity. This of course would create some problems with the story. In Fallout they tried to do that, but it created some inconsistencies. Not too severe to totally ruin the game though.
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ENCOUNTERS: Yet again I'm mentioning Fallout, in which the encounters were handled pretty nicely. If you were being rude to people then they could attack you and you'd be left to face the consequences. You could even kill the important quest givers and you wouldn't realize it before it's too late. Of course a game could give you a slight hint to save your game in different slot or that you feel you've done something really stupid, just so you'd realize your endgame might be "broken".
Also the fact that if you were a good enough speaker or had some special talents you could figure out a way to end confrontation without a fight. In Fallout unlike in many other games you would even get experience for doing so, making it a viable option for fighting your way through things.
Random encounters on world map are always a good thing, though in Final Fantasy series there were a bit too many. In Fallout it was possible to avoid those encounters by having good enough Outdoorsman skill.
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OTHER THINGS: While having multiple players in the same game (MMO's) would seem like a good idea and would create more content into the game I wouldn't want that. Let's admit it, regular players aren't the people you want to deal with. Just think of yourself in a game. Would you like to meet an NPC acting just like you? Those who have played MMO's know what I mean.
My ultimate game would be a single player experience. The setting doesn't matter much, fantasy is quite ok for me. Also post-nuclear setting like in Fallout is ok. Scifi is ok too if not too far fetched. Heck, today's world would be nice to have for a change.
As for the fighting system I really like the way Fallout and Baldur's Gates have done it. I'm not that big a fan of a real-time battles due to my lousy reflexes. I want to have time to think over my decisions.
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As a conclusion I gotta say Fallout 2 is pretty much an ideal game for me. More skills, more people, more places, more hours to play, less bugs and I'd be in heaven. The outdated graphics won't matter much. Just take the resolution one notch higher and I'm good. Too bad they went the Oblivion route with Fallout 3.
I will be editing and rewriting this blog a bit once I get new ideas over time. Refined and final version I think will never be done.