RPG Maker Development

[Darrellito]

Well, I just wanted to get some insight on how some other people make the plot for their games. I myself make the maps, then develop the story off of what I see. Anyone else do anything different?

[Shady Ultima]

I just start writing a plot, and the match the game. To me, stories are the most important thing, so...

[aboutasoandthis]

I usually find a theme or a message that I want to tell the player, and build on that.

Plus I watch movies with a similar theme and base it around them without comepletely stealing their ideas.

Somehow I managed to make a believeable Final Fantasy plot off of Syrania, Blood Daimond, and Hotel Rwanda. o_0

[ZeroKirbyX]

I come up with a small idea and build on it. Nuff said.

[Dominicy]

Originally posted by ZeroKirbyX
I come up with a small idea and build on it. Nuff said.

agreed.  point blank.

[Razor]

Even though I don't, if I did use RM2k/3,  I would come up with a nice story first, then work out stuff like maps afterwards.

Although it might result in an interesting game, I don't think that making maps first and making stories from those is a good idea.

[DragonBlaze]

Hmm, well my game started off of a contest entry which was just supposed to be a bunch of mini games, but then I decided to to model it into a prequal for my next game. The only thing I didn't change was the world map and the basic way places were, other than that, I remade everything.

I usually think of characters that I like first, find a story behind them, usually that story is a big story that'll be a big part of my game. Then I think of a larger theme that the hero's story leads into and relates with.

Other times I find a theme I like, and develope a story from that theme, and then develope the characters.

But yeah, my current game has two themes, my next one has three. By theme I mean like main point in the game, in FF7, they have two, they start with shinra, and end with a bigger problem, sepheroth. Or like Chrono Trigger, they start by saving a friend, but end up with saving the world.

So yeah, I think of the smaller theme first, develop it with a character (or visa versa), then devope the main theme from that, then remoddel the small theme to fit with the big theme. Sometime in there I add my characters.

[SaiKar]

After getting the initial idea, I usually develop the plot that is supposed to happen before the game, then work on the main characters, and roughly outline the key plot twists that I might want for the entire game. That's how I did CoD2 and many years later into production I'm remarkably close to the outline still, though there have been signifcant additions.

With Outpost though, I skipped all of that. Outpost essentially started as a coding experiment - I wanted to see if it was possible to construct a world using maps that fit together like a jigsaw in order to simulate hundreds of squares without hundreds of maps. The answer is yes, sort of. After that I started working on other major systems - time tracking with lighting, job changing, and some pretty intense variable referencing. Only after I was satisfied that things were working well enough to pursue the game did I come up the normal RPG stuff - heroes, a story, enemies, and the like. Unfortunately in my first release all of this was very week and was completely overshadowed by the powerful systems. :-/

[A Forgotten Legend]

If something justs pops into my head, I write it down and see if it works.  So far, few things have come close.
I had one project to get to 50% completion before I said, "...this isn't going to work."

At that point the game play was a bit over 5 hours.

[WarxePB]

I find that developing a plot is far easier once you have a world to work with. I have sort of detailed histories for two of my worlds, and that makes it easier to develop a series of games - on Shoruth alone, there's about 10 major events that I could conceivably make into games. And even if it's a standalone game, developing the world will make it seem more realistic - a world with actual history is far more engaging than one whose history is best described by "Ancients lived here, but they all died, and all that's left is their relics".

[Bluhman]

Originally posted by Warxe_PhoenixBlade
I find that developing a plot is far easier once you have a world to work with. I have sort of detailed histories for two of my worlds, and that makes it easier to develop a series of games - on Shoruth alone, there's about 10 major events that I could conceivably make into games. And even if it's a standalone game, developing the world will make it seem more realistic - a world with actual history is far more engaging than one whose history is best described by "Ancients lived here, but they all died, and all that's left is their relics".

That's the deal with my games. Almost. Wolf's gaze world was created with what I had to work with, which was M&B chipsets, but the story was defined well before the world was. Alpha Force is a bit reverse, however. The character idea of Chisoku had been around for a good six or so months now.

[Phayre]

Given that I'm a writer, I follow the rule of story follows character, character drives story. Thus, I think of a cool person and make them a story. ^^

[X_marks_the_ed]

NFT started with a single character idea, then more character ideas, meanwhile tensions between characters along with music I'm listening to that may relate to those tensions brought together a plot I might say is pretty good.

Simply put, NFT was assembled from Miko and a ton of songs by Static-X.