(It's a rant, don't take it too seriously.)
So... you're a developer and you're in the process of making a game. It's an open world action-RPG and it's coming along nicely. You've got some solid character customization options in there, solid RPG elements, good albeit unpolished combat, some big cool monsters to fight and an interesting mechanic that allows players to trade and hire each other's party members.
You're going to call it Dragon's Dogma because where you come from there's a law against video games with non-goofy titles.
But wait! Your game is actually pretty good. Well, you'll have to do something about that! So here is my guide to screwing up an otherwise decent game in just five and a half easy steps.
STEP ONE is to not have a fast travel system. After all, an open world RPG would never need one of those! Players love spending 60% of the game traipsing back and forth across the same areas. Besides, wasting their time like that allows you to say that your games has 50+ hours of content. If you really must, you can put in a half-arsed system that allows the player to teleport to only two locations on the map, but be sure to make it based on a rare finite resource. Remember, the more time the player spends traveling across the same areas over and over again, the better.
You also need to make that travelling as slow and tedious as possible. So STEP TWO is to make the player walk really slowly. You can include a sprint function, but make sure it requires a stamina bar that is used quickly and regenerates really slowly. As the final touch, when the player runs out of stamina make them watch their character stand still panting for a few highly annoying seconds.
However, the player needs something to do during all that slow, tedious and repetitive traveling. STEP THREE is to have respawning monsters. Furthermore, it is important that there not be any kind of variation or randomisation in these spawns. Make the exact same monsters respawn in the exact same places in the exact same numbers. That way the players doesn't feel any sense of progression, accomplishment or impact on the world as they fight the exact same monsters while travelling through the exact same place for the tenth time.
Oh, but don't think we're done yet. You've made your game repetitive, boring, tedious and needlessly time consuming. However, it just isn't quite irritating enough yet. That's why STEP FOUR is to saddle the player with three companion NPCs that never, ever, ever, ever shut their fat fucking mouths. Have them talk constantly, and I really do mean constantly. Not a single second should be allowed to pass without some drooling idiot spouting needless and inane babble. Have them talk over one another. Have them interrupt each other. Have them interrupt themselves. Have them comment on the surroundings, have them comment on player's current objective, have them comment on enemies - whatever it takes to achieve maximum irritation. Oh, and make them vital for combat so the player can't leave them behind. Also, don't give them any degree of personality or characterization, that stuff is for girls and casuals. Lastly, make sure the voice acting is somewhere between below average and shit. (You can include a way to curb their chatter, but make it ineffective and make sure it can only be applied to one of the three.)
Now, since your game is an RPG is will probably have a bit of inventory management involved. STEP FIVE is to make that inventory management as clumsy and awkward as possible. Menu's are the key. Also, rather than one of those convenient shared inventories a la Dragon Age, give each character separate inventories to maximise the amount of tedious item shuffling. For the love of all that is holy, do not include any shortcut buttons, radial menus or anything similar. That way, if the player wants to use an item to restore their stamina because the they got tired while slowly trudging back through the same areas and killing the exact same monsters, then by golly they'll need to go through at least three menus to do it!
Lastly, just for kicks, make your game's story consist entirely of infantile drivel that wouldn't pass muster on a preschooler's fanfiction website. After all, it is just a video game. Nobody will mind so long as you give them bigger numbers every few minutes.
Dragon's Dogma, ladies and gentlemen. Proudly demonstrating that the only thing worse than something crap is something crap that could easily have been good.
[sub][sub]Captcha: "make my day"[/sub][/sub]
So... you're a developer and you're in the process of making a game. It's an open world action-RPG and it's coming along nicely. You've got some solid character customization options in there, solid RPG elements, good albeit unpolished combat, some big cool monsters to fight and an interesting mechanic that allows players to trade and hire each other's party members.
You're going to call it Dragon's Dogma because where you come from there's a law against video games with non-goofy titles.
But wait! Your game is actually pretty good. Well, you'll have to do something about that! So here is my guide to screwing up an otherwise decent game in just five and a half easy steps.
STEP ONE is to not have a fast travel system. After all, an open world RPG would never need one of those! Players love spending 60% of the game traipsing back and forth across the same areas. Besides, wasting their time like that allows you to say that your games has 50+ hours of content. If you really must, you can put in a half-arsed system that allows the player to teleport to only two locations on the map, but be sure to make it based on a rare finite resource. Remember, the more time the player spends traveling across the same areas over and over again, the better.
You also need to make that travelling as slow and tedious as possible. So STEP TWO is to make the player walk really slowly. You can include a sprint function, but make sure it requires a stamina bar that is used quickly and regenerates really slowly. As the final touch, when the player runs out of stamina make them watch their character stand still panting for a few highly annoying seconds.
However, the player needs something to do during all that slow, tedious and repetitive traveling. STEP THREE is to have respawning monsters. Furthermore, it is important that there not be any kind of variation or randomisation in these spawns. Make the exact same monsters respawn in the exact same places in the exact same numbers. That way the players doesn't feel any sense of progression, accomplishment or impact on the world as they fight the exact same monsters while travelling through the exact same place for the tenth time.
Oh, but don't think we're done yet. You've made your game repetitive, boring, tedious and needlessly time consuming. However, it just isn't quite irritating enough yet. That's why STEP FOUR is to saddle the player with three companion NPCs that never, ever, ever, ever shut their fat fucking mouths. Have them talk constantly, and I really do mean constantly. Not a single second should be allowed to pass without some drooling idiot spouting needless and inane babble. Have them talk over one another. Have them interrupt each other. Have them interrupt themselves. Have them comment on the surroundings, have them comment on player's current objective, have them comment on enemies - whatever it takes to achieve maximum irritation. Oh, and make them vital for combat so the player can't leave them behind. Also, don't give them any degree of personality or characterization, that stuff is for girls and casuals. Lastly, make sure the voice acting is somewhere between below average and shit. (You can include a way to curb their chatter, but make it ineffective and make sure it can only be applied to one of the three.)
Now, since your game is an RPG is will probably have a bit of inventory management involved. STEP FIVE is to make that inventory management as clumsy and awkward as possible. Menu's are the key. Also, rather than one of those convenient shared inventories a la Dragon Age, give each character separate inventories to maximise the amount of tedious item shuffling. For the love of all that is holy, do not include any shortcut buttons, radial menus or anything similar. That way, if the player wants to use an item to restore their stamina because the they got tired while slowly trudging back through the same areas and killing the exact same monsters, then by golly they'll need to go through at least three menus to do it!
Lastly, just for kicks, make your game's story consist entirely of infantile drivel that wouldn't pass muster on a preschooler's fanfiction website. After all, it is just a video game. Nobody will mind so long as you give them bigger numbers every few minutes.
Dragon's Dogma, ladies and gentlemen. Proudly demonstrating that the only thing worse than something crap is something crap that could easily have been good.
[sub][sub]Captcha: "make my day"[/sub][/sub]
