What settings do you want to see in a time/space travel RPG?

[Elzair]

Alright, over the last few days I have talked about starting an RPG. I have given a few hints, but now I want to spill the beans: I want to do a "spiritual sequel" to Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress. I just think that the concept of that game is astounding: traveling in time to different periods of Earth's history and exploring the nine (fuck the IAU) planets of the solar system. One of the biggest problems I had with Ultima II is that the potential is vastly underutilized. Since I am a lazy fuck and want this to be as easy as possible, I would like to do an old-skool Ultima-style top-down multi-party game. I would like for the player to both be able to create multiple characters and recruit NPCs. I know I shouldn't add various fantasy races, so should I differentiate the various races of man (that could get controversial)?

My main question, of course, is what settings / eras would you like to see in such a game?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

One of the GURPS Fallout sequels was supposed to be a time/space travel game.

As for differentiating between various races of man - use scientific research that is available to create stats.

 

[Alex]

First, let me get this out of the way:


Second, I want to ask you how much interaction you are thinking of including in this world. In Ultima 2, interaction was somewhat important, as you needed to explore and map the world in order to get ahead. However, combat and exploration of dungeons were equally important. People hardly mattered in the game too. In Ultima 4, people were much more important, and areas were distinguished more beyond what kind of monsters spawned there. The whole Quest of the Avatar added a lot to the world exploration. Then we have Ultima 7, where interaction with the world is the whole point of the game.

Are you planning on a game where interaction is like that in Ultima 2? Or are you thinking of making it more involved like in the sequels? I think this is a very important decision. If your level of world interaction is similar to Ultima 7, having races and cultures that are similar can be fun, as exploring the differences can be very rewarding. On the other hand, if you exploration is less involved, then it would be better if the settings and eras are very different.

Another question that I think is important is how you will deal with time travel. Do you plan to let the player change things in the timeline, with actions in the past changing the future? Or are the various eras going to be basically different worlds?

Finally, are you going to make the game more serious? I thought Ultima 2's concept to be pretty whimsical and not really serious. Are you going to keep this idea? I imagine most people here are going to give suggestions fitting with more serious settings, but is that what you want?

 

[Baron]

Do you realise the workload in creating additional graphics for nine visually distinct epochs or planets, you lazy fuck? Seems like a tonne of work.

Time travel worked in Highlander, and nothing else. Scrap your plan. Remake Highlander II : Revenge of the Kurgan.

 

[Jaesun]

Re: What settings do you want to see in a time/space travel

My main question, of course, is what settings / eras would you like to see in such a game?

The Renaissance
The Black Plague
India
Aztec/Mayan

 

[mondblut]

Without time paradoxes "time travel" is just a deceitful gimmick.

 

[Phelot]

Early man. Stoneage with neanderthals and stone weapons.

I second black plague

American Revolutionary War or just general New England in the 1700's.

Ancient Egypt or Babylon. Pre Roman civilizations would be cool to see like the Hittite invasion and the Minoans.

 

[Zeus]

I don't know about time travel, but I listed everything I wanted in a space travel game here:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=27312

Was one of my first threads, and Codexians did their best to try and help me locate such a game.

:mantear: :nostalgia:

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Outside Hannibal's camp at Cannae, three days before the battle.

Ancient Sumer.

WWI Trenches.

A papal orgy.

The Middle East, a year before Mongol hordes sack Baghdad and burn the libraries.

French Revolution.

In a nuclear submarine during WWIII.


Seriously bro, human history is so fucking interesting that I think your problem isn't which period to choose but how to make that bit work for your game.

Without time paradoxes "time travel" is just a deceitful gimmick. And by paradoxes I mean sex with myself.

 

[Baron]

*derailing into a Highlander thread*

Time travel is a lazy genre, it's for low budget TV shows with a wardrobe trunk of fancy dress outfits and no writer. Everything comes off as a discordant mess with no clear theme, even Bill and Ted would have failed without the strong charismatic presence of a youthful Keanu Reeves and his co-star Al Leong. Highlander had a theme, cutting off heads; and admittedly no time travel just the linear lives of immortal swordsmen who have existed since the dawn of time edited for effect. But the time periods were essential to the story and characters, and more importantly, to cut off more heads.

The only way to make a time travel piece relevant is to have it on the one setting, and have a clever story, built like a puzzle, with choice and unforeseen consequences. Still, only 4% of your audience will appreciate it and the rest will be confused; a state they likely began in. So perhaps you just want to cut off heads in a variety of interesting settings? That doesn't work for unimaginative engine builders trying to demostrate the full graphics of their engine let alone the pixel art of Ultima the toddler. Is it that crucial to one's enjoyment to fight a mob of animated blobs at the base of a shitty pixel castle and also a shitty pixel pyramid?

Frankly, I'd rather play an RPG based on Middlemarch than yet another time machine game. But build what you want to build, I say. Maybe you have a great idea to link the Mesolithic Age with the Boer War. If not, think of the infamy of bringing George Eliot's study of provincial life into its turn based incarnation.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

So perhaps you just want to cut off heads in a variety of interesting settings? That doesn't work for unimaginative engine builders trying to demostrate the full graphics of their engine let alone the pixel art of Ultima the toddler.

Bro maybe he just wants a soft-science multiverse game, it's not going to be the house of leaves of temporal science but he didn't say it would be. Maybe you watched Highlander the Source and it upset you and then you saw this thread or something.

Also

http://www.mobygames.com/game/time-commando
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Commando

 

[Baron]

I don't know, but I do know that I cut a lot of slack to polygon protagonists. Edward Carnby will always remain dear to my heart.



edit : Also, isn't this the same site with 20+ page threads of livid nerd rage attacking the games industry for dumbing shit down? Meanwhile, here it's

"-and you can shoot the cavemen with your laser pistol."
"Sounds cool, bro!"

 

[laclongquan]

*Since I am a lazy fuck *

Chance is what you make wont be interesting enough to play. Tears of blood and sweats of ammonia doesnt even ensure a game we will play, what make you think we interest a lazy dev?

Come back when you are serious.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Meanwhile, here it's "-and you can shoot the cavemen with your laser pistol."

You mad bro? Time Effect. Relativity Commander Shepard.
Renegade - Punch out caveman
Paragorn - Punch out sabertooth tiger
You taking notes Elzair?

I linked to that because it was precisely a Time Travel game where you just killed shit. You know, because bad games are funny. On the internet where you do things like sharing humorous information. god dammit Baron

Also bro if Alone in the Dark is so awesome and your Edward Cullenby is so awesome why isn't your series prolific and cutting edge like the hit Resident Evil series? More like Alone in the SUCK.

 

[Baron]

More like Alone in the SUCK.

Post reported.

Let's see how you enjoy your lifetime ban, you evil son of a bitch.

 

[Excommunicator]

I'm a big fan of the polygon beasts of Alone in the Dark.

The extreme model complexity made all the difference in communicating the mood in that game.

 

[torpid]

Periods of conflict and social upheaval would be the most interesting for a game:

- 5th century Gaul, near the Roman border with Germanic lands as Barbarians invade;
- 9th century Britain during the Danish invasions;
- 12th century Palestine during the Crusades;
- 14th century Italy during the Black Plague;
- 15th century Northern Italy during the Italian Wars;
- 16th century France during the Wars of Religion;
- 17th century Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War;
- 18th century France during the Revolution;
- 19th century China during the Boxer Rebellion.

 

[Zeus]

I think periods of intense paranoia would make for fine time travel. Any time strangers would be closely scrutinized, and any alien or anachronistic technology could get you killed.

The werewolf scare in 16th century France. You have mysterious murders, horrible violence, subsequent trials, etc. Heck, move one hundred years in the future, and the Beasts of Gévaudan would make for some fun random encounters.

 

[DwarvenFood]

You should also get teleported into a concentration camp during WW2.

 

[Johannes]

What would you be time travelling for in the game? Just to show off cool settings for the heck of it, what's the reason to visit all these ages? Would I be fighting other time travelers or slaughtering the primitive populace?

 

[curry]

You teleport to early 1920's Austria and befriend Hitler. You help him get into the Art School in Vienna so he never gets involved in politics. In the end of the game you teleport back to present day, and it turns out the entire Earth is a dystopia and the Jews have exterminated all the other races because no one disrupted the sinister plans they had been working on since ancient times. Problem, Codex?

 

[Elzair]

Alex, I would like to add as much world interaction as I can. That was always my favorite part of the Ultima series, anyway.

I know this is a bit ambitious of me, but I would like to add in the ability to change history and see how different societies change based on the player's actions.

laclongquan, okay I'm serious now. Anyway, I said I was lazy not incompetent. The reason I want to go with ghetto-style 16x16 (or 32x32) sprites is that they make it A LOT easier to create the massive amounts of content that I want. I do not want this project to become an Age of Decadence style fiasco.

 

[Elzair]

Alex, I would like this game to be a lot more serious than Ultima II because that game was nothing more than a giant in-joke. However, I still want to add some wacky, ahistorical stuff like the city of Atlantis and maybe even Camelot. I am definitely thinking one of the time periods should be ~25 AD because it would be rather wild to have a certain Palestinian carpenter as a party member.

 

[curry]

I am definitely thinking one of the time periods should be ~25 AD because it would be rather wild to have a certain Palestinian carpenter as a party member.

I see what you did there.

 

[Alex]

Elzair, what you posted sounds really great. I will try to post something useful later tonight, but one thing I am curious about is what you are planning to do with the planets. Is space travel going to be in the game too? Or are you going to concentrate on the time travel. If it is in, how are you going to deal with it? Is there going to be a jester planet (please say no)?