Creating my own Unity3d RPG framework using Unity assets or other Mac centric programs.

I have been playing around with Unity for awhile now, have made a few proof of concept games and have a good feel for it now.

I have gathered quite a few free and paid assets.

Now it's time to really focus on creating my game. It will be an RPG, single player.

I have tried a few editor plugins for this type of game, focused mostly in Plygame, brilliant plugin, but like all the rest, still to restrictive or lacking a key features.

After awhile, going through the asset store, reading reviews, watching videos, etc, it has become apparent that creating your own game and systems using the tools at hand is easy and in my case, the way to go.

What I need from the very knowledgeable Unity universe is advise.

I am not a great programmer.

I am very comfortable with Unity"s interface and most functions and options.

I am weakest when it comes to UI.

I need your opinion on what you think is the 1 best paid and 1 best free option for each of the below not marked covered.

Your advise would be greatly appreciated, and anyone interested in giving it will get a free copy if my first game as well as a few other perks, just goto my company site and sign up at FireCatGames.x10.mx.

Feel free to contact me there or at williamian@me.com with questions or advice, thanks.


Core

1. AI=Rain. Covered.

2. Dialogue & Quest system=Dialoguer. Covered.

3. Movement & Camera control, specifically for top down, semi 3rd person?

4. Combat, projectiles and skills?

5. World creation-Covered.

6. Art, props, characters-Covered.

7. Sound, FX, music-Covered.

8. UI, need something that is simple yet professional looking.

9. Relationships, followers, making npc"s battle each other, having a follower npc or pet?

10. Load-Save system, simple, no multi player considerations yet.

11. Day-night-weather, preferably one with a camp feature?

12. Creating jobs, professions?

13. The ability for player to create their own housing, castle, etc, in game. RPG centric mini games in game?

14. Multi unit turn based battles- Covered.

If you think my project would benefit from any other Unity assets, apps or programs, please let me know.

Thanks again for all the advice.

FireCatGames

William R Ianneci
Williamian@me.com
386-315-4241
FireCatGames.x10.mx

 

I suggest you pay a consultant to answer these questions, you should not expect random people on a forum to plan and design your game for you.

 

Why thank you sootie8, that was very helpful.

The key word here is helpful. Nowhere in my post did I ask for planning or design advice or help.

These forums are for the sharing of knowlege and the helping of other Unity users.

That is what I am looking for and what I do in these forums as well.

Specifically, I am looking for the best assets and tools for use in and with Unity itself, and this should be the best place to ask.

I am simply not as familiar with unity as a platform as some other programs I have used.

But thanks again for sharing with me the knowledge that you do not want to share.

 

So if I understand you correctly, you're looking for recommendations for assets?

As far as your GUI is concerned, I would try the 4.6 open beta GUI. I don't know the scale of your game, but I would bet that the official release will come well before your game is finished.

Self-promotion alert...
As far as your weapon/projectiles are concerned I would recommend my weapon system, Easy Weapons. It's built for ranged weapons (includes Raycast, Projectile, and Beam types... so it doesn't handle melee combat). I'm not aware of any free options for this kind of framework.

 

Thank you randomperson42 I will look into both.

Shameless plugs are expected, ha, is your weapons system going to incorporate melee at some point and is the UI beta currently on the asset store?

 

I can only recommend things, and unfortunately I wouldn't recommend downloading anything except shaders and image effects (if you have pro you can use image effects) everything else, you'll find it's all limiting and usually have to figure out the system to incorporate what you'd like to add to it..

I know the above is not (always) true, but why would I pay somebody something for a weapons system and make my own basic gun in just a very very very few line of code?

I've spent months learning unity making little crappy games I've never released just so I could learn Unity.
I figured out rather quickly it's best to just make your own stuff, except when it comes to Shaders, shaders are shaders, you know exactly what you're getting by Images they put on the asset store of it.

But I'd recommend cracking down and learn how to program, it's not as hard as it seems for the most part once you've been using it for awhile, it all comes together and comes together beautifully, then you can also be like (I MADE THIS) and didn't need the help from others to make it, it will give you an ego boost that's for sure.

Now I'm not saying purchasing things on asset store is bad, heck it saves time, a lot of time, but at the same time, it may not include everything you are wanting, then that's where you start getting confused on looking at their code and like uhhhh where do I add what I want?

At least if you make the code, you know how it's all pieced together exactly, so you know where to place things.
However that may be, if you ever want Dynamic weather and stuff, I would wickedly say getting Unistorm (By far the best weather system I've used) and it doesn't really have a limitation that I have faced yet. So that's definitely worth the purchase for.

What I am trying to say is, make a purchase if it's exactly what you want, otherwise figure it out your self or you'll regret it, unless you know how to go into others peoples code and change it accordingly to fit your needs.

 

Thank you N1warhead.

I have looked at Unistorm and it is one that is on my list. Let me rephrase my earlier statement about not knowing how to code, I can, I certainly can look at code and rewrite if needed, I am looking for the fastest most streamlined approach in using Unity and assets, that, after all, is the whole point of using unity as my gaming platform.

I have in the past and will continue to alter a program, when permissible, or write small chunks of code for my needs.

 

No plans for melee features at the moment it's just the ranged weapons. As far as the UI is concerned, I was talking about Unity's built-in GUI which is coming out in version 4.6. It's a visual way to make your GUI so you might find it easier... so no, it's not on the asset store. The link is to the beta version which is out now, and I would imagine the official release would be out before long.

Edit: By the way, Easy Weapons should be getting a price drop pretty soon (within a week?)

 

You're right that it's important to learn to code. I would disagree with the other things you said though. I suppose you could make the most simple of weapon systems with a few lines of code, but nothing advanced enough to use in most games. In realilty it takes a lot of work.

The point is, I think you would be surprised at the huge number of features provided by some asset store packs with great ease-of-use. Time is money, and if you take into account the time it takes to create most of these frameworks I can almost guarantee most of them will be well worth it. The other thing to keep in mind is that many of the systems you find on the asset store (including mine) include all the code, so you can edit them if you want, though you don't have to.

 

Thanks, I thought that was what you were referring to. I tried the beta, it was a little buggy for my current project so just waiting for 5 to release then I will re- evaluate.

As I need a combat solution that incorporates both melee and ranged I will have to keep yours in mind for future projects, thank you.

 

You are correct, the whole point of unity and the asset store, is to NOT, have to code, whether you can or not.

Speed, streamlining, prototyping, to finished game, that is the point.

I have created several programs in different programming languages. None are easy, coder or not, and for the scope of my current project It would be foolish not to use all available tools. If I need to create or alter something because I cannot find an exact fit for my needs, I can, but would obviously prefer not to.

As far as spending money in the asset store instead of creating it yourself, again, that is the point of Unity. If your project is done well, that money spent, and time saved will equate to more sales, higher profit, and a happier end user.

 

I guess I'm stuck the old fashioned way, I'd much rather program something than buy it even if it's quicker.
I mean, I'd rather spend 50 hours than 50 dollars, just to make my whatever it is I'm making.

Not really to be anything different than what I purchase, just to learn how to do it while I build it.

I've tried purchasing peoples Plugins or whatever they are called, of course it comes with the code, but I open it up to try an change something and I'm like okay, what the (beep) is this crap? It was just a bunch of code with no idea where anything goes and how it was all pieced together.
If something wasn't 5 thousand lines of code it would have been easier to determine where things went. So lets just say I never used it again, so I'd rather spend a lot of time learning it than spend 50 dollars and waste money to never use the product again, just to take the easy way out.

But again, I'm not talking crap about anyone's stuff, I'm strictly going off of my experience with purchasing plugins
off the asset store, heck I've even purchased stuff and never used it once because I couldn't figure out how to even set it up even with the documentation, so again, more than 60 dollars wasted on something I never used not even (once).

So I get to the point I rather make stuff my self lol.

 

I completely understand, you have gotten burned by the asset store, it is always the chance you take, that is why I always do the research and read the reviews, watch videos and always try a demo when one is available, also, remember that the creators of these assets are usually very vocal in giving help, it does benefit them after all.

If i have any questions and concerns that have not been addressed before hand, they almost always give me the answers I need.

I am in talks with one now who is creating a new demo just to work better on my current system so I can evaluate it better before purchase. Now, if I cannot get a hold of a creator after a reasonable amount of time, or the asset or the website and support seem very old or out of date I will have to give it much more thought.

But my main point is this. If you are using Unity as it would seem you are, It's main purpose is to create games with no coding, so, if your goal is to code everything, you may be missing the point of this tool and going a different path would be a better choice for you.

Being a coder, I must tell you, to create anything that is worthwhile, you will eventually start using tools and platforms like Unity out of necessity and to keep up with your competitors.

Learning to code is worthwhile, but is not the way of the future, the future is visual coding, drag and drop, and AI. So, learning and using tools like Unity is the right path to the future, coding was just the first step in this evolutionary path.

Just some food for thought.

 

Well... no.
Unity is a game engine, it's possible to use it to build games with or without much coding. In the end, every game will need code... whether you buy that code from the asset store or write it yourself.

True.

Again I disagree. There will ALWAYS be code. I won't be surprised if visual programming is more popular in the future, but someone has to code that to get to that point. And plenty of game developers will be coding from scratch for a very long time.

 

One thing I can recommend is to take advantage of unity's monobehavior and component system. It's really great for setting up a class / profession system. You can put the data and functions that are specific to a profession inside a script and when your character chooses that profession, just add the script onto the player. Then when you're checking for code to determine if your character has a particular profession, you can do something like...

Code (CSharp):

1. profession = Player.getComponent<BlackSmith>();
2. if(profession != null)
3. {
4.    profession.doTheThing();
5. }
6.  
7. profession = PlayerObject.getComponent<Cook>();
8. if(profession != null)
9. {
10.     profession.doTheCookThing();
11. }

Combat and projectiles can work similarly. I made a skill "module" for a school project. If that script is on a player, then when the player hits the skill key they will shoot a fireball. Projectiles can be done 2 ways. Since you have an rpg, are you going with a target or no-target system? If it's no-target, your characters need to aim their skills and for that you can make prefabs of the skill projectile and put a script on it to control how it moves over time. If it's a standard mmo target system where attacks can't miss and nothing needs to be aimed, it might be a little easier to get done. At most you would need a small script just to get the skill graphics from the caster to the target.

 

Oh boy.
This left me speechless and laughing.

 

I know right lol... That's why I didn't even bother saying anything, not trying to argue with someone lol.

 

I think the point of that statement was supposed to be something along the lines of not using your own code. There are game development toolkits that let you create games worse than game maker games via entirely drag and drop. Even I can do that with my previous projects. Some of the enemies have enemy scripts on them and just need to be added to a scene along with the player.

If I sold that to someone as a basic game toolkit, they could make a game with drag and drop only. The behaviors of enemies and powers of the player in that project are all determined by what scripts are on them, which can be done by dragging scripts onto the prefab in the scene.

It's super limited, but it can be done

 

Well... no.
Unity is a game engine, it's possible to use it to build games with or without much coding. In the end, every game will need code... whether you buy that code from the asset store or write it yourself.

Yes, a game engine that was built with the intent and target audience being non-progammers. And no, you can absolutely build a complete and professional game with unity without having to write one single line of code yourself. It has been done many times already. Again the point being, using assets, you do not have to code anything yourself if you do not want to.

Again I disagree. There will ALWAYS be code. I won't be surprised if visual programming is more popular in the future, but someone has to code that to get to that point. And plenty of game developers will be coding from scratch for a very long time.

Yes, My point here is, the traditional way of coding is going away, soon, you will not have to go to school or need a degree to do much of what is done today, opening the door for many creative people that could not overcome the learning curve most serious programming languages require.

Thanks for your thoughts.'

 

Hmm, that may entice me to pick it up sooner.

 

Thanks Tomnnn, I was thinking the same thing regarding that for class/profession system, I may do that myself, have not decided quite yet. As far as combat, it will be melee/projectile/targeted and area.

I have several options I am looking at and will probably go with a paid asset for it.

I may have an unfair advantage in that money is not so much an issue for me when it comes to paid assets, along as it does exactly what I need or I can alter it.

Thanks for the input.

 

You are welcome, I am, after all, here to amuse you.

 

Unity is not this, at all, and never was. You seem to have misunderstood; there's an entire section in the marketing about scripting. The intention of Unity is that "average" people can become coders by not having to deal with creating an entire engine first. You just code the "fun" stuff for the most part. "You don't have to code" was never part of any marketing, and would be a huge lie if it was.

It's not, though, any more than it has been since the first time someone said that (decades ago). And it never will, unless someone can actually come up with a radically new way of "non-traditional" coding that actually saves time and effort, and scales well, which so far all "non-traditional" ways of coding have failed miserably at. They're fine for small things, and are great for people who don't want to learn coding just to wire some prefabs together, but are nowhere near up to the task for more complex projects.

--Eric

 

I believe this is true (well, the trend is in this direction), but I also believe it's not the utopia many hope it to be. When the barrier to entry is nil and you can 'finally' make an fps/mmorpg/open world sandbox with no coding your newfound voice will be drowned out by the legion of others who have all found themselves in the same position.

(Hypothetical future purchase) So you bought "world of warcraft creator kit' from the asset store for $15 and made a game? So did thousands of other people.

If you are not currently above the fray now, you won't be in the future either, because while the barrier to entry is dropping the hurdle of quality & uniqueness is rising.

 

I Second that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^.

But listen, I agree the asset store is a great thing to have, but you're truly never gonna learn anything if you just buy peoples stuff. Which in some cases is worth buying a lot of things if it's like 2 main important things that will take a long time to make. Such as Unistorm, that's a lot of code and nearly everything can be changed right in the editor if not everything already. That's a lot of time saved for 98 to 100% of changing options you like without having to code a thing.
But I wouldn't go buy -

Weather system
AI system
Weapons System
Game Templates
etc

Then you're building something that's not any different or unique from any other game, nobody wants to play the same game over and over, there's too many clones on Android Market already.

But like I said, nothing wrong with asset store, it's very well worth purchasing things for a game, but in moderation unless you want to be another crappy clone game then go right ahead.
You'll never get ("Rich") persae, or get offered contracts to do peoples games if they want to hire you, because all you'll be doing is copying the same set of tools over and over and over and never learn a thing except how to add something into it.
Try putting some hard work into your game(s) and do it your self, you'll earn a lot of respect from your peers, your fans and will look better on job applications if you ever try to get a programming job.

Not to mention if Visual Programming ever gets popular, it will put a lot of people out of jobs that worked hard to get where they are at, just for some average high school drop out can take there job for $7.50 an hour.
So quit taking the easy way out and study books, tutorials or whatever else and learn how to do stuff your self.
The world already has enough lazy people as it is, last thing you want is for your job to be taken by someone who don't appreciate programming as an art, not just another daily thing they do to pay a bill.

 

If that's the case, you should just hire a programmer who can do whatever it is you want precisely how you would like it done, instead of relying on COTS packages

What time do you plan on getting some of this stuff done? If you PM me, I can give you some free samples for something you may find useful in this project. I'm pretty good with UI and I have some great examples that show how to design a UI in Unity as long as you can picture it or draw it on paper.

 

Yes, that was close to my point, thank you.

 

[QUOTE="Eric5h5, post: 1844938, member: 819"]Unity is not this, at all, and never was. You seem to have misunderstood; there's an entire section in the marketing about scripting. The intention of Unity is that "average" people can become coders by not having to deal with creating an entire engine first. You just code the "fun" stuff for the most part. "You don't have to code" was never part of any marketing, and would be a huge lie if it was.

Sorry, perhaps I chose the wrong wording, hmm, Yes, I am aware of the marketing, I simply have a different interpretation I think. However my statement that one could make a very good game using Unity and assets without ever having to code a single line yourself are still valid.

It's not, though, any more than it has been since the first time someone said that (decades ago). And it never will, unless someone can actually come up with a radically new way of "non-traditional" coding that actually saves time and effort, and scales well, which so far all "non-traditional" ways of coding have failed miserably at. They're fine for small things, and are great for people who don't want to learn coding just to wire some prefabs together, but are nowhere near up to the task for more complex projects.

--Eric[/QUOTE]

There are several pioneering companies working on the very programing frameworks that you have said have all failed so far, I never said it would happen over night but it will happen.

But thank your correcting me Eric5h5.

 

[QUOTE="R.Lindsay, post: 1844954, member: 668718"]I believe this is true (well, the trend is in this direction), but I also believe it's not the utopia many hope it to be. When the barrier to entry is nil and you can 'finally' make an fps/mmorpg/open world sandbox with no coding your newfound voice will be drowned out by the legion of others who have all found themselves in the same position.

(Hypothetical future purchase) So you bought "world of warcraft creator kit' from the asset store for $15 and made a game? So did thousands of other people.

If you are not currently above the fray now, you won't be in the future either, because while the barrier to entry is dropping the hurdle of quality & uniqueness is rising.[/QUOTE]

As mentioned earlier, that is correct, the level of programming ease I am referring to is not here yet, but it is clear that is the path we are on and it will happen, it is not a matter of if, it is only a matter of when,.

You hit the nail on the head (quality & uniqueness is rising.) This is what will ultimately make or break a game in the end. At some point it will be a level playing field that will make one rely on story, creativity uniqueness, not the tools.

Thank you for your reply.

 

It would seem my post has taken a life of it's own, ha, with quite a number of assumptions being made.

Let me rephrase, I can code, just not at a level I would like.

My post was to gather information and opinion on specific assets that I may or may not use, I never stated or implied that I would be using all assets or no coding if needed.

In any case, anything I post is my opinion or firsthand knowledge and I take yours as the same.

People have lost jobs because of technology advances in the past, this is no different, and in no way demeans the hard work they have put into it, but progress will happen whether we like it or not.

Thank you for your input.

 

Thank you, that is very generous of you, I have 3 other people that are working on my team besides me and have my programming covered.

ETA is 2nd quarter 2015 for first chapter and we are all working as many hours a day as can be spared. I have my proof of concept demo done and am currently prototyping with several new tools, refining backend code and framework, and will be porting and modifying many of the current assets and systems in the demo.

I will keep your offer on mind, thanks again.

 

Seek you Orkashi RPG Framework on the Asset Store. It's certainly strong enough to get you started. It has all of the basics of a single-player RPG.

 

I have looked at and tried this asset , I have found the all in one approach is lacking in features, that is why I was thinking about putting together a basic framework myself and working from there.I will have to take another look, Thank you.

 

Ah, alright. I suppose I'm out of recommendations then