First Person Open-World RPG

Hi my name is Matt and I am new to the Unity community. I have been messaging around with Unity lately and have some good experience with other engines (Leadwerks and Unreal). I have finally decided to try out a new engine and try to create a new game with it. When it comes to the basics of creating a game on any engine I would consider myself well experienced in that area (mechanics, story, game development 101, etc.). My main goal is to try to make a first person open-world RPG. This game would use simple combat system similar to Skyrim. I would like it to be melee weapons only. So pretty much two people swinging swords at each other dealing damage. I also would be looking for a robust way to talk to NPCs, trade with them, and engage in quests with them.

I am having a hard time figuring out how to start and that is why I am writing here today. I think a great way to start is to ask you guys, the pros, what you think. If you think this is a simple enough style of game to achieve as a beginner resources and tips would also be helpful. If not maybe your can recommend me some other ideas similar to this. If you feel super grateful a skype call would be amazing. If you are interested in skyping me about this just say something in the comments.

Thanks, Matt

 

Just a thing to note: Skyrim was made by roughly 100 experienced artists and programmers in 4 years, with an 80 million dollar budget. Indie developers generally don't make open-world RPGs.

 

I totally understand that and really appreciate the comment! Ope-world will still be used though because I believe in quests and environment when it comes to my games. I will still make an open-world, just not as big as Skyrim. I am using Skyrim as an example for combat mechanics and POV. Thanks again though!

 

Here are 285 tutorials on making an RPG. Start with number 1 and go to 285. If you still have problems, do them again.

http://www.burgzergarcade.com/hack-slash-rpg-unity3d-game-engine-tutorial

or shell out money for one of the many, many FPS and/or RPG kits in the asset store.

No one can tell you what you need to learn in a forum topic post.

 

Pick a part of your game that you want to start with and start learning about it. Terrain system is pretty easy to learn, so that would probably be a good starting point. After you get a terrain you like, you can worry about character controllers and combat mechanics and stuff.

 

That is awesome! I will 100% use this because I learn from tutorials not buying assets . Any games that you know of that uses this tutorial so I have a general idea what I will be making.

 

That is an awesome link. I've never seen it before. That should be stickied with a "how to make an rpg" title.

 

It is also worth noting that he is restarting the tutorials for Unity 5 and to take a more "framework" approach to allow for customization and usability.

https://www.youtube.com/user/BurgZergArcade

 

Wow that's amazing! Thank you for the updated link! Must admit this is an amazing, supportive community of people.

 

Anyone who makes it to the end and has it working as well as the tutorials might, just might have what it takes to actually finish a game. I've done it twice to the end and several times from one of the "restart" points he has. I still refer to his tutorial on lists which is pretty early on.

 

Should I use the new tutorial or old one? Is it possible I combine both tutorials or no?

 

Even if you want to make something much smaller than Skyrim, you will need 20 artist 1 year of development(with 20 people) and budget.

 

Yeh you make a good point. So do you recommend a more linear game then for my first RPG?

 

Why would you include such a limiting factor?
You don't know how fast of a modeler or programmer he is.

I could create a 20,000 by 20,000 terrain highly detailed with rocks, new trees, new grass, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, etc in like no more than a week or 2.

The point of what I said above is, you don't know A) - How good he is at anything B) His living conditions. For all you know he could never have to leave his house a day in his life and have 24 hours a day to do anything, which trust me (helps). C) - His experience with all the stuff in game dev in general.

You don't *Have* to have 20 people and an 80 million dollar budget to do anything in a timeframe. If you know how to do things on your own, save everything that way you can transfer from one object to another, saves time coding, and makes life simpler if you can make most things module to work with other things.

 

I am willing to follow up to these questions so I can be better assisted.

A) I am a high school student who is off of school for the summer. B) I can have days where I am 24 hours dedicated to development or days in which its a few hours early in the morning or late at night. C) I have little C# coding experiance, but do have good experience with Lua, PHP, CSS, HTML, and Java.

Also I would like to mention that I do have some money aside to do stuff like this. IT isn't a lot, but I have about $1,000 to get software, assets, etc.

 

DarkLord, this is not more of an programming issue as it is art issue. I cannot image person without high school or computer graphics degree, modeling, unwrapping, texturing, rigging and animating complex 3D character and putting it into RPG. Then doing it 100x times since RPG needs many characters, which items are customizable.

If you are this type of person, then I really doubt you had time ontop of learning computer graphics to learn programming as well
On the other hand, if you want to make 2D RPG, that is more than possible, and will not require that huge graphics skills.

 

I rather take the time to learn 3D graphics then coding. I want to make a functional game that has a nice general art style to it. Any paid or free courses/video that could show me how to learn this because I do have a whole summer. I myself do have a strong prior art experience and was raised from a young age to get involved in art. My current job is art and design so maybe learning 3D modeling might be a little easier to me.

 

I was thinking to myself just a moment ago. If the 3D open-world would be too big for me I would be all for making a 2D game.

 

@Wrymnn

I'd be more surprised if you needed a degree to be able to do that, tons of artists got on just fine without one..

@DarkLord987

There seems some confusion here as to what's going on?! You said you were comfortable with UE and Leadworks, well the concept's of game creation don't change one bit from one to the other and UE is harder to use. So you should already know how to do it in Unity, because besides the API and interface there's not a whole load of difference.

So are you actually a complete beginner that needs help getting started? It's not a biggie, we won't run away into the hills shouting NOOB Cooties..!

 

@ShadowK I must admit when I said I used Unreal it was 100% editing templates. Leadwerks I made games from scratch. I have entered, and won, a few competitions using Leadwerks. Also, you post was very helpfuol and funny . Now should I be thinking about getting my game setup, working on art/models, or work on both at the same time for this project of mine?

 

I would definitely drop the openworld thing with Unity, start with a small terrain blocked off by mountains. If you have world machine, it's pretty simple to do..

Create / find a splatmap script, apply your textures then add bushes, trees, rocks.. Then start modelling your own artwork to plop in it (Characters, environments).. THEN!

Go through this: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules

Learn how to do basics like load a new level from a trigger, apply movement to a character etc.

That will definitely keep you busy for the next three to six months. .

 

Awesome. As a game developer learning a new engine I set a 1 month long project which will turn into a 2 month project because there are always problems in creating a game. After this project is complete I move onto a 3 month then 6 months, etc. I really appriacate it and will for sure come back to this thread if I have any more general questions about getting started. Thanks again @ShadowK

 

Any good tutorials for getting a good grasp on World Machine?

 

Honestly the best tutorials are the examples they provide, they helped me better than anything with making things that I really want to make.

 

Yeah when you download the program, you get a series of templates with comments as @N1warhead said. Also I'd recommend B-Core: I put an example of how it works here:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/game-design-challenge-pc.328982/

There's a picture around third of the way down from me..

Edit: B-Core is a macro somebody kindly created which helps in making advanced terrains / color overlays for terrains..

You might want to use the splatmap converter instead of the outputs I have linked to a bitmap output.. There is a splatmap example demo for games that comes with WM, so don't worry ...

 

Mortal online was made with 3 guys..

If you got the drive you can get it done. There are several indie Open world RPGs on steam early access that are really well done. Not skyrim caliber, but still fun as hell and certainly possible for indie devs to do.

 

Personally I'd start with the Unity tutorials. They are really well done and teach you a lot on how to get things done in Unity. I don't think the game you are talking about is too hard to tackle. Just scale it down so that you can get core features done and build on it from there.

Start with one area of your overall map and get a lot of your core mechanics finished. Basic fighting, dialog system, inventory etc.. Make that 1 level a short version of the game you ultimately want to make and finish it.

You can build on it from there once you get into the more difficult subject such as preloading levels so that the world appears open and seamless.

Don't go in a long manhunt for the best tutorials though. Unities are really good even if they don't cater to the exact game you want to make, they'll give you the foundation you need to figure it out.

 

I have made up my mind and have mixed multiple things mentioned in this post today. I am going to make a third person, enclosed area, wave spawning, game. It is also going to be on Android. Really enjoying messing around with the engine.

 

If you absolutely positively wish to make a "open" world RPG game, you would have a difficulty time to say the least.

However if you simply want to make a game that has a large map world with many regions to explore I would suggest something like Baldur's Gate.

You can have a large world map and a player can load into any region he or she wishes and explore it. You could give the allusion of an open world by simply allowing the player to "fast travel" from the starting city to anywhere they wish too. Each scene would have natural boundaries to block their exploration to a X-Y-Z map size of your choosing, but I feel this is a good/fair trade off to an open world concept.

Should be pointed out that many of the open world games on the market include a fast travel option anyway, which always begs the question why bother with open world if they can still, in the end, warp from Town A to City X; there by bypassing massive game play regions?

 

Okay so there are 2 sides here you can take, and where I can aid you from my personal experience.

1. Do simpler, open world 2D game, where you can learn some pixel or vector art from internet and do you assets like that. You will be able to finish it within normal time.
Because don`t forget, the more you work on one project, sometimes the more you get bored of it and it is possible you will not finishit not because you cannot do it, but because you will just don`t want to anymore.

2. Follow your dream. If you want to make 3D assets, 3D open world RPG, do it. You will learn a lot, you will have great fun, there is 90% you will not finish it, but the time you spend on it will be worth the fun and experience.
I once wrote a topic that I want to create my own C++/OpenGL game engine, everybody laughed and said that is not possible, it will take me forever, guess what, I now have a simple 2D game engine from scratch, capable of making 2d games, and I`m still improving on it, and I learned a ton.
Will I ever finish some game in it? probably not, oh but the fun difference between when I`m in Unity and when I`m making my own engine is just beyond comparing.

Hope this helped!

 

I really hope you manage to finish and sell this game, DarkLord. If you do, you'll be a beacon of light for all indie developers. Best wishes and remember that even if you fail, you'll learn.

 

You guys are really amazing! You guys really make this community better then any forum I have ever been on. If you are interested in me creating some way to track my progress just comment that you want to below.

 

Alright man, it's been about a year. I want to see what you've done!!!!! Time to shine if you are the 10% spoken of, or the 90%! If you did do something, spill it. If you didn't, spill that too, don't leave people hanging!

 

Your definition of a year is a bit off. That said he hasn't logged on since four days from his last post.

 

Well snap!

 

That kind of gives us our answer; don't you think?

 

I guess he was part of the 90% who never start... The end.

 

Exactly. Honestly I had forgotten how old this sub-forum was. I didn't realize I missed this thread the first time around.