I think I can make a game like Skyrim as a solo indie dev

Anyone got $50,000,000 for outsourcing assets?

 

Sure. I sent you the cash in the mail.

 

I know we haven't seen emails of this nature in a long time, but you missed the most important step. You're supposed to pretend to be a prince in some random country and ask for a few thousand dollars to handle the bank transaction fees.

 

So, this is how MMORPGs are made! Thanks for the info

I think they should mention it somewhere in the documentation for those who are new to Unity like me. I've wasted too much time searching for that 'Make MMO' button which is mentioned here quite often.

 

Yeah it's not a button, it's an hidden shortcut "alt+f4" then you have to wait for the build to finish, a popup will appear when it's done.

 

Go for it.

 

I appreciate the joke, but we need a game planning thread, to study and deconstruct existing game in term of scope, that's the least discussed part of game dev, how do you planned your game and use that to manage scope and anticipate on work.

Skyrim could be a good example, it has ample doc, an editor that let you see the assets count, and is already a well known reference.

 

Easy to talk. Where's the money!

Trust me, after you have the assets, the rest becomes trivial.

Overwatch is after all made out of a failed MMO assets.

 

I have never seen any substance of that in talk or interview though ...

That's kinda the point, isn't it? planning the asset, creating the specs, making them, outsourcing them, checking consistency, etc ...

 

I know.
The thing is last month we got so fixed in the graphics conversation we missed the point on how by the time you have the assets, graphics don't matter meaning most of the complains at the end of the day can be summarized as 'I don't have assets!'

 

Not sure what's the point of this thread, if someone wants to try to do it then good luck. Some simple arithmetic is useful when planning a project, however.

 

More like I don't have the right asset "at the right spec!"

 

If you outsource the assets, it will be no longer a solo project.
So, you don't need the money.

On a serious note, I think that it may actually be possible for one person to make a fairly large world of this kind, but they'll have to seriously dial down visual quality and stick with simplistic art style.

Skyrim has something like 1200 items in it (I think number of meshes is smaller than this). So you'll need to find the art style where you can make several item objects per day. The more the better. Then spend months assembling every location.

 

Also if you look at the list of items it's fairly logic, there is an item for every stat sharing the same name, with a tier of power (different adjective), etc ... so that would be fairly easy to generate all at once with a bunch of line code. If you design the visual with that in mind, you will have a fairly complex system that is modular and would be consistent with gameplay. NPC are basic paper doll too and share height and animation.

Skyrim is pretty dated by now, we might even do as good as they do because the editor and engine we have now are better, and there is asset store to not do thing from scratch (much better than their editor too).

 

If we are being serious, 'assets' include characters and their animations, VFX and SFX.
And 1200 meshes does not cover the swords, armors, shields, etc. Does it even cover props like apples or buckets?

Not that I like Skyrim

 

Articles specify Witcher 3 cost $12.5 Million to create and not only is it an order of magnitude larger than Skyrim it's also massively more complex with much higher quality artwork. So your 50 Mil budget is way off..

Also if you've ever made an RPG you'll realise the simple elegance of Skyrim (kitbashing, basic but elegant UI, re-use of meshes for load screens, characters sharing skeletons w/ just a bunch of morph targets), you'd be looking about a year and half to create all of Skyrim's assets / animations etc. as a solo developer..

But it's not just art is it? You have that pesky little code bit to deal with, to try and QA the event management system, terrain / caves / sublevels alone might take you half a year.. Then there's the mod system and creation kit, DLC / update and patching system also that small detail we call a game engine they have designed specifically for these types of games.

I think it could very well be possible for a lone dev with modern engines / asset store, but I'd probably set aside at least 4 - 5 years. That's if you're an expert in pretty much every portion of games development, if you're learning you might want to stick another 5 years or so on top of that..

 

If I were building an open world game that would need a large number of weapons I'd approach it the same way that Borderlands did theirs. Create the various components that make up a weapon and then procedurally attach them at runtime. Having the weapon stats affected by the components would be cool too.

 

Without actual scope we can't define anything anyway. Also generally can I make skyrim does not involve all the system in skyrim, just the overall feel of scope.

Let's scope skyrim, I'm installing the editor now then a look at wikis too.

 

I believe it covers everything, down to bird feathers.

The number of meshes is actually probably lower, due to duplication.
The number of armors is not very high, although making those (and their variation) would surely take a while:
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_Sets_(Skyrim)

Either way, you can just grab some archive extractor and count *.nif files. Tes Arena and Daggerfall were made by a very small teams, back in the day.

 

hmm, for real guys, I think I could do it solo, it would just take like 5 years to make all the models and design all the maps interior and exterior, the animations and skinning would look bad though and I would still need to spend a lot with audio because my sound designing skills are non-existent... Oh, and 5 more years to code all the systems... and 2 more years to set up all the quests... 2 years to make all the visual effects for the attacks, spells etc... I would still need to spend a lot more with the voicing over... and... Ah forget it...

 

Witcher 3 was made in Poland where wages are much lower while still having a competent development scene/pool (which is rare for a country) so at least 2.5x that cost in the US.

When I said 'Making Skyrim if I had all assets' (which was kind of a joke) I am assuming a normal development cycle of 3-5 years of course. But chances are someone like you who has designed these kind of game systems many times could get it done in 2 years. The only complex element would be the event system and there are huge amount of ways to cheat it.

My concern would be more in performance and let's be honest: people put up with terribly optimized games like ARK these days and even take pride in their computer running it well even when it does not look as good as it demands so even that isn't a concern.

And assuming you have no flying mounts, notice how Horizon New Dawn restricts at all times the world view of the player. I call it for that reason a pseudo-open world. The world is made up by giant corridors just like Halo 1 that give the illusion of an open world, but you really cannot go everywhere.

You have played Nier Automata so you would know the work that went into that game enemy encounter and combat alone.
Skyrim has ZERO combat balance and that removes most game design challenges at least in 'what I look for in games' being the reason I really do not care about most WRPGs outside of Kingdom of Amalur.

Unless you are The Witcher 3, most people after all do not care about quest design when playing RPGs. Outside of 10% that had special attention given to them, they feel like filler in the way.

Funny part is even if I do not care about Witcher 3, I know the next Elder Scrolls is going to look BAD if they do not learn anything from The Witcher 3 writing

To be honest, the joke of this thread is that I think single developers can make Skyrim these days.
It is just that 'Making Skyrim' is not enough these days thanks to the bar set by Witcher 3 in the cinematic, character animation and writing department.

Developers have three choices these days if they are making an open world fantasy game:
Make Witcher 3: high cinematic quality, writing and facial animation required. Unique highly detailed character models: a character generator won't do.
Make Zelda Breath of the Wild: unique enemy animations with a highly polished combat and physics engine and an insane amount of handcrafted tuned animations and physics interactions. You cannot CHEAT the asset pipeline in any way.
Make Skyrim: unless your name is Bethesda, you are going to get ROASTED and ignored.

While Skyrim pioneered 'asset reuse' with kitbashing sets, it is now a secondary thing in the appeal of open world games.

Gamers are no longer impressed by just having a massive scale. Gamers want unique content.

Some are even begging for more linear games lately.

 

Aha see perhaps not so different after all. This is basically my view. More, bigger, complexity is not the key... less, smaller, simpler is.

Alright just popped in because there is always something interesting being discussed. Good luck on the Doom kit. Looking forward to checking it out in a month or whenever.

 

That's a very odd thing to say. 95% of an RPG is quests. Fallout 4, Oblivion - all about quests.
If quests don't matter, you need another genre for the game.

That sounds like a lot of overgeneralizations with jumping to conclusions.

Developers have a choice to make their own game in any form and see how well it perform. Limiting to just a few choices does not sound like a good idea.

 

And GTA games have story and yet <10% players clear it.

Quest don't matter even if you want them to.

Most people just walked around, talked to random NPCs and got a quest but didn't even pay attention to it.

That's why people like open world games in the first place: no narrative urgency.

These days quests are in RPGs just for the former playerbase.

Those of us who prefer Mass Effect 1 to 2 are seen as crazies. But ME1 is an RPG. ME2 isn't. But consensus unfortunately dictates otherwise.

'Overgeneralization', I don't think so.

I am just saying you need to either nail the cinematic or the gameplay department, but just being an open world like the original Skyrim won't cut it assuming you are a new player and not Bethesda who could put the most broken game out there and people would still buy it.

Mass Effect Andromeda has REALLY good gameplay. But it got roasted FOR ITS REALLY TERRIBLE ANIMATION AND WRITING and the franchise has now been put on hiatus.

The novelty of the original Skyrim was its excellent fantasy art in an open world and the freedom to go around wherever you want. But these days, that isn't enough.

 

@ShadowK also, CDPR made Witcher 2 which as someone who played it when it originally came out, I have to say it was much more mindblowing than Witcher 3 meaning they already had the necessary R&D to make Witcher 3 outside of their open world solution. I prefer Witcher 2 vegetation much more though.

 

Steam data disagrees with this. 21.5% of players cleared final mission. That's one fifth of people. Since total gta sales apparently surpassed one billion usd, those people translate into 215 million usd.

The problem with Andromeda is not terrible animation and writing, but failure to meet fan expectations.

Bioware games usually have certain quality standard people expect. Andromeda failed to meet that quality standard.

Also, skyrim is not "Just an open world game". "Just an openworld" is stuff like minecraft, planet explorers, etct. Skyrim has hand-crafted locations to visit and explore, with secrets/etc.

Either way I don't agree with this kind of logic. Basically, it sounds like you think there must be a killer feature (cinematics/graphics), while it is about quality overall.

Have you, for example, used GTA 5's internet? It is there. Now, let's say you take it out. What happens? You lost one of the features people would like.

 

The GTA PC playerbase is totally distinct to the consoles one which are the majority of the sales. First they waited a year or two for the game to release on PC after its original console release.
Most people forget about games in that time and call them outdated on release.
Not to forget PC is not the bulk of the sales and more of an afterthought for Rockstar.

On PS3, while 50% of players have 'Finished the story', notice only 900,000 players that care enough to register their trophies profile are presented. I think it is safe to assume the majority of the GTA V 80million? sales only purchase the games to blow up stuff.

What I mean is that 'half-assed' elements won't cut it.
Either go low profile with cinematics like ZeldaBotW or go low profile with the combat like Witcher.

But if you attempt both high quality gameplay and cinematics like Mass Effect Andromeda, the stakes are higher.

And wow, you know about Planet Explorers. Is it popular or do we just like to research overlooked recent games?
I liked Skyrim as a walking simulator the same as Journey, but if they try to put quest writing and combat in the spotlight the game will be compared to Witcher 3. And it won't fare well.
Fallout 4 could get away with its combat because it is the only game with guns that plays that way. But Skyrim is about swords, not guns, and many have been doing swords properly lately.

 

Goat Simulator. Garry's Mod. Rust,

I honestly don't understand why you're bringing GTA, Breath of the Wild and Witcher in the picture.

The end goal is to stay financially in green while doing what you like. Not to make a "Witcher Killer", "Wow Killer" or "Whatever else killer".

It is in my steam library. Estimated 2 hundred thousand players.

If you attempt cinematics and voice acting, you'll sink. You need tor ealize extent of your abilities. Huge world? Sure, that's possible. Cinematics? Now we're suddenly talking about MoCap rig and bunch of expensive tools required.

I think you're off about all your conclusions. Dark Souls had no guns in it - highly popular.

Basically, it was never about one killer feature. However, if you think you've figured it out - try your ideas in practice and achieve financial success.

 

Never knew it grew that big. Will be an interesting read.

So you do get my point: that it is better to not feature something just to fill a checklist if you are going to do a subpar job.
But while Skyrim could get away with the facial animation it did because none had attempted that kind of open world on consoles, Witcher 3 made it so it is now 'cheap' or downright outdated.
Mass Effect Andromeda tried to cheap it... and as previously mentioned, it didn't go well.

That's not that I meant. All the contrary.

I meant to say none can say Fallout 4 combat is bad even if it was bad because it is the only game doing that kind of combat (VATS). On the other hand, if TES VI features sword combat inferior to that of Witcher 3 which is already average, it is going to have a bad time. It won't be able to escape the comparisons.
And any game being released today will go under the same scrutiny.

'Why play this game when a game released 3 years ago is much better in every department? Why was this game even made in the first place? Oh, for money!'

And of course: Dark Souls is the standard in sword combat But it wouldn't fit the carefree nature of TES. They need their own thing. An iteration of Kingdom of Amalur combat would fit it just fine.

It is not about figuring out 'what makes things work' but a massive list of 'stuff that doesn't work'.

 

Undertale.

I think that most of the things on this list are incorrectly labeled as "not-working".

The problem is that you assume that something doesn't work or won't work without prototyping it first, and without statistical data to support your conclusion. And by assuming that "this doesn't work", you lock yourself out of using that feature in your game, limiting your options.

Either way, I advise to just start working on your Skyrim clone.

 

Afaik, we are talking about 3D games.
Undertale wouldn't work in 3D. It takes pride in being a 2D game and most of it works because it is a celebration of 2D games and the 2D-exclusive 4th wall breakings you can get away with.

But I don't like Skyrim

 

Hmm ok I get you, games developers never outsource and every one of them is based in the US. .. Ha, I'm just poking fun at this point, I know you was joking ..

Yeah I've protoyped a few and at a push you might not be too far off in terms of time scale, but we are talking 50+ hours a week for two years solid with little to no breaks. Even then I'd have to do some major improvement cycles and it would be classed as a beta at best.

I love openworld RPG's, they are beyond fun to play.. I think you're nuts to develop one without at least a team of 10, it's not about "being able to do it", it's about scurvy... Seeing the odd bit of daylight for 3 - 5 years isn't good for one's health.

Definatley, one of the THE biggest issues is optimisation and it's something that would never affect 99% of indie games.. I see 0.33ms of additional frustrum culling overheard on a terrain segment an issue.. Most would never blink twice..!

It is rather specialist and it's probably not best suited to Unity either (if we're talking games of Skyrim / W3) scale. Then there's expectations of modern releases, whilst Skyrim can run on a toaster as soon as you start adding fancy lighting mods you notice your rendering ms dropping like a stone.. Never mind a game built from the core upwards using GGX shaders and realtime GI (or semi).. (Last openworld demo I made in Unity had a 23GB GI cache ).

Yep and with Skyrim you'd be wasting money if you bought FaceFX, there was only one voice actor prattling on about an arrow to his socks or something.. I left him with the Dark Brotherhood.!

Yes you probably are right, that's the thing with big development teams.. They never stop, they never slow down and as we learnt from a previous thread with @GarBenjamin you can create a 20 year old AAA game in a day.. So we've caught up to the point where we can make a decent openworld RPG that's 5 - 8 years out of date in 3 to 5 years.

By the time you've got around to releasing it, a AAA company will have come along and wiped the floor with W3.. Your game will look about a decade plus out of date (not just in terms of graphics) and that cycle will infinatley continue.

So I agree, they probably can do it.. Whether they should is a completely different matter, still seems a little bit bonkers to me (of course that's why I do it)..

 

Thinking how in 10 years people will be saying Witcher 3 has outdated graphics and facial animations while old retro gamers are hyped for an incoming fan retro tribute of Morrowind is a scary thought.

So if I were to make a Skyrim clone, I would just have to release it in 2031 so it is seen as retro rather than outdated

 

I sent you an email claiming to be a prince from Nigeria but I need your bank account information so I can send you the money.... LOL.

 

Dude, you are late.

I received this mail from a guy called Ryiah claiming to be the 3rd Prince of Nigeria. It is more feasible to meet with the 3rd Prince of Nigeria than the first even though It sounds like a female name.

Sounds fishy but I accepted.

 

But I really am the prince of Nigeria.

911 Prince Ln, Abuja, Nigeria.

LOL.

 

Its possible. First come up with the idea. Then use premade assets to build a example mock up of the game. Then use that to raise funds. Then outsource.

 

Assets definitely do help speed game development up. I'm developing a VR exploration game with my wife, and we've done 50% of the technical work with assets, plus some art assets. As an avid game jammer too, I can attest to assets.

 

Actually, can anyone point me towards an RPG made in Unity that's of decent scale like 8KM2 upwards and even half the quality of Skryim?

This is for pure curiosity purposes, I found one that looked really promising but it looks like it was dropped mid dev.

 

BTW botw isn't heavy on asset, and there is a lot of trade off, a lot of object polycounts are barely above the wii games. There isn't a lot of enemy, and comparing to game of the same hardware generation (darksider series, skyrim,gta 5) it's visually not technically as heavy apparently. outline shader (but used to express They also have less objects count on screen than those games ... but it's to have more solid interaction and physics and to focus on element such as grass rendering, and a nice one pixel outline shader (which basically double the polycount of object using it, like ... the terrain). Enemy are smartly design rather than smart, and whil ethey are palet swap copy of each other, they are carefully placed to make situation and scene. In fact the last wii game has more graphically complex scene that this one, on a hardware with a power level of one magnitude less than the current one.

Also people don't play skyrim for the combat mechanics, but for the random situation the game throw at you, it's an adventure simulator, just watch a stream and all the insane S*** that happen to a streamer, you roleplay yourself, it's about the fantasy, in fact that's why better combat in dragon dogma do nothing t dent on skyrim. Combat is only half the answer, and why the new zelda is more of an elder scroll format than other game.

And cloning skyrim also mean you don't have to figure out the problem they have already solved, ie faster dev time. Cloning game that are unique can pay off, do people know about Ocean Horn? It's been made by one guy and now have a sequel, it was cloning zelda game on IOS, where there is no competition because zelda game are inexistant.

 

On the Gaia thread they share one game made with their tools.

 

Hard to tell, actually, because number of rpgs in showcase is small, and most of them are "view from above".
https://unity3d.com/showcase/gallery/?platform=&genre=923&gametype=t-all#gamesstart

This one is done in unity, though:

There are also "Assassin's Creed Identity" and Crowfall.

 

They are not open world though, maybe crowfall only?
I also find this:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristophEnder/20170222/292179/Open_World_on_Mobile_with_Unity.php

 

@neginfinity @neoshaman

Hmm, that is odd and kind of expected all at the same time.. I can't find a PC based openworld RPG in Unity, I suppose Rust and The Forest exists though (not sure how "big" they are in relative terms though")...

 

I imagine someone may take this the wrong way but... you might not find the kind of thing you are looking for because it seems like most (not saying ALL here guys saying % wise) Unity games seem to be targeting mobile from what I have seen. And I think those probably are not quite what you are looking for.

The closest for non mobile might be No Man's Sky which IIRC was marketed as an open world survival game. Not rpg obviously. In fact it might be interesting just to see a comprehensive list of all rpgs made in Unity period. Have there been many?

 

I second this. And the more people you add to the team, the more you can cut that 4-5 years down into a much shorter timeline.

There are also shortcuts. Ranging from things like using paid asset store artwork (and later crowdfunding real art, or allowing users to add art via mods) to even avoiding graphics entirely. Many games make minecraft-like artwork so they can just focus on the gameplay.

There is also a lot of power in community collaboration. Making the game, but having no story, and enabling users to create their own content, all in an attempt to create a "Skyrim", wouldn't be the worst idea ever. If you get a few talented modders on your side in the beginning, you could really build a strong community.

That would just leave you with game systems (programming) & creating tools.

Easier said than done, but I am with you: Anything is possible if you're willing to do the work. Solo, Team, or Community-Driven, it is all possible. Realistic even.

Does Shroud of the Avatar count? Unity based MMORPG with (I assume) a MMO sized openworld (enormous).

 

That would explain my overall grumpiness on the forums. I haven't been outside in about 2 decades.

 

Sorry for the triple post, but I keep reading snippets that really excite me to comment. Love your recent posts @ShadowK

I would honestly, as a gamer, love to play a MMORPG that looks like original Everquest. A 2017 spiritual successor would make me drool (if they fixed the...you know....life-drain requirements of the original Everquest).




As someone who plays roguelikes & thoroughly enjoy graphics like Caves of Qud, I am more than willing to put a lot of money down on Skyrim1999.

One of my many dreams after becoming a successful billionaire gamedev would be to start a ton of studios & hire a ton of developers exclusively to remake old classics like Everquest, Ultima Online, Fallout 1&2, Shadowrun for Sega, etc. It would be pretty easy. Phase1 would just be to tell them to recreate the games EXACTLY as they were. How hard would that be? They'd know exactly what features to do. No playtesting required. Phase2 would be to improve them for 2017. Obviously would require a lot of additional work, but at least gamers will have a released Phase1!

Do this with a ton of games that never seemed to get a proper remake. Give players tons of options to enable/disable major features, so they can play an exact EQ1 clone or the EQ2017 version. Sell DLC graphics replacement packs or allow modding. So many dreams.

 

Having only played The Forest for a relatively short period of time I want to say it's the size of the Skyrim Dragonborn map.

 

Very close to one of my dreams as well. I see visuals (right or wrong) as basically "skins" (within reason of course obviously there are tech considerations for the latest greatest which I wouldn't bother with) but basically the ideal would be to make it so the user community can create the replacement graphics packs themselves. Starts out ultra basic (maybe even monochrome) "out of the box" but there are always people out there who love to just make the best graphics they can then release as a mod.