Castle Paradox

[Bob360]

how big should a world be.... I was thinking like at least 50 by 50 per continent... what do you think?

[MultiColoredWizard]

...

I think that the size of each continent should be dependant upon what's on it..
Oh, and the world should fit everything on it!

[Seth]

Well, I believe that the overworld on any RPG should be damn big.

I'm talking maximum map size big, somewhere around 160x200. (maximum size is 32000 tiles, but I split my overworld into four of these.)
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[Shadowiii]

Depends on the game. If its a time traveling game, and you're going to have mutliple world maps, maybe a medium sized one would work. However, if you have one game and its main, then you probably should have a good map.

For the record, all the games I've planned (I haven't made any yet) consist of more than one world map. Be it timetravel, and overworld and underworld, or different planets, being restricted to one overworld is....restricting.
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Setu_Firestorm]

You also have an option to do what Sir Phoenix did on Neo Krysta and break your world into smaller "continent" maps. That way, if you should decide to make a sequel to your game, you wouldn't have a different world map for every game (like how Hyrule changes with every Zelda game). With continent maps, you can easily throw it back together for a sequel, or leave open room for more, different continents.
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[MultiColoredWizard]

It should be decided to make a sequel to a game before even working on the first.

[Blazes Battles Inc.]

Same thing with everything else, like Dragonball (fairly good, liked it more when I was younger) turning into Dragonball Z (we all know I'd have to use excessive cursing to explain it).

Basically, if it wasn't decided beforehand, the sequel will never be as good, because the plot would have come to sensible end at the end of the first game.
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Preserve OHR history! Do it for the children!

[Laven Atries]

[Blazes Battles Inc.]

I think the map size is too small for truly large maps, so I've decided to slow players down (and make it more realistic). The walkabout sprites on the main map will be smaller versions of the normal ones, the speed will be reduced to 2. There will be a slightly higher battle rate, so they will run into battles at the same time/frequency/thing they would if they were walking at normal speed on a normal map.

Destiny's Cruelty spans seven games, four of which do not even have the main character of the series. There's going to be a lot of character and story development. By the time I finish the seventh, I'm expecting I'll be working on HamsterWheel. With the OHR (supposedly) nearing completion, and the fact I'm the slowest worker ever, it can't be that far off...
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Preserve OHR history! Do it for the children!

[Aethereal]

*ahem* http://www.castleparadox.com/cgi-bin/gamelist-display.php?game=145

Three more after that, hopefully.
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[Uncommon]

Continent maps... Interesting. I once had an idea similar to that, except that I was thinking of country-specific maps...

World maps really do vary from game to game. For example, in "Live By the Sword..." the only piece I'll need to put on the world map would be the continent of Émerique (a whacked-out version of North America, actually), particularly the countries of Tethent and Gliss, as the Insectine Empire never has any importance to that story (if I scanned the map I drew, then you might know what I'm talking about).

"Knights of the Realm" and "Where God and Mortals Dance", however, will require the entire world on the world map, because they span across it's entirety. "Wartorn Elegy", the sequel to the two aforementioned games, may or may not include the whole world, as that game is far from leaving the planning stage.

Most of my shorter tales don't even use a world map, as they are usually confined to a certain city or area. "Live By the Sword..." would be the exception.

As you can tell, I do plan on sequels.

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

Having only one large world map doesn't really bother me that much. What irritates me is when there's this suposedly large country/nation/empire/whatever and it only has one city, when it's made clear that this empire consists of MANY MANY MANY other cities, etc.

Unless it's old scotland, and every bloody village has at LEAST one Castle, there's no justification for saying that a country can consist of one village. The arguement against this is of course, the Greek city-states of yore.

Again, OHR RPG cities typically have a King, a WHOLE bunch of guards, and a few measly townsmen, and nobody else for a grand total of about 12 people. In some OHR games I've played, the only people in town are the shop keepers. Usually it's just too time consuming to put in laborers, ministers of the various departments of government, and various other citizens like butchers, carpenters, etc. It's sad when the total number of people in your party outnumber the guards in a castle.

I went off on a tangent again, but in most cases, it's too unrealistic to have 30-40 minor cities on a world map. 2 or 3 per country is usually sufficient if there's only two nations in the game. Overall, that's on average 1 map for the world, and 10 maps for the interiors and exteriors of each city, plus 2 more for the castles/capital buildings. Oh yes, throw in the hero's hometown which usually ends up being destroyed anyway, and that's about 14 maps altogether, including the other cities and the world map.

Nearly every game since final Fantasy 1 has also had the following dungeons in one form or another...

#1 The dark haunted forest where imps/plips/really weak enemies pose little or no threat.
#2 The Fire cave where everything is weak against Ice and walking around hurts you mysteriously.
#3 The Ice Cave which is encountered almost immediately after the fire cave and where everything is weak against fire.
#4 The Cave/Swamp with icky slimy things which you only enter once for the sole purpose of moving the plot along.
#5 The Cave/Mountain where undead mysteriously like to hang out for no good reason,
#6 An underwater cave where everything is weak againt electricity and is encountered slightly after the fire and ice caves though not before the technological fortress.
#7 A technological fortress that usually floats in the sky/space/cleft of dimesions, and is usually where the heroes first fight the villan of the game.
#8 The evil villain's lair/castle/fortress, which you fight the villain of the game at, but escapes into...
#9 The starless void where the final boss is fought
#10 The dungeon where Ultima Weapon or its equivalent is fought.

Generally, at least four of these will appear in 90% of all OHR RPGs these days, with minor variations in the placement of them storywise, except for #9 which is generally at the end. This brings our total up to about 25, give or take 4, depending on whether or not the developer got creative and used dungeons not listed above. Add in (on average) 1 boss per dungeon, an introductory boss that wrecks the hero's hometown, and the evil villain of the game not including the final boss and you have the basics of an OHR game.

Someone correct me if I was wrong somewhere. Oh yes, the part about Dragonball Z being decided after Dragonball isn't entirely accurate, seeing as the manga of Dragonball covers everything from Goku's birth to the fight with Uubu, which is more or less all of Z and pre-Z. Toriyama had nothing to do with GT on the other hand, except that he designed Super 17.

[Uncommon]

In light of the above post, I feel I should say this:

I don't write many medieval stories. Most of my games take place in a Pre-Victorian-esque era. No king, no castles (except old ones left over from past ages). Tethent has no monarchy, it has a parliamentary system, Gliss has a presidential democracy (the Insectine Empire has a monarchy, though; interestingly enough, every country in Émerique has a different govermental system...). Yes, it takes more thought, but that's what makes it fun.

Introducing politics is a much more complicated system than, say, having a king that can do whatever he wants... For instance, battle training in public schools is a big issue in Tethent. Fairsdale Academy (Caleb Glade's school) is one of the more prominent experiments of this program (which, by the time of Where Gods and Mortals Dance takes place, is rather well-established; in Live By the Sword... (about ten years prior) there is mention of the program in its draft stage, but that's more than anyone cares to know). The Tethish people are considerably divided on this issue, and that makes room for much more fun.

As a final note, none of these countries have less than five cities in them.

[Flamer]

note what fenrir has listed as "common" dungeons used.
that's what you need to avoid, to make a more interesting game.
I've played a few games which didn't consist of those and ah... they were better than some others i've played.

anyway the point being, need new scenary not the same old FF type scenario game.
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[Eggie]

World maps. Hmmmmm.....

If you want to have a sequel to a game with a new map, make something messed up happen, like a meteor, earthquake, or some other really effective happening. On FF6 the world is deranged after a apocylyptic happening. You can do that to make a sequel. Of course there are other ways... ... ...