Phantasy Star Online fans - question about design.

[UnholyBlood]

If you were designing a Phantasy Star game and had PSO in mind as your innovation. What would the most important key feature be when designing it?

[Jaspaller]

It's a tie between Combat and Customization (but I put customization for the hell of it).

Combat since a game isn't fun without good enjoyable combat
Customization... for customization I would want it to run deep for stats... where you can tinker with even the smallest stats... customize the character however you feel like playing. Accuracy whore? sure, Power Hungry? Even better!

[Splash]

PSO had an explicit storyline despite the lack of movie cutscenes. Matter of fact, PSO's story is complex, making it enjoyable for you to figure out things along the way through 4 episodes.

I honestly don't know what to choose. I would obviously love a good story, as it is a RPG game, but combat is just as important as well, likewise customization.

[Saphion]

Red boxes.

Lots and lots of red boxes.

[RemiusTA]

PSO's storyline was lackluster at best. Only reason it was seemingly "complex" is because of how scarce you actually got facts about it. Rico tells it in Ep.1, and Flowen in Ep2. Episode 3 was the only one with a real storyline.


I would say Combat. As an MMO you can add extra character customization and missions anytime you want, but you can only alter the combat engine so far as it is the basis of the game itself.

PSO's combat engine only took it so far. By Ep2 it had already reached its limit. Thats why the focus on Environments and Extra Weapons was so heavy.

[Illywei]

Weapons! Lots and lots of weapons!!!

[kizu]

Character Customization is my first followed by combat system then weps and finally playing areas. i don't care about story or missions really, as long as the gameplay is good.

[Splash]

On 2007-12-05 02:40, RemiusTA wrote:
PSO's storyline was lackluster at best. Only reason it was seemingly "complex" is because of how scarce you actually got facts about it. Rico tells it in Ep.1, and Flowen in Ep2. Episode 3 was the only one with a real storyline.

Well now it's obvious who actually pays attention to the capsules/communicators and who doesn't. >_>

Ep3 is in-depth, that I can agree on. However, so was ep1 and ep2. It doesn't matter who is telling it to present facts, it is how facts are intertwined and connected that matters. If you actually read them carefully, there is a lot that can be revealed. Ep1 presents a story, ep2 expands it, ep4 fills in the missing info from the episodes.

[UnholyBlood]

but does 40 or so capsules with 2- 3 lines of text really make a story:) not a richly detailed one at that:)

[Banish]

If you read the scripts, there are A LOT of words/info in those messages... (they do indeed include detail), should fill in the holes. Not to mention, some of the quests offer some story-line, as well. Phantasy Star has a cryptic and interesting plot, which you have to figure it out to find out.


http://www.pso-world.com/sections.php?op=listarticles&secid=110





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Banish on 2007-12-07 07:42 ]</font>

[Saphion]

Don't forget the hidden storyline with MOTHER in the Central Control Tower, as well as the Black Paper sidequest.

[Callous]

None of the above. I would look to PSO's music, atmosphere and tight gameplay design.

[Splash]

On 2007-12-06 05:32, UnholyBlood wrote:
but does 40 or so capsules with 2- 3 lines of text really make a story:) not a richly detailed one at that:)


There are far more than just 40 capsules so you obviously aren't paying attention. >_> There are also 8 messages from Flowen, and over 100 quests which you can do to follow the life of another NPC on Pioneer 2. When you combine everything, it flows right in and is really complex.

[Saphion]

Seriously though, red boxes.

[UnholyBlood]

hmm? well if you say thats a good story fair enough but I would kinda say I would expect more from a game with over 7 years in development, and the missions dont really move me much in turn of a story, more like just filling in things that most phantasy star players would have a good idea of anyway, there are a few nice surprises but mostly when the story pays homage to older games.

[Kelvie]

What the... Combats ? lol...

Well anyway, I voted customization.

[doubleEXP]

I voted combat, because I totally agree with RemiusTA and Jaspaller about gameplay being #1.

However, what makes PSO so special is how hard they worked on ALL aspects of the game. The music was outstanding, the graphics were state-of-the-art for early 2001, the story (even though it was mostly presented in capsules) was very interesting, there was TONS of customization possible (which even modern games don't live up to most of the time), great level design, great rare item system, the list goes on.

I sometimes think we are too quick to overlook how powerful the PSO music was. Its easy to take it for granted after you've played 1000+ hours of PSO. But the fact is just about every track was at the very least good, and most of them were awesome. From the P2 music, to the soothing Forest music, the electronica Miines music, the epic Ruins music, plus the boss themes, opening theme, and ending theme. So many amazing tracks which really helped set the mood and keep it going. I think the only track a lot of people didn't care for (though I didn't mind it) was the music in Caves. It was also very innovative how the music tempo would pick up when battles started, then calmed down as the battle ended. That was so original and awesome. I wish more game designers would have learned from that and used that in today's games!

Still, in the end, the thing that matters the most is the core gameplay, so the combat. It has to be fun, satisfying, and make you feel like the more you play that you have a chance to master it, but always a little bit more to work towards.

Good topic!

[RemiusTA]

On 2007-12-06 02:04, Splash wrote:

On 2007-12-05 02:40, RemiusTA wrote:
PSO's storyline was lackluster at best. Only reason it was seemingly "complex" is because of how scarce you actually got facts about it. Rico tells it in Ep.1, and Flowen in Ep2. Episode 3 was the only one with a real storyline.

Well now it's obvious who actually pays attention to the capsules/communicators and who doesn't. >_>

Ep3 is in-depth, that I can agree on. However, so was ep1 and ep2. It doesn't matter who is telling it to present facts, it is how facts are intertwined and connected that matters. If you actually read them carefully, there is a lot that can be revealed. Ep1 presents a story, ep2 expands it, ep4 fills in the missing info from the episodes.



If you called that a "Storyline", then i don't know how to address this question.

You cant tell me that the excuses for going to the same 4 stages in episode 1 got extremely old after a while. If it wasn't so addictive the storyline would have been ANNOYING.

[--Tsunami--]

i said customisation but if i would be making a game, id just work on the combat and leave the same cutomisation