Can you explain what you mean about those games being more complex? Story-wise? Graphically? gameplay mechanics? .
Well... actually all the above; Its hard to compare to a commercial game; story-wise they were made by pros or an amazing indie guy (Geneforge/Avernum) with complex storylines with branching endings, graphics are similar to Flare (thats the charm of Flare) but gameplay wise Flare is Diablo. Watch a video of Nox, its pretty fast action, i loved it at the time how hectic things could get; and all of them have deeper mechanics than Flare, be it more skills, character classes, companions, damage resistances, magic items... Flare Empyrean feels empty. But to my surprise the "default mod/alpha mod"?(cant remember the name) was a blast to play. It had summoning pets/minions, morphing into werewolves/werebear/ghost, a class free skill tree where you pick only the skills you like and many new ones appear later after some event (helping a druid teaches you werewolf form...). And all that its just forgotten in a corner instead of being built upon. Sometimes i also wonder why no one has rebuilt Diablo 1 using Flare...
Awhile ago i wrote some ideas at Flare github, you can have a look at it, maybe you will get some useful ideas:
In what way does Divine Divinity let you play the way you want to compared to other RPGs?
My memory fails me, but i remember it plays almost like a Fallout, your stats determine if you are a speaker or an axe-weilding brute, so you can get peacefull resolutions most of the game, go for stealth or just hack and slash. The world building is great and funny; one time i was traveling the forest and found a gold coin, and another one... a trail of them leading to a totally non-overly suspicious bush, i went there for the kicks and a goblin party bursted out of it telling how dumb humans are, i killed them, but i could have talked my way out if i wanted.
Another time i was tasked with searching a magician tomb, there i found his servant skeletons ready to revive him as a lich, one of them started hitting on me to go for a drink and a roll on a bed later... after helping to revive it, the lich tells you how painful is to be an undead, regrets doing that to his servants, frees them and exorcise himself... The writing in this game is GOLD.
The ones you posted are more complex than Flare (except diablo), Flare is quite barebones rigth now but has the potential to expand, the games i have played and liked thru the years (and resemble Flare):
Nox: very action oriented, less about stats
Geneforce series: Could be rebuilt or someone get inspired from it with Flare. Rpg and strategy with a nice story and monster summoning/training/developing. Turn based but could go real time quite well.
Divine Divinity: a masterpiece of rpg, it lets you play it the way you want to.
Its true that programmers tend to be more close minded in regards of what they do. Sometimes all you get when pointing out something is "im doing it this way because i want to"
This is an interesting topic, i think that in FOSS games what you call good game design crashes agaisnt the will of the creator to make something they will enjoy themselves, but maybe others find boring; while with commercial games its a product intended to be sold as much as possible so you get bucketloads of the same everywhere, they dont risk at all, they stick with things which sale good.
Look at all the recent AAA, they are mostly just another entry in a franquise (gears of war 5, call of Duty XX, Fifa something) all of them made by pros, but that doesnt make them good or fun. So i think we are into a good era since indie teams can innovate and create real jewels, they risk to break the mold, many crash and burn, but the lucky ones get great success (stardew valley, undertale, Isaac).
Getting back on topic, a programmer will have a much easier time at delivering a more refined product, in a faster period but that wont make it better or fun. While an artist can take years and deliver something good because of a unique feel(Ex. Undertale, creator is a musician); that feel mainstream has lost. But it all boils down to the core ideas, some are bound to fail from the start, others are hated by a good portion of players (gachas and energy that plague cell phones), rogue-likes (which i truly depise) or are overused. Or that ideas are good but need more refining, QA is great for that, sadly FOSS developers cant afford/dont get testers/dont care about imput for their games.
To resume, i dont think a programmer has more chances at making a fun game (better coding), nor an artist (unique art or music), being a game addict can help make it fell better to other gamers (but more of the same). Its the refined core idea, aimed at one player group and the combination of all the previous.
Thats is a pretty nice objective, i would vote on starting a new campaign, since the current one is already finished and not that great. Something darker and more mature would be nice since current one lacks narrative and the objective is quite meh; or a cheerful one, anything goes i guess.
You can ask me for help if you need it for making variants of enemies or the odd model.
i would like to try it if you fixed the alarms
I also got a positive, you should give a proper check to your computer as well.
Can you explain what you mean about those games being more complex? Story-wise? Graphically? gameplay mechanics? .
Well... actually all the above; Its hard to compare to a commercial game; story-wise they were made by pros or an amazing indie guy (Geneforge/Avernum) with complex storylines with branching endings, graphics are similar to Flare (thats the charm of Flare) but gameplay wise Flare is Diablo. Watch a video of Nox, its pretty fast action, i loved it at the time how hectic things could get; and all of them have deeper mechanics than Flare, be it more skills, character classes, companions, damage resistances, magic items... Flare Empyrean feels empty. But to my surprise the "default mod/alpha mod"?(cant remember the name) was a blast to play. It had summoning pets/minions, morphing into werewolves/werebear/ghost, a class free skill tree where you pick only the skills you like and many new ones appear later after some event (helping a druid teaches you werewolf form...). And all that its just forgotten in a corner instead of being built upon. Sometimes i also wonder why no one has rebuilt Diablo 1 using Flare...
Awhile ago i wrote some ideas at Flare github, you can have a look at it, maybe you will get some useful ideas:
https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/issues/739
In what way does Divine Divinity let you play the way you want to compared to other RPGs?
My memory fails me, but i remember it plays almost like a Fallout, your stats determine if you are a speaker or an axe-weilding brute, so you can get peacefull resolutions most of the game, go for stealth or just hack and slash. The world building is great and funny; one time i was traveling the forest and found a gold coin, and another one... a trail of them leading to a totally non-overly suspicious bush, i went there for the kicks and a goblin party bursted out of it telling how dumb humans are, i killed them, but i could have talked my way out if i wanted.
Another time i was tasked with searching a magician tomb, there i found his servant skeletons ready to revive him as a lich, one of them started hitting on me to go for a drink and a roll on a bed later... after helping to revive it, the lich tells you how painful is to be an undead, regrets doing that to his servants, frees them and exorcise himself... The writing in this game is GOLD.
The ones you posted are more complex than Flare (except diablo), Flare is quite barebones rigth now but has the potential to expand, the games i have played and liked thru the years (and resemble Flare):
Nox: very action oriented, less about stats
Geneforce series: Could be rebuilt or someone get inspired from it with Flare. Rpg and strategy with a nice story and monster summoning/training/developing. Turn based but could go real time quite well.
Divine Divinity: a masterpiece of rpg, it lets you play it the way you want to.
Hey, that looks pretty nice, would be cool to have everything redone like that.
Its true that programmers tend to be more close minded in regards of what they do. Sometimes all you get when pointing out something is "im doing it this way because i want to"
This is an interesting topic, i think that in FOSS games what you call good game design crashes agaisnt the will of the creator to make something they will enjoy themselves, but maybe others find boring; while with commercial games its a product intended to be sold as much as possible so you get bucketloads of the same everywhere, they dont risk at all, they stick with things which sale good.
Look at all the recent AAA, they are mostly just another entry in a franquise (gears of war 5, call of Duty XX, Fifa something) all of them made by pros, but that doesnt make them good or fun. So i think we are into a good era since indie teams can innovate and create real jewels, they risk to break the mold, many crash and burn, but the lucky ones get great success (stardew valley, undertale, Isaac).
Getting back on topic, a programmer will have a much easier time at delivering a more refined product, in a faster period but that wont make it better or fun. While an artist can take years and deliver something good because of a unique feel(Ex. Undertale, creator is a musician); that feel mainstream has lost. But it all boils down to the core ideas, some are bound to fail from the start, others are hated by a good portion of players (gachas and energy that plague cell phones), rogue-likes (which i truly depise) or are overused. Or that ideas are good but need more refining, QA is great for that, sadly FOSS developers cant afford/dont get testers/dont care about imput for their games.
To resume, i dont think a programmer has more chances at making a fun game (better coding), nor an artist (unique art or music), being a game addict can help make it fell better to other gamers (but more of the same). Its the refined core idea, aimed at one player group and the combination of all the previous.
Sure, new art is always appreciated
Just ask then, im not that great but i can help, the worse of all is animating, thats the reason why i prefer to modify existing ones.
Thats is a pretty nice objective, i would vote on starting a new campaign, since the current one is already finished and not that great. Something darker and more mature would be nice since current one lacks narrative and the objective is quite meh; or a cheerful one, anything goes i guess.
You can ask me for help if you need it for making variants of enemies or the odd model.
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