I always get a smile on my face hearing the words "planescape" and "arcanum". Simply for that I would kickstart anything you propose (if that anything had lots of story in it ;-). And I know at least two others who would put up money in a second.
But you are looking for preferences and suggestions. Here we go:
I would have said a turn-based RPG is a must, but I don't remember any mayor successful turn-based RPG, after Baldurs Gate made RTwP the standard. Except for Wizardry 8, but that was tedious because of too many fights (I never finished it). Maybe my desire for turn-based is just nostalgia. Or the desire for really tactical combat which on the other hand should be secondary to story and setting. Still, if you have something like RTwP, why not add a config option to make it turn-based through automatic stops (there is no problem with having actions that need more than one turn). If you add appropriate difficulty settings for turn-based and RTwP or even RT, everyone is happy and you can even market it to the action-RPG crowd. Although, I think you tried that with Arcanum and the real-time wasn't really working (or is my memory faulty in this regard?)
Mature story and characters and ideas is a must. Don't censor yourself to appeal to the masses. A strange, unusual or even weird, mysterious setting and humour would be wonderful. Both Planescape and Arcanum had the right mix (probably F:NV too from what I heard, but I'm slow and still playing FO3 at the moment). Did I say humor? If not: humor. It's what made Portal such a resounding success. What made Planescape unforgetable was the story and how everything fit together (read 4xis.black's post in this thread again, he found the right words). Really, the story should be your number one priority.
As lots of people said, no romance, NWN1 forever gave me a phobia for that.
The setting should be something fresh, paying for a licence is probably too expensive. But you may find fresh settings where you don't need to pay through your nose for that, webcomic or book authors might be happy about the promotion.
Probably a post-apocalytic setting isn't the best right now because surely we'll get more of that with Fallout 4. Steampunk or similar would be wonderful, but you might say "been there, done that". If not, take a look at the webcomic "Girl Genius". What wouldn't we give for gigantic steam-robots ;-) ?
Maybe some unusual (for games) hard-SF setting like a generation ship where you wake up and find a new primitive civilization surrounded by high-tech. Or the alien civilization you are thrown into as sole (as far as you know) survivor of a spaceship crash and must learn the rules (and can offer something new to them as well which would give the opportunity to incorporate a quest system). Read books by C.J.Cherryh or Iain Banks culture novels like 'Player of Games' for inspiration about interesting aliens and AI.
Maybe an alternate history setting. From Nazis-won-the-war to church-rules-everything. Aliens-live-among-us could be interesting, see the movie District 9 why it must not always be an invasion scenario.
A time travel main story where your actions in the past are necessary to overcome obstacles in the future. I know, difficult to do as an RPG (instead of as an adventure) but that would really be something novel.
Something similar to "Superhero League of Hoboken". I know many who always hoped for a new incarnation of that game. Not the mechanics (the game had its flaws no doubt and the story was simplistic), but the scenario was great, inept superheroes with superpowers like create organizational charts or see inside pizza boxes. Set in a postapocalyptic New York. Pleasantly weird and rich opportunities for satire and humor.
Something else you might think about is whether you could open-source the game. Would make it possible that your game gets expanded, improved and bug-fixed by a community of fans and take on a live of its own. Without having to support a complicated construction set.
If Obsidian + Kickstarter = ?
in Chris Avellone's Blog
A blog by Chris Avellone in General
Posted
I always get a smile on my face hearing the words "planescape" and "arcanum". Simply for that I would kickstart anything you propose (if that anything had lots of story in it ;-). And I know at least two others who would put up money in a second.
But you are looking for preferences and suggestions. Here we go:
I would have said a turn-based RPG is a must, but I don't remember any mayor successful turn-based RPG, after Baldurs Gate made RTwP the standard. Except for Wizardry 8, but that was tedious because of too many fights (I never finished it). Maybe my desire for turn-based is just nostalgia. Or the desire for really tactical combat which on the other hand should be secondary to story and setting. Still, if you have something like RTwP, why not add a config option to make it turn-based through automatic stops (there is no problem with having actions that need more than one turn). If you add appropriate difficulty settings for turn-based and RTwP or even RT, everyone is happy and you can even market it to the action-RPG crowd. Although, I think you tried that with Arcanum and the real-time wasn't really working (or is my memory faulty in this regard?)
Mature story and characters and ideas is a must. Don't censor yourself to appeal to the masses. A strange, unusual or even weird, mysterious setting and humour would be wonderful. Both Planescape and Arcanum had the right mix (probably F:NV too from what I heard, but I'm slow and still playing FO3 at the moment). Did I say humor? If not: humor. It's what made Portal such a resounding success. What made Planescape unforgetable was the story and how everything fit together (read 4xis.black's post in this thread again, he found the right words). Really, the story should be your number one priority.
As lots of people said, no romance, NWN1 forever gave me a phobia for that.
The setting should be something fresh, paying for a licence is probably too expensive. But you may find fresh settings where you don't need to pay through your nose for that, webcomic or book authors might be happy about the promotion.
Probably a post-apocalytic setting isn't the best right now because surely we'll get more of that with Fallout 4. Steampunk or similar would be wonderful, but you might say "been there, done that". If not, take a look at the webcomic "Girl Genius". What wouldn't we give for gigantic steam-robots ;-) ?
Maybe some unusual (for games) hard-SF setting like a generation ship where you wake up and find a new primitive civilization surrounded by high-tech. Or the alien civilization you are thrown into as sole (as far as you know) survivor of a spaceship crash and must learn the rules (and can offer something new to them as well which would give the opportunity to incorporate a quest system). Read books by C.J.Cherryh or Iain Banks culture novels like 'Player of Games' for inspiration about interesting aliens and AI.
Maybe an alternate history setting. From Nazis-won-the-war to church-rules-everything. Aliens-live-among-us could be interesting, see the movie District 9 why it must not always be an invasion scenario.
A time travel main story where your actions in the past are necessary to overcome obstacles in the future. I know, difficult to do as an RPG (instead of as an adventure) but that would really be something novel.
Something similar to "Superhero League of Hoboken". I know many who always hoped for a new incarnation of that game. Not the mechanics (the game had its flaws no doubt and the story was simplistic), but the scenario was great, inept superheroes with superpowers like create organizational charts or see inside pizza boxes. Set in a postapocalyptic New York. Pleasantly weird and rich opportunities for satire and humor.
Something else you might think about is whether you could open-source the game. Would make it possible that your game gets expanded, improved and bug-fixed by a community of fans and take on a live of its own. Without having to support a complicated construction set.