Making a RPG

[OurNation]

ME and a couple of friends want to make a RPG and i was wondering where we should start
also what program/languge to use?

[Chainsaw]

That depends on a bunch of things...

What kind of graphics do you want? You can make RPG's in text mode, or with lots of graphics like NeverWinters Nights. Even with graphics, there are those sort of 3rd person 'hover over the game' kinds and the Quake/UT first-person style.

If you are serious about a heavy-graphics game, you probably want to use an existing graphics engine. For example, you can use the Quake1 engine 'for free', but you have to license the Quake3 engine. There are lots of engines out there with lots of different useage licenses, that can take some research to get the right combination of features and cost.

Once you choose an engine, that may dictate the language right there. Or it may limit you to, say, Java calling C routines or the like. It will also lead you down a 'look and feel' path that would be different with a different engine.

It is, of course, possible to build your own graphics and sound engine, but then you'll likely spend 80% of your development time building the engine and the tools to make maps and convert graphics into your engine's format. This can be very fun and very rewarding, but it sure makes for an extremely long lead time before you can get to the part that actually deals with the game!

As to your team, you might see what your talents are and use that; You'll want one or more artists to make the images, a sound person, 'game logic' programmers (i.e., not the engine, but the interaction of the game elements/charactors), and so on.

Is this an online game? Then you'll need clients and servers. Those may be different sub-teams of people.

This is just a smattering to get you thinking. Maybe you have a specific game idea in mind already, but if you are still in the brainstorming phase, I'd suggest researching existing engines and understanding how they would impact your game's overall capabilities. Understand, too, the amount of effort involoved of which kinds (tons of art? Tons of game logic? Complicated maps?)

Good Luck!

[SeroSX]

The RPG Maker series programs are very easy to use. RPG Maker XP is the latest version out, and it is very nice. It helps you to make console-style RPGs without any coding skills. The only problem is that it's a japanese program and it isn't free, but you can find free versions that have been translated to English, but you can't sell anything you make with it, as that would be illegal. I'm not sure about the legal status of downloading and using one of these translated english versions, but I don't think you will have any problems unless you try to sell your RPG or something. If you want to download it just search on google for it, or www.suprnova.com has a torrent for it in their PC Games section, but you need Bit Torrent to download it.