Idea Info Name: Dragoncross Index: Primary Category: RPG Submitted: 9/23/2002 8:40:37 PM Written By: Echarin

Upon starting a new game you will be required to choose a name. Then you will have to choose a race, a gender, a face, hair (if any), facial hair (if any), height, clothes, and more things that determine your looks. After that is done you will not be able to select a class, you won't be able to select any skills or feats, or whatever you are able to do in other RPGs (that is RPGs like Baldur's Gate I and II, Neverwinter Nights...). Instead you are immediately thrown into the world into a random starting town, and from there on what you do will affect your skills, what you do will determine your class.

Dragoncross will be played in the 3rd person perspective. It will not have a predetermined story like in other games. Instead your actions will make the story, but that will mean there won't be much of a story around the main character. You will be able to team up with various NPC's in the game, and each of the NPC's you can team up with will have background stories. Those may be dark, and they may not want to reveal them to you right away, but maybe once they trust you a bit more.

The gameplay in the game would also be different from most other RPG's, as it will be much more action oriented. I have thought the fighting aspect of the game all the way through and I will describe it now. This game could really appear on any platform, but since I only own a PS2 (and a PC, but I thought this up as a console game) and only know the layout of the PS2 controller I will  describe this with the buttons of the PS2 controller:

X: Jump
Square: Primary attack
O: Secondary attack
Triangle: Function 1 - Use and open doors
Function 2 - Throw (in hand to hand combat)
R1: Guard
R2: Cast current spell
L1: Attack modifier (depress this button to be able to use different attack combos)
L2: Use current item
Left Analog Stick: Movement
Right Analog Stick, left and right: Strafe left and right
Right Analog Stick, up and down: Look up and down
D-Pad, left and right: Change current item
D-Pad, up and down: Change current spell
Select: Menu (you can use the menu to change equipment and go into the options menu where you can change the controls, brightness of the screen, screen adjustment...)
Start: Pause

When using a sword the primary attack will be for the most used attacks while the secondary will be for rarer, more dangerous attacks (but harder to do). Depressing L1 will allow you to perform more combos. Jumping can be used to access more moves, as can the Triangle button. Players will be able to climb up into trees to get out of range of enemies, or to surprise them, but climbing is a skill that will take time and practise to learn.
Using bows is a bit different than using swords. To get an arrow from your quiver you will first have to depress the O button. This will make the character get an arrow from his quiver and place it in his bow. The harder you press the button the further the character draws the arrow back, and the further it travels. To fire the arrow the player has to press the Square button.

To get a companion for your adventures you could visit a tavern in some town or city and just talk to some of the NPC's there. You can also hire henchmen (like in NwN) to travel with you on your adventures.

Once you have started adventuring you will be awarded points depending on what you do. Do some heroic deeds (defend a town from an orc invasion) and you will become famous, maybe given a position in the army, if you accept it. If you get to the top ranks in the army then it will be yours to command and you can choose to send out forces to take over enemy lands.

The game world will be huge, and it will have many different towns and cities that you can visit. You can go into many different shops to buy weapons, armour, potions or magic scrolls. You can also buy yourself a house that you could use to store items you don't have to carry around with you, or just to simply own it. :)

This may seem like a lot, and it is, so it's very likely this idea will just remain as a dream in my head. I think no developer would be willing to take on a game of this magnitude of fear of screwing up, so I guess I'll only be able to play it in my head.