I'm finally getting thinking of actually buying the full version of the ORK Framework.
But I just need some final words from all you that are using it professionally, to ensure that it is all worth it (it is somewhat big investment for my budget).
I've been testing the free demo version for some time and I see it's good potential many ways, but I'm just little unsure that which parts can be done within the ORK and which could need either some extra coding or other unity tool, to make all the features I've planned for my game (and work well too). And will I find a good flow through the ORK to create the actual content after making the core game mechanics working.
I'd like to hear opinions both positive and negative sides, what are things that other people loves about ORK and what are the downsides of it (if there's any)?
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Mechanically the Battle system looks classical turn based combat, but the content of the battle is very different. But I've already seen few tries that I got very close the battle system I had in my mind, so I can understand the battle system is possible to do with ORK.
Maybe the biggest difference in the battle system is that no one dies in the battle, combatants just loses(even technically it is a Death). The outcome of the battle changes the npc's behaviour, most often from very mean and evil person to much friendlier person.
So it's important to keep the combatants existing before and after the combat, and if the battle outcome is losing, player's chance to make the change to the npc either ends or gets very difficult, and player needs to find another way to defeat the evil person.
If battle outcome is winning, the evil person stops his/her ways and might give you new information(about different things), task, or wish to join the group.
I think this, change of personality, could be done through game variables, right? (if there is a good way to do this, I'm all ears)
For the UI, I just want it to look like a modern JRPG, (Ni no Kuni's UI's functionality, for example, is one I like, but it needs to be stylized bit more for my game)
One thing that I'm hoping to find a way to create abilitycrafting-type of feature, where player can create a custom ability based on learned elements, (you could craft it from Alignment(good/evil), Aspect(Fire, water, nature, light, dark, etc.) and a Method(Touch, Speech(ranged mental), Motion(ranged visual) ) the effectiveness varies through main character's stats and weaknesses of the enemy)
And then I need little different quest system, it functions somewhat like classical questing, but the content is different, and it's called Memory instead of a Quest Log. There you'll record all the quests and tasks that are given to you(current, past, success & fails), but also contains all the npc's you've met (and info about them), locations visited (works as a map and fast travel) and your own personal quest.
These are the biggest technical things I need to sort out, and see what I can do purely with ORK and what I need to do some other way.
Pros of ORK:
- Very flexible tool, you don't need to code anything if your game fits in ORK
- Not required to make your standard Final Fantasy style RPG either, you can really make something unique.
- The support on the forums is very good. GamingisLove and others do a great job in helping users.
- Once you do the tutorials you get comfortable with ORK and start to know your way around it. I personally did most of the tutorials 3 times before actually starting to develop my game. Each time I would play with more and more settings.
- User friendly. While ORK is complex tool, GiL has made a great job in making it user friendly.
- No royalty on products you sell. Make your game, sell it or give it away for free.
- If you find a bug, the ORK developer offers a fix rather quickly
- It is very stable and bug free
CONS:
- I often over think while trying to add something to the game and it doesn't work, then I ask for help and someone points out a simple solution that could've saved you hours. That's just me hahaha
- If your game requires thing ORK cannot do it may be difficult to add those yourself if you are new to Unity, ORK and programming.
This next one is really minor
- Since you did not create ORK yourself if you do find a bug, you need to wait for a fix. ORK is extremely stable and bug free so don't worry about this.
cant think of anything else, I LOVE ORK!
For the type of quest system you want to create, I have to defer to Gil. But I have an idea there are ways to do that using some kind of global event.
I try to make the best use of it :)
Regarding the quests - there are different ways to do this. You can set up Logs for information on each NPC, quest and location you want. See the log sub-sections in World for that. When talking to an NPC, you'd learn a new log or log text and you'll have the info available (e.g. using a menu screen).
Quests can be done either with the quest system, or purely with logs and game variables. The game tutorial has an example for logs+variables, and there's a gameplay tutorial on quests :)
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I like it very much.