Primary research FMP

So the other day I thought of collecting primary research for my final project. I thought the best way of doing this was through surveys and questionnaires that i can then give out to people, that would then give me further insight into what people want and like. So I created a brief survey in survey monkey.com to get a start to my project.

So the first question helped inform me in what kind of RPG I would be designing. It turns out that the most popular RPG style of the people I asked was an open world designed game. Which surprised me as I thought that Turn based Rpgs would win, due to the general popularity of pokemon and the old final fantasy games. So this has helped me steer my project down the route of developing assets, characters and stories for an open world environment.

Similarly, it was decided by popular vote, that the ability to create your own custom character in an open world RPG was really important. So I will need to consider designing character design assets that 'could' then be used in a character creation system.

I also guess i will need to design characters with varying opinions and looks on the world that could then conceivably have different branching dialogue options, depending on the actions of the player.

One of my intentions when I first thought of this project was to do some sort of character design booklet. Like the instruction booklets of old. However thanks to my survey it helps to tell me thats these things are not really what people want. And in a real development cycle would be unnecessary and likely a waste of money for production unless produced for something very particular. However if i do end up making a concept book i will put elements of character biographies beside their designs and why i chose them. However I would not then do a world building one. Although i could spend some time in my project designing what would be an in game grim moire of in world lore.

I asked this question mainly out of curiosity. However this could help inform my design of the starting area. Since peoples favourite class was a mage. I could make the starting area filled with a population of mages. And develop the story up and around that. Having the standard warriors and archers within those ranks.

This can also lead me to design cool robes and staffs that they would/could use.

Similarly elves were the highest scoring in terms of race popularity. So the starting area could be filled with elves and humans.

And here was the question that helped inform another small idea I had that I could 'create' as a final piece to hand in. A Collectors edition usually consists of a disk case, the game, and model statue or some sort of misc collectors item and and in game art book, usually with a soundtrack CD.

The primary goal for this project would be to create the art book. A couple of pages of high quality, well laid out artwork. then i could test creating Game case designs and such.

The manual for dragon quest IX is going to be a huge inspiration for me, as that gives cute small drawing of some of the first characters you meet, plus some enemies. Something I hope to create by the end of this project.