:: sighs ::
well first thing i'll say here is,...
Quote: "i've wrote the whole game out."
That line is impossible unless you game is already finished and ready for download.
When you develop an RPG your not developing something like a platformer where you have set rules for everything; everything about an rpg is about growth, from your development point of view and from the game players point of view.
The key to creating ANY game, is to start with a basic framework based on an idea.
FPS - Mouselook, Collision and Weapon Basics
Platformer - Movement and Collision Basics
RPG - World Design, Battle and Stats Basics
no matter what your working on, what you need to do once you have an idea is plan out and program up the most BASIC form of the type of game you are going for.
from this plateu you can then fine tune it's framework to then move on to incorporate something of your games design; finally move onto working on the story and getting that done on a basic level.
basically what your doing is working in stages
Stage 1) Basic Engine
Stage 2) Game Elements
Stage 3) Story Elements
Stage 4) Content
Stage 5) Optimising and Finalising
Each stage you basically start at the begining of your engine again and add to it... this is far far easier (and quicker!) to develop in small bites rather than trying to develop a complex system from day 1.
you WILL overwhelm yourself, there are not two ways about that.
Designing how your World and Battle systems play is the first step in an RPG;
Final Fantasy 7 uses Pre-Rendered Scenes with Static Cameras; Which means the scenes are built from cut up images and overlayn in a specific order then the 3D Character runs around on basically what is a clean background and collision is based on a black/white collision map.
Final Fantasy 10 however uses Full 3D Landscapes, but designed in such a way as to use a set Camera point so that you cannot fully explore them visually but the level designer determins what you can and cannot see.
Grandia 2/Extreme also uses Full 3D Landscapes but is designed so that you can fully explore it visually.
Final Fantasy 7-9 have '3d world maps' in order to get around the world, FF10 and G2 don't have this they use preset location maps and interconnected world parts.
Designing this portion will determin some of the style of your game and development style so it is best to choose what you feel is best; this takes alot of doing on it's own.
When you move onto designing you battle system, again you have to think about the basic style;
Final Fantasy has Limit Breaks / Trance / Overdrives which are Physical based specials ... upto you if you have them or not; and more importantly how they're filled as 'Trance' in FF9 is filled by Magical attacks as well but fills slower.
Next thing to decide is will magic use MP or will it be like FF8 where it is drawn from enemies?
Will your timer be...
real-time like FF7-9;
turn-based like FF10;
timer based + reaction time like Grandia;
Will you battles be standards
|This Side| vs |This Side| like in Final Fantasy?
or will it be
Movement Based 3D Area like Grandia?
It takes one hell of alot of planning not just in story but general design and advanced features which often need to be designed and planned seperate; especially once you've coded them up.
Even something as simple as ... 3D in a 2D world or 2D in a 3D world or even 3D in a 3D world or 2D in a 2D world?
Can be a tough decision.
If you've ever played FF Tactics you'll also know you could even have a Chess Style battle system; which totally changes the standard battling style.
RPGs really are not the easiest of games to create; especially not in Final Fantasy style or on you own. So try to think hard about what your going to do and start by creating a basic engine;
Don't sit there and moan about how you can't model or anything like that, a test engine should always use cubes and planes to represent things - partly for speed, but also so you can clearly see what is going on (provided you colour them different colours
).
Look at what DarkBASIC Pro offers you in terms of tools at your disposal to help;
Arrays, Types, For...Next, Select...Case and If ; those are basically your weapons of war for designing and you should go over how they work; Make sure you understand them and dev the game accordingly.
