True.
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100% agree. My RPG game is boring after 5 minutes personally - but easy to play, so is therefore more popular for younger players, as reflected by developer stats: the average visit length is generally longer when the vast amount of players are <13.
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Try and use the search feature to have a look at similar topics before making a thread, this same topic was pretty much posted a few days back.
[https://devforum.roblox.com/t/are-mmorpg-games-too-niche-on-roblox/89027]
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Sorry, I’ll do that next time.
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I don’t have access to that topic so I wouldn’t of found it either way.
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Some (or most) of what I’m going to say has already been said, but let me put my thoughts into one post. Note this is all just my assumptions and I don’t have any experience proving any of what I’m going to say, so take from it what you will.
This is a subject I used to talk about a lot with one of my friends ~a year ago. The good thing is that we generally had different views on why RPGs aren’t as common as they used to be, which helped form new personal opinions, or strengthen existing ones. Hopefully something I say here is some sort of help for you, and if you’re thinking of making an RPG I hope to see success for it as it’s a great genre and has potential to keep an older audience around on Roblox.
Breaking down the post
I remember an RPG that was popular way back when on Roblox, which I believe was called Tales of Range’s Cape (or ToRC). Like I’m sure most people did in ToRC, I never really had a specific goal. All I knew was that I liked to kill monsters, and that’s what I was going to do. The game held no control over where you go or what you should do, and it was pretty easy to roam around without dying.
The fun part of the game was discovering new enemies to fight, and new areas to explore. Staying around in the same area and doing the same thing is never fun, which is where I believe a lot of RPGs on Roblox these days tend to fall short. A lot of people underestimate the work needed to make an RPG, and if progress is too slow, your players will find another game to play.
It’s true that it’s become harder to discover RPG games. However, I don’t believe this to be entirely due to the genre dying, I think a pretty big role in this is the change in dynamics on Roblox. Back in the day, Roblox games didn’t have much to them. Typically you’d find an obstacle course, a tycoon, or some roleplay game.
When you mix the RPGs of ‘old roblox’ with the general pool of games Roblox had to offer back then, there wasn’t actually too much of a difference between them. It was harder to make a more sophisticated game in the older days of Roblox, so when an RPG came up, as I said earlier, there wasn’t any specific goal or guidance in what to do. Players were free to roam around and explore, and I think that’s what players on Roblox like to do, though there are exceptions.
Comparing an RPG from old Roblox to a tycoon from old Roblox, the games are so clearly different, but they hold a similarity to them. When a player enters, they’re thrown onto a spawn point and do whatever they want from there. In an RPG from back then, a player is free to explore wherever they want and fight monsters of their choice. In a tycoon, a player is free to pick, to an extent, the parts of their tycoon they wish to purchase. There’s no (or next to none) constraints, which leaves open the opportunity for the player to find what they personally like in the game.
I think what’s worthwhile depends on what you want to make. Of course, different people have different wants or needs from a game they make, and I’m not here to decide what your reason for making a game is. So let’s move onto what makes a game ‘work’ on Roblox these days.
What makes a game successful on Roblox?
You’re free to decide this for yourself, but I’m going to say what my thoughts are on this based on my own observations. Keep in mind a lot of what’s in this section is here to help you see what makes other games work, and may help you decide things for your own game.
Popularity
Popular games stand out above others in what may be the most rewarding way emotionally (as I learned personally in 2009). No matter how good or bad you personally feel your game is, knowing a lot of people are playing your game is a great feeling (even if the game is as bad as my ‘obby’ was in 2009).
Jailbreak
Though the game isn’t exactly my type of game, the first thing that struck me in Jailbreak was its overwhelming size. I didn’t know where to go or what to do, as I’m sure most players didn’t seeing as it was opening day. However, I stayed anyway because the curiosity of what the map had was enough to drive me to look around and find out what I can do.
In this case, because I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do, the nice but simple aesthetics were key for me personally. If the map hadn’t looked as nice as it does, I probably would have just left. This is enough to boost the game to the top, because it has the same thing games on old Roblox had.
The ability to search around and do whatever you wish is something that seems to have always kept players in a Roblox game for a good while, and even cause them to return. What separates Jailbreak from the old Roblox games though is that Jailbreak, once you’ve found it, has a lot to do, and it’s your choice on what you want to. Freedom and new experiences every time your players play keeps players playing, which is a common trait in the popular games.
Robloxian Highschool
This isn’t a game I’ve stayed at very long, only went to look around. However, in my opinion, the game is successful for the same very similar reasons: You’re able to do your own exploring and it can be a new experience every time you go. However, high school seems to be a pretty popular topic among older kids and younger teenagers, which makes it a popular game genre too.
When you enter the game, the whole focus is roleplaying and socializing with other players. For a game like this, it’s important to focus on making new experiences for the players. These fresh experiences can come from having new people to talk to and roleplay with in every new server you go to. However, this brings things to the point where guidance is important in certain games.
When playing the game, the game never seems to force you to go anywhere. However as the day passes, it prompts you on where to go, and includes an option to directly go there. This is important as the game would be basically pointless without anyone to talk to. Giving these prompts is a good way to keep player interaction up, which helps to build good memories and an urge to come back.
Popularity Conclusion
When your goal is a large player base, it’s important to remember what makes a game fun for you. Having to perform the same tasks and see the same things repeatedly is never fun, and will ruin your game. These two games stay updated, and have mechanics within them to help keep the game fresh for a long time even without updates.
Revenue
Revenue is a big focus to a lot of people who make games. When you spend a lot of time making something, of course you want something in return. However, popularity alone isn’t enough to make a big amount of revenue. If there’s nothing to buy or no incentive to buy something, then of course your earnings won’t be very big.
Welcome to Bloxburg
Welcome to Bloxburg (or just ‘Bloxburg’) doesn’t share the top earning spot with Jailbreak for no reason. Bloxburg is a game where essentially you just live a life, but in a game. It enables you to socialize with people, as well as work interactive jobs. You can customize your own home by buying furniture, or spend money elsewhere to have fun and play with your friends.
By doing interactive jobs you can make money. However, this can take a while, and players will often want to buy something sooner than the time it takes to earn the money in-game. Because of this, players will purchase the games default currency, or its premium currency to reach their goals faster. This is very common practice in games, and something you can definitely incorporate into an RPG very easily.
On top of buying currency, Bloxburg has a few gamepasses that can be very enticing for players.
Excellent Employee - This gamepass is bought for the same or very similar reasons currency is. Being able to achieve things faster is something players are surely interested in.
Premium - The premium gamepass gives players access to features early, which is very exciting for those who own it. It includes higher daily rewards, your bills being halved (pay less, thus making your money more valuable), along with other features.
Multiple Floors & Advanced Placing & Large Plot - These three gamepasses allow you to have more customization on your house in their own unique ways. Being able to customize your home more uniquely is a paid feature that works very well for Bloxburg specifically, as your home customization is one of the big areas of the game.
Unlocked Stereo - The ability to play music using Roblox sounds in the game is unlocked with this gamepass. Whether it be on a car radio or in the club, being able to play your music has been a popular feature throughout many Roblox games for years now. Though in a traditional RPG this seems like a weird feature, no one said you had to make a traditional RPG.
Revenue Conclusion
Bloxburg holds enough examples on its own to get an idea of how to make revenue off your game depending on what the game is. RPGs are rich with lots of different items and abilities, and if revenue is your goal don’t shy away from it. But more on that below.
It’s important to know from the start of a project not only what players can buy, but why they would buy them.
How do I make an RPG successful?
Success in a game all depends on what you’re looking for. Given the examples above, I’m going to give ideas on how to make an RPG enjoyable and replayable for lots of Roblox users.
How do I make my RPG popular?
A lot of Roblox players are looking for a fun experience that doesn’t involve a lot of learning or introductory. If your game takes too long to ‘begin’, a lot of players will leave before even deciding whether or not the actual game is fun.
Simplicity
A simple game is a game that you don’t need to really learn. In an RPG, the biggest challenge to overcome is making sure players of all types understand right from the start how to use weapons/attacks, and where to purchase items & how to customize their character. There’s two big points that may help do this: Simple UI and simple instructions.
Simple UI: When designing your interface, it’s important to learn what traits other games typically have that players already understand. Making your UI familiar helps shorten the time it takes for a player to learn how it works. To add onto that, it wouldn’t hurt to give a few pointers to newcomers. Just remember that tutorials can be boring and annoying.
Simple instructions: For a newcomer, managing a fight with mobs can be very confusing if the game is something new to them. Your goal with a popular game is to attract all players, not just those who already like and understand RPGs. A good way to do this is to have a ‘mock’ fight at the beginning of your game. Make the player face off against an enemy that has no actual chance to win, and guide the player on what to do to win and what the things they select will do.
Keeping the experience fresh
Where a lot of RPGs on Roblox fall short in my opinion is new experiences. Even when I found RPGs I liked, updates were lacking. At this point I wouldn’t go back to any of those games even if they did update, since it’s just been so long I don’t even care anymore. Of course, I assume this to be the same for other players.
New content: When adding new content to your game, make sure your players know that there’s new content. On Roblox, the best way to do this currently is by changing the thumbnail and icon. Also, add a short prefix to your title that helps the player understand what’s been added.
Preparing for new content: When making your game, make sure it has a stable base to really help updates come fast. Updates don’t always need to be big, and even with a small team you could push out small updates. pretty often.
-
Weekly updates
These should include small things that will help the game feel slightly more unique. Ideally, these updates should be prepared ahead of time.- New items
- New mobs
- New quests
-
Monthly updates
Monthly updates should be ‘larger’ updates. These updates should keep players around longer, as they hold more content.- New areas
- Overworld locations
- These can include new mobs, primarily.
- Villages
- New quests
- New NPCs; More story
- Towns
- New quests
- New NPCs; Significant key points of story
- Many more items in whatever shops may be in these towns
- Dungeons
- Harder versions of existing dungeon themes
-Harder mob versions or longer versions; should be something new - New dungeon themes
- Many new mobs
- Much more loot
- The harder the dungeon, the better the loot
- Harder versions of existing dungeon themes
- Overworld locations
- New character classes
- Add onto what you already have
- If the game is element-based and you already have fire, water, and ice, for example, then think of what else may be available
- Nature
- Electricity
- etc
- New areas
Keeping a fun experience without updates: Small updates won’t always happen weekly, and big updates won’t always happen monthly. It’s important to recognize this from the start, and have features in place to allow players to have fun when there’s no update a certain week or no update a certain month.
- Daily rewards
- Reward a player every day they beat a dungeon
- Include a smaller reward just for visiting. After entering, a player may decide to do a dungeon for the bigger reward
- Daily quests
- Predetermined pool of quests that will be offered daily
- If you can, have the game use the same quests daily for all players. This way, players may complete daily quests with their friends.
- Daily quests must hold rewards based on difficulty and length. Make sure the rewards are worth it
- Money
- Experience
- Small chance at an item/weapon/etc exclusive to daily quests
- Predetermined pool of quests that will be offered daily
- Events
- Holiday events
- Easy to think of
- Can be lengthy, keeping players around
- Holiday events are very enticing as they’re familiar to a lot of players
- Though technically an update, generally don’t take long to make
- Reusable events
- Event dungeons
- Event mobs
- Event item drops
- Have several of these events, and make it clear when an event is active. Give them unique names (or other ways to be identified)
- Holiday events
Goals to work towards: When a game becomes popular, there’s almost inevitably players who want to achieve anything and will go to any length to do so. For these players, make it clear that there are very rare items or mobs. With a way to log their achievements, these players will hunt down these few rare mobs/items no matter how long it takes. By keeping these players in the game, you can gain even more traction. People prefer playing games that already have players.
Files: Allowing players to load different files can keep the experience fun and fresh. By having many different classes of characters, players can load different files and try out new move sets or weapons. On top of that, when one file is caught up to the most recent expansion, they can work on other files while waiting for the next big expansion.
How do I earn revenue from my RPG?
There’s honestly not too much to say on this topic, as it all depends on what type of RPG you’re making. But here are some ideas:
- Some form of VIP/premium membership
- Include higher currency income
- VIP exclusive class
- VIP exclusive weapons/attacks
- Some sort of in-game indication that the player is a premium player
- Weapon packs
- Armor
- Weapons
- Any other form of attack
- Any other form of item
- Several different tiers of packs all priced accordingly
- Need to look cool
- Premium class characters
- Classes should be unique from ones you’d usually find in the game
- Helps save appropriate ideas for non-premium classes
- Makes premium classes stand out above the others
- Power can be higher than other classes, but don’t make it unfair
- Power based on price of class
- Moves and weapons need to look cool
- The more expensive the class, the cooler the aesthetics
- Classes should be unique from ones you’d usually find in the game
- Extra daily quests
- Quests assigned to the users with this pass should be slightly more rewarding
- Just like regular daily quests, all of these should be the same among all players
- Exclusive dungeon
- Dungeon needs a cool theme
- Good loot
- Exclusive mobs to the dungeon
- Exclusive item drops to the dungeon
- Purchasable currency
- Your game will almost definitely have a currency
- Allow users to purchase this currency for robux. The higher the price, the more currency they get
- Make sure the higher priced currency bundles are more worth their price than the lower ones. This entices players to purchase more, so they get more currency for their robux
- Some games use a premium currency (one which can only be achieved through robux). Think about if this is right for your game
- Make sure there’s plenty of items in the game players will want. If they have no need for currency, they won’t buy it
- Whatever may work for your game
- Not everything works for every game
- If your goal is revenue, design a game that works well for revenue
Conclusion
Most RPGs on Roblox don’t seem to follow the ‘Roblox format’, as I call it. A lot of people enjoy RPGs, and I don’t think Roblox players are exempt from this. Hopefully at least some of what I’ve said here holds true, and I hope for success in whatever you may or may not be planning.
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I saw your icon on this page for the past hour that said you were typing and assumed it to be a bug lol, I now understand why.
Having read through the whole thing, I definitely think this is great advice for any RPG game, or in fact a lot of games in general. A lot of very informative and useful points. I plan on bookmarking this for reference for my own RPG, so for that, thank you! <3
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Thank you so much for this! It was a really interesting read and brought up alot of ideas & points I never thought of. Going to them deeply into consideration when I work on my rpg. Thank you!
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Same haha. It was an amazing read.
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overkill
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@Extuls Has a lot of useful things to say, I’m glad he wrote it!
As for my own 2 cents, when I was an Accelerator, Deepak explained to us the Gray Box Model, where you basically make your game mechanics enjoyable and “pop” to the player, and then flesh out the story and map from there. It’s been a pretty useful tool since then for me. Another issue with taking on RPGs is that all the player-player interaction in a pvp game must be programmed in the form of game functions, which is a LOT of work.
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I was getting worried from seeing much lower quality content from people in the “Upcoming Developer” rank, but @Extuls’ post is incredibly refreshing.
Moreso on the original topic, think less strict roleplaying and moreso “open world”. Players like to be given freedom in a social environment where they can show off and interact with others. Have an interesting mechanic or 3 and make sure to keep your game structure from being too rigid. RPGs in the traditional hack-n-slash, level up, hack-n-slash some more sense are dull and boring.
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Lots of great advice on this post, definitely bookmarking and applying all of it to my RPG game which is somehow nearly 2 years in the making 
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Many people still enjoy these games, like Fantastic Frontier for example, not sure if that is a great example but I do think it is something to go off of. They just need to be up to date, not the same old kits from 2012 is what I am seeing.
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I thought RPG was Role Play Game
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Christ that sounds morbid, you might want to change that to attention span
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This is true. Thats why you see games like meepcity with many things to do on the front page. Sticking to one goal for longer periods of time just isnt something kids in this generation like. Thats my view in this. No need for a debate, its my opinion
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I don’t believe they’re a dead genre. They’re definitely less popular than how they were in the past, but there are most certainly still people that play them because they’re pretty fine time waster.
Yes, but the nitpick here is that Pokemon is already a really popular video game brand so OF COURSE it has high rankings in Roblox, not because it’s well-made (since there are some pretty low-quality Pokemon games on Roblox with high player counts), but because it’s familiar, even if you’ve never played a Pokemon game.
Ultimately, I think the finding the answer to that question is to play an RPG; see why it’s popular. Why was Purple Skittles popular to a lot of people? Was it the combat mechanic? Was it the charm? There’s only one way to find out. Why did the Paper Roblox Series get popular? Was it because of the sense of adventure? Was it because of the characters? There’s only one way to find out.
I agree with your opinion, how you worded it just makes it sound like they’re gonna die soon, rather than they’re going to stop playing lol.
It is. But the term “RPG” sort of holds its own meaning due to its most common use. Games like Pokemon or Final Fantasy are RPG games. A game about role playing wouldn’t really be called an RPG, even though it technically is a role play game.
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