FreeGameDev

I remember when final fantasy 7 came out and people were really upset about Aries death. Basically imagine that, but then just make it even worse (better). Preferably two thirds of your characters will be dead by the end of the game, including the main character that you began with, his or her best friend, love interest, etc. Just leave the lame old guy, wise old lady, and generic silent warrior, because no one cares if they die, so let them live. The idea being to have well written characters you fall in love with and care about only to have them die in plot driven, but senseless ways. The reason we should do this is because it will encourage new players to edit the game and fork it, thus generating a lot of new free software JRPGs.

Death is a very strong emotion and should be used wisely. Just like salt in a dish. Give it too much, and it'll be too salty to be eat. Give it too little and it won't be tasty. Still, there are happy-end-lovers, who don't tolerate death of dear characters at all.
Hardly making something that doesn't taste right would encourage people to improve it. They'll rather not play the game at all unless it's otherwise amazing (can't we at least dream of such things?) or extremely advertised.

Jastiv {l Wrote}:I remember when final fantasy 7 came out and people were really upset about Aries death. Basically imagine that, but then just make it even worse (better). Preferably two thirds of your characters will be dead by the end of the game, including the main character that you began with, his or her best friend, love interest, etc. Just leave the lame old guy, wise old lady, and generic silent warrior, because no one cares if they die, so let them live. The idea being to have well written characters you fall in love with and care about only to have them die in plot driven, but senseless ways. The reason we should do this is because it will encourage new players to edit the game and fork it, thus generating a lot of new free software JRPGs.

This made me laugh Rather a roundabout way to encourage community developer involvement, but who knows? It just might work

The only potential issue I could see with this would be, since you are talking about an RPG, if the character you like the best and thus invest the most time/resources/levels in dies, it might hurt your appreciation of the game. I know that if I spent 10 hours grinding for a special piece of equipment or something I would feel very cheated if the party member I gave it to took to the grave with them, totally out of my control. Maybe a game with lots of character death, but where you can make good (but difficult) decisions that can avoid the deaths? Or maybe just have the survivors loot their friends bodies for equipment before they bury them or something

I do agree that it would be good if there was a stronger narrative focus in some of the free software RPGs, and libre games in general. I really think the community is one single critically-acclaimed story away from making the mainstream, and thus bringing libre gaming into focus among all gamers, similar to how indie games were several years back.