A recent post on the Pav got me thinking about some of my old ideas on the future of RPG development that I wrote about a few years ago.

Basic concept is a browser-based RPG maker as a part of an online platform. When I first came up with this idea and wrote about it a few years ago, HTML5 was in its infancy and Flash had just begun its downward spiral. In the intervening years, HTML5 and JavaScript have matured significantly, as has the entire spectrum of web technologies.

Below is a map of the technologies I think are suitable for creating this now:

• HTML5
• Canvas
• Local Data Storage
• JavaScript
• Ember Framework
• jQuery
• Server Software
• Node.js
• Sails/Express/Some other Node.js Framework
• Possibly PHP
• MySQL, later transitioning to Maria DB for relational data
• Redis for more dynamic non-relational data
• Server Hardware
• Amazon EC2
• Distributed datastore using Amazon RDS (transitioning from MySQL to MariaDB once Amazon makes that an option)
• Other AWS technologies

Given the current pace of advancement of web technologies, and the way things are shaping up to be in the future, I believe it is possible to build a strong foundation now, using current technologies, for something that will be able to transition to the platforms yet to come. With the death of XHTML, killed by HTML5, and the tremendous effort being put into the execution optimization and ubiquitization of JavaSript, I think it is fairly clear that these technologies are going to be around for a while.

Now, if you don't exactly know what all these things are, let me talk about what this list of tech really means. These technologies would allow for the creation of a RPG making platform that has the following qualities:

• Can make & play games on any HTML5 capable device, on any platform (Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android)
• No special software to download or install for either creating or playing games.
• Centralized game distribution (just type in the name of the game, search by any criteria, and play the game instantly with just one click)
• Centralized resource distribution. Create, upload, and share your own graphics, scripts, and other resources. One click to add a community-created resource to your own game projects.
• Integrated payment platform to sell your games or resources to others.
• Cloud-based platform allows you to work on your project from anywhere, requiring no bulky file transfers or risk of losing your data as you migrate from system to system.
• Version control for your project. Save project restore points that you can go back to if you make a major mistake. Publish one version of your project for people to play while you continue working on another.
• All of your project information is available via an API, allowing for integrations with third party apps, or custom developed tools for visualizing your project.
• Since everything is online, game makers will have visibility of stats like how many people view their project, play their game, how long players play, stats on maps, deaths in battle (presuming the maker chooses to have battles), and other statistics which can be custom defined by the game maker and populated using the eventing system or custom scripts.
• Quite a few more possibilities.

Now, as for the actual features of the game creator and the engine, those have been well discussed before in a lot of other contexts. Custom battle systems, formulas, resources, and so on would certainly all be possible.

Like all the other RPG Makers, this RPG Creator Online would have an eventing system. But, just because it's a browser based platform doesn't mean that would be the end of it. Since the engine itself would be running on JavaScript, there would be the capability for extending the engine with custom JS scripts or plug-and-play modules that could add new systems, modify core modules, or extend core functionality through the engine's internal API.

I think that an RPG creation platform as described here could reach a much larger audience than the current console and even PC makers some day. Getting rid of all platform barriers, allowing anyone on any modern device to create, share, and play games in and of itself would be majorly attractive, the other features and benefits aside.

Being platform agnostic, with a low barrier to entry (no special software to install, one-click to play), online and connected, would all be the key benefits of this RPG Creator Online over the current options. Perhaps even the killer feature.

Well, I've outline the very basic recipe. Now someone just needs to make it a reality.