Even Newer Demo (6-7-05)

[Deleted]

I'm gonna have to stop with the demos sometime, but I keep fixing and adding stuff. Well, I've uploaded a new demo yet again. It's up at the Pavilion already and I've emailed it to Ves so it should be up at Doan's Domain sometime soon. You'll notice what's changed and what I've added when you play it, he he he...

The main things I want feedback on are:

Music

Map

Intro

You'll know what I mean by that after playing the demo.

Go touch the ostrich at the beginning to get a full Party and a lot of Abilities.

For the questions, it'd be helpful for me if you jotted down how you answered them. You can just jot down 1, 2, 3, or 4 for the number of the response. For example, 1, 4, 3, 2, 4, 1, 1, 2, 4, 3, 1, 4. This would help me a lot and I'd be very appreciative. Thank you!

[doyleman]

Not sure what your asking w/ the 1 2 3 4 thing, but I'll play your game for sure

[Deleted]

Okay, I've just uploaded a new demo of my game and sent it to Ves/posted it on the Pavilion. It's already on the Pavilion and will soon be on Doan's site. The new demo is v e r y different than the last, and will give you an idea what playing Paladin will be like (as opposed to showing what bits and pieces I've made).

New demo contains:

Intro cutscenes - complete
first 'town' - complete
World Map - partial
9 custom music songs - complete
battle system - complete
new abilities, new VFX
extreme system - complete
character battle dialogues - complete
custom rest-at-the-inn music - complete

The big installments are the intro cutscenes and first 'town'. I'm real happy with them, and I think you will be too.

New demo lacks:

short tunes from the last demo
stupid practice jimmy eat world cutscene in earlier demos
rock, paper scissors mini game in earlier demos

As with the last demo, turn your TV's volume to about 2x what you normally have it at. Hopefully you don't forget, exit the game, and get blasted by RPGM2's title screen's normal volume music.

[doyleman]

Will, downloaded the demo, I'll play it today and probably have a review or something up later.
sounds like quite a list that is new for this demo, lookin forward to seeing whatchya got

OK, here's my review/whatever ya wanna call it:

Intro: Nicely done, I like the pauses in the talking that required the user to hit a button, the ship was nicely made, it was overall really cool

Town: This was the best well put together town ever, not even joking. the town people, the houses, districts, etc, everything was really cool. The interiors were done really well too, I might add. There were alot of interactive-ness in it, and I enjoyed it

Music: Really cool, that musta took some time making every last one eh? My personal favorite is the woof woof song , nice work on all of them

Now, I went into a house and had a cutscene in there, they said go east of the town, and that you should also get some girl on your party *I forget names*, and I don't know what to do from there, I never found her or seen something open up. Maybe that's where you left off, idk.

Overall: Very cool, the battles were awesome *nice VFX use * and the talking thing at the beginning and random music was nifty, nice job, I liked this demo overall and look forward to your final piece, good job

[Deleted]

Thank you for the review! ;D

With story stuff, I tried to give the player a little guidance at first but not much so they'd explore the city - while making the first other scene happen right when they enter that building. I tried to be specific there though and I said Nick - 'the medical next to my house' thinking the player would remember where that is because the Inn sign kind of stands out to the player and the player started at Nick's house. In other words, there's one more scene.

Thank you though! I promise not to let you down.

[Deleted]

Lately I've been trying to break the system with everything involved in battling, and I've found a few errors and fixed them, but if you find any others tell me. Thank you! The ones I've found and fixed so far are (that are still wrong in the demo):

after Nick dies the extreme variable counters and display-party-leader scripts/events stopped till he was back alive

the text boxes for assisting Extremes don't close properly

if you increase their extreme variable beyond their second extremes and then 'Unlock Extremes' you won't have them till you use their first extreme and re-build up their extreme variables

[Dungeon Warden]

I played your demo. Nicely done.

I loved the introduction. Very well scripted. One problem though, at the very begining the character is walking on the bed all the time he's talking. This stops after the cut-scene, but you should stop it before the flash back as well.

When walking through buildings you can see grass outside. Very interesting way of dealing with this. However, some doorways lead to other rooms (including the very first room!) and it looks very weird to walk outside and suddenly appear in a new room and have the old room vanish. You should use floor textures in classes like this.

There is a lot to see and do in town. Maybe too much. Several shops sell some of the same things. I got some gems but I don't know what they are for (for money or to make jewelry?). I found lots of stuff by searching around and hardly needed to buy anything.

Combat is the same as the last demo. I didn't really feel like fighting the same enemies over and over so I don't know much about combat other then it works. I would have prefered it is you had set encounters on the map so that I could practice fighting and leveling up. I'm sure this will happen in the next demo (and certainly in the final game).

Your game is coming along nicely. I look forward to seeing what happens in the next town and beyond.

[doyleman]

I was wondering how the extremes were activated. I noticed the levels are based exactly off of exp.
Nick had 3 exp and was lv. 3.
Pip *I think* had 9 exp, and was lv. 9.
My question is how are you going to make levelling up? I doubt you'll use exp awarded at the end of the battle, that is if you are going with this exp=level idea.
well, I got the other scene, and I'm guessing if its green *the text*, that mean's the person is thinking it, am I correct?
otherwise, nice camera usage, and can't wait for more

[Deleted]

"I loved the introduction. Very well scripted. One problem though, at the very begining the character is walking on the bed all the time he's talking. This stops after the cut-scene, but you should stop it before the flash back as well."

Will do! I thought he was Waiting but I'll check and make sure. Thank you for the positive feedback! I tried to make the intro scene draw the player in. Making it move from location to location and stuff on its own was a hassle, but worth it in the end.

"When walking through buildings you can see grass outside. Very interesting way of dealing with this. However, some doorways lead to other rooms (including the very first room!) and it looks very weird to walk outside and suddenly appear in a new room and have the old room vanish. You should use floor textures in classes like this."

Yeah, at first I was thinking of using the plain black like most games do, but I'd had big flat maps made of the city ground textures (grass, dirt, and beach), tried that instead, and liked it. I know what you mean as far as that goes, but the problem is that the surrounding can't consume 'blocks' very easily and all the floor textures I use are 'blocks'. I'll think about it though. Thank you!

"There is a lot to see and do in town. Maybe too much. Several shops sell some of the same things. I got some gems but I don't know what they are for (for money or to make jewelry?). I found lots of stuff by searching around and hardly needed to buy anything."

I know, total my city has 55 various treasures (5 or 6 being 'Nothing's) and 104 townspeople - not including shopkeepers. I figure most people won't talk to all the townspeople in all the cities so I'm gonna repeat more than I'd thought I would before (but because my cities are so friggin' huge compared to most RPGM2 towns I think it'll be fine). I am getting nervous about memory and such. The 55 treasures thing is so high because I wanted them to be well hidden. ;D I still put a good amount of easy to find ones in Topal because it's the first city, but progressively from city to city I'm going to make less items throughout town by taking out the easy to find ones. I too thought 55 was ridiculous.

"I was wondering how the extremes were activated."

By a number of turns passing with the character in the party and alive. At the end of the turn there'll be text boxes saying '[name] Extreme!' and they'll gain it, then when they use it they lose them. A lot of extremes have flags preventing the player from learning/using them and these flags are turned on through various means. For my testing and the demo I have the extremes set up to be gained on the character's 4th turn, 6th turn, 8th turn, 10th turn, and 14th turn, but I expect to double it before the final release (pending testing of course).

"I noticed the levels are based exactly off of exp.
Nick had 3 exp and was lv. 3.
Pip *I think* had 9 exp, and was lv. 9.
My question is how are you going to make levelling up? I doubt you'll use exp awarded at the end of the battle, that is if you are going with this exp=level idea."

Yes, to make it simple for me I made the levels that way. I plan to manually level-up a n d increase the characters' stats upon completing dungeons. Every character will always be at the same level in the game. For say, the reason why Pip is level 6 and has higher stats/125 HP and SP is because he joins later in the game. This way before Pip joins when I have to script Nick, Kylie, and William's leveling up/stat increasing/HP+SP gaining I only have to do the three of them as opposed to all 16 party members (by the end I am having to all 16 party members :.

"well, I got the other scene, and I'm guessing if its green *the text*, that mean's the person is thinking it, am I correct?"

Yes, I'm still not quite happy with the green color I made so it'll likely change, but when I was thinking of the scene I was thinking of a certain kind of message in RPGM1 that was great for characters' thoughts and RPGM2 doens't have an equivalent of it. Since you've seen this last scene, do you think it's too much hacing Nick's flashback stuff be real serious and then Nick be real serious in this scene too? I kept it because this creates a real motive (unlike most games) for Nick 'going on an adventure', but I kind of think it's bad how very suddenly in this scene Nick gets super serious. What do you (guys) think?

And thank you both!

The next demo will either be Topal and Rillia (Kylie and William and main story in present time introduced) or Topal, Rillia, and Mount Kashal (first dungeon, pretty easy, volcano so player can easily use elements to his advantage). I've been making enemies and am making very good progress and am very happy with the Enemy Actions. I am planning for each dungeon to have 8 normal enemies, 1 sub-boss, and 1 main-boss, and the Skeleton only appears in the final dungeon!

[doyleman]

"Since you've seen this last scene, do you think it's too much hacing Nick's flashback stuff be real serious and then Nick be real serious in this scene too? I kept it because this creates a real motive (unlike most games) for Nick 'going on an adventure', but I kind of think it's bad how very suddenly in this scene Nick gets super serious. What do you (guys) think?"
As I don't know the complete personality or story of your game, my answer may not be what your looking for, but I felt the same, yes. It got me some-what lost, but I still followed.
Sorry if that didn't help much.
I'll be waiting for your next demo

[Deleted]

Okay, yeah, I think I do enough about Nick's past in the first scene so I think I'll cut the Haley-Nick-Miles scene. I don't want Nick to seem like to much of a downer. Thank you very much!!

[doyleman]

Will, you once told me on my boards that you should wait for more peoples input before you rush off and do things (I think it was you, lol, can't remember)
but no problem ;D

[Deleted]

Ha ha, that is good advice, I think. Thank you.

Any ways, I've already deleted the whole Nick-Miles-Haley scene, and changed all the dialogue (camera and music still the same) in the Nick-Miles scene. I'm much, much happier with it now. I also decided to stick with the hitting X to advance the dialogue thing I did through the intro scene, for all story cutscenes and private actions.

For those of you that have played the demo, the new Nick-Miles scene goes like this:

(same camera and music)
Miles_
Let's get over to Rillia quickly! (button)
I don't wanna miss any of the play, (button)
Miles- Look Happy
I heard there's female nudity in it! (button)
Nick_
Ha ha, is that all you think about Miles? (button)
Miles_
Pretty much, yeah.
Nick_
Ha ha, okay, we'll get over to Rillia quickly. (button)
Rillia is just a little southeast of Topal, (button)
so we'll be there in no time. (button)

And your not getting the Nick-Haley-Miles scene reminded me I forgot to add what I can now for the 'Help' menu command, so I've added that and now the player'll never have any trouble on where they're supposed to go. Thank you Doyleman! ;D

I think this is better because now the intro story goes serious (Nick's past), light-hearted (Miles), light-hearted (Kylie), serious (William's mission). Overall this flows a lot better from scene to scene.

[doyleman]

Anytime
Well, looks like you have your ideas and such plotted out, now its the making them part

[Deleted]

I thought of a good change to make to my game today:

Originaly I'd made the equipment shop so it's sorted like this - weapon>type of weapon>buy list, and I think it would be better for the player if I did this instead - weapon>rank of weapon>list 1/2/etc.>buy list. The rank of the weapon is when it first becomes available in the shop (1-6), and is an average of their cost and such. This new way would make it easier for the player to just come and see what's new at the shop, but unable to view all of one type of weapon side-by-side. Viewing all of one type of weapon side-by-side isn't that important any ways because the newer one will always be the better/costlier one.

For you guys that have played ANY demo of mine, what do you think of this idea?

Thank you.

[Deleted]

I found another error in the batte system and fixed it:

a little mistake on my part made it so no classes or equipment were factored into the formulas, but I've fixed it, tested it a ton, and it works perfectly now.

[Deleted]

I think my battle system is flawless now, since I even found and fixed a glitch within RPGM2's internal workings.

Anyways, I've made something like Legend of Dragoon that tells the player when they're going to get into a battle:

(step count)
1-10 = no battle, nothing shows up
11-30 = low chance of battle, yellow VFX shows up
31+ = high chance of battle, red VFX shows up

It's somewhat cool, I tested it a lot and got it working properly. I can post up a how-to if people want me to.

[NASH7777]

Played your newest demo. Pretty cool and I always like the custom music for a change. Intro stuff was cool, but didn't get anything done with the story after that...