The Order of Chaos (A TrueCoolness production)

[thetruecoolness]

UPDATE: Well though this still provides a decent overview for my story more will come here in the next week as I go back through all the scripts and such I have (like 200 or so scripts) and figuring out which default ones to give the axe. Also story updates will be forthcoming as I flesh out the characters and story some more. So watch this space for updates.


So I guess I'll start with the story and then go into the details of that and then the Gameplay. I haven't come up with any actual stats yet as I'm still dealing mainly with figuring out ever corner of RPGM2 and just what I want in the story and the game, and things like stats will follow from that (well hopefully anyway).

STORY:

Overview-

You play as Dragomir Dougall who is a Major in the army of Neoach. In the beginning of the game you will fight a couple of battles against the countries of Mystica, and Libraco since these countries have been found to be full of heretics, and their knowledge of the occult and chemistry has been seen as a threat. Through these battles the main character goes through an internal conflict with his sense of duty and his want to find true order. He begins to think that his country is not embodying the ideas of order anymore and has strayed to the side of chaos, and will end up fighting against the country to which he once served. In the end he will end up very confused as his search for order has left him to realize that there is no order without some chaos to achieve this order, so he begins to think about how it might be possible to just have order. (of course all of this will not happen instantaneously, but will have many events lead up to each major turning point in the story. This is not set in stone yet and will probably be changed as I am thinking to making a sequel to this with a major twist called The Chaos of Order)

Country Overview-

Neoach-
A technologically advanced society, slightly more advanced than our own. This country is made up of mostly desert with some grasslands to the north, mountains to the west, a nice beach to the east, and a snowy wasteland to the south. This country has by far the largest military force in the land, and its government is a republic. Most of the communications are looked over and censored by the government to keep order in the country. Anything, which is considered dangerous or anti-government, is censored; most other things are not touched though. They are allied with their neighbors to the north Ordanily.

Ordanily-
Not quite as technically advanced, though they do enjoy a fairly modern lifestyle. This country is made up of mostly rolling planes, lakes, and rivers. Many say the beauty of this country is because it is blessed by their god Cosmass. The largest church in the land is located here in the capital city, Cosmal, the High Church of Ordanily. The government here borders on a theocracy but still had a lot of the traits of a republic. This country does not have much of a military force as Neoach has protected them for ages and even has a few bases in the country. Also with this Ordanily can wipe their hands clean of most battles as it was not their force who did the battling.

Mystica-
The people of this country rely on mechanical and natural means to solve their everyday problems. They also use their knowledge of Ephemeral force (similar to magic) to solve problems out of the reach of mechanical and natural means. The country itself is a large island with a lagoon on the east. The beaches melt away into plains and into a large forest, which creates an inner ring on the island. Tucked away behind this forest is another region of plains. This country is run by a group of Elders, who are chose by a specially selected group when one of the other Elders either dies, or is afflicted by a permanently debilitating disease. In addition to this there is also a group of elected officials who handle small problems that arise to leave the bigger ones to the wisdom of the council of Elders. They are in friendly relations with Libraco, which is the island nation to the north.

Libraco-
This country is in a perpetual state of chaos, though it never seems to get out of hand. Basically they have no government but are still able to coexist with each other. The country itself is made up of 5 to 6 islands, with most them being plains and forest, but the one in the north being nothing but a snow capped mountain. They don’t place any value on tradition, and believe very strongly in the ability of people to truly have free will and be able to decide for themselves what they believe. There is also a strong interest in chemistry and alchemy here, as they are very proficient in making homemade explosives and various other chemical compounds. This of course is what has made other countries look at them as terrorists.

Prawn-
A large island with two active volcanoes, and being covered in mountains. Prawn places its faith in its fists and nothing else. These people have a high sense of pride in their ability to hold their own without the aid of anything but their own body, they are a very naturalistic society, eating only what they kill, and taking only herbal remedies. They tend to stay out of politics and have no foreign relations, since they also place high pride on being self sufficient, and needing help form others is seen as weakness.

Character Overview

Dragomir "Cosmos" Dougall-
As stated above he is a Major in the Army of Neoach. He has been in the army since he was 18, and he is now 25. He is one of the best sharpshooters in the army, and is deadly accurate with a pistol or sniper rifle. His parents gave him the nickname of Cosmos, since he was peaceful and calm, and always had a plan for everything, which has stayed with him and his now his army nickname as well. He places a high value on duty and order, as he likes to keep to a set schedule, and thinks everything should be done for a reason, and is never satisfied with a just cause explanation of anything. His family is still members in the local church, though since he has been in the army and away from their influence he has grown away from the religion. After the current actions of his superiors and his country he starts to wonder about what is truly right and wrong as before he just went along with them.

Abadon "Chaos" Reaver-
The childhood friend of Dragomir, he is almost the opposite of Dragomir, living every minute of life on the edge of his seat. He always does things spur of the moment and his large interest in explosives is what netted him the nickname of chaos with his fellow soldiers. He has been in the army since Dragomir joined though he is a year younger. Due to his obsession with fire he became a explosives expert, and is highly adept at using all forms of explosives from grenades to rocket launchers and mines. He never bothered with religion though his parents made him go to church when he was younger. His father left him at an early age, so he has been living with his mother since he was 5. He keeps trying to get Dragomir to not be so uptight all the time but still had not been too successful.

Magdalena Christiansen-
A priestess in training of the church of Ordanily, she meets up with Abadon and Dragomir once the war starts and the get their first major assignment (which is a couple of game years from the beginning so she is an actual priestess by then). This is because it is traditional for each ship to have a priest or priestess on board during any conflict to help the souls of the soldiers. During the ride over she becomes good friends with both of them, though she has trouble communicating with Dragomir as he is not very talkative. She is a very beautiful 21 year old, and begins to enjoy her new found freedom from the cloth.

Bellatrix Freydon-
She has was born in Libraco and meets the crew as they make their way through Mystica. She has always hated Neoach and it's constant labeling of her country as full of rouges and terrorists. When she learns of their plan to battle Neoach she decides to join up to gain revenge on them, as a few of her friends have been killed in the war. She is an excellent swordswoman, and also has been learning about alchemy and was in Mystica to learn more about Ephemeral Force. She is 24 and a very tan blond woman, but has quite a few scars from swordfights in her country with the few bad seeds there.

Azir-
A native of Prawn, he one of the best fighters in his country. He decides to join the party just for a chance to continue honing his fighting skill, though he is really afraid his country could be next if both Libraco and Mystica fall to Neoach. Though against most of his teachings he has also learned to become proficient with a staff and a lance, and learned to use certain herbs to cause different illness on his opponents. He is the oldest of the group at 30.

Beginning of the Story

The story starts in the hometown of Dragomir and Abadon, Able, Neoach. It'll start off with Dragomir playing Jet Combat 6 on his PrayStation 3 (this might be a minigame later), then he'll stop since it's noon and go get something to eat like he does everyday. He'll stop by Abadon's house first though to see if he wants to go get something to eat with him, but he's not hungry. So then the player will go to the Cafe and talk to the various people there who will have various rumors about increased tension between Neoach and the countries of Mystica and Libraco. Then he'll go back to his house and remember it's been about a month since he has called his mom, so he should probably do that, plus he promised when he gets some time he would let his brother play his new game. So the player can either call her, or just go to their house. So far his tour in the army has been fairly quiet (which is about to change a lot), so he is enjoying the time he has off. So then he catches up with his mom, and let's his brother try out the new game, then he meets up with Abadon later and they hang out at the nightclub for the rest of the night. The next day will be up to the player what to do. Then the next day the base will call and tell him they have this new form of training he needs to report for immediately. So Dragomir will get in his car and drive northwest to the army base which is near his hometown. After a couple of weeks of training (will take about 30 minutes to an hour), they will tell you about a stealth mission they want you to take. This will involve going to a certain area in Mystica where a well known major leaders of the resistance movement in Mystica has been hiding out. You will then go at night by boat to the place land and take him out. You face minimal resistance since this was a well planned operation, then after you capture him you are ordered to kill all the villagers, you still having a strong sense of duty will comply (also knowing if you don't they'll do it anyway and you'll be demoted and sent to the military prison for a while). You of course are shocked at the proposal, but your commander gives you the speech about how in times of war there are no civilians.

Then a couple of days after you get back you see a breaking news story of how a major military installation and a large church are blown up by some "terrorists" from Mystica using powerful Ephemeral Force, and some from Libraco using homemade explosives. This leads Neoach to declare war on these two countries, as the leaders of Neoach assure the people "These acts of war will be swiftly dealt with". So when you report back to base they inform you of the major attack coming up, and you train some more and get prepared for the battle. Then you go with the Neoach Armada for an amphibious assault on Mystica. This is where you meet Magdalena.

This is about as far as I have gotten.
So that is the story onto the gameplay

GAMEPLAY:

Battle System

Battles themselves will be entered by running into enemies around the map. Each enemy will have a specific radius they can "see" you in. Most enemies will have a range of 3-7 squares, if you get in this range they will chase after you. You have a bit of a chance to get away but you have to notice them noticing you fairly quickly to get out of it. When they catch you you get in a battle on your next step (this is because of not turning pages in events, and other RPGM2 oddity). Some enemies will only be able to notice you in front of them, and others will be able to notice you all around them (some work on vision others on super hearing (so I don't have to worry about running/walking issues)).

As of right now the battle system is turned based, I might change it but right now it's not that big a deal to me if it stays this way. So every turn speed determines your order in line and each person makes their command at their turn, and not the beginning of the whole turn. Each person will have a number of Stamina Points to expend each turn to perform actions. Each person gains 3 SP per turn with a maximum of 8SP. The command list is as follows

Attack - 3SP
Secondary Weapon - 4SP
Ephemeral Force - 3SP
Item - 2 SP
Defend - 1SP
Do Nothing - 0SP

So as long as the character still had SP remaining that turn they can do other actions, with some exceptions. You can only use one item per turn, and cannot use item in combination with any other command. Using defend ends your turn, but you can use it after you perform another command besides item. You can only use Secondary Weapons once per turn (unless you have the accessory which allows you to use it twice per turn), no matter how much SP you have. Same goes for Ephemeral Force (and there will be an accessory to perform two of these as well). And you can attack as much as you want per turn. Do nothing ends your turn after you perform it. When you have 8 SP you can perform a special attack which uses all of your SP and some EP, this will be specific to what class you are.

Defend will double evade instead of doubling defense, cause that just made more sense to me.

There are 4 main types of E Force (still haven't settled on what to use for "elements" yet, was thinking about the Zodiac but nothing final yet) are Chaotic (attack E Force), Harmonic (healing E Force), Disorderly (negative status), Orderly (positive status). The more you use each type the stronger it becomes, but the weaker it's opposite becomes. So if someone were to constantly use Harmonic E Force (healing type) then that type of E Force would gain in strength up to a maximum of 15% extra. Each time they use that type of magic they will go up .5% in that category and the other one will go down .25%. Status type magic (orderly and disorderly) can go up to 7.5% extra or .25% each time it is used.

There will also be a Chaos Meter which will fill up each time you are hit and is dependent on HP damage taken. The formula is
damage / (Max HP * 4)
is how much percentage it fills up each time. For each 10% increase in the meter the character gets a 1% increase in a chance for a critical attack. So when it is full they will get a 10% increase in their critical chance. When it's full they can choose to use it then to get a 100% chance of a critical that turn, or leave it full and keep the 10% bonus. The meter will empty when a character is killed. Normal critical rates will never go over 25% and with this addition the max is 35%, unless they use a full meter.

Enemies will level up with the character, so as the character gets stronger the enemies will get stronger with them, similar to FF8.

So for Classes each character has 3 different classes they can master. None of these classes overlap so you can't make one character be a class meant for another person. Classes also determine what kinds of weapons the character can equip, each class has a type of primary and secondary weapon for the class. The classes are also how people learn spells and abilities.

CLASSES

(still working on these, the names are final though)

Dragomir
Sharpshooter

Primary Weapon - Pistols
Secondary Weapon - Sniper Rifles

Marine

Primary Weapon - Thin Swords
Secondary Weapon - Burst Rifles

Bowman

Primary Weapon - Bow
Secondary Weapon - Crossbows

Chaos
Explosives Expert

Primary Weapon - Mines
Secondary Weapon - Grenades

Machine Gunner

Primary Weapon - Light Machine Guns
Secondary Weapon - Heavy Machines Guns

Heavy Weapons Expert

Primary Weapon - Assault Machine Guns
Secondary Weapon - Rocket Launchers/ Mortars

Magdalena
Priestess

Primary Weapon - Staff
Secondary Weapon - Holy Book

Macewoman

Primary Weapon - Short Mace
Secondary Weapon - Heavy Mace

Prophet

Primary Weapon -
Secondary Weapon - Word Skills

Bellatrix
Swordswoman

Primary Weapon - Dagger
Secondary Weapon - Sword

Alchemist

Primary Weapon -
Secondary Weapon - Pipe Bombs

Black Mage

Primary Weapon - Staff
Secondary Weapon -

Azir
Fighter

Primary Weapon - Fists
Secondary Weapon - Combo Moves (like sabins blitz)

Lancer

Primary Weapon - Spear
Secondary Weapon - Lance

Shaman

Primary Weapon -
Secondary Weapon -

STATUS EFFECTS

Poison – lose 10% of HP per battle turn
Toxin – lose 10% of Max HP per battle turn
Blind – acc down 50% of current acc
Fatigue – only gain 2 SP per turn
Vigor – gain 4 SP per turn
Doom – 5 turn till death
Hasty – speed up
Lazy – speed down
Frozen – paralyzed
Stunned – paralyzed
Insomnia – lose 5% EP per turn
Dream – sleep
Chaotic – Confusion
Fear – defense down
Dumb – intelligence down
Calm –attack down
Rage – attack up
Composed – defense up
Clumsy – skill down
Focus – intelligence up
Grace – skill up


Other Gameplay Elements

The game will feature a day and week timer so time of day and day of the week will affect small events and a few major ones. Didn't want it to affect too many necessary things as I know how tedious it can get to have to wait a whole week in the game for something to happen. So this will mainly be to make people go inside at night, and certain shops be only open during the week and such. This will be similar to how Dungeon Warden has his game set up. This is just in there for a bit of realism to the game and just to have the game be a bit more dynamic.

There will also be a random weather generator which I will explain below this section. It will change between Sunny, Windy, Partly Cloudy, Overcast, Light Rain, Rain, and Thunderstorm. This is to add more to the ambiance of the game than serve an actual gameplay purpose. Though certain people won't be out in the rain, and such so it will have some effect on gameplay just not a whole lot.

The story will happen in a fairly linear pattern though I will try to have a lot of side quests and small errands to run with villagers to give the player other things to do. In every village there will be quite a few citizens who will have side quests and just little diversions associated with them. Some of these will give money, info, or items sometimes rare ones. Also I will try to have quite a few minigames as I plan on making an Advance Wars type minigame for the player to mess around with, and maybe make the Jet Fighter 6 game into a very simplistic shootem up, and right now I have a bass guitar which the player can play, so I'll put in some songs I know and get them to try their luck playing them. Once the player gets a vehicle though they will be free to go where they want, but the battles may be too hard for them, so saving will be good.

In the game it will be possible to foster relationships with each of the main characters. So characters of the same sex will develop stronger friendships and will go further into their past, and characters of the opposite sex will be able to progress from friends, to boyfriend girlfriend, to a serious relationship, and then possibly marriage if things go far enough. Each character can only have one significant other as if they try to have two they will find out about each other and the relationship with both will be damaged (though not permanently). This is only obvious as being part of a close knit group it would be hard to be a "player". Azir will be the only exception as his culture does not see a need for love, marriages are only for status and procreation, so any attempts to have one of the other characters fall for him will fail, maybe in a funny fashion. All of this will be done internally with variables but in the game it will only be noticeable through their conversations. Getting the meter to go up will vary from the two people being in the party together, to specific events, to answering correctly to their questions. Obviously the events will add the most, and answering wrong or trying to start a relationship with the other character will make the meter go down. So how far each of these relationships go will be strictly up to the player, and there is no right way they are supposed to end up. After they get married it will be possible to get divorced so they do have to keep it up, and not start flirting with the other character. Was going to have this as a love story between just Dragomir and Magdalena, but then though this would be a much better idea. Haven't though much into any of the specifics of how this plays out but that'll come later when I figure more of the specifics of the story and side quests.

There will be an overview map with a couple of enemies running around on it, then from this map the player will either enter a town map (which depending on the size of the town might goto a town overview map, which will go to individual parts of the map) or a "dungeon" map which will be any place of interest. Enemies will only be in overview maps, dungeon maps, and some towns. Most of the enemies will be normal animals, and people. There might be some fantasy creatures, but I'll have to come up with a good explanation for them.

Also there is a custom camera system, which includes both free camera mode, and preset which gives 7 different angles ranging from close up to overhead, which try to give the best angle without showing the horrible clipping planes the game has.

This is all I have so far, the details will get there eventually. So I'll be editing this periodically to show the updates to the game.

Make comments and suggestions as you will, I'll listen to them, though not implement all of them, and the story is still changing, as it will until I finish it. But this is helpful to me too, to get all of this in one place as I have scattered in a couple of files right now.

As for a demo I'll set a date for that once I get closer to finishing it as I have not been working on it a whole lot recently.

And once I finish this I'll work on compiling screen shots and putting them on my site.

[Rodak]

Since you asked (sort of) (and elsewhere) (but I didn't want to double post or edit in something this verbose)...

Here are some of the ideas I've been saving for an Alchemist Class if I ever got around to creating a serious game. It looks like everything I have planned for RPGM2 is silly and I will not get to anything serious in the foreseeable future, so it's all yours!

First; Historical Alchemists were not interested exclusively in transmuting lead to gold, as many would have you believe. There were three main areas of Alchemical Research. First and foremost was the whole lead - gold thing, but they also believed in a single cure for all diseases and the ability to prolong life indefinitely.

A possible Primary Weapon could be a Lab Book from which, by combining various items, various effects could be triggered. As they progress they can get more "entries" in their books (through research?). This presents the possibility of having them lose the book and then need t try to remember "spells" without reference sources. You could then have several different results (proper, not what ya wanted but good, not what ya wanted and really horrible, not what ya wanted with no effect) (materials used up regardless).

That out of the way, some skills, abilities, and random thoughts I had in mind were:

Make Sulfur an Item: It can be used (in the presence of water) to combine with common metals such as copper, iron, or even zinc, to make Vitriol. Vitriol is corrosive and poisonous. It can fumigate areas or eat through chains and gates. Sulfur is what is commonly called Brimstone.

Gold related thoughts: A real way to detect fake gold is called "The Purple of Cassius" and is based on the fact that gold in mass is yellowish, but when finely divided can be black, ruby, or even purple. Also, a mixture of one part Nitric Acid and three parts Hydrochloric Acid will dissolve gold. This trick was used by an historical Alchemist (whose name escapes me) to bring what looked like a bowl of water before a King and then add some salt (I forget which salt, but doubt it was table salt) to precipitate the gold. He was exposed as a fraud and executed. If you want to include base metal to gold transmutation use a "Philosopher's Stone" Item, as that was the historical name for the theoretical substance that would change lead to gold. Maybe limit it to a "weight for weight" change and consume the stone in the process, or else Alchemists would be too rich! One thought, based on your other classes, would be transmuting ammunition. Bullets are often lead. This could let you use ammunition to money and, possibly more importantly, money to ammunition! It would be cool if that fact were not stated overtly anywhere and players had to figure out that they could do this.

Not much for Silver; Just that silver chloride is transparent (use table salt to make silver invisible) and the trivial fact that silver iodide is used to seed clouds and make it rain.

Finally I was going to have an ability called Allotrope in which you could change the arrangement of atoms in bits of stuff. *Sidetrack* An allotrope is A structurally differentiated form of an element that exhibits allotropy. Don't ya love scientific explanations. Allotropy is dictionary defined as The existence, especially in the solid state, of two or more crystalline or molecular structural forms of an element, but it is wrong. I'll prove it in the next paragraph. */Sidetrack*

Examples of ways to use this ability:

Carbon: 3 major allotropes exist; Amorphous (Coal), Graphite (pencils), and Diamond (Rich Folks). The ways to exploit easy conversion between these forms of the same element are limitless.

Iron: Magnetic or not.

And, just to show that Dictionary, Oxygen: Ozone is an allotrope of Oxygen and is quite poisonous.

That's all that comes to mind quickly.

If I find my notes I'll post anything I left out of the list.

Meanwhile, if you're ever in Philadelphia, stop by The Chemical Heritage Foundation building and check out their collection of ancient paintings of Alchemists at work! Tell them that crazy hippie who stops in, reads journals, looks at paintings, and leaves, sent ya!

Peace.
<><><>
EDIT:
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I forgot to mention that the common name for the Nitric/Hydrochloric Acid mixture that dissolves gold is "Aqua Regia"... a nice RPG sounding name!

[thetruecoolness]

Well that was very informative, the ammunition thing (well except it would have to be traded, since the money will be paper money in this one) would be quite interesting, I also like the book idea for the weapon, since thinking up of attack weapons for "magical" classes is pretty hard, since most of them use staffs and thats about it traditionally.

I'm sure once I get closer to fleshing out the classes some google searching will be in order.

[Bigfoot]

This game sounds worth checking out, good luck with it, i wanna see more on it.

[Rodak]

OK, I guess I just never thought of this for my own alchemists because I would never have thought to use them in a modern setting.

A good use for silver would be related to it's extensive use in photographic chemistry. Maybe a silver mirror that can take pictures (for evidence of something in a side quest?) or perhaps you could use it to image enemies in battle and see their stats. A real magic photograph!

It always bugged me that I couldn't think of a decent thing for alchemists to do with silver, and now it is resolved!

Peace.

[Neo Samurai]

This sounds like an awesome idea. RPGs with a modern setting are rare, and are usually the best (IMO). I'm most definitely gonna check this game out when it's out.

[The Smurf]

i like the approach of the show "Fullmetal Alchemist" where in order to use alchemy, something of equal value must be offered in return.

taking this route means that everytime a character had to use alchemy (whether to produce items or use it to fight, etc) something would have to be taken away as a cost...an alchemy meter would be lame...

maybe there could be some sort of item (similar to money) that would fuel an alchemist's power...hmmm, i'm starting to get ideas...maybe i'll have to use an alchemist in future games...


-the smurf

[Sion]

You see, These are the types of games I love.. With all the information and character developement... Bravo, I'm looking forward to this and any further installments by you and the True Coolness group.

Grand work.

- Flame

[Rodak]

OK, I found my old notes and my memory is actually none too shabby for an old fart.

Most of what I did not post was just historical, but cool, stuff... like:

The best definition of Alchemy I could find: "The art of liberating parts of the cosmos from temporal existence to achieve perfection, which for metals was Gold and for Man, immortality, longevity, and finally redemption. Material perfection was sought through the action of a preparation (example: Philosophers Stone for metals or Elixir of Life for humans).

There was also some material on Paracelsus, the Great Alchemist/Physician who is often credited with founding modern medicine. The bones of Paracelsus settled a centuries old argument. Paracelsus was an hermaphrodite. Something vaguely hinted at in his writings as being part of the ultimate perfection of the human form.

If you want a bunch of historical notes tracing alchemy from 2nd century China and the Good Old Taoist Monks to Hellenistic Egypt and Nestorian Christians in the 5th and 6th centuries through 10th century Indian Vedics to the Arab world in the 12th century and beyond, let me know. Those bits are fun, but useless for a game design.

This post was mostly just to throw the definition at you in case you liked it for something.

Good luck finishing off your game.

Peace.

[thetruecoolness]

Well it will probably be a bit until it gets out as I am pretty damn busy this semster, but I will try to finish it by the end of the year. It's been on hold for a while so nothing new going on with it, I'm going to try to get back into it next weekend, as this week I have a career fair at my school to get ready for, along with all the homework and project meetings I have. Of course in one of my classes we are creating a mystery adventure game which me and three people are working on in Java. When it's finished I'll put it up on my site, it's a semester long project it will be up near the end of the year as well. So I'll have at least one game out this year .

Oh and there is no group, I just used TrueCoolness productions to sound offical. It's just me working on it, since it would actually be harder to make a game on RPGM2 with a group, of course when XP comes out later this month it will be easy with that. Though I'm going to finish this game before trying one on XP.

[vespuleth]

ahh... a few things:

ive never been a fan of the modern/fantasy mix. use guns or swords as a primary weapon-not both. using both is just plain stupid, as the guy w/ the gun always has the advantage.

25 is extremely young to be a major. esspecially in todays army, where politics take as much a role in promotion as merit (im in the military and can attest to this from firsthand experience). at 25, as an enlisted, you may be a sargeant (most likely) a staff sargeant (possible) or a sargeant first class (very unlikely). as an officer, you would be either a luitenant (first or second) or a captain. (to be a captain, you would have had to walk on water, since most officers come in at the age of 22-23).

your class system needs some work. there is no coherency or fluidity to it. the transitions dont make sense.

finally... why are you writing a game in java? (i belong to the group of people who still think java is unfit for such endeavors)

[thetruecoolness]

Well to the criticism, some rebuttals.

The class system I will give you is a bit out there, and not well defined as a "class" system, since now I'm going to change it to a play-style system. Really it's all about giving the player a choice of what type of weapons and abilities they want each character to learn. Each character will start out with one, and then learn new ones as the game progresses by training in it (though they may just be taught it through a montage). Though it will be limited by character to be a bit more realistic, and keep up the characters image and consistency.

As for the military thing I could give the old well this is fantasy argument, but those people forget most fantasy has some basis in reality. Though this military will no doubt be full of politics and red tape, it will not be without it's flaws, and your character has proven himself well in his previous training. So we'll say in this one you don't need to goto a special officer schooling for 4 years or whatever. Though I may demote him one or two as he's not going to have too much real clout in his military, though you will command people.

For the swords, and guns argument, the big factor in balancing those out is magic and the occult. By using magic you can put up barriers and such against guns, or other high velocity weapons but still be susceptible to low velocity weapons (swords, knives), ala Stargate. So it is perfectly possible to balance out the two. Really the biggest advantage anyone ever has is intelligence (not really smarts, just more info on the enemy), and the element of surprise, as the player will witness in the first real conflict of the game.

As for Java, it all depends on the talent of the programmer, as with the new extensions to it, the language is quite capable of making 2D games, and even some 3D ones. Will it ever be faster than knowing how to write assembly, or compiling directly for a specific platform with optimization turned on for C, probably not. But really in terms of speed good Java code will beat out bad C code anyday. Of course the reason we used it is it was the language we all knew the best, Eclipse is quite possibly the best IDE ever made, and it has good 2D support right out of the box without having to rely on possibly buggy 3rd party libraries.

So of course my game is a work in progress and some of the things here will likely change a bit. And as for Java, it is a competitive language to any of the other major ones in terms of speed, and flexibility, and it's cross platform (with some debugging). It's all about the quality of the coder, and not creating tons of extra classes and threads just because you can. The game ended up achieving frame rates of around 100fps even with translucency, though that really didn't matter too much for it, as it was a point and click adventure. I'll eventually end up using the engine to write some small webgames more than likely.