CRAZE'S LET'S PLAY! TOPIC

K, done. Just has to be accepted now.

Ugh, that's really annoying (about the videos). I'm glad you at least liked the last part--that was all completely redone in Act I+ and reflects the quality and style of the rest of the game (although it gets less linear), especially the writing.

I really wish it was as easy as just cutting out Alibaas and Barette but unfortunately, they're critically important in Act II and without proper introduction, a lot of what happens in Act II would seem to come out of nowhere. Specifically, I'm referring to the exposition about the Blackguards and Barette, along with the tribes in Alibaas. I mean, I guess NPCs could just talk about those plot points, but it feels to me like it would be much more effective to see the places yourself.

Also, at least seeing East Naven is important. If it has to be minimized even more, it could start at the night portion (when you have to go to the train station to leave).

-I had actually thought early into your videos that I might just start everyone at level 3, when they start getting techniques. Glad we're on the same page.
-I'll decrease the number of encounters. It was a previous complaint that there were far too few, so I guess I went over.

Theoretically, if I were to fast forward through to Mortagne, it would probably be expanded a lot because of the number of hints I need to drop to cover skipped areas. How do you suggest covering the skipped parts? It seems like it would be frustrating if the characters referred to events that Auria knows but the player didn't experience.

Craze, note that Legionwood's still a work in progress. Although you can reach the ending and it's functionally finished, I intend to keep supporting it, so please make sure you address even the smallest things.

Also, if I haven't uploaded a patch by tomorrow... When you get to Chapter 3 and it tells you Ark is going to leave the party DO NOT UNEQUIP HIM. You'll need to fight a series of battles as just him. I'm going to patch that out by making the battles easier/giving you some rudimentary equipment, but if I haven't by the time you play, now you know.

Looking forward to the videos (even though I know you probably will complain the whole time).

Yeah, I think there are a few too many. A relic of two year old writing I guess. I cleaned it up a little before but it was mainly to cut down on the amount of words. You kind of read my mind, as I'm rewriting the script word for word currently. I kind of knew you'd pick up on them. I did intend to have it finished by the time of the game's release, but I have a book launch this week which I had to prepare for.

I notice the videos are up. Thanks for your time and feedback. Unfortunately, I'm on someone else's internet tonight so I can't watch them yet. Will do it tomorrow.

You can be assured the ellipses are going though. Well... Most of them. I've given myself a rule of "one per hour." Most of them can be substituted with commas or periods. I can rewrite some of the suckier lines.

EDIT:

Warning! Following comments are not organised logically. I'm typing them as I watch.

I managed however to watch the first two parts... You're dead on! Especially with the auto fading text. I'm implementing most of your suggestions now quickly (by most I mean all except changing the colour scheme; I'm really a fan of red). When the masked man says "the time to strike is right" however... Well, it is probably a bit hammy but it does make sense. I probably should change it to "this is the right time to strike" or something, as that is the context.

Question though! What if the character is trailing off at the end of the sentence (such as when Lann/Wentz laments upon the past for a second at the start) can that be done without an ellipse? I've been taught that they are to be used when a sentence is trailing off. A lot of the characters in Legionwood trail off.

Also, do you know of a caterpillar script that will prevent the party members from appearing under events? I've always hated that, but I configured Tricker's script because of its simplicity and I don't know of any others that use a switch based toggle.

Ugh... I'm actually wincing now whenever you encounter an ellipse or someone uses a pronoun, Craze.

Also, just so you know, you are free to build the characters how you wish. They uh... don't actually have predefined stat patterns or anything.

And yes please to the script edit! Most of these things (such as the alias fixes) are things I've wanted to do but lacked the scripting know-how. And RRR is not a good place for scripting advice (usually it comes in broken English)

Heheheh... I've added "(Press \cEnter\c to advance)" to the very first message in the game.

Lol... "I would... If you didn't have ellipses. As such, I'm going to bug you."

The little man icon means either "quest giver/important NPC here" or it substitutes the sparkle for items that are already events (and thus can't have sparkles placed on them)

You can save by sleeping in your bed. And, I thought I'd made it so you can't access the world map without speaking to guy in the marketplace first. Hmm, I will have to fix that.

While you were speaking about skills, I thought I'd address a concern that might come up. "Double Strike" doesn't actually do double damage; it does something like x.05 extra damage.

Also, I hope you don't mind if the battle BGM gets tedious; that's why, come the game's mid point, I change it to a different set of tracks, to keep it fresh.

You can unspend AP by pressing the left key

Finally, just out of curiosity, is the game an improvement over the previous version?

Thanks for your time and comments Craze! I'll watch the rest when I get home tomorrow. Know that your suggestions are duly noted. Also, please keep in mind that the mapping and writing from the first chapter of the game are pretty much crappy (ie. lens flare) because I did that years ago and never got around to updating it. Main concern was getting the game finished (mainly so I don't get 473847388 emails from RRR with "wen gaim come out????"), and now I have time to go back and polish it off. I did a tileset change halfway through development which I know for a fact has left some nasty transitions and missing shadows in the maps (I kind of put off combing back through the maps after the tile change to find these things until after release, when I hoped I'd have more time)

Yes... I use them mainly for writing uncertainty. My 2008 self wrote a lot of uncertainty into the plot.

@Craze: I left you some comments in the post above. Thanks for your time.

No no, I mean trailing off as in trailing off ominously.

post=206763
afsdklnsak I'm too tired to answer fully right now, but maybe try having Real Dungeons (aka Real Gameplay). Yeah, make East Naven just the night sequence (keep the Virad mask and stuff), make the prison a battle tutorial, and add some travel dungeons with bosses in the game. Maybe there's a run-down checkpoint that has to be navigated, or a deep tunnel shortcut that just so happens to be home to an ogre and its goblin minions. Basically, stop making the game TOWN TOWN TOWN TOWN TOWN CAVE TOWN TOWN TOWN TOWN TOWN

I did some thinking and chatting with other team members and I have an idea on how I'm going to approach this. The downside is that it's going to be a lot of work.

The way I picture it now, it'll go from the prison to Banivia and progress from there. At certain points, Auria will pause to retell the events leading up to her death, which will be playable montages (a brief run through East Naven, then the Void). This makes Seri and Zaqris more interesting to the player since they now know information that is directly relevant (i.e., what's happened in the story so far).

I don't think I'm going to go as far as to make another dungeon. Acts II and III have so many in-depth dungeons that it put me off from RPG making for a while.

By the way, once I incorporate a few updates from Act III into Act II, would you be willing to try it out? Act II is some of my best work and I really want to make it as good as possible. I assure you it's far more enjoyable than Act I -- it actually has a central hub, a nonlinear story, and several dungeons, along with twice as many party members.

post=207388
Sure. Do you want me to LT it, or just play it and give you feedback?

Dark Gaia: I'll respond more later today, but it's definitely better. I told Karsu that I'm actually enjoying myself.

Whichever you're willing to do. The LT format is very helpful for getting feedback, but I understand that's a lot of effort, so I don't mind if you choose to just play it and do a writeup.

post=207914
"But....I....brother....I....I...just..."(i.e. 90% of rpgmaker dialogue)

I beg to disagree.