Another bi-monthly update from the realm of Liguria.

Because today is also my sixth year since joining RMN ( also, the first RM-site I ever signed up for ), I will try to make today's ( or this evening, depending on your time zone ) blog post a good one. Libby wants us to give her great blogs for the Best of Blogs 10, so I'll do my bit here.

I haven't been making as much progress as I would have liked, but I have been getting up at around 5am nearly every day for the last two weeks just so I could get in an hour or so of gam-mak done before heading off to work ( see how dedicated I am? ), and it has been producing results, even if I am a bit sleepier by day's end ( like I am now ).

So, let me get some game features out of the way first.



Enemies will no longer drop coins/diadon. If you've played Enelysion, you'll be familiar with this tiny take on earning money to get your hands on some shiny equipment, rather than behaving like a school-yard bully, beating up some poor sod just so you can grab their lunch money. Realistically, it doesn't make a lick of sense ( well, most fantasy RPGs don't, but I can't see a lumbering Wyrmkin aka a Dragon walking around with a few hundred Diadon on it, unless it happened to guzzle some hapless adventurer, money bag and all ). And let's face it, it would be extremely OOC for Ira/Tristian to be doing something like that. She isn't like a certain other teal-haired female merc, after all.

I'm not too sure if I will implement the FF12 Bazaar-like system seen in Enelysion. I liked the idea, but it was a rushed, last minute addition to the game, so I'm better off leaving it out in LotL. I don't want to implement something, only to half-arse it and give a weaker product. Besides, there are other ways to spice up gameplay.




The Orbs give passive bonuses.

Yes, this returns from the older versions of the game. The only problem I see is that by giving too many Crysalii drops ( which double as stat boosters ), the potential player could abuse it, but by giving too little, this Crysali system becomes moot. The player can randomly find the crysalii by exploring the world map ( which has 0 random encounters ).

While I am on the topic of passives and skills, I'm nixing the JP system. I just prefer the tried and tested, though boring, method of skill aquisition through level ups. Maybe its that whole feeling of expectation of what to get when you've level grinded enough, rather than seeing all your available pool of skills like in a JP-system. It sort of ruins the surprise. I'm sure none of you want to know what Ira/Ianna/Striker etc. will learn as their final skill, right? Level 'em up to find out.



Regarding cities, some of them are so large, I decided to implement little warp crystals ala FF12 ( yes, I draw a LOT of inspiration from that game, being my favourite FF ) to spare the player from dashing from one end to the other.

New Areas?


Only this one. Part of a fairly large desert valley that might/might not use a heat meter/fatigue system, and also the location of the game's first boss ( yes, 1 hour and 40 mins into Tristy, I finally give you a boss fight. I'm terrible )


Oh, and Striker is a chauvinist. You'll want to sock him at times. I'm not done with his sprite yet, that's why he doesn't appear in the image. ><



And narrative stuff. The beginning of every chapter will be done from a first-person perspective. It also makes it a little more personal by showing you Tristian's private thoughts.


That you will.

But that's it for my bi-monthly update. Next one is due around mid-November.

Now I'm off to bed.