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author=nurvuss
author=Aegix_Drakan
And going back to my main project, I still have no idea how the hell I'm going to get the slave character to be forced to join the party. Any ideas I have either feel contrived, or so over the top it's comical and stupid. *sigh*
I think you'd have to give us a little bit more information: ie, the tone of the story, the characters who are recruiting the slave, and what ideas you've already shot down. The most obvious scenario I can think of is that the party bought the slave's contract. Whether that be posing as slavers, intending to secretly set him/her free, or to use the promise of eventual freedom as leverage to carry out some tasks with them.

Tone of the game is serious with some dark moments, but is mostly about trying to overcome your fate. Most characters will feel chained by something (their curse, their guilty past, being a slave, etc)

I'm still thinking about what I want out of it, and I'm probably going to be chatting with a good friend with a good eye and low BS tolerance about it. :P

Essentially, I need two things to happen:
1) The party (trying to gain a reputation as boss slayers) need to get a job from a noble to go clean out the mine they own. To help with that, they have a letter of recommendation from a trade caravan they just saved.
and
2) They need to gain their third party member (a slave they pick up).

(party so far is composed of a kid with a curse of incredible power that will eventually kill him who is first and foremost concerned with his own survival (the hero), and a conniving former soldier who is basically using the hero to gain fame and fortune while also helping the hero gain the contacts he needs to find a cure)

The hero would rather set the slave free, seeing a parallel to his own fate. The Partner wants to keep her tied to the party, since they need more fighters if they're going to keep hunting the overpowered monsters that are cropping up.

My ideas were:
a) they see a slave auction in progress and the guy running it tells everyone that this one slave is such a problem that he hasn't gotten rid of her for months and if no one buys her today, he'll just dispose of her. Hero gets upset and wants to help her. Partner at first disagrees since they couldn't even afford her if they wanted to. The partner gets the idea to ask someone to sponsor them if they kill something big for them. Everyone sees them make a deal to get said slave in exchange for clearing out the mines. If they don't do it within the week, they need to repay the noble full-on, which they can't do.
SCRAPPED: This seemed kind of over the top and a bit too convenient. Plus, if the slave trade is that obvious, the kingdom would already have been toppled by the faction that hunts down and topples any nation they think is corrupt.

b) Party overhears noble yelling at a messenger who just told her that the mercenaries she hired to clean out her mine are all dead. Heroes offer to do the job, payment NOT in advance. She agrees and goes on about how she's got a slave to dispose of. Heroes offer to use her on the mission in order to spare her. she agrees, since she's got no use for the slave anyway.
Scrapped: She just conveniently mentions she has a slave to get rid off? DUMB. Also, in that case they offer to pick up a party member who they've never even set eyes on. silly.

c) (current idea in my head). Party asks around for next job. They find out noblewoman X is upset about her mine being overrun, and people she's hired turn up dead. Everyone is certain one of those overpowered monsters is behind it, so no one else wants to take the job anymore. Party offers to do the mission payment on success. The noble agrees, laughing, thinking they're going to die, meaning she pays nothing. (meanwhile party finds out that although no one is allowed to make new slaves anymore, those who are currently slaves remain so. Show tension between the nobles who want slaves, and the king who is slowly trying to abolish it. Hence why the kingdom hasn't been targeted yet, the king is TRYING to improve things). Party goes to mine, begins mission. Near the start, they rescue one person from a mine shaft that's under attack. The guy supervising their mission is annoyed since she's not only "just a slave" but one that is hard to control and violent and generally a liability. Partner gets the idea to ask if they can take her along. Supervisor agrees. Slave is angry about it, but is dragged along regardless. After mission is done, party decided to take her along, since she'd just go back to mining and she was useful. Slave is angry, but forced to comply. Slave is now stuck with the party until near the end, when they can free her.

So far the last idea makes the most sense to me, since it's not all in one shot, and it makes sense that if you have a slave you're not willing to let go of (due to dwindling supply), but is of no use to you, you'd just stick them in your mines and be done with it.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Idea stolen shamelessly from Assassin's Creed:

Player does something to piss off nobleman, and gets caught. The nobleman decides to sell the hero into slavery instead of turning him into the authorities. You meet the slave character while in confinement, and escape together.

I think something like this would work better than any situation where you are just sort of randomly given a slave. It makes no sense for a nobleperson to have a slave they are just glad to be rid of. Because, what, the slave is uppity? All slaves are uppity.

If the slave were someone you previously knew, it would make sense to free them. But if you're freeing someone you've never met before, there has to be a reason beyond "he's a slave." There are a lot of other slaves who don't join your party, after all. What makes the most sense to me is a situation of necessity - you can't complete your mission without help from this particular slave, either because there's something special about him, or because he knows something important, or because you're in a life or death situation with no one else nearby and have to free him so he can help you.
author=LockeZ
Player does something to piss off nobleman, and gets caught. The nobleman decides to sell the hero into slavery instead of turning him into the authorities. You meet the slave character while in confinement, and escape together.


Heroes are actually trying to win the favors of the nobles in order to get in their good graces to maybe get a cure. Pissing them off is a bad plan.

What makes the most sense to me is a situation of necessity - you can't complete your mission without help from this particular slave, either because there's something special about him, or because he knows something important, or because you're in a life or death situation with no one else nearby and have to free him so he can help you.


The idea is that if you're going to keep hunting down these insanely strong monsters, you need a strong party that can fight well. Slave girl can fight well. Hero's partner wants to keep her in the party as a result, to add to their fighting strength. Slave girl would rather not risk her life like that, but is essentially pressed into service. Hero himself doesn't like the idea, but partner insists.

Any freeing is only going to happen WAY late in the story.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
The slave could be a reward you didn't ask for, then.

"In addition to giving you the sword you were looking for, as a token of my good will, please take this slave girl. She was trained to fight, as my late husband enjoyed holding public deathmatches between slaves for his and his friends' entertainment, but since he passed away I've put an end that nonsense and have no further use for her."

And then it's like, "Welp, apparently I have a slave? It's not like I can refuse, and she, uh, seems useful, I guess? This is really awkward."
That gave me an idea, thank you.

Probably going to make it so when you find her in the beginning of the mine dungeon you realize she can fight, she's brought along and when you get to the end of it, she's supposed to go back to the mines. Partner decides that's a waste, given how well she can fight and asks for the slave as payment instead of the money.
Does this slave accept her slave status until she's freed? What if she joins your party by escaping? Considering she's going to join a heroic party she might take it upon herself to not be a slave.
Nah, going to make it so she literally can't get out of it.

She's not happy about it, but she's dragged along anyway.
I completed some little projects for rpgmaker.net, the last one is full version of action RPG Crimson Memories. ( http://rpgmaker.net/games/5397/ )

Now I am working on another one, basically the same thing but just with a little more improvements. Game is inspired by falcom games, that's why I decided to use falcom music for teaser. For gfx source (most from http://www.spriters-resource.com/ ) chipsets're custom/edit. Nothing breath taking. Anyway if you like rm2k3 :

Crimson Memories : Witch Hunters

author=Sated
It's important to annotate your code! I'm working on some lockpicking minigames for SL: Riot Grrrl, this is the code that initialises the puzzles before you start them :)

The thing I'm working on now is over 6,000 lines now, not including white space. Not a single comment.
author=Jude
author=Sated
It's important to annotate your code! I'm working on some lockpicking minigames for SL: Riot Grrrl, this is the code that initialises the puzzles before you start them :)
The thing I'm working on now is over 6,000 lines now, not including white space. Not a single comment.


Pray you don't need to come back to it in a few months time to fix a bug - unless you've been very clean in writing it, you're gonna have problems.
Well, that little side project I got myself distracted by ain't going anywhere.

I don't feel like wasting 20 hours on spritesheets, thank you. No matter how cool it would look.

Maybe when I'm done my current main project. XD
Worked on a new title screen. I preferred something a little more simple for my episodic game.





And scenes and stuff.
@Sated Keep in mind that it is more difficult to read text in ALL CAPITALS than in lower case. So if you're skimming through the project, it will be harder to read where you have to input stuff. At least that's what I've found. And it seems to make sense for me now why all caps seemed so annoying to read - it's because it takes longer.
I never use comments in my game because I heard that it can cause your game to lag in 2k3 if you have a lot of them, or so I've heard.

And, like usual, your screenies look great, yuna21. Even your newest title screen looks nice. And I'm glad you've officially changed it back to Tristian: Lady Of The Lion instead of just Lady Of The Lion. Besides, Tristian is the star of the show, you know. ^^
Dipping my hand into writing an engine from scratch using C# to do things the way I want to do them... RPG Maker is nice and all, but it's a little restrictive, especially for playing with a controller (holy shit, dem terrible direction controls on an analog stick).
I'm heavily considering another update to my released game "Illusions of Loyalty" to improve the system.

Mostly adding the Yanfly Battle system to make the battle UI nicer, and then making it so you can see the buffs the enemy has (which MIGHT make the game easier, but meh...felt kinda cheap you had to memorize how long the buffs and stuff lasted on enemies). And fixing up a typo or two and stuff.

And maybe adding a few accessories you can get from enemies to tweak your stats just a little bit.
Man, why do I keep getting all these nifty game ideas when I'm up to my neck in schoolwork and can't do anything? -_-

Premise is a maiden is kidnapped by a vampire/whatever (oh noez)...and then she and the other kidnappees decide to break out rather than wait for backup. Hilarity ensues, especially the reason WHY they got kidnapped. Might put it in the Arum universe since it'd fit and I'm a massive fan of it. XD

...Well, just gonna write my ideas down and maybe I'll have time to turn it into a small side project when I have more time.

......And no, I still haven't made my capital city for my main project. Still got no inspiration yet. :(
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
Almost finished with the introduction/start of Pokemon RMN version. I'll post a video of it when it's ready.

Sated those are the best Event Comments I've ever seen.