REDAKERSTON'S PROFILE

author=Infinite

author=ESBY
RedAkerston: There's far too many visual styles, none of your tiles look like they belongs together.

I agree, the visual styles of your sprites, tiles, and backgrounds don't match.
But don't let that stop you from making your game. I would try some overlays and screen tint to mask those flaws and try and get things to blend better.

It's a heck of a lot better looking than it used to be. ... Graphics are my eternal struggle ... but i'll get er done one way or the other. For blending, color schemes mostly i think can be fixed... the carpet for example in that second picture should be something more grey or removed, or the beds in the first. The barrel needs to match the wall in the first screen. I may remove the lamp glows altogether. The sprites, well, unless i find a solid alternative to charas i'm stuck with the sprite style. Better than VX stock sprites at least ;)
Here's what i'm currently working on.



When i am closer to a release i will probably end up spamming you all in this topic with screens from every area looking for details to fix. Big thanks for the tinting reminder though. Small effort i can apply across the board to my maps to make sure the colors match better (eg: recolor the barrel to grey).

Descriptions of each plugin would help if/when possible, but otherwise THANK YOU. Seriously... First thing onmind right now is the first item on the list.. haha .. 32 bit fix for 2k3?

I'm intrigued, but as one of those 2003 dinosaurs, i need to know it can accommodate my project before i even think of transferring to a new maker.

Is the side view option active or turn based?
It still looks to be using single tile sprites.
Can i import my existing resources from 2k3?
Will the database limits be too small for my needs?
etc etc

I have all my 3-d renders saved so i can easily re-render them in a higher resolution. I can also screen cap finished maps and use them as panoramas in some cases. I could even just replug in numbers from one window to another. But in all, it really comes down to how much effort it is to transplant my project from one maker to another. I'm kind of surpirsed they haven't dealt with this issue since the 2000 to 2003 transition...

I mean, honestly, there would be nothing nicer than being able to directly transplant finished maps with all the event data somehow... Wishful thinking i suppose, but i know there's lots of us out there who may love the makers we use, but it's also an issue of having put thousands of hours of work into this maker and having no where to go without canning all the effort. Thank god i love 2003 to death, but i'm also kind of trapped in it because my project exists in it, and that's a big frustration.

I'm already sitting at 1,000 maps, and 1,000 items, and over 50 characters, and god knows how many object files and dozens of different chipsets etc etc... Speaking of object files, even as a workaround, there's no better feeling than being able to use them as a limitless chipset... or near limitless i mean the layering options can be tricky... but still, VX was never even an option no matter how much work i was willing to put into transition because it simply lacks capacity.

In all, to make moving to a new maker even remotely possible for me, i need to be able to simply paste my resources into the new makers folders, and to have the new maker able to read my 2k3 map data. Short of that, i'm stuck in 2k3 until i finish my project.

In my opinion a most common flaw with stat design is that the numbers are too inflated,

eg: WRONG
Hero has 1000hp,
Monster attacks you for 400 damage!
You cast Cure and are healed 450 Damage!
Hero unleashes big attack!
Monster takes 10000000 damage!
Monster dies.

A 30 second battle is not gameplay.
Trash mobs are not gameplay.
They are trash play.

In the wisest words i've ever read on the matter some years ago,
a battle system should see every number between 0 and the maximum HP be used.

Therefore (and in how i;m designing my own system)

eg: RIGHT
Hero has 1000hp
Monster strikes you for 30 damage!

Your turn.
You have 10 points to use for your next 'x' (lets say x = 5) rounds!
You can use an Attack for 1 point in expenditure and cause 10 damage, or use 2 points to cause 15 damage, or 3 for 18, or 4 for 21, or 5 for 25 etc...

Or maybe you want to heal?
You can recover that 30 points entirely, but it'll cost you 6 points.
Or maybe just heal a bit. Get 15 back for 2 points, because 2 points per round means you don't have to spend as much time recovering. Or play conservative with 1 point attacks for a bit to save the big one for when you need it?

Then applying attribute variances to every attack...
...and so on

At first the battle appears easy, but as it draws out for 5 minutes ... 10 minutes, that initial impression quickly fades. Instead of being a black and white affair of big attacks and big heals, the numbers ebb and flow organically, slowly, but with legitimate meaning and need for a tactical approach.

Good idea... and it's well past time i got around to making a charas of him instead of still using this sprite. @_@

Nefario is a character who generally travels to the same places as the story follows, and so appears frequently, but is not in the main group.