SOLID89'S PROFILE

So I had double the topics, instead of making two seperate ones back to back, I figured I'd just squeeze them together in this one. For opinions, criticism or debate.

My first topic is team projects.. I've been working with Rpgmaker 2k and 2k3 for like.. 5 or 6 years now and (sadly) don't have much to show for it aside from some good memories and some cheesy scrapped projects that never got to see the light of day and countless CBS ideas, some even coded until I lost interest. My problem seems to be that I refuse to settle for using the DBS (although I do find that most indie rpg creators actually make it work and fun, I do enjoy playing it, but I can't seem to find a way to make it work for me or my projects that leaves me satisfied with where I'm going with it.) so I aim for CBS, CMS and custom sprites and chipsets, music and so on. However, by the time I get so far into one angle of the project, the rest becomes overwhelming and I lose my motivation. I love programming battle systems and challenging myself and trying to come up with creative and new ideas on storylines/characters or systems in general, But I usually overload myself with graphics and new ideas I want to apply and I end up empty-handed. I just can't seem to settle for anything. Thats not to say I'll never finish anything, or that I completely lack motivation, but RPG's seem to plague me because my mind wants something bigger than I myself, alone, can do. Usually.

ANYWAY, I've read on most rpg maker boards that team projects usually fail from the start for whatever reasons. What is it that dooms said projects? I'm curious, cause in my opinion I think these would actually work out better because you could have various people working on different aspects of the RPG, soneone good at spriting working on battle sprites and animations ONLY, a mapper working on chipset graphics and/or mapping itself, a programmer working on the battle system and menu, etc. I would enjoy working on a part of a team, I think. The only thing that would make it risky is if as a graphic artist or composer or whatever role, if you did a lot of the work and the main programmer backed out or cancelled the game, leaving you with all of this hard work you had put in for it to not even see any real in-game time. Which does make it kind of unsettling to think about, but I still think a group project has more of a chance being finished than a solely made RPG (RPG's especially. Though for those who HAVE made and completed an rpgmaker rpg game by themselves, hat's off to you. Much respect for the work put in.) Anyways, Opinions? Anyone interested in this sort of thing?

Second off- A CBS idea that I'm really interested in programming (or trying to ^_^) but I wanted some opinions and criticism/ideas (always helps the motivation by getting your idea's heard. =])

The battle system features a 3 person party, turn based (order is based on Agility stat, compared to enemies as well.) Instead of standard commands in battle, you have up to 10 equippable slots per character to equip new actions/abilities/commands. There is also no general "Attack", but rather different versions of it (like a swordsman would have Slash, Slice, Impale, etc. each doing different amounts of damage.)

The player gets to use up to 3 commands during a turn for that character, creating a "String". All moves and abilities use up Stamina Points, of which each character has a max of 10. At the beginning of a characters turn, he or she recovers 3sp. So if you use a string that uses up 5 of your 10sp, you will get 3 of it back the next turn, leaving you with 8 to work with.

There are different kinds of commands, moves like break (might be called something else in the game, but yeah.) would shatter the defense of the enemy, allowing any extra hit following it to deal more damage. So you would want to use it first, so that the following two hits of the string will deal more damage.

Magic would work by "prepping" for higher level spells. By casting the same spell in a row, it will gradually get stronger each time. However, if you break the chain, it will lose its strength. Example: String of 3 commands = Fire, Fire, Fire. It will actually be casted and used as Fire, Fira and finally Firaga. But if you used your commands like this: Fire, Slash, Fire, Then it would just be played like that, since Slash broke the chain of Fire spells.

So if the player wanted a character to be a strong Black mage, they would have to equip the right spells they want them to use (like for the example above, in order to use Firaga, you would have to equip 3 basic fire spells out of your 10 battle command slots.)

More moves could be learned to combo with eachother as well, like as the same example; (once learned) Fire, Fire, Slash, would combo together to become Fire, Fira, Flame Slash (or something of that nature. lol) etc.

And finally, each command will have (or the player can add to) stat bonuses. Like adding a "break" (as explained above) effect to a normal move like Slash, or adding poison, etc. Or a stat bonus that will store the current string, allowing the second character to play off of it. Like, character 1 uses Slash (with break), Slash, Fire, (and that fire command store's the current string) then character 2 uses Fire, Fire, Ice. So it ends up being a 6-hit string, dealing massive damage. It would chain up like; Slash/Break (breaking the enemy defense for all following moves in this single string), Fire, Fira, Firaga, Firaga, Ice.

There are more ideas and things to add/flesh out, but thats the bulk what it would work with.

<_< Annnyway, whew.. That was a lot to type. If you read through all of that, I thank you for your time. :) Thanks for giving this a read, and for anyone who replies.

I'm really digging the game so far, but I ran into a bit of a problem? At the beginning of chapter 2, it instantly starts using the shield after that first scene and the hero is stuck there with the shield out. I can't move, call the menu, put the shield up, etc. :/