ZEELLO'S PROFILE

It might be years before MV is localized if it ever comes at all. So I don't really regret getting vxa. Although I hope mv turns out really well and does get localized, because tablet support is a big deal imo.

In general I probably wouldn't see the existence of bad endings as justifiable. If you saw the bad ending which you got intentionally and liked it, then what? Now you have to restart and get the real ending. So in that sense the bad ending was pointless. At best its an optional cutscene, but a case could be made that those shouldn't exist either, unless it's something lighthearted or silly that wouldn't have the same effect if the player was forced into it or if forcing the player into it is more trouble than it's worth.

Then there's using them if you are at a tough spot and don't know how to proceed, getting to know how other people play and react.

Personally I don't approve of looking up help in games. I have done this plenty of times in the past but I've decided to get off the drug so to speak.

Using it as a preview, too. My brother usually goes for the first episode or so of the let's play to see whether the player is engaged or not, and to get a feel for how the game plays out and is worth buying or not.

This is the only thing I want. But I do this less and less nowadays because 1) I just want longplays not Let's Plays where the player makes commentary, but whenever I look up a game on youtube the search results bring back Let's Plays, and 2) The first part of the game is full of story and tutorials, and thereby won't give me an accurate picture of how the rest of the game plays. This is also usually a boring part of the game for that reason, and I don't like the idea of having to do sit through it twice. (once on youtube, and the second time when actually playing the game)

I find I've regressed into usually just watching trailers for a game. Which is odd since they're basically commercials. It's annoying watching one to the end only to find that the trailer contained no gameplay.

We've all been there, sitting together playing games. Taking turns playing games and watching while the others went at it. At least I hope so, because that's a hell of fun!

It's not THAT fun. Also it's not the same as an LP, because at least when taking turns you're playing the game in person. (and seeing it in person, which imo is totally different from seeing it in youtube)

Scary? We watch people in sports, we watch people drawing stuff (streams!), we watch people perform in music, we watch people in reality shows, we watch people in all kinds of situations, and many seem to enjoy it, rather than doing it themselves.

But watching people do those things isn't a replacement for doing it yourself. Nobody looks at someone drawing or watches someone snowboarding and think "I've experienced drawing and snowboarding".

Why would gaming be a holy exception?

you're suggesting that I'm holding games to a different standard, but maybe that's not the case. Because if someone never watched movies but simply read the plot of every movie that comes out or watches podcasts that regurgitate the entire plot for them so they don't have to see it, then maybe that would be equivalent in a way to someone who simply watches games being played.

And why would that be such a bad thing?

Because it clouds the objectivity of playing the game, and in turn this causes the people who wish to actually play games themselves to become irrelevant. In a way, choosing to play the game on your own becomes a self-imposed handicap. It would as insane as if choosing to personally watch a movie or personally read a book meant you were no longer experiencing that work by a mainstream standard. The book or the movie would be nothing more than its social context and not the content contained within, so to actually read/watch it for yourself would be pointless.

You can't have an FF7 remake without this classic scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu92wc7IQl0#t=0m40s

But that part of the story probably won't be in the remake. It's Square Enix so they'll probably make the whole game dark and serious instead. Those bastards.

author=LockeZ
Here are the changes that I 100% guarantee will happen:
- All dialogue will be voice acted
- The graphics will look phenomenal
- The story will be translated properly, yet somehow make even less sense
- Combat will not include any menus and will instead just rely on pressing X to attack
- Enemies will be fought in the dungeon while exploring, not in a separate battle screen, and you will be able to move around the environment as you fight to avoid attacks
- Cloud's skillset will consist of Attack, Braver and Omnislash, nothing else
- Cloud will be able to equip only one materia at a time
- Weapon upgrades will no longer exist; Buster Sword for entire game
- Cloud will have highly cinematic combat movements, swinging his sword around in all kinds of patterns that look like they should be based on the player's attack timing and positioning and what direction they're pushing on the joystick, but actually it's all 100% automatic, like in Kingdom Hearts and FF15
- All other party members will be completely AI controlled
- Many locations will be removed from the game, and 75% of the game will take place in Midgar and Junon
- Everyone's outfits will be redesigned by Tetsuya Nomura to be 1000% more emo, even though he was the one who designed the original outfits in the first place

To be honest your prediction has the makings of an amazing game, except for maybe the part about being able to equip only one materia. This implies that you'll have to be constantly switching materia as a result, so already it sounds like a disaster. A better alternative might be is if every materia you attain is permanently equipped.

p.s. aww you changed your avatar. I loved the House avatar for some reason.

That's odd, thus far I've made maps using graph paper. I find myself unable to make maps directly in the editor. But I don't see myself doing the same for dialogue, or ever needing to. That said, you won't know how much space the dialogue will take up in the text box, until you're in the editor. I think I'd probably take this into account when writing the dialogue. For example a single sentence has to fit in the text box, so it can't be too long. I could actually see myself re-writing sentences simply to make them look better in-game. That's an advantage to doing it directly in the editor.

By the way I had a question relating to this. How to present dialogue from characters without portraits? (in a game where only some characters have portraits)
For instance I think in FF6 everyone it's written like a script where if someone says "EDGAR: (what Edgar says)" but it looks odd when I do it in VX Ace. And it's inconsistent for only some characters to do it.

Also, should all dialogue have quotation marks?

One method I was considering is having all NPC dialogue appear at the top of the screen while all party member dialogue is at the bottom of the screen. (and maybe have game messages like treasure chests appear in the middle of the screen) This helps to convey who's saying what without necessarily having to rely on portraits and names. When text boxes switch up and down it will feel more like a back and forth conversation. If everything is on the bottom, it might not be clear if someone else is suddenly talking. But maybe I'm wrong, and it's enough to simply not show a portrait for an NPC. That way portait = you and no portrait = them, which is good enough.