MarkyJoe1990

Turn by turn progression isn't boring and easy. It's only like that if you design it poorly, or to purposely be boring and easy. However, the whole spontaneous thing, alongside the low chances of death, do seem like valid points. I don't recall ever losing units to this ambush. That said, I'm going to design it so that you WON'T lose any units. Just maybe some damage to your units and some dead NPCs. I don't feel Old Fire Mumblem holds up. The only good chapter in it is Chapter 5 (The one with Sophia and Karel), and even then, it's rather bloated. I don't feel particularly attached to it either, but I tend to hate everything I do anyway because I always feel like I can top it. =\ Anyway, I wanna discuss some things with the community here. I'm not arrogant enough to assume that everything I do is correct, and I want to ensure that this chapter is acceptable quality. I'm working on the redone version of the chapter right now. I'm changing the map, but I'm abiding to Arch's wishes on the ambush. My plans are as follows: - Make the map smaller and less bloated - Make the player desire to rendezvous with Guy and Dayan by placing Guy and Dayan in an unfavorable scenario. - Get rid of the possibility that the player's units will die from the "Grand Ambush" as I'll call it, but otherwise leave it mostly untouched. functionally. - Make Wallace and Florina valuable to the chapter instead of just serving as bonus content. - Give the units weapons that adhere to what I'm aiming for (No Sol Katti for Lyn unless I can somehow give it a point/use) - Make the chapter's pace flow quickly, so it doesn't drag on or otherwise feel tedious. Here's my map, currently. It's unfinished.

Just because people have played the hack before doesn't mean it's okay to employ an unfair tactic. And no. This isn't my first time playing. I made a video series on this hack, and complained about this a long time ago as well. I knew it was coming. The reason why Florina was in range was because I wanted to move her to the mountains so she wouldn't be in danger and I leave her to contribute absolutely nothing to the chapter. Of course, I forgot that nomad troopers spawn near her, and she wasn't close enough into the mountains to be out of their range, so she was brought down to 1 HP. Basically, since I didn't memorize where the units spawned, she got the stuffing kicked out of her. Granted, she has an elixir, but if the enemies spawned with one extra strength, that'd be the end of her... and THAT IS a possible scenario, by the way. If both troopers have a total of 34 strength, then she's at the mercy of luck. And this is because I didn't know they'd spawn EXACTLY there. So this is still an invisible coin block scenario. I hope you're not referring to The Corruption of Roy. That hack was awful. The only public content I've made that I think still holds up is Chapter 2 of Fire Mumblem Revised Edition, and maybe the one chapter I made for the Help Me Help You Project. By my standards today, it's probably too slow, and a little unfair in my book.

Technically my comparison works because you're still losing some fire power. Additionally, it depends on how you were positioned at the time. I placed my Kent and Sain behind Lyn, and they got hit by a couple of dudes. Also, my Florina got attacked and was brought down to 1 HP.

This doesn't help gameplay. =\ It's like the equivalent of being forced to lose your mushroom in Mario because you were supposed to know that there was an invisible coin block waiting to knock you into a pit of spikes.

I'll need you to give me a bunch of specifics. Could you re-add me on skype? I want to be as careful about this as possible, since I don't wanna screw this up.

Revise as in... just changing the events?

I will then. I'm currently plotting down some ideas on how to do the chapter, but I need you to tell me what things must remain consistent. Can I change the map design so long as I use the sacaen tileset? I have a particular idea that takes advantage of bows, but I'll need to change the map entirely.

Right... [spoiler=Critiques]=Prologue= I can't move the text faster than this? And I can't skip it? Do I seriously have to suffer this little prelude every time I start a new game? What about the people who have already played this game and wish to replay it? This seems like a very inconsiderate design decision, possibly meant to show people "Oh hey! We changed it! Now we're gonna force you to acknowledge this!". Of course, I could just be projecting, and this was just a stupid design idea. I'm a little off put by the implications of this dialogue. Do the story tellers get killed or something? And why is the prince's father capturing story tellers just to entertain his son? I mean... jesus. This guy's a fucking asshole. Certainly someone is trying to do something about him. Tyranny doesn't just run rampant, y'know. History dictates that many kings were put to death if their people absolutely hated them. But alas, I'm just freaked out by the implications. I don't know if this genuinely makes no sense or not since I've not done much research... perhaps I should. =Tale Select= First, let's talk about the achievements. In the past, I believe complained that these were completely trivial things that don't reward the player in any way. It seems this problem has been averted, since getting achievements unlocks "bonus content", thus giving the achievements some actual value. This is appreciated. As dashing as ever I see, Arch. Seriously, that hair could melt any woman's heart. >_>' I'm with "Yesman" on this one (the prince whom I named), what the hell is up with Dane's eye armor? Is he like cyclops from the X-men? That'd be fuckin' boss. ...Okay, let's start with Lyn's Tale. Let's see if my complaints have been averted. Okay. Using the "Kill" command on multiple units after selecting a tale is kind of glitchy. You should prolly just use it on the selected unit unless you can fix the problem. =Tale: Homecoming= After doing research on nobles and peasants in the medieval era, I've come to sympathize with Lyn more on her situation. Being a noble sucks. You have loads of obligations, and you can't even parent your own child. Instead, they get raised by someone else. I'm inclined to believe peasants have a better life style than nobles, even if they weren't as wealthy or important. Prasad doesn't seem to talk all that slow. In fact, he was very quick to convince Rath... I'm just nitpicking. Like before, the map design is as obnoxiously huge as ever, with very little to justify it. The first turn is Alright... so here we go. The boss dude's all like "We're gonna attack", but doesn't state the direction of the attack. Let's see if the level designer actually gave two shits about doing things in a fair manner. I'm relieved to see that Lyn is only two turns away from Rath. By Turn 2, she can be in the exact 6 tile range of talking to Rath. It's clear the designer counted the spaces. However... did he consider what the point was to putting us so far away that the first turn is completely redundant? Perhaps the reasoning for this is for Florina, who shows up on Turn 2. If you know this beforehand, then you can set Kent and Sain up to rescue chain her so she is close to Lyn... ... However, that would be wasting Kent and Sains turn and leaving them open for when the Kutolah clan ambush spawns you... okay, lemme talk about this. I believe a while back, I argued with Archibald about the fairness of this ambush spawn. While he is right that the boss foreshadows this event, it's never clear where they will come from, and this is where the problem lies. They ambush spawn ALL OVER THE MAP, and in promximity of where Lyn, Kent, and Sain are likely to be. You can tell us you're going to do ambush spawns, but the player isn't going to know what the fuck to do unless you give him/her some form of indicator as to where they might come from. Normally, Fire Emblem uses forts and stairs. A solid form of indication, and even if the player doesn't know when ambush spawns will come, they can at least predict where they are coming from. The "When" isn't as important as the "Where". I believe Arch's justification for this was that it's realistic, since it's a coordinated attack. To that, I say... the boss was fucking gloating out loud a moment ago. I've already thrown some sense of realism out the window. Not to mention that if we apply realism, our characters should have been able to see our attackers, since they were presumably close enough to be able to reach us by the time the boss calls the attack, but because of the mystical plane that exists outside of the map's border, we cannot see them, interact with them, or do anything... Of course, maybe they were hiding... Yeah right, in the open spaces of PLAINS? Where are they gonna hide? Underground? Bottom line: Don't put ambush reinforcements immediately in range of where the player would normally be without an adequate indicator of their location prior to the event. Remember. Fairness is a very important part of a game. Realism isn't. ... Oh. This is a route mission this time. Huh. If we go down the realism route, I question whether our foes would have the morale to keep going after their leader is defeated. This chapter's really boring... While the bloated map size is a surprisingly irrelevent issue, the chapter still feels utterly barren of challenge. Not much thought is required for unit placement, because the enemies are rather weak to the point of irrelevence, and we are provided with Gates and Trees to turtle one. I didn't even need to heal my units because they recieved so little damage. In conclusion, nothing about this chapter works. Minimal effort is required to win, and I STILL somehow managed to get an achievement somehow despite my lack of input. A big problem with this map is that it's kind of a clusterfuck of enemies who aren't a threat. The sad thing is that, the ambush spawn is literally the only thing that could possibly make this chapter difficult, and yet even my carelessly placed Florina was able to survive with 1 HP. The chapter doesn't feel like effort was put into it's design outside of merely complimenting the rather uninteresting story... that said, I'm going to try to say some nice things for once... here goes. - I noticed the map is taken from FE6. A nice touch, even if it falls flat on it's ass in terms of gameplay. - Kent and Sain's new armor looks very nice. Um... yeah. I think those are the only good things I can say about the map. It's just... really abyssmal, honestly. =Tale: Lost Resolve= I... really feel Eliwood could have been handled better here. The dude lost his parents. That's a really hard pill to swallow. Apparently he's been mourning for two weeks, but right after Marcus is all like "Let's give him more time", the camera scrolls over to Eliwood and he CONVENIENTLY regains his resolve just before some bandits trash the place. I kind of feel Marcus shoulda came up to him and said "I understand you're upset, but DUDE, you gotta help our people now! Shit's goin' down, and you ain't doing jack shit!" I'd comment on how the castle's design doesn't make much sense, but honestly, I REALLY like how it looks. =X Headaches...? Ninian's been having headaches? Hm. This foreshadows her untimely death, I presume. I'm calling it right here. I like Lowen's new design, but not Rebecca's. It ill represents her personality. *Looks at the map* ... What... the... fuck... Despair is trickling down my neck. Is this seriously just an obnoxiously long hallway!? WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE FUN??? Making Lowen a great knight was a nice touch. It fits his growths better. Alright... Onslow's speech makes no sense. Do these bandits have any idea how nobility even works? From what I know, Kings assign land to people they trust, and they can take it away if the Lord does not adhere to their responsibilities, such as protecting their people. Lycia has no king if I remember right, but Ostia is the dominant territory, and I'm sure something would be done about these bandits. Actually... that makes me realize something else... Why is Eliwood still in power? He apparently let this bandit problem get so bad that they are OVERRUNNING his own castle! That's pretty fucking poor rulership if you ask me! Suggestion: Give Natalie a Mend instead of a Heal. The heal is obsoleted by her Physic staff. Whoa. This chapter is actually kind of difficult. Then again, I'm rushing. Maybe there's a way to turtle this, but for now, I want to rush since I'm pretty sure the treasure chests are in danger of actually being pillaged this time. Suggestion: Remove the crit from the Berserkers, or perhaps make an alternate berserker class without the crit, and give that to the enemy unit berserkers. Same with Swordmasters. It makes some scenarios luck based. In conclusion, I'm positively surprised. The chapter is actually quite interesting gameplay wise despite it being a long hallway. Though, I never bothered to open the chests. I can also see this as being interesting to LTC because of the ambush spawn berserkers (WHICH HAVE A REASONABLE SPAWN LOCATION, AND ARE FORESHADOWED CORRECTLY. GOOD DESIGN~). So yeah. Good job. The story is a bit weak, but the level is actually fun to play, unlike Lyn's. Eh? There's a part two...? I'll get to that later. I want to do Hector's Tale. I've been told horrible things about it. Ah. Good. I have access to Part Two when I actually want to play it. =Tale: The Leader's Trials= Hey! I recognize this tension theme. It's from FE3, right? This is a rather weak rendition honestly. It lacks the punch and power. Dawson seems like an interesting villain honestly, but I think his means to his ends is his problem. Ugh... The level design looks as bad as ever, but Eliwood's tale proved me wrong. Maybe this will as well. Alright. I really like what you did here with Erik. You made him seem like a very pragmatic leader. Perhaps he deserves being the leader of Laus more than his father does. ... So I literally camped my characters for 9 turns, and I still haven't lost a single unit. I placed Hector on the Castle Gate, with Oswin three tiles above him. Serra's in the mountain to the left, and Erik's with her. Matthew and Orun are sitting in the nearby trees. Welp. Defeated one of the bosses and a clusterfuck of units by simply turtling, and with absolutely no downsides as far as I'm concerned. That was easy. I must ask. Was any thought put into this level design? Welp! Time to mow my way through the rest of this chapter. After all, it's just bait 'n switch. Wow. Too very easily executed strategies and I've already won... this chapter sucks. I didn't bother visiting the villages by the way. In fact, I haven't gone out of my way to get ANY of the prizes the hack offers. Why? Because none of it matters. I'm still going to win. You give the player way too many tools to work with, but you don't make the player consider his/her options carefully. Also, the chapter is way too long, but that's my fault for turtling... but the chapter gives me no reason NOT to turtle, so I chose it because I found it a safe, efficient way to guarentee a victory. Y'know, because GOOD tacticians choose sensible tactics! Actually... is this the INTENDED method to play? If you try and go out to fight the boss quickly, you'll be running into open field, allowing the enemies to surround you. That would be a really risky tactic to take consider you start with only three units, and the other units you get don't come until after a while. ...Just... what was this chapter trying to accomplish!? =END= I think this is all I can stomach for now... so far, only one tale of this hack is fun to play. The stories aren't particularly interesting, but I'm not going to get too mad at that, because ultimately, story doesn't mean much, and... it's not Karel's tale.

Kind of conflicted on it... I'm in an awful mood, and I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared to defend my view points if I'm provided with counterarguments. Besides, I'm waiting on Archibald to respond. Maybe I shoulda just PM'd him. I feel pretty dumb right now.

I didn't complain much about the plots or writing. Most of my critiques are on the gameplay.

... Right... So in theory, my critiques are still relevant?

I got it to work... Lyn's Tale is the same as it was before (Except Wallace comes in). I'm using version 6 beta 7. Is this supposed to happen?

Seems to be giving me the same problem... Ugh... EDIT: WAIT. It works now!

Homecoming? Really!? It was changed!? OH HAPPY DAY!! Too bad I can't get the patch to work. I applied it to an FE7 rom with NUPS, and then tried to open it...

... So... I wasted hours writing critiques and they aren't even relevant. Cheesecakes. WELP! Time to get back to work! Long story short, I hated version 5. Let's see if Version 6 is better.

Alright. So I spent a couple hours playing the first three tales of the new Elibean Nights... Is v6 beta actually released? Cause I followed the link, and it said version 5. In any case, I wrote up my opinions. As always, I'm harsh, so it's up to you if you wanna see them, Arch. I'm... kind of indifferent either way.

Welp. It's been how long and still no demo released? I think Blazer had a point when he said I was too worried about the quality of the project... Originally, this project was just a solo thing I was doing to give my friend, BuringPenitentEngine something to record for his channel. I think that was one of the main driving forces as to why I made this hack in the first place. Ever since we fell out years ago, It's never been the same, and now it's gotten way out of hand. I've become too ambitious for my own good. So... I'm gonna restore this project back to it's original roots. I'm removing all of it's publicity and limiting all knowledge of the game to the video commentaries I'm going to have done for it. No more trying to hype this shit up, or attempting to impress the community. From now on, this project is about getting some blokes on youtube to record it for the amusement of my crew and I.

Nope

I don't mind. It was amusing to read what you were saying, but I think I should mention that that's not the latest version of the map. Check a few pages in to the thread and you'll see the new version. It's an old version of the map, so... just disregard it. The newer version is in this thread somewhere.

The way you explain yourself does kind of make sense to me, and I do remember watching Trask Nari's LPs of the Chzo Mythos series and liking his voice acting, but I think he's the only one who has pulled it off in a way I like. Either way, I'm not gonna be anal about it. Go ahead and voice act. You don't need my approval/permission anyway, and you might prove me wrong. =X

You're getting positive feedback from people on Youtube. People on Youtube typically don't really know what is good because there is no quality control. Chances are, you'll get only praise and no criticism, unless you're absolutely terrible, or explicitly ask for critique, and even then, it's unlikely. That's just how Youtube is. I'd like to suggest an alternative; Practice talking about the text instead of reading it. What I mean is something like this. Kelik: I kick kittens, but really I'm a nice guy, I swear! Anakin: You... kick kittens? You: Wow. Kelik, you should probably do something about that kitten kicking compulsion. Doesn't matter how nice you are, I love kittens, so that makes you bad in my book. The thing is, people can read. They don't need the text to be read to them, and you're not contributing anything insightful like criticism, observations, or jokes when you do such. Of course, since you've already established that you voice act, chances are, people will complain if you don't, but that's just because people don't like change, even if it's for the better, and when a majority of people get something into their head, they're convinced that it's correct, and that any other way is wrong. Arrogance becomes a symptom of consensus. Just look at the Game Grumps for example. When Jontron was replaced by Danny, their videos got tons of dislikes and negative comments because people automatically assumed Danny was inferior. When the viewers started to realize he was just as good - if not, better - than Jontron, they started to shut up, or even leave positive comments. (For the record, I immediately liked Danny) Hopefully this helps. Either way, I'm fine with you LPing the game, and even if you don't take my advice I'll still watch it; commentary or not, seeing how the player behaves can give the creator valuable information that they can use to redesign and polish their hack. Polish and good design are my key focuses. That, and the jokes. I want the jokes to make people laugh.

Maybe Sonia has all the components to allow for sex, but doesn't have a womb, or any other feature that would function for reproduction. That way, she CAN have sex with Brendan, but they aren't having babies.

A let's play would be neat, but I think before any of that is considered, I'd want to release the first patch, get some critique, and then polish it up so that it's ready for a proper let's play. Erm... wait, you voice act? Please link me to an example. I don't like voice acting. At all. So I might ask you to avoid it. And uh... yeah. The architecture doesn't make sense. I don't really mind though. I'm more concerned about gameplay, and in some cases -- especially gimmicks -- logic might just be thrown straight out the window.