Myke
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Posts posted by Myke
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only a little late
Some minor changes to the face, which is why it was included.
now to find out what's happened since
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(Also send me the blinking and talking tiles, and I can work on inserting your character in the game and giving out a video of that. :))
oops. I'll get on that.
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B- Frozen Synapse's choreographic interface.
Multiclassing.
Persistant maps: fight again on a previously used battlefield and make use of the barricades and ballistas you deployed last time.
Each unit is the leader of a squad instead of a single fighter.
Bigger range for ranged combat: bows 3-7, longbows 4-10, ballista 25+
C- are we still playing Fire Emblem?
EDIT: Shields! Armour too. Dwarves. Mounting and dismounting. Cannons!
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http://www.sendspace.com/file/qu7wbv
C- shhhhh I can do better
SELECTION
Rex Gambol, reporting.
Stay close and stay silent.
Listen... they are near.
I am an officer of the inquisition.
Fear walks before me.
MOVEMENT
A good position.
Aye, I am with you.
I am the silence, I am the shadow...
Alright, I'm going.
As you say, ser.
ATTACK
They shall know my face in death!
Raise the dead!
Bring them down, so I may question them.
ACTION/SOCIAL
You will, I do.
They will never see me coming.
COMBAT/ENGAGED
I will burn their bones!
I shall shatter their world!
Regard me and weep!
RETREATING/BROKEN
I would not perish here!
May the shadows protect!
I am overmatched!
VICTORY/HEAL
Lead me to my next victim!
My duty is done, but ever do I hunger!
Fall to your knees and I may show mercy!
OTHER
I did not earn my place by sucking dicks! Let me guide your hand.
I have done this a thousand times, and will do it a thousand more.
Yeti! Ever out of formation!
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Then your definition of narrative elements is very vague. It just means 'things that happen'.
I just used the definition you laid down two posts above. "Story is events, dialogue." You exclude scenery, which I disagree with, but that's besides the point. If an 'event' is not 'a thing that happens' then I've completely lost my place in this argument altogether.
When someone talks about clearing rooms or killing enemies or recruiting allies, I would think they're talking about gameplay, not storyline. After all, these are things you are doing. However, your definition of narrative seems to include gameplay as part of it. I can't really argue with the importance of narrative, or how narrative is woven together with gameplay when you have specifically defined the word narrative to mean the same thing as gameplay.These are things which, through gameplay, advance the story of the game. However, the specific mechanics that decide whether a blow lands and how much damage it deals, the fine-tuned calibrations that determines how closely your character's movements correspond to your inputs, the time spent selecting spells in menus or organising the party or selecting equipment: these things are part of the gameplay, but not part of the narrative. Hopefully, this clears up any misunderstandings you have about my position.
If everything in the game is the storyline, then it is not possible to have a non-story element and the word becomes meaningless.As I intended to convey, everything that happens in the game is part of the storyline. The things that do not actually happen, which take place in the space between the player and the world, are exclusive to the gameplay.
EDIT: how do you know I'm not a politician?
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I disagree. Weaving narrative and gameplay together is an impossibility. A narrative is events occuring outside the player's control. If those events are beyond the player's control, they are not part of gameplay. I can control Samus and move her around. That is gameplay. If Samus starts moving around on her own accord in a cutscene, that is narrative. If narrative elements mean anything, they mean something that is mutually exclusive with gameplay, events occuring outside the player's control.
I honestly can't see a single scrap of merit in this point of view. In the post above, you define narrative as 'events' and 'dialogue', and if the player conquering the challenges set before them, activating ancient machines and defeating evil minions aren't 'events' that drive the story forwards, then what are they? If the audio-logs you find around New Mombasa in Halo: ODST, or the information you gleam from each villager's predefined line aren't "dialogue", then what are they? Where does the hero get that information, if not through your actions? How does he reach the next stage, if not by you walking there?
Ask yourself: what is the narrative of a Super Mario Bros game? If you omit the sections where the player is in control, then it becomes
Mario is at a castle and the princess isn't there. This happens a bunch of times until he is in the castle where the princess is.as opposed to
Mario traverses a hostile landscape, defeating the minions of koopa along the way. When he successfully wins his way across the castle's mantle, he discovers the princess is not there! He moves further into koopa's territory, conquering dungeons deep below, vast oceanic mazes and cloud-fortresses far above. Again and again he discovers the princess' servants beyond his trials, and again and again he presses on until he is finally face-to-face with Bowser in his true domain. He defeats the tyrant and casts him below, finally rescuing princess Peach from his evil clutches.Games don't make sense if you just string the automated parts together. Without the player's actions, Link never leaves Kokari forest. Without a victim to torment and terrorise, does anything actually happen in Silent Hill? Every room you clear, every fragment of the conspiracy you find, every ally you recruit and every mystical artifact you stuff into your purse is a part of the journey, a part of the story, a part of the plot, a part of the narrative. If the villagers who wander idly around outside your window aren't part of the story, then that would mean the world is populated only by you and the enemies. If the turn of the day isn't part of the story, then the game's events all take place in the same instant. Scope, setting, timeframe, these are all important elements of any book, just as they are important elements of a game's story.
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I think that a distinction should be drawn between setting and plot. If there are documents lying around the mansion that the player can read as they explore, that is not so much plot as it is setting. Setting is obviously very important in video games because it is what the player is exploring. Part of the lasting appeal of Zelda, or Pokemon, or World of Warcraft is exploring a huge fantasy world. But one would hardly say that Pokemon or World of Warcraft or Zelda are games that rely on plot when really it would be more accurate to say they rely on setting.
While technically correct, I don't think this distinction is necessary. If we are to rank visual, audio, narrative and gameplay elements, I would argue that gameplay always comes first - and this 'setting' you're talking about is just a method of weaving the narrative and gameplay together. While the examples you gave use this technique to give depth to the world and convey its history to the player, just as often it is used to bring the player up-to-speed on the contemporary plot. Braid is a great example of this, wherein the player only understands the story fully through playing the final missions.
Video games are an interactive media first and foremost, and those which give the gameplay a low priority are probably better off as films or novels. Many recent eastern RPGs are guilty of putting their cinematics first, with Final Fantasy XIII the most notorious example. If your product is a series of short corridors linking together giant cutscenes, then you might as well have just omitted the corridors.
It is possible, however, for a grand and well-told tale to coexist with an interactive world, such as in games like Assassin's Creed. Throughout the series is strewn dozens of hours of expository speech, but the player is given freedom to explore their immediate surroundings during it, or even better, this dialogue takes place during transit between areas.
Whether the story is told through vignettes scattered about the environment (Bioshock), hour-long dialogue marathons (Dragon Age) or by the player's actions as they progress through a linear world (Super Mario World et al), almost every game does have a narrative, so I would posit that it should be considered second. There are exceptions, but if you were to consider all of your favourite games it is likely you would find they all have fantastic and well-conceived plots, even if it is unorthodox or not immediately apparent. I feel that the audio and visual components exist to enhance these two core components, and being a more visual person I tend to prefer the aesthetic over the aural.
Even in games where the visuals are part of the game's primary focus, such as in Okami and Limbo, they are tied into the gameplay. The same is done with games like Guitar Hero and Tetris regarding their auditory components. Thus, gameplay before narrative before visuals before audio - with the latter three subject to change at the developer's desire.
Greater men than me have said it: video games are unique in the interactivity. From the moment your software is launched, the player (player, not viewer or reader) waits and watches with their input device in hand. The less freedom they have to use this device, the less they enjoy using it, the less likely they are to continue playing!
However, try making a blockbuster shooter without having good graphics: it's simply impossible, unless your concept is crazy unique (which is even MORE difficult to achieve lol).If you want to make a shooter without a unique concept, you might as well just buy some shares in Activision and go back to your day job. The same goes for any genre of game.
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C- strange that it hasn't been posted here but with the release of FEXP, FE7x is now being coded in XNA. Which means more freedom and hopefully none of the bullshit errors/lag that came with the RMXP platform!
Yay for that!
also regarding controls you should just be able to hit F1 and set them however you want?
If you want to list things we don't have done yet we beat you to it and our list is way bigger.
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This is a pretty SWEET topic and I plan on making my own walloftext summary but before anyone goes any further I'd like you all to know that almost every time you've discussed the importance of 'graphics' you're talking about aesthetics. If a character model is well-designed, if the colour palette is well chosen, if the weather effects and terrain is deeply atmospheric, or if the HUD/menu stuff is pleasing, you have an artistic designer to thank. If you can see the sweat on the brow you're about to pierce with a bullet, if you can fit the entire state of Texas within your draw distance, or if you have more pixels in your resolution than the plague claimed victims, you have programmers to thank.
It is very important to distinguish these two things, because every time someone posts about how amazing the graphics in X game were, an artist gets fired and a programmer gets hired. This has been happening for decades now, and is the reason why so many games are high-fidelity brown wastelands populated by ugly brown space marines staring down the barrels of their ugly brown guns.
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So is this geared specifically towards emulating the GBA Fire Emblems, or any type of SRPG? 'Cause the latter's had ton of work already and numerous ways people can make their own already available for years now.
D- oh
the former, then
because clearly it wasn't self-evident in the title
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It's reasonable to say that we will need spriters for the entire course of the project; the duration of which will be largely determined by the volunteers we have on hand. I could therefore say that there is no real time limit on this deal, and that we might not stop accepting applications at all.
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We're recruiting battle spriters. Come down and try your hand, who knows what might happen?
D- I registered just to say that. Guess I'd better go be active elsewhere.
Khrene's Workspace
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although these scraps are delicious they are still scraps
get to work