Fire Emblem: A Sacred Dawn DX

[Tamanoir]

Well, I thought about it and I remembered some things I read...

Characters are developped by their dialogue. They don't have the same relationship to each other, so each dialogue with a different person (or group) shows another part of their personnality. They are different level of "authority" between the different characters, depending how close they are, and how much they respect each other. Ruby is really admired by the kids (Julie, Josh, Ryan, Heather. Will tell them that way from now). That particulary helps to distinguish Alice and Amy. Alice haven't grown up with the kids, so she isn't as close to them. Theyhave some kind of resect to her. However, she's a close friend to Amy. You may think she have the ascendant over Amy, but this isn't necessarily always true. Amy can be a reassuring presence, and if Alice have problems, she knowws she can trust Amy.

Also, Winston sees Alice differently than the kids. She's the one who takes care of him, so even if he looks down on the kids, he will have more respect for her, and it may be one of the memeber of the troup he feels closer to.

That can helps Heather too. I may be wrong,but Julie, Josh and Ryan seeems to have some trusto her. I don't remember if she already have combat experience, but she's the ones who comes with the strategies, so I'd say if the relation between Josh, Julie and Ryan is 1, she'll have 1,5/2, but her relation with them will be 1.

The relation isn't, then, equal between all the character, which may cause trouble, but can also deepens their relation.

For example, the civilians (don't remember the name right now) are described as "older version of Julie and Josh", So Julie and Josh will have some respects towards them, but they too have respects towards Josh and Julie, because they were the ones who saved his life.

Anyways, long story shorts, what's imortant is the dynamics between the different characters, so if you vary these dynamics, you should have different enough characters. I hope it makes enough sense and can be of some help.

[Swordsalmon]

Personal gripe, but in Chapter 3; Generic Soldier refers to Michelle as "Ma'am". NCOs aren't Sir/Ma'am, they work for a living! Aside from that, I'm liking this. ^_^ But I haven't seen Anne yet! :(

[The Blind Archer]

It's not like she got dropped from the project. Keep your pants on.

[Ragingrob13]

I finished the entire patch today and all I have to say is bravo. I think this is probably what nintendo should do is stack lots of dialogue like this does to develop character like Timothy for example. Combat-wise Timothy is completely useless but storywise his is absolutely necessary for such a detailed plot. Its almost like you are reading a book instead of playing the game and I absolutely love it.

[Alfred Kamon]

Just finished chapter 5x, it was... ... ç_ç Ray whyyyy

All this just to un-sue Micaiah? ç_ç So teary.

Chapter 4 boss was stupid. You could abuse him with anyone who can hit at range.

[Mangs]

It might be nicer to make your own topic for the LP as opposed to linking them here, to help avoid clutter, I think.

Done!

Here's the thread

Oh an part 4 is out btw, part 5 comming soon!

[Alfred Kamon]

All right, I finished it.

The last events of chapter 6 are really emotional. Liked 'em a lot.

I also love how you use sound effects and map movements to simulate battles. It makes them different and more event-like.

Do you have a doc with the list of sound effects?

If not I could create it for everyone when I have some time, it will surely be handy.

[Mangs]

Wait, there's a chapter 5x?

[Alfred Kamon]

Yes, Mangs.

Ah I forgot to mention that I found a typo in chapter 6.

http://i40.tinypic.com/2q1hoqo.png

Edited June 4, 2013 by Alfred Kamon

[Shugey]

Don't you remember the part of RD where Edward develops a stutter?

[bryanschofield22]

awesome hack cant wait till it's finished

[FrostyFireMage]

Hey there, Ray! I've been watching your progress on this ROM hack, and I have to say you definitely have a lot of drive to be able to create something of this quality.

However, I have rather high standards concerning story and characterization.

Does Raymond have any flaws that don't serve only to endear him to us or ruin his character completely? I got considerably large Stu vibes from him. Julie is a well-rounded, realistic character with believable internal conflict, so no Sue warning bells. :P

I feel this hack could benefit from better characterization in general. What drives each of the characters? What is their motivation? Josh could definitely do with some development. Although you could be saving the development and character expansion for later in the hack.

I see no other problems that need addressing post-haste otherwise.

BTW Alice both looks and acts like my sister. You haven't somehow bugged my house for inspiration, have you? D:

Edited July 17, 2013 by Frosty Fire Mage

[Mage Knight 404]

Responses in bold.

Does Raymond have any flaws that don't serve only to endear him to us or ruin his character completely? I got considerably large Stu vibes from him.

Haha, don't be surprised as it's pretty expected to get those vibes. I haven't thought that far ahead in the storyline to know what to do with him, so right now I guess the answer is "no"? xP

You did well to establish the setting, but it's not necessary to have Julie introduce the other characters to us straight-up. Have you heard of Show, Don't Tell? Julie is a well-rounded, realistic character with believable internal conflict, so no Sue warning bells. :P

I'm aware of Show, Don't Tell, of course. I just wanted to try something different. but so far it's been mixed, with more negative than positive, so shows what I know, huh? Funny you mention Julie; the more serious criticism I've received has cited her as either acting too mature for her age or just being plain saccharine, so opinions~

I feel this hack could benefit from better characterization in general. What drives each of the characters? What is their motivation? Josh could definitely do with some development. Although you could be saving the development and character expansion for later in the hack.

That's the idea, or was the idea with all of the early introductions to expand them later, but again, shows what I know. Besides, I don't really have much to go on with a lot of the characters - more of a "write-as-I-go" sort of thing. Right now I'm going through the text on my own again and only have input from a few people on what I should and shouldn't do.

I see no other problems that need addressing post-haste otherwise. Your hack is definitely one of the better ones I've seen. I think my desire to help stems from my lack of interest and knowledge in making my own hack. :C

BTW Alice both looks and acts like my sister. You haven't somehow bugged my house for inspiration, have you? D:

Oooooh, haunting~

[FrostyFireMage]

Oh, OK. Thanks for hearing me out! :D

[ShamelessIan]

Can I just say that this is probably the only ROM hack that I've ever played that I enjoyed just as much as the actual Fire Emblem games. You are like, some kind of event hacking genius. I don't know, but this project is in my opinion the best around!

I just love how you actually spend time developing the characters! I love how you incorporate every character into the scenes, so no one is left out. It makes it so that I don't get that itch to press the "B" button whenever long lines of text come up. I love how Julie introduces all of the new characters through her perspective, what she see's them as. I love how every chapter isn't just, opening text, oh noez bad guys are coming, start battle, kill boss, ending text, yay we won, next chapter. I've really never played a hack quite like this!

So, long story short, bravo and congratulations on all of your hard work. It really paid off, because this is fantastic. It really is on par with the quality of a professionally made video game. In my opinion. Can't wait to see the finished product! :)

[Mage Knight 404]

I just love how you actually spend time developing the characters! I love how you incorporate every character into the scenes, so no one is left out. It makes it so that I don't get that itch to press the "B" button whenever long lines of text come up. I love how Julie introduces all of the new characters through her perspective, what she see's them as.

Right here.

Right here just proves how mixed everyone is about my writing approach to this ROM hack.

I don't even know anymore, man.

Glad you enjoyed, though!

[The Iron Rose]

Clearly fanfiction.net reviews are the hallmarks of a talented author.

Mindless, irrelevant praise does not equal serious critique.

[Luminar]

for u noobs out there that say the characters are too nice. dont forget that mageknight is one of the nicest people on here. he also has a great female voice, and is very talented. if u dont like this hack make your own instead.

[Polaris]

Everyone commenting on this is completely missing what makes writing good writing. I cannot fathom how you can look at something that has 3000 words in a short chapter good writing, when you take into account this is a video game, not bad fanfiction, and there is such a thing as conservation of detail, and economy of words.

There is irrelevant stuff, boring dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a bad manga translation, heaps of tell don't show, and the characters do not act even remotely like their age. Julie especially acts like some sort of horrible idea of what a teenage girl is like, and not you know, a real person. Literally the only sane person is Winston, and even then he's an idiot. So basically your writing is kinda shitty man and I don't think mindless praise is going to help make it any better.

e: I would recommend reading these books, and after that I would recommend reading some actual literature instead of videogames so that you can learn from the masters instead of fanfictiondotnet.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-Fourth-Edition/dp/020530902X

http://www.amazon.com/High-School-English-Grammar-Composition/dp/812192197X/

http://www.amazon.com/Glossary-Literary-Terms-nineth-Text/dp/B004QD0NDQ/

for u noobs out there that say the characters are too nice. dont forget that mageknight is one of the nicest people on here. he also has a great female voice, and is very talented. if u dont like this hack make your own instead.

Oh god this is great

Edited July 19, 2013 by Polaris

[EldinnerPlate]

If you enjoy what you are reading then it is good writing to you, and if you don't, that's fine, everyone has their own opinion, but reading a couple of books doesn't turn your opinion into a fact when judging someone else's creativity. Hackers aren't trying to make New York Times bestsellers, they are making something that they enjoy and that others can enjoy as well. I like Mage Knight's writing style and many others do too, and that is really all that matters. Keep up the good work MK.

[Mage Knight 404]

Everyone commenting on this is completely missing what makes writing good writing. I cannot fathom how you can look at something that has 3000 words in a short chapter good writing, when you take into account this is a video game, not bad fanfiction, and there is such a thing as conservation of detail, and economy of words.

There is irrelevant stuff, boring dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a bad manga translation, heaps of tell don't show, and the characters do not act even remotely like their age. Julie especially acts like some sort of horrible idea of what a teenage girl is like, and not you know, a real person. Literally the only sane person is Winston, and even then he's an idiot. So basically your writing is kinda shitty man and I don't think mindless praise is going to help make it any better.

e: I would recommend reading these books, and after that I would recommend reading some actual literature instead of videogames so that you can learn from the masters instead of fanfictiondotnet.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-Fourth-Edition/dp/020530902X

http://www.amazon.com/High-School-English-Grammar-Composition/dp/812192197X/

http://www.amazon.com/Glossary-Literary-Terms-nineth-Text/dp/B004QD0NDQ/

uh 'k

I'll read these books and become incredibly good afterward. Thanks but no thanks. I'll do things at my own pace and (try to)get better at my own pace because this is not something super serious, 'kk.

[Polaris]

Wanna know something? I am paid to tell people their writing is terrible and to improve that same writing; that is to say, I am a fucking editor and I do this as a career. If you clicked on those links I added in, those are reference books, not novels, and all they require is that you apply a few of the principles in there to your writing if you want to have a solid base. I can't save your style, which is terrible, but at the least you could attempt to not be egregiously bad in terms of devices, language, and grammar.

I cannot understand how you enjoy being so aggressively terrible at everything you do, while ignoring any real advice given to you, since obviously people circlejerking to you is what you enjoy. It's pretty clear you have no intention of getting the player involved in the game experience, so maybe you're better off writing terrible fanfiction for people who haven't read a good book in their lives.

For reference, he literally posted a pile of words on another forum about how he has no intention of improving.

Alright, if you really want to know... This is gonna be long.

Let's get two things clear - first, I'm no writer. I'm not good at it and I never will be; drawing is more my thing and I'm not even very good at that. Second, though I am by no means a skilled writer I am aware of a number of literary tropes that are frowned upon and self-insert fanfiction in any sort of halfway serious community is universally reveled, for good reason - they simply don't work and are just plain silly. That said...

There are two reasons as to why A Sacred Dawn DX is what it is and the whole self-inserting/crossover deal: choosing it to leave it as is because I can't fix it, and choosing it to leave it because I don't want to fix it. No guesses as to which is the stronger reason.

The main thing about being unable to change it isn't much(and has absolutely nothing to do with the self-insert deal, just the storytelling), generally because FE8 is far, far less user-friendly to hack than FE7 is, but I chose it anyway because I want to prove to the community that I can make a halfway good FE8 ROM hack and make it presentable. That said, there's much less flexibilty in doing stuff in FE8 than in FE7 so I try to compensate with a number of things. Not much of a reason I guess, but the other one's a bit different.

In regards to refusing to change the way the story is presented is kinda personal. Back when I did FE404 I had a lot of fun doing it, but now I'm just plain embarrassed by it for a number of reasons(the whole self-insertion and wish fulfillment thing being one of them), same with my first attempt at A Sacred Dawn, when it was still a crossover, a direct sequel to FE404, and not as serious as DX. Still, they have a strong resonance with me, and when I decided to restart the project, I thought to myself that I just wanted to not only try the whole premise again with a bunch of liberties taken, but try and do the whole thing right. Yes, a story featuring a self-inserted character who has a family and is a strong fighter is never gonna work seriously and be impossible to get right on even a good level, the storytelling not helping matters either, but I don't really care about that.

Make no mistake - I could easily take out the crossover bits, change Raymond to be a whole different character, and alter the last names of his children. Bam, done. Heck, way before working on FE404, I had an idea of a FE story with a bunch of original characters and no crossovers - just my self-insert character and Julie and Josh as his family. Even back when I first thought up of those two characters(which was a decade ago) I had thought of them as if I were to have kids when I was a silly 13-year-old dork. I could've made the changes but I didn't. I could change them now, but even if I did, the damage is already done. Changing Raymond's appearance and family name wouldn't rid the fact that he'd be a self-insert now; everyone would just go "oh, that character was modeled after the author in the previous version, right? What a loser." So I decided to just leave things as they are in regards to my character and just build around it. I've already gotten some ire from folks about this sort of thing, but at this point I'm not inclined to care and just keep going hoping I can make some good anyway.

In regards to the storytelling, as stated earlier, I'm no writer. In fact, aside from my best friend doing the skeletal work of the ROM hack and the beginning backstory, this is a one-man job. I don't have a lot of help so I just try and do everything myself. As far as writing is concerned, I thought to try something different with a Fire Emblem game and make it less about the world and overarching plot and more about the characters in it, as (mostly)experienced through the eyes of one character. I am a huge supporter of games with a diverse playable cast; it's one of the big reasons why I like FE so much. The older games don't really have a lot of characterization for 90% of the cast(they're lucky if they even get lines), but the latter covers it well enough considering the story through use of supports(Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon notwithstanding). Here I thought to try and give the little people more to do and say as the plot moves with them, but I admit the way it's done so far is really poor. There's a lot of talking and expository scenes regarding the character introductions and as it stands the talking segments is a bit like Super Robot Taisen but with less showing and more telling. Granted I am a big fan of how some SRT games handle its scenes with its massive cast, but no such luck here.

I've put videos of my ROM hack up on YouTube and several people rightly chastised me for all of the long-winded dialogue. I gave my reasons a few times, but as it is right now, it's still not that great. I've had a few people offer some writing help, but I've turned them down, mostly to see if I can keep at it on my own, but also partly for another reason - in real life I have abysmal self-esteem, am extremely lazy, and I absolutely hate to impose on anyone, which is another reason why I'm one man job. I really want to be able to make something mostly by myself and have it be good, but at this rate, I wonder if I'll ever get anywhere on my own. That first patch might be the only one I make knowing me.

In short, I'm just really stubborn at trying to make something good on my own. :colbert:

By the way, there is an easier way of writing this, and that is "Hey guys I'm kind of really happy with being mediocre so please stop giving me advice :) kthnx xoxo"

Edited July 20, 2013 by Polaris

[Mage Knight 404]

By the way, there is an easier way of writing this, and that is "Hey guys I'm kind of really happy with being mediocre so please stop giving me advice :) kthnx xoxo"

Hey, thanks for speaking for me!

[eCut]

Enough, Polaris. Another unnecessary aggressive post and you'll find yourself with a warning, because you're way out of line my dear.

If you dislike MK404's writing then how about trying to do something useful like offering to proof-read some text or offering pointers rather than being a pretentious brat? I get that you're trying to be constructive but you're coming off as disrespectful and rude.

If you want to continue the discussion with him then PM him. Likewise, if you have any comments about my post then PM me instead of posting them here.

[Klokinator]

If you dislike MK404's writing then how about trying to do something useful like offering to proof-read some text or offering pointers rather than being a pretentious brat? I get that you're trying to be constructive but you're coming off as disrespectful and rude.

I was about to post and say exactly the same thing myself. Usually when I see someone's writing that offends me as much as Ray seems to have offended Polaris, I offer to help them with their writing and point out specific flaws and wordings in order to improve their abilities. 1,000 words of criticism will never have the power that 10 words of wisdom do.

Edited July 20, 2013 by ManriKlok