work on crystal shores resumes!

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

last night i dusted off crystal shores and decided to move ahead with production. i was dithering around with the decision to pick it up all day and ran out of distractions to keep me away.

immediately i found two mini games that was using excessive data and squeezed them down to a much more manageable size. the unable to execute command is very useful in a single screen mini game and one i will be using a lot.

the other major fix i did was finally figuring out what i wanted to do for an extra mini game event at spiral isle. i had tried so many different game idea and none of them worked out at all. i finally settled on one and even though its nothing to write home about, its enough that i can move on.

to finish this card i have quite a bit to do:

-characters names must be picked and stats close to finalized.
-magic needs to be figured out and all spells set at their proper levels.
-first bit of haidars story has to be revamped to make his story more believable.
-xikos story is missing the entire middle chuck due to a rewrite.
-one mini game needs a story in jordons story line.
-a story event needs to be built in roshans line.
-3 soldiers final scene hasnt even been scripted yet.

once all this is done this game will be ready for release and i can start work on the 4th scen card and the 2nd system card. i have around 10k scen data left to do all this so hopefully i can make it happen.

[Valkysas]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

Woo!

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

been working on it a bit more. i realized that im going to have to make a new dungeon of the ruined city and traversing in it which could be very difficult given restrains.

ive also definitively decided to go with a custom start screen which will be a separate scen card and be assessable throughout the game from save points. at this intro there will be all the extra features that are unlocked as the game progresses as well as a place to spend complete keys which will purchase you ultimate equipment. the game wont require that you get even one of these extras but getting them will make your life easier and is a nice bonus. the intro will be held on this card too which will mean i can finally cut the old intro and improve it dramatically, reflecting the entire game, not the beginning steps.

i also fixed a huge bug in my poker style game and the high low. this mini game is by far the hardest thing ive had to code and when i release it you will see why. it now worked the way it was ment to and i dont even want to see another bug in it as its so hard to repair.

thats all to report for now. so much to put into one small package.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

ive done a little bit of work lately.

the story bit for roshans line has been finalized and im somewhat satisfied with what i have. the part i dont like is the lack of any event happening during the spring festival, which im sure players would like to experience. ive decided for space reasons to revisit this later as part of the plot mechanic rather then have it play out now. not a full cop out, but well still a cop out.

the other big work ive done is changed many names of current equipment. right now its a fat list of mismatched items and poorly made names. ive changed a considerable amount of them but gave up on organizing the list. going forward im going to have to have a plan as to the order of the equipment you will get and with names that arnt confusing as to what your getting. my healing item names still suffers from bad name choice and confusion so ill have to change that yet again. i wont use generic names for my stuff as thats boring also, so many limits.

ive also finished most of the ruined city. there is some room to add to it should i have surplus space but overall it does what i need. its not anywhere as epic as i wanted it to be and lord knows im gona end up going back to correct that before its released. this part has to be awesome on epic proportions as its what people want to see most - a post apocalyptic world.

i really havent found the time or motivation to go over my magic and give it all graphical representation and sort out who gets what and where. im having a tough time coming up with adrenaline spells (hp use) that dont suck or is just another version of something else i have. 99 hp max use is really a low limit to work with when youve projected your hp to be high for effect.

i think im just going to outright axe the mini game i had in mind for jordans bit. im not feeling inspired and id rather use the space elsewhere. some of the other stuff has been such a chore to develop that i really just want to put this out and move on to a new bit. a year is too much to be farting around at the end stages of a card.

lastly, i need to sit down and figure out what major changes swaping sys data is going to cause. if something cannot change from sys card to card then i need to add it now or risk having any one out there from having a bad save should they keep a file to play my game (has anyone even done this? feed back where are you?)

[Valkysas]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

I used the system file swap extensively in the never-released RPGM1 version of Legend of Pants, which is how I was able to discover the trick in the first place. I used one system card per continent, for a total of either seven or nine system cards

I don't know how much is limited with the carry-over. When I made my game, I had the party members, inventory, magic, skills, enemies, all that finalized on the first card. I just used extra system cards to get more maps. I really should have investigated it further, but I never bothered to.

best way to find out? create a seperate test game that uses the multiple system card trick. (make damn sure you don't overwrite your current game). experiment with the test game.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

im going to use the performance memory cards i have to make a crap sys and scen data and use that. i am getting low on memory cards but no one sells any out there for a decent price. even 6 for 40 is a bit steep for a 15 year old technology.

[Dillinger]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

im going to use the performance memory cards i have to make a crap sys and scen data and use that. i am getting low on memory cards but no one sells any out there for a decent price. even 6 for 40 is a bit steep for a 15 year old technology.

What's wrong with the performance memory cards?
I've never had a problem with them.
I think I may have a number of sony official brand memory cards I'd be willing to ship out and let you borrow for an undetermined amount of time lol.
When I play around with rpgm I use my ps3 anyway.

[Valkysas]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

performance memory cards, and third party memory cards in general, have a really nice habit of corrupting RPGM saves. hundreds and hundreds of hours of work have been lost to them.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

i lost around 900 hours once because i used a performance card and it corrupted my game. it kind of worked out for the best considering i started fresh and made something better and i learned a hard lesson "early." i back up my cards every 20 hours or so depending on what it is im doing. if its a major area or revamp then i update it sooner. i also keep separate save datas just in case something went wrong and i didnt notice till it was too late.


@Dillinger: if you have a bunch of cards lying around then id love to use them. ill keep trying to find a pile of mem cards for a good price. i wish i could find the same deal dray found, thats right up my ally for amount needed lol. slight overkill.

[Dillinger]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

No problem karr, consider them yours for the time being.
Is there a certain number you need? I believe I have 6 official sony memory cards,
I'll double check later and send you a PM with details and such.
My buddies mom works for USPS so I usually can ship most things free of charge. :-)

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

im looking for around 6 or so for the time being. thats enough to keep my new set of system, scen, and the games im reviewing up and running.

ill pm you my address. thanks!

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

just an update.

im still working on my game. i just have some final balancing left and a few events to complete. ive rebalanced the entire game but i may go back through it and bring down the difficulty again but for the most part its all sorted. i just want to finish this card and move forward. ive spent far too much time working on the first part of my game, so much so that im tired of it lol.

moving to a new sys card will be good for production.

[Lausen]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

I'm glad to hear Crystal Shores is still coming along. I look forward to seeing how you handle the system switch. I know you've already done some testing with it. I'm probably gonna have to do it myself.

I can't wait for all of the cards to be released so I can sit down and play the whole game without waiting.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

been working on my game some as i finished with the other crap that got in the way. ive balanced most of the 3rd card and laid out all of the event sequences. the only thing i have left to finish is the 3 soldiers bit and i have to decide if i want to do something to one shop to spice it up (having a spend ratio to get access to better goods).

beyond this ive worked on linking the save points to the extra features (which ive yet to finish laying out all the work for that) and i have to go through everything and make the big text groupings spell checked (little stuff ill try to catch as i move along). finally i have only to rework a bit of card 1 tutorial to make sure that what i say in them is really what is going on.

so with all that said and done ill be able to release the 3rd card in not to long. that leaves the 4th card to plan and ive got some interesting ideas for this card!

i will depart from the main arcs for this card. you will have full reign of a massive single town with outrageous amounts of places to explore. you will experience little to no battles during this card. the 3 cast members you will be using for this card are the 3 soldiers from the end of each card. by the 3rd card they have ended up in the current timeline, the day the earth stood still.

this card will chronicle the events slightly before and during the activation of Deus X, the Go Live event. this will bring the player up to speed on the technology of Deus and fill in the big question: what happened to humanity? this will be a significant chunk of the main story arc, but even by its conclusion there still will be many unanswered questions.

this card is going to be a huge challenge for me as i have to make a full futuristic world. this will mean more custom graphics, more out of the box thinking, and will act as a breather from the rest of the arcs for me.

at the end of the 3rd card xiko has a vision of the Go Live which is what card 4 is about. the rest of the party has been separated, some have fell into worm holes to unknown places. i have no way to link the characters together as of yet and im still not sure if i even want to or keep them apart until the very end. this will mark the turningpoint in the game, up until now the game has been liner in the timelines of each character, this is the point where they start getting caught up with the larger plot points.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: work on crystal shores resumes!

havent touched my game till today but thought i should give you a quick update on how im doing.

i was originally going to do the rest of the battle testing but i was kind of burnt out, having been playing other peoples games for a few days. i instead decided to go back over my early work and see if i could make certain characters more appealing story wise.

i managed to revamp a few scenes that had been lacking. those where ones from the very original production attempt of the game and where several years behind my writing. i am mostly satisfied with what ive now wrote. i will still have to go over the scenes to make sure they run as intended but they feel better.

ive also decided to eliminate save points in favor of having athena shrines save, heal, and flip a bonus switch. the killing of all those stupid save points saves me a ton of space and... what it cost me more space?! grumble. i managed to shrink down the first card again, gaining over 2k mem space! the second card lost space and there really isnt anything left to shrink down on that card - poop. that 2k space will go to making things more interactive, though id happily give it to the second card if i could.

i hate being in perpetual production but im getting closer to being satisfied with what ive built so i can move on. once card 3 is done then ill release the game.