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> [Development]The Chocobo Manuals:Section 1:Character Design, How NOT To Make your Hero another Generic Knight in shining Armour.
Reshiram//Exe
post Jul 5 2010, 11:25 AM
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This is Chapter 1 Of The Chocobo Manuals. As Each Post will Be long,I am Splitting them Up into Different sections and using Spoilers to Make the Post Overall Neater.Please Use Intelliegent Discussion and Posts LIke "OMG!DIS GIDE SUCKZ!" Will be Treated as Trolling and therefore may get you into references for other Chocobo Manuals.

Why Chocobo?Because Chocobo's Are Aweshum.Just Like this Guide.

Chapter 1=Before you start
Before you start,You need to have some goal in mind.also what is the Portaganist trying to achieve?World Domination?Global Peace? What? In Many RPG Maker RPG's The story is Convoluted Due to the fact the main character just shows up,fights. and the game ends.THIS IS DEFINATELY A Cliche.and something you want to avoid. If The character is arrogant and basicly a Jerk.Make him or her like that TO EVERYONE Not just some people,the minor exception to this are friends and obviously His/Her "Relation" Everyone else should Have His/her exp​ressions Thrown on. If the Portaganist is silent,DON'T Make the other characters talk for them. Use the Text Bubbles(Crono's Voice actor got a high pay,considering how much work he did tongue.gif) so in general,Make the character Have a Ambition and a Attitude towards others.If they feel TOO many emotions,the story seems to be messed up,if they hate someone one moment and then love someone the next,the person playing is normally going "Wha?" Which doesn't make a good story in most cases,in spoilers and tension builders yes,but anywhere else,Maybe not.

Chapter 2=The Name
Ahh...Something that has Plauged Many RPG Games In General. What to NAME The Portaganist? Simple.Let the User Pick thier Own name.Unless you have a BURNING Desire to force a name on your Portaganist.Let the Player choose.If you want to have a strict name for your Portaganist, Use something original.Maybe Chinesse or Japanesse.Maybe italian? Just NEVER Bob or dylan or phil or zack.English names are ussually for the "Laughing stock" Character,while the main Characters steal all the awesome names. In RPGM2K3,You can give titles,Make these titles original too. not "____'s Friend" also,if the Villian has to travel with the hero at points "____'s Worst enemy" Is a Great Title to use.all in all,think of a Original Name that ins't Cliche and your good to go,just try to allow the player to name thier own hero.It really Helps.

Chapter 3=The Confusing Middle Bit.
Ok,We have the ambition and The Name of the Portaganist.Now,how is he/she going to go about this? if he is aiming For world domination he could I dunno? fly a glider to some Desert Country and Fight to take it over. or if he/she is aiming for peace they can go and slay the monsters near town,If above all else this is only a distraction to what IS REALLY HAPPENING.Look in the Buu saga of DBZ.Most People thought.Goku+spirit bomb+Fat Buu = end of saga. but they didn't do that,instead they decided to add super buu.and you MUST do the same for a good Climax.Maybe have someone troubling the Country for Half of the game,and then in the next part,have a evil beast trying to destroy the world.Look at chrono trigger.In 1 half of the game,Magus was the Objective.in The other Half was Lavos,and Zeal. Distract your player and build up the climax in short scenes between things Like
"."
Then later on
"...so."
Then Later on reveal More and More of the story,wanting the Player to Find out what is going on,this will make your game *slightly* Addictive though. So try to distract them with some Knockoff Character for long enough for them to belive it is the Main endboss,and then Enter a Whole New Amount of Scenes and Things.

Chapter 4=Overview
Phew.That was alot of stuff. So make the Portaganist and Co. original and Make Sure the Goal is REALISTIC,Don't Make them try to fly to mars with no plane,it just isn't freaking Possible.Build up a good Climax and That EndBoss will be even more interesting than it already is.
I hope you enjoyed Chapter 1 of the Chocobo Manuals!
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Rob_Riv
post Jul 5 2010, 11:45 AM
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You should really work on your spelling and grammar. It's not that easy to read. Moved to Tutorials and Examples.


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Twilight
post Jul 5 2010, 11:46 AM
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Work on the formatting of each of the sections in the spoilers.
It looks like you didn't bother to include proper sentence structure when you wrote all this.
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Rob_Riv
post Jul 5 2010, 12:09 PM
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How is Dylan a cliche name? The only game I've ever seen with a character called Dylan is Magicland Dizzy.

QUOTE
English names are ussually for the "Laughing stock"

I honestly don't know whether or not to take this seriously. It doesn't make any sense. How are random Japanese names not cliche?


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Kread-EX
post Jul 5 2010, 12:15 PM
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I have yet to comprehend how a protagonist can feel too many emotions. Well, I guess having an emo as a main character would be problematic, but I don't think I have seen that so far. The problem is generally the opposite: pre-formatted characters acting like robots, with no realistic emotions or personalities.

Dylan is an important character in Valkyrie Profile 2. At no point his name makes him a laughing stock.

QUOTE
also,if the Villian has to travel with the hero at points "____'s Worst enemy" Is a Great Title to use

WTF

I don't know if you really know what you are talking about. At least, if you are, your way of wording it makes me think otherwise. Perhaps you should take more time to write your manual.


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Harryb412
post Jul 5 2010, 12:31 PM
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First off, that is really hard to read. :\
You need to work on your grammar and spelling [as said before].

Why not use English names?
I mean, having an English named person as a laughingstock is apparently something that always happens and therefore a cliche which means we should avoid that.
So English names are good to be used for any of the characters -especially if they are English. Or if the game is set in England.
One moment you are telling us not to use cliches and then telling us to only use English names for the "laughingstock" character, which is a cliche.

Using Chinese and Japanese names is okay if they are Chinese and Japanese characters.

"also,if the Villian has to travel with the hero at points "____'s Worst enemy" Is a Great Title to use."

How is it so? And didn't you just tell us "Make these titles original too. not "____'s Friend"? That is pretty much the same of what you have told us to use.

Perhaps it'd help if you explained your points a little bit.
I mean, that would be a terrible idea if the player wasn't meant to know that the villain is the villain at that point.

"or if he/she is aiming for peace they can go and slay the monsters near town,"
Surely someone aiming for peace would get rid of monsters in a more. . . peaceful way?

Also, you are telling us to do things the same way as other popular stories. Surely this is encouraging the read to follow cliches rather than create something original.

And why are you going into how to write the story in the "Character Design" section?

"So try to distract them with some Knockoff Character for long enough for them to belive it is the Main endboss"

Isn't this a cliche?

"Don't Make them try to fly to mars with no plane,it just isn't freaking Possible."

And flying to Mars WITH a plane IS possible?

I think you should really fix this tutorial up before making any more, to be honest.

[EDIT: Because she is a nice person, Ereth proof-read this and fixed the errors for me. :3]


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The Rooster
post Jul 5 2010, 01:01 PM
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QUOTE
This is Chapter 1 Of The Chocobo Manuals.
And the "Chocobo Manuals" are what? It may help to explain exactly what it is you're doing first.

QUOTE
therefore may get you into references for other Chocobo Manuals.
Way to discourage trolls; feed them by saying making fun of you will get them mentioned in subsequent posts. This may be sudden, but I say we make you a forum admin, since your method of dealing with trolls is brilliant.

QUOTE
The story is Convoluted Due to the fact the main character just shows up,fights. and the game ends.
That's not convoluted, that's just lack of any actual writing. Convoluted would imply poorl explained, complex motivations.

QUOTE
THIS IS DEFINATELY A Cliche.and something you want to avoid.
That's not a cliche at all. A cliche would imply some thought went into it, instead of what you offer, which is a total lack of any writing.
As for cliches, having them present isn't a bad thing. In fact, utter cliche storms can actually be rather enjoyable, like the word of David Eddings, who presented every fantasy trope imaginable with nothing new to the table, but it's still an great read. More often than not, a cliche-ridden work will blow, but telling people to avoid any single cliche isn't good advice. Tropes are not bad.

QUOTE
f they feel TOO many emotions,the story seems to be messed up
TOO MUCH CHARACTER DEVELPMENT ARGHVS'INSUVBDRIUBSUEV;USNV
Dude, really? Too many emotions is a bad thing? I'd consider a character with actual range, instead of living on a scale of wangst-apathy-rage to be pretty damn good. Being able to have someone convey range is the sign of a good writer capable of dealing with complex characters.

So let's just recap chapter 1; your "introduction" is telling people to not write cliche characters and offer a couple "obvious" things to avoid in writing your character. But it doesn't actually help anyone. Nothing offered either doesn't seem like common sense, or is bad advice. You're not really helping us create characters, just tell us things not to do in relation to certain situations.

QUOTE
Ahh...Something that has Plauged Many RPG Games In General. What to NAME The Portaganist? Simple.Let the User Pick thier Own name.
Why? Why is that the only option? Many games specifically tie down a name to a character because it will have some kind of relevance to them, reflects something. Don't tell people not to name characters, tell people how to name them. To not throw a gratuitous Japanese name into a story set in a whitebread suburban neighborhood where the closest there is to ethnic variation is that some people are of Hebrew descent. Or that if a young girl is named Ethel in a story set in 2010, there'd better be some kind of reason for that.
Letting people name the protagonist isn't necessarily a bad choice, but telling people to just do that and get it over with is bad advice.

QUOTE
Use something original.Maybe Chinesse or Japanesse.
Because Asian names are not trite and overdone in the slightest. I'm sick of characters named Luke, I want to play a game where the main character is named Ryu. There's a nice, original name.

QUOTE
Just NEVER Bob or dylan or phil or zack
Zack is the only name there I can even remember a video game character being named. Bob is usually code for "devs got lazy", but Phil or Dylan are names that are rarely used and, in the right setting, work just fine. Again, this is the opposite of advice. This is telling people to not do good things in favour of using Japanese names.

QUOTE
English names are ussually for the "Laughing stock"
Let's look at Fire Emblem, since the abundance of characters leads to an abundance of names. In Path of Radiance, you have the main character, Ike. Ike is a diminutive of Isaac, which is a Hebrew name. You also had Rolf (German), Boyd (Scottish), Oscar (Gaelic and Scandinavian), Geoffery (Norman French), Heather (English), and a whole slew of others. None of them were particularly "laughing stock" characters.
Also, way to show your knowledge of names, by calling them "English" names when the vast majority of names used in the West don't have English roots. But by all means, just keep heaping on the bad advice.

So just chapter two recap now; Japanese names are original and should be used in favour of much more underrated Western names. I believe we're being trolled, my friends.

QUOTE
bove all else this is only a distraction to what IS REALLY HAPPENING
No, a reveal for the sake of a reveal is a terrible idea. Having the main antagonist visible and in that role from the beginning is not a bad thing. Having a twist simply because everything else is done poor writing.

QUOTE
Look in the Buu saga of DBZ.Most People thought.Goku+spirit bomb+Fat Buu = end of saga. but they didn't do that,instead they decided to add super buu.and you MUST do the same for a good Climax
NO. NO YOU MUST NOT. This is the opposite of a tutorial. You take a good idea, helping people write better, and then you give them terrible advice. This is a bad thing.

QUOTE
"."
Then later on
"...so."
What does that mean?

QUOTE
Don't Make them try to fly to mars with no plane,it just isn't freaking Possible
That is not a frequent mistake in character development. You're not offering good ideas or advice, and now you're not even on topic.

I know you're trying--I think--but this just isn't working, kid. Aside from the fact there is no semblance of proofreading--"Japanesse" is not a word--or formatting, your advice is bad. You tell people to avoid cliches, but everything you do is predicated upon the most tired plot devices. In fact, telling people use Asian names seems like you're actively trying to get people to not be creative at all.

That, and I still have no idea what the "Chocobo Manuals" are.


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darkyoshi
post Jul 5 2010, 01:21 PM
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QUOTE
Then Later on reveal More and More of the story,wanting the Player to Find out what is going on,this will make your game *slightly* Addictive though. So try to distract them with some Knockoff Character for long enough for them to belive it is the Main endboss,and then Enter a Whole New Amount of Scenes and Things.
Why use a knockoff character? Why not a character with actual development?

QUOTE
Chapter 2=The Name
That whole section is just huh? o_O The main character of my game is named Jerry, and no one has ever considered it generic.

I'd say more, but Rooster really said it all.


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Axerax
post Jul 6 2010, 03:05 PM
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... I'm confused....

What is this about?


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DespairReigns
post Jul 6 2010, 09:12 PM
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I think it's a debate now, but it used to be a guide to making... an anime show?
No, no... a standard RPG maker game. Standard, meaning overdone. (Going off of Rooster's post.)

EDIT: The irony is that the guy's trying to talk about how to make an RPG original, but the manual that he/she wrote is called the "Chocobo Manual."
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Reshiram//Exe
post Jul 7 2010, 07:33 AM
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*FaicChuckNorris* This failed. pinch.gif Sorry,i wrote this at like 3 am In the Morning with no sleep.
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Harryb412
post Jul 7 2010, 10:32 AM
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QUOTE (Phantsmal @ Jul 7 2010, 07:33 AM) *
*FaicChuckNorris* This failed. pinch.gif Sorry,i wrote this at like 3 am In the Morning with no sleep.


:\ Really?
Why not actually try to address some of our points and FIX the original post?
That isn't really much of an excuse, to be honest.


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Rob_Riv
post Jul 7 2010, 10:45 AM
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QUOTE (Phantsmal @ Jul 7 2010, 04:33 PM) *
Sorry,i wrote this at like 3 am In the Morning with no sleep.

That may explain it being of poor quality (although, if you had no sleep there was no reason for you to even attempt this), it doesn't explain it being wrong.


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Axerax
post Jul 7 2010, 12:35 PM
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Holy run-on sentences batman. If you're to be original, don't use someone elses work, chocobos are Squeenix's idea.


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