[Beta 3.0] Legionwood 2: Rise of the Eternal's Realm, Epic length traditional J-RPG and direct sequel to Legionwood. Options

[Fleta]

Hi Fleta. I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far. Actually, you're the only person who reported that bug (my beta testers and myself got through that battle without any trouble) though somebody reported experiencing a similar error in a later battle (Wind Elemental) when a boss summons more enemies. They said it seemed to occur at random, and only if they'd used F12 to reset the game. In either case, I'll probably remove that summon event from the battle to ensure that it works until I can have a scripter look at it and fix it. By the way, is this error occurring in Beta 3.0, or do you have an earlier edition of the game? The error used to occur randomly in battles for no reason, but I fixed that and now it seems to be isolated to one or two specific points in the game (much like the old Stack Errors of Legionwood 1).

The "Steal Item" tech is available in the Corinthe Tech Store. Felix has it learned by default, but he isn't in your party for the Lich fight, so you can buy it and give Aelia or Lional a Rogue sub-class to allow them to steal the Phylactery.

I'm not sure which version I got. Is there a way to check (some unknown key combination)? The only techs that Felix has are toxic curse and raise his agility (it says of an ally, but when I try to cast it it only allows him to be chosen, typical Felix ).

I realized after I had sent it that he wasn't in the party at the time, but didn't edit my post.

But the party's been reunited and I'm now trying to figure a way past the Darkness. Is there a way to cure someone from ensnare? I get close and then he gets that through and I have to sit and watch him decimate my party without being able to do anything .

[amerk]

The infamous F12 glitch, usually the result of an added script. The only solution for restarting is to close completely out and then restart it. A summons can have a nice effect, so maybe just a quick warning upfront that resetting with F12 can cause the game to crash; that way you can leave the summons in.

[Fleta]

The infamous F12 glitch, usually the result of an added script. The only solution for restarting is to close completely out and then restart it. A summons can have a nice effect, so maybe just a quick warning upfront that resetting with F12 can cause the game to crash; that way you can leave the summons in.

Only one thing I can think of against your theory. I never pressed F12 .

[Dark Gaia]

@Fleta: It should say the version number in the bottom left hand corner of the title screen (or at least, all of the Builds from 2.4 onwards do). I think you have an old version though, as you quoted the description for Speed Up being "increases an ally's Agility" whereas the one I've got in my database at the moment says "the user". Try giving the game a download and see if you experience any errors - I had to recode parts of the battle system to kill a few errors that kept coming up.

BTW, you're right about Felix not starting with Steal Item. Nobody has that from the start, you have to buy it in Corinthe.

[Fleta]

@Fleta: It should say the version number in the bottom left hand corner of the title screen (or at least, all of the Builds from 2.4 onwards do). I think you have an old version though, as you quoted the description for Speed Up being "increases an ally's Agility" whereas the one I've got in my database at the moment says "the user". Try giving the game a download and see if you experience any errors - I had to recode parts of the battle system to kill a few errors that kept coming up.

BTW, you're right about Felix not starting with Steal Item. Nobody has that from the start, you have to buy it in Corinthe.

Well, I downloaded 3.0 so I could continue on and I haven't seen it so far. I noticed that several techs have a much higher "price tag" (i.e. Debilitating shot used to be 6 now is 17, Desperate strike doubled). Is there a reason for the increase? Also can you get higher than level 3 in the gladiator fight? I also hate those "move the rocks" puzzles (Grrr) I can never get to some of those places and obviously I need to get there to continue on...

[Fleta]

Is there any difference to being merciful to the vampire downstairs? I staked him and then accidentally recorded over my save from before the battle.

I'm also still wondering if there's something that can stop ensnare.

This post has been edited by Fleta: Sep 29 2012, 12:06 PM

[Dark Gaia]

Fleta, sorry for being inconvenient, but I just uploaded a Beta 3.1 version, specifically to address your suggestion about Ensnare
Previously, there was no way to stop it, but I have now made it so that taking damage has a 50% chance of removing the status, so getting attacked while Ensnared will now snap you out of it. If Ensnare is getting you down, just re-download

How you treat the Vampire in the basement is a morality choice - staking him gives you good morality (since he won't come back) while being merciful gives you bad morality (as he will come back to plague the area again eventually).

[Fleta]

Fleta, sorry for being inconvenient, but I just uploaded a Beta 3.1 version, specifically to address your suggestion about Ensnare
Previously, there was no way to stop it, but I have now made it so that taking damage has a 50% chance of removing the status, so getting attacked while Ensnared will now snap you out of it. If Ensnare is getting you down, just re-download

How you treat the Vampire in the basement is a morality choice - staking him gives you good morality (since he won't come back) while being merciful gives you bad morality (as he will come back to plague the area again eventually).

What exactly does morality do? I noticed that when you're in Felix's old town that opening a chest can do some bad karma and avoided it. Also when Felix and the boss are talking before seeing the Senator, she is "conerned" about Felix not talking about his past. Also when going through the catacombs, there's a space with an arrow indicating it's something of interest, but you just walk through it. And there's nothing to do but read the sign with a 6. I can't get past all the spikes around. What am I doing wrong?

To quote Emily Littella, Never mind. I got around the spikes.

This post has been edited by Fleta: Sep 30 2012, 05:05 AM

[Fleta]

I just finished Chapter 2 in version 3.0 and the credits said to keep my save file, but unlike Chapter 1, there was no opportunity to make one after the final fight.

[Dark Gaia]

Hi Fleta.

Well, the morality system may not be having much of an effect in your game, since you continued into Chapter 2 from an old version, and missed all of the extra tweaks to Chapter 1 that were added to affect morality (such as chests in Corinthe and Ironrim granting you bad morality if you open them, being able to donate to the churches, and small side quests in the Corinthe Farmland and the Dead Mountain that affect your morality depending on how you solve them), but you should still have gotten enough points to witness the effects.

Here's what morality does so far in the current Beta (in future game content, there will be much more that changes, also):

- Determines whether you unlock Barbarian or Ranger in Ferrum (and subsequently, which class you unlock in Entoban as well).
- Changes the dialogue of a few cutscenes slightly.
- Changes the contents of many random chests and the rewards to certain quests (such as the Vampire quest)
- Determines whether the Northern Keep contains Dark aligned monsters and treasures, or Holy aligned ones.
- Determines whether certain NPCs in Ferrum and Ironrim (and Entoban) give you items -- for example, the man who gives you a Malt Cider in Ferrum only gives it to you if you have good morality.

As for not being able to make a save after the end boss fight, that was intentional. You see, that isn't the end of Chapter 2 (the current beta only contains the first half of the Chapter) and furthermore, that boss is actually taken from the end of the Etherim Highlands, which haven't been implemented yet. In the next content release, which will include the rest of the Chapter (about 2 more hours of content), you'll have to pass through that area to get to the boss -- I didn't want you to be able to skip it.

Plus...

Update!

Beta 3.2 is now online, which offers a few tweaks, bug fixes and small additions to the game.

Changes to Beta 3.0 and 3.1 include:

- Donation trays at churches are now fully functional. Donate 10 Kyphers for a 1 in 4 chance of getting a morality boost, or donate 400 or 800 Kyphers for guaranteed morality boosts (1 point for 400 and 2 points for 800).
- The Rusty Helmet in Dead Mountain (as part of helping the Revenant) can now only be picked up once, instead of an infinite amount of times.
- Most stealable battle-use items (such as Silk Sack and Eye Stone) and rares (such as Hannelores and Malt Ciders) have had their sell price reduced to 1 Kypher. This is because they used to sell for thousands of Kyphers and some players were farming money by stealing them over and over, which was breaking the game's balance. General items and sellable loot items (Chitin Scale, Wolf Pelt) have not been changed.
- The intro area now teaches new players how to save, and reminds them to do so often.
- Selecting "no" when asked if you want to watch the game's intro now actually skips it, as opposed to going into an infinite event loop.
- Tweaks have been made to several classes. The Defense and HP of Gunners, Rangers and magic casting classes has been slightly increased, and Magus and Cleric weapons (ie. Gold Sceptre) now grant a small Defense boost as well as Intellect and Wisdom.
- The Focus Headband and Shoulder Pad grant 5% more HP now. This is to offset the 5% penalty that equipping a sub-class gives you, which cancels out the effect of equipping these items.
- The Gladiator Blade has had its chances of inflicting statuses lowered and is now a 2 handed weapon. It also gives the user a 10% Defense penalty. This is to counterbalance the fact that it inflicts 3 different status effects.
- The Northern Keep dungeon is now fully operational. A chest and switch that were inoperable because of impassable tiles have now been fixed, and the quest can be completed. If you have good morality, you'll fight the Garuda boss, and if bad you'll fight the Dark Dragon boss.

In other news, Legionwood 2 will soon be going commercial. However, there will still be one more release before this comes to pass: as promised, the next release of the game (Beta 4.0) will become available very soon, adding the rest of Chapter 2 to the game and rounding off the first 10 or so hours of Legionwood 2's gameplay (roughly the first half of the overall game, which will be 20 hours long like Legionwood 1).

This Beta 4.0 build will be the final build of the game available for free (subsequent Beta builds will be released for registered beta testers only), and, following its release, the full game will begin retailing under the title of Heroes of Legionwood at the usual RPG Maker game portals, and Beta 4.0 will be replaced with the typical 1-2 hour commercial demo. At the moment, the price has not been set, but it will likely be no more than $9.95, and there will be plenty of opportunities for loyal players and beta testers to get their copy of the game for free. The full commercial release is currently slated for mid 2013 (still a long ways off) so, until then, please continue to consider Legionwood 2 to be a freely available RPG Maker game, and have fun.

Happy adventuring!

[Fleta]

Hi Fleta.

Well, the morality system may not be having much of an effect in your game, since you continued into Chapter 2 from an old version, and missed all of the extra tweaks to Chapter 1 that were added to affect morality (such as chests in Corinthe and Ironrim granting you bad morality if you open them, being able to donate to the churches, and small side quests in the Corinthe Farmland and the Dead Mountain that affect your morality depending on how you solve them), but you should still have gotten enough points to witness the effects.

Here's what morality does so far in the current Beta (in future game content, there will be much more that changes, also):

- Determines whether certain NPCs in Ferrum and Ironrim (and Entoban) give you items -- for example, the man who gives you a Malt Cider in Ferrum only gives it to you if you have good morality.

Well, I guess I got good morality because I got the Malt Cider .

This post has been edited by Fleta: Oct 1 2012, 12:21 AM

[Fleta]

Just finished version 3.2 again from start. Super job all around. I'm not sure if you got this or not, but during the talking between Felix and the crew in Ferrum, Aelia says that she's "conerned". Any update on when 4.0 comes out?

[Seirno]

Man, in the process of having a total computer failure and building a new one, I haven't had a chance to play through this until now. Congrats on making the decision to going commercial with it, I think it'd be worth it.

I guess I'll have to be a little more scrutinizing on the bugs and stuff now eh?

[Chainsaw Police]

Legionwood 2? Sick! I remember playing through the first one, I hope the final product ends up as good as the first installment of the game, man

[Dark Gaia]

Hopefully it will. I'll definitely try to make it so!

Update

Greetings once again, travellers! I'm back with a small update on the progress of Legionwood 2 since we're nearing the end of the year now. While I've been working ever so slowly towards Beta 4.0 over the last two months (and there's only a little more left to do until the release is ready, save for beta testing all of the new content), I'm announcing that I've made the decision to put Legionwood 2 on temporary hiatus for now.

The reason I'm choosing to suspend work on the game for now is because the release of my first novel is looming just over the horizon. My book Sun Bleached Winter comes out on December 2nd, and I'm going to need to spend whatever free time I have focusing on this (doing things such as last round editing, proof reading, sending copies to reviewers, promoting the novel from my end etc) and, as much as I'd like to work on Legionwood 2, I just plain won't have many chances to.

As such, Beta 4.0 is on hold for now, though I intend to resume work in the New Year and spend my holidays doing as much with the game as I can. Beta 4.0 off what's left of Chapter 2 (the Entoban section of the story) and takes you into Chapter 3. After that, there isn't too much left to do, with Chapter 4 being the final chapter, so the good news is that the completed version of the game should be ready not long after I resume development.

I've also made the decision to not release Legionwood 2 commercially after all (based on the fact that many loyal players have supported it as a free game, and I don't want to undermine that support) and so Beta 4.0 will be followed by a release of the completed game for all to enjoy. I'm still quite interested in commercial game development (spurred on by my recent experiences with the One Night games on Desura, where they're been received fairly well) and at this point I still want to try my hand in the professional arena, but I figured that it's probably best to start with a brand new IP, instead of a sequel that many of my fans have been expecting to get for free.

Well, that's it for now, I guess. With all of that news safely put into blog form, I'm officially retiring from the RM scene for a little while to focus on more literary pursuits. Keep reporting any bugs you find in Legionwood 2, and I'll see you with some more news in 2013!

[AphidRuin]

Holy crap, Sir Dark Gaia! Your Legionwood came faster than I thought!

While I do feel ignominous for my game, I would like to cast some time aside to take on your game. It looks fabulous as always; your mappings, dialogues, intruging storyline and development.

2 words to describe: Wickedly beautiful.

Hope to see this project blossom into a neat work for publshing! I'll be looking forward to your work.

All the way!
AphidRuin

[Dark Gaia]

Thanks for the comments Aphid!

I really hope you enjoy the game! The current beta has about 40% of the game's content accessible, which is about 7 hours of gameplay, give or take. I intend to start working on it again next month, and I won't stop until it's finished

[Dark Gaia]

Update!

I haven't been active around here for a while, but I thought I'd drop into the thread and let everybody know that, as of today, Legionwood 2 will be resuming active development. Depending on when I can find a few hours and how much I procrastinate, I'll be picking it up again either today or tomorrow, and from this point I intend to devote as much of my spare time as possible to working on it. My current plan is to get at least one map done each day (a typical Legionwood map, including mapping from start to finish, creating any database items associated with it and eventing cutscenes generally takes me between 2 and 3 hours) and, while this isn't exactly rapid development, it'll allow me to make steady progress, which is what the project really needs at the moment.

The next release of Legionwood 2 will be Beta 4, which will include the entire first half of the game (and perhaps a little more, as well), as well as various bug fixes and engine tweaks over previous versions. At the moment, I'm looking at late March/early April for the release date (don't hold me to that). Beta 4 is to conclude Chapter 2 of the game, and will see the party venturing into the barbarian nation of Entoban, where they'll attempt to forge an alliance with an old enemy and finally uncover the identity and motives of the one responsible for opening the Eternal Gates, as well as the true nature of the Darkness itself. At the end of this chapter, one of the party members will die, with the specific character being decided by your morality, and Chapter 3 will continue on down one of two branching storylines as a result. You'll also get the chance to recruit a new friend (Khan) and unlock new classes and Techs.

I'm also happy to announce that Legionwood 2 is to benefit from a custom soundtrack created by a talented composer who has offered his services to the project. Several tracks have already been completed (including a new boss battle theme), and you'll get to see some of them for yourself in the next release.

As I stated in my last update, I've decided to keep Legionwood 2 a non-commercial game, and all future releases will be freely playable as they've always been. This decision was made mainly because the original Legionwood was a freeware game and I'd love for fans of the first game to be able to follow the story through into the sequel. If you'd still like to pledge your support to the project though, please consider buying a copy of my book, as I intend to use a percentage of my royalties to purchase additional assets for Legionwood 2.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more news closer to the release date!

[OrigamiRose]

I just need to ask, but what font are using? Is it the standard for RMVXAce?
If not, where did you get it? I've been searching for a good font to use
for Wendia, but haven't found any good font.

Thx in advance ♥

[Dark Gaia]

Hi!

It's not the Ace default, but it isn't a fancy font either - it's just Arial, size 18/20, using Yanfly's message script to add outlines and shadows.