Plot, Continuing from Ideas. Options

[Sparrowsmith]

The closest thing we have to a plot synopsis can be found here: http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....st&p=557072
but there is still a lot of work to do.

Mainly, we need to work out some characters. Who are they and, more importantly, how do they behave/develop?

We have a few character outlines:
-The 'main' protagonist. The first one to log off the game/one who returns to his original body in layer 3
-The fighter. One of the two members of the group who does not own the game. He is an adept martial artist of some kind and spends his introduction robbing a warehouse for a copy of the game and then saving the 'main' protagonist from a group of monsters.
-The fighter's accomplice. An unwitting ally. Also doesn't have the game.
-The programmer that shoots the Rogue Program
-The programmer that contacts Matryoska (spell fail) might be the same programmer as above
-The Rogue Program (quite developed, but still a little weak in characterization)

We need to develop these, and make some more, then develop them as characters. I'd rather not have us submitting characters, but trying to work out how these people should act according to their situation.
Let's get these characters worked out, nice and logical like. Also, any additional plot points. We gotta work them out too.

We're kind of slowing down here, let's not have that.

[Kaust]

1)A simple party has warrior, healer, wizard, and thief. A more complicated party might have up to 7+ people, and anything from basic classes like thief and cleric to really weird ones like geomancer or a time wizard. Now a balanced party has about even offensive melee, and support classes
...
2)We'd need a fairly effective party change system (VX Ace has a very easy one to use), since this game will have a HUGE number of party members.

1)The game opens as an mmo, so what is one major aspect that people love about mmos? (just in case you don't play them I'll answer myself) its the character customization, they tend to give players much greater control over how a character is being 'built' than console games. If its important that the layer2 player already has a character then its too late for this idea (I actually prefer it like this, better stories open by 'dropping in' on the protagonist, otherwise its like the guy had no existence prior to the events we play through), but if not then it would give us a good place to stick in any possible tutorials on battle systems or whatever since that's when tutorials'd be found in a conventional game.

2)...Where'd this come from?

[bulmabriefs144]

1)A simple party has warrior, healer, wizard, and thief. A more complicated party might have up to 7+ people, and anything from basic classes like thief and cleric to really weird ones like geomancer or a time wizard. Now a balanced party has about even offensive melee, and support classes
...
2)We'd need a fairly effective party change system (VX Ace has a very easy one to use), since this game will have a HUGE number of party members.

1)The game opens as an mmo, so what is one major aspect that people love about mmos? (just in case you don't play them I'll answer myself) its the character customization, they tend to give players much greater control over how a character is being 'built' than console games. If its important that the layer2 player already has a character then its too late for this idea (I actually prefer it like this, better stories open by 'dropping in' on the protagonist, otherwise its like the guy had no existence prior to the events we play through), but if not then it would give us a good place to stick in any possible tutorials on battle systems or whatever since that's when tutorials'd be found in a conventional game.

2)...Where'd this come from?

1) Heyyy, that reminded me. There was some VX dungeon crawler game that had like thirty or so classes. I think it was this one. If we can do this sorta system for like all the secondary characters (we can decide the leader's class personally) we'd have that sort of MMO feel.

2) I'm just saying. I tested VX Ace out, and I had like nine people in a party. It had a built in Formation function that left me swap out party order, and the people outside didn't gain exp (unless you enable it, in System). This sorta is like some MMOs where you have a bunch of Friends, but only like 6 people or some number could actually be in the party at one time.

You ever play the Dot Hack games? The whole thing about simulating independent characters is there. There are times when certain party members are not available for recruitment, because they're offline. Also, you have a bunch of roaming extra characters in towns and stuff. Some might be in dungeons too, and join you if you make friends with them. Or they might brush you off and go their own way.

A line randomizer might be a good code, since these extras saying the same thing every time would be bad. (Ewww, the thread responses sorta stalled)

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: May 5 2012, 03:35 AM

[Jens of Zanicuud]

We need to develop these, and make some more, then develop them as characters. I'd rather not have us submitting characters, but trying to work out how these people should act according to their situation.

Ok, first of all, a question.
I read the plot, but didn' understood if programmers are playable in battle.
If so, their skills could be set according to their roles.

Example: one of the programmers could change enemies source code, shifting its form to something weaker (obviously, with a certain success rate) or stop the programs being updated / refreshed for some time (i.e. stop,slow), something like this.

I don't know why, but while reading the plot, I imagined the programmer who shots the Rogue Program in his "human version" as a quite nervous, fearful guy who often babbles and sweats profusely. I imagined he accepted to shot the man (in order to try their new "revival" features), because he sees the program itself as a world in which he can make the rules and give a different image of himself, a world he can modify at his will, while in his true life he can't do anything similar. Shooting a person without being pursued by law, without actually killing nobody... well, this should make him feel like a sort of God, in contrast with his coward and troubled personality...

Well, this is my opinion on that.

Jens

This post has been edited by Jens of Zanicuud: May 5 2012, 06:47 AM

[Sparrowsmith]

We need to develop these, and make some more, then develop them as characters. I'd rather not have us submitting characters, but trying to work out how these people should act according to their situation.

Ok, first of all, a question.
I read the plot, but didn' understood if programmers are playable in battle.
If so, their skills could be set according to their roles.

Example: one of the programmers could change enemies source code, shifting its form to something weaker (obviously, with a certain success rate) or stop the programs being updated / refreshed for some time (i.e. stop,slow), something like this.

I don't know why, but while reading the plot, I imagined the programmer who shots the Rogue Program in his "human version" as a quite nervous, fearful guy who often babbles and sweats profusely. I imagined he accepted to shot the man (in order to try their new "revival" features), because he sees the program itself as a world in which he can make the rules and give a different image of himself, a world he can modify at his will, while in his true life he can't do anything similar. Shooting a person without being pursued by law, without actually killing nobody... well, this should make him feel like a sort of God, in contrast with his coward and troubled personality...

Well, this is my opinion on that.

Jens

I had a similar thought when I wrote that, so I think we can work with that.

As for the programmers, they don't directly interact with any enemies (except possibly security systems on layer 3) but they do aid the players. I'm not sure how we can represent this in battle, but it seems like less of a plot point and more of a gameplay issue.