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.

[bulmabriefs144]

Well, yea, I was thinking either one lump party, or a multi-stage thing (sorta like the KH2 final battle). Either one would be interesting, but this probably works better.

Sounds good (L3 might not be willing to delete it, but still should be able to hold off the spread of the code/bug by quarantining it). The final battle is still freakishly hard, but during Layer 1/2 battles it was making a bunch of duplicate copies (replicating like any virus would), where now it can't do that anymore.

What about having it more horror themed at the robot section? That is, robot is too strong, you have to instead try to outrun/outmaneuver the robot and various malevolent machines like the turrets and make it to some secondary console with a patch disc (you don't delete the program, but one of the characters in layer 3 has made a bug patch to return the rogue to normal, and he's unfortunately on the other side of the lab). If it's sort of a race against time before the robot traps you, it would have the general feel of a final confrontation without being an actual fistfight. There might be a few chances before this to walk the lab and get the best sense of which way to go, but some areas may be blocked off, forcing you to figure out the best way in the time frame.

From the suggestions, and my own ideas, I'm thinking something like:

Layer 2: Fight Rogue Program. (Makes a bunch of replicates, and generally a nuisance)
Layer 2: (Escapes) Nearby game consoles start spitting out monsters. The characters fight them off, and make it to the console. They can't outright shut it off, or risk losing their level 120+ characters, so they log on as the characters and try to fight from inside.
Layer 1: Fight Rogue Program. (Same tactics)
Layer 1: (Escapes)
Layer 2: Outside, they get attacked once again by the rogue program, which makes huge numbers of copies. (No fight here)
Layer 3: The coders in one room debate of the morality of deleting this thing. In another room they're told by intercom or something, just keep the thing contained to that side that the other programmers will make a patch disc. There's some puzzle where the program is trapped by moving blocks around it in cyberspace (or something).
Layer 2: The quarantine halts its replication and reverts it back to a single location. Instead of like 50 copies of the rogue program, it's now down to one. Fight Rogue Program. (Much easier, as you now only have to fight one target)
Layer 3: Program is now fragmented code (it got smashed up, or something), which takes over the system that was supposed to quarantine it, including its robots and security system. Since the disc was made on a remote computer, this area is unaffected, but the makers of the disc need to get the whole thing to the main computer (through all the obstacles) to recode the program.

It looks more complicated than it is (3 battles vs rogue program, and two puzzles).

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Sep 7 2012, 12:17 PM

[MEands]

What about having it more horror themed at the robot section

I was really hoping for this. Might I give the robot puzzle a go once we reach that point? I enjoy making mysterious creepy situations at times.

And I like where this is going. I was kinda thinking, maybe layer 1 contains a large power source for the rogue program. He really has no real power in layer 2 because it's based on a reality, so maybe he takes the information from layer one and adds it to 2. Perhaps the layer 1 team needs to defeat the energy source (possibly the end boss of L1) in order to stop the monster invasion.