Customisation would be brilliant, but it adds difficulty to the transfer of information from one layer to the next, unless we use the same system for layer 1 and 2, or the battle system could change going into layer 2 (transfer levels, but reassign stats).
It would also require scripting, however it would really add to the game. I like these ideas.

I like Jararra being at the bottom of a ravine and being built into the walls. That is a setting I really, really like.
I also think, as you started with, a range of differing stories should exist. Some simply believe the slave caravan crashed into the ravine. Some believe the slaves broke free and were punished by the creature to live in the ravine, etc, etc.

Jararra isn't a bad name for the town either.

The lore I was thinking of includes stuff like this. Just general setting stuff, something that frames layer 1.
Who is this bad guy?
Where is the town we begin in?
Is anything inflicting the town? Why? How can it be stopped?
What is the name of the land?
What level of technology are we looking at?
etc etc

That's pretty clever. I like it.

One thing I would like to know that should be covered in some way, is what have the players been doing up until the point the game starts? Especially if we're going to be making an intro video, that would consist of that. We need to know what the MMO guys have been up to before we "logged on" again.

Well they've been playing the game... what else could they do in that layer? We cant make a big drama out of their quests or whatever because these are supposedly generic quests that thousands of other players are doing. If we had chars that were at least famous as top players it could work, but they aren't. We also can't show what their players, the layer 2 characters, do since the player isn't supposed to know about that layer yet, and are supposed to believe that the whole story is contained within this mmo world. Our whole story is hinged on that plot twist pretty much.

And I don't mean to call you out or anything but since you mentioned your vid and it needs to be talked about elsewhere than the job list:


This seems to give the whole thing away. Not only does it insinuate very plainly of people playing people (in a respect a good thing) you want it to have the name of the layer and showing the party their about to play!? Way, way too obvious that the whole thing is a game, which as I said is the whole twist of our game and you want it given away in the first thirty seconds? There's a time and a place for winks and nudges, going overboard with them does not make us appear any more witty (and I believe the most effective will be during the second layer, when people know to look for the hints but still be unsure)
Instead why not use the opening vid as an opportunity to further sell the first layer as the genuine focus of the game- the more believable that is then the bigger the twist.

What I meant was just what dungeons and such they had traveled through before they were at the point they are at now. This would be the content of the opening video possibly.




Really? I was thinking the character playing the game would be assumed to be the player. But yeah actually, now that I look at it, that really would give it away.
What I was going for is one of those things where you see something happen in the intro, but until you get far in the game you really don't fully understand what's happening.
But yeah, that video might not be a good idea, we'll think of something else.

Could we not use video(s) to convey dramatic parts of the game?
Or action scenes.

If one of the characters happens to enjoy roleplaying, then he could narrate scenes.

For example, what if quests in this game are broken up into a three stages:
Siege
Puzzle
Boss

Siege is all out war. Absolute pandemonium. The players have to push through a series of enemies and get to the end. The target here is to get to the other side in one piece. We could convey this with videos.
Heck, if you can play flash within RM (can you?) then I already know how we could make an interactive and open ended battle siege quite easily. Actually now I think about it, the interactive would have to be sacrificed for the open ended, and the open ended would have to be sacrificed for the interactive, but it could be done.

Puzzle is the part we've been discussing so far mostly. There are still enemies in this part of the quest, but the focus is on tactics combat, and solving puzzles by dividing your players correctly.

Then there's the boss which.... We haven't discussed much, but it'll be interrupted anyway.

A very useful place to use a video, actually, would be the end of layer 1. How better to explain that it's been a game the whole time? We can't show layer 2 graphics on layer 1 very well, but we could have a quick animation of someone sitting at a computer and getting up to answer the doorbell.
It doesn't have to be anything fancy. If we can use flash then I already have a tiny bit of experience. Me and a friend made a two minute long animation in two days. It's pretty shoddy (mostly simple motion tweens and the like) but the point I'm making is that we can whip up some simple drawings of videos to show parts of the plot which are difficult to show, and they wouldn't be too hard to make.

Stuff like intros, while nice, should come second to tackling parts of the plot which we can't show with RM.

Also, quests in online games can be a pretty big deal to some people. Especially the roleplayers.
We can exploit this by over sensationalizing the plot from one characters perspective. That way it seems like a bigger deal than it is.

Oh yeah, I like the idea of the 3 parts.
And I'm pretty good with flash, I've been making movies for a while now, we could work together and make something really cool.
And yeah, I'll leave the intro out for now, until we finish and see if it still fits.
Speaking of narrating from the character, have we decided what the party will be yet?

Comments in blue.



Sorry, activity has slowed, because I've been playing maplestory. I got hacked and subsequently banned for something I didn't even do.

About the siege part. How does a remote nearly-underground village get into conflict? So, I'm thinking maybe the heroes of this thing exit whatever town they were a part of (which might in fact be fighting) and happen upon this peaceful village. Maybe conflict follows them, or maybe there's a whole new set of problems with this town. Heck, maybe the puzzle part is exploring ruins nearby this town trying to find an ancient weapon to aid in the battle.

I was thinking more along the lines of Jararra being the last place before they arrive at the castle of the bad guy.
They stock up, spend a while walking, then arrive at the castle and siege it.

Well, then it should be like the last town in Tales of Phantasia. As in, a sort of cutscene town before the final part.

(For anyone who doesn't know, ToP is based on a battle with a time-travelling being from outer space, who is depleting the world's magic. They finally succeed in making a temporal weaponto use against him, and are meeting at some resistance town. There's this interesting and funny hot tub cutscene, just before heading off for the final battle)

That and we'd need other towns with their own lore. And maybe at least one other dungeon.

Well, since I finally have access to internet again (was on vacation), might as well make up another town.

Abmor* City

(things with a * can be modified if the names given are too corny or not good enough. Underscores indicate that no name has been chosen yet.)

It started out as a simple little settlement in the middle of the plains, situated on top of a deep underground river.
There was only three families that lived there together: the ___'s, the _____'s and the _____'s.
The first family was mostly farmers, but were mostly known for their carpentry skills. The carpenters from this family built most of the cottages, and any visitor could tell because they would always carve and bend their wood into twisted spiral shapes at the ends.

The second family was focused primarily on fishing, but also had quite a few very skilled tailors and seamstresses. Their specialty was in making durable gloves with hundreds of tiny beads strung across them. They also made very lightweight bags for long treks and journeys. They also had hundreds of tiny beads strung about on their sides.

The third family was interested in hunting, and were fairly famous for their blacksmith work.

For generations these three families prospered together, attracting many others to their village. This continued until it grew into a huge, expansive city. Each of the three families governed over a third of the city. The great city was so large that nobody could even keep track of what was happening anywhere, leading to widespread crime across the three districts. It wasn't until the third family started the "Abmor Watchtower Guild"* that the other two started guilds for their own districts. As the 3 main guilds continued their efforts, the crime rate steadily dropped until it was but a dull roar, allowing the officials of the city to focus on making the city beautiful again. The tradesmen of the three families, with all of their skills combined, crafted a breathtaking city square in the center of the city, replacing the old one that had become laden with damage and grafitti.
Even with all of these great improvements, living in the city still wasn't as great as one would hope it would be. Tucked deep into the folds of the twisting alleyways, disease and mischief remained, as it had since the city first blossomed into the giant endless maze of buildings that it had become. Countless groups of petty thiefs and tricksters bowed to the whims of the hidden slum lords, who grew rich and powerful through covert twisting schemes. They were the ones who secretly ran everything, while the city officials of the three districts plodded along in their bueroucratic bliss. They ran their own guilds of questionable legitimacy, feeding from the fear of the populace.
The largest of the dark guilds was known as "The Tendrils of Grue"*, or the "Gruesome Ones"* for short. In its hayday, it was led by a mysterious figure only known as "Grue"*, which many cityfolk feared but did not know anything about. One is known to be a Gruesome One if their cloth bears their insignia.

There are tales about the Guesome Ones that are told in hushed tones, when in the company of very few. They tell of simple folk that have disappeared at the hands of the Tendrils simply for saying the wrong things at the wrong times. They tell of a fearsome creature that is said to lurk beneath the city, only tamed by the hands of Grue itself. This creature has never been witnessed by the average man, though very few Gruesome Ones may have ogled into its deep, endless gaze. Any who have likely will not speak of it.

How's that for a large possible hub city? Feel free to add any details about it or add more lore if needed.

Sounds good. That's definitely a crafting town. Keep Grue (Gruesome Ones has a catchy ring to it), probably nix Abmor as a name.

We could stand having some sort of centralized villain in this story, in addition to minor ones. Town A's problems may trace back to one source, and Town B to another (it's kinda boring to have one villain responsible for everything ) but the main villain might be one the leader has a personal beef with.

(Sample final boss)

Aton Ra and his Forbidden Box (it's Pandora, but never directly mentioned as such)
He gets his name from an alternate sun god of Egypt, who rose to power during one Pharaoh's reign and was removed in the next. Similarly, this man is much like a false god, having great publicity in the surrounding areas for apparent miracles, but the people he performs them on quietly disappear (possibly having a public healing magic cast on them, which is a lot of flashy extra energy to make it look like a divine source. He later draws back that energy, along with their life energy to extend his own power and lifespan, as a former priest/necromancer). Possibly have him get some backstory with the hero, such as a little sister that was "healed" and never came back that night, and the hero saw something that still haunts his memory.
Powers: Several altered priest abilities (most priest stuff deals holy energy which humans take 0% damage from, while his spells are nonelemental), healing, and some dark/death effects. Possibly a few priest status buffs, or some debuffs.
Secondary Powers: When severely wounded, he opens the Box, saying some cliched dialogue about "soon you shall meet your doom." At first, like the villain believes, it's just a destructive weapon, but then all action stops (maybe have an extra long battle animation that freezes in a position for like 20+ frames), and the background distorts a bit (this can be done with some sort of paint editor, and by transitioning BG with a 0.1 wait between each) followed by a game crash.

Here's a Blue Screen of Doom, if anyone wants it. Exiting the battle, put it as a picture to cover the heroes.



I know some people are in favor of ditching the story before the final boss, but to me, the best part is (mostly) defeating the seeming villain, and then having something go horribly wrong. Also, real video games tend to crash at the most intense part from memory overload.

I like the big city, perhaps the player could also get caught up in some conflict between the the 3 families. They'd have to disagree sometime right?

And I do like the idea of the characters beating the final boss to have the game crash, it's a tradition, nothing happens until you beat the boss, even if it's a plot twist.
And maybe we should edit the blue screen a little to fit the game.
I like the idea of the main monster having a box of some sort, but I don't think it should be pandora, I think we got rid of that idea.

Sounds good. And yeah, they probably would at that.

Yea, though it's not always at the end. It could be at 50% hp gone, or even with a ridiculously strong boss that sets off the event when you try to damage him at all because he takes absurdly low damage. I suppose it could be before the battle, if we gave some nice juicy cutscene animation. There, it'd have to be pretty well done though.



Lol, yay for obscure quotes.

The good thing about recurring ideas is that they can tie things together thematically, and be adapted to really whatever we want. Anything from a magical artifact that fits in his hand, to a mimic box sized enemy (the latter might be better for clarifying what's going on), and similarly how it fits into the plot anywhere from an in-joke that shows up once never to return, to something like a motif. With the fact that there are Russian doll worlds, you can't rightly kill the idea completely (analogies and metaphors are a big part of the larger game symbolism, or else you get a flat story). And no, we don't have to call it Pandora, but should at the very least it makes a nice in-joke to have a box of some sort be opened directly before the crash (the beauty of having it like that, is that we don't even have to explain it at all. Savvy players, or people involved in the game will get the metaphor, and everyone else it just sorta works, since villains are always using magic artifacts).

Let's just say everything so far is whatever jiggly, me, and MEands can best agree on, have a little wiggle room on how much/how often we want something to appear, and keep moving on. At some point we should get right down and be all like "this goes here in layer one, but not layer 2. And that character goes here in layer 3, but not layer 1." But for now, we are working on world-building.

I'm not convinced about that priest as a final boss either. Let's bounce some ideas around, and see if we can get a really good character design.

So two towns so far. Maybe a swamp forest? (It's easy to go with numerous explanations on how a swamp came about, from land corruption to something simple wetlands stagnating) Then there's whatever army they're having to siege (who did they originally work for), and the tower/castle itself (when/how did it come into being, and what is it now being used for). Just that much would be enough to have a simple first layer, with a couple of customization things.

And yes, you're welcome to edit the blue screen as you want, but don't make it too clear what the error is about (as before, savvy players can figure out the symbolism, but regular players should just be entertained).

Layer 1 crashes because the programmers in layer 3 shut it down so they can update layer 2.
So a blue screen of death seems a bit drastic.

We could show the transition better if we have the bgm skips and pauses (I like that) and other glitches, and then the screen goes blank. We play the typical windows error sound, then display a small error message.
Something along the lines of:
An unexpected error has occurred and 'name of game' has been forced to shut down.
-Unable to connect to server.
Some data loss may have occurred. Check 'website' for details regarding server shutdowns.
[Okay]

We can then show an animation (was discussed elsewhere I believe) of a mouse clicking the okay button, then loading up Skype or some other chat client, entering a group conversation, and then raging about it with everyone else in the group.
Add in some keyboard typing sounds as well.

Use this program then, it makes fairly realistic error boxes to skip the artwork need.

http://atom.smasher.org/error/



Or this.



What IS the game name?


(Also, in some cases, pictures cannot be added inside of battle, so the solution is to add it to the BG on top of the other screen)

Lol they really do always have some sort of magical artifact. I like the idea of him having a special box. What if we name it something similar to Pandora but different. Other games do that kind of name switching. I just don't want to complicate things with the pandora idea, if it becomes too obvious it will get weird.



Hm, well whenever I picture the main boss, I picture a dragon. But like...humanoid dragon. I picture the boss fight is him sitting in his throne, his large claws can slice through you. He wears a suit of armor as well, and his wings extend out from the throne. In his lap he holds the box. I guess I imagine him to look like that monster from RPGXP, the one that fills the whole screen. It has seperate sprites for hands and stuff. Do you get what I'm saying?



Even though this is a generic RPG, I think we should have at least one town that stands out from other RPGs. Maybe something like the shadow clan's town. They're considered evil and were thrown out from the rest of civilization, yet they pose no threat to the others, it is more an issue of who they are, rather than what they've done.
(If we don't like the idea of the dragon, perhaps the main boss is someone from the shadow clan, who learned to use their powers for evil.)




Oh I'm good at making jumpy bgm and such, I make youtube poop



Oh that would be really cool, like have a chatroom open and they start talking about all the stuff.



I still want to call it RRR Game. Cause then when the player is playing it they just assume it's called that cause it's our game, but when the game crashes, they realize RRR Game is an actual product that exists in layer 2.

Here's an error popup that I made with the generator. I used the 95/98 top-bar because sometimes the top-bar reverted to that one when memory was really low when I used to use an XP and the newer OS's don't have the XP top-bar style available by default. Also, it doesn't refer to the name of the game.


Also, we should probably try to work on the lore for the dungeon, the boss that resides there, and the surrounding areas.
Here's some questions to ponder on:
Who is this guy? What is he doing with his "evil box"? Why is he doing these things? What are the effects of his/or her actions in that area? What sorts of minions are preferred by this figure? What is their motivation for following? Are all of them like this? What do the people think of this bad guy? Is he/she even all that evil?

EDIT: I almost want to have the error message to say "I'm sorry" at the end of it. Also, does anyone have the gradiented 98 top-bar?

We'll here's my take on it.

Rasque was a man born of the shadow clan, he desired equality for his people. For too long the shadow clan has been the outcast from the rest of the world. Rasque could not stand this kind of discrimination. He left the village, traveling the nation with the ultimate goal of uniting all people in one peaceful world. He traveled to villages, one by one, attempting to get them to listen to his pleas. The shadow clan was not evil, they were just like the other clans. But every time he tried the villagers would chase him out.
Years had passed, Rasque had all but given up, until one day, as he was making a trip to a small village, he came across a small box. He could feel an immense power eminating from the box. Written on the side of the box was a simple phrase, "Unmatched Power". As he opened this box he became consumed with power, he could feel his entire body fill with strength. At the same time, he felt a sense of dread, whatever had entered him was not only strong, but it was evil.
Rasque entered the town he was going to visit, but like all the other times, the minute they saw he was from the shadow clan they began to form a mob and storm him out. This time it was different, instead of leaving the town, Rasque's anger began to take hold. "No!" He yelled, and stretched his hand to the people, they all became frozen in ice. Rasque realized that he had finally achieved what he had been searching for. If the people were going to treat the shadow clan lowly, then he was going to make them fall as well.
Rasque began taking down major cities and towns and making them powerless, this was his idea of equality. Of course, with all this power inside him...through time Rasque...he started to..become..ins...s.a....ne....----

He is now blinded by the goal of making everyone fall, he can barely remember his motive.

Comments in blue.

Ooh, I like the idea of the box being desire.

Okay, so i condradicted my design. I said in the beginning that the main boss was the rtp monster from xp. But then I talked about Rasque, and I kinda like that better. Rasque is a human I think, or at least a "shadow tribe kin". Which idea do we like better?

I would like the idea of Rasque being a human corrupted by the box, but the name "the shadow tribe" for the group that he came from doesn't seem to sound like it quite fits.
The idea behind it is fine, it just needs a different label to go by.
Then again, this is all just my opinion. You guys can disagree with my biased opinions all you want if you really want to and I won't mind.

Also, how plain/fancy looking is this box going to be? and wouldn't it make more sense for him to receive the box from somebody instead of finding it in the middle of the road and going "lol, awesome box" along with gaining all those abilities and dilemmas?
Maybe I'm leaning too close into slightly unimportant backstory plot that probably doesn't belong in this thread.

I just kinda figured, inside treasure boxes is always what people store that's valuable to them, so it fits. Also, even if we're not using the Pandora name, its original idea was that when it opened there was despair, meaning some part of it must've promised that "hope" that was still inside (not buying the curiosity bit of the legend). Between the two concepts, it sorta popped up. We'd have to have an object lesson of this, by having a flashback of a former "lucky person" such as a poor guy who could barely manage by farming, ending up buying a nice city house then the treasure turning on him (gold turning into black smoke is a must), leading him to die on the streets (now he can't take care of himself, making him worse off than before).

I like the insanity thing. If he's promised power, sometimes it does make ppl change.

Grey/black skinned people sounds cooler. Dragon men are a dime a dozen, and you'd be half-expecting him to wield fire abilities.

Yeah shadow tribe was kinda thrown off the top of my head. For some reason I pictured the Shadow Temple of Zelda and that's where it came from. I'm not opposed to Shadow Clan, but if we come up with a better name then I'm all for that.

Yeah I couldn't really think of a good way for him to find it, but I feel like it's really cliched to have the seemingly nice person who gives the hero something that is actually evil. It makes the hero seem gullible.




Idk about having a flashback, because the story of Rasque is already a flashback of the main heroes.

Grey/black skinned people? And I think we might need to scrap the dragon man idea.

Dang, how far are we going to go into the backstory? We have to remember this is still just a game and it doesn't affect the plot a lot. [Unless we can find a way to subtly imply that the rogue program has a part of "Rasque" inside of it. But that might get too complicated.]

I dunno, he said "shadow tribe" so I'm trying to work out how this guy looks.

Perhaps someone gives it to him. Someone who had it turn on them, and wants nothing to do with it. Or maybe, they won't give it, and he takes it by force (they won't give it for fear of it causing harm to more people).

Well, it is a corrupted code. So we can imply anything we want.

Don't be afraid of too much. We have a team here (I've done way more stuff just as a solo effort). The only real issue with the story being too big is confusion. Basically, a good video game is like a good book, you wanna flesh out characters and concepts, and not skimp anywhere.

I was under the impression that the whole gaining the box could be done in present-day, such as after a boss was defeated, the villain being thwarted since one of his minions is gone, decides to gain more power and grabs it. In another cutscene, he's using such power, and it sorta does a flashback there, to the very last person who used it. Yea, two flashbacks would be extreme.

Can't do too many flashbacks, that's gonna be confusing. Actually, that's an issue we need to address, how are we going to get this story across? Is it just explained in the beginning of the game through a cutscene? Do the players find it out by talking to civilians? Is it only hinted? Do you learn it through a game guide in layer 2?

Another thing I was thinking about. Whenever it is that the game glitches out, we need to make sure it looks believable, but not believable enough that an impatient player will quit the application before we have enough time to show that it's a fakeout.

The players may discuss it with each other, or the townspeople, books, etc.
I would like to refrain from using flashbacks. The world building is optional, it's there to set the scene for players who want it.

As for coming out of the game, I still feel like a simple animation would be the best way to do it. Let the player sit back and watch in confusion.

Haha excellent. I love being confused by games but I much more love confusing others with my games.

Once we get to the part of needing the scene in the game, may I give it a try? I've been using flash for some time now, I think I could whip up something nice.

I had you in mind

I dabble in flash/gimp/FL, so I can make short animations with music, but I'm not terribly good at it. If I'm better by the time we get around to it though I can certainly lend a hand.

Awesome I'm not too good with gimp and idk what FL is so the combination should work great.

Also, we've made significant progress and chnages to the plot, I think it's almost time we tell kayden that the "Story's direction" thread needs updating.

EDIT: Here, I've added notes about changes into the main post.

Fading to black might be too realistic, depending on how long it happens. Or it might be so commonplace that people think nothing of it (I have black fadeouts every other scene). An error message of some sort would be better (Especially in conjunction with a video of some sort).

Otherwise, I'm with you so far.

Let's flesh out the heroes by class, as we've talked about the nearby towns, backstory, stuff like that. I assume some of these sidequests/minigames are also there for backstory add-ons. I'll make a template, we'll just come up with something rough, and expand on that.

Hero Name
Class:
Abilities:
Personality:

2nd Char Name
Class:
Abilities:
Personality:

3rd Char Name
Class:
Abilities:
Personality:

4th Char Name
Class:
Abilities:
Personality:

(Two Outside Characters)

(However Many Programmers)

(NPCs)

Some of this should go in Character Design, but there isn't a sense yet that it's fully implemented, so some of the mains should go here.

Note: I'm gonna randomly pick four classes, if you guys wanna edit this, it's fine.

Hero Name
Class: Dragoon
Abilities: Jumping, Lancer Abilities, Effective vs. Dragon


2nd Char Name
Class: Priest
Abilities: Healing, Anti-Undead, Buffs

3rd Char Name
Class: Blue Wizard
Abilities: Water/Ice Magic, Air/Lightning Magic (no fire or earth)

4th Char Name
Class: Archer
Abilities: Multi-Attack, Effective vs Flying

I think before we create the layer 1 characters we need to work on the layer 2 characters. This is sorta a backwards way, but we have to remember that the layer 1 characters ARE the layer 2 guys, just in more of a fantasized version.

This would be a good way to show their personalities. The cleric/healer is the more kept to himself/herself one, with no desire for the limelight, they prefer to help people. The tank is probably "that friend" who plans a lot of the events and the one that starts the plans. Perhaps we could show a somewhat trickster character, that in one point in the game, trapped his friends in a cave as a joke.

Also I had a question. Do we plan on playing as every character? Or just playing as the main party member? Or is it going to be a turn based thing where we use all of them?

I disagree. We could have quick, stock personalities for the layer 1 characters (they're the people, only more "two dimensional"), but at the same time come up with more flushed out personalities for their real life selves. Sort of a rapid succession thing, where we hint at their core personality, while showing a mostly flat character online. Such that by mannerisms you can sort of figure out who is who, and then get a ton more backstory and character dev later.

Example:

Char 1 is overly talkative. (Layer 1)

Johnny Rogers who uses Char 1 has Tourette's or something and literally has trouble not talking, so he uses his character as a sort of filter to treat these tendencies. It doesn't appear to be working however, and now he's worse off than before. (Layer 2)

The names as well should be a sort of hint as to the real person, not so much that it's similar to their real name but that it suggests something of their interests that immediately becomes apparent from brief time offline. (Such as Gabby above for character 1)

Layer 2/3 could have some picture-quality graphics as well to further distinguish it from the flat nature of the game.

Mainly right now, we could probably get away with holding off on the personality part (as that does overlap), and focus on the nuts and bolts of the characters: what is their name, class, and abilities? Once we have a sense of who they are, moving on to layer 2 and who they are will be a bit less difficult.

Turn based with a party is easiest to actually do. If there was an easy way to get automatic battlers to use strategy (rather than just healing or attacking all the time), I'd say do it. But there really isn't. We should make it look like one party member is leader through clever use of dialogue (offering strategies, etc).

Yeah, I dug the idea of an error message too, its just got that meta twist (is it the game, is it real D: D: D: )

Can we please see one idea through? We're back to asking questions I asked forever ago (and yes, preferably the 'nut and bolts'; I did also specify a while ago that it was for the 'hard' details that people could actually work with that I started this thread).

So lets go with classes, in fact, lets just absolutely resolve one class. class, not character. The meleers probably the easiest choice (dont have to think up a ton spells) so lets start with him and the abilities he would likely possess.
First off he's going to have a range of attacks that will simply deal more dmg than his basic attacks.
He will have a limited amount of buffs, and they also likely wouldn't be able to target anyone else (he's not a support char after all).
Some AoE attacks, but these always make more sense to me with magicbased characters (control of elements and the likes) so possibly his AoE skills will have a smaller AoE (to account for the range of his weapon)

So for some examples;
Skill name: Berserk
Skill type: Buff
Skill effect: Drastically increases users atkspd and dmg

Skill name: Lunge
Skill type: AoE
Skill effect: User charges forward with weapon raised dealing damage to all who come in contact.

Reason for edit: These are not hard details.

Reason for edit: These are not hard details.

Reason for edit: These are not hard details.

Reason for edit: These are not hard details.

As you can see I've edited your posts (don't worry, I haven't touched the content). I did it to make it visually clear how your jumping between ideas and how (even if their about things within the layer) none of these are hard details that the layer itself can be made from.
I mean cmon, this thread alone has been open for two months and we have gotten nowhere. And don't even bother contesting that, because even things we resolve, like the organisation of layers or the error message, are constantly being re-opened rather than actually focusing on one aspect and seeing it through.
I've tried to be as liberal as possible with this, because its work if its just people telling you what to do and obviously I want everyone to have a good time alongside making a good game, but as said we're getting nowhere and since I'm the project's director, its time I took a little responsibility and provided some direction.

You can't really say we've got nothing done, just nothings practical. We do have a good idea of what we want right now.

So the game starts with the 4 players in the town before the dungeon correct? Okay, here's some 2am idea spam.


There ya go, I think we've got some hard details now. Tell me what you think, feel free to change whatever seems out of place.

The episodes thing is to build suspense, intrigue, and a fanbase, while also lightening the load on us. Cranking out three games in a row, even if one is very short, is a difficult thing to do, not to mention interest will be lost between layer 1 and layer 2.
Episodes however allow us to end each one on a cliff hanger (maybe only two episodes for layer 1) and build up to something over time. RRR is quiet these days, but something like this could really garner attention and be groundbreaking stuff. We don't want people saying how great the game is, we want to hear how much they can't wait for the next installment.
My word isn't law, but if we don't release something soon after layer 1, interest will fade.

This is kind of off topic though (sorry Kaust) I just wanted to clarify.

MEands, I like it for the most part, but we could do with some added interactivity and 'game' symbolism. Perhaps a character tries to give something to another character, and the player is prompted to 'accept the item' much like in online games.
Then again, this could give it away too soon.

As for stuff we've accomplished:
-Scene setting town with lore near accompanying dungeon.
-Possible dungeon mechanics (siege, puzzle, boss).
-Levels of characters, amount of levels they'll earn in layer 1, how to preserve these levels into layer 2
-End scene.
-Group mechanics (I don't think anyone opposed of my whole group puzzle solving bit)

Stuff we've discussed which I think we need to pin down:
How to tell the story (I still think one of the characters being an avid RPer would help dupe the players into thinking layer 1 is the game).
leveling system.
Characters (personalities, goals, counterparts in layer 2... I really think this should have its own topic, and not the other characters thread.)
???? (I'm just doing these off the top of my head, there's probably more.)

I agree, we haven't done much, but it's more than nothing. We're planning a very long and extensive game here, but once we actually start releasing them, it should be fairly easy to do, and we can begin a program of releasing each installment (with buffers preferably).
We could speed up this process by being more bureaucratic.
After someone submits an idea, we respond whether we agree or disagree (a simple yay or nay will suffice) so that we can work towards something we all like. If an idea isn't liked by everyone, but is popular, then we can discuss it further to make the vote as near unanimous as possible.

I'm against being bureaucratic though as it stifles being able to bounce off of each other's ideas.

I wish I had more to say, but I don't at the present moment.

Ooh now I understand what you're saying about the episodes thing, I kinda like that. We'll be like Gabe Newell and never release a full game. We should make RRR DLC!
But on a serious note, the episode things sounds good now, we just need to make sure we end it in a way where the player isn't frustrated with a sudden stop, but also isn't satisfied yet with how it was finished.




The avid RPer could be cool, I'm all for that. Another thing we could do is have the character's take the in game events a little less seriously than regular characters. A regular player would just assume it's for the purpose of humor and to make the game more fun, but then later they realize that it's actually because the players litterally aren't in any danger. We could amplify this by having the layer 2 people be actually terrified when monsters begin to attack.
The leveling system is that whole thing about the code right? Is there any other way to do it besides a code? Perhaps have the player move a save file over? Would that save their moves and levels?
I put out some ideas in my last post for the characters.

Moving a save file works within an engine, but if we want to cross engines, then passwords is the way to go.


definitely this.

That's not to say they should be useless.
They know this game, they know it very well. For their first battles (before the programmers give them powers) they could improvise their environment into a weapon.
If they know an enemy is weak to fire damage, then the puzzle is to find a way to start a fire without getting killed.

Really original battles, because it will look awesome.

Episodes, kinda mixed feelings. I think the idea would be good to release it in parts (all by same engine). And then have someone skilled with merging games (Sailerius did Vacant Sky, I'd say if anyone knows how to do this well, I'd say him) to put it together as three distinct games with the episode sections still intact.

Three acts, and maybe 3-6 scenes (episodes) for each. These episodes do not need to be long, just as much as we can handle. Episode 1 might cover the backstory of the "main" game and the heroes, episode 2 goes into details of the villain backstory, and episode 3 has the final showdown. These episodes are each split by a few small quests. Episode 2 is possibly a different engine and has stuff from the first as minigame material (a special premade save to the first helps it continue, and passwords transfer stuff) split into small parts concerning each character's story including the last two. The last act concerns the final layer and interaction with the other two.

I think I'll make a Hero Design post, all about the Characters that are real party members.

I love this idea. This will be tons of fun.


Also, yeah, maybe not episodes. But just updates of the game? Maybe we just end the game at a certain point, then later we release a longer version of the game the leaves off right where the player finished the game.

My thought behind the episodes deal was that a lot of game projects end because it's ALOT of work to do at once.
Also, a whole game is a lot to work through.

Serials (or episodes) means that the audience can play a short game (maybe an hour long) which we can make quickly. It's easy on them, it's easy on us, and (more importantly) it will gather a fanbase.

Look at the third Dark Knight film. Why are people so hyped about it? because it's the third in a series and EVERYONE has been waiting.
Why do TV series survive from one series to the next? Because they have followers/fans.
Each Final Fantasy does better than the last, because they have a huge fanbase (lets not count the past few).

If we release a good game, then more will play the next, and more will play the next, and MORE will play the next.
By the time we reach the end (we can drag this out as long as we want) we'll have a very healthy fanbase,

Nothing stops us from releasing a 'full' version later, but I like the idea of someone saying "oh, it's only an hour long, I'll give it a spin" and then a few episodes later saying "WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!?!?!!"

maybe I'm overestimating out abilities, but I want us to aim as high as possible. I have so much confidence in this.

Well, no actually episodes are good. It means we can do X amount of work, take a break and work on another segment. Then later we can merge all these chapters/episodes/whatever into one game, and make the next big part in the same way. Three layers probably makes three games, but it means we don't have to do everything at once and get overwhelmed.

What would be cool about about using the environment, we could have like a pile of burning twigs nearby (an enemy with no attacks), if that gets attacked, you get burned (<100% hp, damage enemy, heal burning sticks) but if you use a Collect skill, you basically steal and remove the enemy, then equip burning twig weapon.

So should we start writing out this part? It seems like we have a good amount of info to get a rough draft.

Better yet, we should make some sort of link to it. I noticed during character design that I mixed up two of the character designs (Jessica was formerly gonna be a monk for instance, and I'm sure a few other details are off their original). If we can upload our outline to some free writing site (it has to have a fixed link so even if we update nothing happens to the link, so that rules out mediafire), I can add it in my signature.

I think we need to consolidate what decisions we've made concerning the content of the game. The way I'd suggest we do this is via a voting system. We'll give a list of options and we'll all vote on which option we like, and whichever one is most popular, sticks. Here's an example of the topics we need closure on:

• VXA vs. VX vs. other makers
• Group-oriented puzzles vs. no puzzles
• Chat boxes vs. no chat boxes
• Starting position: Bar vs. Town vs. Hub City vs. First Dungeon vs. Final Dungeon
• ABS vs. custom battle system vs. TBS vs. other
• side-quests vs. no side-quests
• level cap: 10 vs. 50 vs. 80 vs. other
• choose character class vs. predetermined classes
• complete nonlinear world vs. limited nonlinear world vs. completely linear gameplay
• 0-30min vs. 30min-1hr vs. 1hr-2hrs vs. 2hrs-3hrs vs. 3hrs+
• password vs. no save file continued vs. same maker
• re-entry into layer 1 from layer 2 vs. no layer entry
• 4 characters vs. more characters
• skill tree customization vs. preset skills

If people can just identify what they prefer for each issue, in a structured way, then we can have a general consensus, and it'll be a great leap forward in the decision process.

Bulma, maybe we can make a google docs page for that.

And yeah we could vote on these things. Hm, lets see:


VXA vs. VX vs. other makers: Layer 1 should have VX type graphics, but perhaps we could use XP since it also supports more detailed guys?
Group-oriented puzzles vs. no puzzles: Definitely group-oriented
Chat boxes vs. no chat boxes: I like the chat box idea for layer 1, layer 2 might be regular and perhaps layer 3 could even have voice acting?
Starting position: Bar vs. Town vs. Hub City vs. First Dungeon vs. Final Dungeon: I think machine town was decided.
ABS vs. custom battle system vs. TBS vs. other: Can we just go with a slightly modified version of the RPG maker battle system?
side-quests vs. no side-quests: Well the players are in a hurry, perhaps more sidequests once the next 2 people try the game.
level cap: 10 vs. 50 vs. 80 vs. other: They should be able to advance 5-15 layers from the start of layer one to the end boss. [Not sure about the return yet]
choose character class vs. predetermined classes: Predetermined
complete nonlinear world vs. limited nonlinear world vs. completely linear gameplay: Linear with the illusion of nonlinearity
0-30min vs. 30min-1hr vs. 1hr-2hrs vs. 2hrs-3hrs vs. 3hrs+: This was definitely disagreed on, I like 1hr-2hrs.
password vs. no save file continued vs. same maker: I like using the same maker but everyone else likes password
re-entry into layer 1 from layer 2 vs. no layer entry: Re-entry is necesarry
4 characters vs. more characters: 4 is the max for this MMO
skill tree customization vs. preset skills: Hm, skill trees are a good idea, but I don't know if it would fit.