Game Project Updates (5/30)

Today's blog entry: Updates on whatever the hell I'm working on!


"Codename: EPIC":

We're currently working on chapter 1 of the project.

We had a meeting for the plot and background of chapter 1 on Friday and I talked to my friend Airen who is working on the plot and dialogue. I'm not very good with intricate story-lines and plots in a game and the basic premise I have (had?) isn't (wasn't?) very satisfactory. He came up with a very interesting overarching storyline and we're probably going to roll with it. I hope you guys will like it! :)



Unlike Dojo Adventure which primarily focused on game-play and puzzles and didn't have too much of a story/plot, this project is going to have a nice mesh of storyline and game-play reminiscent of SNES/early PS1-era role-playing games.

The screen-shots I'm posting here are primarily development pictures. I'm going to be spending the next three weeks working on spells and abilities for the characters. Then I will focus on development of translating our plot and dialogue and represent that with movements and visual cues in game. Then I will probably spend the next couple of months staying up late working out these cutscenes and timing it with the eventual voices that will be added. After that, we're going to gradually swap in the assets from the art team.



I am really taking my time here to get it to the point where I'm satisfied with it. The enthusiast in me wants to be done with chapter 1 by the end of Summer. The realist in me says it'll likely be done by December or early next year. It really depends on the pacing and how fast people go. I don't want to rush this for the sake of a deadline, but we'll see what happens.

I'm also hosting a beta testing of the battle system from June 13th-June 19th. Keep watching for more information about that.



Dojo Adventure:



I'm going to go ahead and say I'm pretty much done developing the game. I may go back and revamp it with a new art style and re-do it with more of a storyline in the future, but I would need a whole new development team for that, and that is just too much for me to do on my own at the moment. Luckily, the game as it stands is completed and I don't plan on releasing any further versions or additions to the game. (Don't hold me to it though. I may go back and suddenly get some inspiration to do radical changes in a future version. But don't hold your breath!)

It was a good six year run, and without that project, I'd probably not be interested in developing games at all. I conceived the idea for the project back when I was in middle school during my time when I was kept away from everyone due to suspension. (When one is suspended from school [in this area, at least] they ban you from all extra-curricular activities for nine weeks.) So I spent a lot of that time coming up with the foundation for the project and spent the next six years actually making a game out of that.

Now with the new project I'm working on, going back and seeing the difference in quality already makes me cringe. I think that may be a good sign, though. That means there's a vast improvement in quality, and that's exactly what I am going for. :)

_


Until Wednesday. If you happen to live in the United States and are reading this, enjoy the holiday and take some time out of the day to remember those who have paid the ultimate price to keep our country safe.

The Future is Perfect

Due to the immense amount of spoilers in this post, I put a picture of the linkshell as a cover for what's to come to not intentionally spoil anything. If you want to save or shield yourself from the pictures/spoilers of the final quest in the current Final Fantasy XIV storyline, I suggest exiting out of this post.



On with the post!


I finally got to start the R46 (and currently final main storyline quest) "Futures Perfect" in Final Fantasy XIV.


After activating the quest in the Merchant's Ward in Ul'dah. I was instructed by Minfilia to go to Camp Revenant's Toll in Mor Dhona to investigate the Empire invasion.

I took two linkshell members/friends of mine to help with the quest. Candlestar Arandur (left, also needed the quest), and Saltyblanket Hobnobgobbler (right, came along for fun).


The boss fight involved chasing several Imperial Soldiers down to a cannon which proceeded to fire in a radial circle following either Candle, Salty, or myself while fighting the soldiers simultaneously. If the cannon were to start beeping with the fire target underneath us, we had to move quickly or be fired upon for 9600-9999 damage.

After some fighting, the Imperial Soldiers decided to run even more, and we chased them down the purple-ish corridor you see above. We were then treated to a bunch of motion-capture cutscenes with NPC fellow as you'll see below.

As always, here's my NPC Shandomina being well... her sarcastic alliterative self.



After seeing epic cutscene that these pictures couldn't do justice. (Shandomina even talked!), Candle and I woke up in a cave with children and were treated to more cutscenes. (Salty was ejected back to camp due to not meeting quest requirement.)







And that's the end of it, pretty much. (For now.) I suppose the original plan was to have more in-game storyline implemented by now, but due to the old development team being fired and replaced, I imagine that got put on hold, which means the current storyline ends on a very epic cliffhanger where the empire goes back sorely defeated and likely wanting revenge. Why did they aim for Mor Dhona in particular anyway? And what will happen to the defeated Resistance?

The co-leader of my linkshell, Crevox Shadeseer has his own blog here which he .DAT mined the next quest and it involves a certain summon we all know and love. I'm looking forward to when they implement that in the future, but until then I will get to work on doing class quests and enjoying time with the Viva Eorzea Linkshell. :)




Until Monday!

Going to keep things short.

I don't have much to write today, not going to even post it on Facebook.


I'm working on the Codename EPIC Project and I'm a little behind.

I'm working on turning Viva Eorzea into a Endgame LS and I just started the official Twitter for the LS.


That's about it.

Rank 46 overview on Saturday!

Naoki Yoshida "Yoshi-P" Part VI

I am happy. No, I am really happy. Three factors play a role into this happiness:

-I don't feel like I've blown $75.

-I don't feel like I've wasted the last 8 months.

-We have changes coming! Lots of changes!

Anyway, I promised in my last blog entry that I would talk about my opinion on what's coming to the world of Eorzea in the near future. And I am really liking what I'm seeing. Enough to get me playing fairly often again. And leveling like crazy with the Viva Eorzea Linkshell.

_

See also: Letter from the Producer X
See also: Letter from the Producer IX

See also: Upcoming battle system overhauls. (By Akihiko Matsui)

See also: The Grand Companies of Eorzea

See also: All Previous Naoki Yoshida Posts / FFXIV Notes.

_

Letter from the Producer X:

Link

Yoshi-P posted the newest installment of the Letter from the Producer last Friday, it mainly contains what is to come before the end of this Summer.

While you can see the full list in the links I provided above, some of the noteworthy things I'm going to touch on and give my input.

-Grand Companies:

The upcoming patch is going to introduce the grand companies. Should be noted that one of the leaders is a female roegadyn. And all of the leaders of the companies hold mythic weapons. (Nod to FFXI?)

It's hinted that a lot of the new dungeon content will be tied to these new companies as well.

Personally, I'm going to be joining "The Order of the Twin Adder" situated in Gridania! ^_^


-Job System



As evidenced by this photo posted in a long ago previous Letter from the Producer strongly that old classic FF-jobs were making a comeback. In this letter (as well as the battle system post), it's been confirmed and it is coming. Current classes won't simply be replaced by jobs though (as many people seemed to fear.) It seems that jobs will be specializations of current classes. Like a Conjurer can rank up and take the quests to become a Black or White Mage. Or at least that how it seems to be. I could be wrong, but these jobs are going to have quests associated with them to unlock. While classes will be for more solo and small-group oriented play, it has been said that jobs will be more niche and rigidly defined.

I'm hoping to be a Paladin and Black Mage for my character. A nod to the two FF jobs I associated with the most in Final Fantasy XI! (My two personal favorite jobs.)

Ifrit Battle and Mounts:

We were teased left and right over Ifrit in the main storyline, and I don't know what the original team was thinking when we couldn't fight him in the story. But now it's going to be added before the end of the summer. I'm looking forward to it because the linkshell and I are going to get right on it!


And chocobos. Finally! It's about time a Final Fantasy game has rideable chocobo mounts. -_-

Letter from the Producer IX:

Link

This was posted earlier this month. But Yoshi shows off some of the new quest hubs and beastmen strongholds that are going to be released in June's upcoming patch.

The link contains the pictures of the upcoming hubs.

Upcoming battle system overhauls:

Link

Personally, my linkshell is torn on the opinion of Auto-Attack. People don't want to go back to the 'slow' system of FFXI. But something tells me it won't be like that. But then again I was a tank in both XI and now in XIV. I'm always working my ass off to keep hate rather than be a damage dealer. So I can't accurately judge a system until I play it.

I am peeved at the loss of Physical Levels though. I hate crafting, and my only motivation to do so was do raise my physical level. And now they're going away with it, I have a feeling crafts are going back to the back burner. But I am trying to get to level 50 before then just for the sake of saying "boo-yah" as all my progress away. :(

_

All in all, I guess it's for the best. I'm in it to see the game get much better no matter what it takes. I'm certainly having fun and enjoying watching actively all the changes happening while I'm playing the game. And more importantly, I certainly wouldn't be playing if I didn't think it was going to be a great adventure someday. Either I'm a really patient person, or I'm just cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

...Maybe both?

Good Knight, Sweet Dreams

Or so the quest says.


I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV lately. And I mean a lot. Most of my inspiration of playing can be attributed to two large posts by the development team. An upcoming overhaul to the battle system and introduction of the FF-staple jobs (like Black Mage!) AND an upcoming list of changes to the game. (Including dungeons and a chance to fight Ifrit!) But enough about that, I will rant about that much more thoroughly on Tuesday.



The other day, I finally got my Conjurer to Rank 30 (finally), which allowed me to undertake the next class quest in the series. (There are three for each class. One quest undertaken at rank 20, another at rank 30, and the final one at 36.)

The boss fight is extremely difficult and mostly luck. (Or maybe I'm just terrible at nuking. I don't know!) and the guy (above) doesn't like to help at all!

In any case, it took me five tries before I finally got them defeated, and it involved rescuing a fallen knight from Coerthas.




...But eight ranks to go until I am done with it for now. (I'm hoping to get Conjurer to 38 so I can learn Raise and use it on others. Especially for the upcoming content.) Along with that, I'm hoping on taking Gladiator to 50 and get Physical level 50 before they dump it just for the sake of saying "Booyah"!

And in the process, I'm hoping to gear up the linkshell in preparation of what's to come. I'm looking forward to what's on the horizon. Bring it on summer (and Ifrit)!




So much to do, so little time!

Game Project: Battle System Preview

It's great to actually feel well enough to get back up and working again on my projects. I don't plan on working myself to exhaustion again (especially while having been sick for the last week and a half.)


Anyway, I'm working on the battle system for the game project the last few weeks or so. Since I've gotten sick though, I had to really throw it into back-priority while I focused on getting better. Anyway, some preview screen-shots.



I want this project to be what "Aveyond" was for RPG Maker XP. One of the noteworthy professional projects developed on the VX engine. There are too many VX games that are either poorly written, poorly developed, or blatantly copied. (Using pre-existing music and characters.) And I really want to set out to develop something original and exciting. Which is why we are taking as long as we need to get something the team (as well as I) can be satisfied with.

Anyway, going off the previous tangent, I'm starting to really get good with Ruby programming language. It's become some sort of hobby for me to do some programming on the side, especially tearing apart and rebuilding something code-wise. I find to be a lot of fun, and it's good practice to beef up programming skills/knowledge. :)

I think I said it the other day too in some previous post, but beta-testing for the battle system will be from June 13th to June 19th, 2011. I will post details at a later date, and invitations to those interested will be invited via e-mail.


Until Sunday the 22nd!

Selection of Video Game Music (May 2011) - Part III

Part III of my favorite video game music. To see parts I and II, you can check out this link and scroll down. It starts from most recent iteration and goes backward.

#21 - "Searching for Friends" (Final Fantasy VI)





Going to start off with a classic SNES-era Uematsu tune. This song is played during the world map of the "World of Ruin" in Final Fantasy VI after the airship has been recovered. It's a very enthusiastic song that plays that emphasizes the need of "searching for friends", the party members that were lost in the transformation from the first half to the second half of the game.

DJ Yuzoboy did a very good remix of this song, also. With lyrics from the song "Holla If Ya Hear Me" by 2Pac.






#22 - "To the Future" (Love Theme/Ending Song) (Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals)





Note: Spoilers!

Probably one of the saddest themes in existence, but this is the song that plays as main characters Maxim and Selan are trapped in the crashing Doom Island and sacrifice themselves to save their loved ones and their hometown.

The scene in context:






#23 - "Sword Search" (The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening)

One of the best Game Boy games that was ever released. It's going to be released on the 3DS Virtual Console, too! Hip, hip-

This particular theme plays at the very beginning of the game when you wash up on Koholint Island.





#24 - "The Road" (Street Fighter Alpha 3)

As being the first main Street Fighter game since Street Fighter II to have all-new themes, I as shocked when I heard this song back in 1998. SFA3 had a very good soundtrack, even if they dumped all the classic themes to introduce them in. This particular song plays on Ryu's stage.





#25 - "Gym Leader Battle Theme" (Pokemon Ruby-Sapphire-Emerald)

Ruby and Sapphire are my least favorite in the series by far. I never bought them near release day, and I was generally disgusted with Pokemon back in 2003. I thought they ruined the formula after Gold and Silver (loss of backwards compatibility) and I didn't want any part of it. Now that I've gotten back into the series with Diamond and Pearl, I got the Emerald version a couple of years ago to go back and see what I missed.





#26 - Haunted Hideaway (Mario Party 8)

Most of the Mario Party games past 2 were flat out terrible. And MP8 is no exception. However, there is one board on the game that is pretty catchy. Plays in "King Boo's Haunted Hideaway".





#27 - Angel Island Zone 2 (Sonic Advance)

Sonic Advance for GBA had a largely forgettable soundtrack, but it was a solid game. Solid enough to get various sequels, at least. Anyway, the song that really stands out is this theme which plays somewhat through the middle if I remember correctly.





#28 - Corridors of Time (Chrono Trigger)

Oh yeah, this one. This song is one of my favorites in the game. Plays when the party goes to Antiquity in 12,000 B.C. The world is in an ice age of sorts and most of humanity lives on a floating island in the skies above called "Zeal".


This is the song that plays in this area:



DJ Yuzoboy also did two interesting remixes of this song with Michael Jackson:










#29 - Rainbow Road (Mario Kart 64)

A pure classic this song is. Played at the very last level of the game. If you've never played Mario Kart 64, you've missed out on one of the best games of the second half of the 90's. ESPECIALLY TOAD'S SCREAMING.





#30 - Snow Bags (Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit)

One of my favorite PS1-era racing games. This was my first game when I played and raced from cops, before the widespread popularity of Grand Theft Auto and the PlayStation 2 years afterward.

This song plays on the Summit and Rocky Pass levels. The Summit has more of a rock theme to it while the Rocky Pass has more of a alternative rock theme to it by utilizing different parts of the song more. I like The Summit's version more.





My favorite part of the song starts at 4:48.

#31 - Fever for the Flava (Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2)

The sequel to the game (above). I played the Gamecube version for days and nights when I rented it. Absolutely loved the game, and it was the last NFS game I enjoyed. I don't like the ones they come out with nowadays. This was my favorite song out of this soundtrack. It's called "Fever for the Flava" by Hot Action Cop. I don't like the actual version of the song very much, but I like the one that has been edited for the sake of the game. Check it out.