Heh, it'll take 10 cards total if somehow you can play the game right now as an incomplete game without sprites and system data. I think when it's all said and done, we will be lucky to keep it under 16 total.

If you are using just the PS1. You will either be making ALOT of trips to the Dex Drive with a single card... or you'll have to have ALOT of cards.

The way I'm designing it, however... will be be compatable with the EPSXE, which will overide having to do any memorycard work at all. Same for PS3 users.

In all honesty though, if you did only have one memory card and used a PS1, you'd make 3 trips before the game really got running (about 15 minutes in). Then you'd only make a trip when the scenario changed... which isn't all that often.

Is it just me or do these updates stretch farther appart each time...

Anyway, back from my little vaction in Houston, me and SK took the game with us to try and nock out some work. Ever since I moved out, finding time to get together to work on it is... complicated. So having a week to work on it was pretty productive.

I'm currently touched up the end of the nineth scenario card. Hopefully the next time SK makes his way down here, we can start working on the tenth.

Good. Make it work now!

Actually, we are really starting to pick up. He's finishing everything on scenario 9 and I've already started working on 10.

Unfortunately, we didn't copy over some of the data from 9 when we made scenario 10, so I'll have to re-create a bit of it... most of it, though is just move locations to world maps and such.

Once 10 is back up to par, I'll be working on a puzzle that's a bit diffrent from anything I've yet done in RM1. Wish me luck?

Yay delays. About a week or so ago, SK left scenario 10 with me to finish the puzzle/mini game I was working on. So after I finish all my work, I let him know that I'm going to give him the card for 10 so he can get to work with what he does best... And he ended up doing text on that same scenario from his copy anyway.

Now the text he's done has to be copied and re-typed. Fun times...

Well, everything we lost is back up to par... I'm actually suprized that we've been doing so well of not losing data. We actually lost a good 8 bocks once. Though when we re-made it all, I think it turned out better than what it orignally was. Anyway, SK's been taking a bit of a break... catching up on some gaming and whatnot. Well, earned I'd say... though there is a bit of thought that we might actually not be able to pull off getting it finished by Summer of 08.

I'm not going to be delaying the release yet... because we can still make it up. But with other pojects by other ppl here coming out in 08, I'm really pushing for it.




You know... losing data in RPG Maker has got to feel alot like being an ant and having some asshat walking by and kick over the hill you've put countless hours into. There's nothing you can do about it but start building it back up...

And since that realization, I have yet to mess with anthills...

....Rofl at the Anthills comment...but oh so true. Congrats to you two for pressing so hard. Keep up the good work.

... It has been such a long time that I thought it may do well to give a brief explanation of progress in this game. By the end of tonight, I expect to have completed about half of the tenth scenario (I realize it was well over months ago that I once said we were nearly done with just the eighth scenario, but please have patience), leaving Lantis to finish up some loose ends on the ninth scenario and begin acting out scenes I have done dialogue for on the tenth. At this point, I would say that the game is now 65% to completion.


Again, we know this is taking such a long time, but we hope you will find it well worth the wait. I personally cannot call this game a group effort so much because the entire development process is, unfortunately, not like a get-together-frequently-and-do-everything-at-once-while-enjoying-good-times kind of thing; ever since really starting on this remake of SOE it simply ended up with me having to work basically alone (although input from each of us and occasionally you Magonians is used, of course) on what I am responsible for, then turning it over to Lantis when I can, and then the reverse, and consequently, this makes things go slower than they probably should. ... Of course, I am not trying to say that SOE's creation is all work with no joy.

But, never fear, the day of release will eventually come. .... Perhaps I should try to hold my imagination in reserve while playing hero on Kajak's RP thread and save it all for SOE alone; that way maybe the work that must be done for the latter will go by faster. (Oh, no .... Could it be that I am being unfaithful to a first love in favor of a new girlfriend, so to speak?)

It's great seeing you guys put so some much effort into this game. It's inspiring! Good luck.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Dray in the chat. And that conversation brought about some information that will require a bit more of work out of me. Though this will make things easier for both me and SK durring testing and you, the players, after you beat the game.

I've been keeping track of every switch. And it looks like I'll be able to make the game run without going over the 500 switch limit. It takes alot of switch compression and re-using switches, but it should be fine.

What I'm getting at is that when you switch scenario's RPG Maker remembers which switches were on and off from the previous scenario. Well, when we are testing, we don't want to have to have a save file for every scenario... nor do we want to have to start from scratch. There's just too many scenarios.

So at the beginning of every scenario, I've turned all 500 off and turned only the ones that should be on at that time back on manually. Switches that could possibly be on or off will be triggered by key items.

What this means for you is that I plan to release the passwords to the scenario's and system data after completing something in the game. So you can see how things work or if you just want to play through a specific part... or even just test play through the game.



As SK said... we are about 65% done. What that 65% actually includes is just the story. what I mean by that is that the up to were we are in the story... all towns, people (and their dialog), dungeons, puzzles, custom menus, key items and such are all completed. We have a good number of items, spells, enemies and such made, but have not put them to use.

Nothing in battle has been done yet. Nothing. No random battles, enemy or boss stats, magic spell stats, characters stats... nothing. The reason why is because we are focusing now only on the story. We want make sure it's as spottless as possible before we worry about anything else.

After the story is complete (including optional dungeons and side story) we are going to go back over the game entirely and work out battle. Again, thanks to Dray, I can better even out how levels are gained through the level chart for RM1 (seems the number of experience to level up doesn't change after level 23). Also, with story complete, it will mean we don't have to worry about it as we work on battle to make sure everything evens out.

But that's actually going to take a good bit of time. And here's why. The party will be changing out a good deal. The new member will have a starting level. Let's just say he joins the party at level 10. Well, if that's too strong and we have to change it... we will have to start the game save clean over again. For some reason, RM1 reads the game save for levels and not system data. So if I bump him down to level 8 in system data, he'll still be at 10 when I load the game up. So when a character joins up towards the end of the game, if I want to tweak the level... I'll have to start over. It'll take a very long time, but it's worth the effort.

I'm not sure exactly how long evening out battle will take, but I still want it to be before 2008 ends.

Well, we've just hit the 11th scenario memory card. There's still alot of work to be done on 10, but it's coming along well.

In all honesty, we are actually getting close to the end of the game as far as the story is concenred. There's only a few dungeons left before the final bit. So this is really the first time we've actually seen a light at the end of the tunnel... an almost 4 year long tunnel.

But that's not to say the works is anywhere near over. Once we finish the game's story and all, we get to over the entire game and work on battle. I'm not sure how long this will take... specially because of what I previously mentioned about getting the party levels even.

What it really boils down to is getting this forsaken text out of the way. The way you put in text is just so time consuming and tedious, it drags this entire process out way longer than it needs to be. It may be a bit early to say this, but I'd like to consider it pretty much all down hill after we finish the story.

Well... it's official. Remember back a year ago, I moved out from living with SK? Well, as it turns out... SK'll be moving to the town I'm living in. So he'll be moving in with me and my current (slacker of rent paying) room mate.

This will actually speed things up as we can get opinions and point things out to eachother much more quickly. This is also good news because SK's really easy to live with... very quite. Almost like he's not even there at times. >_>

Maybe... just maybe we will actually finish by our 2008 deadline.

2009? What an epic! Good luck!

dude...koolness...now I get to see sk every time I come down instead of just most times

Psh... like you come down anymore...

¬_¬

Too... Much... Stuff...

I swear, with SK moving and with all the new games I've come across as well as a new console (PSP), I've just been having a hard time getting anything done. Just the other night I got all of SK's work backed up on my comptuer so I can start to do some work. Then there was getting to the Mag meet at FWA, and now HoFness.

Also, I haven't really been able to think too much about it at work as well. We had Office 97 in the plant. Well, that's about as old as a computer today will run. After pulling a bajillion strings, we finally got cleared to upgrade the plant to 07.

Oh em gee... Microsoft doesn't like upgrading for software that A DECADE OLD. All the issues we've been having has has me running around like a headless chicken (as a side note: doesn't it bother anyone that a headless ANYTHING can run?).

The reason I am posting though is because I'm going to be putting as much as possible on the backburner to get back to work on the game. So wish me luch, and junk.

Good luck, heavy project you guys have. I'm sure it will get the first 10

Well, I wasn't bullshiting anyone. I actually got some work done. Albeit, it was pretty much getting up to par... which means no actually game hours were completed, just loose end involved a few places and switches of the sorts.

Actually, SK started scenario 10 before I was even finished with 9. Which ment I had to re-created all scenario data on 10. Ah well... I'm just about to really get elbow deep in it again. I'm rather excited about it.

Well, I've got a crap load of work done.

I went through every scenario and turned off switch 1 - 500 on every single one... also, every scenario has it's needed switches turned on at the beginning (all events that could be triggered optionally are triggered by items and not switches). When playing through the game, it'll play like as if I hadn't messed with the switches at all... but gives me (and anyone else) the ability to play through any scenario in the game without having to play through the previous scenarios.

I also put a message before the scenario switch screen for PS3 and EPSXE users so they can continue playing without having any issues.

And lastly, I populated a list of glitches over the past few months. I've corrected all of them but in scenario 7. I'll probably hit that up this week. Sadly, none of this has actually furthered game hours.... but I intent to get some work done in that area soon.

And with that last update... much progress in actualy futhering game hours have been made. We just finished a rather long 2 part dungeon. That leaves pretty much just the last world map to transverse... which intells about 5 dungeons (not including optional) and a few towns. I was up way later than I should have been last night... but I was in one of those got-to-get-it-done-now moods. *Drinks more coffee* But I'm sure I'll make it through the day.

Planning on finishing up Scenario 10 tonight, putting us on the 11th scenario card. Also, this is the time the first of 4 optional party memebers join up... which means I'll be working on that custom menu screen I'm looking forward to that. I'm guessing that there's going to be no more than 14 scenario memory cards when it's all said and done. Here's hoping.