Messages

31

Chrono News / Re: Chrono Сross Modification

« on: July 31, 2016, 11:22:32 pm »

But Turnip? He has no reason to be in the game (other than interesting impurities in what the dev team was drinking), and it's going to be really difficult to make me give a damn. There are a half-dozen others like him, too.

Well then, great - we get to have a blank slate to start with. The sky's the limit when it comes to backgrounds we can give characters like turnip, and I'm sure we can do something convincing. If there are interesting characters out there, we can make Turnip (and the other dozen) into one.

As for avoiding the central characters—well, that's as likely to make people unhappy as changing them is. "You spent all that time on Korcha and yet you didn't add anything extra for $my_favourite_character?!" Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Like I said before, we can work on the main characters as well. But I wouldn't overhaul them - we'd only to change minor things/flesh them out a tad more - people who liked the main characters already wouldn't see a difference in personality, and those who want a change will see a bit more nuanced behavior. Win/win.

As for my pitching in, well, if you want me, I can try. I don't have as much time now as I did when I was working on Chrono Helix, but I can probably scrape together a bit of it here and there. In the end, you may decide you want nothing to do with me.

One detail I vaguely remember from the days when I was more actively involved with making modding tools, which may be of use: I think the standard overworld animations for all the characters include nod and headshake sequences. utunnels may remember more (especially since he's been working with the animation files lately).

(I think I used up my day's supply of parentheses. Oops. Good thing I don't program in Lisp.)

Sure! I mean, i don't know if the two main modders here are persuaded to starting this now, but if we do I'd love to have you on board.

I didn't think the overworld includes animations at all... you're talking about the main map, right? That's interesting.

I'd be more eager to know whether nods and animations can be manipulated thus far, and how much work would it take for how many changes. Manpower is a resource here we have to be mindful of as well.

32

Chrono News / Re: Chrono Сross Modification

« on: July 31, 2016, 12:23:54 am »

well I think arguing about whether silent protagonist is better/worse is like trying to persuade people who prefer cabbage to choose turnip.
 CC was designed like that was because this game is about choices YOU made affecting the future. If you add dialogues for Serge, you add your personal interpretation of how his personality should be. I mean, even if you make the same choice, there could be different reasons why you do that. And if Serge says different lines, the NPC's response might be different too.

We can never make everyone happy. But I still feel that a simple yes/no is going to leave the player left with something to be desired. Will people have different reasons why they pick certain choices? You betcha.

But, that doesn't mean that we can't try to inject a personality that most people will agree with, and sympathize with as well. Let's face it, even though there's 13 endings, Chrono Cross was never a game centered around choices. Sure, you had them, and a large amount of the game was different if you did/didn't recruit Kid - but I think it's pretty obvious this isn't a Skyrim-type game where your choices are the point of the game. This isn't a sandbox; Cross has a story to tell, and while there are story branches, it keeps you on more or less the same story path.

The choices in CC to me felt like they were there for the sake of choices - not for any rhyme or reason. That's what you get when it's just Yes vs. No.

If it helps to put it this way, imagine we had to start from scratch, and wanted a non-silent protagonist. There's a formula usually followed that dictates the type of person people would want to have as the main character, and his personality follows that. If we're giving Serge lines, I just want to give him a nuanced version of that.

While I agree that plot has a lot of issues and a lot of characters are just blank dummies, I personally can say Chrono Cross already has very good story. I also can't say Chrono Cross should be more connected to Chrono Trigger. It's 2 different games, even when they are both Chrono games. I also do not agree with "story - stuff that matters the most".
Look, what Chrono Cross actually is, as game? It reel of film with battles in specific places. You need to win in each part to procceed to the next part. Therefore, Chrono Cross = Story + Battle-System. Can you do something wrong at Story part? No, you can't. You also can't lose at Story part. Yes, you can to not do something right - in this case you will stuck in place till you do something right (i.e. going to Cape Howl when Leena said to do so). See? Game almost absolutely linear, you can only choose in which order to talk with NPC's. Simplifying this, no player input required on Story side of the game. You read dialogs, then the battle begins, this is where another part starts, where player input matters the most. Well, it should matter the most, because you have tons of options on your path to victory, but in reality it doesn't matter at all:

• Attack order (1/2/3 - you don't care about Chance to Hit, you win anyway
• Grid Management
• Elements management and order
• Equipment management
• Character Selection
• Status effect - half of them not work at all, other half just useless
• Elements itself - many of them are useless, partially because of previous point
• Field color - no one care, you win anyway
• Currency, crafting components, consumables, innate color, trading shops
  

I can continue this list infinite. See, half of the game (story) has problems, but another half (battle) is itself a biggest problem, everything about it is just wrong, everything is bugged (A LOT of them), not working correctly and etc.

Only some of these issues can be solved by fixing numbers, so the main point to rework almost everything about battle-system, No aspect of it should be useless anymore.

I think you're assuming player input is the most important part of the game. In theory, you're correct. But let me ask you, how many people play an RPG, and say 5 years later "I have fantastic memories of those battles..." - you don't. Like you said, the battles were there in between parts of the story. If it was all cutscenes, people would get bored in the first 5 minutes.

So I think we have to ask, were people unhappy with the battle system? Read reviews, check out critics - people called CC easy, but few had major issues with the battles - at least enough to detract from the story.

Is it perfect? Heck no, I discovered bugs and ways to consistently win that people don't even know about today. I think the battle system needs a lot of work to be great. But it wasn't the main focus for me playing the game.

You know what, let's look at the the game dubbed "the best RPG of all time", yeah? Chrono Trigger. The battles had no strategy, half the techs were useless, and even boss battles were boring.

Yet, it's "the best RPG of all time." Why? Why do people award the game with this title when the battles aren't even average, at best?

It's because when people play old-school RPG's, many of them want story. The battles aren't what they're going to remember - it's the story, atmosphere, and characters of the darn thing.

So should we try to fix battle loopholes and the sloppy work the devs did when making this game? Yes. But how important it is should depend on how much people complained about it, and not many did. Most just went through the easy battles as a little something to do while enjoying the rest of the game.

People will remember things about a game's story, characters, motivations. Rarely do I see a battle system make a game memorable - even in cases such as Etrian Odyssey. And I haven't seen enough people criticize the battle system to think that it plays a vital role in this game.

Just on this note, even if we do have all the problem you mentioned fixed, there's still the main problem that plagues every Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and pretty much every other RPG in existence - characters don't rely on each other unless it's for healing purposes, and instead of being a 3 person party, what we really have is 3 parties of 1 individual each trying to beat the enemy on their own. At best, we can make Chrono Cross's battle system as good as the regular RPGs' - which aren't very memorable either.

Ah, one more thing. I agree with you that the story is very good on its own (though the pacing could be better). And I absolutely believe it should be separate from Chrono Trigger - I don't get the people who claim it was supposed to be a direct sequel, when it wasn't. I'm perfectly fine with the way Chrono Cross is on its own.

But there's story and then there's story. It has a solid story, but I think it can be upped a tier if we really make the characters essential to that story, and have each one of them a reminder of certain parts of CC's world.

It goes from a good action movie to a heartfelt one. Ask any movie critic, there's a massive difference.

Well, scenario overhaul is not an easy task too. I not only need to "add dialog lines", but also new scenes for blank characters with all the stuff, small things like timing, positions, animations, etc, and also the scenario itself. You also have to be careful and not to break anything that is working already. But yes, everything is possible to do.

I was worried about the poses and scenario... It definitely isn't easy, I know. I'm just glad it's possible.

Complex battle improving is not about "add cool techs", but, anyway, I said, I agree that there are a lot of place of imrpovement on Story-side.

Just because I said something like "Battle-System is my focus for now", it doesn't mean I don't care about story. There is still a lot of work to do, there is still a lot of manpower needed. After so many years I don't think there will be a lot of mods released in the future, so we probably need to work all as one. We that small community I think we are capable to either create one good modification or nothing at all. No point to split our resources/people, you know. If you think there will be scenario writers of something like that - we definitely should look at their work and then every quality piece should be included in the game.

However, I think there are issues too. Players probably won't like extended stories around characters they already like. I mean, everyone will notice improved "Turnip" story and still be okay or even happy with that, but if you add/change something about already loved character (I don't know, maybe Kid/Harle for example) then there are obviously will be people who thinks negatively about it.


TLDR:
I think battle-system problems are bigger problems for now, but every other aspect of the game (Characters/Story/etc) should be improved aswell. If battle system would not that bad, I could jump to scenario improving immediately. Yet you can start to write (or dig through Alfador[/b/]'s material) something about characters which has little or no story.

From your other post:

We don't want to turn CC into Radical Dreamers - I do think adding bits of text at certain points consistently will add up in the long run, rather than a wall of inevitable text. If it's something that can only be viewed via a sidequest, a character explaining his position - even for a paragraph or two - is fine.

Absolutely agreed, some minor things here and there will quickly add up, you can even not notice it, but you will know about characters more than you did after some point. But yes, some scenes/sidequests stuff also good, if done correctly.

I wasn't trying to imply that you don't care about story. I just didn't see it mentioned in the thread so far, so I thought I'd bring it up. The "add cool techs" comment was a reference to some of the requests here, not to the work you were doing.

It's a small community, like you mentioned. And as time goes by, it just gets smaller. All the potential "scenario writers" and script editors will slowly move on because they think that if a script mod hasn't come out in 17 years, it probably isn't possible. And it would be a shame to lose them because of time delays. This game is old enough, and I think it's pretty apparent that if we need manpower, we'll need to provide an eye-catching incentive. Fixing up the battle system is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but if I'm anywhere near accurate to represent some of those who played this, it isn't the area where they would die for a CC remake.

Tell people that they can improve the story, in effect give life to the characters again, and we can get some 30 years olds to turn their heads and say "you know what? What the heck, let's give this a shot". People not in the Compendium community will come back and replay a mod only if they think its worth their time, and I'm just not sure how many will consider even a perfect battle system a reason to play this again.

Feel free to take your time. But the clock is ticking, if we could start this thing rolling, I'm pretty sure now is the time that would net us the most support and help in this endeavor. It doesn't require technical knowledge (on editing the script and lines, anyway), and that gives anyone a chance to help. On the other hand, battle refinement is something I couldn't help you with if I tried. Let me know what you think.

I know I said this before, but I really don't want us to lose to the test of time. Even if we wait only a year, more people will be gone and forget about CC by then. I don't want to change Kid, Harle, or any one of the other 3-4 developed characters - at least for a good while. There's plenty of blank characters, and they need improvement more than anything. Afterwards we can finetune the main ones cautiously if needed.

33

Chrono News / Re: Chrono Сross Modification

« on: July 29, 2016, 07:32:46 pm »

.

34

Chrono News / Re: Chrono Сross Modification

« on: July 29, 2016, 07:24:50 pm »

@alfadorredux: Well, the great part is that more is better than less - taking out text is much easier than having to invent new dialogue.

I didn't really explain myself very well there; I don't think I like the silent protagonist either. I never thought myself as Serge like some people did, and really loved non-silent protagonists like Neku from TWEWY. But I think Serge was a more neutral (and logical) character vs the rest of the cast - the choices I had him walk into are choices I would think he would do. Giving him too much colorful personality so that he becomes just another one of the 45 is something I would personally want to avoid.

What I was thinking of aiming for, is to give him more of a presence in the game (definitely gestures and such), and give him dialogue that everyone can identify with. Make him the neutral man - or at least as neutral as his situation.

The obvious (and probably wrong) choice to do this is to make him the Hero - just like Chrono was in CT. But I think people are going to feel another Superman is fake. What I would suggest is a reasonable path for him, perhaps a bit on the mellow side for a good part of the time, but sparked when needed. People like a reasonable character, and as that he would fit well as the main character.

Personally, I would rather fireworks of emotions - new motivations, intentions, and feelings. But it's not Chrono Cross. I realize that it wouldn't mesh well for the game, at least not for the main character.

Anyway, this is all up for debate, and if we can get this running, there's plenty of time from the humble beginnings to decide whether Serge should adopt a more nuanced personality and personal ambitions as he moves on.

One potential problem I'm seeing from the outset (well, I didn't read the script yet, so you could have solved it) is that it's difficult to create 20 distinct character backgrounds and personalities that don't overlap each other - much less 45. I'm sure I can get it done; I have a lot of source material for tropes from anime to help me out. It's just something to look out for.

Thanks for letting us (me? us? idk) use this!
...But I do feel that it's only half the job - we'd be missing out on the person who created that 22 page mammoth script. For this to work, it would be great to have your help, and it's sorely needed.

So with that said, would you like to join this project? I can't believe I'm "inviting" people when I don't even know if it's possible, or whether Danetta and prizvel want to do this. But if it's happening, I'd love to have you on board. Like you said - a beta reader can be a huge improvement, and I'd love to run some changes to your script by you if you have the time. It  would be great to know what you think. Let me know!

35

Chrono News / Re: Chrono Сross Modification

« on: July 29, 2016, 09:37:54 am »

Been there, wrote that, although the addition of Magus as a character separate from Guile (plus some other quirks) would make that script a bit more difficult to implement than just altering dialogue and adding cutscenes. Still, it's available to mine for alternate character lines, if nothing else.

I'll take a read through that, thanks! For the sake of (possible) improvement, I'll being brutally honest; from the first post, it seems too much like a fanfic and too little like something that would be in the game. I don't think the atmosphere in Chrono Cross calls for "but she's kinda cute!" anywhere in the game, except for maybe/perhaps/possibly Harle to another character. Giving Serge internal dialogue might be a bit dangerous too - players identified with Serge, and if there's something he's saying that's clearly not something the player would, he becomes another character instead of the player.

There's rarely anything "spicy" in the CC dialogue, save for some Termina fun. And I don't think there's anything teenager-ish about the original script - definitely not like those YA section books that's sole purpose is to be snarky. At the end of the day, I think it's fair to say that there's a difference between a fanfic and the game script itself, not only in terms of content but in style as well. If this is going to happen, we'd have to make some revisions. AFAIK, I think players would be most interested in the type of extra dialogue that would fit in the game's environment; I wouldn't want to change the feel of the game even if someone paid me to do so.

Although I didn't read through the 22 pages yet (nice amount of material there), I noticed that you added [internal] dialogue to Serge (to give him character), but also to Kid. The way I see it, Kid is one of the most developed people in the game - I'm not sure if it's necessary to give her extra dialogue in this context. Let me know what you think though, I'd love to hear your opinion.

Thirdly, and this is very important, one of the main areas I see story-based games stumble is by the dialogue - namely, too much of it. Not everyone likes a VN, and the secret to a good game includes just the right amount of text. Even if it provides valuable backstory, it can't be walls of text - I can't emphasize this enough. We don't want to turn CC into Radical Dreamers - I do think adding bits of text at certain points consistently will add up in the long run, rather than a wall of inevitable text. If it's something that can only be viewed via a sidequest, a character explaining his position - even for a paragraph or two - is fine.

I'm glad you thought of this - 6 years earlier than me lol. Even with all my criticisms, there's a huge amount of source material there we can draw from - thank you for that. Don't take anything "negative" I say as personal; I'm just voicing my opinions on what I think could be revised and have the most benefit. I could very well be wrong.

As an example, personally, I wouldn't put most of the stuff from Serge and Kid in (I do NOT want this to be a romance novel), also because of the way the game dialogue is already geared. But for "secondary" characters, there's much to take a look at.

Another thing I'd like to note is that if this script mod does happen, and we are keeping the original cast, then the extra dialogue can't be one story broken up into 20 pieces. People switch characters for growth and battle reasons, and it would be infuriating to hear a tiny bit about Fargo and then nothing at all. We want the player to be happy with the amount of "optional" dialogue he's getting, even if he switches the character out for another one later. That means no cliffhangers.

On a positive note, prizvel and Danetta, we already have some source material. It's possible that even more people would be interested in working on this project - and with the host of characters, it would be easy to get ideas regarding each one.

This isn't going to be a fanfic - if this is going to happen, we'll make it identical to the "feel" of the game script, with slight character nuances in the dialogue to add flavor. I think one of the easiest things to do here is to go way overboard with the character traits and ruin the feel of the game. We should probably make sure that doesn't happen.

36

Chrono News / Re: Chrono Сross Modification

« on: July 29, 2016, 01:34:03 am »

I'm quite excited about a CC mod, but I'm not sure which direction it would go. Is there a clear goal and specific guidelines of what you'd like to create? Or are you just steadily exploring your options for now? Either is fine, but it does help me understand whether I should be expecting this anytime soon

Reading through these 5 pages, I've more or less seen suggestions for battle mechanics, different characters, hair schemes, etc.

These aren't bad. But shouldn't we focus on the stuff that matters the most - i.e. the things that people didn't like about the game in the first place? Sure, it may be difficult connecting the dots between Trigger and Cross (Crimson Echoes aimed to do that, and that was a monstrous project), but there are easier things that everyone complains about.

The character dialogue generator for one. Another is the sheer amount of characters, that people felt were superfluous or extra.

Why not kill two birds with one stone? I have no experience in modding, but injecting dialogue in specific places should be one of the easier things to do. How about we start by creating a deeper backstory for, I dunno, one of the 45 characters? In essence, you'd be making the game better than it ever was - by fixing some things people didn't like about it in the first place.

You can fine-tune the battle system, and add cool techs, sure. But will people remember it? Will it be the mod that goes down in history as the one that really completes the game? It'll be more of a "technical" mod, rather than refine the aspects that people truly care about - not the battles, but the story, what makes the game great, and what detracts from that.

It's also worthwhile to note that you can get a lot of outside support creating backstory (and character individuality present-game too, I guess) for characters than the technical aspect of adding techs and such.

Heck, I'd be happy to help flesh out some of the characters in game. In fact, any fanfic author would jump at this opportunity. Who wouldn't? It's bringing further development of their beloved characters to the actual game. It's not as hard as starting from a new slate, like a sequel, and it won't interfere with the current story either - there's a good ~40-ish characters that are essentially barebones with a blank slate, that can easily be expanded upon.

I don't like bringing this up, but Chrono Compendium doesn't have to die. I'm sick and tired of lurking here for 8 years. I'm tired of being long forgotten by SE. I say refine the game, give the characters flesh and blood, and make the game better than it was on November 18, 1999. Bits of new dialogue add up, and go a long way. There's enough characters to break things up bit by bit, and quickly finish something concrete.

I shouldn't be rambling though, I'm not even the one doing these mods. I do think though that with this type of modification we can involve the entire community in the "would-be" of each character, and get this done a lot faster than two people alone. Prizvel and Danetta, can you two create an event with new dialogue, or is this not feasible with modding yet?

37

Chrono Cross Modification / Re: Chrono Cross engine reimplementation?

« on: June 27, 2016, 03:17:06 pm »

That would be useful! I mean, there's potential to even add more connections from CT to CC, and fix whatever complaints there are about pacing, too many characters, etc.

38

Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: CC REMAKE

« on: March 16, 2016, 02:41:29 pm »

if you whated to insert this locations in PS1  game - no.

Ah, that's a shame. For anyone reading this that is proficient with the Unity engine... you know what to do... lol.

39

Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: CC REMAKE

« on: March 10, 2016, 05:26:32 pm »

This is fantastic! Did you make these from scratch, and can the models be re-inserted into the game as a "remake"?