Revised Plot and Planning Thread

[Chrono'99]

I thought we could add as many songs as there is free space in the rom? (not that I know much about music hacking though)

[Vehek]

I thought we could add as many songs as there is free space in the rom? (not that I know much about music hacking though)

Geiger actually once said that the game's hardcoded to 83 songs. Even if it weren't, you'd have to move the SPC pointer table and instrument table too to make room.

[Vehek]

Chapter Sixteen: (Stop the Porre Lab)

With the Masamune in history, 602 AD now returns to peace, but King Guardia in 1002 is still dead since this was caused by King Zeal. The fact that Belthasar doesn't let Marle use the TDC to revive her father is justified by the robots/Vanguard "incident". Again, Belthasar doesn't have TTI, so he doesn't know the Vanguard, but the incident still happened with the robots (allowing for the Proto 5-02C side-quest later).

This chapter was a side-quest but I think the plot is amplified by having it mandatory, especially if the Porre cyborg is involved. He effectively introduced the game events, so he needs to "return" into the plot somehow, doesn't he?

• 2302 - The party return to Chronopolis, where Marle argues with Belthasar about saving her father's life. Belthasar reveals that he was soon to die anyway. He tells the party they can rest or return to the present while he's trying to locate King Zeal. The party feel like they should check Medina 1002 after all that happened.

How would Belthasar know that originally, King Guardia would have died not long after?

[Chrono'99]

Unless Zeality thought about something special, I think Belthasar just refers to the King's elderliness, to the fact that he was soon to die of old age.

---

I've quickly skimmed through the plot again, and I think the Porre Agent's relevance could be increased by involving him in the Reptite timeline events.

The Porre Agent was last seen in 1,002 A.D. returning to Porre with an engine for the Chimera and a bunch of data from the future. After that, we're not supposed to see him again until the Porre Lab infiltration in the Medina Forest Ruins.

I propose that he reappears earlier, in Chapter 9 (An Emerald Dream in 1,002 A.D.). The timeline is turned into a Reptite timeline, but according to TTI, the Porre Agent should still appear in 1,002 A.D. no matter the changes (like Belthasar who appears in the future whether the Apocalypse happened or not).

Thus, during their exploration, Crono, Glenn and Magus meet the Agent. He's confused and thinks the Dispatch Chamber sent him in a wrong time/place. Some things happen (I'm not sure what) in addition to what we already have for the chapter. A fight with the Agent may happen, but he quickly realizes that they should ally themselves or something. Eventually, when the party defeats Coyopa, the Agent goes into the portal. The party jump in too, and find him in Prehistory busted by King Zeal at the Lavos crater.

The rest of the short Chapter 10 plays normally (choice between Ayla and King Zeal, etc.). Chapter 11 is also unchanged, except that when Marle returns to Chronopolis, she finds the Porre Agent also bedridden, in addition to Crono, Glenn, Magus.

Not sure what can happen after that. The Agent could play some role in Chapter 12 (Cakhula's interrogation). Or in Chapter 15 (the Guardia-Porre-Medina meeting). Or in both or somewhere else...

Ideas, thoughts everyone?

[ZeaLitY]

Should he die in 65000000 B.C. or should his busted up body remain there? I guess we're limited to how long he can stay in 1002 A.D. at the factory since Time Bastard would make him shift out at the moment he found the portal on Terra Tower...the idea of him getting left behind in prehistory is appealing. Not sure where to go with it, though.

[ZeaLitY]

I'd like at least four more slots...I'm going to look at the track list soon. That'd give us one song for each category and an extra.

[Vehek]

What should we do about Reptile 1999 AD/2302 AD?
There are some problems because you're not supposed to be able to walk around in the 1999 A.D. map!

If you view the select screen, it says the year is "1002 AD". If you save, it lists the era as "???" on the save screen.
If such a save is your most recent save, then on the load screen, the era section will be blank until you move the selection to a save in a proper era.

BTW, I hacked Chrono Trigger to add another overworld, and it had the same problems, minus the select screen part. It just didn't display a year in the select screen.

[Chrono'99]

Damn, those string issues are like a Rubik's Cube game: it's hard to solve one part without screwing the other sides... There are several problems combined. Let's see... Here's what we have currently:

                      "Era" in the save screen     "Year" in the select screen
64999998          Pre-historic                       65000000 B.C
11998               Dark Ages                        {Epoch} B.C.
1                      Dark Ages                         11999
602                   Middle Ages                      A.D. 600
1002                 Present                             A.D. 1002
1002 (Reptite)   Chronopolis                       Future
1999/2302         ???                                   A.D. 1002

First, we can solve some stuff by correcting the strings (who's got the rom??):

                      "Era" in the save screen     "Year" in the select screen
64999998          Pre-historic                       64999998 B.C
11998               Dark Ages                        {Epoch} B.C.
1                      Dark Ages                         A.D. 1
602                   Middle Ages                      A.D. 602
1002                 Present                             A.D. 1002
1002 (Reptite)    Present                            A.D. 1002
1999/2302         Future                              A.D. {Epoch}

This corrects the wrong names and years, though a problem remains: "Dark Ages" shows for both 11998 BC and 1 AD. Does anyone know how we could solve that? Having "Antiquity" for 1 AD would be neat, though I suppose "Dark Ages" can decently apply to 1 AD if we can't change the name.

As for the "Chronopolis in 1999" issue, I'll try to see if I can add/remove its tiles from the map with a Memory flag and some SetTile commands. The trick works for the other overworlds (Vanguard Post), so I guess there's no reason why it should not work in 1999, though I didn't try yet.

Then there's still the other 1999 bugs. There's the one that you mentioned Vehek (blank name in the save screen), and also, the "year" string for 1999 is stuck on the left side on the screen in the Select map instead of being in the middle. Dunno how to solve those two... Ultimately, those are quite minor bugs, but it'd be nice to solve them.

[ZeaLitY]

We can always ditch the 1002 A.D. overworld. Chrono'99 proposed the idea of having one huge interconnected system of maps. It hasn't been done in Chrono Trigger save for Algetty, so it'd be a roughly new concept. Would this fix the problem by eliminating the need for an overworld?

[Chrono'99]

I suppose it's the best idea. We have 7 potential overworld slots to use, but it's not like we *have* to use all of them.

We could still use that 1999 overworld for some cutscenes though, if we figure out the commands in the overworld code.

[ZeaLitY]

Oops...in case anyone is shocked, I of course mean the 1002 A.D. reptite overworld.

[nightmare975]

Oops...in case anyone is shocked, I of course mean the 1002 A.D. reptite overworld.

*Whew*, for a moment there I thought you ment normal 1002.

[ZeaLitY]

My ideas:

* That stuff the Gurus need for the CB could be explained as being too important in the time of Zeal, enough that the party couldn't take it undetected. The main materials are hyperconductors and conduits for magical energy, created over two decades by continuous enrichmenet and saturation. They'll be needed to handle the magical intensity to create the Cb in a timely manner. But they note that Dalton maintained a serious interest in the conduits and probably went searching for them.
* The Chrono Break...I think we elected not to use it, but if this is the case, should we go with Dalton NOT having the materials? In any case, I will have Lucca ask Gaspar what the CB was, and he'll reply somethin to the effect of using a nuclear warhead to do gardening work...
* The Porre agent...the only thing I'm worried about now is that the party still have to fight him despite rescuing him to Chronopolis under the current ideas. But I do have one idea: the agent requests to return after Lucca interrogates him ethically. the party later find him in the laboratory as usual and Lucca tries to reason with him. However, it can't be done -- Luccia's parents have completely brainwashed him. This sends Lucca into a rage, and makes her want to ensure that all robotic beings have an indomitable measure of free will and their own aspirations as well (cue FATE's desire to have its paradise and be reincarnated). Does that sound good?

[Chrono'99]

The brainwashing plot-device in itself might seem a bit overused. It's used once in CT (Atropos), three times in CC (the Chronopolitans, Wazuki, Kid), also in Xenogears (Hammer, a Demi-Human who got cyborgized) and probably other RPGs. But it does appear fitting and interesting here though, with the connections to Lucca and FATE... I don't know.

~

Anyhow, I'm currently in the process of re-reading the entire original Plot thread. That's frigging long (I started Tuesday), but it's worth it. I feel like some good stuff might have been lost in the huge mass of texts, we might be able to retrieve some.

Also, looking back, I'm starting to think the current plot lacks something... The original plot towards the end was rather un-Chrono and unfeasible, but it still had a quite grandiose climax to it. In the current plot, the party goes to kill King Zeal, kills him, and goes home... A real, unexpected and smashing climax seems to be lacking. Quite like the last battle in CC, actually.

Personally, I think I'm not against putting the race of Lavos back, albeit in a toned down version (perhaps they could be dead and alluded to, instead of being seen and spoken to). I know that's a heavy issue though, and I need to re-reading the whole thing to have more concrete propositions.


LATE EDIT: Even Orcha was sort of brainwashed, turning into the Hell's Cook.

[ZeaLitY]

One easy way to hasten things would be to put a timer on the Time Devourer, or maybe revive the idea that something dire will happen to the real world if they don't hurry up and get to the Darkness Beyond Time. But I'm not a fan of point of no returns...The DBT is going to be pretty grand, with tons of tilesets and hopefully a very frightening one at the end, with Schala and Lavos merging...