Colosseum

[Agent 12]

Hey everyone,

I mentioned in Kajar Laboratories that I'm working on a Chrono Trigger Colloseum.  I was wondering if you guys would be interested in having one in the upcoming game.  If this is completely out of line feel free to delete this post.  I do however think it would be a easy idea to implement and could add alot to the game.  

I will be working steadily with my roommate, and if it doesnt come out flawless I would never allow it to enter a Chrono game i respect the series to much.  If this sounds like a good idea then I'll be sure to keep you guys updated.  I'll conform to any ideas that you guys want.  If you think it's a good idea but don't want me working on it, that's fine but I'd like to have a small amount of input value.  Maybe you guys already thought of this and are already working on it, if that's the case I'm sorry and go ahead and delete this.

Once again if I'm overstepping my boundaries feel free to delete this post.

--JP

[ZeaLitY]

Hardly at all; it is planned. Having some work done on it is something we couldn't have hoped more for, much less having someone with the desire to complete it! Good luck.

[Agent 12]

Awesome.  I'd love to get some feedback from people and get a number of questions answered.  

Question 1-Here's an easy one, is there a documented list of the NPC's and what number they are.  I'm filling it up with shopkeepers, people who look like they can fight (maybe Toma, soldiers, knights etc).  I'm welcome to any suggestions.

Question 2-I was thinking maybe of maybe having prizes and thought the easiest way would be getting items from battle (I was imagining the trade system that 65,000,000,000 bc had).  So I was wondering if enemies that get fought in Colleseum can drop specific items even if they drop something else outside of the arena.

Question 3-Poll-One on One/Everyone Fights also would one on one be possible (don't worry about telling me how just say if it can be done)

Question 4-I'm going to put an merchant for items but should i put someone selling weapons.  Cause the weapons inventory should probably get better overtime and that might be doing to much work for little benefit.

Question 5-Poll-FF7 arena (stay in for multiple fights prize gets better)/ FF6 arena pay more fight harder guy get better prize

Question 6- Should we pay money to fight or something else<--nothing too complicated

That's all for now feel free to add more

--jp

[teh Schala]

Just one thread about this is ok.  We can see both forums.

I'll let experts answer some of the harder questions, but...

Q2: No.  The item an enemy drops is part of that enemy's inherent property, like the enemy's HP.  It can't drop one thing in one area and something else in another, UNLESS you create two different enemies that coincidentally have the same graphics, the same HP, the same attacks, but a different number in "Item dropped."  However, stuff like that is usually only used on Lavos (same graphics, different stats & attacks) and various incarnations of Nu.

Q3: I vote for fights with everyone.  That way double and triple techs come into play.  But yes, one-on-one can be done easily.

Q4: Yes, I think it would be too much work, and would take up too much memory.  Probably not a good idea.

Q5: I vote for FF7-style.

Q6: I've never liked paying to play in something where you're likely to get whooped at some point.  But if we have to pay something, I vote money.  Easiest to come up with so that you don't have to go whack a bell or do some dumb sidequest just to play and get whooped again. =P

[ZeaLitY]

Q1, Geiger probably has one from making Temporal Flux.

[Agent 12]

I'm nearly visually completed here's the pics

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jsondag2/shared/firstroom.bmp
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jsondag2/shared/arena.bmp
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jsondag2/shared/foodroom.bmp
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jsondag2/shared/shops.bmp

It's a redone Guardia's Castle.  Firstroom is where you walk in shops on the right, foodroom on the left arena straight ahead.  There's only the exit where you walk in from, I blocked off all the rest.  If there's minor visual problems (things not in a straight line or something) I'll fix them it's only my second day using the flux so I don't know all the shortcuts that make life easier.  

I'm going to go through each room and give my plan.  Feel free to rip it apart, I'm sorry about the length but I've seen some of the religious discussion in other topics so it's not that long by comparison.

Foodroom:
Minor conversation, maybe they'll give the clue on how to get the special fights for higher levels (an item perhaps).  Toma does not have to be here, I dont know the plan for him though I do know you need some reason to find someone named Toma in Marbule.  It seems like this is the kinda place he'd visit though. The soup is used to recover hp/mp.

Shops:
The shopkeeper on the left will sell basic tonics, ethers, shelters etc.  The shopkeeper on the right will trade items for the prizes won at the arena. This system will be similar to the system used in 65,000,000 B.C.

Firstroom:
The desk on the left will be to enter the arena.  He'll have 3 choices (I think the flux calls them decisions) Fight alone, Fight together, Don't fight, each will go to an arbitrary(sp) for the code needed.  The desk on the left will explain the rules of the arena and how to trade.  You can only go through the door if you agree to fight.  There'll be code that has the guy yell and the character's move back.

Arena:
The blue imps do some animation (i was hoping moving an arm up and down).  An enemy will be at the end of the hall, it would have been loaded in the code where you agree to fight.  After fighting the enemy you "win" a prize (thanks to chickenlump for this) so we don't have to worry about what it drops.  After getting the prize you either A. get asked if you want to go on by a random text box b.  I put someone for you to talk to after the fight, either way if you choose go on that's when the next enemy gets loaded for you to fight, if you choose no the door at the bottom reopens.

Query:  Is there a way to trigger code by winning a fight?  That'll determind if the textbox just appears after the fight is over, though talking to someone would not be hard to implement.

Feedback, Concerns, Questions?  Go nuts

--jp

[ZeaLitY]

I'll comment on the main post later, but for now, I have a question. Through expanding the ROM or simply nose to the ground hacking, could we simply create another full set of 255 pointers (not sure if that's the correct terminology) for monsters? If for some reason we have to work around the default charm and treasure drop, or want to custom build the stats of a few and give them new names, this might be a possibility.

[Agent 12]

From Chickenlump
2. You can have the enemies drop one item, or have the player 'win' an item if they win the match, by giving the player an item through event code. The event would give you the item for each match, and would only apply to that event. The enemies would still give their regular items there and elsewhere, but only in that scene would you 'event' some specific winnings.


That covers working around what they drop.

However, I think alot of people do want some sort of ultimate monster at the end.  Which would require custom editing of stats.  I would certainly be interested in making one through hacking.

--jp

[Geiger]

A FF7 style arena would actually be quite easy to code.  Since "silver points" are no longer used, their variable could become "battle points".  Then its just a matter of figuring out how they are awarded.  However, assigning random statuses and whatnot would be quite difficult, if not impossible.

---T.Geiger

[Agent 12]

Yes.  I was thinking right along your lines Geiger do you happen to know what the cap on silver points was 99 or the same cap as G?

edit:
Also a few more simple questions
1--What allows characters to talk to characters behind a desk
2--What makes characters not talk unless you press a button to talk to them
3--(bit harder) people who have read Chickenlumps Event tricks, I'm trying to make it so that when the enemy you are going to fight appears he fades in from black but the code in that topic either
     A. made everyone on the screen fade from black
     B. made one character on the screen fade to white and stay like that
Right now I have one enemy he is loaded when the characters enter the room.  Then when they agree to fight his Arbitary is triggered which places him in front of you that is when I plan on putting the memcopy commands Chickenlump was using.  So does anyone know how to fade in one sprite from black?


--jp

[ZeaLitY]

It's 255.

[Chickenlump]

If you mess around with Enemy AI, you can have the enemies themselves apply status ailments to your party in the battle, as a final attack.

29 XX - Set Party Status Condition
   XX - Status Condition to set to all party members

This could be devestating when multiple monsters all apply different status ailments to your party, repeatedly and battle after batttle,  at the begining of the battle.

The 'behind the desk' thing, I imagine, you can have an invisible object placed on the desk itself that talks to you (making the shopkeeper himself just look in your direction so you think it's him). Open up the CE demo and look at how they did it in the Millenial Fair. The Food Shop that sells weapons is a good example.

[Geiger]

you can have the enemies themselves apply status ailments to your party in the battle, as a final attack.

...But then the battle ends and the statuses disappear.  

---T.Geiger

[teh Schala]

3--(bit harder) people who have read Chickenlumps Event tricks, I'm trying to make it so that when the enemy you are going to fight appears he fades in from black but the code in that topic either
     A. made everyone on the screen fade from black
     B. made one character on the screen fade to white and stay like that
Right now I have one enemy he is loaded when the characters enter the room.  Then when they agree to fight his Arbitary is triggered which places him in front of you that is when I plan on putting the memcopy commands Chickenlump was using.  So does anyone know how to fade in one sprite from black?

Short answer: No one knows.

Long answer: The effect was designed for use only in the last battle against the Lavos Core (if you'll recall, all the characters and Lavos fade in from black silhouette then), so pulling off that effect on a single character is very unlikely.

[Agent 12]

We could do other kind of handicaps, maybe give the character the wood sword and force equip it, or get rid of the character's MP...I dont even know if that's possible but it seems plausible.

I'll give my update/question of the night

I just finished having the character fight all 7 fights.  They are all blue imps right now but it's easy enough to switch which enemy gets loaded.  I'm working with the silver points now or BP as it is being called at the arena.  Which brings me to my problem.

I looked at the fair and leene square events and thought I understood what was happening.  They add to some random memory spot then they copy that memory spot to The silver points memory spot.  To check they have the merchant say "you have {value 8} silver points"

Here's where it gets weird.  I did everything the same in my code down to the person saying "you have {value 8} BP" but for some reason my person says how much gold you gained in the last battle.  She was saying 12 which was the G my enemy dropped, I changed the enemy and she was saying the new amount of G.  So I went to the fair and the guy said I had 0 silver points, then I  went and gained one silver point from the strength maching and he said I had 3 silver points, which means I had gained my silver points from the last fight.  Here's the kicker I went and talked to my person and now she says I have 3 BP.  I went and fought a fight to gain another point, and all of a sudden she is saying the old 12 BP.

I'm going to figure it out but if my mistake is jumping out of the page at you guys then I'd appreciate the help. I'll try to figure out more unique ways to handicap the characters if the status effect is not working.  Tell me if it's possible to force equip weapons or armor.

--jp