Buzz and Release Planning

[ZeaLitY]

This thread will outline all our plans for release and fueling buzz. Discuss and provide feedback.

PRE-RELEASE

0. BSNES Playthrough

Someone at ROMHacking.net mentioned that BSNES should be used with CE at least once to see if the old black screen bug happens.

1. www.crimsonechoes.com

Needed items:

• Frontpage - With news, sidebar, and top bar containing logo and room for two small quick download links
• Feature - Just the ability to use the Stories system for a Story which will be linked in the sidebar
• Video Page - Just a page to embed the three preview videos on; perhaps this'll just use Story
• Release Page - Can be Stories or MediaWiki; patch information will be kept here along with emulator / TF link; will contain instructions for emulating on Wii, PSP, etc. and http://hectorchu.googlepages.com/ for ZSNES for macs, and list of compatible emus and problems
• Forum - Lightweight forum for people to discuss the plot, gameplay, and share secrets
• Screenshots - Just a page of screenshots; MediaWiki would be easier here
• Art Assets - A page for preserving all the banners and other art assets, and sigs / avatars for people; think http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Birthday_Banners.html
• Contest Page - See Buzz Planning #2
• Credits Page - Really simple, Stories system
• Secrets Page - To be released two months after release or as soon as someone wins contest; contains all secrets
• Translations Page - Just a page to encourage other ROM hacking groups to translate it to different languages

2. Secrets Contest

I've been thinking of a way to have a contest for playing the game, and here's my idea:

• We take the secrets document and assign point values to each quest based on difficulty of discovery or difficulty in general.
• We set up a sticky contest thread where players can report if they think they've found a secret.
• First player to get a secret gets point values. However, players MUST post their SRM so we can verify they actually played (and didn't use TF to open events and find unusual stuff. I won't even MENTION TF so no one gets this idea).
• Once all secrets are discovered, points are tabulated.
• Winner gets ? and "Keeper of the Flame" rank on the Chrono Compendium forums
• Runner-up gets ? and "The Legendary Toma" rank on the Chrono Compendium forums

3. Wii / Other Release Handling

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,8536.0.html
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,8460.0.html

We'll test Crimson Echoes on the Wii's current SNES emulator and verify that it works. Once we verify, we can include in the readme and release notes instructions on emulating CE on Wiis for people who own them. We'll also post a message about CE's release on popular Wii hacking sites. Wii's best SNES emulator is a version of Snes9x, so we can go from there with a warning.

Not particularly, at least nothing special for the roms - of course, one has to brave the standard installation of the home brew channel and emulators..  I havne't finished "testing" with thesem emulators as of yet.  In CE, walking into some areas with Chrono in your party seemed to freeze the game (The top of the mountain in the prehistoric era) as did a few small things in PG (going to the ocean palace, although that only happend once today and I haven't tried again.  Oh, and some save points don't seem to work in CE - but nothing special... just a fun video.

It's also possible to inject the roms into a virtual console channel, giving them their own spot as if they had been downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel - but this is risky, and if executed poorly can brick your system, so i have not tried it.

4. Prepare Soundtracks

CE will have two soundtracks. The first is an SPC archive like the Prophet's Guile EP, containing all the game's music and custom SPCs with rearranged instruments, etc. The second will be a sort of "music from / inspired by" collection of rare remixes named around events or themes in the game.

5. Maintain News List

To simplify the absolute chaos of release day, we should prepare in advance where we'll post news. We should also make a list of gaming sites we'll send the news to, like Siliconera or other ROM hacking sites. Destructoid will probably run this news!

Submit News / Ask for Review

http://www.romhacking.net/
http://www.digg.com/
http://www.reddit.com/
http://www.slashdot.com/
http://www.infendo.com/
http://www.siliconera.com/
http://www.gamespot.com/
http://www.ign.com/
http://www.destructoid.com/

Post News

http://s14.invisionfree.com/ChronoCrisis/
http://mp3guy.proboards2.com/index.cgi?board=ChronoTrigger
http://www.forumplanet.com/rpgplanet/chronicles/index.asp
http://p204.ezboard.com/bchronotriggernovelproject29201
http://invisionfree.com/forums/Spectral_Wars_Gaya/
http://www.ultrapublications.com/forum.html
http://chronosforums.yuku.com/forum/view/id/1
http://forums.eyesonff.com/forumdisplay.php?f=25
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=196917
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=950181
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=562913
http://icybrian.com/forum/index.php?showforum=2
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.php?fn=browse_forum&f=824
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.php?fn=browse_forum&f=6183
http://www.square-enix-forums.com/index.php?&showforum=41
http://www.squareinsider.com/forums/index.php
http://www.sonicretro.org
http://www.vgmix.com/forum/
http://www.ocremix.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9
http://zip.4chan.org/v/imgboard.html
https://www.7chan.org/vg/

6. Make Translation Tutorial

Someone's already expressed interest in translating Crimson Echoes to another language once it's out, so we can make a small tutorial for using Temporal Flux to translate.

POST-RELEASE

1. Create a Walkthrough

We'll create a walkthrough and release it one month after the release of the patch, as not to spoil people. Nonetheless, we should pre-prepare a list of hints for predictable problem areas (think of the cave in the demo 2). This'll be stuff like the Singing Mountain puzzle; we'll try to make the hints as general as possible.

IN PROGRESS

1. Readme - IN PROGRESS

http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/CE/Readme.html

2. Youtube Promotions - IN PROGRESS

• 1. Darkest Omen
• 2. The Queen with the Silver Eyes
• 3. Ladies and Gentlemen

3. Digg and Reddit Bomb - IN PROGRESS

I'm going to create a thread in most forums taking signups at a GMail account / Chrono Compendium user account. There will be one e-mail sent out to everyone two weeks or so before release, when we know the release date, telling them to prepare for that day. Then, there will be a second e-mail as soon as CE is released and the Digg / reddit stories created to upvote them. This is a covert operation because this thing is technically not allowed at the sites.

Current number: 265

4. Create Sigs, Logos, and Banners - IN PROGRESS

http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,7385.0.html

COMPLETED

X. Contact http://thepiratebay.org/contact about mirror hosting.

No reply.

X. Create Approved Screenshot Set

For use in promotional materials, we need to create an authoritative set of screenshots before release that we can use to promote anywhere. We'll make sure there are no spoilers. By setting in stone which screenshots we'll use, we'll avoid the problem of having to go back and take new ones, risk spoiling something, releasing too many...

X. CE Team Ranks

CE team members will get primary usergroup ranks with a new special icon, except for jsondag2, ZeaLitY, and Chrono'99 (who will have Guru of Life, Entity, and Guru of Reason). Unless you guys want the rank, and I guess you might, yeah...

X. Make Release Levels

All releases will have a headered / unheadered patch, readme, and Lunar IPS. Emulator version will have ZSNES thrown in. Developer version will have ZSNES and Temporal Flux included.

[Chrono'99]

*knock knock knock*
*opens door*

Guys, I'm back. What can I say...we all know how real life, jobs and whatnot can take out a lot of our free time, but I feel kinda bad for having left this site for such long periods of time I hope this didn't cause too much hassle regarding the development of Crimson Echoes (apparently it's near completion so I guess things went okay). The release of CT DS really gave impetus for me to get back to Chrono "work".

Seems like I have a lot of things to catch up, so if there's anything you (Zeality, jsondag, or anyone on the development team) want me to do in priority I'd gladly do it. In any case, I'm going to have a look at the latest CE ROM version and probably help with debugging, polishing and that sort of things.

[Agent 12]

(wakes up....grumble grumble who knocks at this time of the night)

CHRONO 99!!!!!!!!  Welcome back come on in!

Were pretty much waiting for Zeality to finish up with dialogue and Nightmare to do one more map ....BUT......I was actually telling him to base it on the Chronopolis map that you created haha so if you still got that lying around we can put that in the rom. 

The way dialogue insertion has been going is Zeality sends me an excel file once he finishes a chapter, then i put it in.  Zeality is worried he has a corruption touch haha.  I just finished my 4th time going through the ROM haha, I have one unfinished bug which i PM'd JLukas about.  The casino is using the same memory address as the blackbird so when i set the first bit PC1 "doesn't has his equipment" and doesn't fight haha.  So the latest patch is not the one you are playing but there's literally ..like 2 small bugs fixed.  published patch is now the latest

Anyways....enjoy the ROM.  It's not as good as what would have happened with both of us working together (I feel like up to the atash kedah scene is a product of both of us doing event coding).  If you want to Chrono'99ify a chapter let me know.  I think there's time for you to tweak scenes if you want but  I personally don't think we should push back the release date anymore than we have.  We are lucky enough to have a boost from CT:DS being released and though it sort of ruined our ending I don't think that should stop us.


--JP

[ZeaLitY]

I still have two presentations before the second week of December, so if you play through and want to keep writing dialogue, by all means, I trust your skills. I guess the only huge change is that the decision in 600 A.D. really does create three sets of dialogue for 1000 A.D. villagers, but that'll only matter much later on (I've already written the three sets).

[Chrono'99]

Were pretty much waiting for Zeality to finish up with dialogue and Nightmare to do one more map ....BUT......I was actually telling him to base it on the Chronopolis map that you created haha so if you still got that lying around we can put that in the rom.

Sorry which map are you referring to? I probably still have it somewhere, but I don't actually remember what it is.

Also, do we have a precise date for the release or is it "as soon as possible"?

[Vehek]

The map he's talking about is probably the one here:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=4743.msg87190#msg87190

[Chrono'99]

Okay, I put that overworld in the latest ROM and posted the patch at http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=5209 .

[FaustWolf]

Oooh, looks like beta-testing phase is coming up. What state do you guys want the ROM in when I record a video for Youtube promotion? Should we do a brief "Ha! It's Alive!" preview as a Christmas gift, and then a fuller trailer a week before release, or just one trailer right before release showing off the final polished ROM?

In any case, I'll need suggestions as to what music to use to set the mood and guide the types of scenes I should capture.

[Agent 12]

Let's wait till we have all the dialogue in before we do the videos. 

However I have thought about youtube videos and I'd like to request the song um.....i think it's called ladies and gentleman?

---JP

EDIT:  yup ladies and gentleman by saliva

[nightmare975]

Let's wait till we have all the dialogue in before we do the videos. 

However I have thought about youtube videos and I'd like to request the song um.....i think it's called ladies and gentleman?

---JP

EDIT:  yup ladies and gentleman by saliva

I say Foreplay by Boston, but Saliva is good too.

[FaustWolf]

As soon as the Chapter 23 dialogue is inserted, I'd like to do a run-through and gather video clips. I'll make a preview vid with "Ladies and Gentlemen" and I think ZeaLitY may have had another idea for the preview(s) too. I'll probably do a "regular" and an "extended" preview.

[Agent 12]

Yea I'm going to send out a private beta invite after chapter 23 dialogue is inserted.  And I was going to send you a very long PM FW .  This is getting exciting!

--JP

[ZeaLitY]

We might hold off until I can do my first run-through, which I PROMISE will be like, a sacrificial hours-long effort over 2 days, maximum. While doing through dialogue, I made a lot of mental notes for scene whines and tweaks, and I'll also get the music down.

The beta testers are sort of taking a bullet for playing the game in an unfinished state, so if JP does those scene whines and also implements music changes (not including NEW music, which will be inserted after beta testing since it's hard hack stuff), it'll be a better experience for them. And the emotional impact of the scenes will be more, leading to more constructive criticism of how to present things, etc.

God, exciting.

[FaustWolf]

That's cool, I can hold off until the dialogue is at its peak so we can show it off properly. Before I haul off and do a teaser video I guess we'll need to talk about what kind of content should be shown and what kind of content shouldn't be spoiled.

[nightmare975]

I think the teaser's beginning should have Scars of Time, mimicking Cross' beginning, but one the buildup ends, we change to ladies and gentlemen.

Every time he says boom, we should do a transition to a new scene.