Dagger's video game - Division Blade

[Lee]

I'm asleep in Daggers house. Anbout to see the Dragon.

 

[The Doctor]

I had major points get repeated for storyline purposes. Look at Chrono Cross. Story makes no sense at all. The story in Division Blade and all of the developments for each character get more complicated as you get further in. I wanted to make sure that even those who don't like RPG's will be able to keep up with the story.

OK, Dagger, I mean this in a nice way that'll hopefully serve as constructive criticism:

Repetition does not necessarily make something clearer, or more interesting. A bad story is a bad story no matter how many times you explain a plot point.

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

I had major points get repeated for storyline purposes. Look at Chrono Cross. Story makes no sense at all. The story in Division Blade and all of the developments for each character get more complicated as you get further in. I wanted to make sure that even those who don't like RPG's will be able to keep up with the story.

Wait, what? Chrono Cross' story was perfectly fine.

The story isn't about what happens. It's about how the story is told. The Metal Gear Solid storylines are a perfect example of a story that can get excessively complicated, but perfectly executed based on how its told.

You need interesting characters with good dialogue and situations that actually narrate the plot. Repeating major plot points through explicit conversation over and over again is not only bad storytelling, it's annoying and borderline insulting to the players who have easily kept up with the story.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Fair enough.... How would you suggest I fix that issue? I felt that the dialogue scenes were important. If anything I blame any lack of quality on the fact that I was having to keep up with what 20+ people were thinking about at any given moment. One writer was obviously not enough.

Do keep in mind I did this entire project on my own other than the stuff I got from RPG Maker and the music which gets credit for where it came from and won't be in the full version.

 

[Pepe Silvia]

Honestly, if you can somehow pull it off, it might help to put a few facial expressions in the dialogue pictures: normal, happy, sad, and angry

Those usually help a bit with sprite dialogue, or do what GS did and put the thought-bubble emoticons

Also if someone forgets a key story point, there could be a notebook that has the story elements revealed when they are initally in the story, so they can just check up on it

 

[Dagger Dias]

Love both of those ideas. The faces will be tough to do but ill look into it. The notebook could fix the issue of repeated plot points AND keep lost people up to date. Tales of Symphonia did something like that and it worked great. I will have it to where whoever you chose at the beginning is who writes the diary. To make more replay value. Lara's would be more girly like a journal and Dagger's could be more like a notebook. This should also be full version exclusive.

 

[Pepe Silvia]

Fire Emblem did something like that, they'd only change the facial expression during conversations so you could better feel what the character was expressing, italics can only do so much

 

[Dagger Dias]

Checked out some of the videos, Lee. Clever thoughts on various references, but some are incorrect.... Rosa's named after Rosa from Final Fantasy 4, Kelly was not named after anyone, Serina was named after Sailor Moon, making only Trish and Beth named after divas. Ted Digliossi's name was actually meant to be similar to Degrassi not Dibiase. I never even noticed that. Also, Jeliko is an original name (pronounced Jah-lee-ko) and has nothing to do with Jericho. Then, "the LAMP is.... broken!" was just something random I threw in. It wasn't meant to reference anything. I'll try to watch a few more tomorrow after work.

On another note.... Charlie, is that supposed to be a parody of Flurry in your sig?

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

On another note.... Charlie, is that supposed to be a parody of Flurry in your sig?

Believe me, you got some more parodies coming.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Believe me, you got some more parodies coming.

Cool deal. Green rep for those that I like. By the way, are you still compiling notes? I'll have time this weekend probably to take a look at what you have so far.

 

[Serious Jones]

 

[Dagger Dias]

I'm surprised no one's asked who Sonja is yet. The person every shopkeep, barkeep, and innkeep speak of actually exists somewhere you know....