Please comment story here

[Saturos]

To make story redable by chapters comments of what is wrong or something put here.
If you have made good contune of the story post it in other topic.
Thanks for understanding.

[Thunder-squall]

Housekeeping

1. Edit your OP (Original Post) in order to include a link to the story post:
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2404.0

2. Edit the OP of the story thread in order to include a link to this thread, explaining that this is where you would like comments to be made.
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2406.0

Game Play, and Player Protagonists

Like with the original Golden Sun, the intro needs to be interactive and playable.  It is also a good opportunity to introduce players to psiEnergy.

I would have the players be soldiers in the defending army, using psiEnergy to trigger the canons, and clear away rubble, and get supplies to their fellow soldiers, etc.  When the attacking army invades, have the player (and his friend) separated from the main defense force, and told to run off and perform some special quest.  Something standard like keep some artifact safe, helping a royal escape, or getting a message out.  If you want to be deviant, you could give all three of these options to players, and have them pick only one to start with. (Although, from a gameplay perspective I'd give players a chance to come back and do the other stuff later.)

Alternately, if the player isn't a soldier, then he can be a towns person (maybe a farmer) who happens to be around and is just helping out.  It makes sense to have three friends who are part of a 'youth brigade,' and are helping to put out fires across town, caused by the bombardment from the attacking forces.  Although it that's the route you want to go, then it makes sense to introduce the idea that the enemy has a powerful weapon like an earthquake-machine, and that's what's causing widespread destruction across the town, and not just at the castle.  I think the soldier option is the easier and more versatile one to go with, given that you don't have an overall plot worked out yet.

Either way, a Venus Adept is a great choice for the player character, as someone who can move away rubble, or use Pull to get across gaps, and so forth.  And having a Mars Adept companion as a fellow soldier makes obvious sense too, and is the standard GS way of doing things.  A Jupiter Adept makes a lot of sense if you're escaping the castle with a scholar, but a Mercury Adept makes more sense if you're rescuing people in the town.

Alternate characters

But if you want to do something a little different (which is what I want to do), and since the first objectives are to escape from the invading forces, rather than have the fire adept be a straight forward fighting type, have him be a sneaky rogue, perhaps a turncoat or double agent of the attacking Mars army.

I think of him as Smoke or smouldering, as opposed to fire.  
If you say something witty to him, he might say "ooo, that burns.."  
If you come across him in a dark sewer he might say "Don't worry, I am the light in the darkness."

And I think he raises a good opportunity for stealth-style psiEnergy puzzles.  If among the first set of psiEnergy puzzles are escaping from a castle, then it would be cool to start off with psiEnergy abilities like smokescreen (Mars) or suggestion (Jupiter), where instead of moving stacks of stone, you can give NPCs suggestions to change their movement patterns, or to look in a particular direction.  If I'm not mistaken, those kind of NPC oriented puzzles are easy enough to pull off in RPG Maker, which is the tool most people seem to be considering for this project.

This of course brings up the alternate Jupiter Adept that's capable of using Suggestion...  I'm imagining a hyper intellectual individual who also has a dark beast side to unleash (a were wolf transformation).  Maybe also an inventor of gadgets making use of electricity. Basically the all-around crazy scientist type.  This would be the berserker (unlike previous Jupiter adepts), and also reflects the more steam-age side that I imagine Dark Dawn was evolving towards.  If that's indeed where the story is set, that is.

Fan speculation and foreshadowing

I should point out the obvious, that the alternate fire and wind adepts have hints that they're related to light energy and dark energy, respectively.  I don't know where the story is going, or how light and dark energy may factor into it, but I like having two characters who immediately foreshadow and tease this development.

[Thunder-squall]

Quick suggestion on using the alternative characters to create the first party:

- Earth Adept is a rookie soldier in a castle under siege.  When the castle falls, he is told to escape.

- Fire Adept helps Earth Adept escape.  He is a supporting character. (Rogue)

- In order to escape, the two need to find the Jupiter Adept. (Brainiac and Berserker)

- The three are chased by a Water Adept commander of the attacking army. She's cool and in command.

- But then an accident causes all of them to be stuck together.

Hilarity ensues.

[Saturos]

you gave me some cool ideas.
I appreciate this.
So I think story contune like this...
Battle theme which is in story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udkBXtla2K0

[Thunder-squall]

I still don't have a clear idea of who's been conquered, and who's doing the conquering.

What does it mean that the castle has fallen?  Does it now mean that the village is now under control of the new government?  What do they want?  Are they going to govern the village well, or did they conquer the castle because they're looking for something specific? I.e. do they want all adepts in the village to be turned in, or are they looking for an artifact, or a book, or a specific engineer who can build them a weapon, or an architect who can uncover the secrets of an old dungeon?

If I were designing missions, I'd let players either find a way to do something for the villagers, or do something so that they themselves may escape.

From a story perspective, this where the personalities and motives behind the characters need to be established.  We also need to have a strongly defined sense of place.  I personally can't do more until I have some idea of the overall bug picture of what's going on.

[Rolina]

Before I talk about story, could you clear me up on what the setting you set up was?  Or direct me to it?

[Thunder-squall]

I think he's making it up as he goes.  I assume it's all Weyard in the future.  Or an alternate world that's like Weyard.

[Rolina]

Eh, my philosophy is to create the setting first and to take inspiration from that for the story.  That's why I asked.

[Thunder-squall]

I don't think doing the opposite is impossible.  Often times people have ideas for scenes or events, and then create a world around those.  So far we've got an invasion, and we know there are mars adepts involved. That's not a bad starting point.

But really I'm kind of disheartened now, knowing that there's probably not a big idea.  I'm pretty free spirited myself, but I like having a plan, or at least making one.  I don't think "play by post" is a great way to make an RPG epic in this instance.

[Rolina]

Not impossible, but not ideal.  You want to start first with worldbuilding, then branch out to characters and story.  It makes things a lot easier, and flow much smoother.

[Saturos]

Ah yes.I am sorry that I was secretive but now I think that it all is like this.
Story takes place beforealchemy was sealed.Ancient civilisations etc.
There is big war of alchemy.One big emperor warrior of sol is going to take control upon full weyard but other clans are against it other are for it.
Mars clan are ally of sol clan and they are fighting against other clans are fighting in their fortresses against sol and mars clans.
War is going so far that it is unbearable.Our hero Trevor is wandering towards to anemos and he gets companions.
Girl from nearby village.Mercury adept.
Calm men from Jupiter fortress.
Mars warrior after undersanding some things mars adept.
In anemos they ask what to do.
To solve this question they head to Lemuria and in there are big discusion. they decease to seal alchemy...
Other things we think out later.

[Thunder-squall]

That's a good start.  So we need to make up some stuff about the old culture, and then figure out why some one might want something else.  What are the emperor's motives?

I think it definitely has to focus on the balance between Luna and Sol, and perhaps those should be the two forces.

In Dark Dawn, we see that Dark energy is chaotic, but maybe once upon a time it was peaceful and gentle, before the spirits became enraged -- I'd like to see that gentle side of Luna very much.

I'd like the culture and symbolism to represent whatever the pagan stuff was prior to being incorporated by the empire.  So governance will likely be divided into light/ dark cycles, or perhaps there'll be a consistent matriarchy with passing sons (a friend described something like this a long time ago, but I confess I wasn't paying attention)

The 'Ancient One' must feature heavily, but I know very little about him.

I'd also like to have a better explanation of djin and adepts, and what sets them apart.  It might be cool for Jupiter Adepts to betray Luna, and thus forever bare a curse from her (ie Garoh)

[Saturos]

I like this idea and to think about it you can help a lot in story so
I give you permission to write your scenario in other topic.

[Rolina]

In Dark Dawn, we see that Dark energy is chaotic, but maybe once upon a time it was peaceful and gentle, before the spirits became enraged -- I'd like to see that gentle side of Luna very much.

???  You see it all the time.  The light is oppressive and bears down on you, which is why you seek the shade on hot days.  The light prefers rigid, unchanging structure, while the darkness encourages freedom and creativity.

I don't know what kind of twisted prejudices you have against Luna, but it's kind of making me uncomfortable.

[Saturos]

I just made improvements to story so it is moving.
Role:I think that Thunder-squall wish to say that
light is what is chaotic but Luna is wonderfull thing
but camelot made Luna element chaotic.
As I say evil isn't existing

[Today]

Today at 16:40:10

Luna_blade: @Saturos: Your english exams?

[Today]

Today at 16:33:40

Teawater: Can't remember exactly what shae of yellow it was, so not sure it would be too close or not.

[Today]

Today at 16:30:58

Teawater: @KoP: Wouldn't Shiny Gold be for the Sol Clan?

[Today]

Today at 15:37:37

Salanewt: Oh wait, tag doesn't work down here. But yeah, how is your hack going Jamie?

[Today]

Today at 15:37:00

Salanewt: [me] considers giving him the Sol Blade...

[Today]

Today at 15:36:00

Salanewt: Oh my. To be honest though, I'd be more likely to give Briggs stuff from later regions; him being a pirate from another continent and all.

[Today]

Today at 09:36:58

JamietheFlameUser: How not to design boss fights: give human-type bosses stats and equipment on par for what the Editor says their level is and what equipment is available where they're from. You get stuff like an actually scaled to level 21 Briggs with a Great Sword, Silver Plate, Silver Helm, Vambrace, and Leather Boots. God, that was BS.

[Today]

Today at 09:09:49

Saturos: Wow first part of exam is ower (in english) tomorow speaking part.

[Today]

Today at 07:11:35

JamietheFlameUser: Eh, I didn't know the exact chance of Curse screwing you over. Still, that 6% chance to fail to act at all could screw you over when it matters most. The obvious solution, of course, is to stick that armour on a character who doesn't do anything but spam attack moves anyway.

[Today]

Today at 07:10:52

leaf: ...assuming I'm remembering the chance of curse taking effect correctly as 25%

[Today]

Today at 07:09:50

leaf: in fact, you get two turns the majority of the time (~56%), and only completely fail to act ~6%, the remainder of the time getting one action

[Today]

Today at 07:07:49

leaf: I like that stealth armor buff. it wouldn't make sense to do that with the clerics ring available, but if you remove that, it's actually an interesting item. On average, you get ~1.5 turns per round. it's potentially very strong, but carries risks

[Today]

Today at 07:04:59

leaf: lol

[Today]

Today at 06:39:21

JamietheFlameUser: Reading the Venus Psynergy topic and 'lol'ing at Role's reaction to a very simple spell idea I'd had (and still think is awesome), where rock explodes out of the ground from a single point in a focused, cone-shaped burst. Role read me the riot act about not combining elements again. lol.

[Today]

Today at 06:17:58

JamietheFlameUser: Well, one thing I came up with that was actually potentially cool is a modification to the Stealth Armour. I gave it +1 turns, under the assumption that the Cleric's Ring would be removed. You might get 2 actions that round, or 1 action, or maybe no actions at all! RNG at its finest.

[Today]

Today at 06:15:32

Knight of Purgatory: Nice orange text kain. Maybe it should be a shiny gold

[Today]

Today at 06:03:40

leaf: I concur. There isn't much I'd consider worth salvaging from dc in terms of work done, but reading the old threads can be quite amusing

[Today]

Today at 06:01:48

JamietheFlameUser: LOL I'm looking at the DCrisis Items/Equipment section. Role and I were both so immature about it (me especially) that it's hilarious in hindsight.

[Today]

Today at 01:49:48

Knight of Purgatory: Then i think i'll take the entire shop, item and equipment section

[Yesterday]

Yesterday at 23:25:55

Teawater: @Kain: That's certainly nice to know. :)  Poetry time, I go.  Eventually, things will be in automation. As long as there's no procrastination. In the future, say hello to Mr. Name Charger. Don't worry, it's not a Danger. There'll also be Mr. Clan Swapper.  It might make people hyper..... (Or does the best refer to something else? Like the badge shop?)

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