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Looks like the site is up and working. (mostly)
I noticed a few glitches, and when you change any information or post anything, the site seems to glitch out but when you refresh, things seem to be working.

if this post ends up showing up, and you can login, reply to it. i know some people are having trouble logging in.

welcome! don't mind the low activity...
there are people here...
watching...
waiting...

People are acting like they have been flung into another parallel world, when its still the same one, they just have been blind to it. and that's everyone right now. even the people saying people are overreacting. its always been this way, we just weren't aware to what extent...

I've actually considered making both but....
Well the short answer is it depends on the town, some work better for one type over the other. but either way, the idea was for the final product to include the interiors in their entirity in some way.

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My very first idea i came up with was having the town its self being normal size, and when you go to walk into a building it teleport's you to the neither or another dimension, which contains that building interior.

however then i realized some dungeons actually fit within their outward appearance, like one of the towers you get one of the pieces of the trident. and still others like the Gabomba statue/dungeon, while smaller, has the exact correct proportions inside relative to the town. even going so far that the hidden entrance is in the same place in the town relative to the statue as it is to the dungeon inside. But for the Gabomba village, the statue is huge, but the town and insides of the buildings are small. so the town would end up getting a complete rework.

So what i ended up realizing is the best set up if someone were to do it would be building focused on the outward style of the buildings, with teleportation inside, UNLESS you want to get creative and make a more artistic recreation. however not every case is the same.

Also Like i said before, the Jupiter and Venus lighthouses are kinda amazing. they for the most part resemble a tower in their room design, getting smaller as you go up, with Jupiter going so far as having the outer walls of the lighthouse clearly defined from the inside.

but then the Mercury and Mars lighthouse have square rooms, and actually getting slightly bigger as you go up. with few actually vertical floors (though the mars lighthouse is a ton better about it then the mercury lighthouse.)

for example some builds like piers ship dungeon, actually resembles the shape of a ship, so building a ship out of it isn't impossible. then there dungeons like tundra tower that at first glance looks to be in the perfect shape of the tower... but has a dungeon floor that is impossible to build due to an over site.

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In the end you kinda need to work with each build. certain towns, like the ones with dungeons have extra issues if you want to include the dungeon in it.

I think i may actually write up a report with images before i finish work on this, just because staring at these maps for countless hours on end, i've noticed so many things that i've never seen brought up before. Like i have a theory that there was an extra room added to the Sol Sanctum later in development, after the dungeon was originally finished, which would explain the "odd level of detail" it has while still having one single room that is out of place, out of the way, and doesn't follow the entire rest of the dungeon's "odd level of detail".

Update: Since its been a while, i decided to just update the upload link.
Piers ship is now in the world, along with a... poor, half done, recreation of the ship with the dungeon inside of it.
I originally wanted to made the dungeon, and then have a full size recreation of the ship you could walk on and inside of, but my designing skills for building ships is, not that good, and i don't even feel like showing it in a picture.
if you want to find it or even try your hand at building the ship better, there's a stone path from the spawning platform that leads to what was going to be a full recreation area.
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Now...
This project isn't dead. I may have gotten a little frustrated with my lack of building skills and quit for a while, but i'm actually planning on starting again. My goal is to build the remaining lighthouses in their entirety, and finish up any builds i may have only half finished for whatever reason.

After that i may get on the world with one or two people and attempt to build the outer shell of the lighthouses and their surrounding landscape. just because I feel it would be cool to have a full 3d model we can walk around, and also finally get a true idea for the scale of the things. (cause there has been some debate over that)

from there If anything comes out of this, like that idea of building the world of golden sun... then that's up to someone else.

O ALSO. Not setting a deadline this time. Since i kinda have a part time job now, which doesn't have defined hours, i can't really say when i'll be able to work on this. so don't expect it any time soon.

So its been a little while. Figured i'd give an update.
I have a job now, which turns out to be similar to this project in nature. so that's currently taking up all my time.

Not that much more has been done so i'm not planning on updating the map just yet.

I'm in the middle of building a full size version of piers ship with the full dungeon inside. I wasn't happy with how it was turning out because my creative skills in minecraft are limited to copying something, not so much building from scratch.

If someone is really interested I might update the map so you can check it out anyway or try your hand at building the dungeons into their surroundings or whatever you want, but for now...

Rolina: about 28 for everyone. Maybe it's quite low. On Cartridge I finish the game between level 30 and 35 depending on how many fights I run from.

For a first play through i believe that 28 is too low. but multiple play through i think level 28 is kinda high.
I'm bad at strategy, i just spam stuff i think is good and i win. I've easily beaten the game, with no deaths at all, at level 19. it could have been lower except i leveled a bit before colosso because i every now and then mess it up and on that run i didn't want to mess it up.

I honestly don't know what to put the level of the first game at... since my first play through i sucked so bad, i wasn't able to beat it until i got to level 56 and even then it was a close call. really i think it depends on the person playing.

Piers ship is here and its looking... kinda plain... huh...
[spoiler]

Honestly there are several issues with this map, but i think i'll get into them at another time. for now i think i'll focus on the good things about the map. it looks amazing, it actually looks a lot like a ship, in fact i'm pretty sure i can build it into a ship... which i may do very soon. other then that, nothing i really learned from this that's different from other maps other then the fact base wood texture looks like crap[/spoiler]

Update of the world file will be on hold for now, mainly because there's some other work i need to do on it.... fixing things i had planed to but never did, fixing up the spawn area, adding some directions and messages that makes it easier to get around on the map. maybe some other builds that will be cool. you should see soon.

Lastly... i'd like an honest opinion from everyone who reads this. i don't like the solid wood texture of the ship. while i'm sure it would look better with some of the smaller details added in, i'm wondering if any of you think a different 'VANILLA MINECRAFT BLOCK" would look better in place of the floor or even the walls. maybe a lighter shade wood or a darker one. i don't know.
If you read this, please comment. if you have an idea for a different block, think it looks as good is it can for vanilla, or is fine, or you simply comment "I don't know" all of that is valuable input... cause honestly i'm lost with what to do when it comes to colors on these builds anymore.

List of things to look forward to:
piers ship full model (different thing then what i just posted)
updated detail on maps (should have been done before)
changes on blocks used thanks to 1.9 coming out (thank god)
Jupiter lighthouse (purple brick blocks 1.9 yay)
more regular updates (hmmmmmmmm...)

Unity has support for both c# and javascript. Unreal has support for blueprints (visual scripting) and c++.

if you want to get into programming, i do agree that you should start with those. they are super easy to learn and easy enough to understand at a glance. javascript its self is easy enough to learn that even if you are only mildly interested in the subject, that's the one you might want to check out.

When i was learning programming in high school, javascript is the one i did the best with, c++ was up there but javascript was the one that was easiest to learn.

look if you want more people to get into working with the code. i feel like people need to see what can be done with what has been found so far. i don't mean an explanation, i mean a video or pictures of changed game play.

I my self am not interested in the coding at all... i mean i dropped out of college for programming because i learned that i hated programming... which really i should have figured out sooner but... that's not important right now.

right now we have "hey we are working with the code so we can do more then the editor ever could" but most people won't join into that until they see something that inspires them to actually try their hand at it.
I may have totally missed it but i'm not sure i have seen anything like that yet (on this site)...

This is just my thoughts on this. thoughts of a person who really isn't helping, and doesn't plan to start coding again. just from the outside looking in, the stuff on the site just looks like theory's about the code, with nothing else to it.

I don't have that great of an interest in hacking golden sun anymore for a few reasons. but something i've been thinking about is how no one has really made a full hack of the game yet.

Like nothing on the level of a rom hack even. as far as it has gone so far is just little changes to dialog, and small stat changes. Its clear that some people are making clear progress into other areas that would 'open' tons of things up to people that are interested in doing so, but its still going to take a while.

I like the idea for a competition, however i'm not sure how many people would be able to pull it off. There are a few people i'm sure would have great success with this, however most of the active people i'm not totally sure could pull it off.

This is just my two cents on this despite having little to no ability (or want) to join in.

Welcome. I hope you enjoy silence, since that's what you will get by joining this site.
Though its a nice sign that we are still getting new members. Hopefully we can look forward to a more active site again.

hm, even still the lighthouses aren't small by any means. they also have slightly taller floors (i think) then most other structures.

Maybe first we should look into the strange level of detail some of the maps have.

something like tret's tree is kinda clear as the shape of the floors are the same making a tree, however something like the gabomba statue where its floors actually shape the the statue and the exits all match up relatively where they are on the town map.

its an odd level of detail to pay attention to when making a basically 2d, room segmented dungeon. its also weird because some dungeons simply ignore this, why others focus on it. for example, jupiter lighthouse's rooms outline the basic shape of the lighthouse, even having higher floors being smaller, however this is the only lighthouse that does this, its also the only lighthouse with rounded rooms. the only exception to this rule is the mars lighthouse's 4 side towers which all end up in their respective places.

another example is in the sol sanctum the sol and luna rooms in the main chamber and in the trap room are directly above each other, and swap luna and sol respectively. however in the same dungeon in the room south of the trap room is the room with the first non reusable psynergy stone, that room doesn't fit because its a few tiles bigger on the inside then the outside. why would everything else have such detail, but one room be completely off.

This is basically what i mean by golden sun having strange level of detail. certain things have a level of detail that on one would even notice if they didn't build it in 3d, however other things are easy to see are messed up or don't match just by playing the game... i'm not sure I understand the design details of golden sun anymore...

yep you need a jupiter only power to... climb the... lighthouse...

wait... if i'm looking at this right... there are only two places, or one room in all of jupiter lighthouse that you even have to use a jupiter only psynergy... and its only the access to the side paths that unseal the top of the lighthouse...

if that cap wasn't on the top they wouldn't have even needed a jupiter adapt like they said in the first game...
i'm also having a hard time believing that if they could blast apart the mercury lighthouse, then surly they could have blasted that cap off the jupiter lighthouse.
really they didn't even need a jupiter adapt...

so even if just dumping the star off at the bottom didn't work, they still could have easily done the lighthouse without the required adapt...

i reviewed the maps. the jupiter lighthouse is the only one with this sorta detail.
the only one with a clear path to the bottom. even more so, the mars lighthouse doesn't even have a possible path into the ground from the top because of how many bit rooms it has on the first floor, there isn't a space, in view or behind a wall where even the smallest path down would fit.

now at first i thought it was a total dead end but... then i read this.

The only thing I don't like about it, is that it is very Earth-based. By which I mean, why would the elemental star of jupiter be stuck in the ground?

that is weird, if not for the fact that Jupiter is the opposite element from earth.
could have some meaning.

from there I've been wondering if there is any other differences in the other lighthouses that hint to the opposite element. and there is. mars lighthouse is filled with ice.

though that's as far as i got. need to look into other ideas related to that though.

another weird thing is jupiter is the only lighthouse you don't teleport to the top.
and its weird because teleport, is a jupiter based psynergy, however its found in the mars lighthouse and used to get to the top. and even weirder is that mars is the only element that doesn't have a teleport psynergy. earth has Retreat, jupiter has Teleport, and mercury has the Warp that alex shows. (i may have gone of track so i'll get back to it)

you may be wondering why i'm bringing this up. well while there isn't a clear spot for the stars to fall on the other lighthouses. just like jupiter, the location that most looks like it would have a path down, relative to its position in the lighthouse, in all 4 lighthouses have important objects or devices along that path on the way down. in mars the thing in that spot is the first teleport pad you run into in the lighthouse, and above that is the fire-dragon fight. In mercury lighthouse its the statue you use ply on so you get the ability to walk on water. and in the venus lighthouse its the pannel on the floor that has a tree on it and looks sorta like a trap door.

all of these things are in roughly the correct place, and the ones that do have things right above them have them line up perfectly.

so here't my list of the path the stars take, though the ones not jupiter are more guess work cause i haven't done the math and counted the tiles yet.

jupiter: top of the lighthouse, device you activate with hover that turns on hover pads, spinny beam that takes you up a few floors in the central room, hole in the basement.

venus: top of the lighthouse, many many trapdoors with trees on them.

mercury: top of the lighthouse, the path you fall down to land on the statue you use ply on, the statue you use ply on.

mars: top of the lighthouse, twin fire dragon fight, teleport pad room.

for the others i may be looking too hard, but for venus, having looked into this i remembered thinking about this when i first played the game and was climbing the venus lighthouse. i wondered why the tree pannels only showed up so much and only in places right above each other, with them all directly in the center of the lighthouse and the first thing you see when you enter.

another thing i was thinking about...
while they clearly made it an option, did they want alchemy to be returned someday when they sealed it? like they clearly did since they kept the elemental stars... like if they didn't want to they could have just chucked them off the edge of the world. unless that too would have returned alchemy to the world.

The other thing is, if the stars are going down into the world, what are they doing?
like if you just leave the star on the ground too long would the power leak out of it? is that what the strange bags are for?

So apparently no one believes me that that's the path it takes.

While is possible my math is off by one or two tiles, that still isn't enough change the fact that this tunnel from top to bottom filled with important things to climbing the lighthouse with nothing really in the way (that we can see), its too big a coincidence in game design. not to mention most maps in golden sun I've noticed have a strange level of detail in certain places.

For arguments sake can we talk about it with the idea that it does align up perfectly in mind?
I'm not planning on building the actual lighthouse until minecraft 1.9 comes out so i can use the purple gem blocks that come in that update. so you will have a 3d visual representation at some point so for now, just go with what i'm claiming.



you guys do make some interesting points that other people off the site have also made to me. maybe it doesn't go all the way down and thats just the area for the energy to travel. however there is also the device on floor 5 that you activate with hover that is interesting. while at first it looks like its in the way of my so called path with maybe a one tile opening, i should remind you that when you use hover it looks like it sorta... opens up a little.

we know that at the top the lighthouse has a plug, so maybe there is a few things keeping you from lighting the lighthouse?

My thought was throwing the elemental stars down into the ground to put back the elemental power back into the earth/ground so it can fill the world. however the lighthouses take that energy and funnel it into an orb at the top and when all 4 are lit shoot it off to the mountain to form the golden sun...

but that seems like a weird way to do it, and from a game design way that's a normal kinda thing, but how it works seems odd, and from dark dawn there seems to be issues. (the golden sun being to powerful to even get close, and the black holes that are trying to eat all the energy)

why the energy needs to come from the ground is a good question...

So I was doing some math trying to figure out one of the maps for my Minecraft golden sun project, and i noticed something odd about the Jupiter lighthouse.

Its hard to explain, but basically i noticed a clear path the elemental star travels when thrown into the lighthouse. and while the level of detail put into this map is amazing for it to align 'perfectly'... :( its where the Jupiter star ends up that got me wondering. take a look at this picture showing the path the star takes.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

As you can see it ends up going into an endless pit of sorts in the basement floor of the lighthouse, and while that's interesting in its self and is worth discussing for lore and the like, the problem comes in when you realize... you pass this room before you even officially enter the lighthouse.

if the end goal is to chuck the elemental stars into the ground... why did we climb the lighthouses...

Hm... i think I'd give it 3 or 4 stars. nothing overly bad happened.
and if its for sure not a bad year, it might as well have been a good year.

I'm interested, what would you use to judge if a year was good or not? are there specific events you think of or look back on, or things you like that were good, like i said, it was apparently a really good year for video games (and i like video games, so that's a plus)... maybe more personal stuff, or some combination of all of that.

O well in that case, its a completely average year, that i don't feel strongly about one way or another.

really i don't know if it was a good or bad year.
I keep going back and forth and can't make up my mind.
Good stuff happened and bad stuff happened, it was a year like all others.

Maybe i'm just jaded...