P21/22/23 - Yeah. I don't really have any further comments than I already made.

P24
1) Not at all interested in her.
2) Yeah, develop her. I'm sure someone would be interested in her.

Quote: Original post by 5MinuteGaming
I think we should have at least one RNPC from each race that isn't so Heroically created like they are secluded and away from society and outcast or are hated by a large number of people. We should have a few that hang around NPCs or their own race they conform to the status quo. And the player would be attracted to them. Most characters in adventure stories are detached from all ties. We should have some where they wouldn't normally go outside their boundaries to fall in love with someone like the PC yet you can possibly charm them and get them to like you.

I don't think anyone disagrees with this, Avatar God was just saying we need some normal characters and this is about the same thing. Lion and Kitten are this for the magicals, but the very fact that they are normal means that I'm not very inspired to work on them. Also, I think that I shouldn't be the one to develop Kitten because I'm not attracted to that innocent, happy type of person - she should be developed by someone who has a better idea what would make her attractive. I really think that for things to be fair we each ought to develop about 2 characters. Of those 2 should be male magicals, 3 female magicals, 1 is the human who is of the opposite gender to the PC, 3 technos, and 1 spiritual who can be seduced back to being a mortal - that adds up to 10.

So of the two male magicals, one should be happy as a magical an one should not - Lion and Skew. Previously I said that there should also be a shy, sweet, loyal male, but that character is kind of girly anyway and can be implemented as a techno.

Currently proposed female magicals are Kitten, Frquency, and Mana - I think that Frequency and Mana are too similar. Shouldn't we have one female character who is fiery? That seems to be a type that appeals to many men...?

Currently proposed technos include Bunny, Case, and several other characters who need their personalities to be described better before I can comment on them. There's a task for 5MG and OnyxFlame [edit: sorryfor the wrong-name typo!] : figure out what the type of love is for each of your characters.

Currently proposed spirituals include Mivonistova, whom I suggest should be a regular (but important) NPC instead because, erm... it? ...is not seducable. And we need to propose a spiritual character who's personality is such that is can be seduced back to being a mortal.




About the _Title: Longer Phrase Here_ format, the reason this format is extremely common among computer games is that it's very functional. The first word is the title proper, will be printed huge on the box, and is how everyone will refer to the game, while the subtitle is printed below in small letters, giving more info to intrigue gamers like me who are suspicious and want to know more about what I'm buying - for me the word alone ISN'T good enough, an elaboration IS required. Note that the colon is not printed on the box at all [As Avatar God just demonstrated so nicely, thank you AG :) ], and is only used to note the separation between title and subtitle when writing them in plain text.

_Xenallure: A Puzzle of Hearts_ is not unusually long for a game title - look at these examples:

_Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh_
_Myst III: Exile: The Perfect Place to Plan Revenge_
_Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness_
_Harvest Moon: Back to Nature_
_Leisure Suit Larry: Love For Sail_

So Estok, why don't you submit some title ideas so we can see what kind of titles you like?

[Edited by - sunandshadow on November 23, 2004 12:40:53 AM]

The kind of character that I like:

Unconditionally kind
Somewhat shy in groups, but still confident
Creative
Intelligent
Loyal
Self-disciplined (works to be good at things)
Passionate
(Not a wind-surfer [smile])

Does this fit in with any of our current characters? ...and if not, do you think it would be worth making one?

Quote: Original post by Avatar God
The kind of character that I like:

Unconditionally kind
Somewhat shy in groups, but still confident
Creative
Intelligent
Loyal
Self-disciplined (works to be good at things)
Passionate
(Not a wind-surfer [smile])

Does this fit in with any of our current characters? ...and if not, do you think it would be worth making one?

Hmm. Kitten is most of those things - not particularly intelligent and probably not too passionate - kind people are almost never passionate and vice versa. What kind of passionate appeals to you, there are different kinds? Anyway you can have Kitten to develop if you want her.

Quote: Original post by 5MinuteGaming

Quote: I am unable to reply to P20 because I don't know what timeline 5M was referring to.

I was refering to the Timelines that SunandShadow has proposed and also the Original timeline of events that I proposed and also the different avenues that you proposed and avatarGod and onyxflame.

1) Humans never left earth
2) Humans deserted earth and then came back eons later
3) proto - Technos left in a ship and stayed in space
4) proto - Magicals left in a ship and colonized another planet
5) proto - Spirituals left in a ship and colonized another planet
6) proto - Spirituals transcended from earth
7) Apocalpyse caused Mutations and formed the Three races
8) AI took over earth and war ensued resulting in the Three races

are their any that I forgot here?

Is this one timeline or eight timelines? This is the original P20:

Quote: Timeline from now(2004) to game starting point for:
1. Technos
2. Magicals
3. Spirituals
4. Humans
I think that we should keep all our ideas seperate and then choose a compromise from them for the actual occurance. during the game we should suggest each background idea to the PC and then by the end of many game+(s) they discover the true background but they will still not know that it is the actual occurance unless they find the evidence to support it.

I was expecting that you had proposed a specific timeline for us to comment on.

Quote: I do neccessarily like Forstborn for what we have created so far. Frost-Burn would be more appropriate. "The Frost Burn Scourge" - aih my head is exploding from trying to make Estok happy. I don't think it can be done unless you actually give us a suggestion of your own which you haven't. I don't care whether we haven't ironed out all the details just give 'some' feedback.

I mean you don't seem happy with the direction this is headed. And I'm personally not happy with it either. I'm not entirely attracted to SnS's style of gameplay and all that anime element but I'm trying to figure out comprosemises. Now if we could agree that we should use P20 then awesome :) lets do it.

Don't start compromising before having all the ideas out. From my point of view we are not at the position where we compromise. Your job is not to make me happy but to continue define what you want. In many ways I already gave feedbacks and told us what I wanted. For the title I think that it is too early to get one. But to show you the type of style I like, it is as follow:

The title has to reflect the central idea of the game, therefore it would require the central idea to exist soundly before the title exists. For example, if we stick to the original idea of human being frozen, I would just call the game 'Cryo'. The Technos and Magicals call these human Cryos, and the player would be inclinded to think that the title 'Cryo' simply refer to these humans. But as the game progress, the player will discover the deeper meaning, and at the end the player will understand what the Cryos are symbolic of, what is being frozen, and what is being given a chance of rebirth. One central idea of the game can be how sometimes problems cannot be solved by any effort but time. To those that want to solve the problem immediately, it would seem that those put the problem aside are just indifferent. Only through time can they understand the effort behind not putting any effort.

Quote: And if you don't want to drive the discussion Estok cause you're afraid that our views may differ so much as you have been holding back responses all along then we could never hope to incorporate your ideas. You seems to be spending a lot of time trying to find ways of telling us what you want this game to be like that you can't just come out and say. "I thought it would work like this" instead of, "I don't like this, that, or the other thing, lets do a style test." I'm just asking for some ideas here.

I am not afraid that my view is different. I already posted what my view are, and I continued to give ideas (Frequency). After the post on Skew's subplot the thread blew out of proportion. It was just S/S and me talking all the time. This is why I said I don't want to drive the discussion, because it ends up just s/s and I talking. And I stated very explicitly that I am just waiting to see what others' responses are what what theirs focuses are before I comment. Again, I have been giving ideas all along and suggestions in the form of "I thought it would work like this". But sometimes you just focus on the "I don't like this" part of the comments, and on top of that you seem to miss the reasons I gave behind why I don't like them.

Quote:

Quote: Estok
I haven't been posting because this is really a waste of time to reply. Most of the times the differences are very small. It could have been solved instantly if we conversed in a more direct way. For example: ...

No kidding. What do you want to do, conference call every night at 7:30 GMT? If you don't make the small changes, then they'll never get made (and you lose your privelege to complain).

If you check the times of the posts (two weeks before) a lot of times we are actually online at the same time. There are situations that we simply post one right after another, but the sad thing is that what we post are just clarifications or the exact same time worded differently. I am not opposing to making small changes. But if you read the example, s/s was just repeating the exact same idea. Between s/s and my idea there were no difference, but we are taking the time to post them as if they are different.

Quote: I haven't been replying much because I'm low on time - and patience. Perhaps if you were a little less prone to dismiss anything you disagree with outright (Estok!) then the discussion might go a little better.

Most of the time I clarify before I disagree. And for those I disagree I have reason to back them. Disagreement is inevitable in a discussion. I don't expect there to be no disagreement. For my own proposals, P24, I outright gave opportunity for us to disagree on. There are legitimate reasons to not only not interested in the character, but also to not support the development of the character.

Quote: Original post by Estok
the sad thing is that what we post are just clarifications or the exact same time worded differently. I am not opposing to making small changes. But if you read the example, s/s was just repeating the exact same idea. Between s/s and my idea there were no difference, but we are taking the time to post them as if they are different.

Ahem, that's not a good example - I intentionally rephrased what you wrote because the way you phrased it was hopelessly confusing. I can't think of one instance in which I wasted more than 10 seconds of effort writing something that another person was posting concurrently. What really wastes everyone's time is when you wait till the rest of us have a general consensus about what the races are and then say you want something totally different. Now I don't want you to feel like everyone's yelling at you, because we have kind of ganged up on you in the last few posts. But maybe you should consider that if we are ALL telling you to clearly state what you desire this game to be, maybe it really is necessary. You refraining from posting so as not to drive the design process is not the answer - what we need is Onyxflame and Avatar God to post more, and everyone to be actively creating a RNPC and their subplot, so that we are ALL driving the design process.

I also think it would be really helpful if everyone would do this hypothetical game review exercise, so we would all be better able to understand what each other want this game to be, and then we will be able to make better suggestons for how to compromise to make everyone happy. And it definitely IS time to compromise - we haven't added anything to the game design doc in almost a month because we are all stuck disagreeing and directionless. If we don't get that sorted out people will get sick of making no progress, everyone will post less and less, until there is no collaborative game design project and 2 months of work goes up in smoke - I am very afraid of this.



As for titles, we certainly know enough about what's going to be n the game to choose a working title, and we can always vote to change it later. But even as an example, _Cryo_ is an awful title. It's way too simple and short and not intriguing at all. If you don't want to create a new word, you to least need to use regular words in unusual juxtposition to each other to make players curious, and in order to use words in juxtaposition to each other, you have to have more than 1 word. _Cryo_ doesn't communicate at all the fact that the game focuses on romancing 'aliens'.

Here's a compromise suggestion: how about we make the PC's last name be Heartkey (the player can choose the first name), and call the game _Heartkey_, or _The Heartkey Tapestry_ or something like that?

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Currently proposed female magicals are Kitten, Frquency, and Mana - I think that Frequency and Mana are too similar. Shouldn't we have one female character who is fiery? That seems to be a type that appeals to many men...?

In the beginning of this thread I said that I want a character with double identity. Mana is such a character. Mana has a kind, compassionate, healing side, and a death and destruction side. Frequency has a self-withdrawn, exhausted side and a valorous, enegetic side.

Quote: There's a task for 5MG and Estok: figure out what the type of love is for each of your characters.

I don't understand this task. I think I asked the same question before. What types are there to choose from? If you were to assign a type of love to Frequency what would you assign?

Quote: _Xenallure: A Puzzle of Hearts_ is not unusually long for a game title - look at these examples:

_Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh_
_Myst III: Exile: The Perfect Place to Plan Revenge_
_Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness_
_Harvest Moon: Back to Nature_
_Leisure Suit Larry: Love For Sail_

So Estok, why don't you submit some title ideas so we can see what kind of titles you like?

Titles that are part of a series are exempted. In addition, for the titles you chose, the subtitle phrases serve as a punchline or a catch phrase. This effect does not exist in "Xenallure: A puzzle of Hearts". For me an elaboration is redundant. For example, "Schlinder's List: The Jews he saved". Being extremely common doesn't necessarily mean that it is good.

I did a casual search and I think that most of the titles on this list have a cleaner and better stytle.

Quote: Original post by Estok
Most of the time I clarify before I disagree. And for those I disagree I have reason to back them. Disagreement is inevitable in a discussion. I don't expect there to be no disagreement. For my own proposals, P24, I outright gave opportunity for us to disagree on. There are legitimate reasons to not only not interested in the character, but also to not support the development of the character.

Cool.

I suppose it would have been more helpful to give reasons for not liking P24, so here goes.

I'm not attracted to wind-surfers. And that about sums it up. Well, okay, I don't like her personality.

Regarding the timelines. There were other timelines out there, but I think 5MG was simply saying that we needed to define a timeline, and they needed to be made as seperate entries into the OPRL (though none of them were entered) and then replied to.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow

Quote: Original post by Avatar God
The kind of character that I like:

Unconditionally kind
Somewhat shy in groups, but still confident
Creative
Intelligent
Loyal
Self-disciplined (works to be good at things)
Passionate
(Not a wind-surfer [smile])

Does this fit in with any of our current characters? ...and if not, do you think it would be worth making one?

Hmm. Kitten is most of those things - not particularly intelligent and probably not too passionate - kind people are almost never passionate and vice versa. What kind of passionate appeals to you, there are different kinds? Anyway you can have Kitten to develop if you want her.

Yay Kitten! Actually, I really only meant intelligent to a certain extent, I probably meant perceptive. And passion about... what she does, I guess.