Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Drinking

I have a problem with alcohol. No, I don't have a problem with people who drink alcohol, I just have a problem with it.

And it angers me most of all when someone tries to put it in my drink without my consent. I don't like it when people try to fool me saying there's something that's in there when it's not.

I don't like parties. Or people.

I don't drink for a reason. And it has nothing with me being a goody-two-shoes or anything like that. Personal family reasons I'd rather not discuss here.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Selatria - Development Blog Post 8/21

Download Chapter 1 Demo Here
Selatria Development Team Credits
Open Positions for Selatria Development Team



Chapter 1 development is being polished, and we're doing the groundwork for Chapter 2. I'm hoping to be finished with that in the end of November.

Chapter 2 Gameplay Screenies:
A lot of this is very early in development, likely to change.






Music:

Christopher Nuño, one of our team composers, came up with a new theme for cutscenes. I've uploaded a sample, check it out.

 


Team Recruitment:

Remember the post about open spots in the Selatria Development Team? We posted  a thread for recruitment for Selatria team members on the Voice Acting Alliance. From what I understand, we aren't getting much luck there outside from voice talent, so I'm going to try something new and see if we can get talent from IndieDB.

One of the main talent that we're missing from the team is a good environmental artist to change the look of the grass, the sand, the trees, the water, in order to have an original look for Selatria.

Though, on the other hand, there was a recent post that really inspired me. Reynard Frost, a game developer who worked on the game "Ruins of Rydos" was interviewed by RPG Maker Web, and this question was asked:

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Q: What one thing do you think is important for all RPG Maker developers to keep in mind?
A: The one piece of advice I’d share with everyone is to “Work with what you have”. A lot of folks kind of sit on their laurels waiting for everything to be perfect or to have this ideal amount of people helping them or ideal amount of resources. You’ll never finish your game with a mindset like that. You need to use what you have, and make the best you can with it. If you get some extra help, fine. But work on what you can and make the best of it. It’s better to have a finished product that’s rough than an unfinished mess that’s only partially perfect.


 ---

Work with what you have. I have to take some of that advice.




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Monday, August 13, 2012

Selatria v1.2 Improvements


Download v1.2 of Selatria here.

Changes/Modifications:

-The version of the game is now displayed in the lower-left corner of the title screen.
-Difficulty on Chapter 1-4 has been adjusted.
-Difficulty on Chapter 1-5 has been adjusted.
-Animations for some enemies have been changed.
-New "Head" accessories are now available for Melanie and Number 016.
-New quests have been added.
-New treasure chests have been added.
-New key item has been added that allows voices to be toggled at any time.
-"Wanted Species" and "Rare Monsters" have been renamed to a unified "Uncommon Enemy".
-Properties of certain weapons have been changed.

Fixed Bugs:

-An issue where the guard would reset to her original position after changing areas from Melanie's Cell has been fixed.

-An issue where Number 015 had no status weaknesses has been fixed.

-An issue where "Shade" and "Divine" did too much damage has been addressed.


Friday, August 10, 2012

Mellow

Ever get the feeling where you're just too tired to do anything?

I think I've reached that point. The past couple of days I wanted nothing to do but sleep. I'm hoping I can spend most of today getting a promotional package for Selatria going. I need to get a good collection of gameplay pictures, music samples, and gameplay videos to entice people to join the team.

Just need a few more artists. Hell, we always need artists.

I also went to a funeral for a distant cousin of mine. You know, being angry and holding grudges against people becomes meaningless when we're all going to end up at the same place in 100 years. Sometimes it's better to just not be angry and accept people for who they are within reason.

If everyone could just do that, the world would be a better place.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Companionship

I'm growing more and more away from the idea of a relationship, to wanting something more casual, it seems.

The idea/concept of singular commitment to another person doesn't really settle right with me.

Maybe what I'm just looking for is someone I can talk to and listen and be able to have a good heart-to-heart conversation, someone who is there for me if I need her.

No romantic attachments, no sex, just a close companionship with a female.

Or maybe I'm a unique case.




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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

My Final Fantasy XIV 1.23 Adventures



In the last week, the last update for the 1.0 version of Final Fantasy XIV launched, bringing a lot of additions and wrapping up things before the reboot. The reboot of FFXIV was also announced, called "A Realm Reborn", and will be launched late this year-early next year. Check out the trailer if you haven't.





New Music in Patch 1.23:

Nael Van Darnus Fight (Phase 1) : Formerly the Coerthas Leve Theme



Nael Van Darnus Fight / Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 Final Boss Battle (Phase 2) : Entirely New Track



Nael Van Darnus -- The Final Fantasy XIV Seventh Umbral Era Storyline Finale
(Contains Spoilers!)

I know a lot of people reading this probably won't be playing until the reboot version is launched. Note that this mission will be unavailable after the launch of "A Realm Reborn". This is because this serves to tie up the pre-relaunch storyline, and after the reboot, meteor will have already crashed. This serves as the final prequel mission of sorts. If you're still playing, I would recommend skipping this part to avoid spoilers. If you don't plan on playing until the reboot, read for some background information.

Nael Van Darnus is a Garlean Imperial who wanted to purge the land of Primals by summoning Eorzea's second moon (Dalamud) to wipe them from existence. In the Patch 1.22 previous storyline quest, we had to storm the Imperial stronghold of Castrum Novum to de-activate the lunar transmitter that was bringing Dalamud closer and closer to crashing with Eorzea.

In this storyline quest, Nael Van Darnus found a way to get to Rivenroad (the floating island archipelago) in order to summon small baby meteors upon Coerthas from parent meteor Dalamud.


Something a lot of people don't notice is that in his fight he says lots of quotes like "I will return back to nothingness". Most of his quotes are nod backs to older Final Fantasy games. I know the one I mentioned comes from Final Fantasy V, where some other quotes come from Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy XII.

According to Wikia, he uses the phrase "mummer's farce", a phrase also used in Final Fantasy XII.

There's also scenes where he's walking through the fire in 1.22 which is a clear nod to Sephiroth from VII.

But enough about nostalgia, on to the mission/boss itself. Note that the videos only contain the cutscenes pertaining to the mission. The screenshots of the fight are below. Beware of spoilers. I would recommend watching in High Quality on the links themselves. The embeeded low-quality versions here don't do it justice.

Part 1
Part 2





Phase 1:



Phase 2:






See the meteorites? He calls them down to assist him. They need to be nuked down with Thunder combos. If they land on the battlefield, the whole party takes a massive amount of damage. It also adds damage to Megaflare (his ultimate move- Bahamut reference) if too many land on the battlefield. My job as Black Mage is to nuke down Nael Van Darnus, and run up the stairs to nuke down meteors. Originally we only had both Black Mages on Meteor duty, but now we have one (usually me) that nukes the hell out of the boss until the meteors become too much to handle with only one Black Mage.


Skirmish:

The 1.23 update added Skirmish which is a small-scale end-game event. There are two zones: Locke's Lie and Turtleback Island.

Locke's Lie is an island that houses lots of small-scale Notorious Monsters. They're scattered throughout the island in near a star-shape. The objective is to go around as a full party of 8, speed-killing all of them to spawn a giant tree in the middle of the island that likes to reset hate frequently and put the tank to sleep.

Locke's Lie:





Turtleback Island is also an island (but literally empty. Only a few palm trees and no caverns) They have bigger ferocious monsters that must be dealt with quickly in succession before the next one spawns. We've almost gone all wins except for one time where we wiped to Chimera because we were too close.

Turtleback Island:







The reward for Skirmish are some pretty good high-level weapons. They need to be melded with materia to be useful though. One weapon is guaranteed to drop to one random party member, and sometimes two drop.


XIV Summerfest Festival:

It's pretty fun, and this comes from someone who traditionally hates little events. They added /firedance (see video below) and you have to use that on approaching bombs to kill them. You get different colored Yukatas for defeating them.

Check out this dancing glitch.




And that's about it on my report for adventures. Catch me on Lodestone, and follow me! I would appreciate it greatly.


-Grover Eyeveen of Viva Eorzea Linkshell -- Aegis Server