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Phew, that eye sure looks painful..
Hi everyone
hope you've all had a productive week!
I wanna talk today about Paul's content and the
first character end which just happens to be Paul's. Don't worry this character end
is a choice as are quite a few of the planned character ends scattered throughout the game. If you have played the most recent patch and are continuing down Paul's path I'm sure you can put the blocks together regarding what exactly spurred this choice to pop up ^_^
The basic gist of character ends is much like it sounds - it will end any future content with that character and it serves as a way to further individualize your version of Renshire and of Lisa's life in general.
This choice is only available to those on the Paul path so with this new inclusion we have 3 separate states in Lisa's house at the end of 2.70's content:
1: Paul's Route OFF
2: Paul's Route ON
3: Paul's Route ON / End 1 - Paul's gone.
This basically means that the only way to be rid of Paul at this particular point in the game is to first follow his path up until the cinema then begin the ejection process. This obviously carries over some weight to Connor & Mark as with Paul gone any content with those two in it will be quite different.
I don't expect this to be a particularly popular choice given that Paul's content is quite obviously about to begin ramping up but it is nonetheless an important choice for storytelling purposes and the real feeling of having important decisions to make. I also think this is a pretty good introduction to character ends as it's not quite as "explosive" as some of the others that have been written so far including another of Paul's endings to be discovered later.
And one last thing regarding Paul before I lay him to rest in these posts for a while; I know I've mentioned before many times about a rewrite for Lisa's motivations in that plotline - well I've been banging my head against the wall for the past week trying to write Viv a little deeper in some very pertinent story matter that happened before Lisa was born and I think I'm getting somewhere so just hold tight, even if it doesn't make it into 2.70 I will not move into Episode 3 with it still up in the air x
Well, over the past week or so I've been trying to relax a bit, I've been all over the place for a while now and I figured I probably needed a break. I actually installed a game I had wanted to try for a couple of years now (Sekiro) but I just can't take my mind off development so it's sort of left me in this odd state where I know I want to clear my head a bit but I'm still at my PC and the Daz & RPGM logos are just staring at me every time I boot the thing ^_^ one thing I did take from the short amount I played Sekiro is that it has an eavesdrop system which I've stolen for Lisa as a means of some subtle storytelling / hint-dropping which will be available to peruse in the 2.70 patch at the new Korean BBQ spot "Kwang-Ho's" in the West District.
I have spent somewhere around 10 hours putting together Kwang-Ho's in RPGM alone and it's very much unfinished still (it feels desperately complicated), I'm trying to make it feel vibrant and alive as a map despite it being quite small. The Eavesdrop events will activate when the chosen NPCs are talking, sometimes it will deactivate when the waiter is serving said customers or vice versa when the gossip includes the server. These NPCs / waiting routes are different every day too (though I think I'm gonna change it from days to entries instead). The restaurant and it's customers will also evolve as you progress through the story offering different insights and backgrounds depending on the events and choices you've made throughout your game. Without getting too ahead of myself and making this whole thing more complicated than it already is I think it'd also be interesting to use this setup to hint at more "hidden" content too but this is just an idea for now. Another interesting use for these NPCs would be if there was some quest that Lisa were on and it caused more options to appear when eavesdropping that could directly effect the outcome of the quest - it could even be a necessary thing to first introduce players to this little gossip "hub."
And all of that before including any of the actual events I'd like to throw together in Kwang-Ho's too
It's a cool theme I think, a culmination of so many things I've learned in RPGM since beginning, the only task now is to keep it as simple to understand as possible so I don't revisit the map later and be completely bewildered as to how I set it all up x)!
Though I haven't progressed much in Sekiro;
the little I have played of it opened my eyes to something new, something I've even taken to be used in my own project. Though it might sounds somewhat unproductive I do think it's probably in my best interest as a developer to actually play games, I have said to quite a few of you when you have recommended me games that I'd get around to it or something and I never do. Through the eyes of a developer I'm definitely looking at things differently than I was beforehand and that's really useful, I wonder how many other cool ideas I could steal.. >) lol!
In other news; somewhat linked to Kwang-Ho's - I've been working a little on the "Great Sage" side-quest which is a completely for fun quest in which Lisa hunts for the Great Sage's hat (it is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds and then some). I've put together most of the sprites for that quest now I just need to get some fun CG to go along with it. It'll be quite a lengthy quest that will take Lisa all over Renshire doing the hat's bidding. I did want to ask, though I'll probably do a poll when it's all implemented and released: Do you guys prefer if there isn't some completely
ridiculous stuff in the game? I was for a while trying to think of some interesting ways to use the engine to present FUN to your doorstep (no minigames). It's a silly question without you guys having seen it, I'll make a note to ask it again later ^_^
I'm not sure when 2.70 will be ready, right now I'm just trying to restabilize my mood and get back on top of the workload a little. I haven't even sat down and jotted out the list properly yet so all of the work I have been doing is here & there & everywhere, it's all just a bit of a mess atm. I need to go through my Daz folders and actually check off what's been done, honestly I'm just dizzy with it all lately - it's really not like me to be this disorganized ^_^ a release is definitely unlikely this month. There are a few hundred CG to be thrown in between 2.62-2.70 so it's probably a fair bit larger than the usual "Beta" updates and I genuinely have no idea how many CGs I've actually done so far - probably somewhere around 100 though a lot of my renders are coming out black for some reason. That's something I'll figure out and not to worry about (yet) anyway!
I hope this post has been balanced enough! ^_^ Sending my love to everyone <33 I; being a lucky lucky man am working all weekend. Oh and the AC in our office just isn't working apparently with probably the highest temps & humidity we've had all year so wish me luck!
) Have a brilliant weekend guys!! xo
//pG