Qhimm.com Forums
Miscellaneous Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Senti on 2010-08-31 18:31:00
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Been entertaining the idea of using the UDK (Unreal Development Kit) to recreate FFVII in a fully 3D FPS/RPG style like Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core. If this project was to kick off, it would require checking for original FFVII installation files, etc. to run. In other words, you don't have a valid install of the original FFVII, it won't even install with this. What I have in my head is vision of full custom models of everything in the game, and recreating the entire game as it originally is, with a new field/world map system and a new open battle system (where you actually do battle in the field/world maps instead of battle maps), and with a true "real time" feel to it, not turn based (like DoC).
Before I take this project any further then strictly being in my head, I would like to get some feedback from the rest of you here on what you'd think about such a project, and if I it does go beyond just an idea, if any of the many talented modelers/graphic artists/Programers here would be willing to hop on board.
Like I said, it's currently purely a concept idea, looking for some feedback.
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I like everything about this idea except for replacing the turn-based battle system with something realtime; it would be better if it played like the original.
The problem is, I doubt many people here would be interested in working on something so large in scale. In many ways, Team Avalanche's overhaul is much easier because it's more recreating existing resources. Not only that, but most of the talented folks around here are already devoting a tremendous amount of time to TA's project.
And, if it's this much improved from the original game, S-E's lawyers are more likely to go after us for it.
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Not going to agree with the whole "FF7 must be installed" deal with you on this. Considering it will be completely made from scratch, I think all the rights other than the ideas for the game belong to you, and unless it is a moral thing for you, you should feel free to distribute it freely. Just a thought.
For the project in general though, I absolutely love the idea!
In fact you inspired me to pick up an old project in Morrowind for creating a FF7 Mod lol.
I simply cannot stop thinking about how epic your project is though, even in the idea. Imagining it is making my brain melt.
I feel like I want to say more lol, but I just don't know exactly how to put it :P
I'll wait for some response from you, then see what I have lol.
Definitely very interested though. I'm game for helping out too, where i can.
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Hm,
the idee is nice but i think, if your going to do this dont use the Unreal def kit.
What i mean is, Epic Games is a ("konkurrent" sorry dont know the correct english word) rival to Square Enix so it wont be a good idee to use this ;)
Not going to agree with the whole "FF7 must be installed" deal with you on this. Considering it will be completely made from scratch, I think all the rights other than the ideas for the game belong to you, and unless it is a moral thing for you, you should feel free to distribute it freely. Just a thought.
I think it is a good Idee to check if the orginal is installed or a ff7 psx cd is in the cd drive, even if the sources are not from Square Enix/Eidos but the rights for the name "Final Fantasy7 etc." lies with them.
But if you make sure Square Enix/Eidos will have their share with this, you minimize the risk to get sued.
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Chance of getting sued is pretty low atm considering Eidos has dropped FF7 off their radar, and Sqeenix is releasing Final Fantasy 14. The legal issue would only lie in the name as well. As long as all the Models were NOT created by Sqeenix (or any other game/company for that matter, meaning he could use all TA's models if he asked nicely and offered credit MAYBE ;D) in theory, the release does not need to have a checker.
If there are any Sqeenix illegal-work-hunters lurking these forums, please be sure to correct me if I'm wrong in what I say ;D
The copyright law means that you can't take something that someone has made and use it. Like stealing, I can't break into a person's house and steal a painting. I could, however, create a replica of the painting myself. Same concept with the model thing.
Doing this project would be infringing on less (if any) copyright laws than Team Avalanche. Simply because they are modifying Final Fantasy Seven's actual game files.
You'd think Sqeenix would give Qhimm-forums a break considering we troubleshoot a game that they probably don't even troubleshoot anymore lol.
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Not going to agree with the whole "FF7 must be installed" deal with you on this. Considering it will be completely made from scratch, I think all the rights other than the ideas for the game belong to you, and unless it is a moral thing for you, you should feel free to distribute it freely. Just a thought.
No, no, no, no. You cannot adapt someone else's intellectual property and release it. Not even if you do so for free, create all the assets yourself and pet a kitten on the way. I can't circulate my own Simpsons novels, sell a fanmade Half Life episode or even use a ground-built 3d engine and my own assets as part of, let's say, a project called Chrono Resurrection. In fact, what we're doing in disassembling the code is barely legal already. Please don't jeopardize our work with incorrect copyright advice. This work would neither be transformative nor an acceptable 'derivative work'.
In fact, I'm dubious that adding a CD-check would be sufficient. You're still distributing something that could be adapted into a 'free' FF7 with a little hex editing. No-CD cracks are just a matter of tracing the assembler in a debugger, and unless the OP has some particularly nifty code obfuscation up his sleeve, I really don't think S-E will be too impressed.
Please be careful with this, Senti.
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the idee is nice but i think, if your going to do this dont use the Unreal def kit.
What i mean is, Epic Games is a ("konkurrent" sorry dont know the correct english word) rival to Square Enix so it wont be a good idee to use this ;)
Actually, that's not ture.
Epic has used this version of the engine for their in-house games Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, and an improved version for Gears of War 2. Due to aggressive licensing, this current iteration has garnered a great deal of support from several big licensees, including Atari, Activision, Capcom, Disney, Konami, Koei, 2K Games, Midway Games, THQ, Ubisoft, Sega, Sony, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, 3D Realms and more.
Square Enix has used the unreal engines to do some of their games.Not going to agree with the whole "FF7 must be installed" deal with you on this. Considering it will be completely made from scratch, I think all the rights other than the ideas for the game belong to you, and unless it is a moral thing for you, you should feel free to distribute it freely. Just a thought.
This is to bypass any copyright BS, yes it would be using all custom models based on the original, but the story and likeness rights still belong to Square Enix, and could be considered copyright infringement. Requiring the original FFVII to be installed would make this considered a mod to the game.I like everything about this idea except for replacing the turn-based battle system with something realtime; it would be better if it played like the original.
If it gets done how I envision it, it would be you controlling one of the characters at any given time with the others as backup with computer AI, but you can swap out which one you control and which ones are with you that the computer controls through a revamped PHS system. Dropping the turn based system would give it a much faster pace and also make the difficulty go up a bit I think. But again, it hasn't even gone beyond my head and anything is subject to change before it goes any further.Not going to agree with the whole "FF7 must be installed" deal with you on this. Considering it will be completely made from scratch, I think all the rights other than the ideas for the game belong to you, and unless it is a moral thing for you, you should feel free to distribute it freely. Just a thought.
No, no, no, no. You cannot adapt someone else's intellectual property and release it. Not even if you do so for free, create all the assets yourself and pet a kitten on the way. I can't circulate my own Simpsons novels, sell a fanmade Half Life episode or even use a ground-built 3d engine and my own assets as part of, let's say, a project called Chrono Resurrection. In fact, what we're doing in disassembling the code is barely legal already. Please don't jeopardize our work with incorrect copyright advice. This work would neither be transformative nor an acceptable 'derivative work'.
In fact, I'm dubious that adding a CD-check would be sufficient. You're still distributing something that could be adapted into a 'free' FF7 with a little hex editing. No-CD cracks are just a matter of tracing the assembler in a debugger, and unless the OP has some particularly nifty code obfuscation up his sleeve, I really don't think S-E will be too impressed.
Please be careful with this, Senti.
Already thinking about that, hacks/cracks can be made for anything. Aali's drivers can be easily modified to bypass the no-cd check, as well as any other mods you find for FFVII. This idea of mine itself, the way I see it in my head, would be dependent on the original FFVII game to be installed and be labeled as a "Mod" or an unofficial "expansion pack" to the original, not a stand alone game, its hard to explain how I'm seeing it in my head, not to mention how it might be done, but it would not work without the original game in place. Not trying to bring down the suits on anyone, which is one of the reasons I'm looking for feedback on this.
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Already thinking about that, hacks/cracks can be made for anything. Aali's drivers can be easily modified to bypass the no-cd check, as well as any other mods you find for FFVII.
Aali's drivers stay on the safe side, because they don't contain any S-E content. 'Content' doesn't include just digital assets produced by S-E employees, but script, story, concepts etc.
This idea of mine itself, the way I see it in my head, would be dependent on the original FFVII game to be installed and be labeled as a "Mod" or an unofficial "expansion pack" to the original, not a stand alone game, its hard to explain how I'm seeing it in my head, not to mention how it might be done, but it would not work without the original game in place. Not trying to bring down the suits on anyone, which is one of the reasons I'm looking for feedback on this.
I just can't see you circulating something that wouldn't include a self-contained unauthorized remake. I don't want to see you spend three years+ on this, only to get shut down on day four of release by a CnD. If you think companies like Sony and S-E don't pay attention to the efforts of 'little people' like us, go ask Halkun about the time Sony took him to court.
Stay safe.
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I just can't see you circulating something that wouldn't include a self-contained unauthorized remake. I don't want to see you spend three years+ on this, only to get shut down on day four of release by a CnD. If you think companies like Sony and S-E don't pay attention to the efforts of 'little people' like us, go ask Halkun about the time Sony took him to court.
Stay safe.
I know all about it, I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to copyright laws and such, which is why, if it ever made it to development and a release, it would come out as a mod or unofficial expansion pack to the original and be dependant on the original being installed. If S-E wanted to they could shut down everything on here right now as everything done to mod the game requires reverse engineering their program, which is illegal to begin with. The same could be said with any modding project on the internet, as well as any porting of likenesses to other games (FFVII custom images ported to WC3 or any other game) is considered copyright infringement and can end up with a C&D. If it came down to it and your situation did happen, however, at least myself, and any other person working on it, would have the versions for ourselves to do as we please on the individual level.
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From http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.
Seems sufficient to me.
On a side-note, Senti, I would love to hear more about what your lists of wants and needs are for your project :D
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Shankifer, I think you misunderstand. All that means is that Square Enix can't copyright the rules to the game. If we wanted to make a clone with the same battle system, they couldn't stop us. However, game data is copyrighted, as is the story, dialogue, characters, etc.
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On a side-note, Senti, I would love to hear more about what your lists of wants and needs are for your project :D
Pretty much, everything. I can do a bit of everything myself, though I'm far from "skilled". I'm one of those "jack of all trades, master of none" type people who pick up things here and there and can do a touch of it all, but mainly I like to come up with ideas and possible solutions to problems. Which is the reason for the topic of the main post, it is merely an idea I'm entertaining currently, checking feedback and such before I proceed any further. There are also two other situations that could be done in relation to the release of this project should it reach completion.
1) Obtain a distribution license from S-E for FFVII likeness rights and story concept for free distribution.
Pros: Would completely bypass the copyright problems and allow the project to be distributed as a stand alone file.
Cons: None really, other then the fact that no one can profit off the distribution in any way short of asking for donations to keep any relevant distribution servers online.
(Yes, something very similar has been done with a commercial game)
Dare we say it? Free release of Mechwarrior4 cleared for launch
If you've been following the drama surrounding the free release of Mechwarrior4, than you would be aware that the initial announcement, made last summer, was a bit premature. After nearly a year since the announcement came, MekTek Studios is pleased to announce, that Microsoft Legal has given the all clear for the free release of Mechwarrior4. This hallmark movement by Microsoft Games couldn't come at a better time, as the Mechwarrior community is attempting a rebirth, amidst announcement of a Mechwarrior Reboot. Thank you Microsoft.
A few weeks ago we stuck our neck out and announced that our studio was struggling to see this release through to the end. We also released our MekPak 3.1, through our distribution and patching system MTX, which gave our developers an opportunity evaluate any unknown bugs. We're glad our announcement and release worked, and we have many to thank for raising awareness, as the release of Mechwarrior4 is now imminent.
Some of the people we'd like to thank, to name a few, are those reporting gaming news such as Joystiq, Bluesnews, BigDownload, Fragland, Gamespy, IGN, Shacknews, and Slashdot. We'd also like to thank all major gaming forums for keeping this topic in discussion and not letting people forget about the promise of a Mechwarrior free release. Of course, we'd like to thank our partners for pressing Microsoft to allow for the release of Mechwarrior to the community including Smith and Tinker, INC., Virtual World Entertainment, LLC., and Catalyst Game Labs. And finally we'd like to thank our community and the Mechwarrior fans for standing behind MekTek when things appeared to be at their worst. Thank you for your continued support. Please stay tuned for the release launch!
by Vam, Wednesday, 21 April 2010 14:48, Comments(0), read all
2) Submitting finished product to S-E as a free-lance "remake" for them to review/distribute at their leisure.
Pros: Again, bypasses the copyright problems. Possible "royalties" from the re-release, pending an agreement between remake developers and S-E.
Cons: Only S-E would be able to distribute it, and likely would charge for it.
Similar situations have also happened in the past, though none, to my knowledge, of a direct remake of a game. However it is certainly a feasible situation as it gives S-E a remake their fan base wants with them having to put out minimal effort.
But anyways, like I said, if I was to go ahead with it, I would need the assistance of coders/modelers/graphic artists, etc. (Which this site is not lacking any of those in the least.)
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Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it.
That says to me: Square cannot say "He took my idea!" or "He took my title!"
(3) The rights described in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (a) shall not apply to any reproduction, depiction, portrayal, or other use of a work in, upon, or in any connection with any item described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of the definition of “work of visual art” in section 101, and any such reproduction, depiction, portrayal, or other use of a work is not a destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other modification described in paragraph (3) of subsection (a).
This is saying basically, that any reproduction (not COPY) portrayal, or other use is not a desruction of a work of art as long as the work of art that is being depicted is a one of a kind. which is what it means by "(A) or (B) of the definition of “work of visual art” in section 101"
As for your ideas of going about it, using the first would be best if you wanted to just reassure yourself to not get hounded for it lol.
As for helping you on in the project, I would be happy to do simple work such as modeling simple things, making images to use for backgrounds. Developing simple textures (I've made a few for easy-modding games like fable, and Morrowind before, just fuzzy on the conversion thing and I would require UV Maps :P) like weapons, grounds, walls, and so on. I would also gladly help with any dialogue or event ideas. I really need to check out the program you're going to use though and see how difficult this would be. I think asking TA for some models would be an okay idea. They look good and they're already planning on distributing them freely in the release.
Happy to help however I can :P
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UDK is free to use for non-commercial purposes now, and free to download through their site here (http://"http://www.udk.com/download"). I also have 3ds max to do the modeling.
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3ds WOO ^.^
from August - July I have access to Maya which I know pretty well. So I would be willing to do a couple simple monsters or something. but that's for another time. I'm gonna check out UDK. To help pull some ideas together it might always be a good idea to compile a list of things you want/need to do in this remake
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To put it simply, everything.
Would need to do full scale 3D, high-res models of every field map and the entire world map. Then of course there's the custom graphics for every thing (NPCS/spells/enemies/vehicles/etc.) in game, not to mention the animations for each and every one of them. And that rough guestimation of 3+ years before release would probably be an optimistic one, more realistically it'd probably be about 6+ years, depending on the number of others willing to assist and their relative skill levels. Doing it on my own would likely push it up to 20+ years. (Speaking of working in free time, of course.)
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Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it.
That says to me: Square cannot say "He took my idea!" or "He took my title!"
It says to me that Squeenix will lose the legal case if you fight them hard enough, but they'll be able to bankrupt you with the costs of frivolous lawsuits. That's what happened with Bleem!; Sony didn't win any cases against them, but they put them out of business by suing them until they couldn't pay their fees. Squeenix are a bunch of arseholes when it comes to copyright, so they might do the same thing.
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Like I said before, if it came down to a C&D, those who worked on it would have the project for themselves. Wouldn't fight it in court unless I had a good attorney on hand that would do it free of fees. Not to mention if it came to that, you could counter sue them based on harassment charges and mental anguish, you'd be surprised how much you can get from one of those cases, and it's an avenue that Bleem! never did explore, at the very least a counter suit for court costs/attorney fees is warranted in such a case, as filing suits against a person knowing you can't win but doing so in an attempt to bankrupt them via attorney/court costs is tantamount to thievery without the gain on their own sides.
See, I can play the arsehole game as well, there are many ways you can turn the tables on a company for suing you and winning.
But, that's beside the point, will "cross that bridge when we get there" as the old saying goes. In such an infantile stage as the idea is in, I'm not that concerned with the legalities of the project, so much as the feasibility of it, namely candidates on board, comments and suggestions, etc.
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My post will be kind of harsh, but realistic. Assuming it's a fan project it's already doomed in the moment you posted it. Why? Couse it's just an idea and not even deeply thought, ideas die fast if people doesn't get paid for it or if they don't join seeing that it have arms and legs and is already started. Sure if you ever worked about any commercial product you can think somebody that just know a little bit about everything can be project leader, can start it or whatever. Fanmade stuff is light years far from that. If you don't show a skill in doing something yourself nobody will really give part of his life to make your dreams/visions come true. You don't give any work from self other than spending some time on google in excitement after you probably got excited with similar project with the difference it didn't had your dream story/characters etc.
Modding a game is something that's on the edge of legality and all depends how company which have rights to it will look at the project. Idea of a completely new game, on different engine and what's worst based on FFVII isn't even modding anymore and more it hits value of Square brand, and most likely will be instantly considered by them as illegal nevermind protections you could use. There were similar projects when people taken characters/story from one thing and tried to make a remake at other game engine. Just look at Quake3A mod which started as DBZ mod, pretty soon, before even finishing their work, they needed to abandon all DBZ related stuff ending with something completely different.
Using new graphic engine to show copyrighted characters is a NO-NO as it makes the company loosing money, shows people that they can wait for freeware instead of buying new original creations of company which owns copyright and even if you could make it somehow legal, they would put you down one way or another. Just going to the court with it would be nothing for them if they could gain by stopping you, your private budget would pretty much die taking off the project very fast soo think over it a few times before you get some more briliant ideas. In other words there are two things you must always consider whose toes you wanna stand on and how much you weight. In this case althrough company is big we can assume owners are japanese which makes their feet very small leaving those toes very sensitive and pretty much anything big enough will be a pain they'll kick off and make sure it doesn't return.
You should surely read at least once this sticky topic:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8759.0 (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8759.0)
If you think it's not your case couse your idea is something else, read again, and again untill you understand Halkun's words from this topic trully and understand that this idea shouldn't leave your head or at least leave it in other place as such project here would be risky for whole FFVII modding community.
Don't get me wrong idea isn't stupid, but it's far from briliant as most people here thought about something like that at least once, but even optimist wouldn't start anything alike looking at some of examples Square shown in the past. If you really want/must learn it the hard way, feel free to try, just make sure you don't risk this modding community with your ambitions. In other words, I would politely ask you to do it somewhere else. >.>
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My post will be kind of harsh, but realistic. Assuming it's a fan project it's already doomed in the moment you posted it. Why? Couse it's just an idea and not even deeply thought, ideas die fast if people doesn't get paid for it or if they don't join seeing that it have arms and legs and is already started. Sure if you ever worked about any commercial product you can think somebody that just know a little bit about everything can be project leader, can start it or whatever. Fanmade stuff is light years far from that. If you don't show a skill in doing something yourself nobody will really give part of his life to make your dreams/visions come true. You don't give any work from self other than spending some time on google in excitement after you probably got excited with similar project with the difference it didn't had your dream story/characters etc.
Didn't come up with it based on anything I saw anywhere else, a number of different things actually sparked the idea, number one being the amount of boredom due to, in my opinion, a lack of worthwhile games being released currently. There are several other reasons I thought about this to begin with, which I won't go into detail here.
Modding a game is something that's on the edge of legality and all depends how company which have rights to it will look at the project. Idea of a completely new game, on different engine and what's worst based on FFVII isn't even modding anymore and more it hits value of Square brand, and most likely will be instantly considered by them as illegal nevermind protections you could use. There were similar projects when people taken characters/story from one thing and tried to make a remake at other game engine. Just look at Quake3A mod which started as DBZ mod, pretty soon, before even finishing their work, they needed to abandon all DBZ related stuff ending with something completely different.
There are several games out there which have fan-made "mods" for other games and anime, in fact the DBZ community has countless recreations over several game engines, complete with custom models that recreate it in good quality. In fact, there is one game engine that I think would work perfectly, properly modified of course, with a DBZ theme. That would be the game engine used for the IronMan PC games.
Using new graphic engine to show copyrighted characters is a NO-NO as it makes the company loosing money, shows people that they can wait for freeware instead of buying new original creations of company which owns copyright and even if you could make it somehow legal, they would put you down one way or another. Just going to the court with it would be nothing for them if they could gain by stopping you, your private budget would pretty much die taking off the project very fast soo think over it a few times before you get some more briliant ideas. In other words there are two things you must always consider whose toes you wanna stand on and how much you weight. In this case althrough company is big we can assume owners are japanese which makes their feet very small leaving those toes very sensitive and pretty much anything big enough will be a pain they'll kick off and make sure it doesn't return.
Again, this has already been done with countless "mod" projects and custom models over various different platforms. S-E would lose no money as none of it is "official" in any way, and any remake they might do (even though they say they won't be doing any) would be, more then likely, different then the custom fan made models done.
You should surely read at least once this sticky topic:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8759.0 (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8759.0)
If you think it's not your case couse your idea is something else, read again, and again untill you understand Halkun's words from this topic trully and understand that this idea shouldn't leave your head or at least leave it in other place as such project here would be risky for whole FFVII modding community.
That talks about the ripping of models and the use of "content not your own". In the case of this possible project, all materials used would be custom made, not ripped models. The only thing that would be directly "reused" from the original would be the story itself, retold in a different way. I've read that sticky several times, if you notice I'm not new to the forums, and before I registered I did "lurk" the forums for quite some time before I found a need to voice any of my own comments, I actually remember when that rule was put in place, and was done so because of the discussing of ripping Crisis Core models into Final Fantasy VII, which not only requires the hacking of the PSP, but also the deconstruction and reverse engineering of a new game engine created by S-E. As stated in that rule, the use of complete custom models based on the looks from other games is still allowed.
Don't get me wrong idea isn't stupid, but it's far from briliant as most people here thought about something like that at least once, but even optimist wouldn't start anything alike looking at some of examples Square shown in the past. If you really want/must learn it the hard way, feel free to try, just make sure you don't risk this modding community with your ambitions. In other words, I would politely ask you to do it somewhere else. >.>
I know that it is more then likely not the best idea for a game, the idea I had for a playstyle of this remake would be most aptly described as a TPS/RPG like Dirge of Cerberus was, but a bit more advanced in the options, allowing you the equipment and materia options available in the original (complete with summons) but in a real-time style. I, personally, think it would be awesome to play the FFVII game in such a playstyle, which is the reason for the idea. This is the kind of feedback I was looking for more then the issue of legalities.
As far as taking the discussion elsewhere, if the moderators think that my idea and the discussion of such in any way jeopardizes the rest of the operations here then they are free to give me their own C&D and delete the posts. Not trying to sound mean here, we're all entitled to our own opinions, and I respect everyone and their own opinions. The modding community is certainly one that can't afford to be naive about legalities, though what I'm envisioning wouldn't be any more dangerous then a combination of the Q-Gears and the new Avalanche Project (more specifically, the bombing mission), which would be updated graphics on a new game engine. Only differences between those two projects combined and what I'm attempting to do is, Q-Gears requires reverse engineering FFVII (HUGE no-no in the programming world), and my own idea would be a rework of the original story into a different game style.
EDIT: Just realized, after all these posts, that I miss clicked when doing my original post, was intended to be posted in the General section instead of here, if a mod would be willing to move this over there, give the go ahead to continue here or give a C&D, it would be much appreciated.
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I wrote to read this Halkun topic untill you understand why this happen, not what's happening.>.> The case is if you even consider doing a game with modern graphic engine based on THEIR idea(story/characters etc.) you'll be a threat to their $ making machine and you can as well consider yourself being warned or even sued depending on the mood of rightfull owner of stuff you reuse(meaning everything counting story/characters/logos/weapons, etc. not just models/graphic which most seem to understand reading mentioned above topic >.>). Basically that topic should be taken more generally couse if you take it just like that - literally, you end not talking about any FF7 models as you generally rip existing models to change them, soo any kind of modding FF7 can be literally taken as ripping models too. It's not against the rules through couse Square gives a pass on it as long as they doesn't see it as a minus on their $. Something that can be seen as a minus for Square even by a second rate economist, just can't pass.
Besides like I wrote before I don't belive any free project can be born by discussing something everyone at least once thought before. Get to work first, then if you do some decent stuff others maybe join, don't count that people will form a team just becouse you dream about something soo much that you don't care being sued in the future. I doubt there are any skilled people selfish enough to continue doing stuff for themselves or starting it knowing they'll not be able to release it. It's fun doing things for others, fame or just simple pleasure from sharing own hard work with others, project that is destined to be closed down from public and can be a huge problem for all of the creators private lives later on will just not gain attention of people that actually work more than talk. So to speak I'm off the topic as I have opinion based on past experience from other forums, that such topics aka "huge ideas with 0 work put in at the time of announce" end to be +postcount for creators without really leading anywhere.:3 Don't take it personally, just any discussion about starting something rising it's uselessness along with size of the project, and is opposite to amount of people that you have on the start. Making practically a new game with new models, on new engine, with copyright/legal problems, while starting with 1 person that name self as unskilled in everything = fail. That's a short version of my harsh thoughts about this.
I'm not a mod nor have any other power in here to say it's good or bad, just state opinion that people should take more responsibility for topics they start and think twice if it really could turn good even for just them, or could turn bad to whole community. But like I stated I don't belive this will lead to anything, so I lost interest in it. Have fun if you start anything, and good luck to not have problems from that, couse by that overgrown optimism you don't seem to be aware how big companies(at least THIS one) treat their intellectual value.>.>
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I was planning on possibly going ahead with it after seeing what others thought of the idea. Like I said, I can do it myself, though at my skill level in the various parts of game design it would take quite a long time (hence the 20+ years remark). If enough people like the idea then I'm definitely going to go ahead with it, if for nothing else my own, and anyone else involved, personal enjoyment (Square can't say jack s*** about it if you don't distribute, and would take a court issued warrant to cease your computer just to prove you were in the wrong before they could take it to trial).
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Allow me to put in my two cents.
I'm going to be as clear as I possibly can. I know it might seem a little rough but I think, in this case, it's really important.
You are not going to make jack shit.
Sorry, but you aren't, and I'm going to tell you why.
In the short introduction you gave us, you demonstrated that you wanted to make a game with an engine you did not make, with characters you did not make, and then had the balls to ask for programmers, modelers, and graphic artists to make things that you are not going to make. This leads me to believe that you really don't have the intent of making really anything.
This is really a pet peeve of mine...
It's fun to play pretend. It really is. It's fun to indulge in fantasy of making a game, being the big guy and calling the shots. Hell, I do it too! But, really, what you are doing is a silly hypothetical. Have you even made something as trite as a Tetris clone? A Pong game? If you had an ounce of creativity in your body, you would sit down with a simple pencil and paper, and try and create something...anything! all by yourself. Sponging off the work that someone else did shows an intellectual laziness that really bugs the holy hell out of me. It bugs the holy hell out of Square too.
Now, before you call me a hypocritical bastard, listen up!
One of the many joys in my life is to take things apart to see how they work. It started when I tore apart a washing machine when I was 12. All I had was a toolbox and a front lawn. My mom was really pissed, but I learned something. When I got into computers I was doing to the programs I owned. I even made a very professional sector editor when I was 13 and was doing hex dumps before I was in high school. I pick apart, break down, and digest. It's why I run the wiki and the reason why Gears (the doc that documented for the first time the innards of FF7) was made in the first place. Q-gears was something I started and exploded into something I couldn't control when Akari took over. One is a tear down, and the other is a rebuild. Notice that Q-gears itself doesn't even take FF7 data naively. In the end. It's an engine for you to make what you want.
The up shot is this.. Big dreams? Awesome! Cool plan? Great! But if you didn't even take the time to put a pencil to paper, your words are aren't worth the electrons used to put them on my screen.
As an addendum; make your own characters, your own story, your own world! You would be surprised much more you love them because they are yours. Then, and only then, can you be a complete dick when someone steals it from you.
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OH SNAP!
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Actually, I have made several of my own games using other engines, using the same engine that created Final Fantasy VII: Dark Cloud I created my own game a long time ago called Chaotic Era, a simple single player RPG based loosely on the D20 pen and paper system. I also created the pen and paper version of Chaotic Era at roughly the same time and ran it as a game for 6 years with a group of friends. I'm also a former mod writer for the RPGA during D&D 3.5 and the Living Greyhawk campaign, and have designed and coded several game trainers/hacks for various games, first one starting with the original Diablo by Blizzard. I've done quite a bit of my own fantasy art on paper, not based on anything in particular, nor have I ever published anything that was completely and originally mine online aside from a few poems as I'm tired of inconsiderate pricks who will find someones drawing, story or the like, throw in minor modifications and call it their own original work without so much a mention to the original author of said works.
I've worked in development teams for Delta Force Xtreme mods (http://www.ngs-squad.com/ disbanned a few years back), Warcraft 3 map development (http://www.herowarsee.com/ created some of the best Aeon of Strife style maps on the WC3 engine, which there are still offshots of those maps being made to date, and have assisted in the development and bug testing at http://www.redscull.com/ for the map Swat: Aftermath), and Unreal Tournament (the original, had a work in progress mod based around melee weapons more then ranged weapons, dropped when my hard drive crashed with the only backup I had and over 90 hours of work put in).
I also know basic programming in C/C+/C++, Java, Jass, Perl, AHK scripting, PHP and your basic HTML. Implying that I only want to be lazy and sponge off the work of another is a pet peeve of mine. What I was looking for wasn't someone to do the work for me, but someone to more or less bounce ideas off of and help make it better where my "basic" skills alone would be lacking in luster. As I said, I'm far from the best at the things I can do, but just because I'm asking if anyone might be willing to assist in a possible idea of mine in no way means I'm unable to do it myself.
The major reason behind this post was for me to get the idea out and see how I felt about it, as well as others, after discussing it. Some people are able to sit down and start doing something out of the blue without thinking about it or discussing it, where as I prefer to have a seat, put things out on the table to analyze it from each direction and get input from others of similar mindset about said idea. I can sit here and squeeze out idea after idea which at first glance seem pretty kick ass but when viewed from another angle you find gaps and holes, sometimes these can be "patched up" so to speak, others they can't. I also like to come up with new ways to do things that are already around, such as what this topic was about, an idea to do FFVII in a different play style then it was originally done, while keeping the original story and setting in tact. Yes, I'm primarily a thinker, but that in no way, shape, form or fashion means that I won't or can't act on an idea if I like it enough to take it from concept to development.
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Then Godspeed, but I don't think you will find much help with us.
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Like I said, even a person to bounce ideas off of would be a tremendous help. I like to plan out the basics before I get to to the actual developing, that way you know what to shoot for when you begin as opposed to just trying different ways that come to your head spontaneously. Two heads are better then one, as the old adage goes, someone to bounce ideas off of helps me to refine the concept before development.
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I can bounce :mrgreen:
So what is your plan on the Walking around/Spring into battle idea?
FF7 was so split down the middle because of the way it was. You're thinking of Real-time, so what kind of transitions would you think of using for that?
I think the battles of FF7 are one of the most important concepts of the game, that's why I bring it up first.
Are we looking at DoC running around then "oh hey there's bad guys..." or kind of like Walking around, scene stops as your enemy approaches, then into battle we go?
Just trying to get a feel of your position on the battling system.
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Here are my two pennies. I say what I'm about to say without any knowledge of making games. It might be that I'm overestimating what you have to do, but I doubt it.
You have to understand that you are trying to start a huge project, remaking the game, and one that will have very little benefit to anyone until it is finished. Maybe you think that you can see a project of this size through to completion. Maybe you can do it. But we see lots of big projects like this on here and very few of them go anywhere. Have a look at q-gears; that project has been going on for years and it still isn't finished. And q-gears has some very experienced and determined programmers working on it. I don't see you making progress in this project as quickly as Halkun and Akari have made progress with their project, and I don't see your patience lasting as long either. Maybe you're enthusiastic now, but what will happen in a year's time if progress is slow? Will you still be willing to continue?
As a general rule, the most successful projects on these forums are the more modest ones that give immediate results. If you're making a hardcore mod, you can see some of the fruits of you labour after a few minutes of playing around. If you're making a tool or a model, you can see results and have something worth using within weeks or days. Motivation is very important in projects that people are not getting paid for. This is why I suggested that Team Avalanche focus on one part of the game, which lead sl and timu to announce the Bombing Mission; having something playable as quickly as possible is good for one's motivation because it shows that one's work is paying off (the Bombing Mission has some other benefits in that it's easier when work is broken down into chunks and it's easier when there are several kinds of models and textures being made, giving different artists a chance to work in parallel).
The Team Avalanche project is the only one of its size that I can see working out, because it can be broken down and progress can be seen quickly. It's also a project that started off small, with sl just making a new font, and grew to be huge as more and more visible progress was made and more and more people joined. I can't see your project going the same way. Even if you're determined and skilled, I can see this fizzling out very quickly.
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I can bounce :mrgreen:
So what is your plan on the Walking around/Spring into battle idea?
FF7 was so split down the middle because of the way it was. You're thinking of Real-time, so what kind of transitions would you think of using for that?
I think the battles of FF7 are one of the most important concepts of the game, that's why I bring it up first.
Are we looking at DoC running around then "oh hey there's bad guys..." or kind of like Walking around, scene stops as your enemy approaches, then into battle we go?
Just trying to get a feel of your position on the battling system.
Actually, this is one of the things I was thinking about myself, originally I had thought of doing them all on the field like FFVII:DoC, but then I got to thinking if it's done similar to the original and Crisis Core, it would be a bit easier as it would increase the randomness of random battles, as well as keep the use of several of the materia which modify random battles (preemptive strike, etc.) As well as reducing the number of models required on the map at a given time if you fade out any other NPC models, allowing a smoother frame rate without the extra graphics being rendered.
Here are my two pennies. I say what I'm about to say without any knowledge of making games. It might be that I'm overestimating what you have to do, but I doubt it.
You have to understand that you are trying to start a huge project, remaking the game, and one that will have very little benefit to anyone until it is finished. Maybe you think that you can see a project of this size through to completion. Maybe you can do it. But we see lots of big projects like this on here and very few of them go anywhere. Have a look at q-gears; that project has been going on for years and it still isn't finished. And q-gears has some very experienced and determined programmers working on it. I don't see you making progress in this project as quickly as Halkun and Akari have made progress with their project, and I don't see your patience lasting as long either. Maybe you're enthusiastic now, but what will happen in a year's time if progress is slow? Will you still be willing to continue?
As a general rule, the most successful projects on these forums are the more modest ones that give immediate results. If you're making a hardcore mod, you can see some of the fruits of you labour after a few minutes of playing around. If you're making a tool or a model, you can see results and have something worth using within weeks or days. Motivation is very important in projects that people are not getting paid for. This is why I suggested that Team Avalanche focus on one part of the game, which lead sl and timu to announce the Bombing Mission; having something playable as quickly as possible is good for one's motivation because it shows that one's work is paying off (the Bombing Mission has some other benefits in that it's easier when work is broken down into chunks and it's easier when there are several kinds of models and textures being made, giving different artists a chance to work in parallel).
The Team Avalanche project is the only one of its size that I can see working out, because it can be broken down and progress can be seen quickly. It's also a project that started off small, with sl just making a new font, and grew to be huge as more and more visible progress was made and more and more people joined. I can't see your project going the same way. Even if you're determined and skilled, I can see this fizzling out very quickly.
I'm actually a very dedicated person, when I set my sights on something I may deviate from it here or there, but I keep going untill I can't go any further or I get it done. The Unreal Tournament mod I was doing was 90 hours put in over the period of 2 years, and was actually my first full scale mod, it was intended to be a "Medieval era" mod, the only ranged weapons being bows/crossbows, but primarily sticking with melee weapons. I admit that this project of mine is beyond large, which is the reason for me looking for others to bounce ideas off of and such. Besides, a fresh mind thinking about the same thing as me might think of another way to do something that I'm stuck on. Hence why I chose the user base here, because of how long I've been a member/lurker of these forums I know that most of the members here know what they're doing and could help with refining the concept of a Final Fantasy VII game.
EDIT: As it stands right now I'm in the process of mapping out each aspect of the original game and how it might be converted into the concept I have.
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I'm going to go ahead and demotivate you a little more by agreeing with both Kudistos and Halkun. This isn't going to go anywhere.
For a perfect, single example of why I say this, please refer to this thread -> http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=9518.0 Of course, as I've said in all the other threads like this, feel free to prove me/us wrong and good luck. However, if your resolve has been weakened enough about your project, might I suggest jumping on board one of the other dozens of projects currently going on.
/pessimism
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I'm gonna go ahead and point out a major difference with Squall Leonhart 3000: He pretty much admitted right off the bat that he had no skill, and showed ZERO inclination to even make an attempt at any actual work. I think, more than anything, he wanted a finished project that he could play, and he was trying to get other people to do it by pretending to be a team player.
I doubt Senti can do this alone, but it seems that he's at least able and willing to try.
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I'm going to go ahead and demotivate you a little more by agreeing with both Kudistos and Halkun. This isn't going to go anywhere.
For a perfect, single example of why I say this, please refer to this thread -> http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=9518.0 Of course, as I've said in all the other threads like this, feel free to prove me/us wrong and good luck. However, if your resolve has been weakened enough about your project, might I suggest jumping on board one of the other dozens of projects currently going on.
/pessimism
Already offering assistance where I can to the other projects out there. There's not much I can offer to most of them aside from perspective and a file hosting service, but that's not so hard to do if you have the resources. I can do some basic modeling and texturing though my skills at those are no where near the level of many of the model makers here, so most, if not all of what I could contribute on that front others could do much better then I could. I'm more then willing to do what I can though, I try to keep up on the various projects around and look for any roles I can help out with in those projects.
I'm gonna go ahead and point out a major difference with Squall Leonhart 3000: He pretty much admitted right off the bat that he had no skill, and showed ZERO inclination to even make an attempt at any actual work. I think, more than anything, he wanted a finished project that he could play, and he was trying to get other people to do it by pretending to be a team player.
I doubt Senti can do this alone, but it seems that he's at least able and willing to try.
I admit, I'm likely getting in a bit over my head for my current level of skill, but I'm not the kind of person afraid of learning as I go and refining my own abilities. Each of my own projects I start is to test and learn for myself as much as creating something for others. I'm the kind of person that loves to learn new things. I love a bit of a challenge and that's why I do things such as this, or my previous projects. For me most of the actual fun is in the project itself, the finish project is just there for self-gratification. I also admit, the wording of my original post was implying I wanted others to do work for me, but that's not how I intended it at all, though the help down the line would be great to have, until that time I don't plan on relying on anyone else for anything except the possibility of idea bouncing as now.
Edit: Looks like UDK is a no go due to hardware issues, loaded up one of their tutorial open sources games to look over the coding structure and see the difference between it and the original Unreal Engine that I used long ago, crashed multiple times while loading the 3d renderings, did some in depth research on the crash report and found that, even though my graphics card exceeds the minimal requirements when it comes to specifications, the software portion is not compatible, so after a quick search and research I've found a secondary game engine in ShiVa 3D, also free, at http://www.stonetrip.com/ and I'm currently going over the coding styles and learning the program itself before I start in earnest.
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Actually, this is one of the things I was thinking about myself, originally I had thought of doing them all on the field like FFVII:DoC, but then I got to thinking if it's done similar to the original and Crisis Core, it would be a bit easier as it would increase the randomness of random battles, as well as keep the use of several of the materia which modify random battles (preemptive strike, etc.) As well as reducing the number of models required on the map at a given time if you fade out any other NPC models, allowing a smoother frame rate without the extra graphics being rendered.
Hmm, I've never played Crisis Core because I don't have a PSP lol. But after watching a few battle-scene vids I like the style you are thinking. I wonder if it would be smart/plausible to use a KotOR style for Materia usage to slow things down for people who need time to think lol. I don't know if you've played the fan made Team Avalanche yet or not, but I think that would be cool way to incorporate random battles.
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Well, if you're willing to put in the effort, then go for it, but I do HIGHLY suggest releasing any updates for it on a different site from Qhimm, so we don't get in trouble for it if Square decides to bring down its legal hammer on the project, like Chrono Trigger.
In fact, asking permission from Square themselves would be a better idea. Try to contact them and ask about starting such a project. Try to appeal to them and make them want to let you start it, like your idea for needing an actual installation. Or, allow Square to take the program and sell it as they see fit once it's finished. That's what I think you should do, but it's really all up to you.
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Well, if you're willing to put in the effort, then go for it, but I do HIGHLY suggest releasing any updates for it on a different site from Qhimm, so we don't get in trouble for it if Square decides to bring down its legal hammer on the project, like Chrono Trigger.
In fact, asking permission from Square themselves would be a better idea. Try to contact them and ask about starting such a project. Try to appeal to them and make them want to let you start it, like your idea for needing an actual installation. Or, allow Square to take the program and sell it as they see fit once it's finished. That's what I think you should do, but it's really all up to you.
This has already been thought of, once I get the ball rolling on the programming portion, getting in touch with their legal department is actually one of my plans. Like I said, I'm not worried about the legalities of the project until it's time to worry about that. Right now the project is still primarily an idea, got some of those put down into writing, on here and on paper where I'm listing each of the various aspects of the game and how I'm wanting to do them. I'm also having to learn an entirely new programming engine then what I've used in the past, which isn't much of a surprise because I'm sure that the Unreal Engine 3 which is what comes with UDK is different from Unreal Engine 1 in enough ways to make me have to learn it all anew.
Actually, this is one of the things I was thinking about myself, originally I had thought of doing them all on the field like FFVII:DoC, but then I got to thinking if it's done similar to the original and Crisis Core, it would be a bit easier as it would increase the randomness of random battles, as well as keep the use of several of the materia which modify random battles (preemptive strike, etc.) As well as reducing the number of models required on the map at a given time if you fade out any other NPC models, allowing a smoother frame rate without the extra graphics being rendered.
Hmm, I've never played Crisis Core because I don't have a PSP lol. But after watching a few battle-scene vids I like the style you are thinking. I wonder if it would be smart/plausible to use a KotOR style for Materia usage to slow things down for people who need time to think lol. I don't know if you've played the fan made Team Avalanche yet or not, but I think that would be cool way to incorporate random battles.
Yes, I do like the way that the random battles are in CC, you're running around in non-combat mode (can't attack or cast spells). Screen pausing a moment as enemies appear, you drawing your weapon and readying for battle and enabling the use of combat magic. Of course, like I said before, would keep it more toward the original with the materia and such, including the limit breaks, though those would require pausing the enemy and ally units on the battlefield to perform properly, it wouldn't require much changing those from what they are now. I'm not quite sure what you mean by a KotOR, you talking about the Star Wars game? If so, I've never played that one, played JKJO and JKJA though.
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I should probably point out that it's been a year since I thought up Rebirth (KERNEL and SCENE hack), and it still isn't done. Granted, I've been very busy this year, but developing a whole game from scratch just isn't feasible.
I suggest thinking what's most important to you about this mod, and then join an existing project that seeks something similar. If you'd like to see FF7 with hi-res assets or more advanced engines, TA and Q-Gears could help. If the battle engine is important to you, well, first I'd suggest thinking how this works out. You could use the Source SDK and use HL chars as placeholders for your private project, to see if the battle system works as anticipated.
A wild HEADCRAB approaches! Command?
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The biggest portion of what I was hoping to accomplish with this was the TPS/RPG style play, more similar to CC and DoC then the turn based play. The only real downside to this is the inability to control multiple people, which I was going to address by allowing you to swap the main controllable character with the PHS system, and have two others controlled by AI following you around and assisting in battle. The idea itself is very feasible actually, after all nothing is impossible, though the time and effort required to do it may make it seem unrealistic to most. The tools are there to do it, all it takes is the willingness to learn and actually do it.
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A wild HEADCRAB approaches! Command?
Run away!
Attempt failed. you die.
Heh Heh, i could see something like this being the method, however attacks from behind and such would be quite interesting, you cant always just stumble upon something, they have to take the initiative to attack you too.
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Hence the reason for using a battle system similar to CC, you can stumble upon them and get the preemptive strike, or they could ambush you and give you a good slap on the behind. However, I was still going to make it real time, meaning you can chain attacks and cast spells without worrying about an ATB or anything like that, Slow would actually slow your movements down and Haste would speed them up. Outside of battle you could use non-damaging spells as normal, but adding in a few extras in that such as Haste to get around quicker on foot. When I get my table of the way I see the various game parts playing out in my head I'll post it to let others see a little more clearly what I see in my head.
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Yes, I do like the way that the random battles are in CC, you're running around in non-combat mode (can't attack or cast spells). Screen pausing a moment as enemies appear, you drawing your weapon and readying for battle and enabling the use of combat magic. Of course, like I said before, would keep it more toward the original with the materia and such, including the limit breaks, though those would require pausing the enemy and ally units on the battlefield to perform properly, it wouldn't require much changing those from what they are now. I'm not quite sure what you mean by a KotOR, you talking about the Star Wars game? If so, I've never played that one, played JKJO and JKJA though.
Yeah Star Wars lol. KotOR has a style in which you can literally pause the game, select attacks for all of your party members (you can switch between three of them either paused or unpaused). The only difference is KotOR lets you select all attacks, whereas I'm only talking about materia, and only for one character.
Also, on a note of ways to make AI parties seem more helpful when you aren't switching often, check out Dragon Age: Origins. The way you can give characters a "Job" with a list of if-then statements such as "If _____ health <50% cast heal," these statements can work for any aspect of combat too, as there are many variations for the spells to use and the reason's to use them. You can even set them to change fighting style.
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That sounds much like FF12's battle system. Which most people did not like.
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The only FF12 I played was for the DS so I'm not sure how similar it is in that aspect. I don't think I'm being as clear as I want to be with this lol, but I'm unsure how to put it.
General Combat - Normal attack maneuvers and combination based on buttons/keys used (Also, note to Senti, I would suggest making the game Controller compatible)
Materia Aspect - Fighting Pause when you hit button or key to bring up materia menu, menu should take up quarter of the screen. In menu, select skill/magic/summon to use. 2 ideas for targeting - 1. (This idea is new as I was thinking of "Arc The Lad: Twilight of the Spirits") All magics/skills should have an AoE, and the range (length and width of scope) should be judged on level. 2.Specific targeting using the "Arrow-over-head" method and selecting as many enemies as magic/skill was meant to hit. Summons should hurt all, and encompass entire feild in their attacks.
AI Fighting - (When not controlling certain members of party - ) Prior to going into battle (i.e. like when player is setting up skills and whatnot) Player should be able to set the general terms for his party members (including Cloud) with such values as "Upon: Enter Battle, (Character) Casts (Support Magic)" or "If: (Party Member) (Health/MP) reaches < (percentage) use/cast (healing potion/spell/elixer/etc)". Another thing would be to set styles such as "Beserker, Medic etc" for preset usage, unless you want to force players to set them up themselves. Another aspect to AI fighting would be deciding whether you want to make like Infinite Undiscovery and have Party stances such as "Focus (attack one enemy), Spread (each Party Member attacks random enemy), Etc." or to set these kinds of stances for each character along with their general terms.
AI Materia use - Similar to KotOR, you can set characters to use materia under certain terms, but if, for instance, there is a boss like Ifrit, who you want to constantly cast Blizzard on, Materia pause menu should let you select 3 to 4 materia attacks that you want your AI's to use in order (similar to taking control, casting them, then switching back to Cloud). To clarify, I'm Playing as Cloud, fighting Ifrit, I open up Materia menu, I select Blizzard and fill up 3 empty materia queue slots (meaning it will use the spell three times, which also means a cancel button could be implemented), Staying in the Materia menu, I switch (using designated key/button that would allow you to switch in battle) to Barret, select Blizzard 3 times, Stay in Materia menu, switch to Tifa, select 3 Blizzards, Switch once more so I'm back on Cloud (Because the option of exiting on Barret or Tifa would exit you into assuming that character) and exit the Materia menu and wait for all my blizzards to cast, then continue on with the battle. This would also work without casting anything on Cloud, filling up the AI's queue and coming back to cloud to take Aggro while the team hits hard.
/long explanation that hopefully makes more sense ;D
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Here's what I have wrote down in regards to the combat system, the way that I see it in my head. Mind you it's not entirely complete yet but it does cover some of what you were talking about.
General Battle:
AI Role options for secondary party members, which can be changed via Ally Orders during combat, or set through menu. Basic AI pre-battle would include:
Front Line: Getting up close to them and attacking, to draw the enemy attacks.
Artillery: Attacking with long ranged attacks and drawing back if an enemy closes in.
Support: Primarily uses non-damaging actions to "buff" the party or "de-buff" the enemies and heal damage taken, such as haste, slow, barrier, cure.
Defender: Moves to defend weaker allies, engaging enemies that target them.
During battle the above commands could be changed and the following would be added:
Focus Attacks: Focus offensive actions against targeted enemy.
Retreat: Similar to Artillery, but would fall back in an attempt to flee the battle.
Defend: Toggles a defender role for targeted ally.
Item and Spells can be used by a system of split "quick bars", twelve options on each quick bar (first six slots containing spells, second six slots containing items). These can be switched to the next series of quick bars one side at a time or both sides at a time and the order of each can be changed before battle. Each one spell or item can be set as "active" for easy use, or each item could be used by pressing the corresponding key.
While in battle the PHS system would not be accessible however should the main controlling character be KO'ed, manual control would be switched to one of the remaining, conscious, party members chosen by you.
Targeting controls would be able to cycle through enemy or ally targets, one command would cycle enemy targets while another would cycle ally targets. Spells or items used would take effect on the active target (ally or enemy).
EDIT:
And yes, I was thinking of game pad support, here's what I was thinking for one possible configuration.
Gamepad Battle Control Layout:
The following commands use a Playstation 3 controller layout as an example, this would be the default control layout.
L1: Cast active Magic R1: Use active item
L2: Defend R2: Attack/Limit Break
Up: Previous full quick bar Triangle: Target next enemy
Left: Next Spell Square: Target next ally
Right: Next Item Circle: Ally 1 commands
Down: Next full quick bar Cross: Ally 2 commands
Left Analog stick: Movement RIght Analog stick: Camera
L3: Unused R3: Unused
Select: Both Ally Commands Start: Pause
Second Edit: Corrected myself on the quick bar, used for spells, not materia.
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I'm really liking your system. I kind of forgot what it was like to have a unique battle setup, as I listed a bunch of games with nice battle styles. Yours really had me thinking while I was reading and I really like it.
Controller setup really doesn't matter to me, about an hour into a game, controls become second nature to me :P
I think the Combat System has been covered pretty thoroughly.
On to the second biggest deal of the game. Moving around. Creating the environment.
A few questions that could shed some light on the idea if answered:
Are you planning on starting the game like it actually started?
Will the world map be an obsolete way to get from town to town? If so, have you considered what to implement instead?
Will all towns/feilds be the same (recreated to look like the original)?
Are you planning on implementing any new areas?
What will moving around be like in The Highwind/ The Tiny Bronco/ Chocobo/ Hovercraft be like? New or old?
Just a few questions to keep things rolling, and that I have had nagging in my mind. If you have an outline or something that you want to throw at me to say "Shut the hell up" I understand :P
I just have so many questions, and I kind of want to keep the ball rolling, keeping this thread active so it stays fresh ;)
I also am looking for ways to suggest improvements for/help continue this project :D
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Working on all of that in my list still, but to answer your questions...
Are you planning on starting the game like it actually started?
Yes, keeping the same story the way it was originally done.
Will the world map be an obsolete way to get from town to town? If so, have you considered what to implement instead?
No, you will still have the world map.
Will all towns/feilds be the same (recreated to look like the original)?
Yes, though due to the fact that the maps are not fully 3D it will require quite a bit of imagination to flesh them out into a fully 3D environment.
Are you planning on implementing any new areas?
Not currently, no.
What will moving around be like in The Highwind/ The Tiny Bronco/ Chocobo/ Hovercraft be like? New or old?
I was thinking of using a "cockpit" style view when moving around in the vehicles, showing you actually moving through the glass and such. In the case of the Chocobo, more or less showing the same as it is now, you riding it. I was also entertaining the idea of riding a Chocobo in battle similar to the way you do in Final Fantasy Tactics, increasing your movement speed.
Like I said, I'm working on compiling a list of all the aspects of the current game and how I'm seeing them in my head. That's the first and easiest step, but with how many different parts of the game there are, this alone takes a while of typing, especially when it comes to attempting to put my thoughts into words to describe them.
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i can imagine running through the opening bombing run mission in first person view now...
can we get a "demo" of the bombing mission similar to the original ff7demo how it had just the single mission?
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battlemage210 brought up a good point.
First person V.S. Third
I think I remember you saying something about doing an over-the-shoulder.
You think it would be possible to kind of pull an Bethesda thing and make it swappable? all controls still the same, just different camera positions?
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Would be possible, of course, though I was thinking of keeping a third person view for a better field of vision, and so you can watch your character. All it would require doing is altering the camera angle during play and removing the majority of your model from view so that it's not being rendered needlessly. Hands/weapon and legs (should you be looking down) would still be rendered as you could still see them, but the rest of the body really wouldn't need to be rendered.
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I like Third person, but I think First person would just be interesting sometimes.
I also had a thought earlier, how are interactive objects going to be handled?
by interactive, I mean: Chests, pianos, squeaky floorboards lol
You know, all those things in FF7 you just kind of pressed a button at and things happened.
The basic question would be, is it still going to be a "Stand in front and press ____" and it happens or are we looking at a cross-hair targeting system? Also, are you thinking of implementing any animations for interactive objects, such as actually reaching out to the piano when it plays or kneeling to a squeaky floorboard?
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Well I think it's a very ambtitious idea. But - I disagree with you on your battle idea. For me, this point is probably nothing more than personal preference, but I want to give you my opinion anyway. Making it the way you're describing is almost exactly the same as FF12, as sl indicated. Most people didn't like it. I would never paly the original game in a such a style, because I'm all about originality and not fixing something that isn't broke. For instance, I was a huge antagonist to seif in the Translation project, and was part of the debaucle that took place here. But that's not the point. If you're appealing to true fans, I don't think they would wanna see a different style of fighting, because that starts to change what they loved about the game in the first place. So in my opinion, leave it turn based, it will still look bad ass, and you won't be changing it from an RPG to an FPS. My two cents, and like a said - probably just personal preference.
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Well I guess every rpg game has its own uniqueness like legend of legaia's arts system or suikoden with choosing their movement but all of them can attack at once. Final fantasy 7 is unique for its choosing options like choosing attack and the enemy. Maybe add some things to it but the manner should still be the same. *my opinion*
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I like Third person, but I think First person would just be interesting sometimes.
The basic question would be, is it still going to be a "Stand in front and press ____" and it happens or are we looking at a cross-hair targeting system? Also, are you thinking of implementing any animations for interactive objects, such as actually reaching out to the piano when it plays or kneeling to a squeaky floorboard?
i agree. third person is just about the only way i could play a game through, but first person would be something really cool if it were like the piano scene.. in the same token, rendering that to any attempt in a 3d format would take a total rewrite and im sure the graphical aspect could be amazing but an attempt from a group like this (no offence guys i know your all great at your own thing) would just likely be a huge upset.
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Sorry for no updates, been down with a major sinus infection. But I'm back up and running now, picked up a new computer so I can get to work with the UDK (since the other one had crap for materials to learn the system with), and playing through FFVII again to ensure I don't leave any part of it out on my list.