M0T: What The SaiNt said
. Even if you can't program, making guesses about how the game does things or what formats are for seems to help nudge the programmers in the right direction.
The SaiNt: Personally, I would like to change some of the graphics. Give the field models HANDS, for instance. But even that wouldn't be easy. I think if someone ever does that directX layer, that takes care of part of the problem of spiffing up the graphics.
Another potential problem I see because we're using Seph is that he really is Vincent. I remember learning this ages ago. The save files are stored with Sephiroth and Vincent as the same thing or something like that. Same deal with Cait Sith and Young Cloud. That's why you shouldn't/can't have both Seph and Vince or both Cait and the Young'n in your party at the same time.
"I would love to hear your opinion of how you think the story would go and I have no doubts that you have fantastic or wonderful ideas."
Well, I can certainly *hope* that they are fantastic and wonderful. You know me, overeager, ambitious, and perfectionistic.
The new board idea probably is more realistic than expecting Qhimm to create a special forum for us. I have an ezboard (not very good quality, IMHO), if no one else has the time, I can create a private forum just for us in it.
I checked out that guy's site just now. If you think he would want to help with something like this, that would be cool (as long as we writer types don't develop irreconciliable differences with each other over how to do the story ).
The Skillster: You think so? That would be cool.
Just a couple things on your "team assignments":
1. So far, Qhimm has shown little or no interest in being a part of any of this. Unless, he says otherwise, I think we can count him out of this project.
2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ficedula has seemed more like, "Are you guys really that crazy?!", than, "I'd love to help." I'm really not sure if our resident FF7 App man wants a part in this beyond cracking the file formats and that type of thing.
3. We're a pretty small group right now. That means we'll probably/might have to share tasks/jobs a bit more.
4. It's nice that everyone has an "assignment", but perhaps we need to make clear what some of them are (job descriptions, if you will). I've got a fair idea about what R&D and planning are for, but I'm not sure about the others. I think we'll all be a part of research, while development of FF7 editing programs currently falls to Ficedula and The SaiNt. As for the story and all of that, that's still sort of up in the air. So far, I think myself, Sephiroth 3D, and The SaiNt all want to be a part in the writing. Now, for the actual "manual" labor, I think this is where Ficedula drops out. So, all of us will probably have to pitch in at some point. One of the storywriters can probably change any
text we need to in the existing field files, but I'm not sure about other things. For instance, if we *do* give the field models hands, someone will have to perform the changes to every single character model (!).
Here's what I *think* we need to do to get started:
1. Decide what changes we do and don't want to make to the game engine (graphics, models, sounds, music, in-game systems, etc.) (hopefully my tech doc can help with this).
2. Figure out more precisely how much we can do at this point in time.
3. Decide whether to use the FF7 PC engine or to use a different engine and just salvage
whatever we can from what we know.
4. Decide on the scope of the project. My personal plans are, honestly, quite large--maybe too large and somewhat beyond our cababilities. I would like to start at the "beginning", and work our way forwards until we get to where the existing game starts. Then, I'd like to continue with the existing stuff till the end, with various changes and additions (I don't *think* there will be omissions, though).
5. Storywriters compare ideas and any plans/storyboards, write (co-write?) new storyboards/plans with the goal of trying to arrive at a consensus on the story.
Ficedula: (1) Disappointing, but important to know. Out of curiousity, is there anything we/you *do* know about the script? Which section of the field files is it in?
(2) I'm not sure about having to know every format. If we can decipher the .EXE (and I gather The SaiNt's made some good progress with it), we can probably go from there. We probably won't have to alter, say, the minigames or worldmap, we just need to get the .EXE to run in Linux and most of the rest takes care of itself... right?
Halkun: The SaiNt's got a good point. Once we finish with VII, I'll be more than happy to help you with VIII. BTW, how's the movie coming?
[This message has been edited by Srethron Askvelhtnod (edited March 12, 2001).]