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Post by Diethe on May 29, 2013 7:27:26 GMT -6
Pretty nice and clean aye, but I guess it'll take some time to get used to.
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Post by Ilium on May 29, 2013 8:49:36 GMT -6
Yeah use whichever you like. If there's something specific you would like to see about the forum, let me know and I'll scour the interwebz. I still need to install those side bars...
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Post by Tendehka on May 29, 2013 11:01:50 GMT -6
I am still around! I am finding myself with more free time than previously. For... Reasons.
Anything in particular that needs hitting, other than "everything"?
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Post by Ilium on May 29, 2013 12:47:42 GMT -6
Welcome back! We actually have quite a bit of work done now, though there is still everything that needs finished. Right now focus is still on class development. Some of the jobs are pretty much finished and ready to go for the beta skillset-wise, stat growth balancing is needed for every class as well as skill sets for a few as well. Skill sets we are working on right now are Red Mage, Blue Mage, Monk, Bard, Dancer. However input is appreciated wherever.
Other than classes, we need to begin formulating personal turn actions and generic skill abilities. I like Mordred's 'professions' idea, and I think we can functionally implement that into thee generic skills.
Finally, storyline development is needed right now as well. City descriptions, npc descriptions, overall background and storyline.... we need to form a concrete story to work with. I'll be posting links to threads here shortly.
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Post by Ilium on May 29, 2013 13:07:38 GMT -6
Dark Theme - White forum theme added.
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Post by Wintergreen on May 29, 2013 16:32:45 GMT -6
I was asked via PM over on HoI to offer input. Y'all are mostly good people and I have a strange guilt complex about FFT-inspired games on the internet so here are thoughts:
Firstly: find ways to drum up support/interest and engender a sense of community involvement. You need a community who cares in order to have players--and with out players you don't have a game. The broader sim community has attenuated a great deal so you may have to get creative here.
Secondly: ensure that your sim has a unique identity. There are tons of sims out there that fail two months out the gate because they are a poorly-planned RTK knock-off. Make sure your systems, themes, and terminology are distinct and interesting. Y'all seem to be doing pretty good here, honestly.
Sub-point to point two: this sim isn't HoI. I would not recommend trying to be HoI. HoI was hard and painful. Make especially sure you are sufficiently differentiated from your most direct inspiration---there are lots of people who might like an FFT forum game but don't want to touch HoI. On the other hand, using creative properties or mechanics or ideas or names or etc from HoI without getting the creator's express permission is likely to sour remaining HoI veterans and make them strongly disinclined to support this new separate game.
Thirdly: the biggest mechanical issues HoI v1 and v2 faced were a lack of testing and a lack of conceptual clarity. Make sure all mechanics have a clear concept and a well-defined structure. Make sure those structures are thoroughly tested. Make sure the concepts are all unique and occupy unique niches in design space (y'all are doing well with this by making RM not be "BM + WM"). This will prevent you from having to jury-rig systems mid-game---which is a huge energy drain and a huge problem.
Fourthly: as one of the main worldcrafters for HoI let me assure you that canon is something of a rabbit hole. Don't worry too much about making every one of the myriad Ivalice games and references match up. You can't. It doesn't work. Far more important is agreeing to one internally-consistent interpretation and then creatively building out from there. Example: there are tons of ambiguities and contradictions about Ajora in the original FFT--there are tons of ways to interpret Ajora. Ry and I picked our favorite interpretation of Ajora, ensured that our other metaphysical decisions matched it, and built out from there. Internal consistency is more important than external correspondence--especially since there is no right or wrong answer for issues of external canon correspondence for a lot of these things.
Fifthly: have a solid idea of what you want the game to be. What is the focus? What is the average player experience going to be like? What does this game expressly do? What does it expressly NOT do? These are important identity issues that need to be set BEFORE you start piecing systems together. If you don't, well...you end up with systems and mechanics which may be balanced within themselves but do not add up to gestamkuntwerk game. Put simply: you need a unified concept in the manner of a design document. It is worth delaying work on specific mechanics to get the big game concept down.
I'll post more later. Or something. I dunno. I hope that was helpful. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help you guys.
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Post by Diethe on May 29, 2013 16:47:40 GMT -6
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Post by Wintergreen on May 29, 2013 18:22:37 GMT -6
Also--if you haven't already--get yourselves an IRC channel for staff and dev work. It is seriously impossible to get anything done without a dedicated staff/dev chan. Trust me.
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Post by kablizzy on May 29, 2013 18:24:25 GMT -6
I was asked via PM over on HoI to offer input. Y'all are mostly good people and I have a strange guilt complex about FFT-inspired games on the internet so here are thoughts: Firstly: find ways to drum up support/interest and engender a sense of community involvement. You need a community who cares in order to have players--and with out players you don't have a game. The broader sim community has attenuated a great deal so you may have to get creative here. Secondly: ensure that your sim has a unique identity. There are tons of sims out there that fail two months out the gate because they are a poorly-planned RTK knock-off. Make sure your systems, themes, and terminology are distinct and interesting. Y'all seem to be doing pretty good here, honestly. Sub-point to point two: this sim isn't HoI. I would not recommend trying to be HoI. HoI was hard and painful. Make especially sure you are sufficiently differentiated from your most direct inspiration---there are lots of people who might like an FFT forum game but don't want to touch HoI. On the other hand, using creative properties or mechanics or ideas or names or etc from HoI without getting the creator's express permission is likely to sour remaining HoI veterans and make them strongly disinclined to support this new separate game. Thirdly: the biggest mechanical issues HoI v1 and v2 faced were a lack of testing and a lack of conceptual clarity. Make sure all mechanics have a clear concept and a well-defined structure. Make sure those structures are thoroughly tested. Make sure the concepts are all unique and occupy unique niches in design space (y'all are doing well with this by making RM not be "BM + WM"). This will prevent you from having to jury-rig systems mid-game---which is a huge energy drain and a huge problem. Fourthly: as one of the main worldcrafters for HoI let me assure you that canon is something of a rabbit hole. Don't worry too much about making every one of the myriad Ivalice games and references match up. You can't. It doesn't work. Far more important is agreeing to one internally-consistent interpretation and then creatively building out from there. Example: there are tons of ambiguities and contradictions about Ajora in the original FFT--there are tons of ways to interpret Ajora. Ry and I picked our favorite interpretation of Ajora, ensured that our other metaphysical decisions matched it, and built out from there. Internal consistency is more important than external correspondence--especially since there is no right or wrong answer for issues of external canon correspondence for a lot of these things. Fifthly: have a solid idea of what you want the game to be. What is the focus? What is the average player experience going to be like? What does this game expressly do? What does it expressly NOT do? These are important identity issues that need to be set BEFORE you start piecing systems together. If you don't, well...you end up with systems and mechanics which may be balanced within themselves but do not add up to gestamkuntwerk game. Put simply: you need a unified concept in the manner of a design document. It is worth delaying work on specific mechanics to get the big game concept down. I'll post more later. Or something. I dunno. I hope that was helpful. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help you guys. Hey, brother! Long time no see. A few things. 1. I've got some sources of fanfare for the game, with or without the HoI name. The issue really becomes this - Do we want to mirror the game after Sims or do we take an entirely new path? Because as it stands, HoI was entrenched deeply in the Sim environment, and if you look at our playerbase, how our rules are set up, how turns go... All of it, was based largely upon Sim structure and the Kingdom concept. If we rehaul this, we have to rehaul the entirety of the game, where it goes, what it does, how, and why, and that's okay. But I personally have no idea as to where else the game would go, but that's just me. 2. The sim failing two months in is no worry of mine yet. This isn't an upstart sim like most out there. If I have to, I can pull staff from other sims to staff this place on a professional level with ease. Not to toot my horn, but I've staffed every sim out there, so having someone at the helm who knows things on that level makes the journey tons easier. Also, my high requirements for quality can't be undermined here as they were with HoI, and I'm not going to have Kairo launching the sim out from under us with development not-exactly-done. 2.5. This sim isn't HoI, but again, with me at the helm, there's a lot here that's going to resemble HoI. Insofar as using the HoI name, I am not tied to it, but considering where I've come from, and what percentage of HoI concepts came from me directly or those working under my watch anyway, I'm not sure this will be a terribly huge issue. Now, I'd of course prefer the sim be fun for anyone, because I just want everyone to have a good time, but if there are problems in this field, people will bring it up to us, and we'll deal with it as needed. Looking at the same side of that coin, there are some folk who will expect the HoI name, attach to it as the place they've roleplayed for the past decade, and generally rebuke anything that they see as lesser. The problem lies in striking a happy medium between both of these. 3. Absolutely agree. There were too many hands in the cookie jar at HoI, and everyone wanted to take the sim in "their" direction. And I was far too lenient in that regard. I don't think anyone else here has any idea how much work this is actually going to be, but I do, and I'm going to do it, whether there are twenty people helping, or if it's just me. 4. Canon is impossible to craft, especially since being true to HoI and being true to FFT are each impossible, but at least keeping in-line with some or most of the mythos is well worth trying. If we're not sticking with any canon, we're not making a FFT sim 5. Ilium and I are on pretty much the same page here entirely. I've got my goals set and clear and I know where I want the game to go. Ilium sees things in much the same way, but we also understand that there will be a greyscale where people will meet. I have a thread on goals around here somewhere, which was my first post here, and I'm just perpetually working towards those as best I can. And thanks for the input! It's been a while since I've spoken to you, but absolutely any input on HoI that you've gleaned over the years is more than welcome. I've been out of the loop, so I'd love to hear more from you. |
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Post by Wintergreen on May 29, 2013 18:39:04 GMT -6
Re: Blizz:
1. Deciding this is going to be a big deal, honestly. Whether or not it is "sim" will have a huge impact on design. You can certainly make the game either way--it is just a matter of deciding definitively what the game is going to be.
2. That's good for y'all--the forced v1 close and forced v2 launch were extremely problematic.
2.5 Oh, I'm certain there is going to be a lot that resembles HoI. That is inescapable--and not at all problematic. However, you are drastically underestimating the work and creative energy that went on during the 6.5 years you were absent from v2. Nearly every system underwent a major rehaul. Massive amounts of worldbuilding, character work, and lore were done by a dedicated crew who are still around on the internet and still active in the sim community. Familiar concepts is to be expected. But if you guys directly lift a system or a character or a lore concept without getting whoever the creator was to approve? Yikes! The fact that you were a big force in v1, Blizz, won't mitigate that. The game changed a lot in the 6.5 years you were not there. I would strongly suggest asking specific permission before appropriating anything along those lines. It would be an awful way to ensure a permanently bad mood with the core block of staff who actually ran v2. I don't want y'all to accidentally burn any bridges before you even have a game.
3. I think not having a forced early launch will also help. v2 could have worked those issues out if it had, you know--had the time to get ready before launch. Also, it doesn't have to be a totally hardass top-down development approach. Part of the v2 dev issue was a lack of communication. Get everybody on the same page to start with and divvying up dev work won't lead to as many problems as we saw in the v2 dev cycle.
4. Yeah, pick a line and stick with it is the best you can do.
5. Good to hear! A lack of vision clarity was a major problem in both v1 and v2.
Anyways. Good luck and such! Like I said, feel free to contact me if you specific questions or want advice on a particular thing or etc.
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Post by kablizzy on May 29, 2013 18:49:39 GMT -6
2.5 Oh, I'm certain there is going to be a lot that resembles HoI. That is inescapable--and not at all problematic. However, you are drastically underestimating the work and creative energy that went on during the 6.5 years you were absent from v2. Nearly every system underwent a major rehaul. Massive amounts of worldbuilding, character work, and lore were done by a dedicated crew who are still around on the internet and still active in the sim community. Familiar concepts is to be expected. But if you guys directly lift a system or a character or a lore concept without getting whoever the creator was to approve? Yikes! The fact that you were a big force in v1, Blizz, won't mitigate that. The game changed a lot in the 6.5 years you were not there. I would strongly suggest asking specific permission before appropriating anything along those lines. It would be an awful way to ensure a permanently bad mood with the core block of staff who actually ran v2. I don't want y'all to accidentally burn any bridges before you even have a game. And this is precisely what I need - I've been out of the loop, and what little public development that I have access to on the old forums is a jumble. I don't know what at all went on during that time, and absolutely the last thing I want to do is alienate the guys who kept the fires burning when the rest of us couldn't. I'd also love to have input from them, but I really don't know how to approach them on it. I think you're the first person Ilium's reached out to, but I really do want camaraderie from everyone on the matter. And I'd also love to know what's been going on since I last touched the systems. The v2 staff probably knows a world more than I knew a few years ago, and while I've been developing pretty much the entire time in some fashion or another, this is something that I'd love to build bridges on this, I'm just pondering how. |
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Post by Wintergreen on May 29, 2013 19:03:09 GMT -6
Honestly? Just ask people for input/advice/whatever. Most of us are still around and accessible via IRC and such. Be friendly/polite/humble/don't be intrusive or overreach/etc, I can't say what reactions you'll get but a simple "hey...." conversation would be your most realistic first step.
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Post by kablizzy on May 29, 2013 19:04:06 GMT -6
Good enough. I may pop into IRC and do just that when the aftermath of the wedding settles. By the way, I'm a married man now!
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Post by Ilium on May 30, 2013 10:31:48 GMT -6
Thank you for responding to my invitation, you are the first of the remaining staff to do so. Way back when I first started this place, I sent pm's to Ryven, Rynol, Xiong Su and Jar but I didn't get replies back from any of them. I guess they didn't take me seriously, or maybe they did not receive my message. Perhaps trying to get in touch with them again at this juncture would prove more fruitful. At any rate, I appreciate you stopping by and offering your insight to us. There are so many points to speak on that you presented that I don't know where to start, so I will just go down the list as well.
1) Support for a game like this is hard to come by right now, however I think interest (and potential interest) is as high as it has ever been. Now, let me explain what I mean. Everyone who knows Heroes of Ivalice right now, knows it as a once great game that unfortunately grew stagnant. Truly, as the premier Tactics RPG environment on the internet at the time, any successor to it will also unfortunately have this stigma attached for a while.
However, the exciting part here is the interest for this sort of game to be successful is as high today as it has ever been, even more so than back when v1 began, for a number of reasons. We cannot discount Square Enix's dedication to the 'Ivalice Alliance' concept, with multiple games out now following loosely in the tradition and lore of FFT. Most of these games had not even been released when HoI was started, so now we have a whole new audience we can cater to in 2013 that was not there in 2007.
Also a reaction to the Ivalice Alliance, and also just because fine wine tastes better with age, was the solidification of the original FFT to near legendary status amongst the more involved gaming community. I dare say it is more popular as a title than its even been, save for perhaps its initial launch.
While it is true that in recent years the broader sim community has waned, it is only because of the rigid functionality and strenuous mechanics that people tried to develop with that has allowed the online sim community to plateau as it were, while the Forum-RPG community was able to grow and fluorish at the same time. Heroes of Ivalice occupied a unique niche in both of these online communities, because of its vividly realized story structure and roleplaying opportunities, and because of its system of mechanics that was familiar to sim games. Through these amalgamations of concepts a truly diverse game can be realized, with a potential broad spectrum audience that would retain long term interest. Now all that is left is making sure we tap into this potential interest carefully and in the right way, however I will speak more on that later.
2) I would have to echo Kablizzy's sentiments in assuring everyone this will not be a crash and burn project right out of the gates. I have had varying degrees of investment in Heroes of Ivalice over the years, ranging from wildly active poster and roleplayer, to occasional lurker making a quick check to see if there had been a game turn that month, all the way up to Roleplay Master at the beginning of v2. Over the entirety of its existence however my interest and support for a game like this to be successful never dropped despite my overall activity level.
It is with this interest and support that I decided to take up the mantle of resurrecting the spirit of Heroes of Ivalice after I checked in for my occasional lurk around the board, and saw the State of the Game thread. Finally, what everyone silently knew and solemnly understood had been confirmed. The monstrosity of information that was v2 which had formed over the six year period certainly and understandably would have been exhausting to try and manage. The thought of introducing a new version of the game and starting that whole process over seemed too far out to accomplish, especially when the remaining staff probably all had wildly different lives than the ones they had when they first took up their position.
Now I don't believe it is the staff's fault at all that Heroes of Ivalice ultimately was not able to continue. From what I have learned over the past few months developing this game, and harking back to my original experience with Heroes of Ivalice both as a player and my brief stint on staff, is that the foundations upon which v2 was presented to the public was faulty from the get go. Many of the skill sets I see now at HoI look like our rough drafts before they get dissected and adjusted by all of us. I've also been told some stories from Blizz about his experiences staffing the game at that particular time, and the environment in which they were all working in. This all of course due to the abrupt ending of v1 and hurried launch of v2. I think if v1 was given a chance to be played out in full, making any adjustments and balancing changes then, v2 would have been a much more stable game mechanic overall and we would perhaps be well into v3 over at Heroes of Ivalice right now.
However as things turn out, v2's environment for the game was released prematurely and after a while became unsustainable, so we find ourselves here today. Although updates to HoI had been slow incoming for a good while now, with the State of the Game thread that void that we all felt with the absence of this game was only realized and felt at that very moment for many of us. Evidence of this can be seen in the outpouring of emotion that many players replied with. There are a great deal of us out there who are not ready to see this game, the most popular Final Fantasy Tactics Sim/RPG community on the internet, die such an unnecessary, completely avoidable death.
So I would disagree with you fundamentally with the idea that what we are developing here isn't at its core essence Heroes of Ivalice. This project is the budding leaf growing out of the old withered stump of v2 HoI. Every single person here so far found this forum through Heroes of Ivalice, save for Smash I think who is the only one who has joined from FFH. Everyone who has contributed so far has had vested interests in the success of Heroes of Ivalice and this game as a whole. As Kablizzy stated, many people throughout the course of the past seven years for better or worse have come to recognize the "FFT Online RPG" to be Heroes of Ivalice, and will expect this game to be the only legitimate representation of the concept on the internet.
For this reason, coupled with the realization that original game is now more or less defunct mechanically, I would consider it counter productive and against the best wishes of the entire player base that has experienced this game over the past six or so years to not connect this game with the name and environment we have all become familiar with. With the original Heroes of Ivalice closing up shop, we would not be genuine to the community if we try to present such a similar product and try to brand it something it isn't.
Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand your concern about trying to recreate v2 completely, or plagiarizing creative material of others. I can assure you neither of these is going on at all here at this forum. Right from the beginning, my goal with this project was to implement the concepts that worked from HoI, and disregard all the rest that didn't work so well. Break everything down to its most simplest form, and try to get a balanced, streamlined game capable of producing quick, scheduled game turns. We are going to to achieve this through the beta version of the game which we are going to run first, which will be a fluid, open development environment where there will almost assuredly be many adjustments to the game mechanics.
What we are going to present with the beta version at first is a simplified base of the game upon which we are going to balance and build. We absolutely have to make sure for a game like this that every aspect of the mechanics is balanced well off each other, and the only way to do this is build from the nucleus out. In the beginning it will be a stipped down shell of the game, but through the progress of the beta due to player feedback and background development we will be working with a balanced version of the full game, ready for a quick changeover in the proper ways that the v1/v2 transition wasn't.
So I apologize that all of the work that was accomplished by you guys over the past six and half years won't be making it into the final version of the game, however this might work in your favor because of your concern about using material without permission. The main point I want to make here is that we are not trying to alienate you or what was created in v2 at all, in fact quite the opposite. From the very beginning, I have been very forthcoming with the staff of HoI with my public desire to have them come aboard this project.
Take yourself for example. Do you feel ready to let this game go, or do you still have energy to develop and staff the game? If you don't that completely understandable. However its my instinct that there are still some staff from the original game who would like to take a proactive role in a game like this, and the only thing I have to add to that is that all of the original staff are invited to join us here in reworking the mechanics of the game. We would love to have you here helping to develop this game and offering input and insight at the management level. You inherit your Roleplay Master position and we can all take part in the very active, very real re-envisioning of the game. However like I said if you are ready to retire from this commitment that is completely understandable, and you have my word that no work that wasn't directly developed by or under the supervision of Kablizzy when he staffed the project, will not be present in our version of the game without expressed consent. The last thing we want to do is steal or alienate the original game. In fact, above everything else we want to protect the game's original intellectual property, however we also want to move forward with its legacy and champion its revival.
3) Although I have briefly touched on this point earlier, we are going to accomplish this goal successfully with the implementation of the beta version. Although we will present the beta as a fully involved gaming and roleplaying environment, everyone will understand the premise that the game in its current form is being play tested and various changes to the mechanics are to be expected. We will probably introduce these changes during the game turn changes, listing all of the updates and sort of treat the turns as patch updates. Doing this during the beta prepares us to have fluid, streamlined and quick game turns right from the get go with the official version.
Hopefully through the beta we will also be able to fine tune our ideas about how each and every aspect of the game fits into its own unique niche and role, with as little overlap or recurring themes as possible. This ties directly into the fifth point you make:
5) It helps tremendously that we have direct vision and control straight from the top down here with development. Kablizzy and I are both in agreement with pretty much everything about what we want done with this sim. Having this kind of hands on development of every aspect of the game will go a long way towards producing a good game with a unified vision of what to accomplish.
All in all I appreciate you offering your input here and responding to my message. I hope you take me up on my invitation and join us here, yet whatever you wish to contribute at any rate will be warmly received.
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Post by kablizzy on May 30, 2013 12:01:21 GMT -6
Unbelievably well-said, sir. That was an emotional post.
Also, one thing we've got up our sleeves is something that I've always, always wanted to do with HoI - and that's create a full-on battle mechanics system. Not just text-based, but something usable and beneficial to both player and staffer alike. Honestly, the biggest problem HoI ever had was the whole concept of manually running -everything-. We didn't have Sam's excel calculators like SimRTK had, we didn't have Don's PHP integration like HoC: Japan had. We had to run. Every. Goddamn. Thing. By. Hand. AND propositions. That shit burns some staffers the fuck out.
So that's my number 1 goal for ffSIM. And it's coming close to being a reality. In a number of ways.
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