Celestias Ferrum ~Chapter One Released!~

OOOoookaaayyy, so, right now I'm doing some serious re organizing, cleaning up all the databasing and the like, I've finished most of it, now I'm just going to over hual all the icons. I've decided to simply go with using completly Ragnarok Icons, just cuz.

Just gotta stop being lazy and renname all the icon filles, and then sort them all out.

Anyways, I've also started developing the knight's guild, making all the npc's, a library, a scroll check out system.

The cards system is looking good, I plan on having it included for the chapter one release, but I don't know weather or not I'll be introducing the equip feature, as I really wanted that to come along at the begging of chapter two, as I already have the scene in my head. Anyways, theres only like one boss in chapter one, so you don't really get much change to get a A class card anyways.

Lets see..what else....ah, yes, I'm thinking about re-releasing the opening movie. It's changed a hell of alot thanks to the help and advice of Emidy, so yeah, I might post that up, can't say for sure as I do want to hold it to a degree....

anyways, yup, working on it. Hopefully, this'll come out before summer.

Yay! CF is now an official partner of Legend of Harpine!!!

lol, check it out, Chance is also getting employed as a lable under them as well, so me and Sithlord are going to be commisioned Spriter and Mapper for them XD

now then, onto update

I've set up the C.A.R.D.S. system, and I'll probably be done with the finishing touches over the weekend. Maybe I'll post up a demo, dun know yet. Can't be sure

Anyways, I've got my hands pretty full at the moment, lots of spriting jobs from the new commision, gotta still finish that battler, and I've started making the NPCs for the Knight's guild. After that is the next cut scene events.

Databasing went REALLY well, all thats left is applying new icons XD

that'll take a while...anyways, yup, very very busy

good news indeed, the C.A.R.D.S. system is now up and running smoothly without a problem.

I've implemented 3 equiptable A class cards so far. 198: ChocoBo [Enables Skill Escape] 698: White Mage [Eables skill Cure] and 307: Rock Lee [STR+ 10]

The card and compactor system will work through way of a Fusion Card. To unequip that card from the compactor you then need to use a separation card. I need to think of better names, yeah yeah.

anyways, at least it's working now.

the system will be brought up in the story line after about 1.5 hours though, as I don't want to rush into it. The rich girl you save will notice the C.A.R.D.S. you have from the monsters you've already killed, and then will go on and give you one of her spare Compactors as well as give you a tutorial on C.A.R.D.S. so this will be on the boat ride a little into chapter two.

now then, a little rant:

I HATE DATABASING >_<

OMG!!!! I've been working like 3 hours now, and I still have like 5 hours of work left in front of me!!! I'll be doing this all day!!!

now then, some more good news.

I've finished all the npc's for Razril, thats 13 new npc's, polished up everything and so the whole town is up and running and working with no problems. So now eventing wise, all I have to do now is continue with the cutscene eventing, but I should probably finish spring cleaning with all the databasing first >_<

Till next time, also, I'm hoping to have another closed testing. I also had rose test it out two days ago, to quote  "Your killing me here, thats the end? D:" and also she said that if Nintendo released it she'd buy it, a joke I think, lol, oh well.

  lol, Databasing is something I regulary don't touch. just leave for someone who likes writing a lot.


  Expected to keep an Eye on this.

Databasing... I Lol'ed at your unused resources. I guess that what makes the game so big!

Oh yeah.. bout the eventing, you know, if you're doing what I suggested, your work will be clean enough to relax you.
I'm worried here. I mean... you used too many switches and maps just for one event! And you still got more events to do, there might not enough map until the game finished, remember the limit.

I know that re-done the events and change the switches to variables are a silly thing, but at least you can start using variable instead of switch for the next event.  Hope you're doing well and sorry if I'm not around when you needed me, I'll try to get online as I have free time.

yeah, I'm working on that XD

The switches I don't have a problem with as I never bothered to keep them organized and now that I have 200+ switches, of which I think only like 130 is used, I don't feel like cleaning all of that @_@ besides, it works, and switchs are unlimited XD as well as that they don't lag anything, so no biggie

Variables makes me more stressed anyways >_<

but yeah, the unused reasources are pretty much all cleaned up Like, seriously, I completly reorganized the charactersets folder, from 9.8mb to 2.6mb !!!!

So now that I cleaned out about 12 mb of random stuff, plus an additional 6mb taking out that huge space taking ending credits song, which no one really liked so I'm going to change, thats a total of 18mb!!! lol, it was about 32mb

BUUUt, I decided that I dequalitied Mac's animations to much, so now I'm using original Bit Map animations, which on one hand looks friking SWEET, but yeah....just having like a few ones, the used ones, it took up like 14mb >_<

I might compress them a bit, but not too much, I like the amazing quality @_@

BAM!!! I bet that caught you off guard XD

well, anyways, I've decided to change my plan of 5 chapters into 10. So yup, here you go, chapter one of CF

Please report any errors you may find, and enjoy XD try it, I promise you won't be disappointed.


http://www.mediafire.com/?wgilnojqw05

Hints:

Spoiler for:

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!

Chest guide:

1.) After getting dressed, check the drawer again.
2.) Out side Avion's house, check the chest in the middle of the map behind some trees, also check the boat on the shore.
3.) In the forest of sleep, theres a chest in the middle of the first map.
4.) Theres 3 chests on the second map fo the forest, be sure to get the one in the bottom right corner, very important chest, hard to find.
5.) theres 2 more chests on the next map.
6.) theres 2 chests in the basement of the ship in middle port.

also, stock up on bannanas from the food sack in your house before going out.

d/ling now

Finally!

<3

*DN*

zomg omg! -downloading now- !!!!

Oh...my...god. All I can say to describe it so far is beautiful and amazing! *Likes the music and other stuffs*

Keep up the good work! I got inspired so I left the game early... XD

D: You left the game early??? lol, theres only like 40min of gameplay

and to anyone who's played, please leave some feedback. I'd like to know what people feel about it. I'm going to release this with a final version in a week or two so please report any error you find, big or small. thanks.

I got inspired so I left the game early... XD

Lol, looks like you need to make it less inspiring, monkey.

Anyhow, I played some of it so far. And so far, I like what I'm seeing. The character portraits and etc. are well utilized, and actually felt more natural than what I expected. Kudos on that. (Although I can't help but get the feeling that I'm playing a sim date game or something, hah.) Overall, nice work, it's quite evident that a lot of work has been put to it.

As for criticisms; the intro was just a bit too slow in my opinion - possibly partly due to the amount of "... ... ..."s in dialogues. There were also some parts where the white text was on a white background, which was hard to read. The mapping was okay for the most part I think, but slightly bland at parts. I'd recommend making the splash screens with the logos before the title screen skippable, by the way - after a couple of loads, it gets in the way. D:

None the less, great work! And kudos on the nice music selection external graphic utilization and system compilations. Keep it up!

yup, it's supposed to have the feel of a sim date

The natrual flow is thanks to Emidy for helping me out with the character dialog XD

I love the mapping as far as I'm concerned, mine was terrible compared to Seth's XD

and why does everyone play half way through >_< It takes about 25 mins all the way through to credits if you just do the major events, lol. Oh well, I guess thats a good thing?

Alright, my turn.

It didn't take a single hit of the enter key to piss me off, three or four splash screens in a row assured I'd be reluctant to load the game. Afterwards, the grammar and spelling problems were still present. It's a pretty big deal to me. I agree with Reives about the intro.

Mapping was also horrible. Worst world map I've ever seen.

That said, you did a decent job with the pictures, music selection was good. I also saw a person named "Falcon" near the Knight Guild place, is that supposed to be a cameo or something, and if so, are there more members around?

I suggest you put future chapters into a closed beta and fix all of the text issues before it is released.

This surprised me too, Falcon. He just released the demo without even talked to us, the members first. =o
We are supposed to be the first persons to receive the demo and have him know the errors then fixed them together,
but oh well … and I didn’t do much, Ming-kun.

I fixed what you asked me to fix and I’m pretty sure that I have checked my grammars. It’s just that you edited them to your words and forgot to spell check them. Although I have already suggested you to ask some grammar men that laying around the forums like Brady to check them (seriously, I even gave him some grammar tips that I found on my old books because I’m worried). >_>

The splash screens sure takes a long of time to load. Since you have raised the difficulties of the battle, there’ll be some possibilities that the players got knocked out and game over. It’ll be a pain in the ArSheS if we have to wait for a long loading time. This will lead us to boredom, and stop the game halfway.

However the game looks great, indeed. Though I’m not really a music person but I do enjoy the music. =)
Falcon and Reives recommended great tips, you should listen to them.

So I'm still currently playing the game right now, and just as the others said, work on the grammar, add the option to skip the splash screens or at least a button to speed them up.

I'm not sure if it is intentional, and I don't know if you knew about this one yet.

Spoiler for:

But it doesn't tell you if you obtained new cards after a battle, so a player really doesn't know what card they obtained without having to go check in the menu after every battle.

I am guessing the BGM where at 100% high =X was a bit noisy, but other than that, the choices are good =3

Worst world map I've ever seen.

Falco's words couldn't said it better.
Thou overal, some of them look fine, while others make me felt going ballistic >__<;;

As Falco said, you got to work on fixing that grammar >__>;; even the title when I opened for some reason was spelled wrongly to Cealestia Ferrum? >.>;;;

I like the character's personality & the feeling of a sim dating system, the Saving scene looked pretty lively too, CARDS is a bit hard for me, but yet, I find it entertain, thou as Redwyn said, should make something about telling when one gets a new card after each round or if that was intentionally




 ~ Caro Ru Lushe




 ~ Caro Ru Lushe

hm...well, to me, technically, this is kindof a beta test.

I've only released this on 3 of the more lively forums, note that I didn't even say anything on this on my site

Thanks for the imput, the mapping, really? The world map, pick at it all you want, I forgot to mention that it was temporary and made by me, so sorry about that, but if you say bad mapping, are you also saying the other maps are bad? I mean, I know the world map was kindof crap, but the Razril maps were amazing. So was the knights guild interior. Idk, I apprechiat Sithlord's mapping alot and I personally will dissagree with you on that part, he can defend himself though.

The splash screens... well, I have no plans at all on making them skipable. I plan on making the anime intro skipable, but thats it. Reason being is just cuz you don't see many rpgs with the splash screens skipable. Theres a reason they make you wait, pride I guess, but yeah, I'm not going to let it be skipable. Bear with it I guess, turn away if you don't feel like waiting a few seconds, thats jsut waaaaay too impaitient. lol, if I did that, I'd never plan any of the rpgs I enjoy, ToA and Luminous Arc atm

The intro... well, tell the truth, I was atually feeling insecure before putting this up becuase I felt that the intro was paced to fast X.X I guess it's just a personal taste issue, or maybe it's just be, but I really enjoy watching movies at the begging of a good rpg. I really hate just being thrown into game play. But I'll consider it more if enough complaints are made.

Grammer, please report any that you find. If you see any, take a quick little memo and post it, I'm sorry for the trouble but I really am not the best at it. equestion though, is it seriously THAT big a problem? Me playing through it like, what, at least hundred times now never really had much problems with it. Maybe it's just me, but I notice absolutly nothing. I've had a few grammer people help me before, and the problems they pick out is ridiculous. Maybe it's becuase I'm from the south, but seriously, the way they suggest to have my characters talk sometimes....it feels just unatrual.

just once more beuase it really bugs me. Can you guys tell me which maps suck so I can feel bad by myself? I don't get it, I find them better than alot of stuff I see, Falcon and Caro are the first two to ever say anything on them >_<

Also-

sorry to the team, I had a brain cramp >_< idk why I had this release but all I can say, as stupid as it is, I really felt like doing it. Forgive me please x.x I'll send you the final version before I put it up, hopefully I'll finish the opening soon as I've already put together the materials and music selection. I'm trying to design a CF title logo though. Thinking about asking commisions or something on DA but dun know yet, trying at the atempt myself, not working out the best x.x

edit-

forgot about this CARDS thing. It was intentional, but I'll put it in I guess. No big problem.

Also, I'm moving atm, and so internet is cut off from my old apt. I'm over at my new house right now, on my mom's labtop as well, but the point is, internet might be hard for me for 2 days or so, so yeah....lol dun know. Shouldn't be a huge deal though

edit2-

forgot about the cameo deal, sorry Falcon >_< Every name in the city is a cameo of someone I know from real life, since theres so many names there to go around, I havn't moved on to using internet names yet. Cept for a few like Maria or Lenzo, all of the names are people I know irl, personality are off for most of them, a fe are the same when I felt like it though. I'll move on to Internet names once I run out, lol. Oh, but the ship name Tigurus is named after Tigurus of Phanx, lol

Well i find the game could and what they said pretty much cover everything. I find most of the controls when walking around, fun to do.

Spoiler for grammar errors:

These are from memory (it's been 2 hours or so since i played so i can't be exact).
The ones i remember the most are with Miho up into the part where you fight the hound. I think a "What" is missing. The most grammar problems i see are natural. You just forgot a word or two for the most i've seen.

Also yeah, is Avion's battle character set not done? Because i think i saw a lancer/monk attack, when i used "Attack".
Also for the splash you could actually speed it up, just a bit? Not to mean or anything but they do move slow.

Other then those from what i've seen, everything is great. I had fun for the bit i played. I only quit because I had to finish studying geometry and spanish.

hm...well, to me, technically, this is kindof a beta test.

You shouldn't release beta tests openly, unless they're good. My first impression of this project was not good.

Thanks for the imput, the mapping, really? The world map, pick at it all you want, I forgot to mention that it was temporary and made by me, so sorry about that, but if you say bad mapping, are you also saying the other maps are bad? I mean, I know the world map was kindof crap, but the Razril maps were amazing. So was the knights guild interior. Idk, I apprechiat Sithlord's mapping alot and I personally will dissagree with you on that part, he can defend himself though.

The maps by sithlord were good, but the game's mapping sucked. You can't have the most important map in the game be crap, and expect people to praise your game's maps. The only thing worse then poor mapping in my opinion, is mapping which is inconsistent.

The splash screens... well, I have no plans at all on making them skipable. I plan on making the anime intro skipable, but thats it. Reason being is just cuz you don't see many rpgs with the splash screens skipable. Theres a reason they make you wait, pride I guess, but yeah, I'm not going to let it be skipable. Bear with it I guess, turn away if you don't feel like waiting a few seconds, thats jsut waaaaay too impaitient. lol, if I did that, I'd never plan any of the rpgs I enjoy, ToA and Luminous Arc atm

Perhaps you missed the part where Nearly everyone wants to skip the splash screens. It's fucking annyoing, you should listen to what people say. And most commercial games don't have three or more splash screens. It's not a 'few seconds' it's about 35 to start the game. And we can't run RMXP in the background. Maybe put them at the begging of a new game.

The intro... well, tell the truth, I was atually feeling insecure before putting this up becuase I felt that the intro was paced to fast X.X I guess it's just a personal taste issue, or maybe it's just be, but I really enjoy watching movies at the begging of a good rpg. I really hate just being thrown into game play. But I'll consider it more if enough complaints are made.

Reives was right, it was a bit to slow, no need to have all the "..." He's a great storyteller, listen to him

Grammer, please report any that you find. If you see any, take a quick little memo and post it, I'm sorry for the trouble but I really am not the best at it. equestion though, is it seriously THAT big a problem? Me playing through it like, what, at least hundred times now never really had much problems with it. Maybe it's just me, but I notice absolutly nothing. I've had a few grammer people help me before, and the problems they pick out is ridiculous. Maybe it's becuase I'm from the south, but seriously, the way they suggest to have my characters talk sometimes....it feels just unatrual.

That's why you should have released a closed beta test, have people find all your grammar errors, fix them, then release it. Shouldn't take more than a week.

South kicks ass. DO NOT APOLOGISE FROM BEING FROM THE SOUTH. But seriously, it is a problem. When I hear someone talk with bad grammar, I kind of imagine they're four year olds (and all the female graphics already look like they're younger than 8 )

just once more beuase it really bugs me. Can you guys tell me which maps suck so I can feel bad by myself? I don't get it, I find them better than alot of stuff I see, Falcon and Caro are the first two to ever say anything on them >_<

WORLD MAP WORLD MAP WORLD MAP WORLD MAP WORLD MAP Honestly, I know the tileset can take a while to understand, but it is without a doubt the worst one I've ever seen. I'd also suggest "shrinking" the player a bit.

alright, well I already said the world map is temporary and I know it's crap, so w/e and I'm guessing your refering to the world map as the most important?

um...I'm still not going to make the splash screens skipable. I'll pace them up a bit, but no skipping. Yeah, I'm stubborn, don't care much.

I'll think about pacing up the intro, but the grammer I'm working on finidng someone. ok, school computor, gotta go.

Haha. So you shortened the chapters eh? I knew you were planning on releasing a CH1 demo, but I had no idea you were going to do that.  I haven't had time to DL it yet, but I'm going to right now. 

Just a clarification regarding the splash screens: It was a nice touch the first time it ran, and had somewhat of a professional feel attached to it, but it was the times after the player's already seen it where it really gets in the way. A possible solution is to do some simple script work by checking whether a save file exists, and only allow skipping the splashes if there's a save file already - a.k.a. player's seen it once from the beginning. This should get the benefit of both sides.


Edit:
Okay, add something like this:

Code: [Select]

    for i in 0..3
      if FileTest.exist?("Save#{i+1}.rxdata")
        @save_exists = true
      end
    end

    if @save_exists
      $game_switches[CHECKER SWITCH ID HERE] = 1
    end

In your main method after calling the title screen. And then event conditional branch that only allows skipping if that switch is turned on. That code might need some corrections, though.

um...I'm still not going to make the splash screens skipable. I'll pace them up a bit, but no skipping. Yeah, I'm stubborn, don't care much.

Well, if you won't listen to us, then we're wasting our time posting in this topic.