Thursday, December 31, 2015

Another update on my upgraded DQ1 Remake engine

Most of my recent upgrades have been user interface related, mostly overhauling the menus to give far more useful information, and look much better, as the originals were very bland.

This includes even greater support for much better looking graphics like bust images, and thanks to the hard work of Allusion, I now have a full set of emote busts for Mara now!

Unfortunately, this has led to a bit of regression, since adding some advanced scripting for party guests has resulted in forcing me to toss the FFIX aliged menus and front-back row system, so I'll have to come up with an alternate means that works in the stock UI with the standard alignment.

On the other hand, I now have fixed some issues with the class change system, which will see little or no use in DQ1 Remake but is added for future proofing. Unfortunately, the stock RM VX Ace engine is very, very poor at avoiding database issues with class changes, lacking a lot of sanity checks for learned skills, exp levels, stats, and so on that require a lot of sanity check correcting code, which is still WIP but is getting there.


Well, this is nice, I got a critique by someone who is pro-social justice

Someone who is pro-Social Justice gave me a critique of my opinions and statements here:

https://d4rkst4r.miraheze.org/wiki/GethN7

http://imgur.com/oGw0n6Z

For the record, I have no issue with this. In fact, while I disagree with their conclusions, I welcome their opinion, for which they are duly entitled.

I even took the liberty of replying here:

https://d4rkst4r.miraheze.org/wiki/Talk:GethN7

http://imgur.com/25rBNjq

Again, I decided to respond politely and make clear anything that is my stance, just to be sure they can have my word on the matter in as disspassionate a manner as possible, as my blog is, as admitted, where I do a lot of venting, and while much of that I believe and adhere to in calmer circumstances, I hope my clarification serves to clearly define what should be taken as angry invective and sincere belief.

Also, my purpose in posting this is to praise this user for being so forthright. While I disagree with their opinion of me and my views, I do not want it silenced and encourage them to be as honest as they please. I can take it, and while it's obvious we have many ideological disagreements, they have every right to dissent against me and I welcome any further comment or opinion from them.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Nate Spidgewood: For New Year's, Resolve to Quit Being a Faggot

It isn't even 2016 yet and Nate Spidgewood, batshit loony that he is, decided to send me more incoherent emails promising death and bodily harm, again, completely unprovoked.

His in bold, mine in regular font.

---------------

I HOPE YOU BURN IN A HOLE FOR READING THAT FUCKING ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA ARTICLE ABOUT ME, YOU FANBOY FAGGOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<


Nate, I might just sign up there just to add your lulzy comments.
Seriously, grow the hell up.

SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (PUNCHES YOU IN THE FACE FOR CALLING MY COMMENTS "LULZY" TELLING ME TO "GROW UP" WHEN I ALREADY AM)


Thanks for the added material, it'll look great in the quotes section of the article.



DON'T YOU DARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT FUCKING ARTICLE IS WHAT GOT MY FURAFFINITY, CLG WIKI AND DEVIANTART SUSPENDED IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE THOSE FUCKING TROLLS AND HATERS WHO SUPPORT ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA FOUND OUT, ESPECIALLY THOSE ON DEVIANTART WHO KEPT CALLING ME NAMES, FLAMING ME FOR MY ARGUMENTS AND MISCONSTRUING MY AGE AND IDENTITY AS A "LITTLE KID", ACCUSING ME OF HURTING SOMEONE WHO CALLED ME A "TROLL" AND MAKING HER CRY, AND EVEN GO AS FAR AS TO HACK MY DEVIANTART ACCOUNT AND SABOTAGE MY PROFILE INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY, IT'S GETTING WAY OUT OF FUCKING HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<




You know what, this will make a great sequel to the last time you did this crap, so I'll put it on my blog instead. Still might put it on ED as well.
If you're going to act this batshit, it's no wonder you got kicked off those sites, you have anger issues and you need help.
And dude, I don't care about your drama, so leave me out of it.


DON'T YOU DARE FRIGGIN' PUT IT ON E.D., YOU FUCKING TATTLETALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (PUNCHES YOU AGAIN)

IT'S E.D.'S OWN FAULT FOR MAKING ME LOSE SOME OF MY INTERNET FRIENDS AND GET HATE EMAILS AND MESSAGES AND GETTING SOME OF MY ACCOUNT SUSPENDED, YOU FUCKING TRAITOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (PUNCHES YOU AGAIN)

AND STOP CALLING ME "BATSHIT" AND "DRAMATIC"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (PUNCHES YOU AGAIN)
--------------
Nate, you are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity. Farewell.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Another progress report on my updated game engine

With the Christmas holidays over, I've decided to get back to further working on my updated game engine, and the changes so far have led to the following decisions:

* Player characters will have a full range of emote busts, not just mere facesets. Major characters will likely remain with just facesets, barring exceptions where I have a full set of bust graphics on hand for them, but at the least, all playable characters will have waist up bust portraits.

To that end, a few characters are getting a minor makeover to accommodate the new bust graphics, especially Sarah, but they shall otherwise have no other major cosmetic changes.

Note; I plan to make use of some slightly altered artwork by Archeia for some of the new character art, who is far more talented than myself, and whose art has already vastly improved my game so far, and I plan to further display her talent because she's an excellent artist and I feel her work does my own honor.

* When it comes to coding, I'm good at modification and bug testing, not actually writing it, so I plan to use scripting that either uses its own self contained calls or builds on the stock engine without fancy overrides. This should make bugtesting a LOT easier in the event of scripting errors

* About a third into the way into making DQ1 Remake, I decided I was serious about doing so, it was no longer a mere lark, but then I was young and foolish and started bolting scripting code onto the engine without making sure it all would work with each other, leading to lots of regressions and issues along the way.

So far, I'm still not even halfway done, and I'm currently betatesting all scripts as I add them and retesting them every time I add new features in a closed test shell (none of the new engine is being tested on the current game data so far) because I plan to do a rump transfer of all my new engine onto the old, and I want to make sure all the new parts gel nicely with the old before I attempt to pop the old engine out of the chassis and replace it with the new one.

* I have tossed out some of the fancier things I wanted to add, or least plan to belay their addition - I added a lot of cool visual frills like an enemy sensor, a full blown explorer HUD, and a few other visual frills to liven up the engine, and unfortunately thanks to my foolish monkeypatching and failure to edge case test to make sure they wouldn't cause unexpected issues, it led to tons of regressions, so I'm saving adding any fancy visual frills for last, AFTER I've ensure all the core gameplay scripting won't break.

I will continue to leave regular progress reports of some kind as development on my new engine continues. I do not have a projected ETA on it's relative completion, but I hope to have very significant progress done by the end of January.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

More updates on my updated DQ1 Remake engine

I'm still making great progress on revamping my DQ1 game engine, so much so I decided it would be better to pour all my energies into that then release another beta on the existing engine, so a new game beta will be delayed.

However, this is not a bad thing by any means, since my new engine has several more features now:

Face/Bust Options: RPG Maker can show "face" graphics for characters, where you just see a face in the text box of conversation by default, and now, I can show "busts", or waist up portraits of the characters above the text window. Since using all faces or busts would be exhausting and tedious (not to mention would be difficult to track down images for one or the other in some cases), I have made it to where I can use either option, though my plan is to remain consistent with one style or another for the most part.

Enemy HP Bars: I had more than one solution for this at my disposal already, but I had issues with the bars bleeding into each other and most of them being obtrusive. I have been testing a more lightweight version that appears to work quite well, and unless if it gives me unexpected issues, it shall remain in the final version.

Other Stuff - Several edge case bugs have been addressed with certain bugfixes, and my plan to avoid frameskip lag that can make movement appear stilted, which was the case in certain cases with my current DQ1 beta engine.

I plan to further develop my new engine over the holidays and most of January, as I have a lot to test and debug before I try to replace my old engine with the new one.

I will release new updates here on my blog in the meantime, hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Building a better DQ1 Remake Engine Updates

Due to the holidays and a lot of other matters on my plate, I still have plans of releasing an updated beta of my game with some new features, though I may put it off until sometime after the new year.

Some of these items include some custom commissioned artwork by Fumirei and music commissioned for the League of Gamers website which I graciously received joint permission from Mark Kern and Jared Burrell to use in a limited capacity for a custom credits scene, as well as some gameplay and world updates.

However, the reasons I am considering belaying that until I have my new engine finished are because, while the new engine is far from complete and still in alpha, it already has made far less mistakes than my old engine, eliminated a lot of monkeypatched issues the old one had, and brings a lot more features to the table. An overview of the features of the new engine:

FF9 styled "Rows" - In Final Fantasy IX, characters in the back row took less damage yet did less damage, unless their weapons ignored the row penalty. This feature was planned for inclusion early on but cut out due to technical issues, it has now been restored. The menu interface also resembles FF9 to a degree, with the player menu having the options aligned to the right side of the screen.

Dragon Quest style difficulty: The original design philosophy of Dragon Quest was to make a lot of actions a gamble and to make the difficulty somewhat challenging, and to that end, I have done the following:

1. Lowered amount of items of any type carryable to 9.
2. Small Medals are rarer.
3. Casino games made riskier.
4. Improvements added to combat engine to make battles much less easy with a greater chance of randomness.

Much less resource bloat: My original engine had a lot of unoptimized for size and quality files under the hood, and my new engine intends to curb this somewhat, both for performance reasons and to reduce the size of the game file for those with slower connections.

Lots of added yet not enabled scripting features for future proofing: Since I plan to use this engine for later games in tweaked forms, there will be a lot of added scripting unused yet vetted for performance and compatibility under the hood in the new engine. The open source SDK will retain all of these added features for use by anyone else who wishes to use these added functions for whatever purpose in their own projects, subject to the terms of the scripts included.

The SDK will be as open source as possible: The SDK version of my game will simply contain all the assets used for the engine, minus commercial/licensed assets. Some of the scripts included may not be for commercial use, and all scripts included (with or without my tweaks) must be used within the same terms I had to use them, and the SDK will require some tweaking to some scripts for other projects, but it will be totally unencrypted and completely free for redistribution, all I ask that you let people know where to find the original to find updates and to give me credit for any of my own contributions.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Nate Spidgewood: Holiday Death Threats Edition

Is there a full moon out? Am I the only ex-member of TV Tropes who HASN'T turned into a massive crybaby faggot who thinks they are owed the world?

I mean, come on, I recently read about that pedophile internet tough guy Harold Hall on the Kiwi Farms. I myself have had to deal with the deranged madness that is Gabe "Moleman9000" Navarro's drama generation and rants about cyberbullies, and recently, Nate Spidgewood (go read his ED page, it's hilarious) sent me death threats.

Yes, completely out of the blue, for reasons I cannot comprehend, he decided he had nothing better to do one day than to send me death threats

Below is our emails (His in bold, mine in regular font)

------

I'LL FUCKING *KILL* YOU FOR THIS, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<

YOU CAN BURN IN A HOLE FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME, YOU EVIL, NAZIIST BASTARD WHO SUPPORTS WIKIPEDIA FOR RUINING TV TROPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<

YOU CAN BURN IN A HOLE FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME, YOU EVIL, NAZIIST BASTARD WHO SUPPORTS WIKIPEDIA FOR RUINING TV TROPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH I SWEAR I'LL COME OVER TO YOUR FUCKING HOUSE AND MURDER YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<

You do realize I can report your death threats to law enforcement.
You're still young, don't do this, because I really do not want to have to see you wind up in prison.

I'M FUCKING 20 YEARS OLD, YOU DIPSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP CALLING ME "YOUNG" OR ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nate, I'm planning on dropping a tip with the FBI about this, and for your sake I hope you haven't tried to send these threats to anyone else, especially any member of TV Tropes.
What you are doing is unhinged and I worry you need mental help.

TAKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (PUNCHES YOU IN THE FACE FOR INSULTING AND THREATENING TO REPORT ME)
GO ROT IN A HOLE FOR TAKING MY FUCKING STREET ADDRESS FROM THAT ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA ARTICLE ABOUT ME, YOU EVIL SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<

------


....and now that we got that out of the way, a few things I'd like to parse that may not be clear from the ramblings of a crazy person.

* I have no idea why Nate wants to kill me. Hell, I tried to be nice to this sad sack for the longest time until I realized that boy ain't right and he still entertained sick fantasies of revenge against a website I've long since forgiven. Hell, I just wished their current owner a happy holidays.

* Second, I don't get how I'm to blame for TV Tropes sucking, unless he hates me for using MediaWiki as my wiki engine of choice.

* Third, I'm almost thirty, and given how mature the above was, I'd say he's 2, not twenty.

* Also, I haven't contacted the FBI yet, but I'm still thinking about it, as I'm seriously worried about the bats in this guy's belfry.

* Finally, according to that ED article, this guy doxed himself and the information was thus in the public domain. I know, checked the sources.

At any rate, I'm not worried about some spastic jackass trying to kill me, I just pray he doesn't wind up hurting himself or anyone else.

I need a drink, I'm being hassled by an idiot called Moleman

For those not aware, I've recently gotten a lot of crap from some imbecile named "Moleman9000/ResonX", real name Gabe Navarro. He's a Hispanic guy who draws some really tacky art, writes a fanfic universe called the Nava-Verse, and is prone to spewing drama wherever he goes.

And I just happened to to be the latest SOB caught in the crossfire of this autist.

Before I go on, I have autism too, but thing is, I doubt this guy got the therapy and proper raising I did to help me cope, learn what is socially acceptable and channel the single minded devotion autism tends to grant those with it into useful areas. Instead, he spends it acting like an entitled jackass starting crap, screaming about cyberbullies, and trying to drag people who don't give a damn into his drama.

You want to know more, read up on him at the Kiwi Farms.

Recently, he gave me grief because some people he didn't like wrote some criticism about his series on All The Tropes Wikia, and after stripping out the obvious crap, I was able to source and verify the rest, but because he hated the parties in question, accusing them of being evil incarnate who are longtime tormentors (even if that's true, I don't care to be dragged into his BS) and that everything they wrote needs to be removed.

I refused, blocked him, and he decided to hassle me across Wikia. As for the parties he raged about, they've been fairly nice to me, and I don't care what they do so long as they don't cause trouble for me, something this spoiled rotten douche seemed to not understand no matter what, and it got to the point I contacted Wikia support, imploring relief.

Since I knew I was the latest in a long line of wiki admins who had to deal with his drama generating BS, I asked for a global ban, because I knew he wouldn't drop this and go on to hassle some other poor souls, and I don't wish that guy's antics on anyone.

The global ban was granted, but idiot still decided to give more grief using sockpuppets (a major no-no when they globally ban you, means you are NOT welcome back at all), and I still have no desire to be caught up in his reign of terror.

If Moleman happens to be reading this, as rude as this sounds, you've driven me to this:

FUCK OFF YOU SOCIALLY STUNTED ASPIE, I JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE!

Seriously, I don't hate the guy, I just don't want to be caught up in his shit and wish he'd understand he's not a god who can command the world magically bend to his will.

Also, I'm not much of drinker, but this guy has definitely made me cast longing eyes at the bottle.

Here's hoping I don't get liver failure before this idiot finally leaves me alone for good.

P.S. - I plan to report any Moleman socks I know about to Wikia Staff, hope they IP ban this guy, I just want to be left alone.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Dragon Quest 1 Remake engine needs rewritten, I do not wish the final product to be Revolution 60 2.0

I'm afraid I have some bad news:

I still plan to release an updated beta by this Christmas with new content, especially for the League For Gamers and the Kiwi Farms, both sites which I promised would have in universe material dedicated to them, but I will probably have to do so in a greatly reduced form, unless further problems force me to not be able to do this.

The reason is simple: RPG Maker MV is hideously unstable for my needs and will not port over my work (maps especially due to the map size limits) very well, and given how buggy it is, I have elected to remain with using VX Ace for any sequels for the time being.

Another reason is since I wanted to use the engine I have now for any successive projects given the first point, and that means the engine in it's current state is off the table, being a programming golem with mismatched body parts held together with a lot of inflexible scripting code I desperately want to optimize, since the current version has some edge case bugs that can corrupt save files a rewrite would remove and I could reduce the performance enhancement script dependency I've been relying on (like Effectus) considerably, I feel taking the time to rewrite and overhaul the engine before resuming development would allow me to turn out a superior game in the end,

I also wanted to provide a stripped down "SDK/developer kit" version of my game with my custom alterations that anyone can freely use for their own projects (minus commercial/licensed assets), and my current engine design does not allow for this, and since I'm an open source advocate, I want to give something back to my fellow programmers and game developers by letting them used my tweaked game engine for whatever purpose they deem fit, and a rewrite of the engine would make this possible.

Finally, I'm ashamed of all the shortcuts I took early on to get where I am now, since it has made my scripting code a nightmare to modify without causing crashes, I had to leave a lot more on the cutting room floor than I ever planned to, and unlike Brianna Wu's Revolution 60, which has been delayed since it's initial iOS release with only superficial graphical alterations and mild tweaks to the QTE system that still do not address the low res textures, overlay overuse, blocky meshes, weak gameplay, and numerous performance issues that will likely not be addressed when it is given an updated re-release, I feel I can do much better by taking the time to fix the foundations of my project so it not only comes off as a superior engine, it will be so good I can use it's base as a foundation for future projects that still have a more efficient scripting base that provide a more problem free and player friendly gaming experience.

I apologize for any delays this might cause, but I am not happy because I had long terms prospects for this project I cannot fulfill unless I do a rewrite of the scripting, and I want to fulfill all the objectives I had not only for myself, but for the gamers who enjoy my work, as I believe they deserve the best I can do, not merely something that works but has issues I could resolve.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...