That One NPC

FAE is one of the better stories I've ever created, in my personal opinion. It is now in it's fifth year of development, but I have done almost no work on it in the last two years aside from trying to finish the first volume on a few different occasions. It all started in 2016 when I began to watch Stranger Things for the first time. It left a huge welt of inspiration and muse across my face and I had no earthy idea what to do with it. This was very new to me, very refreshing and exhilarating, but still new. I wasn't accustomed to writing pre-teens, or even teens as main characters of any kind in most of my role plays, let alone my solo projects. It brought me back to Earthbound in a way that really resonated with me. Then you toss in elements of controlled cosmic horror? So I came up with a little something different using some of the themes and influences that had inspired me. FAE is a story about a town, the families that live there, and the knots their destinies form over generations. It's also a tale of two worlds apart. The Realm of Terra, and the Realm of Fae. One world young and dying but brimming with potential. One world ancient and decayed. But most importantly, it's the story of a being caught between those worlds, and the beings who stranded him there. FAE starts off in 2020, in the quiet, unremarkable town of White River Valley. It follows the lives of several local families living ordinary, boring American lives free from compelling drama or super powers. But like an iceberg afloat in the ocean, a mountain of history and lore hides just beneath the surface. History of Fae Ruled by the Prime Fae of the three houses Order, Wisdom, and Chaos, the Realm of Fae was a majestic world much like our own. It was a planet teeming with Fae cultures and nations. At the center of those cultures was Yaggdrasil. The Tree of Life. A towering, enchanted tree resembling an American sycamore with leaves the size of a trampoline canvas. The tree is revered as a deity-like figure, and the source of all lifeforce. It is known by the Primes that Yaggdrasil is a conduit between the realms. For eons the Realm of Fae was a happy, healthy, stable realm, but the conflict between Order and Chaos seemed inevitable. The flame and ruin of a Fae war ripped the realm to shreds, and the House of Chaos was emerging as the clear victor. The Primes of Order and Wisdom so feared the Prime of Chaos they devised a way to exile him through Yaggdrasil into the Realm of Terra. Even after the war subsides, Yaggdrasil is decaying in the Realm of Fae. Fae no longer possess their gifts, and have become mortal. Capable of aging and dying, the entire population wither away, leaving only the Primes of Order and Wisdom. Before this process is complete, remaining Fae embark on a pilgrimage through Yaggdrasil and into Terra, hoping to survive the death of their world by seeking asylum here. Inevitably, they are met by the Prime of Chaos, who has been trying to get back to his own Realm for over two thousand years. He has been playing God with a young Earth, creating war and chaos from one continent to another. Their conflict with him ends in his once again being tricked and cheated. They trapped him outside his prime vessel (body), and seal it away in a temple beneath the White River forest. This seal is performed by a Fae of Order, and only a descendant of their bloodline can break the seal. Without his prime vessel, he is like any other Fae and significantly less powerful. That takes us into the modern age.

Just telling it how it is. My opinion is worth no less because it's not candy coated and PC filtered. Or it could be because you like the Purple Monster, and I'm calling for it's head. It's all relative.

Although I don't use it, this is excellent news for the site. Certainly puts any issues surrounding the Purple Monster to bed.

The purple on grey is the majority of the problem. It creates a chaotic aesthetic that feels like a children's website made with phpbb2 on one of the old free services that had thousands of horrific themes in any color combo you can possibly imagine. More often than not the point of a dark theme is to get rid of brightness, not replace white with bright, alternative colors. It's been a long time since I saw a purple theme on a board.

When I first read the thread, the title suggested a choice between the two may be made at some point. Like many, many sites, I thought they were doing away with themes completely. When I saw that everyone and their pet prefers the dark theme, I said it would affect the frequency with which I use the site. And it would. Stylized site themes that aren't well designed (like this site's dark theme) give me a headache.

You need to pass it off to actual testers who know what to look for/evaluate across the board, trying to be as objective as possible. People who will take notes, and provide a detailed analysis of all the areas evaluated. An amateur tester can play a game just looking at the surface of it, telling you this part was fun or boring, easy or hard, there's a typo here, a bug there, etc. A good tester will give you feedback on characters and their story arcs, dialogue, skills and builds. On mapping, story flow, balancing, feature hiccups, suggestions to improve areas that are lacking etc. Friends will more often than not hesitate to be completely forthcoming, and sooner celebrate what you've done. Try posting a testing project on this or other RM sites, and see who volunteers. I will test an Ace game.

I'm now grappling with concepts, both world setting and design, and well as play features and game systems to make it stand out and be worth playing. Ideas I have so far include; Generic open world Fantasy MMO the that focuses on making the most of every aspect offered by VXO and whatever ese can be squeezed in. PvP minigames and areas, but as largely optional content. Built in E-Sport as well as other distractions heavily integrated into the clan system. Open World Dark Fantasy MMO with heavy PvP and survival elements that create an engaging, challenging, competitive world. Open world Zombie Survival MMO with heavy PvP elements. Many sub-concepts in here, haven't fully tackled it et because I know RM resources aren't equipped to tackle a full mmo. Pirate-themed MMO largely based around naval exploration and battles, as well as land exploration and settlement. Other features would be worked in, but this is a fresh idea. Still working on more. The VXO weapon assets for sprites use Mack sprites, so I have to figure something out for weapon graphics to use for LL sprites. I want a more robust range of weapons.

UPDATE: No, seriously. I'm making an MMO now. IT/Server Technician acquired.

Based on the polling data, I'm in the minority here, but I really like the light theme. light and dark options have become the norm over the last ten years as the trend of colorful, artsy, often chaotic page themes has died off. I like a clean aesthetic that makes things easy to read. White on grey is just.... ugh. lol There's no way for me to sugar coat it. It's so 2004 amateur fan board. I'd still use the site, but for in & out operations and maneuvers only.

Super speed could very much be used in a number of different ways. I've been thinking about doing a modern super hero RPG, and that's something that could come in very handy as a timed booster with a cooldown for either a speedster character, or if super speed is selected in some form of super power skill tree. I know of a flight script that I was also interested in investigating in further detail for that project concept. But you'd need to jerry rig a bit of script to make events trigger normally when crossed clicked or bumped during super speed. Otherwise it sort of becomes broken and far less practical, but still interesting enough. If you could somehow work in an energy meter that drains as the player maintains super speed, it would limit the extent with which the player can bomb around at the speed of sound, making it a more measured, tactical advantage when used properly. Not to loop back to the first paragraph, but it made me think of super speed flight as well. That could be very fun and cool.

Speaking as a player first and foremost, when it comes to world maps, it doesn't much matter. Try for a realistic aesthetic that has lots of area to travel (more than you're used to in basically any of the iconic JRPGs with world maps). Because using the standard scale for world maps, there's never much exploration, anyway. I actually dislike traditional world maps now. They are so redundant and awkward. I'd rather traverse a series of full wilderness maps to go from Town A to Town B. That provides actual exploration, visual stimulation. It fleshes out and gives character and texture to every area, and makes long distance travel seem like more of an adventure. But when it comes down to it, focus more on your aesthetic, always trying to balance a good, believable look, with playability in those environments. Either extreme will be just that, an extreme. It should depend on the area/geography in question, vs a "mapping style" felt consistently throughout the entire game. Mapping is very, very, very hard.