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Messages - Quman

1
I feel I should point out that Magi is just the plural form of Magus. Calling someone a Rune Magi is like calling someone a Black Mages.

Anyway, I say stick to commoner. Freelancer wouldn't be too bad, but it still calls to mind heroes like Bartz and Luneth, but the commoner isn't supposed to be a hero. Onion Knight implies that the class is weak in the beginning but becomes more powerful with mastery, but the commoner is never intended to be useful.
2
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
August 04, 2012, 03:31:07 pm
Even if we do end up needing active Lucavi (we might not,) I should point out that Shemhazai and Mateus were always presented as optional additions that could easily be replaced by Lucavi that we already have sprites for. The sprites that are actually needed for this hack are human sprites. This isn't to say that you shouldn't wait until they see evidence that the patch has a chance of being completed before dedicating your time to help with it. I'm just pointing out that the human sprites are the ones ShadowSkyle is calling for.

And I did notice those sprites when they were posted, but the discussion at the time was about the plausibility of the plot working in-universe, not about the lack of resources. There wasn't any particular reason to address the sprites other than to say that they looked good, but I didn't want to imply that my reasoning for proposing the plot had anything to do with that.
3
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 24, 2012, 02:14:13 am
Oh, when you mentioned sending you a message I assumed you meant a private message. Well, I'd like to be part of the writing team. If we're partially using my proposal, I feel like I should be one of the people tasked with making it work. Besides, I like writing.
4
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 21, 2012, 05:13:47 pm
Quote from: The Damned on July 21, 2012, 06:07:20 am(I'm not sure anyone is calling anyone's intelligence into question here, even implicitly. I wasn't at least, given [potential] plot holes can happen to the competent.)


I wasn't taking anything you said as an insult. The idiot thing was my own evaluation of a plot that takes place during the Fifty Years' War that includes all twelve Lucavi (though I suppose idiot may be a bit harsh on my part.) It was also my evaluation of people who blindly follow polls without listening to feedback and ensuring that the path they set down can actually lead to success.

Quote from: The Damned on July 21, 2012, 06:07:20 amI wasn't speaking in absolutes. I dislike speaking in absolutes in general and it would be extra-hypocritical of me to say such a plot-line was impossible when I'm basically doing some variation of it for Embargo.


I had moved on from addressing what you said there, but I should have made that more clear by doing something more than a paragraph break. Dokurider is the most recent to bring up the 'fact' that only Vormav and Draclau were the only ones to know about the Lucavi, though it's come up before.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on July 21, 2012, 01:48:31 pmQuman, the Damned already pointed out why I cannot support the first plot.


I'm not trying to convince people to go with my proposal. Like I said, the whole reason I wanted to do it in the first place has already been eliminated, so I really don't care that much about it now. I'll try to make it work if we get stuck with it because I want this hack to be a success, but I'm not really supporting my proposal otherwise. I've been freely admitting throughout this discussion that my plot is a stretch. The only reason I'm fighting some of the criticisms is because it irks me when people use unfair criticisms or false absolutes when they could make their points without resorting to such. That's why the only part of his criticism I responded to was the part that was untrue.
5
Quote from: Lydyn on July 21, 2012, 12:39:17 pmAs for brave and faith, I already know the exploits of modifying both parts to make silly units that have 90+ brave and so forth, so I'm just removing that ability all together. Though both abilities were completely logical suggestions as both fit the class.


I was assuming that you would use the ASM to remove permanent brave/faith alteration so the +10 to brave would have no lasting effects after the battle. The ASM for that comes with FFTorgASM, so it's really not difficult to apply at all. It seems to be a standard hack that's applied to pretty much every mod I see, so it didn't occur to me that you wouldn't be using it.

Quote from: Lydyn on July 21, 2012, 12:39:17 pmAs for Flurry, why would someone use that ability when they can already use blizzard and it's a 100% hit (might make it evadable like the attack option though)? It's a nice idea, but it's a huge gamble that I don't imagine most people would take. That's why a lot of people (not everyone) seems to dislike Rafa and Malak.


Part of the reason Rafa and Malak were unpopular was because it was so likely for their abilities to have no effect at all, which would be partially solved by having Flurry hit up to 10 times. On average, Flurry would hit 5.5 times, with a decent chance of hitting the same target at least twice (damage was meant to be scaled so hitting twice with Flurry is much better than once with Blizzard.) I was looking for another way to do damage without straying too far into another class's specialty.

Quote from: Lydyn on July 21, 2012, 12:39:17 pmAs for the ninja and thief, I think putting Ninja with lightning makes a lot more sense and hadn't thought of it until Damned said something - even in spite of the clashing professions (samurai turning into ninja). As for the thief abilities, he's more of a utility unit, but he has two attack spells and one support ability.


Sigh... it still kind of saddens me that we couldn't just make wind resistant to lightning and weak against wind. Wind works so much better with the Thief classes (not to mention ice for the Warrior.) Anyway, if you're going to follow his suggestions, I suggest changing the name of the Samurai to Parivir and calling the Archer the Samurai. The name Archer doesn't sound very good for an advanced class.
6
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 21, 2012, 04:05:03 am
Quote from: The Damned on July 20, 2012, 10:10:57 pmAs for the Initial Contact with the Lucavi plot, besides what Dokurider pointed out, it comes off as way too convenient for pretty much all the Lucavi to appear during 50 Year War, get defeated/re-sealed and have everyone either be dead or ignorant.


What the... are people even reading my proposal before criticizing it? I admit that there were problems with it (thus my having retracted it,) but I'm not a complete idiot. The proposal wasn't some massive thing involving the Lucavi all awakening. Only Shemhazai and Mateus were intended to be involved in the plot. I also mentioned Elidibus being in the story, since it made sense that we might address him acquiring a Zodiac Stone and mysteriously vanishing during the recapture of Riovanes Castle if we were covering the Zodiac Stones, but this isn't really anything that doesn't already exist.

I'm also getting tired of people saying that absolutely nobody but Vormav or Draclau could know about the Lucavi during the war. I don't deny that adding one or two new characters who knew about them is a stretch, but it irks me when people speak in absolutes when those absolutes aren't necessarily the case. My proposal has enough issues that people really shouldn't have to exaggerate to make it look bad.

There are ways that the plot could work, but we've already eliminated my main reason I even proposed the plot in the first place, so I'm not going to get too invested in working out the details unless we actually end up getting tied to this plot. But the thing a lot of you are ignoring is the fact that ShadowSkyle also isn't an idiot. I highly doubt my proposal will end up being our direction even if it does get the most votes, so there's really nothing to worry about here.
7
Yay! Somebody else is making suggestions! Now to address some of the things you said.

The reason I picked names like Sage and Magus for generics is because those names are already used for generics in other games. The idea for the sage evolving from the Bard partially came from the way the Sage evolves from the goof-off in Dragon Warrior 3, though the Sage is treated as being fairly special in that game, as well as most final fantasy games it's been in (I'm playing through Final Fantasy III right now.) The Magus, on the other hand, is basically just an upgraded Black Mage in Final Fantasy, like how the Devout is an upgraded White Mage.

As for Samurai becoming Ninjas, I'm just using the term Samurai as a shorthand for Japanese-style swordsman. Our generic units aren't magically becoming nobility in order to become Samurai or Knights, they're just fighting in that style, and Samurai sounds a lot better than Footsoldier. If it's a problem, we could use the term 'Parivir' instead of Samurai. From what I've read, Parivir is Sanskrit for "Bodyguard," which seems like a really weird name for a Japanese-style class, but virtually nobody knows where the name came from, so most people who see the name will just think of the FFTA2 class that doesn't seem to be a full Samurai (it was called Yojimbo in Japanese.) I'd like to keep the Ninja in the fire elemental branch so it can make use of the Oil Bomb ability (there's easy ASM to fix Oil,) though it's not too important.

Now to post the ideas I've been holding onto.

  Thief:
Entrust: Range: 3. Add Quick.
I'd like the Thief to have at least one support ability. It might replace Allure, since I'd prefer to save the Charm status for an advanced class, but I won't fight too hard if you want to keep Charm on the Thief.

  Scholar:
Flurry: Range: 3; AoE: 2 (as in a plus shape.) Hits random panels in the area of effect 1-10 times for minor ice elemental damage.
Prism Shield: Adds reflect status to caster. (Could be fun in the hands of enemies since they're usually good at bouncing spells, though this may be a bit powerful for a starting class.)
I don't really like giving the Scholar access to immobilize since crowd control is the Warrior's specialty.

  Bard:
Heroic Ballad: Range: 3. Increase Brave by 10 (maybe less.)
8
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 20, 2012, 02:07:49 am
And... suddenly my proposal is getting more votes than the proposal that combines two of the proposals that previously been beating mine. Oookay... well, I guess it won't be too hard to eliminate plot holes by decreasing Simon's involvement. Just make him a major NPC that never learns about the Lucavi and there shouldn't be too much of an issue. Eh, I guess I'll wait and see what our final decision is before I think too much about execution.
9
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 13, 2012, 10:29:42 pm
The fact that Byblos has a random monster name might be a slight issue there, but not too bad considering Ramza would have no way to know Byblos' real name. But why are you for the idea if the protagonist turns into Byblos but against it if the protagonist ends up dead? I have my own reasons for not particularly caring for the idea, but I don't see how swapping out one unfortunate end for another would make a difference.

Anyway, I hereby withdraw my proposal. I still like the idea of centering the story around the church, and it might work if either Simon or the Lucavi were completely removed from the picture, but I don't feel like splitting my proposal and dragging things out when my proposal is only in third place anyway.
10
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 13, 2012, 09:07:11 pm
Quote from: formerdeathcorps on July 13, 2012, 07:55:38 pmNOTE: It is actually canonically wrong to involve a plot including the Lucavi because it was made clear in FFT that their existence was unknown to everyone except Vormav, Draclau, Rofel, and Kletian at the start of FFT.


The Elidibus proposal has the player-character dying at the end, and my proposal focuses on members of the church. Note that everybody you just mentioned was aligned with the church. The only people outside of your list who learn about the plot with the Lucavi in my proposal will either end up dead, or end up at Orbonne translating ancient scriptures. I'll admit that it's a stretch to expand "Although he once served as a Church inquisitor, a certain incident led to his retirement, whereupon he withdrew to the remote sanctuary of Orbonne Monastery," into a story in which Simon becomes aware of the Lucavi, but neither proposal really makes the Lucavi public knowledge.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on July 13, 2012, 07:55:38 pmYou create a time paradox if you unveil them during the 50 Years' War.


FFT ended with practically everybody that knew anything about the Lucavi dead. To assume that some new plot involving the Lucavi would end with a large number of people knowing about the Lucavi is unjustified.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on July 13, 2012, 07:55:38 pmEven a "secret" hunt orchestrated by Elibdis/Funeral would defy the plot in multiple points, especially the finding of certain stones at the start of the Lion War and the fact that most of the stones were still not in the Church's hands at the start of the Lion War.


Did anyone actually suggest Funeral having anything to do with the plot? Anyway, I agree that Elidibus shouldn't have a lackey digging up Holy Stones in Goug only for them to magically become reburied so Mustadio can find them, and the Orlandeu thing is almost as bad. However, if the Elidibus proposal ends up being accepted, I highly doubt we're actually going to use those holy stones when Pisces and Sagittarius would work just as well without creating the same plot holes.

Of course, I'm perfectly content to keep the Lucavi out of the story if people prefer that. Avoiding them was my first impulse anyway, and I don't particularly care for the Elidibus proposal. The main reason I changed my mind about including the Lucavi was because I wanted to center the story around the church, and it would seem a bit odd to center a story around the church and not address the Lucavi plot that involved so many high-ranking officials in the church.
11
Okay, it doesn't look like anybody else is posting class ideas, so I guess I'll keep going and hope others start chiming in.

First of all, if the Bard is going to be wielding a flail, I would suggest changing the Bard into a Merchant and having a harp-wielding bard as one of its upgrades. The Merchant's support abilities could easily be flavored as homebrew potions rather than songs. Anyway, here are some more thought out class upgrades.

Knight - Wields knight swords or maybe spears. Adds some healing/support abilities to the Warrior's delaying abilities, probably including something like Ramza's wish. The Knight has less offensive power than the Warrior, but makes a much better support and tank. May have access to move-HP Up.

Gladiator - Wields axes. Abilities are largely focused on crippling or damaging enemies. May have equipment breaking skills. The Gladiator has greater offensive abilities than the Warrior, but not as much HP (though he still makes a reasonable tank.)

Monk - Wields poles. Not quite as strong offensively as the Samurai, but makes up for that by inflicting negative statuses. May have some self-targeting healing/support abilities as well.

Ninja - Wields ninja blades. Glass cannon units with high mobility and evasion, but very little HP. Abilities focus on inflicting damage along with status effects such as poison, death sentence, or instant death. May also have 'bomb' abilities do no damage but add status effects such as blind or poison to all units in an area around the user. May also be able to dispel positive buffs on enemy units.

Ranger - Wields bows. Trades much of the Thief's offensive capabilities for increased range and improved support. Rather than directly healing like other support units, the Ranger heals through use of statuses such as regen and reraise, though it will likely have a direct status recovery ability.

Assassin - Wields crossbows. Trades all of the Thief's support capabilities for pure offense. The Assassin isn't quite as effective as the Ninja when it comes to killing, but the Assassin makes up for that by being able to drop enemy units from a distance. Abilities focus either on damaging enemies, inflicting statuses, or helping the Assassin to escape danger.

Sage (light) - Wields staves and evolves from Scholar. The Sage is much more balanced than the Scholar, and adds some supportive abilities to its repertoire as well as some abilities that inflict damage of elements other than its base element. The downside is that Sage spells take much longer to charge than spells from the other classes.

Magus (dark) - Wields rods. The Magus has very powerful offensive spells and can inflict a decent assortment of negative statuses. The Magus also has spells that drain HP and possibly MP. On the downside, the Magus is incredibly frail, has low mobility, and its abilities are incredibly expensive and will require the Magus to spend a lot of time either draining MP or chugging ethers.

Bard/Enchanter (light) - Wields harps and evolves from Merchant/Bard. Aside from providing support for allies, the class is also good at inflicting status ailments such as charm, confuse and berserk on enemies.

Alchemist (dark) - Wields guns and evolves from Merchant/Bard. Aside from a few possible support abilities, the Alchemist largely focuses on either adding fixed damage (dark matter mixed with potions) or inflicting negative status effects such as petrify or zombie.
12
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 13, 2012, 03:08:14 am
For the record, my submission doesn't require Simon to be the player's character. We can create an original character that we have more freedom with and make Simon a major NPC like Delita is in FFT.
13
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 11, 2012, 07:58:55 pm
I was under the impression that Viera and Bangaa went extinct as a result of the cataclysm. The cataclysm is credited with the extinction of the "winged ones" (possibly referring to moogles,) and it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to say that the other races that we hear nothing about throughout FFT no longer exist. It may be possible to find some way to work them in if we really want to, but I'm reluctant to do so.

As for the other Lucavi, there's a reason I singled out Mateus and Shemhazai in my post. Chaos came from the Taurus stone, which was buried in Goug (probably since the cataclysm, which was also credited with old Goug's destruction.) Zeromus' Cancer Stone was guarded by Worker 7 in Nelveska Temple. Exodus' Libra stone is an heirloom of the Orlandeu family. Famfrit's Aquarius stone was recovered from the Goland coal mine. The two that I singled out were already in the possession of the church when FFT started, so they and Elidibus would be the easiest to work into the plot.
14
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 09, 2012, 04:25:38 pm
Uh... I always thought FFT was about Ramza and Delita, not the Lucavi. Also, this isn't so much about a villain plotting to bring back other villains as it is about a "hero" accidentally doing all of that stuff. I only listed Vormav's predecessor as one possible catalyst to cause this to happen; it's quite possible for this to happen without a possessed church leader leading the way, and it may well be better if the protagonist does all of this on his own.

Recycling FFT's plot would be using FFT's plot as the main focus of the story, but what I suggested was use the Lucavi plot as a way to tell a story not told in FFT. The whole reason I wanted to tell this story is because I was interested in Simon's background, the Lucavi just make for a decent catalyst. But if you ignore the main point of the story and just focus on the villains who are only there to support the main story and thus don't get as much attention, then of course the story I suggested won't end up looking very good.
15
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 09, 2012, 06:59:06 am
Personally, I really like the idea of making Simon the protagonist of this game, or at least a major player. The main plot could surround the church's initial contact with the Lucavi. Either Vormav's predecessor becomes possessed and convinces his buddies that it would be a good idea to find more holy stones, or he's just interested because the Zodiac Stones are valuable religious/historical artifacts. Either way, Simon (or whoever the protagonist is) aids in the search for the latter reason, and ends up inadvertently causing some incredibly terrible things to happen. The Lucavi that awaken during this game may end up being defeated, but the Leo Stone and many others are already in the possession of the church, and it's only a matter of time before Hashmal gets things going again.

The major villains of this story would probably be Shemhazai and Mateus if it's possible to get sprites for them. Otherwise, the Lucavi that appeared in FFT could be active. Elidibus should probably be in the story somewhere. Cid should also be in the story, since he seemed to know a bit about what the church was up to in FFT, and since the Libra Stone was an Orlandeau family heirloom (though I don't think the church knew that he had it.)

As for when this would take place, my preference is to make the story fairly late in the war to avoid the implication that the Leo Stone did absolutely nothing for over a decade. Around the fortieth year sounds good to me, with the relatively mysterious death of King Denamda IV possibly being worked into the plot. It should be noted that Balbaneth's older sons were already active before Denamda IV died, as Zalbaag's profile mentions praise Zalbaag received from Denamda IV for his victories during the war.
16
Quote from: Lydyn on July 08, 2012, 12:34:28 am
Those class ideas help a lot, since I was at bit of a mental block on how to construct it all. I do want to clarify something though ... and I know this is in the original post; there are five base classes, but ten advanced classes as well - each base class having two classes you can branch off to. The basic classes are a great start though and give me some ideas. Thanks! =D I'll let you know what I come up with in reaction to those.


I was aware of that, but my main goal was just to get the ball rolling. If you really want the other 10 classes, here are some off the top of my head. The warrior upgrades into a knight (knight sword, light) and gladiator (axe, dark). the Samurai upgrades into a warrior monk (pole, light) and ninja (ninjato, dark). The Thief upgrades into a ranger (bow, light) and assassin (crossbow, dark). The scholar upgrades into engineer (gun, light) and magus (rod, dark). The bard upgrades into a sage (staff, light) and enhanter (flail, dark).
17
Okay, I guess somebody should post some class ideas. I'll throw out some basic ones and hopefully people will suggest better alternatives.

Warrior - Wields a sword and focuses on the ice element. A melee unit with lots of HP, ideal for tanking. Abilities focus on slowing down enemy units or boosting self.

Samurai - Wields a katana and focuses on the fire element. A melee unit with lots of physical attack power. Abilities focus on negating/bypassing enemy defenses and inflicting heavy damage.

Thief - Wields a dagger and focuses on the wind element. A melee unit with lots of speed. Has a versatile move set that includes both offensive and supportive abilities, though not as good as any of the others.

Scholar - Wields a book and focuses on the lightning element. A ranged unit with lots of magical attack power. Abilities focus on damage and may include weak attack abilities of some other elements or status effects such as poison, instant death, stop or petrify.

Bard - Wields a harp and focuses on the water element. A ranged unit with lots of MP. Abilities focus on healing and buffing allies.

Alternatively, the warrior could become earth elemental, leaving room for the magician to be ice elemental and the thief to be lightning elemental.
18
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 07, 2012, 08:56:26 pm
EDIT: Okay, I really don't like how long my post was. Here's a shortened version that's been edited so it can exist inside of spoiler tags.

1) You should probably be looking at the PSP translation instead of the one we know is rather poor in places.

The half-century of conflict between Ivalice and Ordallia is today known as the Fifty Years' War.

The beginning of the Fifty Years' War can be traced to the death of Ordallia's King Devanne III, and his failure to name a successor. His cousin, Varoi VI, was next in line for the throne; however, King Denamda II of Ivalice (the uncle of Devanne III) proclaimed himself the rightful heir and declared war on Ordallia.

However, this was merely a pretense to justify the invasion of the neighboring Ordallian province of Zelmonia. Once an independent state, it had been annexed by Ordallia nearly a century prior.


Zelmonia had once been independent, but was part of Ordallia at the time the war started. King Denamda II declared war to make a territory grab. I'm guessing the part where it was called a territory of Ivalice was a mistranslation. The part where Denamda II proclaims himself the rightful heir is another noteworthy difference between the two versions of this story, though Denamda was referred to as the king later on in the original translation.

2/3)This is another section where the two translations disagree. Quite a lot, in fact.

Ivalice had since been aiding the province in an effort to weaken Ordallia - an effort that ultimately failed. Tired of Ordallian rule, the Zelmonian leadership and nobility secretly petitioned Ivalice to take a more direct hand in their liberation.

Ivalice never supported Ordallia. In fact, they had been doing the exact opposite of what the original script said. Zelmonia asking Ivalice for aid makes a lot more sense in that light.

4)The PSP translation reads a bit differently here too, though the difference isn't quite as major as previous differences.

After a victory in Zelmonia, the Ivalician armies marched on the Ordallian capital of Viura. As fate would have it, Denamda II succumbed to fatal illness on the road.

It doesn't sound so much like Ivalice is steamrolling Ordallia in this translation. Only one victory is mentioned (though it's quite possible there were others,) and it sounds like the king died before the army even arrived at Bura/Viura. It may have actually been a difficult march into enemy territory.

5)Again, there are some key differences in the translation.

The momentary confusion amongst Ivalice's troops gave Ordallia the opportunity it needed to regroup, and Varoi VI succeeded in pushing the Ivalicians back as far as Zelmonia. The resulting impasse would not be broken until the Romandan army's invasion two years hence.

Ordallia didn't just hold them off. Ordallia pushed them back as far as Zelmonia.

6)The two translations are fairly close here.

Romanda, a powerful military state lying across the Rhana Strait, marched on Ivalice at the behest of Varoi VI, a blood relation of the Romandan nobility. However, Denamda II's successor Denamda IV was a fearless warrior, personally leading his men into battle against the combined might of Romanda and Ordallia. This, along with an outbreak of the Black Death in Romanda, forced the Romandan army to withdraw after only three years.

It's unclear if Varoi is related to the ruler or Romanda, or if he just has relatives that are influential there. That's pretty much the only important differences.

7)Ordallia had already retaken all of their territory except for Zelmonia before Romanda got involved.

Two military orders worthy of particular mention in this conflict are the Order of the Northern Sky, led by Knight Gallant Barbaneth Beoulve, and that of the Southern Sky, led by Cidolfus Orlandeau, known also as the Thunder God.

After countless victories at home, these two orders had been poised to advance into Ordallia. However, the protracted conflict had begun to take its toll on domestic morale. Peasant uprisings and revolts throughout Ivalice and Ordallia forced both countries to send their troops home to pacify their own citizens, resulting in another stalemate.


Nothing important here. Just quoting it for completion's sake.

8)I assume you mean that the stalemate lasted at most 22 years, since it would be shorter if Demanda IV took the throne later (Demanda III seems to have been skipped.)

It was Denamda IV's sudden death by malady that broke the stalemate, although some claim that he was murdered. His successor, Ondoria III, was ill suited to the throne, and left the governing of Ivalice to his queen and retainers. Without Denamda IV's leadership, the armies of Ivalice had little prayer of preventing Varoi VI's successor, Prince Lennard, from defeating the troops stationed in Zelmonia and advancing into Ivalice proper.

8e)Orlandu never said they fought with the support of the people during the war. He said that it was the people who suffered the most during the war, which was part of the reason he opposed raising taxes on the commonfolk for the sake of the Lion War. Also, Orlandu doesn't specify that he fought to protect Zeltennia in particular. His line could be read as him having fought to protect all of Ivalice. Even if he was just talking about Zeltennia, what makes you think he hardly knew that land? It's not as if Zeltennia was originally Ordallian territory. Cid may very well have been born in there. He was most definitely born somewhere in Ivalice, and I don't think spending the first 40 or so years of one's life in a country before going off with that country's army to defend that country qualifies as 'hardly knowing' the country in question.

Also, the script was written by people with modern sensibilities. When modern sensibilities creep into the dialogue, that doesn't necessarily mean there's some meaning behind it. The writers just might not have stopped to consider that nobles never care about the suffering of the commonfolk.

Goltana's line about fighting for the people looked like nothing more than an attempt to justify his actions by using Orlandu's own arguments against him. Orlandu was concerned that continuing the war was making the people suffer, so Goltana spewed out some line about how they were fighting the war for the people.

Oh, and here's the rest of the PSP account of the war:

Despite the valiant efforts of the Northern and Southern Orders, Ivalice failed to repel Prince Lennard's invasion of Zeltennia. Ivalice's leaders soon began looking for a peaceful alternative. In the end, both states agreed that prolonging the war would prove mutually detrimental, and a pact was signed allowing each nation to return to addressing domestic strife. An equal peace in name, it was in reality a defeat for Ivalice.

The economy of Ivalice was brought to the very birnk of ruin as it struggled to pay reparations to its former enemies and to repay the loans taken from neighboring states to fund its war effort. Soldiers returning from the front found themselves without pay, and entire orders of knights were summarily discharged from service. The swelling ranks of the unemployed did little to relieve the people's distrust of the Crown and the nobility.
19
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 07, 2012, 03:42:07 am
Whether you're covering the whole thing or just a portion, the point stands that making a game actually about the war leaves our hands tied in a lot of places. I don't particularly mind the game being set during the war, but "the Ordallian king died, so the war is destined to eventually come to an end," doesn't make for a very climactic ending, and ending the game at any other point in the war doesn't do much better. As such, I also say that we should tell a side story that uses the war as a backdrop.

As for who to follow... I don't have any particular preference, but I don't think focusing on an Ordallian is a good idea. The game has to be set in Ivalice since that's the area we have a map of, meaning the game's story will deal with a lot of people and organizations native to Ivalice. I would prefer it if those people and organizations weren't all set as the protagonist's enemy before the story even began. The interplay between the church, the government, and the peasantry of Ivalice lends itself to some interesting stories, but those stories will be harder to tell if everybody's out to kill the player right off the bat. I would prefer it if the protagonist were part of one of the groups in Ivalice, so that every other Ivalician group has the potential to be friend or foe.
20
New Project Ideas / Re: Community Mod
July 06, 2012, 04:35:55 pm
I thought the game was to be set before the 50 Years' War, meaning Balbaneth and Cidolfus would just be children at the time.

Simon's old enough that he would be in his late twenties when the war started, so using him wouldn't be a problem. We could also use Balbeneth's father or Elidibus, though Elidibus still needs to be around for the war. We could also use a member of Khamja or somebody from Rapha and Marach's home village.