Final Fantasy Hacktics

Red Wings
Hi everyone!  :mrgreen:
I want to create my own mod finally, and I'm gonna. Right now I'm still fleshing out the story but basically it will be a short, one chapter mod. I want to create custom events and probably a few custom sprites to go along with it. I know my events I made up to this point were mediocre at best, but I hope (maybe also with some help/ideas from all of y'all) that they can become more exciting with this project. Like the title of this thread states, this will be a mod on the attack of Mysidia, from Final Fantasy 4. Any suggestions or critiques will be much appreciated as I start to develop this, don't be afraid to share your opinions as well!

Introduction
As of right now, I'm working on the story mainly, but I already have in my head how this game will be shaped. I want the story to start with a "naive, brave and proud" Dark Knight Cecil, the Lord Commander of Baron's Red Wings. He leads his men, the Red Wings on the assault of Mysidia to obtain the Crystal, which as dictated to him has become too dangerous in the Mysidian's hands. The Red Wings will play a major role in the battles, but the focus of the story is on Cecil and how he reacts and comes to terms with himself once he realizes that he obviously is slaughtering innocent people for the whims of his King. In a certain sense, its kind of like Cecil is an obedient puppet...

Events and Maps
Not even close to finished, but here was some random stuff that I wrote down for an introduction, this obviously will be revised until I'm happy with it.

Maps

Cast of Characters

Story

So I'm assuming it won't be like FF4, where they actually had doubts about attacking Mysidia, and didn't want to do it? Where Cecil actually didn't know anything about what crystals did?

This sounds cool though. Nice to have another perspective on things.

You do have a good point MountainDew, however I always assumed (maybe incorrectly) that the Red Wings just attacked and took the Crystal, and then thereafter had a bad conscience about it. The game itself was never too clear on the whole ordeal since all you get is a flashback with either no dialog or some simple text like "Take them!" in the Crystal room depending on which version of FF IV you were playing. Please read this in the spoiler:

This is the DS version of FF IV. Here it seems to me the men are confused about their actions after they take the Crystal (since there is a flash back). I guess I will base it on this one. Another good question would be is if the Red Wings had such a bad feeling beforehand of the attack, why did no one speak up or revolt, especially Cecil himself? He does have some sense of loyalty but I'm pretty sure if he knew he was doing evil, no matter for his king or not, he wouldn't have done it. Thanks for the feedback, this got me thinking on this whole thing on a different level, it gave me some more good ideas on how to characterize both the Red Wings and Mysidians. Actually the flow can be kinda like what I described above, like Cecil starts out as a loyal and brave soldier, obedient and somewhat innocent/ignorant to the King's true motives, but by the end of the mod realizes he is nothing more than the King's killing machine. More to come soon! :mrgreen:

So now that I feel like an idiot, two things.

1)I don't really think there's much view of the Red Wings pre-Mysidia attack, it's just the opening cutscenes of them leaving the Castle, no talking. We never really know if anyone agrees with what the King is doing. However, from what I remember, the people of Baron in general were not happy with it, and they thought the King acted strange. Maybe there was some dissent before hand that they never showed us?

2)Dark Knight Cecil is more of a person that is just looking for a purpose in life (in my opinion), than a loyal and honorable leader. His relationship with Rosa is rocky, and one of the only "true" friends he has is someone who is just as confused with life as he is. I don't think Cecil could stand up for what he believes is right, personally. He thrives on the fact that the King needs him. It is more obvious when the King takes away his position as leader of the Wings, and Cecil STILL obeys the King to the letter. He fights through warnings, threats, and who knows what dreadful monsters, just to get to Mist and deliver what is, as far as he knows, a small parcel? Please.

Actually, this kinda happened unintentionally but the protagonist shifted. I thought about all this stuff and everyone already knows Cecil's story, if you wanna play FF IV why play a mod on someone's point of view? So I decided that now the focus will be on the Red Wings. I'm still arguing internally with myself if I should really go all out and make a patch about a Red Wing rookie and then a whole new story from the bad guys point of view. Imagine you play as some new Red Wing recruit and then go about doing "evil" stuff that the King commands you to do, like you actually destroy Damacyan and get to kill Anna with arrows (who shields Edward with her body) or raid Fabul, etc. All those places could be retold from the Red Wing point of view because they were victories for Golbez...

Cecil & friends can be saved for events in between battles. Maybe you can fight some of them as bosses, I dunno. This also gives me the chance to make Kain a PC for the player. Evil Kain! :mrgreen:

I made the opening event but after replaying it a few times I don't like it anymore. I think I'll just start with a simple speech or something and then let the player kill some Mysidians, but after that Cecil and Kain go to Mist and the main character Red Wing will do some other missions...thinking about it...

Cecil's Dark side actually did escape from the top of Mt. Ordeals.... mwahaha!

Sounds cool.

Here is the first prototype event, please notice the sound effect at 52-57 seconds (the marching sound) will get most likely cut. I really need crits and advice to make this event shine! :mrgreen: I'm totally willing to fine-tune it, I just don't know now what has to be changed...

Real quick, the sprites are not that important right now. Cecil is a generic Dark Knight from WotL and the Red Wings are all Squires. I actually like that the Red Wings are Squires and might keep that, I made three special Red Wings, Biggs (with the portrait of the prisoner Delita has in the Gelwan scene), Wedge (with the portrait of the enemy Squire in Gariland recolored red) and {Ramza} (with a generic Squire portrait). {Ramza} has been renamed to nothing, so the player can name his Red Wing character whatever they want.

This is a nicely done event Jon, I see you are getting the hang of it. I like the camera movement, but there is still a couple things, like Cecil needs to wlak a tad faster at the beginning, and your townsfolk need to be a bit more active. Otherwise nice start

@0:23 - Try to fix the font by taking letters from vanilla map names.
@0:39 - Test and Dancer should be closer to one another. Test in singing\casting\arms raised pose. Same goes to the other soldier talking to the 20 yr old woman, but less active. Also, have the child walk back and forth.
Cecil's walk speed is tolerable.
@0:53 - Sound is weird and noisy for movement. Kid sprite face Cecil. Dancer faces Cecil and moves away from screen.
@1:08 - The Chocobo and the man beside it should make a fade in walk appearance, instead of just standing right from the start.
@1:28 - I like this moment. :)
@1:31 - One squire from the squad should be animated here. I suggest jumping animation.
@1:51 - Cecil should move a bit here. I'd like a slashing animation for Cecil at this time, but it's your choice.

Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback!

@Elric: I made Cecil walk slowly only so the player could absorb as much from the scene as possible. I had him at +004 speed, +008 being the normal walk speed. I can change that if its too slow...

@Mike: With the font I kinda like this style, I actually wanted to use it for the whole game (every map)...does it look bad? Is there a font of it I can use in Photoshop? I will move the Dancer down 1 panel closer to Test. Test will be in a loop dance frame, which actually might look funny. The dancer is singing and the soldier is dancing...As for the Red Wing talking to his girlfriend or whatever I'll have him raise his arms like you suggested, thanks for the idea! The weird sound from 52-57 is already gone, it doesn't fit there. I can have the elderly man and his white chocobo walk in, or maybe moving or something...Thanks for 1:28, its gonna be like the Red Wing salute! They all attack upwards with Broad Swords (and later better swords/weapons).

@Elric and/or Mike: Can you guys please help me with the boy walking back and forth like in a loop? If that's not possible I can manually have him run back and forth time based, but it would be much cooler if he did it himself and I didn't have to write like a bunch of lines of code to see him do it...

I don't know if looping movements are possible, so let's wait for someone knowledgeable about it.

The font looks really edgy. By edgy, I mean rough. There is no anti-aliasing present, and that makes it look bad. Try exporting original map names, and copy from them. For example, if you want an 'a' letter, export "Mandalia Plains" then copy the 'a' letter that image. Dunno if that'll work, but I guess it's worth a try. There's a proper way to insert texts (using TIMUTIL?), but i'm not familiar with it. Can't help you there.

Alright! A cleaned up and fixed version of that same event, please let me know what you think, crits, etc! :mrgreen:

The font I didn't change yet, its not that important anyways and can be change later like the sprites themselves (*coughcoughCecilDarkKnightcoughcough*)

Quote from: Jon on September 27, 2012, 05:06:44 am
Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback!

@Elric: I made Cecil walk slowly only so the player could absorb as much from the scene as possible. I had him at +004 speed, +008 being the normal walk speed. I can change that if its too slow...

@Elric and/or Mike: Can you guys please help me with the boy walking back and forth like in a loop? If that's not possible I can manually have him run back and forth time based, but it would be much cooler if he did it himself and I didn't have to write like a bunch of lines of code to see him do it...

Making him walk slowly to absorb the scene will only look good if the towns people are doing something. I would suggest +006

To make something loop you can put it in a block and make it repeat a bunch of times, things in a block will happen at the same time as things in the rest of the event

Thanks man! Yeah I fixed it in the post right before yours (check the spoiler), and I taught myself about BlockStart() and BlockEnd() from another event. I shoulda probably just checked your tutorial Elric, but I was too lazy actually haha. You can see this when the old man and his white chocobo walk onto the screen at the same time, that's a BlockStart/End(). Battle event (second event) coming up shortly! :mrgreen:

Get really familiar with blocks, your events will continue to improve with the use of them. Good work so far and don't be afraid to revise events as you get better.

Thanks Pride, and yeah I am using Blocks now all over, even in my second event. The next event starts with some dialog between a Black and White Mage and then Cecil jumps out and attacks the town of Mysidia. Its a pretty easy battle since its kinda like the "tutorial battle" of Orbonne. I'm having a bit of trouble with in between talking during a battle, but I'm pretty sure I'll figure it out on my own. This next event may take a while before I can make a video since technically its 3 events in one- event start, talking in between battle, battle end event (where normally Princess Ovelia gets kidnapped by Delita).

Feel free to PM me about in-battle events, I can help/teach you to set them up (via attack.out stuff).

I'll take you up on that offer! :mrgreen:

For ATTACK.OUT I figured out actually a long time ago about changing maps, weather, time of day, music, etc. I still can't figure out to this day how to go from one map to the next, I usually copy and paste the entire event...I would really like to know if you can skip Orbonne altogether and just go straight to the world map or just have one battle then the world map (Gariland Magic City)...

I figured that if you want to keep the dialog from vanilla you just have to have at least one (or more) of the units talking to have the same x## value, so for example Agrias and Gaffy talking at Orbonne are x34 and x19 respectively, so I should just assign two units (or just one) that I want to talk to these values. Then changing camera and DisplayMessage() is simple, is that the wrong way of doing it though?

On the subject of ATTACK.OUT, I see that some people like to have battles in sequence like Golland Coal City style. I personally hate that and try to avoid this like the plague. Like Riovances and Lionel, I thought Square did a horrible job because once you go in, there ain't no coming out unless you kill everything...the only exception to this being actually Golland, there it made sense, going down in the mines to find Reis...okay enough ramblin'! ;)

Quote from: Jon on September 28, 2012, 04:44:55 am
Thanks man! Yeah I fixed it in the post right before yours (check the spoiler), and I taught myself about BlockStart() and BlockEnd() from another event. I shoulda probably just checked your tutorial Elric, but I was too lazy actually haha. You can see this when the old man and his white chocobo walk onto the screen at the same time, that's a BlockStart/End(). Battle event (second event) coming up shortly! :mrgreen:

I already taught you about blocks 6 months ago :P but yes as Pride mentioned get VERY familiar with them. I use atleast 10 blocks in most of my events. And in the case of Dante's intro I used over 20 in a 15 second period. They can make alot of things possible and more presentable

Well now that I'm learning thanks to Pride how to change the World Map, why should I have my game start this way? I only had it like this because I thought I would be forced to have my game flow the same way as vanilla, Orbonne intro, then Gariland all the way to Zeakden, Orbonne again to Lionel, etc. I'm definitely not getting rid of my first event but maybe I can have it a little later, I might have this mod go in a whole different direction actually.

QuoteI already taught you about blocks 6 months ago  but yes as Pride mentioned get VERY familiar with them. I use atleast 10 blocks in most of my events. And in the case of Dante's intro I used over 20 in a 15 second period. They can make alot of things possible and more presentable

Yeah, you did, I might add more Blocks in my first event since, I dunno if you guys noticed, the Red Wings swinging their swords all at the same time causes about 6 of them to glitch graphics wise. It doesn't look horrible or anything, the idea is pretty cool I guess, but I want it to be perfect :P

---

I'd like to ask you guys for your opinions, since I haven't done too much just yet. I've been working on this mod for only 4 days so far, so now is the time to decide what kind of mod this should be. Well I would really like to do a FF IV story, but it doesn't necessarily have to be about the Red Wings, I could try to recreate the original FF IV (I'll start slowly) in the FFT world, so FF IV Tactics. Or I could keep making the Red Wings story where you play as the bad guys. Which would you guys prefer? I'm open to all and any ideas :mrgreen: Hell, even a Dissidia type game with all the FF heroes would be sweet, but I think its a tad too similar to Jot5...

Thanks again Elric for all your tutorials and guidance, and thanks again Pride for the PM!

If you're up for thinking creatively, (and trying to make a good mod/story), I think a story about the Red Wings would actually be pretty cool. Saying a Dissidia type game is similar to Jot5 is like saying every cameo ever is like Jot5.

I'm not sure... what type of story there'd be for that type of deal, especially since I've never played Dissidia, but if you think it's a better idea than the Red Wings one, why not?

Haha, why not both? But for now I'll only focus on the Red Wings mod. Pride showed me how to change stuff on the world map, so now I can have the player start wherever I want them to. While this is really, really awesome, now I have to make a new opening. I'll keep the first event, have some tutorial battle where you play as DK Cecil, then it goes to the world map - Baron which will probably somewhere west like Limberry. Look at this world map:
(http://www.fatbrowne.com/pics/fftworld.jpg)

Limberry is Baron, then comes Beddha Sandwaste area which could be like Kaipo, Mist Village could be like Fort Bessalat, etc. I think I'll make a world map but have the points stay the same. Is there a way to replace the overworld / world map Ramza sprites? The one that moves from town to town?

Here is the FF IV world map btw:

Here's a demo of the next event, a few things are totally wrong but its just little stuff that takes a few minutes to fix, but mainly I'd like just some feed back to whether the event itself story-wise is good or not, please keep in mind it follows event 1. Try to ignore the fact for now that the units don't face Cecil when he talks and when everyone is dead all units stand up, plus the music doesn't fade out at the end.

Quote from: Jon on October 01, 2012, 12:54:16 pm
Here's a demo of the next event, a few things are totally wrong but its just little stuff that takes a few minutes to fix, but mainly I'd like just some feed back to whether the event itself story-wise is good or not, please keep in mind it follows event 1. Try to ignore the fact for now that the units don't face Cecil when he talks and when everyone is dead all units stand up, plus the music doesn't fade out at the end.

spoiler

Since you seem to be getting serious about the creation of this mod, I'll give you a bit more critical of a review.

Your events are good, but your dialogue doesn't fit Cecil at all, nor does the mood of the scenes. Cecil really isn't a bloodthirsty guy, he's someone who obeys orders silently and does his duty (esp. during the time we're talking about). He begins to question his orders quite quickly as the scenes below will show, and we can presume he began to question them shortly after stealing the crystal. Basically, what I'm saying is that you've failed to capture his character.

Take a look at this. This is the first cutscene from the DS version of FFIV.


This is the second (in terms of relevance).


Another good one that shows Cecil's final character turnaround.


(Before you ask, yes, I have played through FFIV.)

Yeah, Cecil never struck me as a humorous character, dark or otherwise. He never really laughs, and is always very serious. This Event's Cecil makes me think of someone bordering on psychopathic (i.e. The Shining's Jack's line "Here's Johnny!" and he's grinning the entire time), with his utter disregard for human life and his dark, dark sense of humor. Maybe I'm just reading too far into that line though.

I don't mean go full-blown emo, like, "My life has no meaning", or some sort, but Cecil always struck me as very humble, and not someone that brags about his talents or revels in a victory on the battlefield.

You guys are right, I should redo this stuff, hell I think Cecil is more the type of guy who would simply ask "You guys ready? Let's go..." instead of giving the whole "We are Baron and awesome" speech. I just wanted to have an epic moment where Cecil acts like some cool leader type guy marching with his soldiers into battle - so much that I forgot who Cecil is. Plus yeah, Cecil is waaaaay to psycho in the battle event. I think I was going too much in the direction of Snake there: he's hiding behind walls and pops out and then kills everyone, pretty much single-handly. When I think of Cecil, I usually think of a guy who is brave on the battlefield but not real life, and his main concern is his girlfriend. I think the two mages talking is fine, but yeah. Enough about that, its getting redone. Another concern a friend of mine had that I showed was that I was focusing too much on Cecil, my intention was to make a "nameless (player named) Red Wing recruit" the main protagonist. This actually is much harder than I thought because then Cecil would be the "hero from another story", and most likely would end up as an enemy of the protagonist. Either way, I messed it up, starting over from scratch, at least I learned how to do something in an event other than have units walking and talking...new Red Wings coming up! :mrgreen:

Also as a side note, lol at the middle video at this moment:
Rosa: "Did something happen at Mysidia?"
Cecil: "No, its nothing."
Cold. But out of context. I should avoid stuff like that...

Sorry for being such a scatter brain on this, and I thank you for your interest and support! I just want to make a mod from the bad guys point of view but stay true (haha that rhymes) to FF IV. Please bear with me...

Edit: I thought about it, a leader of an army can't be a recruit, so the player's main character will kinda be like Baigan, in fact I decided to have it start totally different, with Cecil, Kain, Baigan and the player's unique commander unit they name. Same idea though, attack on Mysidia.

Edit edit: What's the code to change Ramza's sprite from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2&3 and Chapter 4? Does this code replace only the sprite and keeps the learned abilities?

Baigan wasn't a Red Wing, though, he was the King's Advisor. I think an un-named Red Wing that you made solely for this story would actually work really well.

Well after reading it again, I see that I read it wrong. But that sounds good to me. I think that "Cecil's" personality that you used in this video would be fitting of the new Red Wing commander, someone that is worthy of an evil king. The "King" doesn't want another Cecil. Focus on Cecil, in my opinion, for the first few events (or up until he is demoted), might actually be better than otherwise. Cecil IS still the leader of the Red Wings in that video.

Just some character introduction in the first few events would be good, I guess. Your friend is right though. I never really thought about that lol.

Why don't Baron's Red Wings continue to dominate the battlefield, including at home when Cecil infiltrates Baron? The Red Wings sort of disappear from the story after their first show at Mysidia. The people that invade Yang's castle weren't the Red Wings, were they?

QuoteWell after reading it again, I see that I read it wrong. But that sounds good to me. I think that "Cecil's" personality that you used in this video would be fitting of the new Red Wing commander, someone that is worthy of an evil king. The "King" doesn't want another Cecil. Focus on Cecil, in my opinion, for the first few events (or up until he is demoted), might actually be better than otherwise. Cecil IS still the leader of the Red Wings in that video.

Yeah, that is what I will try to do, but here is the challenge: show everything through the eyes of the nameless Red Wing protagonist. I think I can accomplish this though, hopefully! I think its worth mentioning that the intro where usually the Lion War is explained and then the whole "this is the real hero of Ivalice" can easily be changed to an intro to who and what the Red Wings are and the intro to the protagonist.

QuoteJust some character introduction in the first few events would be good, I guess. Your friend is right though. I never really thought about that lol.

Instead of having the protagonist dancing around with a singing dancer, and Cecil correcting him and telling him to form up with the other soldiers, I believe I must show the player that he is as worthy as Cecil, so when Cecil and Kain go off to Mist we have a character to take charge of the Red Wings. He must be more mature and not a recruit in other words. That's pretty much the only way this will work. In theory, the protagonist could be a Red Wing at first and later change to a Dark Knight (to fill Cecil's role) or a Dragoon, since Baron apparently trains DKs and Dragoons. I never knew that really until I played FF IV Advance...

QuoteWhy don't Baron's Red Wings continue to dominate the battlefield, including at home when Cecil infiltrates Baron? The Red Wings sort of disappear from the story after their first show at Mysidia. The people that invade Yang's castle weren't the Red Wings, were they?

I think maybe you may have forgotten, but yeah the Red Wings destroy Edward's castle Damcyan as seen here in the first 10 seconds: , and apparently attacked the inside of the castle since Anna was killed with arrows, they attack Fabul with airships as well and then Golbez's monsters attack the castle itself on foot, Kain makes a bargain with Cecil over Troia and then for a long while like you said, it seems they don't do anything, but then they attack the Dwarves in tanks in the Underworld in front of the Tower of Babil. Other than that, not much. But that's whats cool, a lot of gray unexplored areas which I can work with. Plus as said before (I think), one of the major character the player will have with them as a controllable guest and possible join up will be Kain! Kain will definitely play a major role since he turns to the dark side as well as the protagonist. I think I will have him actually be "found" by the protagonist at Mist after he was knocked out by Rydia's Titan. Of course there will be a few battles where Golbez makes appearances. More to come soon!

Edit: Now that I think about it, it could be totally possible and pretty cool if, maybe of course/nothing definite, Kain was the protagonist...? What do you guys think? Would you like to see Kain's point of view? Then I could have the game start with Cecil just returning from Mysidia and Kain and him heading out to kill the "phantom beast eidolon", the Mist Dragon. Once Kain gets knocked out by Titan, some Red Wings find him and escort him back to Baron, and that's where the game really starts: Kain leads the Red Wings on all the aforeamentioned attacks, plus it would be pretty awesome to play as one of the coolest FF characters in history. Kain is so cool that on several of the FF IV releases he was on the box art / title screen. Ideas? Anyone against this? This would also force my lazy ass into spriting an epic Kain sprite, or at least a nice base for one! :mrgreen:

Kain is already the commander of Barons Dragoons, so it would be weird if he suddenly ordered the Red Wings around.
When you are doing a story like this, you will need to get everything right for what actually happens to Kain for this part, for the FF4 fans. Just have a think about that :P

QuoteKain is already the commander of Barons Dragoons, so it would be weird if he suddenly ordered the Red Wings around.
When you are doing a story like this, you will need to get everything right for what actually happens to Kain for this part, for the FF4 fans. Just have a think about that

But in the game, there are quite a few cut scenes where Kain is with the Red Wings, yes you're right its never said that he is their commander, so I suppose I should just have him on his own assisted by Red Wings. Who takes charge of them then after Cecil is demoted? I suppose Golbez, or some nameless commander type which is just a palette exchange of human Baigan. Still, if I bend the rules only slightly I believe I can make this work. Maybe once Kain is evil Golbez gives him a few men to command. Maybe I could mix it up- a few Red Wings, some Black and White Mages (since there are BMs and WMs in Barons training rooms) and monsters. When the time comes I'll definitely think about it and try to stay as true to FF IV as possible. Imagine now actually fighting DK Cecil one on one at Fabul for example, kidnapping Rosa, bombing and attacking Damcyan, all by Kain's hand. I think it should work out nicely.

I did forget about the Red Wings attacking the Dwarves, yeah, but I didn't really think Edward's Castle was that big of a deal. I guess ya never really see their defenses. They hardly have Fabul's famous monk army though, and you never hear about any outstanding soldiers from Damcyan, so I always assumed they were lax on military advancements and training. I also thought it was just monsters under command of Golbez that attacked Fabul, so good lookin out on that one.

Also, straight from the FFWiki, since I have no idea who took over either... "As a replacement, the king invites Golbez to take Cecil's place as the Red Wings commander with Kain Highwind as his second-in-command and monsters as the new crew. " (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Wings)
Also, looking at this, it is assumed that the Red Wings are disbanded after the events underground, so I guess that explains a lot about what happened to them through the later half of the game.

I think a little cameo by Biggs and Wedge as soldiers of the Red Wings would be fitting, especially with their role in TAY.I think Kain's POV would be a pretty neat way to go about this whole thing.

Quote from: Twinees on October 03, 2012, 09:05:26 am
Kain is already the commander of Barons Dragoons, so it would be weird if he suddenly ordered the Red Wings around.
When you are doing a story like this, you will need to get everything right for what actually happens to Kain for this part, for the FF4 fans. Just have a think about that :P

This is why I would recommend creating your own story.

Yeah so I'll have Golbez as the new commander, and Kain as his right hand man and second-in-command. Since Golbez's main concern are the Crytals, Kain is obviously be doing way more things than him. Biggs and Wedge will definitely be in the game. I pretty much already made them ;)

@Twin and Mike: I don't know what you guys are talking about, I did kinda guess at Kain taking command of the Red Wings, and technically I wasn't totally correct, but he, if you guys remember the game does get around flying in the airships. And he is there in the whole Fabul battle, he fights DK Cecil one-on-one and crushes him. So its not too hard to imagine he was there when Damcyan gets attacked and Anna gets shot with arrows, etc. But thanks for the feedback and the interest, I certainly don't want to disappoint any FF IV fans :mrgreen:

I'm pretty sure Mike only meant the part with making sure everything is exactly how it happens in FFIV. My only concern was you getting side tracked with inventing your own version of what happened and what was said that actually happened in the games.

You pretty much summed up my point when you used the word, imagine here:

Quote from: Jon on October 04, 2012, 03:51:17 am
So its not too hard to imagine he was there when Damcyan gets attacked and Anna gets shot with arrows, etc.

If Kain isn't mentioned being there, you'd be better off assuming that he was still being brought back to Baron or being brainwashed at this point. You should be googling stuff to find out what actually happened here rather than assuming it all, that was my point.

Yeah you're right, and better than google is Final Fantasy wikia. Also I redid one pose of Kain and a few more, you can see it in the Spriting Contest.

Edit: Red Wings pretty much done:

Easy to do since they are just recolored sprites and portraits, but still look nice imho. Notice that only the clothes and hat were recolored on the sprites, the armor I left the same as palette one since I like the metally colors better than the bronze looking armors.

Edit2: I'd like your opinion on which script for FF IV I should use. Most of us I am guessing are used to the NA FF II for SNES script, which to me seems like Nintendo forcefully made more "kiddy-friendly", nobody swears in that version ever! Wtf!! I would personally like to use the most mature version, which was made for the PSX, FF Chronicles. (It came with Chrono Trigger!) This one made Edge more mature especially, I think he even calls Rydia a bitch at some point lol. Anyways, maybe I'm just crazy, I can use other scripts, so please let me know which one is your favorite and why. Thanks!

Here's the opening for FF IV on the PSX, the quality is horrible but readable:

Lol at Cid at around 7:30ish and these quotes are more memorable.
Kain: "Ready for some real combat?"
Cecil: "Always."

Enough said. Reminds me a little bit of how they talk in FF VII. Opinions?

I've never played any FFIV version except the SNES easy-type, as well as a little bit of GBA, (Up until the CPU battle); but, between the two, GBA.

I like the sprite, and honestly I can't say if it's "good" or "bad" as far as quality goes; I've never had the eye or talent for that sort of thing. You could've told me it was originally an alien as the previous sprite and I wouldn't have called you a liar. I prefer the actual shining-metal look to the yellowish that it used to be (just looked up the original sprite to reference), nice job.

Quote from: MountainDew~ on October 07, 2012, 11:40:04 pm
I like the sprite, and honestly I can't say if it's "good" or "bad" as far as quality goes; I've never had the eye or talent for that sort of thing. You could've told me it was originally an alien as the previous sprite and I wouldn't have called you a liar. I prefer the actual shining-metal look to the yellowish that it used to be (just looked up the original sprite to reference), nice job.

Hahaha, that just made my day! :mrgreen:

I've been playing FF IV Advance as well, this one is the only one with the two bonus dungeons, adding more content. The Lunar Trials of the heroes really shows each character what they fear, and how to overcome it, which doesn't really help me with Red Wings but is nice for added story because the characters are a bit more developed. Same thing goes for the PSX version, its like the mature version and therefore a bit more developed. Plus I like swearing in video games, no kiddy hand-holding bs please.

Edit: Changed once again to the nameless Red Wing protagonist. I even decided to make a choice (well I will) so the player can choose at the beginning to be male or female (by releasing 2 patches). I think I might need to make two custom portraits for the RW hero/heroine, however as pretty much everyone on here knows, I suck majorly at portraits. Still better first to try my own. For now I'll just use a generic male/female Squire portrait, so the generic male / female Red Wing sprite as a filler.

Double post, whatever. Here is another possibility to start off the mod, bring Ramza into FF IV:

If not, this could be used as kinda like a sequel to FFT, the next events after Ramza and Alma escape. Yeah, crits and feedback? Sorry that its like 13 minutes, you can skip the cemetery since you guys know it. Skip to 2:03ish. :mrgreen:

Sorry, I shipped out my videocard, haven't had a computer to do anything with.  I wouldn't go for a sequel to FFT. Too many things can go wrong, people will disagree with how personalities are, portrayal of character, and even your own sequence of events. However, it's your mod, so who cares about what other people think, right?

Very cool video though. Good job on it.

Thanks! Actually I have been working on not a sequel, but rather what happens to Cloud, I dunno how I started that but mainly I was trying to work with the custom poses (like Cloud grabbing his head in pain / Ramza doing jumping jacks when Mustadio gets KOed by Worker 8, etc).

Quote from: Jon on October 12, 2012, 06:41:37 pm
Double post, whatever. Here is another possibility to start off the mod, bring Ramza into FF IV:

spoiler

If not, this could be used as kinda like a sequel to FFT, the next events after Ramza and Alma escape. Yeah, crits and feedback? Sorry that its like 13 minutes, you can skip the cemetery since you guys know it. Skip to 2:03ish. :mrgreen:

Wow, that's a cool idea... Did you make that event?

Yep Deverca, I made all the events posted here except the ones that I just copy pasted from FFT itself. I've been thinking for a long time now about working on and creating a possible FFT sequel, but the main character most likely wouldn't be Ramza, maybe Cloud or Agrias or Beowulf, someone else for a change (haha although Cloud has his own game). That way I could stay in the familiar world of Ivalice. Right now eventing isn't the problem at all, just the story. I feel like that Ramza and Alma are gone forever at the end of FFT, but what happens further with Delita (he did survive Ovelia's knife stab I believe) and Olan and Balmafula, Ramza's former allies, etc. There is enough material there to make a dozen spin off sequels, but I don't know where to begin... :/

I just started writing a sequel of sorts these past couple months... I always loved the story in FFT.  I hadn't played the game for 5+ years but I replayed it this spring and started thinking about new story lines.  I love how the game is so deep but still leaves so much unexplained (it works really great for fanfics). 

It started out as just a couple vignettes but now I'm working on connecting the dots into a logical story.  Its begins right where FFT left off explaining how Ramza and Co escaped from the Necrohol (actually its from the perspective of a new protagonist so it actually goes back a bit before that).  The back story does make some minor changes to the story, but it's still 95% compatible with canon. 

I started writing just for a fanfic but now that I've discovered this site I think it would be cool to bring it to life some of the cut scenes and possibly build a sequel game around it. 

The biggest changes I made to the original story don't conflict directly with it so much as enhance it.  Even though I loved the story, I did have some problems with it.  The biggest problem I had was how it seemed like all the guest characters had these mini-story arch's in the game, but when they were done, they just fell into this generic category and stopped growing.  For example, when you finish with Mustadio's story with the Rudovich and his father, he no longer contributes anything to the main story. This is prolly linked to the game-makers decision to allow special characters in Ramza's party to die, which I think is a mistake on their part. 

But even Ramza's character arch seems to stop around the end of chapter 2.  He goes through a lot of changes while he's a cadet and a mercenary, and then in chapter 2 he goes against Gafgarion and his brothers, but after that its like there's no more development or changes in him.  And after Wiegraf dies, there's not any really good villians either (besides Vormav).  It just devolves into a sort of beat em up video game.  Ovelia, Orlan, and Delita's story stays interesting but you're so far removed from it it doesn't matter. 

I guess my point is if you're gonna make a sequel, I think it would be a good idea to go back to the end of chapter 2 or 3.  Then you can make it so Agrias, Mustadio, etc, can't die and give them and Ramza more cut scenes together.  It would also give you the chance to develop the other Shrine Knights like Kletian and give some more dimensions than just another baddie.

Phew.  Sorry, I didn't mean to run on that long... needless to say, I like the idea of making a sequel.  :mrgreen:

No problem, I like your idea but going back chapters prolly won't work with everyone since everyone's completed the game. That's kinda like what Mercenaries tried to do, show a different scenario at x point in the game. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but a sequel would probably suffer if you change whole chapters just to make a new after story. That's what I guess Lucas did with the prequels, let's make up stories to explain what happens next, went horribly, horribly wrong. I think it boils down to either:

Make a sequel where the game left off and work with what you got, like (the tricky part) what happens to Delita? Does Agrias try to go back to Ovelia? How and when does Olan write the Durai Papers and then get burned at the stake for it? What happens to the dozen x special characters? So on and so on, you know already, its a sequel. If this is the choice of the mod, then I think it wise to exclude Ramza and Alma since it clearly states in the ending video "they were never heard or seen of ever again".

OR

What you said

QuoteI think it would be a good idea to go back to the end of chapter 2 or 3.  Then you can make it so Agrias, Mustadio, etc, can't die and give them and Ramza more cut scenes together.  It would also give you the chance to develop the other Shrine Knights like Kletian and give some more dimensions than just another baddie.

Hey, maybe we can work together Deverca, I don't really have any ideas right now and wouldn't mind making either of these, plus I like that you wrote down some alternative story ideas. Could I maybe read some of that? I need to keep making events to get better anyways. Just PM me if you'd like that and maybe we can come up with a mod project. For now I'll just keep doing what I've been doing, figuring out what does what in EasyVent Editor...

Merry Christmas everyone! :mrgreen:

In this holiday time I've been working on my mod. Recently I didn't have any time to work on anything/play video games because I've been working and earning money to survive lol.
I haven't done any event editing, but I was working in FFTPatcher and FFTacText. I'm trying to get rid of the broken abilities and change in general spells and items. I've been going through posts mainly from Raven and Philsov and got a few good ideas as well for better balance. Actually right now I'm pretty much focused on the Patcher stuff, so any ideas are welcome!

General

Abilities and Skillsets

Items

Jobs

Monsters

Totally new here, and I have been thinking about how great it would be to see some of the favorites from the big FF releases over the years make their way into an FFT style game for years. Vincent and Tifa circa FF7, Tidus and Yuna FFX, and a number of characters from FFIV so when I stumbled onto this a few weeks ago after seeing a JOT5 video on youtube I immediately wanted to look into if people have do work around any of these titles. Your Idea here intrigues me but it seems to have gone dark for several years... Is this still in the works? A prequel to FFIV would be awesome, what you have here is the events at the very beginning of the game. Which means that if you have the ambition to do so it could go back even further and develop the Dragoons with Kain, The Village of Mist and the Summoners. The exploits of the Dwarves, and the events that lead to the crystals being split among the cities in the first place could all be imagined and put into a great format. If you are still working on the project please let me know, if not I'd be willing to help reignite the torch.

Thanks,

Crush

Go ahead and work on it. Jon is gone.

Seriously.
Last Active:    February 24, 2013, 12:24:25 PM