Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

Shinuzzo wrote:

Tsunami wrote:Perhaps Rolf was only assigned to things in the general area. I could see that being the case.

Well, you think someone would have been sent to deal with it.

Perhaps. But I can't think of any other reason why Rolf hasn't been to any other locations. (as you can't teleport to any towns unless you visited them)

Didn't Rolf already know about Darum, too? I seem to recall Rolf mentioning that he recognized the guy from an encounter with Nei. I suppose Darum probably wasn't on the bridge back then, though.

Yeah, Darum blocked off the bridge within the past month since that's when Teim was kidnapped. Now that I think about it, Rolf wouldn't be able to simply turn Darum in. I don't think a lot of people would have supported him saving Nei's life.

Thoul wrote:Didn't Rolf already know about Darum, too? I seem to recall Rolf mentioning that he recognized the guy from an encounter with Nei. I suppose Darum probably wasn't on the bridge back then, though.

Shinuzzo wrote:Yeah, Darum blocked off the bridge within the past month since that's when Teim was kidnapped. Now that I think about it, Rolf wouldn't be able to simply turn Darum in. I don't think a lot of people would have supported him saving Nei's life.

Yes, you're both right. The quote says it was 7 months ago.... so the Motavian government allowed someone to squat on a major thoroughfare for that long? I wonder how long the Biomonsters had been out of control for, then? I suppose the answer is in Nei's age?

Regardless, it's going to be a difficult storyline to wrap up neatly, since Rolf doesn't simply arrest Darum for robbing and murdering people, but instead goes and gets his daughter. I'm going to have to come up with some value for Rolf to gain by helping Darum. The best idea I've come up with is to change the accusations against Darum in Paseo and Arima, so that Rolf isn't dealing with someone that's totally depraved. Darum might make a decent rebellious character that is trying to rebel, in an incorrect manner against MB, and when he realizes the error of his ways, (the Teim encounter,) he realizes his only recourse is suicide, as his crimes are too great to atone for.... but that would probably necessitate him being a murderer after all. It's a difficult issue, that's for sure!

In case it wasn't implied: I'm open to any suggestions of story edits, so fire away!

I didn't get in any work on the monster stats yesterday, but I didn't some experimentation with the monster sprites that I'm pleased with. Oh! This reminds me of something I need to make a topic on!

The $ Avenger wrote:Yes, you're both right. The quote says it was 7 months ago.... so the Motavian government allowed someone to squat on a major thoroughfare for that long? I wonder how long the Biomonsters had been out of control for, then? I suppose the answer is in Nei's age?

It was 7 months from the start of PS 2 that Darum tried to kill Nei. I doubt he was on the bridge when it happened. Like I said he probably took up residence within the past month. Rolf didn't simply arrest him because Darum could tell everyone about what happened with Nei.

Shinuzzo wrote:It was 7 months from the start of PS 2 that Darum tried to kill Nei. I doubt he was on the bridge when it happened. Like I said he probably took up residence within the past month. Rolf didn't simply arrest him because Darum could tell everyone about what happened with Nei.

That's a decent idea. Though I'd always assumed that Darum turned violent after the Teim kidnapping, and that's why Darum tried to kill Nei, just as he does with others that don't pay at the bridge. I'd assumed that Darum wasn't violent until his daughter was kidnapped. I hadn't considered Darum trying to kill Nei somewhere other than that bridge!

That makes sense as to why Rolf couldn't charge Darum with attempted murder in regard to Nei, since people wouldn't consider her human.

A few updates to cover. A general gameplay tip on Kain in Climatrol: give him Laser Knives over a Laser Shot there; it's undoubtedly better for all but one or two encounters there. The enemies in Climatrol have very little defense, so having both the added defense bonus and more damage from Knives is very useful.

I did a whopping 14 enemies last night. That takes me past Climatrol. Balancing Neifirst took the longest, as her stats are so much higher than anything else at that point that I had no frame of reference. Nei can beat her, just like the original, but it would take some grinding on the part of the player for a few extra levels. I had to factor in that I made Nei eventually learn Deban, though not at that point without grinding. (Too bad she didn't have Deban in the original!)

I'm ready for machines now. This might go a little faster as there are few equipment changes without any new shops at that point of the game.

I worked around the clock yesterday on this and my work, and I did all the Dams. I probably won't get that much done in a day again, but I did a whopping 24 of them. That's numerically 2/3 of them. It really sped me up not to have to factor in any shops for that section. On to Dezo!

The $ Avenger wrote:A few updates to cover. A general gameplay tip on Kain in Climatrol: give him Laser Knives over a Laser Shot there; it's undoubtedly better for all but one or two encounters there. The enemies in Climatrol have very little defense, so having both the added defense bonus and more damage from Knives is very useful.

I've done that with Rudo, actually. Up to a certain point, he was doing more damage with a pair of knives than with a gun.

Tsunami wrote:I've done that with Rudo, actually. Up to a certain point, he was doing more damage with a pair of knives than with a gun.

Then you'll like at least two of the equipment changes I've made!

Last night, I decided to make Star Mist and Moon Dew for sale on Dezoris since I have horrible memories of spending hours with Shir at the Paseo Tool shop. Trimate is available at every Tool Shop from Zema on too.

I also finished a bunch of the Dezoris enemies. It's slowed me again, as there so many new equipment options that I've introduced at this point, that many of the characters of several setups that you can customize them to. It makes for longer testing, but I think the new options will be fun!

The last set from Menobe on is going to take a bit longer than others too, since I think I should recheck them again at Noah to make sure I balanced them ok. Evidently nearly every one (or maybe all) of the Aeroprism dungeon enemies show up at Noah again. I don't want them to be too powerful, as they would sap the party's strength too much before reaching the bosses in Noah, so to be safe, I'll recheck them.

I've been trying to come up with a good way to change the game text. It's going to take a while for me to catalogue in a spreadsheet the entire text database to find the lines I want to change, but I think that will be easier that searching for one line at a time. Perhaps I should note all the lines I want to change on paper first, and search for them one at a time that way... It's hard to say what the best method will be since, as far as I can tell, all the text is thrown in together, from the shop dialogue to the battle messages, to the actual text. Either way, documenting the text is by far the biggest time-consumer of the remaining steps.

I'm going to go ahead and release the Normal mode before the Hard version, since it will take a while to redo all the monsters again. I'm also going to release it without very little play-testing , which could be dangerous, to free me up to move on to the Hard mode. I'm going to ask the first testers to keep me up on their Meseta at various points of the game, because I'm having a difficult time projecting how what the encounter rate is in the game, (I'm aiming high, since I think the rate is pretty high.)

Lastly, this Normal version is looking significantly easier on Dezoris. I don't think it's down to the difficulty of PSIV, but the new Techs characters get, the extra TP, the new equipment options, etc. should make it a little less difficult than I first though, a la Purgatory Mode for PSIV. Though I'm not sure that I should try to crank it up anyway, since so many people think it was the hardest game ever. An easier version might open this game up to first time PS players.

Plugging away at it... I'm nearly ready for DF and MB, but I need to recheck the Aeroprism dungeon critters first. I decided not to make a spreadsheet of the game text, but rather just print the code out in a HEX editor and decode it there. I think that will be faster.

I'm definitely nearing the finish line! I printed out a bunch of data to translate all my changes into HEX before actually typing it in. I don't have a projected completion date, but with the monsters nearly finished, (not the sprites yet,) the last major obstacle is the game text. I'm VERY close!