Altaria:DEM

[The Sand King]

The current RPG I'm working on is called Altaria: Deus ex Machina (DEM refers to a vital part of the storyline, and the character's ultima classes), If wants to provide advice/constructive criticism, feel free, after all..."A delayed game is a good game, a bad game is a bad game forever.", what Miyamoto said. Discussion: Do you think the new plot I did is better than the last?
(Screenshots coming soon, more to speak actually)

Plot

Setting
The RPG takes place on a fictional world called Altaria, and areas are accessed via a world map.

Characters
Major Characters
Dylan: The young hero is the game, also the chosen one for the Mana Amulet, a mystical necklace related to the Mana Spirits. He has curly brown hair, brown eyes, semi dark skin, is 6'00" feet tall, and has a X shaped scar on his left palm. He is the son of Burl, who was the general for the Sable Army, but his father is deceased now. His class is Warrior, and he is 15 years old. Reincarnation of the Warrior of the Four Heroes legend.

Matthew: The Archer based character, and is also the reincarnation of The Archer from the Four Heroes legend. Matthew(The Christian Crusader) represents him. He is Dylan's best friend, and grew up with him.

Sylvester: A thief you meet deep in the sunken S.S. Titan. Deep in the S.S. Titan, Dylan and his ally get ambushed by a group of unfriendly Sahagins. Sylvester comes out of nowhere, and saves Dylan and Matthew's lives. Sylvester asks to come along as he heard a weird noise in the room above. Is the reincarnation of the The Thief from the Four Heroes legend.

April: April is a mage who you meet at the end of the second part. She is vital for her magic skills, and is the reincarnation of the Mage of the Four Heroes legend.

Burl: He was Dylan's Father, the General for the Sable Army, and the last Knight in the prophecy for the Mana Spirits. Not much is know about him at the beginning, and his cause of death is unknown.

The Mana Spirits: The Mana Spirits, which are considered Deities on Altaria, and the seven of them created Altaria together. Fire, Earth, Water, Ice, Wind, Light, and Darkness they are. Like most Gods, they keep watch on mankind, answering his prayers, protecting his kind when they need it, giving gifts to those worthy of it, and punishing the sinned. But, lately, bizarre unnatural incidents have been happening on Altaria.

Edmund: The mysterious man. He despises all forms of nature except humans, and machines, and wishes to replace fauna, and flora with his machines. But, to ask...is he linked with these strange events on Altaria?

Minor Characters
The Golden Frog: A frog with literally gold skin is said to exist in The Forest Path, appearing rarely, those that catch, he will give them something if they let him go.
The Mighty Catfish: A Catfish who lives in a den underwater, in the world map, something may happen if you throw a object into his den... (Beta character/no longer exists)

Storyline
There exists a magical world know as Altaria. The people of Altaria relied on 7 Mana Spirits for most things...the mana spirits. Fire, Earth, Water, Storm, Ice, Light, and Darkness. Strange occurrences have occurred on Altaria, and the spirits have been imprisoned by strange malevolent entities. What's going on, and in this man linked to all of these events is he merely a puppet to these dark events?
The young boy, decides out of his own curiosity; decides to check out what's going on, not aware he gets himself thrown into a whole world-wide calamity.

Locations
World Map: The World Map, duh. Where you access the actual areas, and such.
Sable Village: The starting town in the game. It's where Dylan grew up for most of his life, and the village relies on a crop that relies on wind strength to grow.
The Forest Path: A small forest path that is very close to SV, it currently has no use, except for the random encounters with The Golden Frog. You have to cut through this forest to reach the Sable Graveyard.
Sable Forest: A forest south of Sable Village, it is much larger than TFP, and winds on for several miles, past it is the Sable Graveyard.
Sable Graveyard: Where any of the deceased Sable villagers are buried. Dylan's Father was burried here, along with other people. Though...something is hidden under Burl's tomb...
Sable Windmill: A ten story high windmill, that Sable Village relies on, unfortunately, it has stopped functioning completely, preventing Sable's famed crop from growing.
Sevil: A medium port town east pf Sable. Know for their commodity in fish, however their catches haven't been good, as lately, something has spooked the fish, and scared them offf.
S.S. Titan: A ship that use to carry minerals, metals, and jewels from Sable to Sevil, and back and forth. Due to, one day; the S.S. Titan end up sinking northwest of Sevil for no apparent reason. Now, in the present age....it has mysterious rose out of the ocean. Perhaps this what spooked the fish?
Claw Jungle: A wide jungle on a island southeast of Sevil. Houses the ? Villages, and the Mana Tree, and is rather infamous for it's item/weapon/armor stealing monkeys.
? Village: A ancient village located in the west part of the jungle. They are a rather primitive people, but speak of a local legend of a brown and green sphere that caused the vegetation of the island to flourish 100s of years ago.
The Mana Tree: The location of the Mana Tree used to a ancient pagan earth worshiping temple before it was destroyed by a earthquake 100 years ago or so. Now, it's ruins have been swallowed by a giant hollow tree.

Features
*Skill Techs (WIP): Besides skills learned by leveling up and special skills (such as the Blue Mage or Summoner which uses an AP system), the party also has Skill Techs, designed like Techs from Chrono Trigger. Basically, their special skills that require the needed MP and characters in the party. One example is Freeze Blade: April casts an Ice spell, causing a large chunk of ice to fly up into the sky. Dylan jumps up and strikes at the chunk of ice, splitting it into several sharp pieces; which fall to strike the enemies. Inflicts medium defense ignored ice damage and 25% change of Frozen.
*Power Panels: These computer devices appear in Inns after you obtain your first job switch in the game. They allow for special functions like character switching, job changing, checking your quest journal, and teleporting to different inns.
*Class System: The class system was inspired by MapleStory. There are four main characters: a warrior, a archer, a mage, and a thief. They start out as their basic class, but later on, upon reaching a certain level, they can chose to upgrade to a more powerful, and advanced class.
There are three upgrade points, starting at Lvl 30, Lvl 60, and the last, at level 90. Also, four special Ultima-esque style classes require the four characters to be at Lvl 100.
*Battle System: The battle system is plain as snow right now. Needs work.
*Skill System: Plain as snow too, except for the scripted/evented skills, will be improved. Either will be a standard one, or I bring back the small Mana Spheres which can be fused, and used to create spells, like FF:CC.

Jobs
Battle System Designer(0/3): All Three Slots Open
Skill System Designer(0/3): All Three Slots Open
Scripter(0/3): All Three Slots Open
Class System Designer(0/3): All Three Slots Open
Spriter/Graphic Designer(0/3): All Three Slots Open
Beta Tester(Infinite): Open
Music Composer(0/3): All Three Slots Open
Other Jobs
Someone to fix the cooking system(Evented, with a bit of scripting. Not working correctly right now.): Open

Progress
Whole Demo: Around 60 to 80 %.
Whole Game: 25%.
Locations
World Map: 30%
Sable Village: 100%.
The Forest Path: 100%.
Sable Forest: 100%
Sable Graveyard: 100%
Sable Windmill: 100%
Sevil: 65%
S.S. Titan: 95%
Claw Jungle: 10%
? Village: 0%
The Mana Tree: 0%

Support Bars




Screenshots
Old Title Screen
Void of Beginning
The Catfish's Den
Farmer's House
Forest Path
Forest Path 2.0
Sable Forest
S.S. Titan Creepy?
New Title Screen
Claw Jungle
Locke's Diary
Matthew's Skills

[Hachi]

You've put a lot of thought into this. I don't know how I could help though. I found programming basic Java to be easy, but I don't know anything else about computers.

But, what exactly happens in a battle? Is it turn based?

[The Sand King]

Battle systems are turn based, yes. RPG Maker XP is actually very user friendly.

[Hachi]

You described your battle system as currently plain and turn based. I'm not familiar with many RPG, but does that mean that it's like Pokemon right now? Each side takes turn attacking until the battle is over?

[The Sand King]

Yeah, the battle system is rather plain...although it has all the common stuff you see in RPGs, there's not much special about it except a bunch of Final Fantasy tradition skills like stealing and summoning magic. Although it's 2D, it's battle interface visually is like FF VIII and IX. Basically, front view instead of sideview.
Note, in the game, magic is spelled with "ck".

[Hachi]

So I'm guessing using attacks would cost various amount of energy?

How about adding in something related to distance? I always found it strange that mages/archers are also on the frontline with warriors in many RPG games.


I noticed that some of Matthew attacks look like they were inspired from FF Tactics. Maybe you could have battles take place on those grid battlefield. It could be easier to come up with a unique battle system. I'm not sure of the technical limitation on that though.

[The Sand King]

Most attacks espically magic or special attacks use up MP. RPG Maker XP has a dropdown menu in the Classes (you could probably guess what is it) tab in the database called Position. Although it's not visible in the game, it's used to decide how easily an enemy can hit the target. So, Front=Warriors, etc..., Middle=in the middle classes like thiefs, and Back=Magic casters.
Yes, I use alot of the skills from FF series, since they made most of their things mainstream.

Also, do you know of any common fish native to the oceans? Espically ones that are commonly used by humans for food and resources. Only ones I can think of are Tuna and Salmon...nothing else. Yeah, I got a cooking system.

[Hachi]

Some I can think of are Tilapia, Snapper, Grouper, Sea Bass, Anchovy, and Swordfish.

Well, the best I can help with is maybe come up with attacks. How about Blink? It allows a character to change their front/middle/back position in battle instantly without penalty. It could also be used to warp behind enemy line. So, if you warp to the back of the enemy line, you can do close combat with any enemies hiding in the back with maybe an attack buff. It comes with the penalty that you won't be able to get healed or aid from your party members.

[The Sand King]

There's a problem with your idea...the whole position thing cannot be change outside the database. I'll give you a screenshot so here:

[tinfoilman]

I have RPG MakerXP on my broken computer, so I can't really help.

[Bread & Butter]

Damn you've quite gotten into this. I have a total of 8 projects, only the 8th that is any good, as far as I'm concerned. But none of them has a set storyline that I've thought up, nearly any unique skills, and absolutly nothing changed from the classes/ weapons/ armor.

Try this battle system I use. I'm not sure if it's that great, but I like it because you don't need to draw up a battler for custom characters (you'll see what I mean).

Battle System

[The Sand King]

Thank you for the comments guys. One of the unique features for the game is the summoning skill. The summons are commonly from from folklore and mythology, but a few are special cameo summons like the Slime from the DQ series. The summons are a mixture between FF8 and FF10 style. When you summon them, they replace the party, and you can control them. Plus, they fuction as their own characters and learn skills via AP expending.

[Bread & Butter]

Wow, that seems pretty difficult to work. But a great idea if it functions properly.