Paragons

[JayRay]

Welcome to Kharis-Yeshar, or rather the eastern lands of the New Lands, Calenthya, where the 7 kingdoms of the Pact of Swords lie in revolt, war, and outright defiance of the invading Shak-razul of the southwest, against the Khan of Time, the Khan of Deception, whose forces move in shadows and on stone, in robes of fire, and armor of iron. Take up the guidarm, the flag, the mantle of your nation, guild, or Yah himself, against the forces of darkness and the principalities in the highest of places. Courts and Courtiers, Guilds and Guildmasters, and malevolent forces stir in this story-driven action RPG by Jay Ray Games and Art Design, soon to be called Jay Ray Studios!

I have envisioned a game that is somewhat different each time you play, a new world for each game, kept within only a certain amount of variables. That shop keeper that you remember being a Burly dwarf before? Now, a tanned vixen plys her wares. That quest that took you to the dungeon within the DragonSpine, now sends you to an opposing direction.

Using PVGames Medieval Sprite templates, along with a customized version of SunRndmDde's Character Creator EX, I have began to allow for the creation, or FORGING of your hero, who also may very well be unique, depending on the world. In all you'd be responsible for the creation of four such heroes, even though those heroes may not necessarily be joining your party immediately. Let's call them "long lost allies" that you search out the world to find. In addition, I have scripts that will automatically 'create' dozens of NPCs and name them with the help of scripts first introduced in the Judge's Guide Archaic Names.

It's so hard to create a parallax map for each and every map you have, and can be quite a memory hog. Instead of that, I've gone a different route. Using Yanfly's Grid Free Doodads, I will create parallax archetypes. (Canyon path heading north, rocky ledge southwest, forested path, etc. In addition to that, the gridfree-doodads allows me to 'paint' each map as uniquely as if I had created a parallax map for each one.
What is planned are over 80 variations of flora, 120 rock structures, and bits and doodads for the natural scenes, and relying on structures and items from PVGames, Artieria3d, and Dexsoft Games, and more to 'flesh out' each map specifically. Tileset passability is relegated to the Regions themselves.

Remember HeroQuest? you had the board, the whole board, but often you'd never journey beyond say 10 rooms of it. Paragons takes that idea further, to allow for the re-use of different map archetypes, and the Grid-Free doodads to allow for not 40 different dungeon rooms, but hundreds of different types of rooms, each set to a specific switch that opens doors, closes them, hides them, replaces elements like pillars, with fountains, treasure chests with traps. Think of it like this... A dungeon grid might be 5 maps by 5 maps. Let's give them columns and rows, A, B, C, etc. for the columns, and 1,2,3 for the rows... We know that A1 can connect to B1, or A2. In one case, the variables for those doors are changed. A1 will have 1 variable, and that variable determines the doors, the events, the grid-free doodads, and the exits. It may also determine the VARIATION of A1. By itself with 25 maps, you can still have hundreds of combinations of maps, but with variations of each room, 50 maps entitles you to have literally hundreds of map locations, each one different. 50 maps for an archetype...

I believe I'll have around 12 archetypes to best illustrate the different environments for the 'dungeons'

Ok, I mentioned before that many NPCs will be randomized within the game. While many of the key players may stay the same (Royals and defining characters), Using the same SunRndmDde's Character Creator EX, several characters will be generated on the fly at the start of a new game. This allows me to do two major things.

First, it allows me to have a unique set of characters for each game
Second, it allows me to have a TON of NPCs in the game, pre-loaded and set for use with the awesome power of having SO many actors available. Actor Faces also allow me to have a ton of different actors without consuming a lot of space memory wise.

There will be quests, and a ton of them, all kept in journals that will easily be able to accessed from a quest journal. Whether I plan to have a seperation between the main quest journal, sidequests, and radiant quests is uncertain, but there will definitely be an emphasis on experience and fame points for those main quests. In addition to quests, hunting for puzzle pieces and recipies for non-written quests can help with immersion. (Spending an hour to get enough wolf pelts to create a set of Wolfpelt Leather Armor for instance)(Spending an hour mining, smelting and casting a suit of Glasteel Cuirass)(Hunting down enough herbs to create an herbal poultice or ingredients for a blank scroll) It's assumed that you should be able to make in game everything that can be sold in game. Items should also be able to be enchanted and modified.

Thanks to Yanfly's item and shop screens, a more versatile view of each item can be shown, and I like this, especially with the use of BSD_OtherIconSet by Bsides, I can actually show a true picture of the other icon, in whatever size I deem fit. I also want to use simple window changes to ensure the uniqueness of each window, in addition, each scene will ahve its own distinctive background, adding to the richness and immersion of the game. (Keeping this idea from previous works)

I was going to use Kino's EIS Librarium, but while the plugin has tons of options to work with, it doesn't address flagging the book so that map locations and clues can be "learned" by reading the book. This is crucial for the so called "Speak Friend and Enter" idea, where a book tells you how you can learn it. I want this to happen so badly, where map locations and more are LEARNED from various books and scrolls, skills are added, even profession points are earned. SO, with that said, unless I find another version, this will instead be done with common events, that cycle through pictures and ensure that the player can move from page to page and "read" the clues.


All battles will take place using the SV battle system, created by RPG Maker MV and modified by Yanfly Action Sequences. Using LexusX' Animation 180 pack allows for an incredible array of new and unique animations that match up quite well with the overall immersion of the game. (still got these, still using these.)

"Paragons" will follow your customized hero through a set of scenarios as the Meredian princess, must flee the throne room before her coronation after her father, King Hyvaron Mascul is defeated and killed in the concurrent seige of Merede's Ebonraven Castle, the seat of the province, by the warlord Gaschim Dral, a deserting chieftain of Eastern Jemiscra. In addition to determining your main character, you can choose up to three others, all from different walks of like, and begin your quests. Now depending on the path you've chosen, there will be at least 4 if not more customized characters to help you on your way, and using a specific variable matrix, attempts will be made to ensure the customized ally will be of a different class, skillset, or weaponset, something to ensure that you're not trying to take out Gaschim Dral with two bards and a druid,

Merede shares the continent with six other nations called together in a loosely based alliance called the Pact of Swords. These provinces are free to war with one another, but seldom do, instead unifying their forces against the Khan of Time's forces, in the kingdoms outside the Pact. In addition, there are several other factions that consider themselves outside the pact and free of the confines. In this game, to show the true size of the continent, you can NOT overland walk to all the different lands, but you can choose map-points ALA Dragon Age.

The Nations of the Pact

Sharistae - Hugging the eastern shoreline of Kharis-Yeshar, Sharista is often referred to as the Silver Coast, both for the high concentrations of Silver ore, as well as the devotion to an agent of Yah, Aaliana, the Silvermaiden. Ruled by Queen Ariste Dhamaer, Sharista bolsters a grand navy whose armada is unrivaled and helps repel any attacks from the old lands of Yesharya. Queen Ariste's rule is only rivalled by a rebellious province in the north called the Starthrone Brotherhood, who in a great seige took Sharistae's northernmost city of Kharlae, as well as the Isle of Saraava.

Merede- Merede is a feudal land ruled once by King Hyvaron Mascul until his assasination in 1512 AR. Beseiged by warlords in the west seeking glory and riches, from the north by Haz-Reydi cheiftains, and in the east by the draconic thralls of the Spine-Thorn, Merede struggles to assert dominance in its own lands, much less to help beleagured nations like Gharail to the south, and Jemiscra to the west, as the brunt of rebellious warlords in Jemiscra's eastern lands make travel and commerce difficult at best.

Jemiscra - The Empire of Jemiscra, once one of the reatest and feared empires of the entirety of Calenthya, is now in ruin, the Three Kings of power splintering their views into three disctinct factions, each loosely coming together only in matters of state, and each seeking resolutions that give them power over the other two. Warlords hae even sought there own power, as they feel they are loosely allegiant only to the lands of Jemiscra, not the bickering royals.

New Jede - Enjoying the power vacuum left behind, New Jede has annexed and liquidated several surrounding provinces, in hopes of gaining the power and prestige that Sharista in the far east currently hold, Currently ruled by Vath Ryvari, Holder of the Chalice, New Jede, otherwise known as Jedea, was founded and settled by the direct survivors from Jede in the Old Lands during the Third Reckoning. New Jede is also primarily elven in population, being one of the largest such bastions of high elven power in the land.

Haz-Reyd - In sharp contrast to the High Elves of New Jede, Haz-Reyd is the bastion of the Red Elves, the Reydi, who revere and are ruled by a Dragon King called Khar-Haz, or "Arm of Haz". The Haz-Reyd are very tribal by nature, and more warlike then their counterparts from several centuries earlier. Their main seat of power, Haz-Varak or "Heart of Haz" is actually the ashen field of a now extinct volcano. It is believes that beneath the volcano's caldera, lies the actual citadel where Khar-Haz rules, but outsiders are very seldomly invited in, and much less are allowed to look upon the revered leader.

Sorason - Known as the Crystal North, Sorason lies to the northwest of Jemiscra, and bolsters a cold environment, and a tough, hearty populace of humans who don't worry as much about the fight against the Khan, instead with battling the throngs of Orcs from the various clans within their holds.

Gharail - Known as the Lion of Calenthya, Gharail is ruled by the high Paladin of Yah, Marson Dramiir, who commands his forces well. However, forces plot against the Lion Crest, like the denizens of the three Sisters of Malice, Adra, Siithra, and Veshari. Steep in superstition and lore, Gharail has tracts of lands that do not revere Yah, but instead rely on the dark ways of the sisters, and seek not only Marson's downfall, but the removal of Yah's worship from all of Gharail.


Main Characters
YOU - After choosing your body, your class, your equipment, your perks, your land of origin (ALA Elder Scrolls), and your family name within those lands, a modest by enriching storyline explains your rise from a child to who you are today. I relied heavily on Paul Jaquays Central Casting for the storyline idea, and have thought about using it to create a DYNAMIC storyline backstory.

Allies - Like you, each ally will have a specific backstory created for them, but also like you will be UNIQUE per each game.

Sub-antagonists - Now while the main prtangonists and antagonists in the game, the NPC characters will be the same throughout, some of the minor players will change depending on the game... This can change some storyline elements throughout the game


Check out subsequent threads for screenshots, development blogs, and other information about Paragons!

[JayRay]

Hey, who... are... you, who! who! who? who?

Sorry, had to get my humming along as I showed off a few screenshots from the character creator for Paragons. Using a slightly edited plugin and data file originally and generously supplied by SumRndmDde... I have edited to allow for male and female and with some editing, will have Bust or Paperdoll integration soon as well.
Anyways... here we go...

As you can see, there is no bust graphic here... yet... Plus, rather than try to re-add the defunct Hue Window that requires keyboard presses, I've opted instead to have several variations of the same hair item. This mgiht be more of an image load BUT it will work for now, or at least until the Hue Generator window is changed to a mouse-capable window

This is the main actual generation screen, which will have buttons that will appear once all five menu options have been entered and an item has been chosen. Never mind the little RTP characters on the lower right, they're there to toggle a few items, but that big space on the right will be to show a common-evented or HUDMaker layered Paperdoll or Bust of the character. As you can see, stats are set dependant on classes and upon perks, storyline and equipment. During a prequel process, upwards of 500 Actors may be randomly created to ensure that there are a wide range of characters, each with their own names and nicknames generated. While these WILL be Actors as part of the game, they may not be actually played, but used as markers for events to ensure that the events carry those same random attributes to the map.

[JayRay]

Btw, I know that some of you can NOT see my images... I'm working on that... trying to find a decent image host that will keep my images nice and fresh and linkable from other places...


But, with that said.... UPDATE!!!

Okay, so PVGames threw me for a loop when he posted a new freebie package that really adds a lot more items ot my clothing issues...

There are currently, I believe 12 clothing layers that can be adjusted, and in addition to skin and hair and facial hair, there will be two other layers... First will be Scars and Marks, the second will be Paint and Tattoos... These will be artistic addons outside the PVGames sprites.

Second, I finished the upgrade to the new Yanfly Doodads plugin as well as a vastly updated Moghunter Fast Travel plugin... Doodads now will show or not show based on switches (very nice), and my fast travel script allows for me to plot each and every dungeon, town and castle in a map-condensing way.

This RPG would be too big to be true open world, but I still want to have region maps for some large areas... This allows me to do both, including spiderwebbing some maps together for exploration and immersion.

And finally... let's be real, RMMV is not the first choice for many... they don't like the bulky size of the files and the glitch nature in which everything loads... I'm still working at modifying a plugin by SRDude called SRD_Preloader to allow for a lot of the custom images and such to be preloaded before the game. so far lag issues that have plagued me in RMXP and RMVX are actually running fairly fast in RMMV ( which I have to say is actually a little shocking)

[JayRay]

New Update - October 7th, 2017

I've started working on tediously categorizing and moving most of the items for characters over to the game directories to be used as both the hero character, other members of the party, and the hopes of randomized (to a point) NPCs out there. Here's how my items sort of break down... This is subject to change as I might have a few more bits and pieces to add...


Male Tops - 42
Female Tops - 43
Male Bottoms - 26
Female Bottoms - 19
Male Accessories - 32
Female Accessories - 40
Male Feet - 17
Female Feet - 14
Male Hair - 64 + 2 bald/shaved
Male Facial Hair - 22
Female Hair - 76 + 2 bald/shaved
Male Tabards - 14 (more once I start working on color swatches and changes)
Female Tabards - 11 (more of course once I get color swatches changed around)
Male Shields - 12 (once again, there will be different coats and colors)
Female Shields - 12 (same as with the mails, more to come)
Male Hats/HeadGear - 22

Female Hats/HeadGear - 25
Male Skins - 10 (for now, more if I start doing non-human skintones)
Female Skins - 10 (for now, more if I start doing non-human skintones)

You will be able to create over 16 million starting characters, something that I don't believe I've seen in a 2d game. I'm not saying there's not one out there... I'm sure games like Ragnarok Online and such come close, but dynamic actors are definitely the theme here.

[JayRay]

Update again! (Gazeteer Edition)

First, I want to thank Jesse from PV games for his awesome new freebies package. This new package, freely available on RPGMakerWeb.com, allows for anyone to play around with character creation before investing...

With that being said. In IRC tonight, I had a brainstorm, regarding the idea of being able to choose different items, plugins, and methods of adding things like armors, I really want people to be able to diversify, but not at the cost of potentially game-breaking metagaming, where you instantly flock towards the Fullplate.

So, i got myself a solution!!! (YAY!)

Items that do not affect your stats will be freely available to change, swap out, and even use the built in hue generator to change hues During creation. However, things like Armor, Weapons, Shields and Helms will NOT upon initial character generation. You want those things? Well, a harsh 'DM' would say... EARN them, but me? I believe that depending on your answers to a backstory dialog, you might have a better opportunity to get some items than others...

However, I'm going to make that part of the game story itself, NOT a metagame character build process.

Secondly, while I still think Fast Travel is the way to go with my game, someone at work pointed out that some of his old games had an overland feature, with everything zoomed out. Previously I was sort of against that because I didn't want someone to just say "Oh look, that Crypt of the Lost Paladial is right there in the woods!" Then it hit me... On any certain map I can designate switches based on whether a player touches a region or not. SO... I thought about having 250 or so different 'pressure plates' on an overland world map. This may allow one to actually journey throughout a large world, see the sights, and 'stumble upon' a specific dungeon or delve, ala Open World. Once the world has been entered, of course, it will also be available on the Fast Travel list as a new delve, so that you can get back there if you so need (or if you at 5th level stumble upon a crypt with a 50th level Skeletal Cyrican, and barely escape, vowing to return one day)


FINALLY:

I got really lucky... I got really lucky and only lost tonight's work... See, I was doing a batch resize and save through Photoshop Save For Web, because it seems to be the only way I can use an action to save a large group of files while preserving the file name. However, the saved PNG files were being saved with the least possible file size from another setting before (white mats, diffusion instead of real transparency) so my character pieces were showing up all weird... with that being said,

BACK UP YOUR WORK DAILY!

This has been a public service announcement by JayRay

[JayRay]

Dev Blog - Updating for Gazeteer Edition


What's been going on with me, you ask.

Well, in addition to helping work out some kinks with a friend and his tabletop gaming terrain creation, which you can take a look at https://www.etsy.com/shop/ForgottenLabyrinth , I've been brainstorming on new stuff with Paragons! Here's my update

* I was successful in getting all my main character pieces in for customized characters, but took them out so that I could work on a more compact naming convention that will allow me to better keep track of each individual item, so that instead of Fdress (1).png, I may now have mffdrs1.png , or mifhr3a.png - This will help me tremendously in the coming days and weeks of preperation.

* I am also able to resize and enlarge some of my older RMXP and RMVXAce png files with a fractal software that 'seems' to take away the pixelization that often comes from enlarging. So, I may be tweaking SOME settings to allow for both those pre-generated characters AND my custom MV characters on the same playing surface.

*I'm still torn on my overland movement vs Flat Travel. I HAVE made some advances but when you think of any gridded map system, you're dealing with width AND height, and I AM a little concerned about the total impact of my 999 map limit within the game. It appears that if I set up my world map at a certain scale, it will be roughly 16x16 super huge maps, meaning that unless I get an RMMV version of an Atlas script that simply creates a world map, and as players go around on it, if they get close to an area, a new location pops up that can be interacted with. Here's where the issue lies...


This is a map of Ragnarok online, where for the most part everything is small maps that are connected to each other from within to without... easy to draw a landmass around that to better illustrate what the total map is.

My main atlas map is approximately 6400x6400 and while play area may still only be a small portion of that, it's still HUGE when you factor in the various distances between points. So, I either have to REALLY show down character movement on one map that's around 150x150, or try to zoom in even MORE, which will bleed out the features that I've worked hard to get to look nice in my world mapping, all without any assurance that it will make the game FEEL any better... as more people it appears would rather just point to a map to get to a destination than walk there and search it out. I think I should start a poll for just that question.

(BTW: you can see the FULL atlas map at https://imgur.com/a/EXKU0)

* However, there's been a LOT of progress in the brainstorm departments. In addition to the main story game, I will (instead of having it all on ONE main game) have side RPG games called Tales of the Paragons - which will be much shorter RPGs with pre-generated heroes, villains, NPC, all like seasons and episodes, that will be able to be downloaded each month. Again, these will not be DLC for the main game but each their own seperate mini-game.

*And finally... it's my birthday in less than a month, and it's my big forty... so I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, if you want to bless me with any kind gifts, you can at paypal.me/JayRay

[JayRay]

Addendum 11/10/17

Before, in earlier revisions of what I was trying to create with this game, I wrestled a lot with the idea of having pre-built characters that you just choose and go with. Visual Equipment was going to be sacrificed for the large number of choices.
In this revision, I WAS going to just always have you choose to make your own character.

What I have NOW is a system where 20 heroes of specific builds and enhancements would be available, all with visual equipment available to be changed on those characters, all while allowing to choose either a new Hero or female character, for a WIDE range of allies and hero options.

I have decided that I would also allow the player to start out with one person, two people, or three to start the game, and choose either custom created characters OR the pre-made heroes in any party order to start the game with. This is what I'll be working on next, and hopefully this weekend I'll have new pics!

[JayRay]

Update 11/12/20178 - Gazeteer Edition

It's my birthday in 5 days!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, and the occasional lyncanthrope, its that time for a little bit of a development blog.

After dealing with a minor setback, I now have paperdolling portraits as well as faces, sideview battlers AND the default walking character sprites. I'm now going to be spending the next couple of weeks adding to it, frankensteining bits and pieces together, changing some color palettes, and changing some items to make them more unique to my campaign. All those equipment choices but WHY? Well, that's a good question, and here's hopefully a good answer.

In Paragons, a character's outfit affects several factors, not just to determine what he looks like but what bonuses he gets. When you have a suit of armor equipped to your character, it visually changes the character and imposes those changes. Now, unless I want a simple "Leather, Iron, and Magical Iron Armor" I need to have different prices and bonuses for items, and put rarer items, armor, and equipment in higher-risk dungeons. for that reward, and to help the build factor. Likewise, there are some equipment items in Paragons that when equipped, add or detract from interactions with NPC dialogue.

Here's just some of what I've got planned...

Tabards and Coats of Arms - Just like you can't go up to a Green Bay Packers fan while wearing a coat, scarf, and wool hat showing the Chicago Bears, you shouldn't walk into a faction's guildhouse, wearing say, a rival's garments or coats. Likewise, you wouldn't want to wear the standards of Jemiscra in the heart of Merede.

The Accessories make the man - Also, you might not want to wear your clunky war-beaten bloodsplattered armor in the noble's districts, and you might get laughed out of a bar on the waterfront for walking into the Pesky Rat wearing a tiara... Different clothes may illicit different responses from the various citizenry of Merede. (Seriously, depending on what you wear, you'll have a couple of variables that get passed to your attributes - too far from an NPC's expectation number, and they could be rude to you, insult you, give you false information, or flat out ignore you!)

Materia system? Could it be??? - While I can't promise anything yet, there may be a graft or materia system in the very near future. I already will be looking to Yanfly for the Prefix and Suffix plugins to allow for other addon types. as well as Magic items that might not necessarily be seen on the character, but nevertheless bestow bonuses and penalties... This will take some time...

As of now there are 10 equipment slots, and while some of them can't be edited or changed once you choose your starting character, there will be many options to build your character for survival as well as make it asthetically appealing as a character.

And about those items you can't edit? - Well, if you choose to make your own character, There will be some choices you make to have that unique character that once done, can not be changed. Right now, here's how that's breaking down. This number may change as I decide how to change and add things like newer faces, eyes, and more.

Female - 12 different skins, 24 different hairstyles and 7 makeups (each in 5 different colors) for 10,800 possible combinations of females

Male - 12 different skins, 20 different hairstyles and 7 facial hair styles (each in 5 colors) for 9,600 possible combinations for males

THAT's OVER 20K possible people!

* Right now, I'm trying to finish up everything graphically for the character generator, so that I can test my first true 'deployment' in various environments.

[JayRay]

I can officially say...

TECH BUILD 0.01 !

Paragons is now finished with the base character generator... I have now successfully added all those parts I told you about earlier into the Character Generator...

[JayRay]

Tech Build 0.02

It's screenshot Sunday here at Save-Point.org! (for me anyway) so I wanted to go ahead and share my... updated CHARACTER GENERATOR



** What we've got accomplished now -

1- Using the mousewheel, I finally was able to edit the SRDude's Character Creator EX to allow a quick roll of the mouse to get any number of preset hues. Click and BAM you've got red leggings! Click again, and you got lime green!

2 - I was successful in integrating the full body pose in my character generator, ala Daggerkeep! Plus I substituted the 'dead' pose, so that if I need to have the portrait in any other scenes, or have event based menuing systems I can use the body for new and unique menus.

3 - As you can see, I crammed a little more info into the scene, to allow experienced and novice players alike the ability to know how to navigate the scene

-----> I'll be removing the word COLOR from the title above the color... that was an unfortunate error on my behalf.

NEXT Edits: I'll be working on adding 20 or so new faces to the game, for even more varied outfits, as well as WARPAINT!, TATTOOS!, and EMBLEMS!

Warpaint - streaks across the eyes, painted skulls and more ideas across the face and torso of the character.
Tattoos - Make it permanent with intricate marks and powerful totems.
Emblems - Why wear a simple shirt, when you can wear a shirt with the emblem of a dragon, or your town's emblem, who knows?