Wanderers of Sorceria Dedicated Update Thread

[RazorclawX]

I've often toyed with the idea of what happened prior to the events of Book 1, particularly the week Shizuka appeared and turned everything upside-down. Most of what I had in mind got fleshed out with the memory crystals (which were not part of Book 1's initial version), but that's mostly the coup itself in a nutshell.

One thing I alluded to early on, but never explained, was a prior relationship between Shion and Miranda where it was suggested they knew each other from before. I've always had it in mind that Miranda was always publicly a pop idol who moonlighted as a crime fighter (although in some regards one might wonder why a utopian kingdom would have crime to begin with, but such is the nature of conflicting dreams). Shion, being the savvy information broker that he is, eventually finds out and rather than ruin her, cons Miranda into working for him for a time. In a rather twisted way they have that magical girl/mentor relationship going that's really quite antagonistic.

Then of course I never did develop a goofy magical transformation sequence, but I don't think I could've made it work right, either.

Another thing was Kosseimaru's nature. I had a thought last night that perhaps he was constantly irritated by his skin, as if he had a rash all over his body, and tried to cut off the skin like the Terminator did in Terminator 2-- only to have it magically reappear. Perhaps that was a reason he was receptive to overthrowing Arcadia.

Lastly, I was toying with the idea that the so-called Minister of Magic, Mizuki, really didn't have any actual power under Arcadia, and her department was more for entertainment purposes rather than mystical research. Falling under that thought, and considering her relationship with Shizuka, I also wondered lately if Shizuka would've served as Arcadia's royal jester, although more as a hostage to keep Mizuki in line. I don't think this could've lasted very long, as Shizuka is one of the chief conspirators in the coup, so maybe it was Mizuki who was the hostage, and, no matter how much Arcadia threatened or actually harmed Mizuki, she would always trust Shizuka to come through in the end. One of the things I think about is the extent of the relationship between Mizuki and Shizuka to be so ridiculously close they are like sisters, and I wonder if I really got that across or not. Then again, as part of their backstory Shizuka feels threatened by and is ridiculously jealous of Mizuki's husband, so she probably did have a childish crush on her before finding out what having a relationship was really about (that at least falls into Shizuka's spectacular failure to kiss a man, I've come to notice; she seems to be slow with her boyfriend and gets hounded on by other girls).

[RazorclawX]

Something that probably should've happened if I planned things out better:

Yue Fang was created purely because I couldn't use Kanna for the same purpose. In many respects Yue Fang is a nerdy facet of Kanna splintered off and given a life of its own, and turned up to eleven. But then, perhaps because she was such a pure character I found her easy to write and use. Granted, I did make a conscious decision to draw upon Dynasty Warriors as inspiration rather than the Three Kingdoms novel itself, if only because I felt that it was a little more approachable to people unfamiliar with the story.

Overall, though, she turned out to be a female equivalent of Hikaru, and in some ways Yue Fang might be a better rival for him.

[Blake]

Another thing was Kosseimaru's nature. I had a thought last night that perhaps he was constantly irritated by his skin, as if he had a rash all over his body, and tried to cut off the skin like the Terminator did in Terminator 2-- only to have it magically reappear. Perhaps that was a reason he was receptive to overthrowing Arcadia.

I was always wondering about Kosseimaru's backstory....meant to ask about it, but completely forgot....

What I basically understood was that he was a "bone spirit" whose sound was captured by Arcadia and brought into the dream world, but because he was a Bone Spirit his skin kept decaying..... and all he really wanted was to be release from the dream world by Arcadia...

[RazorclawX]

Delicious art update for the Characters page. Of course, now that I look at it I think maybe Abolisher's head is the wrong color, but it could be the Effect doing it.

Scaldar did not turn out all that well, and he only really looks good in shadow.

[RazorclawX]

I was looking through some old doodles I did for the campaign and I found one of Kurumi kissing Shizuka. So the subject matter is going to be about that.

RECAP: the point in the story where that occurs is at the end of Book 4 after certain conditions are met-- the biggest one being you must NOT forgive Kasumi for betrayal. If you do, you get a scene with Kasumi groveling instead. The alternative scene is somewhat Kurumi trying to sort out her feelings after having been messed with by both Nargul and Kasumi, who were suggesting that much of her inner turmoil was centered around Shizuka (Kurumi's inner self, on the other hand, was attempting to put all that back on Hikaru, but she couldn't remember him until she met him again, thus why he was in silhouette when he appeared in her mind).

The one big thing that was on my mind when writing this out was it had to be tasteful. There's no shortage of horny guys who play video games who would think two girls kissing would be hot. On the one hand, you have Kurumi, who's somewhat curious, and is the serious one, and Shizuka, who, if you kept her death count low, is completely indifferent and feels absolutely nothing about it (her reaction changes somewhat if her death count is rather high). I think that's the only reason why it might have worked-- it's more to the kid's benefit than anything.

The subject of girls liking other girls was always a touchy one for me. It's something that's interesting to write about, but it's so frickin' easy to do it wrong (and consequently it makes it horrible to read). The only easy way to write about it seems to be to not sensationalize it and treat it like it was completely ordinary, as if it wasn't any different from buying food at the store.

[RazorclawX]

One of the things I decided early on in developing the campaign was to find a way to tribute the original Master Scenario Sorcerian bosses. They appear all over the place in the campaign, but not all of them are in:

First Scenario
1. Hydra (Book 1,2)
2. Priest Debitel*, Sand Marivoux*
3. Kraken (Book 1,2,3 and 5)
4. Ruwan and Gold Dragon (Book 1,2)
5. Shadow Dragon (Book 2), Major Demon*

Second Scenario
1. Red Dragon (Book 1, 2)
2. Vadis (Book 2)
3. Moth Giant (Book 5)
4. Gedis*, Blue Dragon (Book 2)
5. Archdaemon (Book 3)

Third Scenario
1. Adana (Book 5)
2. Sokuram (Book 2), Ekim (Book 1)
3. Medusa (Book 2)
4. Fire Element (Book 3)
5. Pillar Devils (Book 5)

Fight Dragon: King Dragon*

* = Does not appear

Notes:

- The original Fight Dragon scenario involved fighting a succession of bosses: Hydra, Blue Dragon, Vadis, and King Dragon

- Kraken appeared the most of all the bosses

- Priest Debitel and Sand Marivoux were from the same scenario and both got shafted.

- Major Demon actually has a pretty awesome theme, but traditionally I always hated the sucker because for whatever reason I never could pass that scenario. The Shadow Dragon is dirt easy, though.

- Gedis's theme is used in Book 6 and Sand Marivoux's in Book 1, obviously not attached to their respective bosses.

- King Dragon was more or less substituted with Xaax the Defiler, because I COULD.

[Lavarinth]

Ooh Xaax, my eternal nemesis.

[RazorclawX]

Hikaru model rigged with flaming eyes and a Kiljaeden glow.

[RazorclawX]

One of the annoyances I discovered while doing another playthrough of Book 5 was the track "Valley of Quicksand" wasn't playing in the level I thought it was-- and it'd been like that for YEARS.

[Demoneater]

if you kept her death count low, is completely indifferent and feels absolutely nothing about it (her reaction changes somewhat if her death count is rather high). I think that's the only reason why it might have worked-- it's more to the kid's benefit than anything.

Does that mean that Shizu's deaths influences her behaviour in story events largely?

One of the things I decided early on in developing the campaign was to find a way to tribute the original Master Scenario Sorcerian bosses. They appear all over the place in the campaign, but not all of them are in:
[...]

They are some kind of superbosses, aren't they?
Are you going to integrate them then?

Do you also revamp the whole campaign besides of the features mentioned at the news page? Such as making book1 and 2 more interesting and better the level design, or those pretty imbalances in some chapters of the game? some are just god damn hard, too hard, IMHO. IIRC in that first B2 chapter with the trolls you can't exchange lumber for gold, or that place is just too hard to find - at least for me, repeated the level several times + did at least 2 or 3 playthroughs to there.

Would be really awesome - ok, even "just" your new features are.

Keep going!

//€: Here are some old bugs, errors and possible improvements written down by me some time ago:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3001&p=36919#p36837

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3001

[RazorclawX]

Does that mean that Shizu's deaths influences her behaviour in story events largely?

Not in a huge way, it's very subtle.

Do you also revamp the whole campaign besides of the features mentioned at the news page? Such as making book1 and 2 more interesting and better the level design,

There's very little about the level design in Books 1 and 2 I want to change, if only because that could radically alter the map somehow. I feel, even if completely flawed, there was a reason certain things were done the way they were. The only significant thing I changed there was make your base in the defense mission in Book 2 a bit bigger and altered the paths the computer attackers take.

Otherwise, there are some pretty different things which I haven't mentioned yet. Just about all the levels where you are given control of an allied base are altered somehow.

[RazorclawX]

One of the biggest things I didn't like was the fact you chose the classes in Book 4 in some random cutscene in the middle of the campaign. Well, no more-- it's actually done in the Introduction stage. Not only is it more convenient and logical, it makes more sense from a narrative point of view (the Intro is narrated by the author, so is the class selection part).

The only reason why it was like that was because the class unlocks were done by activating ten Obelisks in the previous levels, and one of the Obelisks was in Chapter 1 of Book 4. My solution to that was to move the offending Obelisk into Chapter 8 of Book 3, the "Siege of Kanai". The Heart of the Obelisk is very easy to find in the stage, but the Obelisk isn't as obvious.

[RazorclawX]

One of the things about the ten Heroes of Pentawa was the fact that one of its members, Lady Gina, was never referred to or found anywhere in the campaign (where other shifty members like Sora Winterbreeze was never seen and you see his children instead-- most notably his n00b son David). Gina now has a minor subplot running in the campaign and her appearances are infrequent and not entirely obvious as she makes her own ill-advised attempt at entering the Lost City of Sorceria in search of a former companion.

[Xenon]

This is probably a dumb time to bring it up, but Blizzard's "point with offset" functions leak memory. Hopefully people have strong enough computers to handle any excess memory usage by now, but it can still add a lot of time to saving and restoring games. The caravan level, in particular. IIRC Blizzard's caravan campaign level had the same problem.

[RazorclawX]

There's some code which I'm afraid to change because everything works the way it is, and changing things a little too drastically can make things broken.