Wanderers of Sorceria Dedicated Update Thread

[RazorclawX]

One of the things I'm trying to design is a 'hub' level where you can talk to characters and the dialogue 'changes' as you go through the story. It is actually pretty difficult to pull this off because you can't guarantee a game state when you enter the map, so instead of progressive dialogue it progressively unlocks dialogue so if you like skip a couple chapters visiting the place the entire dialogue tree is still unlocked anyway. Most of it is written with the characters reacting to something that happened in the previous chapter and react toward Mizuki as the main character.

A bit of this goes into how Shizuka's overly positive impression of Mizuki affects her friends and then when they see she isn't quite the paragon how they deal with that knowledge.

The crazyness comes where some characters start writing themselves. The tree for Shion, for instance, starts out innocently enough, but he very quickly rips into Mizuki for being the exact opposite of what he thought she was without mincing words, and when I think about it she does kind of deserve that. The tree for Ziel ended up talking about womens' assets and Mizuki being disappointed that nobody's looking at her like that (because she's an over the hill mom).

[RazorclawX]

I don't know why it took me this long to realize this, but WHY did I make 3D collars and not the things that go with the collars? I think I only made a proper neckie for one of them.

[RazorclawX]

I felt particularly inspired this week so I worked on a model where Shizuka is dressed like Karna (the Memories of Celceta costume).

Big thing I didn't like about her in Memories of Celceta (among a host of other issues I have with that game) was her 100% personality change into a stereotypical genki girl who eats a lot when the thing that made her stood out in the first place was she was another warrior and had no romantic interest in Adol. In that game that pretty much describes Griselda, but I'm not particularly attached to her.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. It kind of did settle an age-old sore spot when you've got a bunch of characters sporting Ys-themed outfits and one of the main characters didn't (heck even Nekurow was had a slight inspiration for a Dark Fact costume and that's really out there). I long thought that Karna was the best 'fit', but that was the other version and not the current one (only thing is her original outfit wasn't particularly interesting, either).

I guess now the real question is who gets to dress like Chester. He wasn't particularly great in Wanderers from Ys, but Oath in Felghana made him a certified badass (and a bit less of a moron than in Wanderers from Ys). I thought Garland was the coolest character in Wanderers, and he's still cool in the remake, just he gets overshadowed by Chester in Oath (yes, Garland got me with his suicide attack the first time, how did you guess?).

KarnaShizuka.jpg

[RazorclawX]

I did not know that a social mobile game called 'Ys Nexus' existed. That would be completely forgettable if it wasn't for the fact it featured this interesting character design for Lilia (yes, that's her)

Ys-nexus-lilia.png

There's also one for Terra, but she doesn't look too different. Other characters with new design are Adol, Dogi, and Geis. The Ys SEVEN characters look the same. Adol and Lilia both have a fur-lined look to them so maybe they went somewhere cold.

Couldn't tell if Elena was in the game, but she's probably sporting her popular 'Chester' costume.

[RazorclawX]

I've recently been thinking that Kanna is more of a pervert than Ziel. Very quick to accuse him of perverse thoughts before he even opens his mouth, frequently paints much worse things than Ziel is thinking of. And somehow it comes off being funnier.

[RazorclawX]

Just realized there was a logical flaw in X3's story. The encounter with Vance would have taken place on another Sengoku Musou themed stage (tentatively Odawara Castle where you control Zerg and fight Nexus Army), but there's absolutely no reason for that to be the case since he's under the thrall of Amy. Will have to rethink this. At worst that just means there's one less stage and a few things need to be rewritten here and there to fight Vance and Amy under different circumstances; at best the stage just gets re-flavored into something that makes more sense.

I guess it really wasn't an accident that was the stage I was stuck the most on.

[RazorclawX]

News for 12/24/2021

Wanderers of Sorceria 4th Edition updated with the following changes:

* Fixed Models: Removed extraneous animations from Shizuka (mostly so she can't accidentally use them in earlier parts), redone Walk animation with more animations, fixed chest scaling to be its proper values. Changed Sweet Lolita Shizuka's model base to be consistent with the others. Hokuto models general update. Hokuto's Lunar outfit now has more visible underwear; Kurumi's Lunar outfit now has her wear underwear under her tights instead of over (because that's what normal people do, you rebel)**. Kurumi and Miranda arms fixed to be more like the original animations, and idol dance animation redone. Regular Bunny Girl outfits (Hokuto, Miranda, Kurumi, Kanna, Yue Fang) now have bows. Miranda and the Kagero girls maid outfits redone.
* Updated Models: Pixy Amy (fixed portrait, adjusted staff).

** Just so we're clear, the original Lunar Festival Jaina isn't wearing any underwear at all, otherwise this wouldn't even be a thing.

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This was actually mostly done about a month and a half ago while I sat on it wondering what else to add to it. Only pushed it now along with updating some backup files.

[RazorclawX]

Need to rework X3's story. It doesn't make sense in practice. I know what I want to have happen, but the things that tie the events together is weak as heck.

In the meantime, making good time getting through my game backlog.

[RazorclawX]

I think I need to come clean about something, and that's basically I don't think what I have for X3 is worth telling.

There were actually two main plotlines running through it:

- A thing about where Hokuto is a little more important to Shizuka and Mizuki than they thought because she altered their memories of the event.

- Fighting Heroes of the Storm characters attempting to pull Sorceria into the Nexus.

The first is the problem, but let's leave that for later.

The second is the one I was more happy with and is basically a modified version of the idea from Mortal Kombat where an extradimensional realm is trying to pull in more territory through a set of ritual combats. The enemy leader was Orphea, the ruler of Raven Court, and her army was nominally made up of the 'hero' characters in Heroes of the Storm (if one paid attention to what characters I converted to Warcraft 3 you would understand why I picked what I did). Basically the 'hero characters' from Diablo, Starcraft, and Overwatch-- characters Orphea would normally associate with (she has a distinct dislike for people from Luxoria and both Alliance and Horde from Warcraft). Orphea was mostly the only major character from that side, but there would be recurring battles against her generals, which I picked as D.Va (who lead a 'D.Va Corps' with characters that have her color scheme) and Li Ming (because she's got a lot of skins so she's easy to work with). The mission dealing with Orphea is actually 100% completed and the only one I finished.

That brings us to the first plot thread, which is the problem. I know exactly how this story plays out, but the truth of the matter is it works better as a prose story rather than as a game. The thing I always got stuck on was trying to force a game in there somewhere, but I never could figure out something that I could say "yeah, I'd play that." The ultimate conclusion I came to was I shouldn't. Not that I don't think I want to say something about this one day, but it's not something you should make a game out of. It became more of an art than a game-- something more abstract than solid, something that was easier to read, but not play with.

Make no mistake, though, I did try to convert a lot of it into visual mediums, much more than I had in the past, and I learned to push my crappy modeling skills out of my comfort zone. Some of that may get put out there one day, but for the time being I'm keeping what I did to myself (because some of it is actually very weird).

Leaving just the Nexus War part I have mixed feelings about, because Heroes of the Storm is a MOBA and I would feel compelled to at least stay faithful to having their battles play out as such, but since this is Warcraft 3 we're talking about that's kind of a wasteful thing to do.

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Somewhat related, but I know some of you already noticed that I created a group for Miranda in X2. The entire point of that was to get Miranda to the point where she no longer wanted to be part of that lifestyle so to that end she was coerced (because she herself is not a powerful draw) into forming a group in a vain attempt to stay relevant, but then ultimately have the group dismantle itself from within. The basic outline went as follows:

- One or more of the other girls wants the top billing and plots to kick Miranda out of the group. This eventually succeeds.
- One or more of the other girls wants to recruit a replacement subordinate to maintain group size, and set their eyes on Kurumi.
- Miranda was deeply unpopular with the other girls because a) she was more athletic than any of them as a practicing martial arts and therefore doesn't have to work as hard to maintain her body as the others do, b) she was not the same kind of singer-- ie not bubbly/cute/kawaii manufactured bullcrap like they were so she stood out more, c) Miranda pied each of them on their birthdays, therefore they were resentful of the indignity she showed them.
- Since Kurumi is a friend to many of the other characters they don't want her associating with these people/falling into this terrible lifestyle, so they set about destroying the idol group entirely.
- Eventually the group disbands because of the various reasons and their fans disown them for slights brought to light by the above, or other various reasons. It was not really set in stone, but at least one idea was one of them was sleeping around so wasn't as pure as everyone thought, and another being outed as a man (who went their own way and had a better solo career as themselves). I think one of them (the long haired one) would inadvertently gotten their head shaved and disappeared in shame (because ego).
- Miranda herself would part time sing at a club/lounge setting where she could just feel like being herself instead of what other people wanted.

Same problem above, where it wasn't really a game to make out of it.

[RazorclawX]

I suppose I should also disclose that I'm currently watching Paripi Koumei (Ya Boy Kongming) which is a really good-natured feel good show so in some ways (despite what it sounds like it's not an idol trash show; as the title suggests it's more about the clubbing/party people scene) I guess I'm currently judging myself being a little too cynical. The ideas I had lately were coming from a rather low point in my thought process and I no longer feel that way, so I can't effectively follow up on it. You could say I'm much happier than I was a couple years ago.



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News for 5/14/2022

The original Reign of Chaos maps produced for Wanderers of Sorceria are now uploaded. You can get them on the downloads page here.

[RazorclawX]

News for 6/15/2021

Wanderers of Sorceria 4th Edition updated with the following changes:

* Fixed Models: Fixed Ziel's missing model in Book 3

[Playtester1903]

It's been a long while, and I suddenly have a few questions.
- In the Book 2 Epilogue, when Shizu and Ziel came across Kurumi who's pretty standing out atm but they didn't comment anything. Is it just something that only the player (for the achievement/foreshadowing) or Yue Zhong/Narrator is supposed to know, while the other in-universe characters are like "Nah, it's just another girl."?
- Just read about the problem regarding X3, but in the far future, do you consider making short chapters where some of my favorite male characters (Ziel, Scaldar, Zule, Kossei, Johan) are playable?
- Is there any chance that you'll upload the campaign to Hiveworkshop? I think in terms of gameplay, story, and everything in between, it hold up pretty well even to today's standard, and even better than some of the Director's Cut campaigns on the Hive. Thus, I feel like it deserves more publicity.

[RazorclawX]

1. It's more for the player's sake. In Book 3 it's mentioned once in passing that Kurumi was actually there summoning things, so I thought "why not?" and stuck her in a corner somewhere to find.

2. I think about stuff like that all the time, it's just I don't know how to make a game out of a lot of my ideas (some of which are very, very weird).

3. Probably not anytime soon because of a dispute I have with the administration of the site.

[NovaLan]

- Is there any chance that you'll upload the campaign to Hiveworkshop? I think in terms of gameplay, story, and everything in between, it hold up pretty well even to today's standard, and even better than some of the Director's Cut campaigns on the Hive. Thus, I feel like it deserves more publicity.

Most administrators of hiveworkshop are connections of that website, and some of them just give scores by their own subjectivism. Some works of my friends, which were favored in Chinese websites, were given low scores or marked as Simple in hive just because the administrators didn't like them. The most preposterous thing is the so-called Director's Cut is totally decided by the administrators, not by players.

[RazorclawX]

I'm going to have to keep this brief.

Two months ago I suffered a RL health issue that lead to me being incapacitated. I haven't fully recovered from this and I've had a lot weighing on my mind on whether or not I should even mention this. All that should be relevant to this site is I am largely unable to use my hands in the normal manner and it's difficult enough typing this message without a huge number of typos.

This past year I've largely tried to remove a lot of stress from my life and this past experience lead me to several dark places of which I've not fully overcome. Oddly I found it tied into the subject matter I was trying to run with while writing for the unreleased X3. In any case I'm unsure if I'll be able to finish it since my current state I can't even play any video games that require any sort of manual dexterity on the part of the player (including warcraft).

I may have to come up with another way to do things if I dont get my hands back in working order.