(January 13 to January 19, 2014)
Welcome dear readers to the latest issue of the Weekly Gazette! Here in the Gazette, we give you the news in brief of what occurred in the past week as well as provide any news happening in Save-Point itself
Official Area
Occasions
While it is true that Pie is Fly, you just have to love a good slice of Birthday cake and this week there was plenty of cake going around. This week started off as felicalexa got to eat some annual birthday confectionary. However, cake became thinly sliced when Tyrinari, kirota666, tohno, deskilldem, hydroninja9, Qu-ko, Helladen and ntut all had a party. After that, the trio of ArkatekStudios, Kuno-Krähe and tuxinator2009 all had icing covered confectionaries galore. And finally, the birthdays of logansam21's, goxgaa's, darkiller108's and lpull20's saw cake a plenty.
General Chat
Has it been a while since you've talked to your fellow members here in Save-Point? Do you need to catch up with a long lost friend? Before you do, you may want to find out What's on their mind before sending them a message. However, Kain Nobel has been on some medication that has made him extremely drowsy so he may not be awake enough to read any. However, he had been annoyed by the drowsiness and became intent to continue work. Whatever MetalRenard wished to post, he intentionally removed it and censored himself. After a hard drive crash which made him lose the media for his online show, Uruhara may had done the same thing. Such reminded MechanicalPen that it was about time to perform a backup. And Kain Nobel returned as he wanted to let people know about a blog he found for those who post Let's Play Youtube videos. Yin has seen this with more than just Let's Play videos, but reviews or anything with game footage, thinking that these actions will be Youtube's downfall. Likewise, Steel Beast 6Beets thought that Youtube was targetting anything game related was being pulled after seeing game music videos pulled. MetalRenard felt it was ridiculous that these videos were being removed as they did a good job to help him choose what game to buy. MechanicalPen replied that the system flags and removes content because someone uploaded video game music to Youtube's content ID system, and now the system removes them for copyright violations. However, Ahzoh made a point that it was a more impartial system than some biased moderator or have a team paid to remove the content. Ahzoh had to agree with that, but sighed as he felt there isn't a snowball's chance to really find another game-friendly hosting site. Speaking of a snow job, Uruhara shows off what a bad laundry dryer did to his house. MetalRenard hoped that Uruhara was okay, while he thought that an avatar DerVVulfman found for him was okay in itself. Likewise, Kain Nobel was glad that Uruhara was okay, not having having a defective dryer ever burst into flames. Kain Nobel also felt he needed to apologize for the angry fit he had last week when he complained about Ancient Aliens showing all the time on the History Channel, admitting it was caused by his normal distain for television and the medication he was forced to take. On the contrary, he discovered he enjoyed the material and felt the content thought provoking. Ahzoh, on the other hand, felt the show was total rubbish.
While venturing through the wilds of the internet, MetalRenard found a Starbomb music piece on Youtube by Ego Raptor and Ninja Sex Party, and thought it a fun idea ot share it. MetalRenard flagged the thread to be 18+ as the piece is a bit mature, even if it comically plays off Evil Dr. Wiley as a marriage counselor.
After receiving a blog link from Kain Nobel, DerVVulfman wanted to inform everyone that Let's Play videos were being pulled from Youtube. Hundreds of videos have been pulled already so people gaining income from advertisements will no longer be paying out. MetalRenard replied that it wasn't anything new, only something that is still occurring. And Kain Nobel brought up the subject as he noticed that the blog author has a law firm with a 'SavePointLaw.com' url.
Forum Games & Nonsense
RosyPosy now has a job and a healthier state of mind, so some stuff is Kinda on her mind. Her Persona fangame, Fragile Dreamers, had been put aside as she sensed her two-year project may have been too ambitious for herself. Now having a paying job, she's considering to get some help on a new project, utilizing her own skills of character design and music to their fullest while pixelwork, sound effects and vocal work, scripting, and mapping may be spots for hire.
Games Development
Development Discussion
Don't you just love making games? If not, then what are you doing here? Maybe something is bothering you or maybe you just need to vent a little. If so, you may wish to just say What's up in your RPGMaking experience. Kain Nobel was curious what Ahzo meant after glancing at his animate dinosaur graphics, and told KasperKalamity that the chimera sprite he posted was an older image he wasn't planning to use. Still, he was surprised that he got an 'expired trial' notice when he opened up his RPGMaker editor. So rather than delve through paper after paper to re-activate it that night, Kain Nobel decided to post a piece of music which summed up how annoyed he felt that moment. He wasn't the only one to post music though, as MetalRenard just finished some more music for a game a friend of his is making. He has a pair of newground links for your listening pleasure. Both Ahzoh and KasperKalamity returned, the former saying the dinosaur's legs looked stiff-straight and appeared to spaz out when he saw it from his phone, and the latter replying how he thought chimera's heads would be side-by-side like cerberus's. Meanwhile, KasperKalamity has been working on the tree structure of his maps. Working on graphics, Olivia found a spriting tool that can pixellate any render. MechanicalPen liked it and made mention of colors used, while Ahzoh wondered if the same effect could be used on a drawing he did of his character. DerVVulfman quickly put one up, while MechanicalPen replied that he had some difficulties dealing with gray-on-gray scaled images. Olivia returned to mention the tool she used was good for a free 30 day trial with no crippled features. But as Olivia worked on her sample renders, JayRay prodded her to get involved in some 3D modeling as he thinks it would be perfect for her game. Speaking of modeling, Kain Nobel has been using a video clip as a reference to a new character he has been spriting. While spriting, he realized that many female characters in his games already have a Y/I sound (Brittany, Micki, Ashley), so he had put out a shout to anyone with naming ideas other than Michelle. It was immediately responded to by Ahzoh, who offered a pair of names, one being Nigerian. Kain Nobel wasn't sure about the names, but thanked Ahzoh for the suggestions. Meanwhile, he also said that his game, Belly of the Beast, had been put on a temporary hold as more time was going to be spent on the development of ReGaL and Echoside. As of late, he felt he hadn't been that productive as of recent. While he's read various tutorials covering Java, he hasn't been able to make sense of it as he had with Ruby. He wished someone made a tutorial that could describe how Java worked from a Ruby scripter's perspective. He's thought of calling it quits, but he realizes he has a stubborness that won't stop. Ahzoh returned, saying he saw his character portrait looked like a Nneka to him, and saw Kain as having a few problems.
JayRay worked dilligently to get an Overworld map for Roguehaven finished, complete with a mouse and event clickable system which he wished to show within the Maps and screenshots thread. You can view a very craggy worldmap with lush green and sandy deserts in the shot, or you can use a link he posted for a large scaled version. DerVVulfman was curious about the lack of apparent water, being used to a more blue effect. After that was said, Kain Nobel thought that the image comparitively trounced anything seen on Google Maps. JayRay had been considering adding more blue tint to the water as DerVVulfman brought it up, and replied to Kain Nobel how he studied anything he could generate on Google Earth. But in the meantime, he posted a couple more shots of a character within a lush green backdrop as he believes he got the heightmaps of his game worked out. However, he's been pondering about unlockable features in his game, knowing that RPGMaker games could get hacked and wondered if anyone had some suggestions on such fare. With that, MechanicalPen suggested that JayRay look up Narzew (though not by name) or his work into anti-hack encryption. Meanwhile, JayRay has plans laid for Roguehaven II.
Code Support
A while back, penguwin asked for help as he needed to Disable Idle in a Stand/Walk/Run system. Since then, he has been practicing RGSS and discovered the system he was using had a feature to turn idle animations off.
Working on his game, Iqus asked for Help with a Scene Equip menu to graphically display the equipment the actors are wearing rather than just seeing the names of the gear in slots. After seeing the screen that he posted, i666iky939 showed off his own screenshot, replying that he too had a similar idea. DerVVulfman suggested various features which draw graphics over top of a character, mentioning scripts already work for charactersets and battlers, and he could modify one to work in the menu. Meanwhile, MechanicalPen suggested the use of the Sprite class's flash and update methods to perform such renders. Iqus didn't fully understand the scripts that DerVVulfman suggested, but was grateful to MechanicalPen and asked how he could use the flash method. Of course, MechanicalPen returned to disscuss the system.
Creativity Section
Literature Section
Another week comes, and a new short installment of Echoside had been posted by Kain Nobel. Characters have been elected and put into power, and others have discovered an advanced armory, including a new stealth armored transport of unorthodox design. After reading the vignette, JayRay found it was similar to Sucker Punch in spirit and asked about the story arc's genre.
Special Projects
ReGaL (RPG Game Lab)
The Talk Box
Yin ventured into the thread that discussed ReGaL's Character Graphics as she found that they removed the ability to set character poses in RPGMaker VXAce. DerVVulfman saw that she hoped the feature would still be within ReGaL, and replied that his philosophy involved keeping all features available.
Well, that's it for this week.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
PROSPECTIVE GAZETEERS!
If you are the creator of a thread in Save-Point, you have the option of sending/writing your own entry into the Gazette. The Gazette accepts write-in announcements (which will be doublechecked). Likewise, the Gazette would welcome other content such as a comic-strip series, ongoing story arc, or the like.
Just PM DerVVulfman with the submissions. Submissions must be in by 10pm EST.