(January 12 to January 18, 2015)
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
With a background using earlier engines of the RPGMaker line, Bounty Hunter Lani has now ventured into using RPGMaker XP for her game and ventured into our community with a big and hearty Hiya!. She has made some short works in the past, but has now decided to embark upon a larger and more serious project, though she's had issues with her game forcing her to restart four times. And maybe even more serious than her current gaming project are some stories that she has written or are working upon, which she feels are seriously dark. She was greated initially by RosyPosy, MetalRenard and JayRay who wished her to feel right at home, and what she felt would make her feel at home would be some puppies and cookies. As such, DerVVulfman posted a pic of some oven-baked sweetness while both he and Ahzoh told her nothing was wrong about dark stories. Bounty Hunter Lani loved the jesture and replied back with a pic of her own and added that she's a good gaming resource hunter, though her talents in using RPGMaker XP need work. After that, more cookies and greetings came by way of yamina-chan and additional approval of dark fiction came by way of JayRay. Meanwhile, Bounty Hunter Lani is looking forward to sticking around and began coming up with nicknames for everyone, beginning with one for Dervy-kun.
For those of us who like to enjoy birthday celebrations, so do we at Save-Point. We started off this week by celebrating the birthday of felicalexa, but later continued celebrating the triple birthdays of hamilcar, dragonkyn20 and The_Exiled_One. It wasn't long before cake requests boomed as eight slices of candle-waxed confectionaries went out to Tyrinari, kirota666, tohno, deskilldem, hydroninja9, Qu-ko, Helladen and ntut. And before the week ended, the birthdays of phisor, ArkatekStudios, Kuno-Krähe, tuxinator2009 and davvethegamer had come and gone.
General Chat
Whether a long day at work, or at school, sometimes you just want to kick back and just talk about What's on your Mind as did Python Blue who had to spend several hours troubleshooting a new synthesizer that has a CD eject issue. But more problematic than that is the world of political correctness which he and Ahzoh agree is nothing but a fantasy. KasperKalamity, still connected to the discussion noted how he felt the general public is worthless. And with the Hebdo massacre this month, Taylor has become infuriated by so-called Internet Justice as he strikes out against Tumblr and the SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) who have no interest in real justice, but rather an interest in promoting their own sense of importance while trampling on anyone else regardless of actual facts. With groups as cancerous as they, he feels less safe to speak his mind and has to begin censoring himself under the fear of school-like peer pressure. RosyPosy agrees that these groups have a very aggressive mentality and hates it, but adds that she hates censorship just as much. And to KasperKalamity, he could only imagine 'thousands of beady eyed people' embolding their own egoes at the expense of everyone else. Breaking away from that, JayRay discovered that a number of gaming companies support the use of their copyrighted materials by the public as it allows the creation of player-created content. And from what he has understood, material may be used in this manner for free and non-commercial products. However, he does wonder about EULA rights regarding the artwork within as it pertains to RPGMaker engines and the like. And speaking of artwork, KasperKalamity discovered an entertainment school nearby that covers prosthetic makeup techniques and is run by the 4th season winner of Sci-Fi Channel's FaceOff. While he had an idea for a mask, he saw they had actually made the same thing a few years back and now needs a new idea. Discussions on monster concepts went back and forth between he and MechanicalPen briefly. After that, greenraven entered to get over his seasonal depression, and wondered how everyone was doing. With that, Taylor announced he turned his avatar into something furry and ran away giggling.
Games Development
Development Discussion
A good way to share experiences with your friends who are in the same trade is to let them know what you're doing, and there's no better way than to give a shout as to What's Up to your fellow RPG Making Members. And rather than venturing in our screenshots thread, KasperKalamity decided to show off his new, rounded water autotiles and his revised tree graphics, which made Steel Beast 6Beets think about oversized lettuce heads. Meanwhile, Steel Beast 6Beets thinks he encountered a bug with the MACL system which he says he downloaded from the forum's link, citing he cannot remove the player's graphic as one could normally do with the RPGMaker XP engine. RockyRaccoon posed the idea to change the character's opacity to zero while JayRay suggested that he try using a tiny transparent png file in it's place. While it worked, MechanicalPen said there must be a bug somewhere within the MACL as the 'Change Actor Graphic' system appeared to be functional. It wasn't until the end of the week that DerVVulfman saw the error and discovered what part of the MACL was causing the problem and posted two options, one involving a direct edit to the Game_Character class. Steel Beast 6Beets chose the second as it allowed him to use the entire MACL without problem. RockyRaccoon is currently testing his own abilities with RPGMaker VXAce, and feeling confident with his newfound knowledge. Ahzoh now came up with a new gaming idea involving a group of siblings and their friend during a war between two empires, however the story will be focusing more on their quest which Ahzoh says may include Lovecraftian-style horror. Meanwhile, talk changed over to an inquiry posed by yamina-chan who wondered if it was possible to record the player's steps so a programmed event may later duplicate the steps. JayRay posed a couple of notions, one which did not involve any scripting much to yamina-chan's delight as she isn't a scripter. Taylor added his own input which included noting the player's start position and the directions of each steps taken. And after much planning, Taylor has now embarked into adding the details and specifics of his game's Armor database now that they have been properly balanced.
For those interested in gaming graphics, Ahzoh once again entered the Maps and Screenshots thread with the final graphic version of his game's world map. After JayRay noted how professional his map appeared, Ahzoh posted a link to the 'Simplistic Map Tutorial' by Fleur, a thread in the Avenca website. Nearly complete, the only thing Ahzoh feels is missing is the Vrkhazhian dialog which he cannot produce until he gets back to his own computer.
Almost a year ago, JayRay suggested that it would be possible to create an Open World FPS without using MGC's First Person Labyrinth Engine. After much studying, he felt it can be done by use of perspective cubes to create a multple level first person effect within the confines of RPGMaker XP's system, and curious if anyone was interested in helping him test his theory.
Recruitment office
It has been a while since we've heard from bswi13, but now he's back and is looking for a few good men. To aid him and his group for his game, Fangram: Redemption, he's posted an advertisement that he has Paying Jobs for Scripters, Mappers and Eventers. He has hopes to use a number of scripts which he has listed in his topic, and perhaps a few more, which is why he put forth a request for a scripter. His need for a mapper is for the creation of four maps with negiatable pay. And his need for an event, combined with the scripter, so he could assemble and utilize the various scripts and create some new effects such as a specific summons system that includes a dialog trigger. A rush project, he has hopes to have the pieces assembled by Mid February, and the amount of pay received via PayPal will increase the faster the tasks are completed.
Code Support
Bounty Hunter Lani discovered she had a problem getting the Healing Spell to work right in the Menu with Charlie Fleed's CTB. This quickly garnered advise from both JayRay and DerVVulfman who both inquired about how the Healing skill was set up within the database, but with no results as it appeared to be properly created. However, it turned out to be a bug within the version of Charlie Fleed's CTB as he entered and gave her the correct link to the latest copy of the system that had the issue fixed.
Rather than using numeric data in the typical RPGMaker XP variable system, JayRay was considering how to load the Game Variables Data by Copying and Pasting pre-define information before the first map was even loaded. He proposed a 999 line code block, but MechanicalPen noted that using string data within the Game_Variables class would only make the system crash when one attempts to use the built-in variable editing commands. As it turned out, JayRay really wished for a system that DerVVulfman described as a Game_Strings class, something that he said PK8 had considered roughly a year earlier. And with this, JayRay wished to use this to use the stored data for use within message texts, including random NPC dialog. DerVVulfman said that some code that JayRay later posted would work out to a degree and JayRay received even more assistance by crafting a basic version of the class which he is now putting to use.
And while using Charlie Fleed's CTB which included the Animated Battlers script by DerVVulfman, Bounty Hunter Lani had some difficulties in understanding how the Jumping Enemies system worked. With no information within the configuration sections nor much in lieu of an example, it puzzled her what the values other than the IDs represented. As it was DerVVulfman's animation system, he responded. He admitted that he neglected to include the Jumping system within the attached instructions file, but described in detail what the values meant while using exerpts from Charlie Fleed's own copy as a source. As detailed as it was, Bounty Hunter Lani learned exactly what she needed and happily closed the thread.
Creativity Section
Music and Audio
Hopefully, there will be some upcoming Music by Python Blue as he is hoping to remaster the music from the first Harry Potter game for the PC. Likewise, he has hopes for some critique on his remastering.
Well, that's it for this week.
"Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Kuwait." - A. Whitney Brown
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.