Falnax
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Decided I'd do a criticism on this in the way that you do criticisms on other people…let's see how this goes. Also, I did some slight grammar editing, particularly relating to Anna's last comment.
_Moonfire_
Chapter 1
Raelin Silverstar Gazed in wonder upon his hands. For these were the hands which had destroyed so much, in such a small amount of time. It had been but minutes since he had unleashed one of the druids' greatest powers, sending down a bolt of moon energy to devastate the orc encampment. He had single-handedly wiped all life from the area, leaving nothing but a large blackened crater in the spot that had once held brutish orcs, enslaving the defenseless Moon Elves within their grasps. Ambiguous ordering - until you finish the entire sentence, it is easy to mistake Raelin for the enslaver. Using a past tense, such as "who had enslaved," would help resolve the amiguity. He remembers stories of great druids casting Moonfire, destroying entire cities under their power under a full moon. The double "under" is awkward, because the two uses have different meanings. The first could be changed to "with," the second to "in the light of," the point is, there's more words out there. He also remembers experimenting with the spell himself not a year ago, but never while the moon was full, his old results weren’t nearly as deadly. Separating that into a new sentence would greatly increase tension.
This brings back painful memories of his childhood, listening to the stories of old, gazing at the moon with his friends, finding out he is to spend the rest of his life studying, being separated from his friends to learn the ways of the druid, all the long hours practicing under the watch of the stars, strict punishments for even being out during the festival of the moon, which happened once a year, when the moon was closest. There's way too much development here for one sentence. His entire childhood is compressed into a few lines; which is perfectly fine, but would be a great thread to develop if you need length later on. The explanation of the Festival of the Moon should not be in the same sentence, though, because it makes the sentence look very unfocused and wishy-washy. In fact, if this was but a normal day, he would have been celebrating the moon festival, and there he would have taken his final test to become a druid.
However, these weren’t normal days, and instead of a rousing day of drinking MeldewIs this explored elsewhere in the setting? If not, it looks weird., listening to talented musicians, and awaiting his final task,This shift comes completely out of nowhere, considering that it goes from hypothetical to what must be the real scenario. Make sure to end the sentence on what could be happening, before you start explaining what is. the small town was ambushed, with a group of orcs killing everyone in sight. He had been lucky, and only knocked unconscious, where he had then been taken prisoner, instead of the nine other druids-to-be, who were all slain, save one besides himself.The hyphens on "druids-to-be" are an optional convention, but enhance clarity. This situation, though, is a little confusing - if the other nine, or apparently eight of the other nine, were killed at once, why is he so lucky? A little detail would easily clear up this miracle. There, the orcs had dragged them off into a small area, cleared of trees, in which a small encampment had been set up. Their hands were then bound together, and they were lain on the ground, as the filthy orcs ate a slain Elf. Who is 'they' in this scenario? Is it Raelin and some other Elves, the nine druids-to-be, someone else? This desecration sickened the elfWhich one?, and, almost screaming with rage, he had summoned a nearby pack of wolves to attack the sickening orcs. There, from the shadows of the forest, a call was heard, and a group of enraged, feral wolves erupted from the forest. There's a lot of redundant sentence structuring here (Starting with "There," and "Then,"). Also, this sentence would appear to describe what was already said; probably, the description of his summoning should avoid mentioning wolves specifically, to reduce the idea that "We've heard it before." Then, with an enraged look in their eyes, the wolves began to tear at the confused brutes, giving him enough time to run back into the forest, to a nearby hill. There, reacting only on instinct, he had casted his greatest weapon in a full moon; a Moonfire spell This is, for many reasons, a bizarre sentence. Not only does it include "casted," which is not a legal verb conjugation, it also uses the phrase "in a full moon." Probably, the intended meaning was that, during the full moon, it is his greatest spell, but the grammar, as written, states that it took the duration of the full moon to cast the spell. Moon is also a part of the spell name, so it looks like you're seriously name-dropping the moon, as though you're paid to say it, or something. Use "cast" instead of "casted," don't worry about the whole "in a full moon" part, people will understand that part to be occurring either way, and use a colon, not a semicolon.
A great beam of light headed towards the camp, which stretched up straight to the **moon**. This is where you could easily reintroduce the descriptor "full" without it looking odd. Suddenly, the beam connected with the ground, and a white blast erupted from the spot. Pieces of rock, trees, and what Raelin suspected as orc limbs went flying in all directions. Upon further investigation of the spot, the elf found that all life had been destroyed, and all of the Elves, though their bodies remain intact, have had their souls leave this world. "Have had" is in a terrible spot here, because it makes the actor the bodies, taking the poetry out of an otherwise appealing descriptor. Move the verb over so that the souls are the ones doing something, i.e. "their souls having already left this world. Among the wreckage, he found but one item; a small, weak soul gem, which had the symbol of the old elfish word for ‘Animal’ on it. He knew it must have belonged to the other druid they had captured, and as such he clenched it in his arms, and said an vow in the Elfish language, swearing revenge for the fallen Elves. What is a soul gem? Also, this paragraph twice makes reference to the Elfish language, attempting to make use of it as a tool for diversity, without having to establish an actual language. If the gem's inscription really does have Elfish on it, we need to know how it reads in Elfish, not just to be told that it can be.
His heart filled heavily for the fellow Elves he had slain with the spell, but deep inside, he knew it was necessary.This sort of inner conflict resolution often falls very flat in critical appraisals; it looks good in paper, but if you imagine how you're actually characterizing your star, you'll realize you have created a psychopath. The character of Eragon, for example, is often considered to be distressingly soulless, as a result of passages like that. Be a good writer and give him some good inner torment later on, rather than just a few seconds of "heart filling." But he could never let an Orc walk freely, after such damage they have done to his life. His mind brought up a picture of an orc. He could clearly remember the horrid stench it had about it, the rows of jagged, sharp teeth within the monsters mouth, which he had last seen it in an evil grin, eating a leg of his brethrenStrong imagery, but the shift is very sudden, and almost contrived. Should probably have a clearer boundary between reality, and Raelin's mind “I mean†Raelin said, attempting to convince himself that his actions were just. “Orcs deserve to die, even if it means sacrificing an Elf.â€ÂThis argument is just hard to understand. Orcs killed Elves, so he's now committed to killing Orcs to solve that debt to him, even if it means killing more Elves? I mean, with that logic, he might as well kill himself. Motive needs to be a lot clearer, and less hypocritical; unless, of course, another character later on will exploit this key shortcoming. Suddenly, it hit him. Orcs are in Sonrye! From his knowledge, it was almost unheard of to have orcs even close to the forest. The forest is protected by the wood elves to the east, in which they had cast many magical barriers around the forest. As long as they held any sort of respect for the forest, they would never willingly let orcs into the forest. In fact, Orcs haven’t been seen in the forest for many years. If this was the case, his immediate understanding of the Orc situation seems a little odd - if you're in an emotionally crippling situation, like he was, and the answer is something that doesn't normally make sense, that really shouldn't be your first conclusion. Might want to put in a bit more surprise on his part, if that's the case.
He knew he had to be the one to tell the grand council. His mind showed images of him reporting the attack, of the orcs within the forests borders, the rewards they would give him, the fame he would gain. And so the young Elf took one last look at the charred area in which once held orcs, and headed off toward his village to alert any survivors there and to gain the needed provisions for the journey, fore the land was treacherous, and it would take many weeks to arrive at the capital, Sylventis. Nothing much to say on this part. It's a pretty normal setup for a quest story; nothing too original, but completely adequate for the story to come.
So, I mostly just had grammatical things to say, but I suppose there were a number of those. Overall, I'd say it's better than most stories written by people on this forum, but I'd like to see a little more clarity in how you reference characters, since we don't all have the benefit of your unique insight into the story, and some deeper psychological ramifications, to prove your characters have souls. My wish list for the next few chapters consists largely of ideas that are outside the LotR-Eragon range, but I'll compromise for the other things, first. -
Zero Post.
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My guess? I see this as being one of the many fictional realities inspired by the whole Large Hadron Collider thing…I heard a number of speculative stories about using the LHC to create a miniature black hole, which could escape predictions by physicists and become much larger than expected. I assume that this story, then, must be one of them.
But, I would enjoy seeing a lot more explanation in this story. So far, it seems like they're using more stuff than actual answers - many of the plot points used, such as space marines, brainless people, and the lack of a core, are completely unnecessary, and only distract from the matter at hand.
For example, the reason why the planet has no core is probably based on the idea that, if the core is the hottest part of the planet, then a planet without a core must be really cold. Which is reasonable science - if you're in sixth grade. Better ideas would include a smaller star, a greater orbital distance, or a geologically dead planet, which would be a version of the "no core" argument that doesn't fall apart in the existence of gravity. -
Well, something that is very important in determining the strength of a storyline is whether it is event-driven, focusing on what happens and how the characters react, or character-driven, focusing on the inner struggles of the characters and how that relates to the world around them.
Final Fantasies VI and VII were both strong examples of an event-based storyline; VIII's more experimental character-based storyline was, in my opinion, the best in the series, though because the character-base is less popular, and less immediately identifiable, not a lot of people seem to agree with me there.
Of course, in an MMO, it is quite impossible to have a character-based storyline; it can be done, but that results in things like characterization being chosen for the player, and long forays into the background of people beyond the player, which were things that were done in LaTale, and not particularly well (That game was still event-driven, either way).
What would make a good MMO story is one that is fairly immersive, really tying the play experience into the world of the game. Strong characters would still exist, and players could identify with or enjoy disliking them just as much as they could characters in a single-player world, yet the story could still allow the comparative unknown of the player to make contributions to this storyline.
Admittedly, that frame is almost precisely what FFXI has already brought to the online gaming front, but, considering that was a game well known for mediocre gameplay with a quality story, why not use a similar story frame, and spice it up with a more innovative gameplay structure? It's not like there's too many people doing the same thing. -
As good as World of Hyrule is as a game, there are a lot of Zelda ORPG projects out there…so I'm going to have to say that's a difficult one to choose for most unique. Still an amazing project, much better than any other endeavor in its category, but hard to classify as unique.
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This is, what, your eighth attempt or so at posting a project page, and the only one to be in the right place?
Anyway, it seems kind of like your approach is to just build a world from all the defaults that are already in Eclipse…which is fine, I suppose, but not particularly ambitious. Not to mention Eclipse defaults are a field with a lot of competition. -
The front page is now a forum. You know what they say about people who use forums as their front page…
@The:
> Whenever i click on somebody's signature and find a portal or forum, i think - "NOOB."! -
@DrNova:
> Adding killing to a harvest moon game would be a cheesy cop out.
Um…what about Harvest Moon: Rune Factory? That was a Harvest Moon title in which there was plenty of killing. And the killing was tied to the animal raising system, so...you could slaughter a lot of cows and sheep in that title. -
@MrMiguuâ„¢:
> My friend Alex and I created this original composition especially for this game which we strongly support in all ways, enjoy~!
I have to say, I'm impressed as to how perfectly that song matches the graphics. I bet it's probably a lot of fun making those, too…
Now, as to all the arguments as to whether or not this game is worth doing, in my opinion, this game has something rare in that it's unique. There are a number of WIPs on Eclipse that are all nearly identical, and those I don't see as serving any purpose. This game is completely unlike anything the community has created, and for that, I salute it. -
So it'll be kind of like the myriad of historical texts floating around Morrowind…good to hear, something like that adds a lot more depth to a setting. Can't wait to start reading it, though...that'll answer a lot of questions.
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@Admiral:
> Well, the point of the game is to suck so bad, nobody will want to play it all….
Though, if you were to combine noob graphics with some decent gameplay in a witty way, it's entirely possible that this could be something…after all, Kingdom of Loathing is an intentionally bad game that has a large member base and many long-term players.
Just putting that out there because I'd hate to see a unique concept go to waste from poor expectations. -
It's interesting, but don't you think that some of that looks a bit garish? I understand that the GUI is in development, so that's fine for now, but, especially in the second screenshot, the graphics are so bright that it's really very difficult to tell what's going on.
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@Amperglyph:
> Show people your reasoning in a **strong and logical** manner, and they will back down.
Not yet you haven't. -
@Transdéath:
> just need mappers
Fine, I give up, then.
Best of luck to you. Because, frankly, you'll need a lot of it. -
@sleisysoft:
> Nope, I'll send you the .exe file, and all you'll need to do is place that mainmenu in your GUI folder of your client to overwrite the current main menu gui image. The exe I send you for the new client, you will overwrite the current client.exe with that, and it will work!
What if he wanted to make future edits to the client? Wouldn't that be a little constricting to him? -
Your edit has done nothing to tell anyone what the game is actually about. That's just very basic information…the kind of thing that could easily be thought up in 30 seconds. I still think you need to give this a good thinking over first, because, unless there's something you're not telling us, that hasn't happened yet.
Also, compare the things that you listed in your edit to the things I asked about in my post. They aren't the slightest bit similar. -
This is a very amusing role reversal…
Though, honestly, the topic is kind of unnecessary, since the question was clearly answered in the last, identical topic. -
@Celirux:
> this game is going to be big!
Necropost fail.
The beta that this topic is addressing closed at least a week or so ago. -
Right, that would be the big question right now. What kind of game is this going to be? The community needs setting, genre notes, a general idea of your aesthetic, maybe a plotline, and, though not required, I recommend you try to figure out what makes your game idea stand out from the competition. If you don't have a fair amount of that sort of information yet, it's probably too early to be actively pursuing a mapper on these forums.
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See, on one hand, you've actually got a rather original idea for a game here. It can be safely said that no one else on Eclipse is pursuing this same sort of gameplay…and as a result, a number of people have actually come forward with a decent interest in the game.
So, I think this idea is actually worth pursuing. Sure, if it works it would be at best like a drunken master of Eclipse games, being good largely by being patently terrible, but, novelty is indeed a virtue. -
@Chief:
> well, if you think of transexual, it would be someone of both genders… (lmao) so, both deaths? total death? annihilation?
Actually, a transsexual is someone who crosses the line from one gender to another…meaning that Transdeath could then mean people who have crossed back from the dead to the living, or who freely cross the line from the realm of the living to that of the dead dead and back. That could actually lead to some pretty interesting gameplay, assuming it's incorporated in a way more interesting than "the monster kills you, you respawn" as the line crosses. -
@Ninja-Tech:
> i just want to be able to say "yeah i made a game." "i lead a team"
> "its still online take a look"
Right, and I support that. As I said, good answer. -
@Ninja-Tech:
> well he probably doesnt want to deal with your crap right now cuz ur allways goin to ppls W.I.Ps and posting negative but true stuff
Exactly. If he doesn't deal with it now, he'll have to deal with it from someone else later on. The internet is a cruel mistress, after all, and even the most pure of intentions, if poorly thought out, will fail to make any sort of lasting impact.
In short, if you're making any sort of project for the general public, you need to be able to deal with criticism. Show people your reasoning in a strong and logical manner, and they will back down. But if you let your emotions get in the way, criticism will hurt when it was only meant to help. -
Well, that argument's a little circuitous, but I'm willing to accept that one, because there is good reasoning behind it. It does answer the question of "why not a different game?" in that it will look much stronger on your application to have led the project.
My only complaint is that it doesn't answer the question of "Why should we play this game?", but, since your goals don't require your game to be popular, that shouldn't be too big of a problem.
Storyline of World of Polar Online The Beginning!
in Discussion
Posted
> Black hoels dotn magicaly disapear.
Not true, actually. According to the predictions of Hawking radiation, a black hole can only sustain itself for a finite amount of time, as based on a ratio of its initial mass. At this point, the amount of gamma radiation within the black hole, as generated by supercompacting of the atomic constituents, will exceed the capacity of the hole, and cause it to rapidly expand, simulating the "evaporation" of the gravitational singularity.
This property of black holes is why, if we were to manually create a small superdense object, or a tiny black hole, it would only be a threat to the planet if the global consensus of physicists is wrong, or if someone severely underestimates the mass of the singularity.
As to the idea of using a real-life object as the replacement for Earth, I would not recommend Pluto, because, even though it is extremely popular with the misinformed youth of America, it lacks an atmosphere, any valuable resources, and has such a peculiar orbit that it can never be reliably terraformed. I would suggest Europa for that purpose, since it's a world made largely of frozen water, sort of like a "frozen dinner" version of Earth - just waiting for someone to heat it up a little.