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Author Topic: Elona  (Read 592472 times)

kcwong

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3645 on: December 11, 2013, 07:08:00 am »

All the original Elona text can be found in the data folder, but all the plus material must use a different system.
It looks like all the text is hardcoded into the game.exe so there's not much we can do at this point.

Which makes very little sense to me... Why would you want to hardcode things into a mod?  Wouldn't you want to make your mod more... moddable?

Elona is made in HSP - Hot Soup Processor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Soup_Processor

Developed by Japanese, and saw few applications outside the country. From Wiki's description it looks like a very primitive language... so perhaps they are hardcoding things to save time.
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Blaze

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3646 on: December 11, 2013, 06:49:29 pm »

Quote
it looks like a very primitive language...
Considering it's based on BASIC, that'd be an understatement.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3647 on: December 14, 2013, 09:29:21 pm »

I don't understand how the Japanese approach their coding at all.  Everything they do seems so utterly inefficient and unnecessarily complicated. 
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
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Blaze

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3648 on: December 14, 2013, 09:50:54 pm »

I don't understand how the Japanese approach their coding at all.  Everything they do seems so dwarfy.
ftfy.

Noa actually made two other games before Elona: Shade and Etherwind. He could've been sticking to what he already knew when he started Elona.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3649 on: December 15, 2013, 10:33:42 am »

I don't understand how the Japanese approach their coding at all.  Everything they do seems so dwarfy.
ftfy.

Noa actually made two other games before Elona: Shade and Etherwind. He could've been sticking to what he already knew when he started Elona.

There's little I find dwarfy in something like a visual novel that somehow takes up a full processor's power, no matter how trivial the actual needs of the game are.  Figuring out how a "wait" command works can't be that hard. 

As for stuff like Etherwind, I think I heard that most of the graphics in Elona were just straight lifted from old RPG Maker fan-made sets to save time and effort, so it's no surprise that everything looks copy-pasted. 
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
"Not yet"

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Blaze

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3650 on: December 15, 2013, 01:18:08 pm »

Quote
Figuring out how a "wait" command works can't be that hard.
???

Wait button is Numpad 5.

Or are you having that weird bug where turns pass really fast even when you aren't doing anything?
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3651 on: December 15, 2013, 02:57:50 pm »

I find it amazing to me that Elona, of all the Roguelikes I play, has had the most longevity. Mostly due to being updated alot and still, to this day, being refreshing. The fact that its goddamn impossible to succeed probably helps too. My next game with be a zero-scumming run. I get the urge to save-scum at wells too often which I think gives me advantages. [Haven't tried any of the 'special' settings yet]
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3652 on: December 15, 2013, 04:39:59 pm »

I want to play more Elona+, it's inexplicably entertaining, I just fear the looks I'd get from my roommate were I to pop it open one day and should he become inquisitive about the hand things and the little girls and the people ranch and everything else that's really messed up about Elona. Heh.

The game is abstract enough, visually, that you could probably lie about it convincingly.

I mean, those people on the ranch are just "workers" see, they collected milk from one of the "monsters" over there, and that's some manure they need to clean up.  (It helps if you have things like a Tyrannosaurus on the ranch with the humans, though.  They're workers at your Jurassic Ranch.  And possible snacks.)

The hands (presuming you actually mean the hand monsters) really are just a type of monster in a JRPG, no more bizarre than the hands that drop from the ceiling in Zelda. 

Remember, they're not pets or slaves, they're actually called "allies" in the game. 

There's also no way to visually distinguish that a little girl is a "little girl" without cursoring over their name.  Besides, my little girl uses a custom sprite and has a custom portrait, anyway. 



As for being entertaining for long periods of time, I think it has a lot to do with how utterly long-term every single goal you might want to set for yourself might be. 

I mean, the last project I embarked upon was getting my performer skill.  That meant getting together 39 platinum, which meant tons of harvest time and fetch quests, followed by setting up a Younger Sister "Mosh Pit" to train perform (perform XP grows by the number of audience NPCs, and level 1 mobs never throw rocks, although it turns out you gain more xp for higher-level mobs, so this trick runs out of usefulness once you actually DO have high-level perform... not that it matters much, as multiple extra sisters do no harm in the game, and it's always nice to come back to and perform for the artifacts they throw at you at the same rate as higher-level npcs.) by making the Younger Sister shopkeeper in the Mansion of Younger Sister get freaked out by a summoned monster and spam younger sister spawns, then warping her away.  After that, performing until I needed to teleport back and train perform again.  (And more quests for platinum.)  While doing that, I was so utterly inundated with artifact rings and such that I'm seriously considering buying a shop.  I'm now up to mid-30s perform, so I'm ready to consider actually playing in public streets, where guards can see me.  (Until then, I stick to Derphy, where the absolutely LOADED prostitutes throw money at me like it's got the plague.  Kill the non-prostitute non-speaking NPCs once drained of money, they're just an obstacle to getting more prostitutes.)  That's about 80 game hours later, and I'm still working on pumping one skill.  (Although I AM simultaneously working on a few other skills, like training Control Magic, as well as pumping some debuff spells, and saving money for a castle.)
« Last Edit: December 15, 2013, 04:46:11 pm by NW_Kohaku »
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
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"Not yet"

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PrimusRibbus

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3653 on: December 15, 2013, 06:33:37 pm »

As for being entertaining for long periods of time, I think it has a lot to do with how utterly long-term every single goal you might want to set for yourself might be. 

Additionally, I think the sheer level of sandboxyness really helps. Stuff might take a long time, but you can take a break from it at any time and do other things.

That said, even when times to accomplish stuff are reduced through cheesing, I still put in plenty of hours because of how massive McHuge the game is.
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guessingo

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3654 on: December 16, 2013, 02:38:13 pm »

so when you get to the south, is the whole thing in japanese? what would be involved in translating this?
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Tarran

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3655 on: December 16, 2013, 03:10:23 pm »

In my experience, it's 33% semi-broken english, 33% untranslated or incorrect (as in, the line literally doesn't fit, like it's a copy from some other thing from the north) english lines, and 33% whatever else. But do note I've only scratched the surface. It's manageable and you can still do stuff quite well but it does make the game somehow feel even more foreign than it already does.
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Quote from: Phantom
Unknown to most but the insane and the mystics, Tarran is actually Earth itself, as Earth is sentient like that planet in Avatar. Originally Earth used names such as Terra on the internet, but to protect it's identity it changed letters, now becoming the Tarran you know today.
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Tarran has the "Tarran Bug", a bug which causes the affected character to repeatedly hit teammates while dual-wielding instead of whatever the hell he is shooting at.

Tarran

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3656 on: December 21, 2013, 03:45:33 pm »

Is it me, or did some of the latest Elona+ versions introduce guild NPCs that ignore incognito? I went into the mages guild, and even after getting incognito going and everyone happy the guild master crashed through the walls and attacked me outright while all the other guild members did nothing.
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Quote from: Phantom
Unknown to most but the insane and the mystics, Tarran is actually Earth itself, as Earth is sentient like that planet in Avatar. Originally Earth used names such as Terra on the internet, but to protect it's identity it changed letters, now becoming the Tarran you know today.
Quote from: Ze Spy
Tarran has the "Tarran Bug", a bug which causes the affected character to repeatedly hit teammates while dual-wielding instead of whatever the hell he is shooting at.

SirAaronIII

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3657 on: December 21, 2013, 03:54:16 pm »

Quote from: 1.30 Changelog
- Disguises no longer work on Certain Unique NPCs. Disguise kits appear more often.
So yeah.

That's probably to prevent people on the "Slay A Rival Guildmaster" quest from getting the jump on the leaders.
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kcwong

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3658 on: December 21, 2013, 09:06:09 pm »

Quote from: 1.30 Changelog
- Disguises no longer work on Certain Unique NPCs. Disguise kits appear more often.
So yeah.

That's probably to prevent people on the "Slay A Rival Guildmaster" quest from getting the jump on the leaders.

So you can no longer wear a disguise to learn skills from a guild you didn't join? Would the other NPCs start fighting you if you try to incapacitate the guildmaster (like paralyze and sleep)?
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SirAaronIII

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Re: Elona
« Reply #3659 on: December 21, 2013, 09:07:55 pm »

You can likely still learn skills, as Tarran said only the guild master attacks.

If you were to engage the guild master, the other NPCs almost certainly wouldn't aggro. It's like fighting King Xabi in the throne room: only Xabi will be hostile, while everyone else (guards, Queen Stersha, Conery, etc) just watches.
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"I want to watch the sun setting below the horizon, thinking about my significance in this world. That's my dream."
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