Cross-Fandom Silliness

[mimi_sardinia]

I've been thinking of a proposal twetwe123 made about making a mod if I had an idea for one... I have a silly idea that I have been ruminating for the past couple of days, and not my Sarevok/Imoen idea. Here's the basics:


CHARNAME and team are travelling from one area to another and somewhere in the random wilderness run into a strange group of people, the leader of whom has a strange story to tell.


First Encounter:
[Cloud] (human, blond, fighter, colours black (major), navy blue (minor), weapon is a two-handed sword) came from a small mountain village you've never heard about [Nibelheim] and had gone to join the army in the Big City (which will remain nameless, as there's no Midgar in Faerûn). There he totally idolized the general of the army [Sephiroth] and strived to be like him, but never got very far. He and an army friend, [Zack] (higher rank than Cloud, and two years his senior), were sent with [Sephiroth] to deal with monster problems in [Nibelheim] but while investigating the source of the problem [Sephiroth] goes nuts, destroys the town with a flurry of fire spells, tries to kill [Cloud] and [Zack], then vanishes. [Cloud] and [Zack] were imprisoned by a wizard [Hojo] who works for the government of the Big City and held for five years before they escaped, but the friend was killed.

Edit: I totally forgot that Cloud doesn't recall Zack for most of the game, Twe.

[Sephiroth] that destroyed [Cloud]'s hometown has turned up alive recently and now [Cloud] is chasing after him, intent on killing him. His companions all have their own reasons for helping, which they can reveal if talked to individually.

[Aeris Gainsborough] - Female half-elf cleric/mage, NG, colour pink (major) and red (minor), hair brown - or reddish brown if available: Knows she is more than just a normal half-elf and is trying to understand her background better. She likes [Cloud], but not just because he reminds her of her old boyfriend [Zack]. Has a magic gem that is good for nothing. Uses a staff.
[Tifa Lockhart] - Female human monk (but with an elven female fighter sprite), dark brown hair: Knew [Cloud] as a kid, when he promised to one day come to her rescue. Survived the destruction of [Nibelheim] when her instructor rescued her. Was almost killed by [Sephiroth] at the time. Hates the government of the Big City.
[Barret Wallace] - Human male fighter, CG, dark skin, black hair: Had his hometown razed by the government of the Big City as punishment for rebels suspected of hiding there. Lost his wife [Myrna] and his best friends, [Dyne and Elanor] . Has however adopted [Dyne]'s orphaned daughter [Marlene], but she is currently staying with the cleric's mother [Elmyra].
[Yuffie Kisaragi] - Female human thief, CN: Comes from Kara-Tur, looking for adventure and treasure. Steals a small sum of gold from CHARNAME. Her laugh is written as "Nyuk nyuk nyuk!". If the phrase "Grossness!" can be fit into her dialog, all the better. Uses shuriken.
[Cid Highwind] - Blond human male fighter, CG, colours medium blue (major), brown (minor). Wields a spear. Talks about how he made flying ships but the government stole all the ships he'd made from him. Swears profusely and the swearing is characterised as "@##%&*@#*&$@!".
[Vincent Valentine] - Black-haired elven fighter, colours red (major), black (minor). Wields a crossbow. [Hojo] left him imprisoned for thirty years. He now wants revenge on [Hojo], not only for his imprisonment, but also for cursing him, and for the death of his lady-love [Lucrecia], who was also [Sephiroth]'s mother.
[Nanaki] - A large cat - are there orange or red tigers in the game? That. It can be talked to and can talk back. [Hojo] held him captive until [Cloud] freed it.
[Cait Sith] - A small cat. Can also be talked to. Offers to read CHARNAME's fortune. Will read the fortune of any of CHARNAME's team who speak to it. It's prophecies are vague but fit the general plot of what will happen int the game. [Cait Sith]'s prophesy for CHARNAME is "What you pursue will be yours. But you will lose something dear.". He follows that up with a comment on how odd that is, as he gave [Cloud] the same fortune.

I know that's a lot of characters but the best effect would be gained by representing everyone.

Talk to [Cloud] and he warns CHARNAME that [Sephiroth] is highly dangerous and should not be engaged in battle.


It'd be nice if there's a suitably ironic journal entry as a result of this meeting.


Second Encounter:
Some time after the first encounter, but not too long after (preferably both encounters would happen somewhere in the Chapter 2-3 span and the timer would make sure they would fit in.)

CHARNAME runs into a half-elven male with silver hair and black clothing (elven sprite, wearing mage robes, uses a sword) - [Sephiroth]. [Sephiroth] acts haughty and disdainful, calling CHARNAME and his team insects that will soon be wiped from the face of Faerûn. He also makes references to "Mother" and comments on CHARNAME meeting [Cloud], possibly even referring to [Cloud] as his puppet.

[Sephiroth] needs to be powerful - I mean something like equal power to Demogorgon powerful. He needs to be able to wipe the damn floor with CHARNAME if CHARNAME takes the dialog bait and tries to fight him. Either that or he has an insta-kill with absolutely no way to prevent it if CHARNAME fights him. The only way to survive the meeting should be to take [Cloud] literally and not fight [Sephiroth].

Maybe also an Imprisionment spell - those are very annoying too.

Third Encounter:
Should happen in Chapter 6, so long as the second chapter 2-3 encounter has happened.

CHARNAME runs into [Cloud] and his companions again and has a chance to talk to him and tell him he saw [Sephiroth]. After that talk [Sephiroth] appears and fights [Cloud] and his friends. It'd be preferable if the fight happens all in blue circles so CHARNAME doesn't have to get involved. The fight stops before [Sephiroth] can be harmed much and [Aeris] has to be killed by [Sephiroth], before he leaves, bidding [Cloud] to follow him.
[Cloud] swears [Sephiroth]'s death and leaves (with friends).


I was debating a final fight in ToB but I don't know how it'd play out. Ideally the journal entries would be silly commentaries about how much of a weirdo [Cloud] is and silly comments of how CHARNAME feels they're mixed up in someone's else's story here.


Edit: I may need help from fellow FF7 fans to come up with short dialogue strings for the characters who do go in this mod.

EDit, The Revenge: Just went through and put in all the names.

Comments

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I'm thinking it is a lot of characters, might be too big for some people. Are all of them essential? Also, you don't seem to want to use names, but I'd probably need to know them. To identify the characters, if nothing else. I'd have to learn how to make a few things, but hey, that's what I want. Y'know what? If you direct it, I'll do my best.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Okay, the Bond is Cloud Strife, the cleric is Aeris Gainsborough, the monk woman is Tifa Lockhart, the human fighter is Barret Wallace, Kara-Turan thief is Yuffie Kisaragi, the swearing blond fighter is Cid Highwind, the elven fight is Vincent Valentine, the large cat/tiger is Nanaki, the small cat is Cait Sith.

The Evil Wizard is Hojo, Vincent's lady-love Lucrecia Crescent, and the half-elf is Sephiroth.

If I had to leave anyone off I'd vote off Barret and Cid right off the bat, probably Nanaki as well.
I'd prefer Yuffie be there for the comedy, Cait Sith for the prophecy (the one for CHARNAME comes straight from FFVII - he really did give Cloud that one), Vincent for his connections to Hojo and Sephiroth. Tifa is iffy but I like the hometown connection.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Blond Cloud is blond.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Righty-dokie. I could start with the creature files tomorrow, maybe tonight - any particular stats needed or should I just set them all to 13 or so? I'd set Sephiroth's all to 18, judging by your description. You want them to be all interaction-able (it is too a word) or run in a long banter like in the Drizzt scene?

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Stats... anything is fine, just so long as Seph is unkillable (I know there's some NPCs who are like that - the guard captain at De'Arnise Keep is, no matter what you throw at him. Even a Ctrl-Y can't kill him) and has an insta-kill if he's fought by CHARNAME (a lesson to players to obey instructions, a bit like the restored Crooked Crane). Also, no one dies the fight in the third encounter, so both Cloud-and-Co and Seph would be unkillable. The point is that CHARNAME is an inadvertent observer.

I'm currently thinking more that they are individually interactive, probably with only short dialogs each. The longest would be Cait Sith because he'd have to be like the gypsy fortune teller at Trademeet. I'll have to dig up the FFVII script again to get the other prophecies, just because those would be funny to see as well. Unlike the gypsy, they're very fortune cookie stuff.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

I'm just wondering if the player would remember not to attack Sephiroth. I might see if I can force an auto-save as well, as not saving for a whle then running into Seph would suck. You sure you want an insta-kill, not reducing them to 1 HP or something?

Plus I'm fairly sure I can get Cait to give the main prophecy to CHARNAME only, and from then on give random prophecies to anyone.

Off I go to check out some tutorials...

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Ahh, actually yeah, either a forced save or 1HP and he walks off afterwards - either would work just fine. On the other hand, as far as saves are concerned, auto-saves are insanely useful, but your point still stands.

Either way, the effect should be that the player really shouldn't have engaged him. I just know nothing says that better than a Game Over screen. I know I hate those to death.


Found the fortunes, Cait only really gave three-fourish.

"...Ordinary luck. It will be an active fortune."
"Give into the good will of others, and something big'll happen by summer."
"Be careful of forgetfulness. Your lucky color is... blue?"
"What you pursue will be yours. But you will lose something dear."

I'm not sure the forgetfulness one works (very Cloud-related because the plot of FF7 had a very big thing about Cloud having partial amnesia and false memories). The last one is CHARNAME's, but the rest can be random.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

'Forgetfulness' could work for a lot of people. Imoen wants to forget what happened to her. Keldorn doesn't want to forget his family. Nalia, her heritage. Viconia, her brother. Cernd, his wife. And so on.

I'll work more on this idea tomorrow, I'm getting sleepy. G'nite!

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Night night! Sleep well!

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Okay, progress report - I've made the CREs (character files - basically a tweaked CHARNAME that you turn from a PC into an NPC), including both cats, a tiger and a housecat. For a couple of the characters you didn't specify colours, so I've left them green for the moment. Creating an area looks pretty hard, so right now I've just stuck them at the outside of de'Arnise keep, arranged in a rough semi-circle. I'll tweak their positions next time. They also don't really have names and don't say anything, but at least they're there. Screenshot. (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/twetwe123/Baldr012.jpg)

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Okay, I hope you don't mind if I go over with revisions? Blame me for not thinking to tell you up front.

Cloud is just fine.

Aeris... I was thinking of her in a mage robe like Aerie wears.

I am now thinking Tifa and Yuffie need to be swapped for racial sprites. Yuffie is supposed to be the youngest and the human sprite has more noticable breasts - Tifa is well known for big tits.
Tifa's colours: major black, minor white.
Yuffie's colours: major beige, minor green.

Barret: Is that him up above Aeris? Hmm... Is that the darkest brown in skin? I'm thinking, in the appearance selection section, the top row, fourth from the left. That brown. Clothing colours would be tan brown and dark green (I think the tan brown is right on the end of the top row of colours). So you understand, here's the character art (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Barret_Wallace_Nomura_art.jpg).

I'm now thinking Vincent would work better with the colours reversed - red as minor, black as major. I'm also wondering a bit what he'd look like in a mage robe...

Seph would look better in a mage robe for sure - his coat is kinda iconic and a mage robe would carry off the idea.

Cid is fine, are those the only colours for the cats? I hardly expect you to recolour the sprites.

That's another thing, do you think you'd be able to have portraits show up in the dialog box or not? It'd do wonders for identifying them all, but if you don't think you can work that out it doesn't matter.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Hey, I need revisions! Anything to get it closer. You also need to tell me if any of them should be in armour, or helmets, or anything like that.

There aren't any more colours for cats - I could change the bigger one, but just to a much darker panther.

And I'm fairly sure I could do portraits. I just need the right pictures. From memory 38x60 pixel bitmaps, 16 bit colour.

By the way, I think Aerie has the mage sprite and paper doll. I don't know how to change the paper doll, but as Aeris is a not-joinable character it doesn't matter and the sprite is easy to change. Off I go to fiddle...

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Okay, portraits. Here. (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CSIDYEQ9) There's multiple ones for some of them, the ones who only have one each were difficult to find. There's also ones Hojo and Lucrecia but the principal of the mod would probably not need them anyway.


Hmm... armour... The problem is armour changes how they look, and frankly most of them don't really look like they're wearing any armour in FF7. At least nothing significant.

For sake of BG believability, I don't see why armour would be a problem, especially if they have dialogue portraits. As long as the sprutes are within a basic range of fitting them, then the brunt of visual identification would be taken up by the portraits.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

New screenshot with tweaks (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/twetwe123/Baldr016.jpg). Portraits received, the Sephiroth one is strangely sexy.

Problem now is I can't work out how to give the characters their names and portraits. I'll be poking around other NPC mods, trying to work out how.

Areas are still evading me - I think I'll continue to develop these guys at the convenient pont of de'Arnise keep. I haven't tried making Sephiroth yet, I'd prefer to get this step right first.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Those look as good as they are going to get for BG sprites. As I said, the portraits will do the rest for identifying them with the FF characters they are alternates of.

Sephiroth is a damn sexy thing. Evil, but sexy as hell. Take a look at the title attached to my icon. ^_~


BTW, do you have IM? Preferably AIM or Y!M, as those are what I use.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Note to self: Remember to re-install the mod after making changes *headdesk*.

I've got their names attached now, still working on the portraits. Hopefully I can attach them in the character files, rather than the code that summons them... when I get that done, so you want me to send you a copy of the whole thing so you can see it?

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Sure thing!

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

I've just got MSN, unfortunately...

Am juggling several windows at once here. Dammit, I've got to get these portraits done or I'll be waking up in the middle of the night going 'Hang on, what if I...'

The weird thing is they've got CHARNAME's soundset attached, so as they stand there they'll spout random lines. Dunno how to turn that off, will work on that too. Though it is funny to see, especially the cat.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Okay, that will be amusing to hear. ^_~

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Just realised you won't be able to SEE that they have a portrait until they talk to you. And they don't yet.

The mod so far seems to come to about 650 ish KBs. You could shop off 330 of those if you're prepared to do a bit of tweaking with the install files, though I don't know if an extra 330 kbs download will make all that much difference.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I guess that means at this point they'd just give "[NPC] has nothing to say to you." message.

You go with whatever works best.

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Here we go. (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C27YV41Z)

Treat like a normal mod - extract to BG2 folder, run the exe. As far as I can tell you don't need to start a new game - just remind me to add a condition that means you can only meet them once.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I am trying to get MSN to work. The thing pisses me off quite a bit but I'm fighting it.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I'm getting errors - something stuffed up while loading it and it keeps telling me I shouldn't load more than one thing at a time.


BTW, I seem to have worked out MSN, you got a name on there?

[twetwe123.livejournal.com]

Try looking for a file called weidu.lock and deleting it. There's a new form of WeiDU out and it causes this error, it'll be fixed for the next one.

I'm twetwe123@hotmail.com. Very original with screen names, I am. Eh, I just like to keep the same one :)