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Dec. 31st, 2013 06:27 amBrian and Marie have both left for a month as of yesterday. That means that his availability to help me is even more limited than it was when he was here and working for most of the day. We did make arrangements to speak to each other three nights a week through gmail, but I'm not sure if that's gonna be enough.
JavaScript can be a pain in the ass. I could have everything written on Notepad++ exactly as the book instructed, and some things still won't work as they're supposed to. Thankfully, I was at the end of chapter 2 anyway, so I decided to move onto the next chapter, but now the book's asking me to use something called CoffeeScript along with JavaScript, which didn't actually come with anything and is said (if I read correctly) not to be used for further chapters.
I considered skipping right to the RPG chapter, since that's what's actually relevant here, but Mom and Dad told me not to skip chapters, since each one still explains important stuff within the genre that they cover.
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If you wanna know why I'm even pursuing this now (and I've been itching to for almost a year at this point), putting aside my appreciation of the graphical and audio capabilities of certain, 5th-gen, CD-based, 32-bit game systems such as the Playstation, the Sega Saturn, the 3DO, or the PC-FX (over those of the Super NES, the Game Boy Advance, or even the Nintendo 64), this mainly has to do with getting people interested in helping me develop something, be it an actual game or just the fanfic that Starbound currently is.
(Yeah, I've probably just come off as somewhat arrogant and/or delusional to you readers, by implying that I wanna make something comparable to a PSX game despite having no real experience with programming and hardly any budget to commission people with. Then again, that's what aspirations and appreciation are all about. The reason a game like Wild Arms or Digimon World 3 can even be appreciated in the first place, is exactly because not everyone can create something that advanced. Furthermore, I should also mention that the point I'm not gonna go into detail about, is to have stuff to compare on YouTube to the actual Earthbound trilogy, and if a demo is all I can settle for, then I would consider it in line with the canned Earthbound 64.)
Anyway, still lacking anything of ideas for the main story in Starbound, I've recently asked various people how they deal with what's called a writer's block. Needless to say, Chelle was one of them, and months beforehand, she had already ruled out actively inviting any readers of mine to contribute ideas, because most people can read between the lines and would know that I actually have little idea as to where the fic is going. She also cited the writers of Digimon Adventure 02 as having done the same thing, and even putting the notoriously unpopular MaloMyotismon aside, that whole season of the franchise was basically a mess. (Of course, they could have stated ahead of time that they won't actually use every single idea presented to them.) And finally, if people were to suggest places to visit, anyone could suggest something based on how cool the idea of the party going there would sound, rather than their own actual familiarity of the place in question.
As of recently, my discussion with Chelle basically boiled down to originality being one of my weak points. However, while mass idea-invitations is out of the question, she did mention along the way that a professional work such as Digimon is the product of many different people and drafts, rather than one person creating an outline covering all the different storylines (even if most of the actual details aren't in place). From what she told me about that show's first season in particular, it was originally going to end with Devimon defeated, but the higher-ups realized how popular the show was and decided to milk it, and so the creative team just had to wing it the rest of the way.
True, each half of Devimon's arc was rather formulaic, as is Etemon's entire arc right afterwards. But, for what little time the writers had to come up with stuff, they sure did a lot better after Etemon's defeat than those for Pokemon ever did with its main series. I mean, consider it all: ( spoilers )
Putting two and two together, it's clear that what it took to come up with something that elaborate, like Chelle said, was a team of people who could brainstorm all different ideas. What I need in order for Starbound to really pick up, is to get in touch with a lot more people than just Jake and Chelle. To garner interest in the whole thing, what I'm hoping will work is a demonstration of what a game version might look like (to show that I'd at least be capable of something on my own). From there, I'm hoping that I can get people interested in taking up different aspects of everything or donating money to a Kickstarter campaign through which I'd build money to commission people with.
Not that a demo and Kickstarter actually guarantee anything. Chelle also said that, even if I did find an easier way to go on about things, it still won't be easy.
(By the way, I should mention that Chelle did suggest working on the party's arrival at the first mana location. While it wouldn't be the first time I'd write something out of chronological order, there simply isn't enough to such a thing that comes to mind. Usually, when I write something long before it's due, it's because I actually have managed to string together a bunch of events and details. Here, all there is to it would be fighting a monster and seeing what lies ahead. Said battle could take place anywhere, and what's being guarded and fought for could be anything. I don't even know what's due to happen when the mains find themselves in Magicant, be it their first visit there or in subsequent visits. And, if you'd like to know, I even skipped most of the fight scenes while writing the endgame chapters, in favor of the more plot-related stuff that I had already planned out, hoping to fill the blanks in when it's actually time to do so. Those would be the kinds of details that I would leave to others if Starbound were anything official, since the particulars involved probably won't affect the plot in any real way.)
JavaScript can be a pain in the ass. I could have everything written on Notepad++ exactly as the book instructed, and some things still won't work as they're supposed to. Thankfully, I was at the end of chapter 2 anyway, so I decided to move onto the next chapter, but now the book's asking me to use something called CoffeeScript along with JavaScript, which didn't actually come with anything and is said (if I read correctly) not to be used for further chapters.
I considered skipping right to the RPG chapter, since that's what's actually relevant here, but Mom and Dad told me not to skip chapters, since each one still explains important stuff within the genre that they cover.
-----
If you wanna know why I'm even pursuing this now (and I've been itching to for almost a year at this point), putting aside my appreciation of the graphical and audio capabilities of certain, 5th-gen, CD-based, 32-bit game systems such as the Playstation, the Sega Saturn, the 3DO, or the PC-FX (over those of the Super NES, the Game Boy Advance, or even the Nintendo 64), this mainly has to do with getting people interested in helping me develop something, be it an actual game or just the fanfic that Starbound currently is.
(Yeah, I've probably just come off as somewhat arrogant and/or delusional to you readers, by implying that I wanna make something comparable to a PSX game despite having no real experience with programming and hardly any budget to commission people with. Then again, that's what aspirations and appreciation are all about. The reason a game like Wild Arms or Digimon World 3 can even be appreciated in the first place, is exactly because not everyone can create something that advanced. Furthermore, I should also mention that the point I'm not gonna go into detail about, is to have stuff to compare on YouTube to the actual Earthbound trilogy, and if a demo is all I can settle for, then I would consider it in line with the canned Earthbound 64.)
Anyway, still lacking anything of ideas for the main story in Starbound, I've recently asked various people how they deal with what's called a writer's block. Needless to say, Chelle was one of them, and months beforehand, she had already ruled out actively inviting any readers of mine to contribute ideas, because most people can read between the lines and would know that I actually have little idea as to where the fic is going. She also cited the writers of Digimon Adventure 02 as having done the same thing, and even putting the notoriously unpopular MaloMyotismon aside, that whole season of the franchise was basically a mess. (Of course, they could have stated ahead of time that they won't actually use every single idea presented to them.) And finally, if people were to suggest places to visit, anyone could suggest something based on how cool the idea of the party going there would sound, rather than their own actual familiarity of the place in question.
As of recently, my discussion with Chelle basically boiled down to originality being one of my weak points. However, while mass idea-invitations is out of the question, she did mention along the way that a professional work such as Digimon is the product of many different people and drafts, rather than one person creating an outline covering all the different storylines (even if most of the actual details aren't in place). From what she told me about that show's first season in particular, it was originally going to end with Devimon defeated, but the higher-ups realized how popular the show was and decided to milk it, and so the creative team just had to wing it the rest of the way.
True, each half of Devimon's arc was rather formulaic, as is Etemon's entire arc right afterwards. But, for what little time the writers had to come up with stuff, they sure did a lot better after Etemon's defeat than those for Pokemon ever did with its main series. I mean, consider it all: ( spoilers )
Putting two and two together, it's clear that what it took to come up with something that elaborate, like Chelle said, was a team of people who could brainstorm all different ideas. What I need in order for Starbound to really pick up, is to get in touch with a lot more people than just Jake and Chelle. To garner interest in the whole thing, what I'm hoping will work is a demonstration of what a game version might look like (to show that I'd at least be capable of something on my own). From there, I'm hoping that I can get people interested in taking up different aspects of everything or donating money to a Kickstarter campaign through which I'd build money to commission people with.
Not that a demo and Kickstarter actually guarantee anything. Chelle also said that, even if I did find an easier way to go on about things, it still won't be easy.
(By the way, I should mention that Chelle did suggest working on the party's arrival at the first mana location. While it wouldn't be the first time I'd write something out of chronological order, there simply isn't enough to such a thing that comes to mind. Usually, when I write something long before it's due, it's because I actually have managed to string together a bunch of events and details. Here, all there is to it would be fighting a monster and seeing what lies ahead. Said battle could take place anywhere, and what's being guarded and fought for could be anything. I don't even know what's due to happen when the mains find themselves in Magicant, be it their first visit there or in subsequent visits. And, if you'd like to know, I even skipped most of the fight scenes while writing the endgame chapters, in favor of the more plot-related stuff that I had already planned out, hoping to fill the blanks in when it's actually time to do so. Those would be the kinds of details that I would leave to others if Starbound were anything official, since the particulars involved probably won't affect the plot in any real way.)