Patriot City Tales

[BentonGrey]

Some months ago, while chatting with Premonitioner, he made the disastrous mistake of telling me about an idea that he once had that involved filling in the gap between FF1 and 2 with a few short adventures starring different heroes or small groups.  I say "disastrous" because, unfortunately for him, this idea caught my interest in a big way.  I was fairly burnt out with the DCUG at the time, thanks in part to the ugliness a while back, but I had always wanted to do something with the FF cast.  Long story short, I bugged Prem. until he came up with a working first mission, and then I contributed two more in short, and then very, very long order.  The result is the first episode of Patriot City Tales!

Join your favorite FF'ers in the aftermath of the events of the first game (and those of Liberty Bay).  Things are quiet, and the heroes are beginning to go their separate ways.  However, evil threatens Patriot City once again, and the few remaining Forcers have to do their best to hold things together until the team can regroup.  The plan for this mod is that we will tell stories starring small numbers of FF'ers facing various baddies, largely those from the first game.  Each episode will have one mission from each storyline, and the storylines will run until they are finished, at which point they will be replaced by another.  We will hopefully be joined by a few other modders (and perhaps one first timer!) in the subsequent episodes.  If you have any interest in taking part in this project, please let us know!

You can find the first episode here:

http://frp.unlimited2.net/downloads/mods/

[spydermann93]

I'm going to have to try this tomarrow!

Btw, what happened with Liberty Bay? It only had one episode and then no more updates were added to it.

[BentonGrey]

I'm still bothering Cat about it.  I hope to see more of it one day!

[Epimethee]

Wonderful, Benton. This is something I really wanted to see.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Whoo-hoooo, Goooooooooo BG!  It's good to see this coming out.

Dana

[Previsionary]

I'm thinking this thread can also serve as a "report your bugs and errors here" thread as well. So, if you guys hit a snag somewhere, let Benton know and he'll do all the lovely fixes as I sit back and eat my cinnamon roll.

[bearded]

thank you guys.  i appreciate you keeping the game alive.  isn't this something irrational promised us back in the early days?  i remember Maxx mentioning it.

[BentonGrey]

I'm thinking this thread can also serve as a "report your bugs and errors here" thread as well. So, if you guys hit a snag somewhere, let Benton know and he'll do all the lovely fixes as I sit back and eat my cinnamon roll.

Now I don't know about this!  That doesn't sound like much fun at all.

Thanks guys!  I hope y'all enjoy it.  I think I've gotten much better at modding over the years, and this project benefits from hard won experience earned in the DCUG trenches.  Ha, I really enjoyed the opportunity to work with these characters and to tell a story in which the heroes were able to level up and such.  Because of this, I'm actually revising my original DCUG campaigns to have objectives and prestige rewards.  The plan is that as JLA progresses you'll be able to recruit new heroes to the team, even if you can't level people up.  Anyway, please give me some feedback, and do post about any bugs you encounter!

Also, as I mentioned in the first post, there is plenty of room in this idea for others to tell some stories along with us.  If that catches your interest and you are a modder, or even a EZScript neophyte, join us and continue the adventures of everyone's favorite denizens of Patriot City!

[John Jr.]

Great news, Benton! I will try ASAP. Will be good play new adventures with the FF again!

[JKCarrier]

Great to see this! There's lots of potential for cool stories in that "lost period" between the first and second games.

Ran into a problem on the first mission. I get through the first wave of Darkmen all right, but with the second group, after I've beaten them all (I think), nothing happens. It's possible that I just missed one, but I've been all over the map and don't see any signs of them. Here's my script.log:

[BentonGrey]

Prev., that's all you, bud.  I don't have a clue how to troubleshoot real python.

[Previsionary]

Hey JKC, it looks like you've only beaten 5 of the second group of Darkmen and there's supposed to be 6. Once you knock down the correct 1, however, you should be able to interrogate him. If that's not happening, I may have to play around with that mission more to see if I can reproduce your error.

[JKCarrier]

I re-started the mission, and this time, while I was chasing down the first batch of Darkmen, a couple of them went into "invisible" mode near the edge of the map, and they seemed to get stuck there. The arrows were pointing at them, but they never moved or came out of hiding. Luckily, I was able to damage them by throwing Inferno attacks at the ground nearby, and once they were beaten, the rest of the mission went off fine. I'm guessing this is the same thing that happened on my first run-through, but since there were no arrows on that group, I couldn't see where the guy was stuck.

Probably nothing much you can do about it, though. Just a weird map glitch.

[wickerman]

A glitch? Nah.  Prev's idea of a joke more like it.   What you consider a fluke is the result of hours of Prev in his basement working on his new AI engine - Frustration 2.0

[BentonGrey]

That sounds entirely believable.

[Previsionary]

A glitch? Nah.  Prev's idea of a joke more like it.   What you consider a fluke is the result of hours of Prev in his basement working on his new AI engine - Frustration 2.0

Oh, how dare you. How dare you say those words with your mouth. Why I oughta... *waves fist*

That sounds entirely believable.

Why you... I oughta... *waves fist*

*disappears in a flash of blinding light... laughing menacingly/joyously all the while.*

[wickerman]

Just wait until you get my eventual entry into PC tales.  There will be a special level where you get to use an un-up-graded Mentor (with his name changed to Prev) against Entropy, Time Master and the Nuclear Winter Giant.  The best part is, you have Invulnerability 75 so you can;t even mercifully end the mission by dying...

[BentonGrey]

Anyone playing this?  How are you liking it?  I have a suspicion that the Bard's mission may be too difficult.  What do you think?

[cmdrkoenig67]

I am loving Patriot City Tales....But OMG, that level with the Bard and the Rogue is nigh impossible to beat (or is it actually impossible?)....I have yet to do it and I've played it six times now.  The Bard ends up falling midway through, then the Rogue inevitably follows him to the great beyond, once the Roman Legionnaires show up...Ugh.

Dana  

[Previsionary]

I am loving Patriot City Tales....But OMG, that level with the Bard and the Rogue is nigh impossible to beat (or is it actually impossible?)....I have yet to do it and I've played it six times now.  The Bard ends up falling midway through, then the Rogue inevitably follows him to the great beyond, once the Roman Legionnaires show up...Ugh.

Dana  

Thank you, CMDR, for confirming Benton's suspicions. You get a cookie!


The door is still open for other people to jump in and help out with stories. So, if you're interested in doing so for episode 2 (or 3 at the latest), let us knowage!

[The Hitman]

Hmmm... I've had an idea, tenativley called "The Rise and Fall of Scruffy the Super-Thug." Would that be good for episode 3?

[BentonGrey]

Thanks Dana!  I was afraid that would be the case.  I'll send Prev. an easier version of it today.

Hitman, pitch it to me and Prev. via PM.  Sounds like it could be funny.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I am loving Patriot City Tales....But OMG, that level with the Bard and the Rogue is nigh impossible to beat (or is it actually impossible?)....I have yet to do it and I've played it six times now.  The Bard ends up falling midway through, then the Rogue inevitably follows him to the great beyond, once the Roman Legionnaires show up...Ugh.

Dana  

Thank you, CMDR, for confirming Benton's suspicions. You get a cookie!


The door is still open for other people to jump in and help out with stories. So, if you're interested in doing so for episode 2 (or 3 at the latest), let us knowage!

I've already made a contribution to Episode 2, I gotta contribute again?...LOL!

Dana 

[BentonGrey]

Yes, now you have to write the actual mission for me!

[cmdrkoenig67]

Gahhhh!

[John Jr.]

You need something specific on the missions? or they just need to follow the same idea (original FF, few members, classic badguys, just after first game). I have an idea for a "Brave and the Bold" like mission starring Liberty Lad and Sea Urchin. Let mer know if it would be useful.

[BentonGrey]

Sure JJ, shot it to us in PM.  We just want missions following the same basic formula.  They need to fit into an overarching story, but it is pretty loose at the moment, and there is no reason something like that wouldn't work.

[John Jr.]

Sent PM with the basic plot.
Really enjoying this

[Trelau]

so i finallt got the time to play it, and i love it 
it really has that special flavour, the right athmosphere
but i agree, that bard mission is nigh impossible (i droped it after 6 fail, i figured i was doing something wrong...)

for a plot idea: i just had an idea that made me laugh
eve/alchemiss/really any girl gets kidnaped. when you finally save her, she turns out to be a Dejà-Vu clone and the message "Sorry hero, but your teamate is in another cell" pops out
ok now that i've wrote it it's kinda lame, but i stil had a good laugh 

if i may try a serious one: i once talked about a Tombstone/El diablo team up, where they go back to el-diablo's town to calm a new gang war. tombstone act as the "no compromise" guy and think they should be dead/in jail; whereas el diablo tries to understand why his old friend would restart a war he ended himself (his first act when he got his power if i remember the cutscene right).
 turns out: _deja vu cloned him and his evil self lead his friend to the conflict
               _pinstripe bribed the old ennemy gang/gave them powerful weapons and told them they could now rule the streets

(choose wichever villain hasn't been used yet or fit the best)

There, i hope it gave you an idea if you needed one, don't know if it will fit your main plotline
(by the way: if it's between the first and second game...tombstone never was properly introduced...he just arrive and everyone seems to know him, but he was cut from the first game)

[BentonGrey]

I'm testing my rebalancing attempt now.