Liberty Bay, Feedback and Testing

[Volsung]

Glad to hear it! It seems that little by little Liberty Bay vanished.
But your recent scripting questions made me think that your motivation and spare time were back!
I'll try to settle Hawk and Coppertop between two timmverse models.
I still want to help and I don't want to restrict myself on those two baddies only!

Liberty Bay got huge potentiel, and FFVTTR is still, in my opinion, the game that offers the most in terms of modding and creation.

[UnkoMan]

Volsung, if you are really pent up with a frustrated need to mesh and skin, I'd say the Dinosaur is the perfect candidate to be redone. I always felt his dino form was really weak, especially when you compare the lousy skin to the loading picture I drew for it. Just throwing that out there. I'm sure you could make him look amazing.

[Volsung]

I'll rush on it right now If I were not in holidays far away from my 3ds max^^

You know I'm always motivated to stick to your designs and to add some unique meshes to the mod.
That would be great if at last I'd do MORE than just a preview pic...

Ips is ready to learn biped rigging for my Timmverse meshes.(and to work on animation and export aswell)
If, with him and Ackbar we keep a good rate on the timmverse,I'd be able to work on Libert Bay without guilt.

I'll be glad to make a unique dinosaur.(Guess what guys? I think i'll make a fourth skinning attempt on Coppertop^^)

[Volsung]

Just a thought...

What if...

I mixed a simplified version of those familiar heads

With our 'in action' models?
Same keyframes, but new aspect.

[Lunarman]

Every time I see those heads my jaw drops!

wow

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

The heads are nice, but putting them onto the actual meshes would be too much effort for too little result.  Plus, you run into permission issues with the various mod authors.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Well, I finally put in the secondary mission/objective and dialogue in for Mission 5.  The mission's done, barring bug fixes and perhaps some additional dialogue, which I'll worry about later.

[Bananko]

I haven't been here in a while, so I apologize if this has already been answered elsewhere (but if so, I couldn't find the answer anywhere)...

How is this mod coming along so far? :)

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Haven't worked on it in a while, but have recently reinstalled FFvTTR and restored the LB folder in progress.

I'm think of releasing the alpha I have publicly as a way of getting more feedback on it.  Mission 4a and 4b are working and winnable and 5 may or may not be.

[catastrophe]

i had a bug with the pinstripe mission, i wasnt able to complete it after defeating him. I could just run around on the map, killing thugs. is there something i havent done? or is this a known bug? :o

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

That should have been fixed in the last update.

[Bananko]

Thanks for the info. :)

There seems to be only one Issue available for download at the Liberty Bay downloads page.  Does that one Issue contain all the missions, or is there an updated page I need to download from instead? :huh:

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Only one issue has ever been released, although updates have been added to it.

Issue two, as I stated, is in a state of partial completion.

[BentonGrey]

Well, I finally redownloaded this after my early abortive attempt to get the mod to work.  So, I unpack the thing over a copy of my FFX directory, and load it up.  I get the exact same error as last time.  The error doesn't really matter that much, as I fixed it, and then got ANOTHER error.......well, I just about gave up then and there....man am I glad I didn't!

It turns out that my freaking IZARC, my zip program, didn't want to unpack the mod.  It would unzip the first two layers of folders, and then leave all the subfolders and their contends out.  So, (and let this be a measure of how much I love the ideas we created together for Liberty Bay) I went through and unloaded EVERY SINGLE LAST FILE BY HAND.  Bah.  Anyway, it was totally worth it.

I just want to let all of y'all who worked on this after people like me brainstormed and bailed know how much I enjoyed it.  Liberty Bay felt like I was playing the original Freedom Force campaign for the first time.  I had so much fun just playing the first part, and when I got the Rogue at last...well, I was just about excited enough to jump up and down.  The art is great, the voices are fantastic, the dialog is clever and snappy, and the story is even more fun to play through than it was to dream up.  Great job guys, I can't say enough about it! 

I do have one question though....why has Issue #2 not been finished?  Haha, and what will it take to see it finished?  I'm willing to do anything I can to help!

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

As to your questions.

1.  Laziness. Although to be honest, I'm trying some more complicated things this time around.  Trust me, you don't even want to look at the code behind missions 4b and 5.

2.  I just starting getting work done on it.  Lunarman just finished a map for Mission 6, the last of Issue 2, and as soon as I can find my play disk  (I know I had that thing a few weeks ago) things will be on their way again.

[BentonGrey]

Awesome Cat, I'm glad to hear it's not just in limbo.  I'm serious about my offer to help.  I'm afraid that, even with my DCUG experience, I'm still not good for much, but whatever skills I have are yours for the asking.  I could probably make a map or two, if you need any composed of standard pieces. 

It was just really gratifying to see a character of my own creation brought to life like that, not to mention seeing all these other characters who I grew to love in our LB discussions, and I definitely don't want the ride to end.

[Epimethee]

It turns out that my freaking IZARC, my zip program, didn't want to unpack the mod.  It would unzip the first two layers of folders, and then leave all the subfolders and their contends out.  So, (and let this be a measure of how much I love the ideas we created together for Liberty Bay) I went through and unloaded EVERY SINGLE LAST FILE BY HAND. 

I had  the same problem; upgrading to a recent version solved the issue (documented in IZArc and specific to the .zip format).

Cat, great to hear! :)

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

My one concern is getting back in touch with the voice actors.  The ones connected to here should not pose a problem, but I definitely don't want to lose The Rogue's voice actor.  He's just about perfect.

[BentonGrey]

Thanks Ep!  I'll download a new version.

Cat, I would like to encourage you to go ahead with it, even if you can't get in touch with your voice actors.  If all else fails, I'd rather have another voice, or even NO voice than no story. :D

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Oh, don't worry.  I'll keep plugging along.  But I'd really like to keep the high standard I tried to set with Issue One.

[BentonGrey]

Good to hear Cat, and I don't blame you, the first one was pretty impressive.

[Gremlin]

Well, I'm still in for writing and voice work.  Plus, theatre buddies means access to a multitude of talented actors who'd love to try voice acting, so we can actually get even MORE variety instead of just recycling people.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Oooh, that's nice.

You already know the voices we'll need for Issue 2.  Feel free to get some of those buddies to try out some lines and send them to me.

[Volsung]

Plus, theatre buddies means access to a multitude of talented actors who'd love to try voice acting, so we can actually get even MORE variety instead of just recycling people.

Once liberty bay acting done, that multitude wouldn't mind making some voice acting for other mods ?
 

[Gremlin]

Maybe.  I'll talk to some folks...what characters still need actors, and what types of voices do they need?

[Volsung]

Maybe.  I'll talk to some folks...what characters still need actors, and what types of voices do they need?

I was asking for C4 mod but I think he pm'd you. So I won't pollute Cat's thread anymore
:wub: Aaah Liberty Bay..

[Gremlin]

Okay, I'm bustling along the script, but I've run into a few character snags.  Well, one, really: Ulysses.

I'm a horrible uneducated illiterate hog and I've never read the Odyssey or the Illiad.  I don't know my classical greek epics.  So sue me.  I need to know what this guy is like so I can write his dialogue.  Considering he's a classical Greek hero, he's probably got a fair amount of hubris, but he was a relatively nice guy compared to, say, Heracles, so temper his arrogance with decency.  I don't know how calm he is under pressure, how he reacts to danger, or anything like that, though.  How does he lead: arrogant confidence, or quiet, stoic strength?  How does he spend his free time: boasting about his conquests, talking about his family, laughing at anything, or what have you?  What gods did he primarily revere and pray to and why?  And for future reference, did he and Hermes ever do anything together?

Any information people can give me would be fantastic.

Oh, some thoughts.
a) What mesh and skin are we using for Ulysses?  I think I remember something about the old one getting deleted.
b) Now that we have NifSkope, is there any way we could put a cadaceus on the Mercury mesh, if only for a couple of ranged animations?  Heck, could we maybe put a toga skirt dealie on him as well?  I don't think we'd need sleeves, or a full toga over the body or anything like that.  But a little toga-y would be snazzy.

[UnkoMan]

Mercury... if somebody could mesh a cadaceus I could skope it on... I could also just give him Blitzkrieg's staff, if need be. Might look weird in some animations. A skirt is doable, thanks to tommyboy. I could even do it a quick skin in a week.

As for Ulysses, you can always use wikipedia I guess.

[Epimethee]

Okay, I'm bustling along the script, but I've run into a few character snags.  Well, one, really: Ulysses (...)
I need to know what this guy is like so I can write his dialogue.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Odyssey-Character-Analyses-Odysseus.id-99,pageNum-70.html is lacking some non-negligible elements; for example, the scheming aspect is downplayed, IMO, and the Iliad is almost ignored. (Speaking of scheming, Ulysses was rumoured to be the illegitimate son of that master liar, Mercury.) Still, it certainly defines the character of Odysseus (Ulysses to the Romans) far better than any attempt I'd make.

And, if you ever feel like it (no hurry), both the Iliad and the Odyssey can be very enjoyable, with my preference going to the latter. Speaking of the books themselves, if you want to get inspiration for some figures of speech, both can be perused at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0136 and http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

In mod, he will be protrayed as a master strategist and tactician, so keep that in mind.

The possible connection to Mercury is not something I knew about, although I do believe he recieves a message from Mercury at some point.