Mini-Game Revival

[Bob]

Sometime next week, once Amy's back and all that, I think we should start reviving some of the mini-games. I plan to do Arena stuff at least, but if Count's in, we'll do Blitzball, too. But I wanted to start a new rule. It's up for discussion, but I'm thinking that in The Arena and possibly Blitzball, we allow a "not being played" rule. This rule is that players can create up to four people to compete in The Arena even if they are not playing those characters. BUT, one big rule about all of this is that anybody playing extra characters has to give me their information in the following format:

Name: WEP(Weapon) AMR(Armor) ACC(Accessory) WR(#) MK(#) TF(#) RM(#) WM(#) BM(#) LL(#) ABL(Attack(%),Ability1(%),Ability2(%),Ability3(%),Ability4(%),Ability5(%))

Example:

Cecil: WEP(Mythril Sword) AMR(Linen Curiass) ACC(Silver Glasses) WR(1) MK(4) TF(0) RM(1) WM(1) BM(0) LL(0) ABL(Cura(60),Pray(20),Attack(100),HP+10%(0),Accuracy+10%(0),HP+20%(0))

The reason for this is that we could get a lot of characters this way and I don't have the time to create that many characters. Copy/Paste is easy, so I can do that quickly, but if I have to keep creating your characters based on a general "80% Cure, 50% Attack," and so on, it'll take me potentially a long time.

I wouldn't mind if played characters give me their data in this form, too, since it saves me lots of time, but I'm more willing to work with your characters and all that.

I'll tell you all when you can start designing your characters, but the Arena page is down right now and I'm adjusting a few upgrades and such. Small tweaks, like making bonus packages mandatory (and adjusting what those packages contain).

Also, I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to have The Arena level up at a steady rate so that all characters will be on the same or similar levels. Maybe there'll be a slight EXP boost for winning a tournament, but generally everybody will increase at the same rate.

All sound good? Questions? Comments? Possible revisions? This is a thought right now, so I'm up to making any adjustments if people have ideas.

[wyvernxk7]

I'd be down for that.

[countlieberkuhn]

I probably will get Blitzball up and running again, but I'll wait for the Arena first. Maybe I can get some ideas from its implementation

As for the not being played rule, is it 4 characters total, or 4 NPCs in addition to the characters being played?

[Bob]

In addition. So if you play five, then you can make four more NPCs to fight in the Arena, as long as you use my format. And as a general note, if you send me code that's somehow wrong (it's picky code, unfortunately), then I'll tell you what's wrong and make you fix it (or at least fix it in the future). If I do correct you, don't take it to be malicious. I just wanna make sure everything goes smoothly, and my bad coding is picky!

[Bob]

I'm considering (CONSIDERING) reviving Chocobo Racing and Triple Triad, only mega-simplified! My thoughts: Chocobo Racing (maybe done by Amy/Lucrecia when Crecento Pets opens? maybe by Agent/Clasko if Agent returns to Mallboro or even TGP someday? otherwise by me) will be only one race class and entrants will all be random, so no need to volunteer your chocobo to race since it might get picked at random. So largely, Chocobo Racing would return as a betting thing.

Prizes would be Triple Triad cards. No loss for a failed bet, but each character can only place one bet and that bet might be limited to "only perfecta." Or maybe "only regular bets." Not sure, but just to keep things in check (and easy), it'll probably just be one bet.

Triple Triad won't have any levels or anything. It'll just be "whatever Monster Cards you want (levels 1-5)" plus Boss or GF cards that you've earned from either Chocobo Racing or Triple Triad Tournaments.

My thoughts are that I can take almost all bookwork out of both of them and make it a fun kinda double-mini-game with Chocobos and Triple Triad linked. Triple Triad would likely only have elimination-style tournaments once in a while, so...yeah, very little bookwork.

Also I think The Arena is ready to go, so I'll announce when you all can start making characters. For now, you might want to check out the website (link on Mallboro works now) and see the changes, particularly in the Level-Up section. I moved some stats around a bit, so each level-up will handle slightly differently.

[countlieberkuhn]

I like the sound of returning to classic betting-based chocobo racing! It all got a bit complicated when having our own chocobos appeared, with no noticeable benefit for doing so.

Also, new Arena stuff looks cool, but is that with a typo with Warrior levels getting a whopping 14MP? I feel like it should be 4, as with thieves. It just seems kinda weird for them to out-MP Red Mages

[Bob]

Yeah, I'm not sure in regard to Warriors. That MP might be a tad extreme, but I do want them to have the MP to use their break skills. Maybe I'll put them down to 10 or so. That way it's two levels for a threaten or a couple breaks or something. Thieves and Monks are low-to-no on MP because for one, they're not magical classes, but also their ability trees use little-to-no MP. But Warriors, on the other hand, need some MP. So anyway, I'll maybe back them down to 10 MP to put them under Red Mages, but I don't want 'em too low. Plus, I dulled Warriors a bit, so they've gotta have SOME advantage

In regard to chocobos, I'm thinking that with a slight programming tweak, I can just put all chocobos into a file, the file randomly picks who's racing, and that's that. No different classes (just doesn't work when people have chocobos of all different levels) and still no monetary system. I'm thinking we either require all people to make normal bets (bet the winner) OR perfecta (bet the top two). I kinda like the idea to only allow one of those though. Perfecta would probably be more interesting, especially since the likeliness of gold chocobos winning is so high, so if there aren't two of them, it's harder to predict and whatnot. Plus, it makes more combinations so that everybody isn't winning. I already foresee people picking the entire spread, which guarantees SOMEBODY will win...which is nice, but NO! No guarantees here! This is chocobo racing! We bleed yellow!

....and light blue....and green....and blue....and red....and black....and gold...and sometimes white....

But yeah, I think breeding could be a bit more fun (I already made a program for it, but we never really used it). So I'm thinking required breeding times. Once in a while, "who wants to breed?" comments come in, and we do the choco-nasty. It was too unorganized last time. Too much confusion over "when can we breed? How long do we wait after? etc."

[countlieberkuhn]

Only perfectas could be pretty cool, go with it! More co-ordinated breeding would be a good idea, because as you said, nobody really knew when they could do it. But I'd rather focus on the racing and betting for now.

With regards to warriors, maybe 10mp could be good? I know they have break skills to worry about, but they're only 8mp if memory serves, and threaten was 15 or something. Warriors DO need that MP I agree, but I just don't think they should get more than a mage hybrid class. But that's just my opinion

[bloodfestbutterfly]

I'd be willing, if only I knew how to run the program.