State of Topaz: December 19th, 2008

It's been almost three weeks since the last State of Topaz... understandably so, as many of us have had December finals, and even if they were not finals (my case... non-sememstered system.) many of us have been busy in general with school and Christmas preparations. Notice my total lack of frustration in the posting department because all my stress has recently directed to tests and other things (which I don't think I did well in anyway =S). Understandably, some people are potentially grumpy about this, and so this brings me to the first issue.

I think (and so do a few others, at least, so I'm not alone) that perhaps we're being a little harsh on newcomers who haven't quite bidden by the rules. I realized a while ago just how much of Topaz's work is implied, and how much things are determined by what has being going on, rather than me or neon implementing clear instructions on how to post, and where. So, I ask you to realize that in all fairness we take a lot of our customs here at Topaz for granted, and not _everything_ (yes, there are some thoroughly obvious rules being broken) is as obvious as thought. For instance, I don't think it's very clear that pokemon not posted in the Pokedex Entries forum require fodder in the Possible Pokedex Entries topic. One particular new member has become a little notorious for being a little too eager to post, and hence not exactly reading as much as he should. However, let me note that he is slowly but surely figuring things out: he's been trying to read the rules more (I can attest to this) and has been taking our comments seriously. So dont' worry, we don't have another sparky7777 on our hands. However, on the first day of his post-flood, it is not necessary to immediately assume he's a sparky7777 and go as far as to insult his intelligence. I believe situations like these are why minimodding is banned in most forums, but I know that all of you are sincerely trying to keep the professional, efficient nature of these forums, and so as long as you haven't been insulting, it's alright. Just remember that we do want to be as accommodating as possible to our newer and potentially younger and less forum-savvy (I think we can all agree that our first forum was the one where we were all pretty annoying and illogical/irrational... luckily my first one blew up and so the records of my idiocy are gone... =)) members because getting new active posters is one of the priorities of Topaz, to keep this project alive.

So, sorry for the specific references, but it had to be addressed. Everything can been forgiven and forgotten, so just keep this in mind and all will be fine.

So, onto other matters:

May I request that everyone give a big e-hug to PapaLulu for coming back and starting work on icons!!! (I felt that three exclamation marks were necessary in this case) You can check out his work here, and I have to say that his stuff looks pretty awesome. Keep up work on small stuff PapaLulu, you're clearly very, very talented in that area! *e-hugs PapaLulu*. Also, yay that we're seeing some new (or recurring but I haven't been on here long enough to have seen before) faces around Topaz!

I've been doing a little mapping of the indoors of the towns and cities. Hopefully it's nice enough to you all to use in the game... I'm not sure if I'm quite confident enough to do the Bank (I don't even know what this is for) or Glassworks Factory though. Feel free to contribute if you want, just make sure that the style of each town and city is consistent. There's still the 5 houses in Neo Bay, and all of Cranewing City to do. Also, should we change the style of PokeCenters and PokeMarts to have our own unique Topaz layouts? (We'd still be using the FR/LG tilesets, just laying out the buildings differently) I personally think we should, as though the PokeCenters are always the same within the game, from generation to generation they've had edits.

We need overworld sprites for Bradley, Professor Willow, Vincent, and most important of all, the hero and heroine. Actually, scrap the hero, he doesn't have a good sprite. Just the heroine could probably do for the purpose of the demo... though a contribution for the hero would be nice too. (Also, we might need kiddy overworlds for Young Simon, Bradley and Hero(ine)). Most overworlds are simple facing four ways and walking, but unfortunately the hero(ine)'s are not, and thus I would suggest simply editing the overworlds for FR/LG to suit the sprites (Spriter's Resource has those overworlds). Also, we need backsprites for the hero and heroine (again, heroine is most important here). Contributions in this area are very, very greatly appreciated.

I stopped being lazy and sent OI enough to bring us pretty much back to the point that we were before the wipe. Now Osiro, Christina, and the rest of the encounter rates are needed to have a functioning TRPG, and we could probably slowly implement sidequests while it's going. I'll try to get into contact with Trainer X (or he could read this?) to see what exactly is needed before he feels comfortable enough to run the TRPG. OI and the demo are obviously the biggest two priorities right now, so I'll try to get as much info to Trainer X as he needs as soon as possible.

One revamp has been done (Staryu/Starmie), and Yanma's pretty much done (Lapras still needs a couple more comments)... and it's a little sad that it's pretty much only me and Red Rocket posting and substantial amounts of data there...

I also want a few more people to double check the HMs lists to see if they seem to be logical, as those are needed for the Topaz Dex.<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>Blah post fodder blah blah vote on entries blah. Yay. Blah. (Maybe I'm more tired today than I thought)

Fishing: The most important thing here is to figure out which routes and caves should have fishable areas. I think that's more important than actual percentages right now, so thanks if people cold help out with that.

And I can't think of anything more to say right now, except to keep on checking and posting! So, keep on checking and posting!