Questions

[Will]

It could decrease the opponents defense as they won't be expecting the attack. With the Night Vision ability the opponent would be immune from this.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Note: It's not been figured out as it should work. Literally, the dev gave me the code and where to put it. We could just ignore it, do any demotion get Eclipse?

[Will]

So is there a mistake somewhere else which might have led to this? It can't not work for no reason, surely.

[NyteFyre]

How about a boost against Dark Types? such as +50% light boost on moves? being flashed after getting used to darkness sure could hurt the eyes.

As well, perhaps Flash could remove Darkness for 3 or so turns?

How about a Speed Boost, instead of evasion boost, for Dark Types? Speed is a much more well defined stat than evasiveness, and dark types are accustomed to dark areas, and thus should have better chances of navigating them.

Darkness could also hamper Chances of catching a pokemon, unless you are using a dusk ball? Should be hard to throw a ball when you can't see. Perhaps there could be night-vision goggles that allow the trainer to catch pokemon in dark areas, or perhaps it could be a hold item to boost accuracy in dark areas?

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Or we could just get it working by having someone who knows their stuff and has the time to check it over.

[Will]

Well how about one of those suggestions as a place-holder for the demo. With a demo out it is much more likely someone will come along who knows their stuff and will be able to fix it.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Again, why? It'd make more sense to simply not include it in the demo, than to have the ability change.
And at the end of the day, we still need a programmer with experience for the more complicated bits.

[ImmunityBow]

I do feel that it is kind of one of the things we'd want to show off in the demo. Like we could cut down the demo until it only had skills that were rehashes of canon skills (and we have a fair number of those already) but I don't really think that says much about our game. Therma's Murkrow would likely have it. Darkness should also come out at night time.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Then we need more of everything else ready, enough to advertise for a programmer.

[Will]

So it seems some sort of programmer(s) is needed. If I was programmer and I wanted to help develop a pokemon game, how would I know what needed to be done by just looking at these forums. Before I had asked the first question, a passer-by would not have even known that there was any problems.

At the moment a programmer will come along, ask if anything needs doing, and they would get a response a few days later saying we are having this problem, and by that time they have lost interest and probably forgotten about this site completely. There is also probably a load of programmers who visit this site and don't become a member because they think, this project has already got a programmer, there doesn't seem to be anything I can help with and they never come back.

So really there needs to be full transparency of what is going on programming-wise, so that a potential programmer knows what they need to do as soon as they enter the site. Otherwise this is going nowhere.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Bah, not really. Once we''ve gotten enough done for advertising purposes it'd be easy to get a programmer, and better yet one familiar with the base code.

[Reliability]

Can we mimic fog mechanics and reduce accuracy instead?

[ImmunityBow]

Oh, that's what Fog does? That should be what Darkness should have been all along, not an evasion boost. It's an accuracy reduction for all non Dark/Light-types or those with Night Vision.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

Sigh. If I'd remembered that, I'd've just mutilated fog from the start. Question: Is flash still a HM, and should flash cafes etc be in darkness (not sure how that'd work, probably mapside)?

[NyteFyre]

If I remember correctly, Flash is now a Special Light Type move with Power 50, and with a chance at accuracy reduction. No longer an HM though.

I still say it should be able to remove darkness for a few turns, and deal a little extra damage if Darkness is on the field, though with a little recoil damage. It's gotta hurt your eyes too, even with them closed.

[ImmunityBow]

Actually, we changed Flash to be a Quicker Attack special light attack with 50 BP, and still an HM.

But that idea is way better! Flash could be a 60 BP Light Attack that, if Darkness is on the field, removes the Darkness weather effect (cannibalize weather getting rid of other weather. Just make it regular weather instead of anything special) and deals double damage. That's much, much more in flavour when you think about it. And Light-type attacks not named Serenade and Smite were mostly boring anyway.

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

No can do, at least for removing Darkness. Gentle Breeze/Calm Wind doesn't actually remove weather, it just changes it to one that doesn't do anything. Apparently with Darkness it was my novice-ness at work. I may have been trying to alter Accuracy before it had been defined. Maybe.

EDIT: Or not. No idea if where I moved it to is wrong or if it is fundamentally wrong but... I'll keep checking.

[ImmunityBow]

The point of Gentle Breeze though is that no other weather can happen at the time. Isn't it currently like that? (With Sunny Day/Raindance, the move cancels the last weather, and imposes a new weather. With Gentle Breeze/Calm Wind, it's suppose to cancel the last weather, impose a new weather that can't be cancelled by another move. With Flash getting rid of Darkness, hopefully it could just cancel the last weather, or change it to a neutral state which would be just as good? Also you might be able to look at how Brick Break removes Reflect/Light Screen since it also simply cancels a field effect?)

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

The problem lies in the fact that the cancelling of the previous weather is an automatic feature of implimenting new weather, and afaik not seperable. Brick Break etc wouldn't work because weather's treated differently.

[ImmunityBow]

How about replacing the weather with Gentle Breeze, but only if Darkness is in effect (you can look at the weather checks for Thunder, Solarbeam and such?)

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

That would work. But it'd also prevent weather moves for 5 turns, saying that they wouldn't want to disturb the gentle breeze. I'd make another dummy weather effect but iirc I can't change how long it'd last individuality from the others so we'd have the information window alerting us to it at the end of each turn.

[ImmunityBow]

We could always replace it with Sunshine.

[Sev]

I always felt weather in Pokemon was really stupid. The only point to weather moves is to change it from a negative effect to a positive. So why would you be the first to put down a weather effect in the first place? It is worthless damage. The only reason to use weather move is to change a -10hp difference per turn to +10 (10 is arbitrary). Changing it form 0 to -10 just isn't worth it, so nboody casts a weather move in the first place.

Hopefully somebody can understand what I'm saying. If i wanted stats from weather I'd just have a stat move rather than some move that can only raise stats once per battle.

So if you want weather effects to be useful it has to have something unique rather than stats or damage.

[ImmunityBow]

Actually weather is a very powerful strategy that has had a huge effect since 3rd gen, especially in Ubers and Never Used but Sandstorm teams were quite popular even in Standard. Enduring effects that you can set up for other Pokemon, interesting interactions with abilities. It added a lot of strategic competitive depth while being quite grokkable since people understand what rain does or what a sandstorm would do or bright sunlight.

[Canem]

Sorry for the probably stupid question but I have no idea how to start my text RPG game I think my profile was the last new profile made but I can't see how to start playing. I guess I'm missing something really obvious....thus I'm useless

So if anyone could kick my ass in the correct direction it would be much appreciated

[Cyndadile]

To start off, just post a topic in this thread.

Start your story off with your rival battle and whatnot and we'll come along and do your rival's side of the battle. After you've fiished Neo Bay, you can just progress through the forums on this page.

All of the TRPG stuff is down towards the bottom of the page, in the title sectioned "Pokemon Topaz Text RPG."

Have fun!

[Will]

Is this game realistically ever going to get finished?

[Reliability]

This game is done in the free time of the people creating it. Most of us have school and/or jobs that have to take priority because Pokemon fangame-making doesn't pay living expenses. This is something we do for fun, and will continue to be lag. It's unfortunate that it has to be this way, since a lot of people, myself included, have put a their time and effort into this project. I would love to spend more time on this game, but there are things in my life that matter more, and I have to budget my life into those things, just as I'm sure every person on this forum does. Please understand that every contributor wants to have their work reach the end goal, but sometimes it's hard to achieve.

[Cyndadile]

tl;dr: Yes, but it'll take time.

We all care about Topaz, and anyone who's still here isn't going to give up on it any time soon. But we're here to make a high-quality game and have fun doing it. Those things take time.

We've got the first section of the TRPG out (see the bottom of the forum list), and we'll make sure that we keep at least one step ahead of the players development-wise. Check it out; it's a lot of fun if you enjoy writing.

[Merlin]

Okay, so, I read the state of topaz again (still the one from 2012) and, as I was reading, I realized something , yall needed a programmer, and, I see that yall seem to have one atm, but, I as wondering, what's the list of programmers so far?
That said, and, maybe a stupid question here, but, where can find the code for the game?
I ask, because, I've got books on programming and such, that, I've been going through. I know a fair amount, but, need more experience, and, though, it's c/c++, I do know that, much of the syntax for programming is still the same, even with Ruby, and, I'm sure I can find a few things to help me out with programming in rgss easily enough. And, tbh, I believe, I've got something on my computer for it, just that, I'll have to hunt it down, but, it's got some rather basic things for me to work with, so I can try it all out at least.
Anyway, I can't say if I could become the, or even a, major programmer here, but, I thought I could at least take a look at what's going on, see if there are any particular problems that need fixing, and, see what it is I can do. I can't guarantee too much atm, but, I I'll most certainly see what it is I could do.
If I am allowed to mess with the code some, I would like a list of about 3 or 4 things, that need to be implemented, or fixed, to see what I can come up with. But, I'll understand if you don't wish me to be the main programmer and such. I was just curious

[ImmunityBow]

Yep, it's been a while. Basically everything we have is either on the site or in a shared dropbox folder. If you're still interested PM me your email and I can get you in. There's some stuff done programming-wise but really not very much.

[Merlin]

Alright then, I'll go ahead and look around, see what all I can find, and then maybe send you my email. Ive got a fair amount of free time atm, so, I'll see what I can gather

[Cyndadile]

I've actually been thinking we should consider using something else to store the game files, like maybe Github. It'd potentially make it viewable by the public, and also would be mich safer when we add others want to contribute - it's easy to undo other people's changes. But mostly having some form of source control is sort of standard for any project, and it seems like a good idea for us.

[Merlin]

Well, i can't really say if it should stay, or be moved, i dont know too much bout the online storage sites like that, especially for projects like this.
tbh, i just made a dropbox to view the topaz stuff, but, it's not to say that a better site couldn't be found for all of this.
lol, dropbox looks pretty good so far, i just haven't really used it too much. And, i think, if it comes to moving it, it should likely be left up to those who are currently in control of the project being on those sites, than those who dont have access to it currently >.> security reasons basically.
Not saying that asking everyone on the site is a bad idea, just saying that the final decision is up to those involved primarily, and do please inform us, if it is moved

[Black Temple Gaurdian]

To be honest, there's a lot still to be done without programming. I'm, of course, talking about the story. Plots, subplots, unless I'm missing something it's still quite... infantile in its development.

[ImmunityBow]

There's a complete script for the main storyline and a bunch of NPC dialogue for the first few towns I think. Subplots, yeah, not much of that for sure.