Prerelease Post 4 (Patreon)

Like the render? I hope so, cause that b***h took 20 hours and was only halfway done. All jokes aside, I'm serious though, I have 2 more just like it to do and I hope it's the angle causing the increased render times and not the additional model. If it's the angle then the rest of the renders after this segment should be smooth sailing, if it's the models... another segment of this scene has 4 models in it so that'll be problematic. I really, really hope it's the angle. Other than that, I put the last 2 renders of this segment on hold to bump out the rest of the bust and face renders. These render out stupid fast, look nice too, so the whole process shouldn't take too long. I need to pose MJ, Billy, and Timmy and set them up the same way I have  Dope, Blaze, and Fire. That'll probably take longer than actually rendering out the images.

MZ wise, I didn't want to finish the rest of the dialogue for the first quest without the busts for Blaze and Fire so I started working on the museum instead. It's not fully mapped out yet but it's coming along nicely. I'm trying to model it after the renders used in the Ren'MV version, or should I say, I'm trying to model it after the museum I already have setup in Daz. It won't be exact but that's fine. I'll probably be finished with the museum stuff by the time the renders finish so most likely that will be included in the update as well. That's also where the game will start to veer/expand a bit from the original. Don't think things are going to go down exactly the same ;) Now, how about those updates!

It's about time!

I know I've said it before, but the time system really wasn't working for my game and I really didn't want to change it. Well, after resisting for years, I finally decided to change the time system. Time will now be static instead of continual and will only advance after the player does certain things. I may add things in the future, but for now these are the ways to advance time:

• Sleeping. You can sleep in Dope's, and others, bed to advance time a set amount of your choosing. Pretty standard mechanic.
• Traveling. Changing maps will advance a few minutes depending on the map type. Dungeons advance more time than city/town locations. Travel in general will be getting an update but I'll go over that in its own post.
• Interactions. Talking with people will now advance time a couple of minutes as will interacting with various objects in the world. If you stop to look at something it might take a minute, literally. Of game time at least.
• Events. Events will advance time a variable amount depending on the event. Pretty straight forward but I'll talk more about events later.

For now those are the only methods I have planned to advance time, but like I said, if I think of more I'll add them. I may add a "wait" feature like in Bethesda games. We'll see, depends on comments I get about how events are now setup.

The main reason for the change was to better facilitate the players ability to experience the numerous events that will be in the game. It's also far easier to manage programing wise and makes my next change easier to maintain. Which brings us to the next change...

Are You On The Schedule?

So I fought this even harder than I did the time change. I wanted events to be random, I had them programmed to be random, and I was ready to die on the hill that was randomized events. And die on that hill I basically did... Randomized events just wasn't working. For various reasons. Could I have gotten them to work? Maybably. But I decided to try setting up schedules and quickly came to the conclusion that I should've long tried it. Schedules are great! Most importantly, just because I set schedules doesn't mean there can't be any variability. NPCs are on schedules but some time slots have multiple things an NPC could choose to do. So you get schedules but you still get some randomization.

What I've come up with is probably standard for these types of games. NPCs have schedules and they'll show up at various spots where you can do various events. See, standard stuff. However, because time is still a bit more flexible in this game than others and the player is able to advance time in incremental amounts instead of hour blocks, events will need to be started before they are halfway over. You won't be able to walk up to an NPC with 10 minutes left on an event and be able to do that event. 

Most events will be in hour blocks. Some will be in 30 min blocks or 2+ hour blocks. Events might also have special time constraints to activate. All in all, you should plan to be on time for any event you wish to do. You'll have to keep in mind the time it will take you to get from place to place, event to event. Hopefully this isn't too annoying and gives the game a somewhat realistic feel. Once you reach a certain relationship level with a character you'll be able to view their schedule and/or call/text them to ask where they are. 

There's probably more I could talk about but those are the main things.