[modi123_1]

milleja46, on 02 April 2010 - 11:24 AM, said:

Okay i have started rewriting the storyline, the new storyline, is posted on my site. It is still in progress. And i have learned quite a bit of java but i am still learning. Hope to see you guys around!

what site? http://milleja46games.frihost.com/ is unable to find a server..

[milleja46]

whoops, sorry forgot to update, my site is now milleja46games.frih.org, i got a server change as the dns for the frihost one kept on messing up. Sorry for the confusion.........hope no one else felt this way.... It's still a frihost site just different server. Please don't let my screw up make you not come....

This post has been edited by milleja46: 02 April 2010 - 01:35 PM

[modi123_1]

well update your sig.. sheesh..

side edit - a scrolling marquee? Really?

This post has been edited by modi123_1: 02 April 2010 - 06:43 PM

[milleja46]

it is not a marquee, it's js, do you have a better idea? and haven't had time to update sig, and kinda hard on phone to update will do tommorrow, and site will be remodeled when game development starts..........

it is not a marquee, it's js, do you have a better idea? and haven't had time to update sig, and kinda hard on phone to update will do tommorrow, and site will be remodeled when game development starts..........

[Lemur]

Use it as just text, scrolling anything should be used carefully and sparsely.

As far as the plot I'd have to agree but unlike the others I'll step you through how to get it up to par.

Quote

The land of Argondon is a beautiful landscape, but as all things it must end.

You're hinting far far too early that something will happen, you need to play out details of characters here, their everyday lives, interactions, get some development going before...

Quote

The clouds darken, and a Warlock is seen riding a horse as black as coal, and both with eyes as red as rubys. The face of the warlock is covered up, by a black hood, and a twisted rod is seen on his back. His name is Murkbrood The Warlock.

you introduce the main villain. Right now he has more character than any main heroes you may be getting ready to explain. Drop the Warlock line, it's really irrelevant and if anything detracts from any mystery that you could build up in the character by saying something more along the lines of a dark man or something as such.

If you wish to use metaphors to describe elements you have to milk them. I'll give it a whirl describing this character.

Darkness descends from the heavens as an unearthly sound is heard across the plains, a man in black rides his steed, black as his very soul with eyes forged from the very fires of hell. His face shrouded in his cloak, only his piercing eyes can be seen faintly glowing through the darkness. A staff at his back, twisted and writhing in agony, the very sight sickening to the soul, rotting away at the air around it, howling in the wind. A black fog envelopes the town as he descends upon them like a hound of hell.

By using simple metaphors and other dynamic elements the statement is considerably longer without giving the reader much of anything to go on as to who this figure is, spurring interest. Descriptions go a long way and metaphors can almost never be overdone, you need to make the reader feel terrified when the character is introduced. (Though do note anything I write is draft-type)

Quote

He descends on the lovely town of Lampa. The most prosperous town in all of Argondon.

As I said before you need to put these details in the top and not down here, unless the main character is the villain. It ruins any tension built up from the description of the character.

Quote

As he passes every living thing in his wake dies. All the trees, the grass, everything he or the horse touches.

Everything he or the horse touches? Bad idea on that one. Let's try more descriptive narrative:

He tears into the town, his wretched touch killing anything in his path. The town cries out in anguish as all turns to rot, rancid air filling the skies, a suffocating aroma of death drenching every inch of the town.

Quote

Torches burn outside the houses, inns, of the town, and the trotting of the horse fills the air, but everyone know not to look, for they fear they may be killed by Murkbrood, then a young woman is seen, traveling to another house, And Murkbrood, sweeps her up, she yells let me go, and he does throwing her against a wall.

You need to do some research and actually read more sci fi, the voice is very very passive and not conducive to speeding the pace of reading. Let's try this again. You want to strike fear into them and make them flip when this guy comes along? This needs to go from PG to X-rated violence in a hurry to really terrorize a readers emotions and get them into this character.

The town is lit ablaze in frenzy as the town people descend into madness, horses crash through buildings as people run for their lives, trampled underfoot by the current of the exodus. The man draws a sword upon the people beheading all in his wake, smashing them against walls and trampling them underfoot as the people beg for their lives. He draws his staff from behind him as a dark cloud descends upon them. People are crushed beneath the mass of darkness descending, screaming in terror as the very life is fleeing their bodies. There was no escape to this hell as the man let loose a roar that shook the very earth itself.

Quote

At the castle where king Val Jean rests, soliders prepare, they wake the king and princess Jessica, to run, and hide. They ask what the non-sense is and they are told one word, "Murkbrood", then they know, and realize what they must do.

You need to not have them joke around, again it's another element that completely kills the mood, you need to have them scared crapless and fearing for their lives before you can expect this thing to have any power. You don't need to name the princess yet unless you have banter with the king referring to her by name.

Quote

Then the city is seen again, but not as it was. People have fled to the next town miles away, Murkbrood, is seen on his coal black horse, heading towards the castle. Knights meet him, and one knight as loud as he can yells, "Charge!", this knight is the best knight in all the land, and a battle ensues. Monsters rise from the shadows, horrifying, but easily vanquashed. The knight we mentioned earlier, charges after the Warlock,defeats him, but is tremendously injured. Knights erupt in cheers, and carry the knight back to the castle to be tended by the king's nurses, and doctors.

You don't need to say that the city is seen. You need to portray absolute carnage instead of they ran and made it. You already described the horse so no point in that. It's obvious he's the best if he goes after the main bad guy... You need to draw out that battle for pages, make it EPIC, not just he died game over. I'll go at the Knights section

As the man turns he's greeted by a company of knights blocking his path. One man steps forward, drawing his sword, known only as Jack(make up a name here, filler.)The dark man descends from his hellish steed....

Something as such. As far as the battle you need to learn sword play to get even remotely good at describing a battle, it takes some serious skill to get a good battle going.

Quote

Being bandaged up and laying on the bed, his wife comes in.
"Just can't help from getting yourself injured can you?", she says.
"What are you talking about it's not that bad", he replys, "How are you feeling, have you had the baby yet?"
"No, but i hope it's soon he might be our last hope......"
"For everyone's sake, I hope so too, times are getting tough, and I am not sure that the Warlock is completly gone......"
"I know"

How about this, don't kill off the bad guy, have him escape somehow, but not in a he ran for his life type of way either.


Overall though if I had to guess you're fairly young from your writing style. My overall advice is to enroll in advanced classes in HS, they help substantially. Read the following books if you haven't already, and I don't mean their movies either...

Faust
Dante's Inferno
Lord of The Rings (BOOKS)
The Illiad (Yes the entire thing)

These books/sets should get you started on the right path, but be warned they're all fairly long. Trust me when I say even if you don't take this seriously read those books, game or no game, you'd enjoy them if you can get into/understand them.

[milleja46]

thanks for that info, and criticisim, the story i know needs work but it is not done, i am still working on it. i will try reading those books, right now i am in a honors english II class i think i will use your suggestions probably add story again later......the text that is scrolling is supposed to be the news, and i wanted it on every page for that fact. I have read some of the inferno, and some of the last two, but those last ones,kinda confused me in what they did, as it counteracted what they said they were going to do....

This post has been edited by milleja46: 03 April 2010 - 06:27 AM

[Lemur]

It helps the further you get into Highschool. I'm assuming Sophomore? If you have good Senior level AP teachers it'll help a lot.

[milleja46]

well, my writing is actually pretty good just when writing it i didn't take alot of time.

again i really need some java programmers, artists, and some people with ideas, i will try to submit a more developed story on my site......

[TechGeek]

Well I am on the site and I am a programmer. I am currently learning Java, but for my High School they don't offer programming and I'm all on my own. been on my own for the past years. But If we could get someone with a good knowledge here it'll be really nice!

[milleja46]

It would also be nice if we could get help learning how to make a engine that would work with java and blender, or learn how to use jmonkey engine....once summer starts the real development will start, i am just waiting to really learn till summer break, but all the help we can get would be great!

[johnmatthais]

I had a long, informative post, but then I lost it when the page decided to reload itself, so I'm going to sum it up.

First off, I'm 16 and a senior in high school and I get what you're going through. Here's what you need to hear:

1. Stop asking your forum members for help. You're going to lose a lot of followers if you can't do it yourself.

2. Asking forum members that don't want to be there to be there is asking for them to label you "whiny" and "desperate for attention."

3. The story shouldn't be laden with dialogue. It's a synopsis of a story for an RPG, not a novel, not the opening scene to the RPG. Make it detailed, and make it a synopsis.

4. Grammar - learn it. It's unprofessional and people will take one look at you and walk away if you have a native English tongue and can't speak it properly.

5. Stop coming here asking for help with the project, stop updating your site with useless posts, no one cares about anything you do until you have something to show forth. Get off the internet, write a better story and post it when you think it's perfect.

6. Putting that you need help in your sig is asking for trolls.

7. Asking for members of a team for a game that has nothing more than a name and a vague backstory is asking for people to make fun of you.

8. Putting a game overview that gives vague details that people could have assumed on their own just fine is exactly the kind of thing that is wasting your time that you could be spending bettering what you have.

9. You have to have something set in stone before you can expand.

10. Trying to improve a site that's running on a free webhost is a waste of time. Spend your time on the game. In fact, tear down the site, make your game be more than a vague imagining, and start over when you have something to show us.

11. You really shouldn't be asking for help until you have something you're truly stuck on rather than just slacking off on.

12. Telling people your story is sub-par because you didn't take the time to write a good one is asking for people to walk away from you. It shows laziness and bad work ethics and it's exactly what no one wants in an employee or employer.

13. Telling people you can do better than you did isn't going to help anything. In fact, often times it makes you seem helpless. No one's going to believe you until you do.

14. The biggest, most important thing is: No one's going to do this for you. This is your project, which means you have to do it. This means stop asking us to comment on it every step of the way. You have to step up to the plate here. You set it out for yourself, now you have to do it.

I know this all sounds harsh, but it's exactly what I wish someone would have told me straight out a few years back other than going "awwwww, look at the cute little teenager, trying to do what none of us can even do. let's let him find out the hard way just how bad it is."

Just as an example, look at my MMO project. What I have written there is the bare minimum you should have before trying to ask for help, and I was even pushing it with that one. I knew that though. I was trying to get a framework set out, come back and learn coding and learn how to write better and then make a game out of it.

Yeah, that's all I have to say.

This post has been edited by johnmatthais: 15 April 2010 - 10:21 PM

[milleja46]

Know what, SHUT UP! you guys have no idea what's going through my mind and what i have been doing on this project. The post about "being a quick synopsis" was before i edited it to what you see now. I am still getting used to not having the visual like with vb.net. Yes i am still a noob, and i'm not afraid to admit it. I'm tired of your rants, the story is still a work in progress, and i am wanting a few ideas from users before i really start, you have no idea what i have been doing on the project, because most of the info is shared through im with techgeek. The fact is i am still learning like all of you. The reason i disapeered is because i never got responses like i did when you guys actually started posting in this.

[johnmatthais]

Woah, no need to get so defensive. I'm telling you all this so you're not disappointed. I'm 16, going on 17 soon. I was in the same position as you at one point. All these criticisms are to help you.

No, I don't know what's going through your mind, but I don't need to know. Over ambition is bad. You have to balance ambition with ability. If you don't even have a foothold in Java, it will be close to a year before you can even begin to get the game really running, and chances are it'll only be a title screen and a single room.

Also, have you even thought about where you're getting your artwork from? What funding is going into that? Music? Level design?

My point is...you shouldn't be showing all of this off right now. You shouldn't be asking for help when you don't even have solid factual details. Hell, you really shouldn't even be working on something so complicated from scratch right now (especially in Java - read my other post for my opinions on Java), but I won't argue because you're getting defensive about it.

This post has been edited by johnmatthais: 17 April 2010 - 04:56 PM

[milleja46]

I wasn't getting defensive, i am just tired of everyone's "criticism", because it's a little much. Lately i have been trying to get thourgh, the horrible review IT class at school, even though it's supposed to be on the second part of the course i have yet to see anything new, and we are almost done. And yes i do about the artwork, but it's not gonna be a money based project, i had no intentions of being a profit based game, just a non-profit for fun. And to get better at doing all this game stuff and seeing if when i get good enough, it being better than some of these big companie games, that are kind weird in the story line, and sometimes ultimatly suck.

[johnmatthais]

If you don't want our criticism, don't share. If you don't want our feedback, don't ask for it. I'm telling you what I think you need to hear based on my past experiences.

In any case, I'm done with it officially. This is the last I'm saying on this subject.