Hello, everyone.

I've been looking to buy Coldstone since it first was released by Beenox, but I've been waiting for both my finances to allow me to rationally do so and for Coldstone to become a useful product. Obviously the latter occured sometime ago, but the first was a bit harder... I was supposed to begin building my game this summer, but things got in the way. I'll definitely begin this coming semester...

Anyway, here's my concern. Obviously, learning the basics of Coldstone will take me quite some time before I can seriously begin building my project. So I'd like to scope out with you guys what problems or shortcomings I will have ahead of me. While Coldstone seems like a great, unique product, it has become clear I think that it is not quite all it was cracked up to be...

So Anyway. I'm planning to attempt to make an RPG with traits similar to OrgeBattle and FinalFantasy Tactics. The player would collect characters into teams and use those teams to battle rather than simply themselves. My concern is that Coldstone does not AT ALL appear to be built with mutiple player controlled characters in mind. So I worry about things like storing items and upgrades for 6 or so teams of about 20 characters... I fear things like having to use stamps for all but my main character and storing other characters' attributes as separate variables... I am crazy, will this not be a problem? I don't hear too many people talk about using multiple simultaneous player charcters in their games... Has anyone had any experience with this?

Also, I plan on using a turn based battle system like OgreBattle or FinalFantasy. I know some games use this type of system (DarkRising does, right?) so I'm not terribly worried about that, but I would like to hear what people's experiences with that are as well.

Anyway, thanks for hearing me out, and I hope I don't sound like an idiot.

Hi. Welcome to the board. With a little creativity you can get around some of the short comings of Coldstone. I'm at the every late stages of script writing and the early stages of preproduction on my game. A gentleman by the name of Ellx has written several tutorials on turn based systems and how to implement them into Coldstone. If you search the board for him you should be able to loacte a link to his website. Yeah Coldtsone is not made to have multiple party members, but there may be a way through stamp and animation control to give the illusion of multiple characters.

I will try and post another message later tonight or this weekend after I've given some more thought on how you good do a final fantasy tactics type battle.

Cheers

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Originally posted by Solarinus:
Obviously, learning the basics of Coldstone will take me quite some time before I can seriously begin building my project.

No! This is not true. It may take a while (week) for you to learn how to script the stuff that makes your game ROCK! But, to get started, that - you can do the very first day.

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I don't hear too many people talk about using multiple simultaneous player charcters in their games... Has anyone had any experience with this?

There are some people that use "multiple" characters in thier games. This is acomplished by being the first person, then going to the next person, ect. But this is NOT multiple players. Or using an AI to have them fight for you. That can't be done easily (read 'with speed').

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Also, I plan on using a turn based battle system like OgreBattle or FinalFantasy.

This can be done. And - there is a really good system by eLL which shows you the best way for a 'turn based system' that he created.

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Anyway, thanks for hearing me out, and I hope I don't sound like an idiot.**

Not an idiot, we aren't like that here. We treat every question as if the person is my age and trying to get all they can from Colstone Game Engine (CGE).

Anyway welcome to the boards. (again)

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-Albadar-
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Just trying...

go to my coldstone game links page in my sig, also go to the category, coldstone links or something, under there look for ellrx, he has lots of @^*&~! your looking for toward making a certain game.

also if your inquisitive about certain topics search thee coldstone forums for words like coldstone bugs, or ogre battle, or side scrolling etc. then when it takes you to that page look for that word again and you can find discussion on it.

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(url="http://"http://www.redknightentertainment.com/rkewerks/htmlrke/rkeresourceMAIN.html")Coldstone Links For - Art, 3D, Animation, Audio/Video, Backup, Notes, Maintenance, Problem Solving, Tips and tricks.(/url) Morvera ner Morden

Actually, yeah, I have already looked over ellrx's plans for Coldstone turn-based battle. Not quite what I had in mind, but shows that it's probaby possible either way.

Mostly I was concerned about whether anyone thought that storing the upgrades, status changes, and items generally intended for one character on possible above a hundred different characters would be any kind of enormous problem. No one seems terribly worried about it though, So I guess I won't sweat and will just handle it when I come to that part...

Also, before anyone writes up a big post on how to do FFT style battle in Coldstone, I should add that I plan on using a battle system much more like Ogre Battle than FFT. Characters' placement and formation will matter, but they will not be able to move during battle.

Oh, and thanks for the tip on searching the Forum. I'll see if that helps.

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