(quote)Originally posted by Kate:
**I understand this.. was told the same thing when I tried to learn C++ programming, and when I used Coldstone. It makes sense. I just have some sort of inner aversion to the planning stage.:)

It's actually very simple- you start by taking the most broad ideas you have, say "Intergalactic war between Human Empire I and Alien Empire I" and writing them out. Then, underneath, like an outline, you try and break it down to a slightly more simple level- say:

--Humans attack first, beaten back
--Aliens counter-attack, take Human border planets
--Humans unleash nuke attack on Alien homeworld
--Aliens retreat, Humans attack

This way, you've got the very basic plot elements of your intergalactic war placed out. These are the ~roots~ (and I can't stress this enough) of your storyline, and everything you do should be built off of these. Wherever your wandering might take you (as Kame is doing and how I used to), at least these elements won't change.

After you have those main points, start breaking them down in the same fashion:

--Humans attack first, beaten back
-hires player to bring arms to border
-uses player to scout out Alien border
-launch small offensive to distract from main attack
-encounter new alien fighter vessels with cloaking devices
-humans retreat to upgrade their tech to deal with the new ships

--Aliens counter-attack, capture Human border planets
-aliens see their advantage, press on the attack with new cloakers
-human fleets are divided by big attack down the middle
-aliens sack supply lines of fleet, destroy large human fleet
-humans mount defensive positions while aliens capture border planets

And so on. Then, from there, you take each of those points and break them down, and pretty soon, you're dealing with the level of individual missions. From the simplest idea "Intergalactic war between Human Empire I and Alien Empire I" you've got many, many ideas. This system works so well because we all tend to think in very general, large scale terms- very broad. But when it comes to really getting into the smaller scales, it becomes more difficult.

The same system is applicable for just about anything in EVN. Ships, spob descs, anything you can think of. Writing out this whole process has got me thinking- should I add a section to the guide about the planning process- post development?
Would it be useful?

_bomb

------------------
"Life is not to fear... Life is to enjoy." -
TEB
And don't you listen to these nitwits. Nova's a great game and don't let anyone tell ya otherwise. Better or worse than EVO? Who gives an african monkey's nads?
-pistgavin

(This message has been edited by Bomb (edited 06-05-2003).)
**

Quote

Originally posted by nwa728:
**Sheesh, does everyone do graphics last?
Here's my plan:
Govs, outfits(+descs), weapons(+spins), ships(+shans, graphics, descs), dudes, systs, spobs(+graphics, landing pics, descs), missions, chrons, all misc stuff.

**

I don't think graphics necessarily need to be done last- however, you should have a good portion of your scenario assembled beforehand, especially spobs and systems, for all planetary sprites/art. Certainly it would be possible to render your ship sprites before the rest, but I think in general once you've unfolded your scenario a bit from paper to actual data, you've got a more detailed vision of all than before you started, and therefore the ship graphics might turn out to be better. More often than not, people who render their ships first end up re-doing them all by the time the plug-in is finished.

That said, I don't do my own graphics, so I don't have to worry about them at all, other than some organizational and design work.

_bomb

------------------
"Life is not to fear... Life is to enjoy." -
TEB
And don't you listen to these nitwits. Nova's a great game and don't let anyone tell ya otherwise. Better or worse than EVO? Who gives an african monkey's nads?
-pistgavin

Quote

Originally posted by Bomb:
**I don't think graphics necessarily need to be done last- however, you should have a good portion of your scenario assembled beforehand, especially spobs and systems, for all planetary sprites/art. Certainly it would be possible to render your ship sprites before the rest, but I think in general once you've unfolded your scenario a bit from paper to actual data, you've got a more detailed vision of all than before you started, and therefore the ship graphics might turn out to be better. More often than not, people who render their ships first end up re-doing them all by the time the plug-in is finished.

That said, I don't do my own graphics, so I don't have to worry about them at all, other than some organizational and design work.
**

I was working on a plug that unfortunately went vaporware, and one guy was doing all the resource work and I did all the graphics work. It was supposed to be a continuation of EV using the EVN engine. Anyway, we were going the graphics as the resources were getting done, but we could afford to do that because there were two people. If you're doing it alone, make quick placeholder graphics so that you can test your plug and see "new" ships, but if you lose interest, you won't have wasted a lot of time on making good ships. Maybe I should make a shipyard or something for all those sprites I made...

Matrix

------------------
"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."
(url="http://"http://htf.mondominishows.com/valentine/main.asp?seed=7375&serial;=214877")The funniest valentine I've ever gotten.(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Bomb:
Writing out this whole process has got me thinking- should I add a section to the guide about the planning process- post development?
Would it be useful?

Yes.

I think I was following your planning scheme, just not on paper- and this morning, when I actually made progress in my planning (amazing! the world is coming to an end!) I was going along the same lines- I took my basic story and divided it into the individual Nova missions.

From what everyone's saying, I guess my strategy for graphics is going to be to make placeholders as necessary, excepting planet sprites, which I'll be doing as soon as I need them. This way I can delay the part of plug-in making that I think I'll really hate I'm not good at graphics, but I don't want to share any of the credit for my plug either

How long does it usually take all of you to go from first idea to release? Bomb's guide says that a year is a little more than normal (thank goodness :p), but that's also a TC, and what I'm making is a mid-sized string plot (I guess.. not sure how to classify anything.)

Amazingly, I made progress this morning! I have 16 -actual- (ready to be put into the plugin) missions done. Now it's starting to look like I'm going to run over the mission limit if I don't shrink something..

-K

------------------
Art History = Cool! ...and yes, I'm odd.
"The pigeons are coming! The pigeons are coming!" -Kate
50 posts in a week and a half!

Quote

Originally posted by Bomb:
More often than not, people who render their ships first end up re-doing them all by the time the plug-in is finished.

Heh, at least I know I'm not the only one. Luckily enough, even though most of my ships are old and simple, they look very nice as sprites. I'm only redoing the absolutely horrid ones, making them pretty good. About half or more of my ships were first made anywhere from 1-2 years ago. But then again, Rift has hundreds of ships, so this will prove to be a minority of them.

------------------
(url="http://"http://mywebpages.comcast.net/genea16/Rift.html")Rift Homepage(/url)
(url="http://"http://pub101.ezboard.com/briftwebboards")Rift Webboards(/url)
Apparently, common sense isn't so common...
~Nick

(quote)Originally posted by Kate:
**How long does it usually take all of you to go from first idea to release? Bomb's guide says that a year is a little more than normal (thank goodness:rolleyes: Both of these are just additional storylines to the original Nova senario btw. Neither of them are anywhere close to a TC.

------------------
I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(url="http://"http://www.0three0.net/l-1551/")L 1551(/url) - The official site of RONIN and The Way and the ten thousand things

(This message has been edited by Kame (edited 06-05-2003).)
**

Four months? I can only stay obsessed with things for one or two.. I'll never finish

Do you plan in a specific order, too? I feel like it's easier for me to plan my missions, then build the rest of what I'm making around it, since the storyline is the most important part to me- to quote the Non-Technical EVN Bible (which I found very interesting), I am -not- making a "1 syst, 2 spobs, and LOTS OF OUTFITS" plug, so it seems harder to me to create the extras- the ships, the outfits- before the storyline. Most people say to do those earlier than missions in programming, though.. does my planning strategy work?

What am I supposed to do if my storyline runs over the mďsn constant?

This isn't eactly on topic, but.... if you set the special ship goal to "board", do you have to board them all?

-K

------------------
Art History = Cool! ...and yes, I'm odd.
"The pigeons are coming! The pigeons are coming!" -Kate
50 posts in a week and a half!