[ScytheCGC]

Forward

Hello everyone, I figured I should introduce you all to my game that is currently In-Development. The name of it is Legacy of the Zodiac II.

Just so you all know, the game is NOT playable and will not be playable until it is finished; then I will have closed Beta and send the client out to a certain amount of people for them to test it. I will leave the Closed Beta Server up for a month to allow them to test and play as much as possible, then it will go and the accounts will be wiped and I will fix anything that was unbalanced, fix any errors etc and than put it up for Open Beta. If everything goes as planned, accounts will not be wiped after Open Beta.

First off you can visit the website for the game at http://www.legacyofthezodiac.net

There you can access the forums and access a wealth of other information about Legacy of the Zodiac II.

Getting Started (Table of Contents)

The goal of this table of contents is to direct people with links to the proper locations to find information on the Wiki and sometimes on the forum. The links should be followed in the order they are presented in, follow each link and read (or if there is a video than watch) everything you find on that page or pages, than come back here and follow the next link out. If there is a video available it will be noted at the top of the pages you will arrive at when you follow the links. This will direct you to all of the information you could want and need about Legacy of the Zodiac II and catch you up to everyone else as far as knowledge about Legacy of the Zodiac II goes; so here we go!

1. Background Info / Story - This is the story for Legacy of the Zodiac II, read this or watch it ALL so you will have a complete understanding of the situation of Legacy of the Zodiac II.

2. Factions - This is the information about the Factions of Legacy of the Zodiac II, and the classes belonging to each, read this and perhaps you can decide which faction and class will fit you best!

3. Development Chronicle - The Development Chronicles are basically a weekly Development Diary or Development Report of what we accomplished in the development of Legacy of the Zodiac II that week, these are where you will find TONS of information about Legacy of the Zodiac II, and I mean TONS! Each Development Chronicle has a narrated video version of it, which is narrated by me (Scythe) for those of you who don't want to read them. The first Development Chronicle covers about 2 months of work since I got the idea for these about 2 months into the Development of the game; so the first one is pretty lengthy (15 minutes or so). After the first few they get pretty short (about 3-8 minutes). So I suggest watching all of these in order.

4. Guild System (Ranks) - This page shows and describes each of the ranks for the guilds of Legacy of the Zodiac II as well as some other general information about guilds.

5. Screenshots - This page shows screenshots, you will find a variety of screenshots of Legacy of the Zodiac II; they are divided into various sections based on the area they are from; the areas are in order of when they were developed, so the first screenshots were done first etc, make sure you check all of these out and check for updates (the screenshots will be in each Development Chronicle as well).

6. Staff List - This is the official Staff List of Legacy of the Zodiac II.

That should cover everything you need to know right now about Legacy of the Zodiac II, refer to the Wiki for any additional information and check this thread out weekly for new Development Chronicles, join the official forums at http://www.legacyofthezodiac.net/LoZIIForums

If you wish to contact me just add me on MSN Messenger, my MSN is scythecgc@gmail.com

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[Terry]

Man, this looks familiar...
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http://www.distractionware.com

[RedSlash]

I do somewhat vaguely remember the detail for the one of the LoZ game. :)
Unfortunately, your post is a bit lengthy so I didn't read the whole thing, but based on screenshots, it looks good. I'll check it out when you've finished.

[Verious]

I enjoyed the narrated Developer Chronicles on your website, it provided some additional insight into the decisions behind the design of the game, as well as, some of the project management techniques that were employed. Keep the updates coming.

[ScytheCGC]

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle III for Legacy of the Zodiac II. This Development Chronicle and the ones in the weeks following will not be very large; since I am mapping right now all I can show you is a few screenshots and maybe describe something about the area. On a side note; you will see no NPC's in any of the screenshots; that is because I am going to be mapping a whole area such as the Haven Area then going back and adding in the NPC's and Items and such; much easier to do.

First off, I decided on a name for the continent Haven is on; I decided on Inngard. So all of the maps I was naming Haven Shore got renamed to Coast of Inngard; since it is the coast for the continent; and the continent is Inngard. Than I proceeded to complete as much of the Coast of Inngard that is currently necessary. What I mean by that is, I made the Coastline maps that would match up with all the maps in the Haven Area; and as I move out with more places on the continent I will map more of the Coastline to match the additional areas.

As I was working on the Coast of Inngard I made a small bay that came off of the main Coast; I named it the Bay of Taniel. I know what the cave there is for; but I won't be telling what it is for ;D.



Once I had as much of the Coastline as I needed; I went back and finished up the Outskirts of Haven; which are the only maps in the game that use the "Arena" morale besides actual Arenas. In other words, all other maps besides towns will be EXP Areas, Red Zones etc; so the Outskirts of Haven are a safe area for beginners; but it's not very large so it won't last for long.



After the Outskirts of Haven were all complete; I moved onto the Forest of Haven, which I am still not done with and that is currently what I am working on, it is a very large area. It will be an EXP Area; which is currently a Yellow-named map but it will be Orange once Bradyok finishes and adds the Zone Editor.



Once the Forest of Haven is all said and done it will be 102 maps. The Haven Forest from LoZ EX was about 10-15 maps I believe. Also, the total Haven Area all together (outsides only such as the town, outskirts, coastline, forest etc) will total up to be about 250 maps or so; which the total for the Haven Area on LoZ EX was about 40-50 or so.

One more thing; while I was mapping the Forest of Haven I walked under one of the trees and noticed this...



I thought it just looked pretty cool; how my character is hiding and peeking out from between the branches and leaves of the tree o.o!

Well, that's pretty much all I can show you. I've just been mapping this week so I don't have much to explain; now I must go back to work on the Forest of Haven.

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[ScytheCGC]

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle IV for Legacy of the Zodiac II. As I said last week these chronicles will be very small. This week's will hold true to that and be VERY small. This week I have been working on the Forest of Haven and I just finally finished it yesterday. I also placed the building where Priest's will get their low level spells and staves etc in the Forest near the Town of Haven. So I will now show you a few screenshots of that...

Here are the maps where the exterior of the church is.



These are the interior maps of the church; properly called the "Nine Orders Church" as in the Nine Orders of Angels.



That was done as I mapped the Forest so after that I obviously went on to continue the Forest and as I said the Forest is 102 maps. Now I had to back across the top of the Haven area to work on the coast there (you'll understand why later).

So here is one screenshot from the coast across the top, I decided to turn the Rain on just so you could see what the rain would look like on it.



Well that's all I've got to show today; I must get back to work so I can finish up the coast and move onto the implementation of NPC's, quests and items in the Haven Area!

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[Verious]

Looks good, but the exterior shape of the church doesn't seem to match the interior of the building, which creates some discontinuity.

[ScytheCGC]

Since the forums were down last week, I'll post last week's and this week's in one post.

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle V for Legacy of the Zodiac II. I wasn't able to work this whole week because of Christmas, and it took about two days to get all my files and programs and settings set-up on my new laptop I got for Christmas; but now it is all set and ready to go. But me and Yuki still started on new areas. Yuki began to work on the "Den of Thieves" and I began to work on the first ruins known as the "Nyru Ruins". Below I will show a few screenshots of those areas.

Remember that these screenshots have no NPC's in them since I am not doing NPC's yet.

Here are some screenshots of the area Yuki is working on, the "Den of Thieves".



The Den of Thieves will have a few missions in it that you get from The Iron Mercenary.

Here are some screenshots of the area I am working on, the "Nyru Ruins".



This room must have been some sort of sacrifice room; where people were thrown over the ledge down into the deep chasm.



This screenshot simply shows two of the maps going along the left side of the ruins. As you can see there is a upper level and a lower ground level.

One more thing I would like to show you is a very good example of how useful and powerful the Directional Block attribute is on Xtreme Worlds; refer to the following video to see the example.

http://www.legacyofthezodiac.net/videos/LoZII/DirectionalBlockLedges.html

That is all for this week, see everyone next week!

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle VI for Legacy of the Zodiac II. This week I continued to work on the Nyru Ruins and Yuki on the Den of Thieves. I have about 10 more maps left to do on the Nyru Ruins and Yuki has about 5 or so I believe left on the Den of Thieves. Once that is all done, I can begin adding NPC's and quests etc to the Haven Area before moving on to the next part of the continent Inngard.

Yuki finished up the main part of the Den of Thieves, but you're going to have to wait and see the last part :D.

As for me, I finished up the edges of the Nyru Ruins and began to go back through the center of the edges with the actual meat of the Ruins; here are a few screenshots of that.





The holes that you see in both the screenshots are chasms that go down so deep you can't even see the bottom; or very far down for that matter.

As I said earlier I only have about 10 more maps to do in the Nyru Ruins and Yuki has about 5 maps left in the Den of Thieves; which should both be done today. Than I can begin adding NPC's, Items and quests and all of that jazz to what we have done so far. Than we will begin mapping the next part of the Continent of Inngard!

That is all for this week, see everyone next week!

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[Verious]

Looks like you guys are making good progress.

[Bradyok]

I've played this game and it's amazing, can't wait for it to be released.

[ScytheCGC]

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle VII for Legacy of the Zodiac II. This week I finally finished up the Nyru Ruins so I will first show one final screenshot of the Nyru Ruins.



After that I was going to begin working on the NPC's etc for the Haven Area but than DD decided he wanted to begin working on the "Zodiac" GUI for LoZ II. So he began working on the In-Game GUI and I did the Logon GUI. The Logon one is mostly done unless I decided to change it some; the In-Game GUI is almost done says DD; so I can't show you any of that one.

Here's the main Logon GUI...



Here is the Login GUI for when you are entering your account and password...



As you can see the basic design stays the same; basically you start out with the first image when you open the client and depending on what you click (Login, Change Password etc) the forms for whatever you choose will appear on the bottom left area of the GUI that is blank; pretty neat huh?

Before I made that style Logon GUI I had made one with the default shape; but than Brad told me I could move stuff around however I wanted I went back and redid it.

After the Logon GUI was finished I went back to the Haven Harbor and began to make some of the first NPC's; so basically right now I am going to be working on NPC's, quests, and the like for the whole Haven Area.

That is all for this week, see everyone next week!

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[ScytheCGC]

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle VIII for Legacy of the Zodiac II. This week I mainly worked on NPCs for the Haven Area but I had to do a few other things as well.

When I began the week I was starting off with the first NPC; so I made that and than when I was testing the damage it did I realized that there was a mistake with the Helmets (on my part). In X-Realms for Helmets when you put 15 speed it meant it reduced the damage by 7; since it divided it by 2 I believe. But anyhow; for Helmets I basically forgot that what you put for the Defense on the Helmet is what the Helmets Defense is; so I had put 15 Defense, which was far too much defense; same would go for every helm; so after I finally figured out what I did wrong (consulting DD as well) I just had to go back and divide the Defense on every Helmet by 2 and round down if there was a decimal. This was also the time to change around the stupid 30 speed crap; which I will explain below.

Basically rather than having to get 30 speed to get 3 points per level; you just get 3 points right off the bat and that's what you get forever. It's basically stupid to make someone have to get 30 speed; since everyone just gets 30 speed first anyways to get the 3 points per level and it doesn't really effect you much. So I just figured it's stupid and made you get 3 points all the time. But since you don't need to get 30 speed first there's no reason to start with 15 speed so I lowered that to 5, 6 or 8 depending on your faction; since Speed is only mainly used for Helmets now.

So now that Speed and Helmets were all fixed and worked out I went back to making the NPCs. First I made the NPC's for the Outskirts of Haven, than the Sewers of Haven, Forest of Haven, Den of Thieves and all I have to do now is make the NPCs for the Nyru Ruins as well as some other NPC's for the Forest of Haven. I also made some other NPC's but I don't want to tell all about the NPC's and that kind of stuff; I'd rather you waited to see this kind of stuff.

Once I am done with the NPC's I will start adding in the equipment and quests. Once that is all set and done I can move on to the next part of Inngard. I HOPE, HOPE; did I mention HOPE? To be done with all the NPC's and Quests etc by the end of this weekend; which is a three day weekend. But I'm not sure if that will happen or not.

As far as the In-Game GUI goes; DD has been studying for Mid-Terms all this week so he hasn't had a chance to do anymore work on it (luckily my school doesn't have Mid-Terms ;D).

I don't have anything to show such as screenshots since this week I wasn't mapping; just working on NPCs and that kind of stuff.

That is all for this week, see everyone next week!

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[ScytheCGC]

NARRATED VIDEO VERSION

Hello and welcome to the Development Chronicle IX for Legacy of the Zodiac II. This week I worked more on NPC's and added in a few little areas and some starter quests. Yuki also finished the Den of Thieves and began doing something else for me.

Well first off I had to fix up the NPC's stats and stuff as needed to balance them and such, took about three tries to get them right. While I was doing that Yuki finished up the Den of Thieves finally; since he had three days off this week (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). Then I went back and mapped out the first hideouts for each faction. They are small three map hideouts that are hidden pretty well right in the Town of Haven. Inside them will be the next few weapons, armors and the next helmet (next as in after the first shops in Haven) as well as some of the first skills and buffs.

After that I had Yuki make a test character to just go and you know; kill the monsters, level up, buy new equipment and such and find out if the money you get is enough to support buying what you need to buy (character will be deleted before Closed Beta).

So he found out that the money wasn't sufficient enough for most things. The potions and equipment costed way too much for the amount of gold you get. This is mainly because when I made and priced all that stuff I didn't even have the first NPC made so all that stuff was hard to judge, so I took a day or two to fix and balance the prices and go back and fix each shop. Now the reason I say this is because the Item Price can be set right to the item in the Item Editor; and can be directly used in the Shops (also effects the selling price of the item if the shop buys that type of item). Now, thanks to Yuki I noticed a bug on Xtreme Worlds. Let's say the Item Price in the Item Editor is 300 Gold for a Small Health Potion, I put it in the shop as well. Than I decide to lower the price to 30 Gold, so I go edit the Item Price in the Item Editor to 30 Gold. Now I go back to the shop and when I check how much it costs it says Small Health Potion costs 30 Gold blabla etc etc. But when I actually bought it, it docked 300 gold from me instead of 30. So I checked the shop and I found that it still said 300 in the Shop; so basically I still have to set the item on the shop again after I adjust its price in the Item Editor; what a bummer :3.

So the shops took me like 20 minutes to redo entirely until I noticed that by double clicking on a Item Entry in the shop it would put that Item with it's new price right there and all I had to do with hit Ok or whatever; than the shops took me like 30 seconds -.-. Funny thing is I realized after I had done all of the very large shops T.T!

So now that all of that fixing was done I started to create some starting quests; which are given by the Haven Groundskeeper. He has you do stuff such as kill wolf's and such that are bothering him while he is working. He also gives you a few Health and Mana potions and some gold and EXP for completing each quest.

I noticed that the quests could only give one reward, so I had DD set up a script so I could give multiple rewards and such.

So what I have to do now is add a few more beginner quests; and quests to to The Iron Mercenary (which will have some quests for weapons and armors as well as Gold and EXP). As well as getting all of the +, ++ and +x weapons in. I also have to add a few more NPC's to some areas to make it interesting.

That is all for this week, see everyone next week!

Thanks for listening,

-Scythe
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[Verious]

How much flexibility does the scripting system provide?

[Hajo]

Just want to say I very much like the tile art. It looks smooth and still very detailed, and maybe even more important very consistent .