Chaos Project

What type of message system would you all like to see in the game? Personally, I'm not opposed to just using the UMS, as many of us are familiar with the tag codes used in it, and it has pretty much every feature that we would need. If anyone else wants to nominate some other message system, or thinks that we should just create our own, feel free to voice your opinion.

Even if we decide to use an already created system such as the UMS, we still need to come up with exactly how we want things to look.

Some things that need discussion:

• Usage of facesets. Should we use them at all? If so, where should we place them? Should we have multiple faces for each character showing a variety of emotions, or just one face for each?
  
• Windowskin. Self-explanatory. Regardless of what message system we use, we're going to need some sort of windowskin.
  
• Name windows. Should they be used in addition to or in lieu of facesets?
  
• Letter/word appearance. All at once, or more slowly, to imitate actual speech?
  
• Message skipping. Should the player pressing/holding the button skip messages, or just speed them up considerably?
  
  

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  Here are my personal opinions on these issues:
  
  Adding multiple facesets for each of the main characters would add a lot of personality to their dialogue, and would make the game seem more immersive, so I think it's optimal to do so, if our artists are up to it.
  I think we should use both facesets and name windows for standard dialogue, and just name windows for shorter dialogue or one-liners.
  The window skin should be something on the darker side. Maybe a dark amber colour would look nice. We should choose something that goes with the rest of the artistic style of the game.
  I think letters should appear individually, but fairly quickly. When the player holds down the button, it should speed up considerably.
  
  

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  One other thing:
  
  As I mentioned in the story thread, there are a couple features I would like to implement, regardless of what system we use. These aren't entirely necessary to the game, but I think that they would be nice:
  
  
• Combat dialogue - characters would have things to say to each other every once and a while during battle, perhaps regarding what they are fighting or a recent plot event. These would probably use a name-window only (not a faceset.) We will need to make sure our combat system is capable of displaying messages in battle.
  
  
• Travelling dialogue - this might be a little more difficult to implement; I'm not sure if the UMS is capable of this. If it is possible, however, I'd like to see it implemented. Basically, while walking around, every once in a while the characters would talk to each other regarding various issues or plot events that have occurred. This dialogue would be automated; the player would have no control over it, as their controls would still have to be used for moving around. They would have to still be able to move and activate events while the dialogue is occurring. Any event that occurred would interrupt the dialogue. This was very well implemented in Dragon Age, and added a lot of personality and depth to the characters. However, DA used voice acting, making the system easier to pull off. It's my opinion that we could still do something similar using dialogue windows, but I may be mistaken. The windows would have to be as unobtrusive as possible, so we would probably only use name windows, not facesets, for these conversations.

I vote for the Asan'tear windowskin xD.

I have nothing else to say. :D

you could just make your own that way it would be unique

Quote from: WhiteRose on May 03, 2011, 11:52:47 am

• Usage of facesets. Should we use them at all? If so, where should we place them? Should we have multiple faces for each character showing a variety of emotions, or just one face for each?
  
  Here are my personal opinions on these issues:
  
  Adding multiple facesets for each of the main characters would add a lot of personality to their dialogue, and would make the game seem more immersive, so I think it's optimal to do so, if our artists are up to it.
  

I'd certainly like this idea and I've no problem on doing the facesets. Once I get to finish the actual character desings, I can get into this.

Quote from: WhiteRose on May 03, 2011, 11:52:47 am
I think we should use both facesets and name windows for standard dialogue, and just name windows for shorter dialogue or one-liners.

As I mentioned in the story thread, there are a couple features I would like to implement, regardless of what system we use. These aren't entirely necessary to the game, but I think that they would be nice:

• Combat dialogue - characters would have things to say to each other every once and a while during battle, perhaps regarding what they are fighting or a recent plot event. These would probably use a name-window only (not a faceset.) We will need to make sure our combat system is capable of displaying messages in battle.
  
  
• Travelling dialogue - this might be a little more difficult to implement; I'm not sure if the UMS is capable of this. If it is possible, however, I'd like to see it implemented. Basically, while walking around, every once in a while the characters would talk to each other regarding various issues or plot events that have occurred. This dialogue would be automated; the player would have no control over it, as their controls would still have to be used for moving around. They would have to still be able to move and activate events while the dialogue is occurring. Any event that occurred would interrupt the dialogue. This was very well implemented in Dragon Age, and added a lot of personality and depth to the characters. However, DA used voice acting, making the system easier to pull off. It's my opinion that we could still do something similar using dialogue windows, but I may be mistaken. The windows would have to be as unobtrusive as possible, so we would probably only use name windows, not facesets, for these conversations.
  

Agree with all this, both the battle-dialogue and the travelling-dialogue not only sound cool but looks like a need for this game if we want to develop the characters personalities.

Quote from: WhiteRose on May 03, 2011, 11:52:47 am
The window skin should be something on the darker side. Maybe a dark amber colour would look nice. We should choose something that goes with the rest of the artistic style of the game.
I think letters should appear individually, but fairly quickly. When the player holds down the button, it should speed up considerably.

I'd go with creating our own Windoskin, of course. Maybe we can have 3 different designs and have them change during the storyline too...

Regarding the text boxes, they should never be skipped, but there always have to be the chance of speeding them up.

I think our windowskin should share a few important things with our title:

1.  Mildly saturated colors and gold outlines.  Such a good combination
2.  Ornamental shapes.

Another thing we need to do is decide on a font + font size.  Be on the lookout for good ones.

EDIT: Fonts that I like:
Candara
Corbel
Estrangelo Edessa
EurostileExtended-Roman-DTC
Gill Sans MT
Harrington ** (best imo)
LuzSans-Book * (very good)
Nyala * (very good)
Sylfaen * (very good)

i suggest this (http://www.searchfreefonts.com/free/ld-music.htm) as a font

Too hard to read.

Kristen ITC (http://designgraphics.org/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&lid=121&title=Kristen%20ITC%20font) is similar to nathmatt's suggestion, but a little more legible.

actually this (http://www.fontspace.com/aldus/lubna-caps) looks closer to what i was thinking

the font is very artistic and would look nice as a title of a piece of art or something, but we need an in game font that it much more simple and easy to read.

Comic Sans?

Maybe Calibri or Segoe UI? Those are a few of my favourites for my desktop and utility applications. I'm not sure how well they would work in a game, though.

Comic SANSSSSS!!!!  :negative:

Please, people; remove Comic Sans from our vocabulary...