Trials in Tainted Space Bestiary Project! Please Read!
There are a few unanswered questions though in regards to how to approach this project and what someone can look to get out of it, so I would like to turn to the community and to my watchers for their input on what they would like to see out of a project like this in order to make it the best it possibly can be. So here are a few things that need to be covered....
1) Originally I asked people if they wanted a representation of all the genders a given species had available to it and the result was a decided “Yes”. Now what this will mean in a game like this one, is that some species may have less than two genders and some may have more. I am assuming that in the long term scale of things, the average will typically come to two. If there is a species of naturally wild morphic bodies, there may have to be a compromise struck in only that a few examples are given on the illustrated end of things....especially if these creatures are more template than full creatures in their own right. But what I'd like to know here is whether or not people are only interested in a stripped down nude image for each, or if there is an interest in seeing the sort of wardrobe/armor/gear this species might typically wear.
2) A big question that should be addressed right away is the funding. The two main options appear to be Offbeatr or Patreon. Patreon has the benefit of providing the income at a steady pace over the course of time but the draw back of being new...at least in terms of me using it. This would allow people to pledge funding by the week for me to collect on and keep working through the week the way someone might any other given job. The other option is Offbeatr, which uses a more familiar crowd funding format in that things are pledged up front over a period of time and then the sum is collected in one lump chunk after Offbeatr takes a sizeable 20% or so. This has the advantage of giving me a large sum of money for adult stuff like getting married or maybe a down payment on a house of my own, but has the draw back of forcing me to charge a bit more in order to compensate for the percentage and still make that liveable wage viable. I'd love to hear thoughts on this from people who'd be looking to fund the project, and where they'd like to put their dollar. The project would be to service these interested parties afterall, and so they should have a say right?
3) Regardless of which payment option is chosen, benchmarks will have to be set and set numbers put down. Now offbeatr would require a lot of this stuff be decided up front and right away while patreon would allow a more dynamic shifting approach as the project progressed along.... but in the end the question remains: Which Species!? A lot of people are generating fantastic content for this game just as they did for Corruption of Champions and I don't want anyone to be left out in the cold on this... but I am only one person with my limitations. How do I decide which species get done? How should benchmarks effect this? Should someone get to make a sort of executive call if they've contributed a larger amount? Deciding which go in at which time is important and I'd like it to make sense, be fair, and above all service the people who not only are funding but the other people contributing to the project! Thoughts on this are a must.
4) As it stands now, the project is just illustrations. So many of the writer's are more skilled than I am with the written word, and so their content will be what is kept as the codex I'm sure. What I'm providing is the art. Which means that week after week people would be treated to new illustrations of each of the species when they are decided. However, I want to know if people would be interested in some of the information (all the info?) being included in an assembled format with the illustrations. Or perhaps even a digital book type thing at the end that combines the information given for the game with the illustrations I provide? Or maybe something that follows the lines of an artbook instead with a nicely formated book style, call outs, and bits of equipment added to the existing illustrations to flesh out each species in a comprehensive but visually focused way? I imagine this sort of thing would need to be a benchmark of sorts, as the compiling and additional material, if not already provided, would need to be generated on top of everything else after the fact.
However this goes down though, this will effectively be my job once it is underway. For the last month or so I have been getting up at the same time every day, getting on my computer, and banging out art for people on a piecemeal commission basis. It's been ok so far, but if a week is dry it adversely effects my home life in sometimes severe ways as shortages of money often do. I work for eight hours or so a day, sometimes more and seldom less. I often stream these things for people to interact with me as I work, sometimes on their stuff. I have the discipline, I have the drive, now I just need the work and the funding to make sure it is being put to good use. As soon as this project is under way, my full work days of nothing but art become focused on this and the Transruption project, the latter of which needs a good deal of work so that it can lend assistance to the TITS character viewer down the road.
What will this mean for commissions? It means the ones I have will be finished on my own time in the evenings, possibly during bonus streams or while I'm chilling out watching netflix. After the existing commissions are completed, future commissions will be taken on a case by case basis as the main projects work permits. If I was using the Offbeatr format this would mean likely less commissions, but if I was using a Patreon format it could mean folding some of that work in to a given weekly workload, depending on the kind of funding I'd be pulling in weekly. Obviously if everybody is throwing me a tone of money I'd like to justify that funding with more work provided.
So there it is, I want people's thoughts on all of this. I want suggestions, comments, ideas. Whatever you got, throw it my way in whatever means is best for you so that I can use it and get this project posted and underway as soon as possible.
XP! Everyone loves to have it, especially when it means getting stronger, faster – you know the drill. But what everybody hates is having to walk back to sleep and level up, knowing that every fight and every scrap of experience you collect along the way is utterly wasted. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is sitting at the current level cap and knowing that playing the game more won’t help you out at all the next time we bump it up! Doesn’t that just burn you up?
Another episode of Trials in Tainted Space. May contain long walls of text and keep in mind there's no sound so don't play this video if this easily bore you.
- A Fire Emblem fan site since 1st February 2005. This site was created to provide accurate and reliable information about the Fire Emblem series.
- The stats seem to gate content in complex ways, and that results in different experiences in different playthroughs, if your stats actually vary. If you want, I think it's possible to max out all the stats however you like, but it takes time. Unlike some other games, the stat system is doing what it should, and creating consequences.
- Pages in category ‘Core stats’ The following 7 pages are in this category, out of 7 total.
It does for Savin.
Well, there are a few reasons I built the game to work that way. Initially I wanted to avoid an exponential experience system (I always hated when XP numbers got ridiculous), but I also wanted to avoid players leveling up too fast. In order to keep the player from hitting level 8 by the time they finished Mhen’ga, I established a system that required heading back to town to level up, ensuring that by the time you finished running around on a planet, you could only snag one more level before heading off to the next.
Yes, it’s still possible to farm levels in that way, but the game was never intended to be played in such a way. More pressingly, the artificial headache that I introduced by having it work that way was bothersome to my staff and myself. So I bit the bullet and converted us to a more exponential experience system. All the NPCs in the game have been swapped to generate an XP value based on their level (with bosses giving double). What this means is I’m going to start letting you bank XP beyond your current level.
It also means that I’m slowing down leveling a bit, and that lower level enemies should be even less efficient for leveling up now. Level 5 enemies might give 5,000 XP now, but if you’re level 7, you’ll want to smack the level 7 foes and collect 15,000 XP each from them. The numbers are subject to change, of course. That’s the beauty of how I have it set up. I can change one formula, and the whole system automatically aligns itself to match.
(Pictured Huskar is Freja. Who knows if her author is gonna finish her though! Lovely art by CheshireCatSmile37!)
Trials In Tainted Space Children
“Are you tired of THIS happening?” The kui-tan’s expression crinkles into a look of bliss, as he extends his free hand to a pile of silver condoms on a nightstand near by. He pulls a fistful back, but notices with horror that they’re all empty wrappers. His body shivers, and a massive jet of sticky white stuff shoots up roughly from the position of his lap, drenching the tanuki in a matter of seconds. He blinks, wiping the goop away from his eyes and turns to the camera with an exasperated shrug.