Monday, October 16, 2017

Have turned over the keys of DQ1 Remake, or rather given a copy of them to another

I have put my DQ1 Remake project on hold for now, or rather, I have given developer access to Jaimas of the Kiwi Farms to examine it and make any improvements he deems fit.

Jaimas has proven to be an exemplary beta tester, having pointed out many flaws and imperfections that needed addressed, and since he has a copy of RPG Maker and the associated material needed to work on it when he has the time to devote himself to doing so, I have since provided him access to a developer build of the current project.

This means any further progress will be on hold until he gets back to me, but I consider this important to do since he is someone whom I trust to do a good job shaping up the rough edges of this project, and it is my hope this collaboration results in an exemplary production.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

DQ1 Remake 2.25 Beta Release

Jaimas of the Kiwi Farms has been playtesting my game of late, and noted many issues with graphics, sound effects, music, game balance, and some other minor concerns that have necessitated a new game update, with will be 2.25, which will replace Beta 2.20.

It has the following:

1. Redid translations of many items, weapons, armor, enemies, and so on to match later DQ game translations.

2. Lots more musical variety.

3. Additional sound effects.

4. Many enemy graphics redone and retouched for better fidelity.

5. Several balance changes to make bosses less a joke at some points.

6. Several minor bugs and a few crashes fixed.

It can be downloaded here:

https://mega.nz/#!ZQcTGQ4C!DDFiIrVXYwohZr4FCNSp3A4WTo5Mq8S67t0Otf7BPKY

Thursday, August 24, 2017

DQ1 Remake Beta 2.30 in progress

I'm writing this post to give a progress report on Beta 2.30 of DQ1 Remake.

Thankfully, this build won't force me to add too much more content, but it has presented a new problem that forced me to take my time.

The main new area I have to complete is Charlock Castle, and while I generally made my own versions of DQ1 locations out of whole cloth while maybe taking some minor inspiration from the level design of the originals at best, I wanted to do a nigh perfect homage to the original level design of Charlock Castle since I plan to reuse this in any possible sequels, but I had an issue.

The level design of this Castle between DQ 1, 2, and 3 was VERY inconsistent.

DQ1 was the worst offender. On top of being oddly small and cramped, the bottom floor had a tileset that looked like it belonged on the surface, so I decided not to use that one.

DQ2 was simply a slightly expanded version of the DQ1 version, and it wasn't much better.

DQ3 had the best and most logical floor plan and a tileset design that made actual sense from top to bottom, so I'm going with that.

However, even though I'm trying to mimic the original floor plans as well as I can within the VX Ace engine limits, that means I'm having to make some design alterations, mostly to account for having better tiles and tiling methods at my disposal. I'm also having to make a custom tileset for this area, but thankfully I have all the pieces I need, I just need to put them all together in GIMP.

As for custom character graphics, good news is that I'm completely covered on this front, and I commissioned some special art from Fumirei awhile back for the Dragonlord that looks just like the original artwork while not running into any copyright issues (though the original design is still based off that by Enix and it's artists and will be credited appropriately).

As for events and scripting, again, this won't be an issue.

I do plan to alter how the sequence of events plays out in the next build, so the dialogue tree for when the Dragonlord is encountered will be subject to change by next build.

Progress is mostly done on the maps for now, more as I continue development.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake is finally live

I have finally released Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake on my MEGA account, after a long time in closed beta.

Everything up to the Cave To Charlock Castle is finished (there is a monument that tells you you need to save for the next build, which will be removed in the next version). The Catilin area is fully fleshed out, as are any remaining overworld areas, save for one or two on the Charlock Castle landmass (these will be fleshed out in the next few builds).

The next build will have the normal ending implemented, the build after will implement the bonus ending, and the build after is planned to be the final build.

Unlike the original Dragon Quest, my game does not have a "bad ending" option, but it may be added in some manner by the final build.

A few bugs have been fixed in this build, including a UI bug, and a lot of legacy code and crash issues were finally dealt with. Most of this is thanks to the extremely dedicated bugtesting done by Stagefright.

And, for the following websites and groups, I have added the following characters:

Encyclopedia Dramatica: Lulzkiller (as King Kunt) (his character works in one of the banks as a LFG representative in Rimuldar)

Kiwi Farms: (Archmage) Jaimas, Lord Cipher Luna (aka Joshua "Null" Moon) and Aeterna Concordia (aka Peace and Harmony) - all can be found in Catilin, where I even tossed in some references to some Kiwi Farms memes and events.

r/KotakuInAction: HandOfBane (say hi to "The Legendary Bane" in the Catilin bank/League For Gamers branch office store)

Beta 2.20 can be downloaded here:

https://mega.nz/#F!VM8iGYzL!pc8SDIOJ7H-aoPqDdQ3hEw

You can also find the latest copy of the game readme at the same.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

DQ1 Remake 2.20 is getting some further balance changes before stable release

I'm now almost done with getting DQ1 Remake Beta 2.20 out of closed beta and ready for stable release, but before I do that, some issues need to be fixed as mentioned in my previous blog post. Also, the following changes for balance will be done.

1. Many more spells will have accuracy fluctuations. The original Dragon Quest games had this to prevent them from being too OP for enemies or players, and the more powerful spells and skills will have lower accuracy than their initial versions, especially multi-hit skills and spells.

2. On top of redoing the scripting for my bonus dungeon quest, the cursed and uncursed items you can get doing this will be rebalanced. Also, they will have actual gold values assigned to them to make them sellable, should the player opt to do so. I also will eliminate some items that were cloned to normalize game balance, as I was unsure where to put a few of these items several times during development, and this will be corrected for the final time before 2.20 releases in a stable form.

3. A few skills have been modified to be more useful or to fix issues with bad coding.

Monday, July 10, 2017

Nearly done with DQ1 Beta 2.20 beta testing, and some commentary on another game dev's project

This is an update for those who are following my DQ1 Remake project. The 2.20 beta has been through about ten revisions now, and in each one tons of bugs have been fixed, as I want to leave all the engine issues behind me so they do not plague me in future builds, and I want to thank beta tester Stagefright in particular.

His efforts to find and document all my numerous screwups so I could fix them have been nothing less than Herculean, and I just want to say, "Semper Fidelis" to him for all his fine work at unearthing all the fail in my project so I could fix it.

Due to his tireless efforts, the following is now no longer an issue.

1. More legacy broken code is now removed.
2. The last remaining shards of my old dialogue code should be gone.
3. A longstanding UI glitch when displaying skill data is now fixed.
4. Skills in general have received numerous fixes to damage, calculation of effect, and other fixes.
5. Tons of game crashing issues now no longer a problem.

The following needs to be fixed though:

1. Some broken transfer triggers in various areas towards the end of the game.
2. The event coding for my bonus dungeon unlock is jacked up. It was ancient code I set up in one of the earliest builds of my game, and I finally discovered it's obsolete and buggy, and due to a oversight Stagefright discovered, is prone to screwing the player out of the bonus dungeon key by mistake very easily, and thus that event sequence will be rewritten in its entirety to avoid this.

Once I have fixed all this and Stagefright confirms I've no longer fucked anything else up (won't lie, I screwed up a LOT), I will release the official 2.20 build of my game, which I plan to dedicate to the Kiwi Farms, because those guys are awesome and I even threw in a lot of shoutouts to them in the town of Catilin to show my appreciation.

And on that note, I want to mention another game dev I'm aware of named Alex Mahan, the guy who does the Yandere Simulator game, which, as I understand it, is a crippled POS he does very little work on and has numerous issues which the Kiwis have pointed out in this thread:

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/evaxephon-yanderedev-alex-mahan-alexander-stuart-mahan.19311/

From what I've seen, he's a lazy asshole with some messed up fetishes, but more importantly, as a game dev, his project is an abysmal garbage heap of bad coding, bad game design, and it has been stalled in terms of actually being playable for the longest time now because it's developer is shiftless, easily butthurt over any criticism, no matter how reasonable, and refuses to humble himself and admit when his coding skills can't do what he promises and when what he has produced is frankly subpar work.

It is this I want to address him on:

Alex, as a game dev, I'll be blunt: When you get called out for producing a piece of shit, and people present good reason based on the objective quality of your work to call it shit, fall on your sword, admit it, and work your ass off. If you fuck up, own up to it and work on it, and learn to treat your beta testers with respect. Mine are a gift from God himself, and when they tell you what you screwed up, show some damned pride in your craft and fix it instead of dragging ass and getting asshurt over being told you aren't perfect.


In fact, I'm just going to be harsh: Your godawful project has inspired me to work harder on mine, and unlike you, I definitely plan to have mine fully released as a finished game before the end of this year unlike yours, and if you have any self respect, you will prove me wrong.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

DQ1 Remake Beta 2.20 halfway done with beta testing

I'm taking a lot more time than usual to verify this DQ1 Remake build is ready for release before taking it out of closed beta, for three reasons:

1. This build will be the very last build where any scripting changes occur. The engine will be essentially complete after this build.

2. Per the first reason, this will allow the remain builds to proceed much more quickly, now that any remaining scripting work is over.

3. I now have a roadmap for eventual "Gold release per the first two reasons, as outlined here:

Beta 2.20: Everything just shy of the final dungeon of the normal route done.


Beta 2.30: Normal route finished, finished all the basics of the true route path.


Beta 2.40: True route ending implemented.


Gold Release: Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong. This version will receive any last minute polish, bug fixes, and will be the definitive build.

Monday, May 15, 2017

Another progress report on the DQI Remake 2.20 Closed Beta

After getting some more bug reports about Garinheim, I had to fix a lot of buggy tile collision issues, including being able to walk through certain portions of houses, being able to hop stair well where you shouldn't, and other wall clipping weirdness.

I should have fixed all of this.

I also got a complaint about how it looks how some landings make it look like the character is walking on the landing railing, not the floor, and I tried to fix this the best I could, but the tile art and the fact I have a 2D engine make some of this perspective weirdness unavoidable, and since I had to pay for the assets I used for the Garenheim town art, I'd have to contact the artist or someone with the same DLC pack I paid for who would be willing to modify it, as my own art skills are not that good.

I also made a few minor overworld map adjustments, nothing major, just shaved down the Hauksness and Rimuldar overworld areas a little bit.

I'm still awaiting more bug reports, but while I await them, I did make a minor story change.

Sarah is supposed to be a soldier who was detached from regular duty for personal reasons to help you, but because she's not officially on the clock, she can't use her authority as a soldier to help you until she resumes her regular post. I was informed I didn't make this entirely clear, so I extended her introduction a little and gave the player a choice to tell her you're okay with that and just grateful for the help or that you find it disappointing, both of which will modify the relationship value system I built in to the game a little bit.

I might as a few more of these altered dialogues in other areas as well, but this is the only one I've done out of necessity so far.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Closed Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake Continued Feedback

Got some more feedback on my closed beta and it looks like I have some more bugs to fix:

1. Seems I still have some remnants of the old dialogue system in place, need to purge that.

2. Fixing a small frameskip bug in town when picking up vegetation and eggs.

3. Complaints some music and SFX are too loud, will fix by cutting their level by 50% across the board.

4. Fix the bank, has some old code that causes graphical issues.

I plan to meticulously fix as many bugs before releasing this build, as I want the game as mechanically solid as possible before implementing the normal ending, final dungeon, and any content beyond that.

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Closed Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake Feedback

I've already gotten some feedback from beta testers, and I've already fixed a lot of issues regarding UI problems, including screwed up text and number displays.

I reverted the player menu back to using the classic row format instead of the column view to fix a few more issues, but this is merely a cosmetic change.

Fonts had to be resized in several places for optimal display, and aside from a harmless "flash of unstyled content" glitch (the first character in the menu will briefly have their name and the "level' marker turn bold, then normal text), the menu is now free of UI problems, and the glitch is quite harmless for now, so I'm leaving it as a low priority to be fixed in later builds.

I have also begun experimenting with how to integrate content from DQ1 in any possible sequel, since I did have one planned, and I'm pleased to say my experiments with how to port content for us have proven quite successful, so any possible sequel, should I make one, will be able to incorporate areas from the original game in full (barring changes explicit to the sequel of course), which would be a great improvement over how most areas from the original DQ1 were greatly abbreviated in scope in DQ2.

Once beta testers finish getting back to me Beta 2.20 will enter public beta, and work will begin on the next build, in which the endings will be implemented, or such is the idea at this time.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

About ready for sending out the closed beta of Build 2.20 of DQ1 Remake

I'm on the cusp of sending out the closed beta of Build 2.20 of DQ1 Remake to beta testers, and I have to admit this build stops shy of including a lot of content I wanted to add because, frankly, I have so many game balance concerns at this point I don't want to add a ton of new areas and content before I have that resolved.

Several fixes over 2.10 include:

1. Scripting fixes for the minigames to resolve some crash issues.

2. Hopefully have removed all traces of the original crappy dialouge system code.

3. Code/resource bloat has been trimmed as much as possible, frame rate should be better overall, no more lag spikes.

4. Some further balance fixes to enemies and some random steal skill crashes should also be fixed.

5. Implemented some code meant for use in later builds, but only partially, most is dummied out for now because I don't want to totally enable some scripting code without finishing more content that would require it for stability reasons.

6. Have attempted some preliminary streamlining and optimization of all resources included in the game for it's eventual "gold" release. Many soundtrack files still need looping and I've still got some resources that aren't used but are retained in case any code still calls for their existence, this will be addressed later.

I also admit after a certain point I have not extensively tested some content and it's functional but not complete because I want a good idea about balance issues first before doing anything ambitious or polishing any rough spots.

Once I have made sure all the essentials will functional as advertised more or less and that no major showstopping bugs remain, I'll be packaging the current build and sending out the closed beta to testers.

Friday, April 14, 2017

DQ1 Remake Build 2.20 Resource Delay

I've had a bit of a snag as I have been hunting down custom resources for the bonus dungeon areas of my game. Since the assets required some custom editing and some mix and match optimal use in VX Ace (and it took a few tries to get it to look right), I've had a bit of a delay, but most of the graphical side is far behind me.

The music is now my remaining concern. I wanted custom music for this section to emphasize how much difference there is between the bonus dungeon and the rest of the game, much like how the Culex bonus boss in Super Mario RPG just stood out due to is dramatic clash with the rest of the game.

My biggest issue has been hunting down resources that were available for use that fit the theme, and I've finally found some worthy candidates, hope to have my music score picked out and ready to go soon.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

DQ1 Remake Build 2.20 Scripting Changes Update

One of my goals for DQ1 Remake Build 2.20 was to eliminate all the source of lag spiking noticed in earlier builds, and I discovered what caused most of it.

The user interface code was loading a lot of external assets by default. It looked nice, but unfortunately the code was very inefficient, and the lag spikes were caused by how poorly all that extra information moved in and out of memory.

To fix this, I tossed out the old interface for items/skills/equipment/shops and redid it using simpler code. I also removed some scripts that were loaded into memory but weren't doing anything.

The results have been incredible, with framerate issues hammered down to nil, the improved scripting shows more tactically useful information, and a lot of load bloat is gone, meaning the game starts much faster.

This does have a gameplay change in that only one accessory can be equipped, not two, but I consider this an improvement for game balance, as two accessories of certain types could be  a bit overpowered.

This will require players of the older builds start a new save, which is unavoidable, but the trade-off of a far more stable game with much smoother FPS is more than acceptable from where I'm standing.

This will push back my ETA only a little more than I planned, since most of these changes proved very easy to implement, I just need to test some edge case scenarios to make sure no game crashes happen.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

DQ1 Remake Build 2.20 Beta Test Balance Updates

I'm still working out a lot of balance and scripting bugs in Catilin, and I've made the following changes because play balance was important to me.

* Lora is a lot more squishy. Originally, I set her defense to rise about to the same heights as Sarah, which makes her nigh invincible at times, so now I've reset her defensive power to be not much more better than Mara. Keeping both in the back row and loading them up with defense boosting equipment will keep both alive for sure, but both are now around the same level scale of physical defense given they are magic class users.

* In a future update, I'll switch out weapons to use a non MP costing version of the spells equipped items will let you cast, but for now I'm retaining it for further balance testing.

* There are two bosses in the Catilin area, and I've set one to be the "easy" boss and one to be the "hard" boss. The easy boss is NOT immune to insta-death, nor most other status effects.

* Icebolt got a boost since it was a pretty weak spell. Some other spells may get some tweaks as well.

Friday, March 24, 2017

Beta testing DQ1 Remake Build 2.20 now

I currently have a lot of beta testing for Build 2.20 of DQ1 Remake I'm doing now, and while I don't have half s much unfinished content to worry about like I did before, I need to test the following:

Play Balance: Catilin, much like in the original game and DQ3, is the shopping mall of my world, and you can get some excellent gear, some of which is but a step or two down from some of the best gear in the game, so I'm going to have to make sure play balance isn't set to make things too easy or hard regardless of your equipment.

Scripting: I have a considerable amount of game events that revolve around scripts in this build, and I have to make sure none of them are broken.

Next build preparations: In the next build, I plan to make the normal route of the game beatable as well as completely unlock the bonus dungeon and true ending route, Certain IRL events have made progress slow, but I hope to get on with it because I really want to finish this sooner or later.

Optimization: Some of my maps are getting tweaks to fix speed issues, have recently tweaked Catilin to use a smaller overall map size without losing any details, plan to do the same to other maps.

Consistency: In my continuing quest to make sure WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), I'm tweaking all maps to continue to have visual consistency when changing areas.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

I just discovered there are a bunch of crazed lunatics who think drinking industrial solvents cures autism

Before I address the main topic of this post, I just want to get something about autism out of the way first.

I have it. I live with it every day, and while it's very crippling in many ways, I know there is no cure for it and it will be with me til the day I die, and I accept that.

But there is nothing that would make me think in a million years that I could cure myself by drinking bleach or gasoline. If I wanted to kill myself, those would be effective means of doing so, but they are NOT sane medicinal solutions for a developmental disorder.

For starters, bleach is an incredibly powerful chemical used for cleaning. Some forms of bleach are indeed used in medical fields like dentistry to whiten teeth, but they are not intended to be ingested orally, merely used as a passive tooth whitener. Some forms of bleach are used for food preparation, like flour whitening, but this is again a passive use of bleach and the active components of the bleaching are generally removed from the final product to make the flour safe for baking and human consumption.

Past this, there is no legitimate reason anyone should drink bleach to cure any medical problem. The bond it forms with cells is so strong it generally kills most on mere contact by destroying the cell membrane with it's sheer corrosiveness. This is which bleach is used as an external disinfectant, and generally why you aren't supposed to drink it, because it does not discriminate between microbial bacteria and viruses and healthy human cells.

So, for the deranged loons out there who think you can cleanse yourself by drinking bleach, all you are doing is killing yourselves and telling yourself the garbage that comes out of your rectal canal and urine when you do this is purging infection.

No, you aren't. You are abrading away the internals of your body, which will leads to illness, internal bleeding, and death.

As for drinking gas, that's just as bad if not worse. It also can be used to break up oil products like bleach, and is not meant to be taken internally because, like bleach, it has extremely nasty corrosive properties that will kill healthy cell material.

I write this because, to my horror, I have discovered there are insane cults devoted to this madness like the "Church of Genesis II" who peddle this crazy poison called Mineral Miracle Solution, which is essentially industrial bleach these fools are not only killing themselves with, these monsters want to give it to children to cure autism, which it can't do.

It will certainly kill those children and/or leave them greatly crippled mentally and physically though.

In short, as an admitted autisitc, these people are insane. They cannot cure autistics of any age of anything.

Except the ability to keep breathing.


Sunday, March 12, 2017

More bug testing, more fixes for DQ1 Remake Beta 2.10V2

Currently play-testing the Hauksness area, and after I get it all balanced and make sure everything up to the Lord Edward quest works, I'll release a Beta 2.10V2 to replace the first version, which is a hot mess of bugs, bad balance, and overall fail.

In the meantime, incorporated the following fixes.

* Healing spells have had their resistance modifier check removed. I had to do this or healing spells would eventually be useless due to magic defense nullifying it at a certain point.

* Several enemies in the Hauksness region had a tone down, they were OP to an insane degree. They are still hard, but now they are much more bearable.

* Several more dialogue bugs were fixed and some tileset edits were done to the Great Caravan for better realism, like being able to walk under most open air stalls.

* In the 2.20 build, I'll refine the bonus dungeon balance a little, but I kept them somewhat harder than the regions around them since they all have some OP stuff (especially for Mara).

A plea for sanity to KIA users

I write this article with a sigh on my lips and a palm to my face because I thought that people are panicking too much on KIA.

Yes, mods have been squelching certain topics, and maybe on some of them, they could ease up a tad. However, I think a few arguments against them are a bit ridiculous.

1. MUH PAGE VIEWS!

I hate this argument. I'd rather 1 person who benefits from my work read it than have 100 people who only show up to throw rotten fruit at it, and while page views might have decreased, so long as it's of benefit to someone, I don't see the point in obsessing over this unless you are an attention whore.

2. Has the core mission changed? No.

KIA is about opposing crappy journalism, gamer news pertaining to censorship, culture, and politics related to gaming as well as general watchdogging on gaming in general. None of that has changed.

When the mods don dangerhair wigs and start declaring a need for safe spaces, then I'll start to panic, but as long as they aren't doing that, I think a few people should chill.

3. Some topics really do need to die.

There was a time I could look at KIA's newest thread feed and see a ton of garbage like unfunny shitposting, reposts of earlier topics, and covering every attention whoring idiot on both sides of GamerGate.

That has dropped by a massive degree, and I for one could not be more pleased.

4. Accusations are much less effective than logic.

Instead of screaming "Fascists!"at the mods whenever they make an unpopular change, I suggest coming up with a logical set of reasons their change is objectively terrible, with evidence to back it up, and then if they still put their heads in the sand or treat you like the bad guy for being reasonable in your dissent, then start to worry. Until then, I think a few people are going at this a little half-cocked and need to calm down a little.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

The Book of Leviticus: Cliff Notes Edition

The Book of Leviticus is seen as one of the more 'boring' books in the Bible, but I just happen to be painfully autistic and love it, mostly because I find it's breakdown of the rules for the Israelites interesting.

Below is a simplified summary of the book, with some trivia explained:

(Unless otherwise specified, all offerings had to be without defect)

Burnt Offerings: Compulsory offerings where an animal was totally cooked to ashes on the altar for God alone. Only male goats/lambs or bulls were acceptable.

Grain Offerings: Semi-compulsory offerings by themselves, though sometimes required alongside other offerings. Either unleavened bread or wafers of bread, prepared with oil and salt, with a portion sprinkled with incense before burned on the altar. The priests could eat the rest. No honey or yeast could be mixed in. Newly harvested grain was sacrificed at the start of the harvest season, same general rules otherwise.

Fellowship Offerings: AKA "Peace offerings". Semi-compulsory by themselves, compulsory during certain times of the year as part of certain events. Priests could eat certain portions, but the rest was burned on the altar for God. Fat and blood had to be drained out and not eaten, so the meat had to be well done and as lean as possible.

** Thankfulness Offerings: Same as above but with a grain offering mixed in, offered as an expression of gratitude.

Sin Offerings: Offered for breaking a commandment of God's without intentional malice. Offerings ranged from young bulls to female goats, depending on the stature of the party who committed the offense.. Same general rules otherwise for fellowship offerings. The poor could offer birds like doves or fine flour as alternative sacrifices. If prepared in clay pots, they had to be broken afterwards, but bronze pots were to be rinsed and scoured.

Guilt Offerings: Unlike sin offerings, these were offered when God was specifically displeased, rather than just for sinning in general. Hefty penalty of a ram as demanded as payment. Priests could keep the hide of the animal for themselves.

Vow Offerings: Offerings made as a promise: Whatever the sacrifice was, rules mentioned above apply depending on type of offering.

Freewill Offerings: Offered for no particular reason than wanting to. Only offering where animals could be deformed or stunted and it would still be accepted.

Firstfruits Offerings: Offered at the beginning of harvest season, all first harvested plants and animals had a portion sacrificed as a wave offering. Often a drink offering of a quart of wine was poured on the altar as well.

Drink Offering: Often a supplementary offering added to other offerings, generally a quart of wine was poured on the altar.

Wave Offerings: A sacrificed item had a portion waved before the altar. These portions could be eaten by the priests unless otherwise stated by God.

No Fat or Blood Provision: The fat of herd/flock animals was forbidden to eat. Blood was forbidden because it was the animals lifeforce, and eating it was considered bloodshed by God. Essentially, meat had to be well done or not eaten at all.

Clean and Unclean Food:

Animals: Had to have a split hoof completely divided and a herbivore. Otherwise, could not be eaten.

Seafood; Had to have fins and scales.

Birds: Pigeons, quail, and doves could be eaten.

Insects: Locusts, grasshoppers, and katydids could be eaten.

Unclean animals could not be eaten or have their carcasses touched, or the one who did so would be unclean and need to be cleansed.

Purification Offerings: Offered by women due to having a child. After a waiting period, they had to offer a lamb and dove, or two doves or two pigeons if poor. One was a burnt offering, one was a sin offering.

Skin Diseases: Priests were to inspect various diseases of the flesh, and were to either isolate the affected party or pronounce them clean. Until pronounced clean, they had to live outside the camp and announce they were unclean to passerby's.

Cleansing required a burnt, grain, and guilt offering after a week of confirmed cleanliness.

Mildew: Clothes and houses with it were to be isolated, cleaned, and reused after a certain period, unless it kept coming back, in which case the articles were destroyed.

Cleansing required two birds. One killed, their blood mixed in a pot of fresh water, then it was sprinkled over the live bird which was set free after the mildewed item was cleaned.

Unclean discharges: Sexual fluids or bleeding wounds. Same rules of skin diseases, cleansing required two birds, one for sin, one as a burnt offering.

Day of Atonement: All day ritual where multiple animals for sin and burnt offering were sacrificed, with a goat led outside the camp to carry away all sin of the people. Where the term "scapegoat" is derived.

Unlawful sexual relations; Incest, adultery, or sleeping with a woman having her period. Homosexuality and bestiality were also forbidden, with these two carrying an instant death penalty, all others had various penalties, generally revolving around exile from the other people.

Various laws: People had to leave grain for the poor and show respect to the disabled and elderly, among other various laws like prohibitions against practicing magic, not getting tattoos, not encouraging prostitution, using honest weights and measures, as well as showing hospitality to foreigners.

Rules for priests: Had to marry virgins, could not marry a divorced woman. All members of the priesthood had to be without physical infirmity or they could not be priests, though they could still eat the offering portions. Ordinary priests could make themselves unclean to attend to dying or ill family members, but the high priest could not even do that.

Sabbaths: On the seventh day of the week, no regular work could be done.

Passover: Began at midnight on first month of Jewish calendar. For seven days people had to eat bread without yeast. A burnt offering had to be prepared as well and no work could be done on the first and seventh days.

Feast of Weeks: Seven weeks and fifty days after Firstfruits were sacrificed, this began. No work was done on this day, two loaves of bread and seven male lambs were sacrficed, along with a young bull and two rams. A mix of burnt, grain, sin, and fellowship offerings were made on this day.

Feast of Trumpets: On the first say of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar no regular work was done on a day commemorated with trumpet blasts. A burnt offering was made on this day to God.

Feast of Tabernacles: Began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, lasted eight days.No regular work was done on days one and eight. Multiple types of all offering were required to be made each day. Also, all Israelites had to live in tents like they did before the Promised land was theirs as a reminder of their former status during this time.

Oil and Bread Before The Altar: Oil for the lamps had to be changed out regularly for the altar lights, made of pressed olives. Bread was to be set on the altar table regularly for each Sabbath as a burnt grain offering.

Blasphemy: A capital offense, punishable by stoning.

Sabbath Year: On the seventh year after initial sowing of the fields, the seventh year they were to lie fallow.

Year of Jubilee; Every forty-nine years. On the fiftieth year, it was not only a Sabbath year, this meant all Israelites could reclaim any property they had leased out (family property could not be permanently sold) and be freed from any bondage by debt. Houses could be redeemed one year after their sale in this time, while lands was always to be redeemed.

Rewards and Punishments for Obedience and Disobedience: God promised blessings for obeying him and curses for disobeying him.

Redemption of the Lord's property: If any property was set aside for God by a vow, it would be given a special value and it would be added to until the Year of Jubilee, when it was tallied up. No thing consecrated to God could be switched out in this interval, it would only be added to the existing vow, and could not be redeemed back from God later.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Buld 2.10V2 and Build 2.20 progress of DQ1 Remake

I've finally gotten up to the Hauksness area for testing, and I've already fixed some more issues

* Game balance has been further tweaked and polished. Lora gains levels slightly faster than everyone else, but I'm leaving this alone, since she can be recruited at a point where she'll need it.

* Fixed odd scripting bug where a 'New Game+ tag would be added to save files, turned out to be a control switch issue, I have no NG+ features built in or planned for.

* Several more remnants of the old dialogue system were removed. The game was effectively unwinnable past defeating the dragon guarding the princess, this has been fixed and Build 2.10V2 will be released when I'm done with the Hauksness region, will supplant my previous 2.10 build.

* New art for the dragon's portrait has been added.

* Noticed a very rare crash bug that occurs when changing through multiple different types of windows while changing scenes in quick succession. I haven't been able to duplicate it enough to the point it's worrisome, so unless it keeps cropping up, I consider it a low priority bug for now.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Top five dumbest people in the Bible

A friend of mine who read my previous post about Bible humor pointed out that the Bible was amazingly honest about a lot of stupid people in the Bible, and even though the Bible is a mostly human document with some quotes from God, it's still quite impressive for the level of unvarnished human stupidity it covers without trying to whitewash it.

And since some of the mind boggling idiocy is funny in hindsight, I'd like to to cover the top five dumbest people in the Bible.


5. Nabal, the guy who decided to piss off David for no good reason.

This guy seemed rather appropriate to start off with, because his very name means someone who is a fool, and while his stupidity is rather brief, it's still astoundingly dumb.

During David's days wandering around as a mercenary and blade for hire, he found some really rich dude named Nabal with a ton of livestock who was currently doing a lot of harvest work, and David generously offered to provide security for his farm animals as well as farm hands in exchange for room and board for himself and his men.

David did not have a reputation for cheating on these agreements nor was he the type to force himself on people, so Nabal could have either said "thanks, but no thanks" or made the legitimate point David was basically a fugitive at the time and that he didn't want to be seen as aiding and abetting and that he wanted David and his men to leave.

Nabal did neither. Instead, he basically went out of his way to call David a worthless POS, accused him of horrible things, and was extremely nasty about wanting David and friends to get out and stay out.

This was incredibly stupid since David had a pretty decent force of armed men at this point with an impressive military reputation, and while David was the kind of guy who would have accepted a polite refusal, Nabal's refusal to be anything less than a complete and utter dick pissed off David enough he told his guys to sharpen their knives so they could be put in Nabal's face.

Enter Abigail, Nabal's wife, who realized how much of a dumbass her husband was, and as David was marching his forces to Nabal's fields, she sent herself as a messenger with a generous peace offering and told David her husband was a rude, drunk, stupid lout, she apologized for him being such a dick, and basically begged him to not go off half cocked because she was married to an idiot.

David had the good sense to back down and accept this, even thanking her for getting him to calm down, and later, as Nabal's hangover from his latest alcohol binge wore off, he basically had a heart attack after his wife informed him he barely avoided having a huge group of pissed off mercenaries turning him into a human pincushion.

He died soon after, and Abigail, who had essentially had to marry the guy because of family and not out of love, decided to hook up with David.

The moral in this one is that Nabal was Exhibit A for God's description of the kind of moron who does utterly dumb things out of arrogance and drunkeness that he generally allows bad things to happen, especially when, as I pointed out, he could have avoided all that by exercising an iota of common sense.

4. Uzziah (also called Amaziah), the otherwise good king who made God mad in the dumbest way possible.

The Bible is pretty harsh even on the good people who screw up horribly, and Uzziah was one of the people who otherwise did a lot of good things, but one stunning moment of arrogant stupidity on his part pretty much pissed all that away.

Uzziah was, for most of his reign, considered a good king by biblical standards, and essentially called a devout servant of God. Unfortunately, in his later years, he let all the praise the Lord gave him for this get to his head and did something that was basically the equivalent of cooking bacon while naked.

He tried to take on the role of high priest in the temple of the Lord.

For those who didn't read Exodus and Leviticus, he was not of the Levite clan, whom God had set aside to be his priests, so strike one for being a moron. Second, God made it quite clear on multiple occasions if anyone other than a priest approached his altar to do as the priests did, death was the consequence, so Uzziah was damned lucky God didn't just kill him on the spot, something he should have known already, so strike two.

Strike three was him essentially doubling down on his stupidity when the priests tried to tell him to leave and quit trying to do their jobs before God visited payback for his defiance on him, and instead of heeding their warnings, he starting cursing them out.

For his increasingly idiotic insistence he could do what he wanted, God struck him down on the spot with crippling leprosy, and since no one with disease was to be in the temple of the Lord, the priests wasted no time in drop kicking Uzziah out of the temple as fast as they could.

Keep in mind prior to this he had been doing God's commands faithfully for decades, and then he decided to toss it all away one day simply because he let that go to his head, and his punishment was to lay in bed the rest of days, permanently unclean and unable to stand before the altar of the Lord and crippled with agonizing pain because he refused to follow instructions not to do something God himself had made clear for hundreds of years was the most stupid thing you could ever do.

3. Ahab, the king God considered the absolute worst, the one who could have changed his ways, but didn't.

I had a hard time choosing the third most stupid person in the Bible, but after some thought, I'd have to go with Ahab, who, while not the dumbest guy in the Bible, especially since he had some moments of pulling his head out of his butt and doing the right thing, ultimately wound up still deserving this spot.

Ahab was one of the kings of Israel after the split of Judah and Israel, and Ahab's biggest mistake, right off the bat, was marrying a woman named Jezebel.

Jezebel was such a nasty harridan she's now an actual word for every woman who acts just like her in modern day, which should give everyone a clue she was bad news. She was the daughter of the king of Sidon and Ahab married her as part of a political alliance. Unfortunately, due to fact Ahab was totally spineless, he let her get away with whatever she wanted, which included inporting tons of pagan priests and idols, persecuting the prophets of God just to please her, and basically doubling down on pissing off God time and again to the point God decided to punish all of Israel with a total denial of rain for three years until He was acknowledged as the only deity with any legitimacy.

Around the time of the showdown on Mount Carmel, where God proved yes, he is GOD, and Baal was little more than a powerless statue, Ahab should've rolled back his prophet persecution pogrom, right?

Nope. Because Jezebel was pissed that the priests of Baal were executed for being false prophets (even though they had been proven so beyond all doubt), Ahab basically let her continue to persecute the prophets of the Lord, with Elijah, the guy who proved God was the only true god, at the top of the shit list.

Despite this, Ahab was not a total idiot. He did have some moments of common sense and trusting on God instead of stone statues and carved tree trunks, but he still continued to piss off God by basically rolling over and playing dead for Jezebel's God hating wishes and running Israel into the ground by not putting a stop to the rampant paganism.

This eventually came to a head when Ahab wanted the lands of a guy named Naboth, Naboth said 'sorry, not selling my family land", Ahab went home butthurt, and then he was stupid enough to follow a plan Jezebel cooked up to frame Naboth for trumped up BS, kill him for it, then take his lands.

Before we go on, we need to explain a few things here. Way back when the Promised Land was taken by the Israelites, every family got their own portion of the land they could pass down the family line, and according to the laws of God, the land could not be permanently sold or transferred, and one could refuse to lease out their land if they chose, as Ahab wanted it as a permanent possession and the law of God did not allow him to do that.

After this, Elijah showed back up again as Ahab and Jezebel were surveying the lands they got over Naboth's dead body, and God was so cheesed off he had Elijah tell Ahab his family lines would be utterly destroyed, his blood would be licked up by the dogs, and that Jezebel would not have a decent burial, instead, dogs would eat her corpse, which was the biblical equivalent of God teabagging your dignity even in death.

Ahab had one of his rare moments of realizing what a stupendous jackass he had been, completely humbled himself before God, and proved so willing to say he was sorry that God granted him a bit of a mercy, saying he was still gonna wipe out Ahab's family, but only after Ahab croaked.

Up until Ahab's death, he mostly tried to do the right thing, but his penchant for being a dumbass reared it's ugly head one last time when it came time for a battle with the Arameans (i.e. - modern day Syria). He and the king of Judah Jehoshaphat teamed up for this battle and decided to get some advice from the prophets of God, who all said they'd win.

Ahab and Jehoshaphat were a bit skeptical of this, so they called in a prophet Ahab didn't usually like because he always delivered bad yet accurate prophecy, and he said the battle would be a rout and Ahab had the guy put in prison, planning to let him out after he came back from the battle just to prove he wasn't going to be defeated, even though the prophet who told him the actual truth said Ahab was not gonna come back alive.

Sure enough, despite a brief ruse where Ahab disguised himself as a common soldier, he got shot by an arrow and bled out in his chariot, and sure enough, dogs licked up his blood afterward.

Jezebel met her fate not long after, just as was prophesied, and sure enough, the same guy who had Jezebel thrown from her bedroom window to impact on the bricks went and slaughtered as many of Ahab's family as he could, and a few decades later, Ahab's family line ceased to be.

The moral in this story is that Ahab was considered one of the worst kings ever because despite his occasional moments of decency, he let himself make the dumbest decisions ever despite proof those decisions were stupid, and for that reason, he is the third dumbest person in the Bible.

2. Jeroboam, the guy who was given ten of the twelve tribes of Israel by God, and decided to screw God over anyway.

Jeroboam is an interesting guy. He's a great example of getting a windfall he never expected, then going out of one's way to spit in the face of the guy who gave it to him.

He used to be a low level pencil pusher for King Solomon, and around the time Solomon started falling away from God and racking up a lot of resentment from the Almighty, a prophet named Ahijah pulled Jeroboam aside on his lunch break one day and said he had a message from God.

Ahijah then tore ten pieces out of twelve from a new cloak, handed them to Jeroboam, and told him God was so pissed off with Solomon defying him he was going to take ten of the twelve tribes away from Solomon's family line to punish him.

Soon after Jeroboam had to go run and hide in Egypt until Solomon kicked the bucket to avoid a hit that was put out on him, and around the time Solomon's son Rehoboam was to be ordained as king, even Jeroboam showed up along with the people, who made a request that Rehoboam be less of a dick than his old man was in the end and they'd stay loyal.

After Rehoboam shot himself in the foot to the point he should have died from shock and blood loss, Jeroboam took advantage of this, walked out with ten of the tribes, and the kingdom split, with Jeroboam running Israel, while the remaining tribes established Judah.

It was at this point Jeroboam decided to go full retard. Since Judah had the temple of the Lord, he was worried everyone making regular pilgrimages there would make everyone in Israel defect from him, so he established altars to idols as a substitute.

Needless to say, God was infuriated this guy chose to grab the bottle of stupid pills and upend the whole thing, so a prophet was sent to call Jeroboam out.

Jeroboam pointed a finger in the direction of the prophet for the guards to kill the guy.

And that's when the hand he used withered into uselessness and the pagan altars split open like busted watermelons.

Jeroboam had the good sense to realize "okay, God ain't kidding", so he did the necessary groveling to get his hand back to normal and let the prophet leave without harm.

Then he went right back to doing what he did to piss off God and kept going until sometime later when his son fell ill, so he sent his wife in disguise to see the prophet Ahijah again to ask if the son of Jeroboam would be alright.

Ahijah immediately saw through the disguise courtesy of the Lord, and Jeroboam got the message via his wife God was MAD, and because Jeroboam had to be an idiot who betrayed his Lord and literal benefactor, his own son would die, and the rest of his family line would be wiped out, and just to rub salt in the wound, the only member of his family Israel would mourn over was his son, because unlike his father or his other family members, he was the only person who God thought had any good in him.

Sure enough, Jeroboam Jr. died, Jeroboam himself followed soon after, and several stupid kings later, his family line was indeed wiped out.

The moral to this monument to stupidity was that he was basically handed a free lunch, then went out of his way to screw over the guy who gave to him, knowing well in advance this was a really stupid idea.

Basically, don't be that guy.

1. The Dumbest Moron in the Bible, the One and Only Rehoboam, son of Solomon, the guy who knew he'd lose everything if he decided to be stupid and did it anyway despite knowing it was pants on head retarded.

And here we are, the stupidest man in the Bible, the son of the ironically smartest mortal in the Bible, and as we'll see, the brains were NOT hereditary.

Anyway, before we go into Rehoboam proving to the world why he's a gold medalist in the Darwin Awards, we need a little background first.

His dad was Solomon, the guy who asked God for wisdom, got it, then promptly quit relying on it and living like some indolent pimp with a hoarding fetish, picking up tons of foreign wives and letting them shit up his kingdom with idolatry, buying himself all sorts of expensive crap and working people to death on ridiculous construction projects, and generally just being a rich jackass.

God was not pleased with this, to the point he had the prophet Ahijah tell the second dumbest man in the Bible he'd get most of Solomon's kingdom later to make Solomon pay for being an idiot. And, even though Solomon put out a failed hit on the guy who was going to screw over his descendants, he knew he had screwed up epically, to the point the book of Ecclesiastes is one long admission by Solomon he had been a total idiot.

Once Solomon died, all the crap he had pulled had ground down the loyalty of the Israelites, and most of them were ready to tell his son to go screw himself unless things got better.

And so, with Jeroboam himself as mentioned above present, they presented Rehoboam an ultimatum:

Either be less of a dick than Solomon was or most of us walk out of here and leave you holding the bag.

Showing that maybe he had inherited an iota of wisdom from dear old dad, he asked them to give him three days to think over his response.

He first asked all the smart people in his court how to answer, and their answer was the obvious one: Give the people what they want, it's in your best interest.

Then he asked all the rich snobs who didn't have to work a day in their lives and didn't care how many people worked to death to make them comfortable how to answer, and their response was to tell the people he was gonna be an even bigger jackass and if the people didn't like it, he was gonna make them regret crossing him even more than they ever regretted serving under Solomon.

His answer to the people was the one that was peak retard, and before we continue, we need reflect on a few things.

He knew his people were ready to revolt. He knew someone was promised to take most of his people away if he answered poorly, and he knew God himself had said this very day would come and that God was bent on punishing him and anyone else in Solomon's family line if they didn't do what was smart.

He knew all this, and he still chose to tell the people he was going to be the biggest jackass on the planet.

As mentioned in the section about Jeroboam, we all know how that turned out, and Rehoboam still didn't really get a clue through the rest of his reign over a mere shadow of the people he used to rule over.

In summation, he's the biggest idiot in the Bible because he knew without question being a fool would cost him, was given an extremely easy way to avoid the worst, and the advice he was given that was good only a brain-damaged moron would reject.

Unfortunately, Rehoboam just happened to be that mentally defective.

And given the sheer magnitude and sheer avoidability of his titanic folly, he earns the award of dumbest person in the Bible.

And if anyone else is in any way capable of wisdom, do yourself a favor, never be this stupid, if only to avoid paying a price as obscenely high as this fool did.

Looks like I need to release Buld 2.10 V2 after all

I discovered some major, gamebreaking crashes in the Cave To Rimuldar, remnants of my old dialogue system were to blame, and since this is plot critical, I will be releasing a bugfix version for this.

A few other changes will be in this, another major bugfix and a change to getting Lora in your party.

* I discovered, thanks to an oversight when implementing the battle rows code, I made all Club and spear type weapons unusable if your character was in the front row. Since there are few club or spear weapons, I did not notice this until I equipped an Iron Spear and noticed Roto and Sarah could not attack at all, though they could user magic/special attacks. This oversight has been corrected.

* Lora will join the party at Level 13. I have redone all the game balance so it's ideal to be a certain levels, and believe this should be reasonable for her to join at. I tried to assign a variable condition to the Hero's current level so she'd join at the same level, but the game always kept adding +1 level to her level count when she joined.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Just some amusing observations about the Bible

There are a few things in the Bible that I have to admit have always amused me because when I sat down and did a little thinking about them, some of the things that occurred to me struck me as funny.

1. That scene in Acts where Herod is speaking to the crowds, they all proclaim his voice is like that of god instead of man, and then it's reported that since he didn't give glory to God, he was eaten by the worms and died.

I have to wonder, does this mean a bunch of worms consumed him from the inside out, or did they literally pop out of the ground like in Dune and eat him alive? Either way, it's a blackly comical image if you ask me.

2. In Leviticus, if you made a grain offering, you were supposed to offer cakes or wafers made of fine flour, or crushed heads of new grain if it was an offering of the firstfruits.

I did a little research, and I realized that technically, corn harvested when the seeds are dry count as a grain product, and popcorn would be about the same size as the wafers of grain specified, and since grain offerings were supposed to be prepared with oil and salt, it would have been acceptable to offer a bowl of popcorn as a grain offering. Even corn itself offered as a firstfruit offering would be acceptable, as you can harvest dried corn and offer the seeds dried and crushed like you would heads of wheat.

3. In another moment of black comedy from Leviticus, Aaron's sons Nadab and Elihu screw up, offer fire not consecrated to God to his altar, get immolated for it. Sin offerings are made in restitution for this, and Moses later chews out Aaron for not eating the portion of the sin offering alloted to the priests.

Aaron's response amounts to "My sons got burnt up, you want me to eat meat that was sacrificed to atone for their screw-up like I'm supposed to be happy they died?"

Moses' reaction was basically "Yeah, you got a point there."

Even more interesting, Aaron was correct in that he was not compelled to eat his portion if he didn't want to. As defined by God, it was a privilege granted the priests, not an explicit order that they had to do on pain of death.

It was also a nice loophole around the whole prohibition on the high priest (which Aaron was) not letting himself become unkempt and letting himself go if a close relative died. Since he couldn't do that, he settled for denying himself some free barbecue to show he was in mourning, and since there was no rule saying he had to eat his portion of the sin offering (it could either be burned up or another priest could eat it), it kept the rules from being broken while letting Aaron show he was in mourning at the same time.

4. Around the time King David was being chased out of his own kingdom by his rebellious son Absalom, he got two sets of advice on how to deal with his dad before he could strike back.

The smart chancellor Ahithophel knew David had a long history as a guerrilla fighter and had almost been killed by Saul more than once because David couldn't withstand sustained pursuit, so he advised to get a strong force of soldiers they could drum up ASAP and take him out immediately.

However, a guy who pretended to defect from David suggested something really dumb: Wait till you have a massive army, then crush your dad with overwhelming might to prove you're the mightiest in the land.

The latter advice was really dumb because it gave David time to gather his own forces and prepare for that sort of crap, and when Ahithophel saw this advice was swallowed by Absalom hook, line, and sinker, he hung himself because he realized this was gonna go so wrong there was no way he wasn't gonna get executed once David won.

5. Also, the elements of Absalom's rebellion are also funny in a really dark way if you think about it.

First, he establishes his claim as king in Hebron, the same town David did before the last elements of Saul's family got killed and the rest of Israel decided to accept David as king.

He then further decides to rub salt in the wound by taking all the ladies in David's court and sleeping with them, in public, as a metaphorical and even in some ways literal, "fuck you dad".

This wound up imploding after Absalom wound up pushing daises, but it's still hilarious how he went out of his way to spite his own father, especially when you remember earlier on David outright forgave Absalom for cold blooded murder of his brother Amon (who raped their sister Tamar).

6. And, as if the comedy in David's messed up family isn't hilarious enough, it gets even more comically stupid in the case of the succession crisis between Solomon and his brother Adonijah.

Around the time David was dying, he made it pretty clear Solomon was getting the throne. However, Adonijah, being older, assumed since he was the older brother it was gonna go to him by default, and so tried to seize the crown anyway, prompting David to speed up Solomon's coronation from his deathbed, and when Adonijah heard this, he basically peed himself in fear when Solomon found him in the temple of the Lord clutching the horns of the altar like Linus does his security blanket.

Solomon was actually pretty nice about it and told him to just go back home and he'd let the whole thing slide.

Before I go on, this was pretty merciful, since royal succession crises can end in rivers of blood, so you'd think Adonijah would be grateful he was let off so easily and keep his mouth shut.

Nope. He instead attempted a backdoor into gaining power again, by asking Solomon's mom give him a woman who basically served as David's bedwarmer in his old age (she slept in the same bed to keep him warm since he found it hard to stay warm by himself) to be his wife, which was essentially, had it gone through, been Solomon's mom all but saying Adonijah still had a legit claim to the throne.

When Solomon heard this, he decided he had been an idiot to be so merciful to his older brother, and he basically declared Adonijah had earned the right to see what his entrails looked like in broad daylight.

7. And for my last mention of hilarious stupidity in the Bible, let's cover Joab, the bloodthirsty yet competent CINC of Israel's armies under David.

Joab had two brothers, Abishai and Asahel, and all three served David with distinction, but of them all, Joab lived the longest, and we'll get to why in a moment.

Joab was essentially David's right hand man after David became king in Hebron after Saul died, and while engaged in a civil war with one of Saul's remaining family members, David wanted the war to end in as little bloodshed as possible, since Saul has been anointed by God and had been murdered, and David had made a promise to Saul's son Johnathan he would show as much mercy to Saul's family as he could. Another reason was that Saul's former right hand man Abner was propping up the Saul loyalists, and since Abner had been David's former boss once, David really wanted to win Abner over to him as well.

Joab didn't care, and after a brief parley/exhibition match between the two sides ended in some bloodshed, Asahel chased after Abner, who had similar feelings of "can't we just end this peacefully?", Asahel refused to stop chasing him after multiple attempts by Abner to get him to cease pursuit failed, and so Abner had to kill him in self defense.

Later, Abner briefly convinced Joab and Abishai to let it go because of that, and they did, temporarily, but Joab later decided to screw up Abner eventually being willing to defect over to David and had him killed in cold blood because he wanted Abner to pay for Asahel's death, even though it had been self defense and it had been war, that's how that sort of thing works.

David was pissed at Joab for this, but since the death of Abner had been of tactical benefit by crippling the Saul remnants, not to mention Joab was deemed scarier if he defected to the enemy, David let him off then with a strong condemnation, though he went out of his way to apologize for Abner's murder, even giving him a state funeral in the process.

However, Joab still remained as David's top general, and to give Joab credit, he was an effective guy at the job, and when David decided to off Uriah so he could have his wife, Joab reluctantly but loyally followed David's orders to basically set Uriah up to be killed.

Later, Joab's murder streak got bigger around the time Absalom rebelled, and while Joab joined David, David put a guy called Amasa in Joab's place as top general, and Joab didn't like that, and Amasa wound up getting shanked later. But before that, despite David's explicit order to capture, not kill Absalom, Joab found the kid caught in a tree by his hair and had him killed on the spot anyway.

Again, to be fair to Joab, he did make a good point to David later to quit insulting the guys who fought for him during the rebellion by spending more time mourning Absalom than honoring their sacrifice, and even Joab had the good sense to realize that when David later called a census of the fighting men of Israel (instead of relying on the Lord to bring victory) that it was really dumb idea, but David ignored this and God made him pay for it later.

Joab's karma finally caught up with him around the time of Solomon-Adonijah succession crisis, because as part of David's deathbed orders to his son, he wanted Joab to be made to pay for all the murders he had tallied up. And, when Joab stupidly backed Adonijah for the throne, he gave Solomon the perfect excuse to have Joab killed right in front of the altar of God, where like Solomon's older brother he was clutching onto the altar's horns like a coward, hoping no one would kill him in a holy place.

The dark irony in this is that the price for murder was one's life in exchange for those who killed another, so by slaying Joab in front of God's altar, it was essentially a guilt offering to atone for Joab's murders, so Joab's little plan was a failure before it even started.

It bears mentioning that despite all of Joab's military accomplishments, he never made it into the ranks of the Thirty, which was basically David's version of a special ops team of badasses, while even Abishai made the list, as did Uriah, who David had arranged to have killed (it was mentioned prior to this Uriah was an honorable soldier of David's who refused to be derelict in his duty even on orders from the king because he had an obligation to his military duties, which was part of the reason David had him arranged to die), yet Joab never made the list.

As additional salt in Joab's wounds, even his ARMORBEARERS made the ranks of the Thirty, one of them being of Ammonite descent, a tribe God had had a longstanding hatred of for screwing over his chosen people, but Joab himself was never considered one of them.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Stiil working on DQ1 Remake Beta 2.20

Other crap has delved into my time working on DQ1 Remake further, but I have gotten some more progress done.

* A lot more crash bugs involving the spit and pencil version of the old dialogue system removed.

* Enabled a few bonus dungeons I hadn't completely in earlier builds, like the Tower of Kol. Don't go in unless you have the Final Key (you'll need it to get far past the entrance anyway), or you WILL get slaughtered, it has enemies you will be way out of your league to fight when you first can go in.

* Made a lot less enemies capable of spamming status spells. They'll still do it, just not to the point it's like they are trolling you. And speaking of spells, giving Mara a mild boost, since an earlier tweak for balance seems to made Mara a bit TOO weak as a mage, which is ironic, as she was essentially an "I win" button in earlier builds, so I'm gonna even her out to be a tad stronger than at present.

* Found the new item limit is great for balance, since it's not half as easy to fill your inventory with healing items and spam them anymore.

* Everything up to gates of Rimuldar is tested, still ironing out balance issues from that point at present.

Friday, February 24, 2017

An update on the fine tuning of Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake

While whittling away at bugs and getting stuff fixed (the Combat Log now works in battle just fine without hanging issues), I have also done some other changes to tighten up the game, since I'm most of the way towards the day of a "gold" release, or a version I can call "complete"

* Some areas have been edited graphically for consistency, so what you see is what you get (you see a brown tower on the world map, but you enter it and the walls are all white, this is getting eliminated as much as possible)

* Fixed the game AI to be far less punishing for some enemies. Trick Bags were ANNOYING because of their Sleep spell spam, could make battles take forever because you'd never wake up in time to kill them before they all ran away. This was fixed, and some enemies were edited so they were prone to spamming certain attacks as much.

* I have also been trying to remove every last remnant of my old dialogue system, this has been a constant source of crashes, and it's my solemn goal by Build 2.20 to have this completely fixed.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Build 2.20 will be be essentially Build 2.10 V2 with extras

Build 2.20 will basically be my planned Build 2.10 Bugfix V2 with the Catilin area and all areas save the final landmass (where the Dragonlord's castle is) accessible, which means another town and three or four dungeons will be added.

It will also have the following changes:

* Lots of bugfixes I missed in 2.10
* Balance changes (mostly to make certain things easier)
* Item limit decreased to 10 of any item. Not nine like in most Dragon Quest games because it will be easier to make batch recipes of five when crafting this way. You can store an extra ten items in the storage services at most banks if you need to.
* Going to fix the music so more of it loops or at least doesn't have obvious fadeouts anymore.
* New credits sequence implemented. (will be viewable from player menu, ends and send player to title once seen, be warned). Features the soundtrack "Theme For Gamers", courtesy of Jared Burrell, which he was kind enough to pre-loop for me.
* Some graphics changes for aesthetic and consistency reasons
* Legacy code making my "use equips as items" code fail was removed, that works, not exactly like in Dragon Quest (the item must be actually equipped, can't work when not equipped), but close enough.
* Fixed some lag issues concerning framerate.
* In thanks to the certain Kiwi Farms members who were kind enough to consent to their likeness being represented in my game, namely Jaimas (as Archmage of the magic academy), Peace and Harmony (as Aeterna Concordia, a student there who was turned into a corgi due to an experiment gone awry), and Null (as "Cipher Luna", lord of the Catilin province and mayor of the town itself), they will have characters based on them in the town of Catilin.
* r/KotakuinAction moderator "Hand of Bane" will also be represented by a character based off them with their consent in the same town, part of my in-universe pro-GamerGate styled organization, where they serve a similar in-universe role as they do IRL on KIA.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

I may need to make a SECOND bugfix release of version 2.10

While it's not as bad as I feared, as in, major bugs that cripple entirely having any fun whatsoever, lots of little bugs and issues have cropped up in my game to the point that, as I beta test it, I'm discovering more and more things that can crash the game (mostly remnants of my old portrait/faceset system), as well as a passel of goofy glitches, most harmless, but still annoying, so I'm still going to release a new version as planned, but before that I'm releasing a 2.10BF V2 edition of the 2.10 build beforehand.

It will contain a partial implementation of some of the 2.20 build's features, so it will double as a sneak preview of 2.20, but I won't guarantee stability past Catilin since that was projected for the 2.20 build onwards.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

DQ Remake 1 Beta 2.20 will take awhile longer

Due to a combination of needing to add more content and having to acquire some more resources, the next build may take awhile longer.

However, the good news is that the next build will have a LOT more content than previous builds, with many areas I had not completed finished.

For those who may have been hoping for this to be finished sooner, I beg your patience for now, as the next build may have an even higher version number once I am ready to release it due to having much more content.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Why I now post openly on THE Kiwi Farms

As some may already be aware, I now have a public account in my own name on the Kiwi Farms.

My reasons are as follows:

1. I was so appalled by the lengths that were gone to to exact retribution against Joshua "Null" Moon's family just to get back at him I decided if the Kiwi Farms were ever brought back after he temporarily shut them down as a result, I would post there under my own name in protest of such attempts at spite.

2. Certain parties (who I shall leave nameless and not comment on further by their own request) have requested I not speak of them if the Kiwi Farms were ever revived. I have every intention of honoring that promise.

3. Some at the Kiwi Farms were not entirely sure the "GethN7" there is actually me. I have written this to confirm it is. I had an account on the Farms prior to the temporary shutdown, now no longer in use. Null is the only one I have shared this with in the interests of full disclosure, and I have requested he not reveal it to anyone else unless required by law enforcement, in which case I will fully comply.

4. I believe in the right of people to speak, even if it's offensive (yet not illegal), and in this case, if you do foolish things in public, then the public has every right to comment on it, and if that angers you, I feel no sympathy, as the parties who are angry chose to do publicly foolish things. This would even apply to myself, should I become a lolcow in my own right (which I plan to avoid of course), and if I became one regardless, I would certainly be given a thread there and would accept that as a consequence of acting like a fool.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Enough innocent people have been hurt, so I deleted some stuff since the Kiwi Farms was taken down

The Kiwi Farms were recently taken down by its owner due to threats to the welfare of his family, threats so severe ordinary legal recourse would not have been sufficient to protect them.

I'm sorry innocent members of his family had to suffer because of this unwarranted assault on them when Null was the intended target of those who decided tormenting his family was justified, but I will not mourn the Farms passing if it grants his family some relief from their tormentors.

I have family too, and I have added Joshua Moon and his family to my prayers.

And, since I too have been threatened by similar parties for similar reasons, and while I have far less to lose, I want innocent people out of the crossfire, so I have completely torched copies of anything on my blog certain individuals found so offensive they attempted to attack me in a similar manner as Null, and they have my word I will keep silent about their activities now and forevermore, so long as what they have done to threaten me and what they used to threaten me with ceases to exist.

When innocent people have to suffer because of anger against a valid target, it becomes too much, and since I am peripherally involved in this drama, I'm willing to torch as much as I have on hand that is within my power to destroy to get this sort of stuff to stop, enough damage has been done to those who don't need to suffer and don't deserve to.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

DQ1 Remake Beta 2.20 Progress Report

As mentioned in my last post, I'm loath to promise anything, but I can mention the following since they are a done deal and I confirmed they are backed up on the cloud if worst comes to worst.

* Finally got the character art I needed requisitioned, again from Fumirei on the RPG Maker Central forums. It was pricy, but the quality was so good I happily ate the cost, it was well worth paying for.

Seriously, Fumirei is a good artist, throw them your money, you will get some fine artwork in the exchange.

* Actually have a fair bit of work done already, but I'm unsure what a good "stopping place" would be. I also have to test a lot of event code, so the more I add, the more event code I need to test.

* I went back and touched up a few dungeons, especially the towers, they should now, thanks to some creative design, appear to have actual height as you ascend each floor.

* I'm coming up with another dry spot when it comes to some other resources. I have what I need on hand, trick is gonna be sifting through all of it. Once I have that sorted out, progress will resume.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Trying to make Beta 2.20 of DQ1 Remake the second time round

It's the dawn of 2017, and among my New Years Resolutions is to finally get my game to gold code status before 2018.

With that in mind, now that I've decided to be paranoid and back up my game on the cloud for the sake of redundancy just in case my HDD file tables go nova in some freak accident once again, I have decided on the following things for the currently in production version of Beta 2.20 (V2, since the first died awhile back)

* I'm likely going to focus on adding new stuff instead of reinventing the wheel. I've already had to overhaul the game scripting more than I ever wanted to and I'm tired of it, so scripting changes will be minor at best, if any. Instead, I'm going to focus on finishing up all the maps I can and try to have the 2.20 Beta be set just before the normal/true ending point split I had planned since day one.


* I plan to stop just short of the normal split final dungeon because I need to requisition some new portrait art I don't have yet and all my placeholder options suck.

* Finally, I've gotten the idea of game balance pretty down at this point, so all I really need to do is fill in some blanks and finish up some more maps.

With all that said, I'm making no more promises since the last time I did that my HDD went nova.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...