Well I’m glad we got the powers early
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I think giving us the powers early on was a better choice than us having to wait until the mid/end because it allows our MC to have some time and experience and a little skill using them at least Rp wise rather than us getting them later on and not being as effective in these pretty amped up situations we’ll be facing.
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Yeah now that you put it like that, it definitely makes more sense to do it this way. I completely forgot that our gear is gone. So now with that out of the way, I think just a few sentences to clarify why we’re there and what is happening would make it perfect. But this is for the short version option. I just went and read through the long version option while writing this and that one is clear enough. Keep up the good work though. It’s nice to see an author who’s so willing to work with readers so closely. I look forward to reading the next update!
Edit: With what @Eiwynn said in the post below this one, I’d also suggest doing that idea as an optional scene just in case the player is either playing right after finishing CCH 2, replaying for a different ending, or restarting for some reason like a wrong or accidental choice. I only say this because I’m guilty of doing all of those things and I know that I’d hate to recap the story with every play through. I’d highly consider doing this if I were you mostly because of the “matrix” of endings you have planned, so you know people will be clicking through this over and over.
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Eric,
I’ll be sending you a PM with my thoughts “soon” … but I will address this flashback “issue” now, so that you can take it or leave my feedback sooner than later.
Preface: You have to write this for both new and continuing readers; that gets harder and harder to do in a way that is both inclusive and yet doesn’t cause what I call the ever-growing recap at the beginning of new episodes.
With that in mind: I propose that you have a micro-scene in the beginning that serves as a “in last week’s episode” function … so a recap but not one of the entire series.
If I were to ghost-write at your elbow, I’d have a vignette of the MC, Tess and whoever else was on the trip on the flight back … talking together on the jet about what happened. Or rather, discovering the blocks placed on them and discussing how to deal with the blocks (using indirect terms, substitute words, idk) and the consequences of the blocks on the rest of the gang.
Then a small vignette, again with the group that went to San Fransisco, talking about attending Prestige together; sort of how a close knit friend circle would get together to gab about any upcoming adventure together – maybe a big dinner or trip to the theme park or county fair.
… that is all for now.
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@Kaylo342 yep that was absolutely my mindset. I figured I needed to let both the MC and the player get used to using their powers as soon as possible because of the learning curve.
I say “Player” too because the player needs to learn how to manage their Power resource. Anyone who played Zip! will probably recognize the Power bar as basically the Juice bar from Zip!. I really liked giving the player flexibility to use that resource when they felt they needed an “auto pass,” and it should work very well for CCH3 too (I think!).
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I think this can be easily solved. Since it is to be at the beginning of the story, you can have it be the scene where we get to lay the groundwork for the MC’s new stats.
This is true but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a whole issue, you could make it like the prologue of the third series.
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You folks have really energized me a ton, and I look forward to cranking out as much as humanly possible this weekend!
And I’ll definitely give a lot of thought to ways to help players, both returning and new, better understand what’s going on. It would be easy to offer a little (optional) recap near the beginning. But I’d want to keep it pretty short.
For totally new players, I would work the recap into their character creation process, which lets me gear the in-story recap more towards refreshing the minds of returning players who’ve been away from the series for a while.
Are you folks requesting I do that now, or just suggesting I do that before publication? (If it would help for me to toss in a recap now, I can probably just include it in the next demo update)
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Great wasnt expecting that but. I thought it be fun to play the break in of the school instead of explaining the whole situation to your friends
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@eric_moser
Missing word in the zenith power background, in the choice: “The long version, with lots of detail.”
Yes, managed to slip into the group of aspiring super heroes gathered in a city park, but that was pretty easy.
Put ‘you’ before the bolded word.
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While it makes for a good scene amongst a majority of the characters, I (personally) feel like it might be more interesting to play through what they explain to their friends- if only more towards the end, when things turn (like described in your zenith power route with Booksmart’s people) and the MC makes a break for it back to said friends and current school… if done right, it could be like playing a ‘story in a story’ and transition into the MC having been telling the scene as the story of what happened to their friends the entire time 
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A barebones recap right now might be helpful. You could write a more in depth recap closer to publication.
I’ve only read the tactician path, but I do like what you have written so far. I’m assuming we’ll learn soon enough how the Manipulator got the nanotech pill, and I’m interested to see if there are any downsides.
I also enjoy the presentation of Prestige as a more military academy compared to what we’ve seen of Savior (pristine sci-fi theme) and Speck.
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Alright! Can’t wait till this is done and we get to experience the epic conclusion to the CCH trilogy. I also have a few questions and comments about the demo and one bout the universe in general;
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Have you ever considered labeling the dialogue options that affect your personality? Sometimes the Jokster and charmer options can be really similar.
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You mentioned that our gear based stat boosts won’t transfer over, but what about the boosts we got from training and the nanite upgrade we can buy in part 2?
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Will we have the option to update our costume? Personally I’d be fine with the ability to make just a few cosmetic changes, like being able to make our outfit a different color.
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I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get to go on a secret mission with the Manipulator. Will it be explained what happened with that if we don’t choose the tactician path?
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Was it ever mentioned that the Savior School vessel was an airship? Did I miss that in the last game?
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This is about the backstory/universe of the game. Was there a reason why the U.S government didn’t wait to activate the Z-shields until they detected a nuclear launch, or at least build underground tunnels beneath the cities that could be sealed later on?
Im guessing it would already be to late to activate the shields by the time you got the alert.
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[quote=“Dread_Dragon, post:358, topic:40242, full:true”]
Alright! Can’t wait till this is done and we get to experience the epic conclusion to the CCH trilogy. I also have a few questions and comments about the demo and one bout the universe in general;
- Have you ever considered labeling the dialogue options that affect your personality? Sometimes the Jokster and charmer options can be really similar.
I try to label choices as little as possible, because imo it breaks immersion. I labeled the establishing choices (the choices against Black Bullet) because they are super important because they establish your new starting stats.
- You mentioned that our gear based stat boosts won’t transfer over, but what about the boosts we got from training and the nanite upgrade we can buy in part 2?
There are just too many possible combinations for me to calculate, and really those would have a negligible impact when you look at the context of the story. Your new MC will be MUCH more powerful than your old MC, to the extent that those tiny boosts wouldn’t really have moved the meter anyway.
- Will we have the option to update our costume? Personally I’d be fine with the ability to make just a few cosmetic changes, like being able to make our outfit a different color.
I’m surprised no one else has asked for this. Yes, I need to include this at some point in Issue 9, probably sooner rather than later.
- I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get to go on a secret mission with the Manipulator. Will it be explained what happened with that if we don’t choose the tactician path?
…Probably? Maybe? To be honest, I was really struggling to figure out the specifics of how the MC was going to do these things, and as has been mentioned a few times, I had no primary stats to test failure/success anyway. But I’ll try to sprinkle in some tidbits throughout the story.
- Was it ever mentioned that the Savior School vessel was an airship? Did I miss that in the last game?
Yes, although I don’t think I mentioned it a lot. MC, DG, Tress were basically teleported to the ship on the field trip, so you don’t really get to see them approach the ship in a conventional way.
- This is about the backstory/universe of the game. Was there a reason why the U.S government didn’t wait to activate the Z-shields until they detected a nuclear launch, or at least build underground tunnels beneath the cities that could be sealed later on?[/quote]
I’m not a fake Cold War expert, but probably to ensure we weren’t caught off guard, and also probably as a sign of strength to the Soviets (seeing is believing).
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Mr. Moser we got a problem. My time control powers aren’t working. I can’t speed up to when this game is completed. Please fix.
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I can understand that.
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Honestly I’m a bit disappointed to hear this because it means that maxing out my stats in parts one and two were mostly for naught, but I trust that you’ll make our character feel appropriately powerful in part three.
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I’m kinda surprised too. Maybe the MC could take some inspiration from one of their instructors and get a mysterious cloak like Nil’s, a fancy suit like Hedonist’s, or some futuristic battle armor like Captain California and Downfall?
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I think like some other people said you could use the scene to establish our primary stats or create a new character instead of the 4th wall breaking interview with Downfall. It could be a scene where your character is doing some introspection about themselves, their love interest, who they lost in part 2, etc. while also providing a bit of info to new and existing players on the current status of Manipulator and the Dozen.
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Alright. I’ll have to go through the game again to see where it’s mentioned. That also makes Birthday Boy even more impressive imo, even if Booksmart just gave him a detailed design she made herself.
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Alright. Personally I was hoping there was a more sinister reason behind it…
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Yes so glad that a demo is up and can’t wait to see what’s next, but I have a question I know how on the Zenith hero path we potentially gain superpowers is from Booksmart, but on the tactician path just gaining the ability to scan for weaknesses without having to really work for it like we did on other paths? That seems just way too easy. It seems kindof like a Deus ex machina like here is a pill that automatically grants you the ability to see everyone’s weeakness. Why wouldn’t the manipulator just use it herself instead of giving it to you. I understand that you went into it briefly saying she might trust you, but why because you are the least likely to be expected to be a threat. Again I love your writing but this just seems way to easy.
This is like a general response to anyone saying they are disappointed that certain things won’t be carried over from Parts 1 and 2…I probably need to post it on Patreon, FB, and maybe my website too
I’ve said it before, I started writing CCH1 in like 2013. I was a total newb. I had never written a novel before, much less an interactive, essentially 500,000-word, novel. So yes, I ended up structuring many story and stat elements poorly.
I screwed up with primary stats. I should have used fairmath stats between 1-99% but I used integers.
I screwed up with relationships. I mean I REALLY screwed up with them by using integers. So I fixed that at the beginning of Part 2 converting them to fairmath.
So yes as the start of Part 3 I’m now converting primary stats to fairmath too. It has to be done for me to finish this. There’s no way around it. But I feel comfortable about it because of the power boost. I can’t believe customers will complain “where is my minor nanobot boost from Part 2??” when their character has been boosted from like a 2.0 (at best) to maybe a 9.0 over the course of Part 3. But yes, I am aware that some people will complain about pretty much anything.
I’m here in 2020 doing my best to make it all work, but some transitions won’t be nearly as elegant as I would have liked them to be. This is a learning process for me, and I’ll remember the lessons from this experience.
For example, Zip could easily be a 3-part series where the stats build smoothly over the course of the series. But it’s like that because I’ve learned these lessons and structured the first story in a way that could be seamlessly carried over for multiple additional installments. I’m more prepared than I was 7 years ago. Hell, if wasn’t, that would be sort of disappointing.
Going forward, I’d really prefer to focus on the stuff I CAN do to make Part 3 as entertaining as possible.
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It’s what it is if you listen to everyone you’ll never get anything done
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Well, I can’t listen to everything, especially things that would have me going backward. That’s very true. And I don’t want to relitigate decisions I’ve made, that’s for sure.
But I started the thread to get honest feedback as I move forward, and I super appreciate and respect folks who are willing to take time from their schedules and test and share ideas. Otherwise, I would have stayed buried in my office…which has not been working very well.
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