Escape Velocity: Collision

Someone should write an E-book about this topic. The life and drama of Starbridge21. Yeah.

You guys won't be hearing from me for a while. I've decided not to even think about EV until I'm stable again. So it could be a few weeks, a few months...I really don't know. Until I return consider Collision to be on hold. Never consider it vaporware. I'll see you again once I've figured a few things out, set a few things straight. Don't hold your breaths.

-Starbridge21

Time to get to work on that book.

I'm, um... with Shlimazel.

Wow. Thank you for mocking me in my time of distress, Shlims. Even if I was being a bit...melodramatic. And don't encourage him, C.A.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and don't be expecting me back any time soon.

Mocking you? That wasn't my intention. You were being very, very melodramatic, so I was messing with you a little. I'm sorry if you consider my remark to have been in bad taste. I apologize if I offended you.

Not exactly offensive...but it didn't help.

Feeling a little better. A little. Still enormously stressed out. But a little better. I'm trying.

Ugh...

Crawls out from under rock

...where am I...? Huh? The EVDC? How long have I been under that rock...6 weeks?!

Smacks self in forehead

Phew, it's been a while. I say that a lot, though, don't I? But really, this time it has been a while.

I think I'll start writing this now...yeah, why not? I'm in a writing kind of mood recently.

Huh...I feel weird. Different. Maybe I can actually do this now, since it's been almost a year since I first got the idea.

And yes, actually, I did get started on that e-book, Shlimz. It's coming along quite nicely. In the meantime...

Rubs eyes, looks around

It's good to be back.

Seeing how I'm finally going to have something to post soon ("soon" hopefully meaning "by the end of the week" here), where do I post it? The EV/EVO Chronicles?

(Hurrah for my two-hundredth post...more than half of them have been in this topic. :p)

This post has been edited by Starbridge21 : 24 February 2008 - 03:40 PM

Yeah, I've been posting stories there. Good to hear from you again. Get that whole thing settled?

Haha, NO. It's not an easy thing to 'settle'. It's been unsettled for 2.5+ years now, and I doubt it's going to be settled any time soon. But I won't let that stand in Collision 's way. While I can't ignore it, it's best if the rest of you just forget about it completely. I'll be alright (and so will Collision ).

So yeah, I'm going to write Collision in novel format first...I'm not really sure how that's going to work out, though...I started up a prologue yesterday to see how long it would be, and it's not looking very long. Which is good, I guess. But I wanted Collision (the novel) to be really thick with detail and story to compensate for the game's relative lack thereof. I can't just have constant story progression, though -- I have to mix it up with mostly irrelevant banter and mainly unnecessary details, to lengthen it and make it all around more enjoyable for the reader(s).

Like I said, I've started on that prologue. I'm still testing my writing style and limits though, so it's going to go through a lot of revisions and such. I think I'll have it down by Saturday, though, and hopefully after that I'll fall into an effective pattern of writing so I won't have to spend so much time revising one or two paragraphs. But, man, I want this to be good.

Ah, I need names. I'll continue to need names throughout my writing. I'm absolutely terrible at thinking up names.

Edit: Woo! I think I've got the prologue pretty much where I want it. It runs a little over 2 pages in word with size 12 font. I'm going to read it a few times every day until I'm sure it's right, though. And I may have to throw a bit more in there. Maybe a little bit from a different POV, maybe a couple of names or something. But it looks pretty good (to me).

I'm actually thinking now that I'll just write this thing as a novel, and see where it goes from there. Obviously, if the idea is enormously popular, I'll have tons of support when making the game. On the other hand, if the concept doesn't appeal to a lot of EV-ers, what's the point of making it at all? At least I'll have fun writing it, though. It'll help take my mind off more... frustrating matters.

This post has been edited by Starbridge21 : 25 February 2008 - 05:18 PM

Go with that! It's your TC, and if people don't like it, they don't need to play it. I personally think it's a good idea to write it as a novel. Realistically, people don't seem to understand that roleplaying just isn't practical in EVN, because a mission only gives you two choices; Yes or No. This is a good way to work around that problem.

Haha...well, if people don't like it, I'm not going to waste my time making it. But I think I'll write the novel even if people tell me it's terrible and I should stop.

I want the novel to be third-person POV, but when I'm thinking about it I keep slipping back into second-person (true to the series, I want the game to be in that POV).

In the meantime, I still need names. Lots of names. Just for the prologue I'd like to have two. After that I need a name for the protagonist, of course. I need a name for his ship. I need names for his copilot and just random people he runs into. Lots and lots of names. And I suppose I haven't yet decided what the protagonist looks like, either.

Hm...I'm going to add another part to the Prologue...expand on it a bit.

Haha -- Shlimz, either you're the only person who has realized I'm back, or the others have abandoned me after my little episode. Well, they'll come around when I start posting Collision and it's clear I'm in this for real. Either way, thanks for being here. 🙂

This post has been edited by Starbridge21 : 26 February 2008 - 04:30 PM

Making the missions is usually the hardest part of any project. Once you have them all planned out, including descs and everything, it won't be hard to find programmers.

Sure, 'bridge. It's no problem.

If names are an issue, this site has a number of name generators, among other generators. I used the one that generated names based on the last U.S. census to come up with about a hundred names for random opponents in Colosseum.

@lnsu, on Feb 26 2008, 08:38 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Collision:

Making the missions is usually the hardest part of any project. Once you have them all planned out, including descs and everything, it won't be hard to find programmers.

Well, I pretty much know what the missions will be like (but I don't have them fully 'planned out'), and luckily, all the Fed mission descs can just be summarized novel text.

@joshtigerheart, on Feb 27 2008, 11:23 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Collision:

If names are an issue, this site has a number of name generators, among other generators. I used the one that generated names based on the last U.S. census to come up with about a hundred names for random opponents in Colosseum.

Oooh, thanks for that, it looks great. I'm sure I'll find plenty of good names there. And some of the weird names would make good ship names ("Pike of Shadow", "Blasphemous Fire", etc.), though others run a bit long, and are just...well, weird ("Dutchess, with Lips of Bronze and the Gown of Despicable Hopelessness").

Alright, let me explain. I have my reasons for not posting it:

It ran much longer than I thought it would -- about 4 word pages -- and I only just finished it today. Why? Because there are several forces at work to prevent me from writing this thing.

Of course, mainly I mean school. But we're also talking about other random things, like my family, and my habit of opting to play some EV rather than writing some. But mostly school (it's state standardized test week).

I can't promise any new chapters even by the end of the month, so I've decided not to post anything until I've either got a few chapters done, or until I know I'm going to have enough time to get them done. But I have finished the prologue.

I've decided to cut a chunk out of the story/game. I don't think it really fits very well; it only fits at all into one story line. The purpose of this chunk was really abandoning everything to go explore and unlock new ships & outfits, but as I said, it just doesn't feel like it fits. So this basically means I'm going to scale down this whole project...in the end, I guess I won't be adding more than 20 or so new systems, give or take. Josh is going to be happy. 😛

This post has been edited by Starbridge21 : 04 March 2008 - 10:59 PM

Just promise that whenever you get this done and uploaded (whether it be in 3 hours, days, months, or years) that you post a new topic about it.

I could actually be a beta tester for this, if you have a powerful computer and want it to run good on an old computer, like mine. 😛 I'll only do this either tomorrow, or any other Tuesday or Thursday.

@captain-zaphod-beeblebrox, on Mar 5 2008, 07:37 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Collision:

Just promise that whenever you get this done and uploaded (whether it be in 3 hours, days, months, or years) that you post a new topic about it.

Can do. At the moment I'm leaning towards years. And I'll be sure to let you know when Beta Testing is ready. Just remember, years.

Alright, I was bored. Really bored. I'm not completely happy with it; it may not represent my best work; and yet, here it is. Mainly because I can't stand to wait another minute.

I'll be maintaining minimal presence here for a while, so as to avoid accidentally saying anything monumentally stupid.

Be on highest spoiler alert. If you don't want the game plot to be ruined, don't read it. It follows the story to a T. You have been warned.

The Prologue to Escape Velocity: Collision -- finally!

This post has been edited by Starbridge21 : 21 April 2008 - 07:44 PM