Vanguardian Axis Revisited

While looking for all the space related photoshop content, it made me think about the Escape Velocity series again that inspired me to do this RP. It may be a bit dated by now, but it's still a nice, single player, action RPG based on space ship combat.

I bought and registered Escape Velocity Nova when it came out on the Mac, because... let's face it. Anyone who had a Mac computer had nothing but crap games back in the year 2000s. Only Ambrosia Software made decent games on the Mac then, IMO, and this one had a lot of depth. I'm kind of disappointed that they haven't made anymore, and also how.. at least, I don't think, my Mac registration code doesn't work for the Windows version of this game. There's plenty of competition for the genre now, and I don't think this game will fair well at the unchanged price of $30. At least you can play the game for free un-registered, but with some of the later content locked away.

Anyway, I wanted to touch up some more on the events of Vanguardian Axis, since it appears that people are most interested in what I had written in my last post about it, at least according to page views.

Last time, I spoke a bit of Grand Vanguard's technologies. Things like how the Axis Tower is the main power generator, and briefly mentioned about the Solar Trance Electro Panels. The STEP is a layer that regulates the amount of light that passes through to Vanguard City. It is its own energy source as well, working like solar batteries, and can simulate the sky in Earth by appearing blue during "day time mode", and be dark with simulated stars during "night time mode", if strong light is still supplying power to the STEP. It is strictly there for visual enhancement, as a city being exposed to a bright light source without enough atmosphere to reflect light will be unpleasant for its citizens.

Concept drawing from high school

There is also a thin, blue tube circling around the Axis Tower near the ceiling of Vanguard City. Those are a suction-based pod transport system with stations at each intersection for switching pods and exiting to the city below. Compared to the rest of the technology used in Grand Vanguard, the suction-based transportation is much more low-cost than the artificial gravity generators. Of course, artificial gravity is still used within the pod for a safer and smoother ride for the passengers while the pod is in rapid motion. Speed and low cost transportation helps a great deal with getting around the large city.

Cross section of Grand Vanguard

The city itself follows a fairly straight forward layout. Near the center is where all the big corporation buildings are. The outer-rims of the city mostly consists of residential buildings, from single homes to apartment complexes. Living within the city is a luxury, as the city is only about 1/4th of the whole station. The majority of workers for the star base, and smaller businesses reside just below the surface in the basement floors of the city. Between the corporation circle and the residential ring is where other businesses and commercial buildings are, such as food, retail, and other services.

Another thing to note within this RP is how tight security is within Grand Vanguard. This was set to reduce any trolls from causing any major problems within the RP, while having context within the RP as well. In order to enter the star base, you must have a registered ID Card. ID Scanner systems are all over the star base, making it easy to identify a person who enters each area within. Each scan will take a picture and DNA scan of the citizen to ensure that they are the rightful owners of the ID Cards, and any unsuccessful scan of a person of their ID Card will alert the authorities. These ID Cards are not only used for identification, but has other functions similar to debit cards, and are required for certain services within the star base.

Of course, Grand Vanguard is not the only place where Vanguardian Axis took place in, and here are the other star bases used for the RP.

Avantgarde Station

Vann Sky Station

Military Base: Mythril Legion

These other bases were ran by other people, so I don't quite have as much details in those as I do with Grand Vanguard. I believe Avantgarde was used as a storage and exporting base for asteroid mining, Vann Sky was a resort station for vacations, and the Mythril Legion was a mobile base for the military. With these star bases however, Vanguardian Axis has spread its territory further.

Clash of Ternion Battle.

Aside from Role Playing, there were actual games that we ran within the RP as well. There was a racing board game of sorts at one point, and a combat simulator that I programmed in Java to calculate the damages dealt by using the stats and formula from Super Robot Wars. It was my first, big Java program I made, which is to say, was rather messy and inefficient in its use of memory. Unfortunately, I don't think I have the code anymore, since it was written on Lappy. The outdated code, which is.. even worse, I guess, can be found here. 

During war time, this program was used a lot to determine the outcome of battles, and ultimately, what direction the RP would take depending on the results of the battles. It was definitely an interesting concept for many people; turning a working formula from Super Robot Wars to something like a table-top board game, online. Once I learn how to write a better program, I would like to do something as elaborate as this, once again.

Growing Nostalgia - Button Mashers

Button Mashers. ._. A flash cartoon series that I wanted to do with my friend Larry from when I was in Rutgers University, inspired by Bonus Stage by Matt Wilson.

http://bonusstage.keenspot.com/episodes.html

We both greatly enjoyed the series, and we wanted to do something like that of our own. We would talk about the plot that we could have, jokes, how we'd do it, etc. Of course, this plan never saw its light of day since... well, it's a huge project, and we were in college at the time. Drawing characters and stuff frame by frame takes an awful lot of work, and then recording our voice acting in good enough quality was another issue too, since we lacked the tools to do so.

It's a shame, because I got a copy of Flash, but... what little experience I have with flash is far from good enough to make anything worthwhile. ._.; It certainly doesn't help that I can't draw people very well, let alone animate them. The picture there is what I drew of my character, pretty without the face so that I could animate the face separately. One of the first things you'd notice about Bonus Stages is the way the mouth is animated in the series. Simple, yet very effective. I mean, I learned the basics of working with Flash at my highschool's graphics arts class. That's where I learned my Photoshop skills, which is great. I still use Photoshop now, mostly for this blog now. But as for Flash, we only touched up on it a little bit, and I never really got the grasp of the more detailed stuff in animating things on there.

Seeing the difficulties in animating it though, the idea downgraded itself to a web comic instead. Considering I can use Photoshop, that seems like a more reasonable goal than making an animated series. Of course, it still wasn't going to happen by myself since I couldn't draw people. I mean, look at that thing I made! @_@ It looks like any amateur flash art you'd see all over NewGrounds or something. I'd like to think that I have greater standards than that, if I were to publish a web comic. I never did attempt to make the web comic happen though, partially because by then, I wasn't at Rutgers anymore. Instead, I'd talk about this with my little brother, Taco. He certainly enjoys the idea of a Bonus Stage inspired cartoon or comic, and naturally, he wanted to be a part of it as well. Which is fine, since I still needed characters for this anyway, and he kind of fits the part of the crazy and retarded guy anyway. For some reason though, the plot of one episode was about how Taco pisses off a goth kid or something, and he places a curse on him. Except it wasn't a very good curse, because it made him immortal. Whenever he dies in an episode, he would then just *poof* into a green triangle with a face. ... Certainly made the idea of drawing him easier that way.

Anyway, as I continue to update my blog, it gives me the urge to start this web comic, now that I have an audience and a place to host it at. It would be nice to slap a few things together quickly and make a few short comics and see how it does. Not sure if the plot will still be the same, since it's been several years since the original idea was thought up. One of the episodes would be about me finally learning how to drive, since I got my license rather late, partially because I didn't need to drive while dorming at Rutgers. The episode would consist of me driving the way I knew best... Speeding through the roads by Snaking, a glitch/exploit used in F-Zero GX and Mario Kart DS where you move left and right to attain speeds normally unachievable at all times.

 

Of course, there are plenty more of dumb ideas to be tossed into the making of this comic. >_> And hey, it's about time Taco learned how to drive too. It all works out. ... Hopefully he won't be snaking in real life though. Cause he won't be crawling out of the car as a green triangle like he would in the comic... 

Oh yeah, I don't know whether to call it Button Mashers anymore either, because I think there's a game show or something called that now, which sort of saddens me. ._. But we'll see what will become of this whole idea if I ever do decide to make it.

Growing Nostalgia - Crescent Legends

 
Ah, Crescent Legends. My first attempt at making a traditional JRPG game. Of course, it was never completed, like most people's grand scale projects like this, especially when you're still in school. Despite that however, it was a project that I had put quite a lot of thought and effort into at the time. Eventually, however, it went from a game to a Role Play, much like how Vanguardian Axis went, although it didn't gain much momentum as Vanguardian Axis did, due to the lack of flexibility and openness that made Vanguardian Axis so popular. That aside, I'd really like to finish this project as a game whenever I feel like I have enough time to spend on learning and working on RPG Maker, perhaps.

The story begins in two worlds. Two sister planets that orbits around a dark, lifeless moon, dancing together as they move around their sun. The bigger of the two sister planets, Sedule Ramios, is the home of many kingdoms that still live in a medieval, feudal era. Among them is the Kingdom of Faylite, where the adventure begins. A more prosperous kingdom, and one that is not at war at the moment due to the military power that they hold. The Light of Loreicia, a trait passed down generations through blood that blesses them with powerful healing magic which has been proven a powerful asset during war as the wounded soldiers were rejuvenated back to health by the next battle. Now, the Lirshell family, who are blessed with the Light of Loreicia, teaches those who are interested in the art of healing magic, along with their daughters, Florencia and Clarine.

Clarine F. Lirshell

The other planet, Farule Levios, is more technologically advanced than that of Sedule Ramios. In the world where many forms of air transportation and other sciences are common, they still study the legends tied to their moon left by ancient civilizations. The researchers fear that the legends that foretells of the evil that threatened the worlds centuries ago would be true - and if so, such threat would once again befall upon them as the planets align as they did then.

To be continued, if I feel that spoilers aren't an issue on the blog. If it is an issue, I'll just continue with more details on Clarine and perhaps the other characters in the cast, I guess.

Growing Nostalgia - Vanguardian Axis

Well, it's great that I'm starting to write things again as I did years back, but there's still so much more of me that is left to be written; so much more inspiration left to wither as time passes on without being acknowledged. Namely my fictional stories I've written for the use of role playing back when that was big on forums and chatrooms, such as Vanguardian Axis and Crescent Legends. Being that they were plot lines used in a role play, I left some details open for the participants to fill in, but that being said, they were never really completed either way. It was definitely something I enjoyed, but simply could not find any worthy participants to cooperate. Perhaps looking in such a casual forum as Gaia Online was at fault, but at the time, it felt like home to me. In fact, one of the first things I did in Gaia Online was start my Vanguardian Axis role play there, and it has seen its successes and the entertainment it provided to the readers. I miss those days...

Vanguardian Axis is a sci-fi story inspired by several things. First being the Escape Velocity series for its role playing aspects and the made some base structures to the map of its galaxy and systems. Another being the Super Robot Wars series for its amazing ability to combine several different stories from mecha anime into one (or rather several, considering how many SRW games there are now) giant story, and I was definitely fond of many Real-type robots in the game. My personal favorite being Huckebein Mk-III.

And... who knows what else I was inspired by. @_@ I could just as easily say any Sci-Fi games I've played, like the Star Ocean series, Xenogears, as well as mecha anime, but that's a given since I already mentioned Super Robot Wars.

The setting of Vanguardian Axis takes place in Grand Vanguard, a large space colony specializing in artificial gravity technology, explaining the rather abnormal construct for a space station.

The city visible through the translucent layer of Solar-Trance Electro Panels (STEP) is simply known as Vanguard City. The role play started off mostly within the city to enjoy a futuristic lifestyle, partially to get people used to the advanced technology that the story setting would commonly revolve around. At the center is the Axis Tower which extends all the way down through the starbase, which is the main energy generator. During war, this tower can double as a devastating energy cannon through means of amplifying the destructive power through a rare gem nicknamed the "Black Diamond" which would become a quest for explorers to find in unexplored worlds.

Skipping ahead, I was planning on having a much larger and stronger force that knows the dangers of a force that utilizes artificial gravity technology to come and wage war to destroy Grand Vanguard. Don't get me wrong, I love my starbase and the amount of thought and detail I had put into the design and background of the colony. However, I found much more potential for character development and even a change for the better with a new design for a Neo Grand Vanguard in the future. Unfortunately, that plan had never finished, as the role play had halted to a stop after participation grew thin. Whenever I feel inspired enough, I am thinking of designing a more complex starbase than Grand Vanguard.

Do keep in mind, I skipped out on a lot of detail in the explanation of this story, such as a possible prequel of sorts, to gather a new audience, starting with the creation of Grand Vanguard through what would be known as Meteos Wars. And yes, this time I was inspired by the game Meteos on the Nintendo DS, seeing it as a fun way to start a new story in the open world of outer space. Not to mention that I hadn't even mentioned any of my characters that were involved in all this.. Might be faster to just link to where all the role play had taken place, I guess. Where it all began.

I'll probably talk about Crescent Legends next, or more so, probably my favorite character in the story, Clarine Faye Lirshell.

Also... I seriously lack consistency in topics in my blog so far. @_@ Where am I going with all this?! Hopefully I can organize all this in the future.