"early game updates? 👀" (Patreon)

early game updates 👀.

this is going to be an ongoing process, maybe mixed in between quests and stuff. originally i was going to do all of this after the quests were done anyway, but i'm allowing myself some freedom here because there's probably not a real reason not to, and maybe it helps with motivation or something. in this post i'll be talking about my general goals for the updates, as well as some of the first steps that have already been taken. if you would rather the updates be a surprise for you, this might be a good post to skip.

a usual disclaimer for my sanity: please don't take anything here as promises or expect too much. i'm not looking to remake the entire game; just to brush up some parts so i can feel better about moving on.

so of anyone, y'all are probably the last group of people that i need to explain why this needs to be done to, but i'll briefly go over it anyway. there's obviously a significant gap  between the quality of the older episodes vs that of the new ones. at best, the old ones exist. at worst, they're a little annoying and difficult to follow for new places (a lot of people didn't realize you have go to julia's gym after fighting fern, for instance). that's all very normal stuff for someone who is still learning as they make a game, which is probably anyone.

however, on top of all that-- i've said this a handful of times-- there's the fact that i didn't actually start planning any kind of story until about episode 3. it was after the taka fight specifically. i started making the game under the expectation that i'd get bored and dropped it. when i got to the scene where heather shows up, i was like uh shit i'm not bored yet i should probably figure out where this is going. and although there have been touch ups here and there, the game been largely unchanged from how it was back then, with the start of it being somewhat meandering and directionless. this is the primary reason i want to go through these things again.

so, goals and expectations-- before we talk about what i want to do, let's set up some rules of what i am definitely not doing:

• i'm not changing the overall direction of the story; just hopefully making the process of getting there clearer to new players.
• i'm not intending to change characters in any meaningful way, just strengthening them and maybe remove some antiquated attachments.
• i'm not looking to change the order of gyms or areas or add entirely new places*
  *with currently one small planned exception
• for my own sanity, i'm probably not going to do much with places that have multiple versions of their maps. so, the entire city overworld, for instance. i don't want to and you can't make me. 

so now, what are the general goals of the early game updates:

• introduce relevant elements and characters sooner so everything is more meaningfully set up and moving forward
• clarify objectives of exactly where the player should go step by step to progress
• make early game areas and story flow less linear by removing unnecessary detours and adding more optional character events instead

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so far, i've gone through the events of the game up until julia's gym. i might still add more optional events in there later, but now i'll be talking in detail about what has been done. so, if you want to leave all of the early game changes a surprise for when you play, this is the part of the post to skip out on, bye bye!!

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...okay, are they gone?
all right, let's go.

• victoria is no longer said to be starting over; she's just a new trainer, since that was an entirely unimportant and muddying detail.
• the meteor bombing culprit is not caught right away. it was weird for in-game me to be like "sorry i gotta go dispense justice bye" and then three seconds later in the grand hall "ok done lmao"
• the torture scene has been removed
• the graffiti has been resprited to be for english characters. when i put that in i somehow still thought probably not many people who could read japanese would play the game. it has been an embarrassment for some time.

• corey can now be found in peridot ward. after a point, he also has a small sidequest for the player.
• fern now has a reason to get angry at the player instead of whatever he was doing before. ferning, ig.
• the player is not required to return to julia's gym before going to mosswater factory.  
• you can meet either fern or julia to bust into mosswater. tough choice, i know. 
• mosswater factory has been entirely remapped:

• the locks in mosswater are now static password locks. so, if you remember them between playthroughs, it is possible to skip as much or as little of the factory as you want. the only mandatory trainer battle is VS aster and eclipse
• while team meteor is deleting data from the factory, it is possible to find hints about various PULSE projects in the factory
• depending on what you do, you can either have florinia hack the final door, or let julia blow it up after all. 

...that's most of it for now. i'm not sparing too many details here so i hope that it will still be a notable improvement to play when the time comes yet. i'm sure there will be more posts like this as we go too. in fact, "tomorrow" i'll be talking about a more controversial change we might be making to the game's story.

as always, huge thanks to everyone for the support that allows me to take the time and care for all of this. you all are incredible, and are the real ones making this happen <3