A bit of a pickle...

[dmpdesign]

Alright, so I got enlightened greatly today by TheSpaceBetween into the true canon history of kings field and the many characters that inhabit the game's universe.

I had up until now, used the knowledge that was readily available in the U.S. releases of the game, by documenting the truth glass history of every objects/npc/enemy and place in the games we had here.  I used that knowledge to the best of my imaginative ability, combined with some stories that were available in several references in the US released strategy guides, martin's Kings-Field.com, and some fan made stories to piece together what I thought a solid chunk of lore to add to the series through my game.

It turns out that where ascii's translation wasnt left blank (a ton of it was left blank), it was also misleading.

This puts me in a bind.  I love King's Field, i have spent over a year to make dark destiny adhere to the lore and history of the game so it would provide insight into things not explained in the king's field universe on the US shores.  The game itself tells a very detailed story of many of the key characters in the series...and after my talk today I find that my background information needs major redrafting to be correct with canon information.  pretty much to the point that my game's timeline is broken completely and makes no sense to anyone that reads the original information.

With that said, he thinks he could get me a copy of all the information he has by january...and i could attempt to salvage the game and attempt to make the story make sense, at least mostly.

So my question is this...seeing that my game is more or less done and ready to be played, should i delay it another month and try to make it correct, or make minor adjustments in an attempt to adhere to what we already know from the US KFs and assume that no one will be any the wiser?

I really need good input on what to do here...I am pretty bummed out right now.

[Hguols]

Forget the average joe, most King's Field experts (include yourself in this Todd) aren't familiar with the intimate details of the King's Field universe.  (but you already stated that) 

This is a work of FICTION my friend. 
Your rendition is as good as any.

My take?  It doesn't matter if your tale matches up with some Japanese guy's "original story", or whatever that means.  I can think of one instance where a very prominent story doesn't match.  Pardon the religious/bible reference, but:

....for instance, in the book of Matthew (27:5) it says Judas died by hanging himself, in Acts (1:18) it says that he bought a field and died Alkedama style, "burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out". 
Mmmmm....   stinky....   

Which is it? 
Will we ever TRULY know?  No, because we weren't there.
Does it really matter? 
No, I think the bottom line is he died.

If you're worried about some King's Field egghead coming to you, pushing up his eGlasses and saying "Technically, Leon's great uncle Merkorferd did not fall in love with Reeds until 5 days AFTER the great Yeshep war, not with Frenda within one year like you claim"
...it's just not going to happen.


Release your game, be proud of a year's hard work.
I'm looking forward to your version of events!

[dmpdesign]

Well, I got everything I needed historically...and I can probably rework a few things to make it much more accurate.

I will have two relatively 'forgiveable' deviations from the From Software story line, simply because I can find 2-3 references within the US releases of KF1 and 2 that back up what I want to do.

I am going to rework things a bit, not necessarily the flow the game, but the accuracy of the background.  I dont think this will push my release date back any...

I think the game will be 90% faithful to the texts that TheSpaceBetween has regurgated for me this afternoon, but I have to say, knowing the intention of the original story is extremely intriguing....there is a lot more than meets the eye with everything that is kings field!

[Hguols]

Either way, I hope you're not still bummed out about it.

If you are, we could always go over to a certain former deputy's house with a box of candles and play "hide the candle".

I know the best hiding spot.
*puts on latex gloves*   

[dmpdesign]

Nah im not bummed now...I actually started doing the rework, all the item descriptions and npcs that needed fixing are done....now I just need to modify in game text and rework the opening video (which needed done anyways since its too damn big a file)

[dmpdesign]

Lol...ok ok.

Thanks for the feedback.  I can't help it, I am a purest.  Nothing bothers me more than when some moron takes artistic license way too far and generates something with the same title that has nothing to do with the original (the michael bay transformers movie comes to mind).

Anyways, I only had to bend the story in two ways...a timeline change of about 30 years and one or two changes of who kills who.  The rest of my story was able to fit in the holes or on top of the original stuff...so I am not too upset about it.

The other issue is just the plain difference between the japanese and US releases as a whole.  Where they differed greatly, I decided to go with US lore because my target audience will be familiar with it.

For instance, in the US king's fields, Thedeck had ties to King Harvine, and actually lived on Melanat for a while (which makes sense...you see lots of fire mage stuff throughout harvine's castle, and you see the lighthouses that were constructed by thedeck to light the shores of harvine's would-be castle island).

In japan, they never met, and thedeck quite honestly played little to no role in the story...which really has no coherancy at all considering half a dozen or more creatures/objects/items scattered about the island are directly related to thedeck.

I think the folks at ascii actually did a better job of building the character's backgrounds....as it really seems they were generally flat personality wise in the original character outline.

Anyways...I should still be on for next Tuesday...I am just about done tuning the in game collector's library which had a bit of a rework for the story line.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Hguols]

Todd!!!  Are you out of that pickle yet?!!??



Nope I guess not.  Can you hear me ok buddy? 

Look TODD!!  TODD!!  We'll try to get you out of there as soon as we can!!!

TODD!!!!!   DON'T MOVE AROUND IN THE PICKLE!  YOU'LL HURT YOURSELF!  STAY VERY STILL!

I'LL BE BACK IN A FEW MINUTES, OK TODD!??

I'M GETTING SOME BEEF PATTIES, MUSTARD AND KETCHUP...