Zelaron RPG Battle system!

Well, the long-awaited RPG Battle system is finally up, and albeit it is still a bit bugged, it is being worked on. For starters, you can begin by checking it out at this URL:

http://www.zelaron.com/forums/rpghome.php

So far, it looks best in the default Synthesis theme, so I suggest you choose it via the style selector in the top left of the main forum page, if you're not already using it.

Now, as this is a gigantic add-on, also called "hack", I will guide you through the basics. To the left is a menu with various features you'll need to use, and in the middle is the character creation section. First off, I will guide you through creating a character.

[list=1][*]The Character Creation Process

Start off by clicking on one of the five images with a red stop sign on them to be sent to the first step of the character creation. In the top field, type a name for the character. It does not have to be your current username. For the Race and Gender menus, you can pick anything you like. Your choices will affect your final stats a little bit.

The second step is to choose a character class and element. They both affect your stats as well, and while none of the exact stats are revealed, you can probably guess that the Terminator has more hit points than an Assassin, for instance. *hint*

The third and final step is to choose an image for your character that will be displayed in battle. The looks of your character will in no way affect your stats, it will only make you look cool.

Now, you'll be able to see the character level, hit points, magic, experience and so on. You can also access your character list in the future by clicking the Characters link in the left menu.

[*]Basic Menu Functions

The first link, RpgHome brings you to the main page, where you can see your current list of characters, or create new ones. Your current items should also be displayed there. If you decide to buy equipment, or want to bury/revive a character after a lost battle, this is the place to do it.

The Inventory link also shows you your items, just like the RpgHome page.

Location brings you to your current location screen. This will be discussed in #3.

The Characters link shows you your current characters as mentioned earlier. This is a great link to check to choose a proper character for a battle.

The Search menu has two subfeatures, Characters and Battles. The Characters feature here lets you search for other player's characters, and the Battles will show you a list of current battles you, or someone else is involved in.

The Help, About and Credits links are self-explainatory, and not currently useful for any special reason. Anyway, off to something more important:

[*]Location and Gameplay

Clicking on the Location link in the menu will bring you to the default city of Kytoko, capital of the Reunion region. From here, you will be able to travel wherever the arrows surrounding the image can take you. Just try clicking on one to navigate around the world. Remember, there is no map, so if you get lost, there will be no way to find your way back without either asking an NPC, or perhaps guessing how to get back.

Either way, assume that you can find your way back to the Kytoko City Core (the name if the location is shown above the image to the left, and a small description for the area is shown directly below the image). From here, you can visit stores and buy equipment, or talk to NPC's. To get back to the location screen, you have to click the name of the area, or the Location link in the left menu. I will add a button directly in the NPC screen for this later.

A weapon store is obviously used for buying and selling weapons that will improve your ability to battle others. An inn will refill the hit points and magic power for ALL of your characters. An accessory shop will sell you various items for you to equip on your characters, and a pharmacy will sell items like potions. An important thing is that you can buy revives from here.

[*]Arena Battles

Now, if you navigate north of the Kytoko City Core (by clicking the "up" arrow above the large location image, you will end up in the Kytoko Arena. From here, you can talk to John, a battle assistant who will let you challenge users and accept challenges. Note that if you make a challenge, you must type in the user's actual user name, not character name. For instance, if you would like to challenge me, simply type Chruser in there. You will be debited for 200 gold, but in return, you will get to do the first turn in the battle.

Of course, like previously mentioned, this is also where you must go to accept battles. If you have challenged someone and the person has accepted, you can get into the battle by clicking on Battles in the menu (under the Search section). Others will also be able to spectate battles, and all logs will be stored in the "RPG Battle" forum, shown at the index of the board itself.

After you have selected a character to battle with, the one whose turn it is will get to choose between Attacking, Defending, Magic and Items. Also, you can choose to add a message in the little input box to say something to your opponent. "Time to die, 007!" might be a good thing to say if you're sure of winning, for instance.

Whoever has to wait for the other player's turn will automatically see the window refresh every few seconds. Simply wait until it's your turn, and if the other player would take a coffee break or get some sleep, you can always do something else, and get back into the battle by clicking on the Search Battles thing later on. Spectators are also welcome to join, and watch the current battles.

[*]Money

Now, everyone would want to have some great equipment, or to be able to buy a revive potion for his dead character, but how does one make money? As this "hack" is fully integrated with vBulletin, the moneymaking process is based on doing various actions at the board. If you make a new thread anywhere at Zelaron, you make 30 credits, while you earth 10 credits if you reply to someone else's (or your own) thread.

Also, you are given money if the reply count of your own thread reaches a certain amount. For instance, if your thread reaches the large amount of 70 replies, you would make 600 credits. Of course, you would make lesser amounts of money if you had 5 replies, for instance, but everything helps. So keep posting good and creative threads, and you will be rich in no time at all.

Also, if you manage to affiliate anyone to the board, you make 1000 credits. Read more in the F.A.Q. for additional information about that.

[*]Known Bugs

No-one (not even I) is flawless, and nor is this system. As it is currently a beta, it has quite a few bugs, some which you should be aware of. For instance, after you equip a character with an item, you cannot remove it from him or her. Sometimes while you're in a battle, you might get strange error messages and the menu might go black after doing certain actions, but just click the Back button in your browser to go back. Also, leaving the character creation process while only half-way through will leave you with a half-finished character that counts as finished, so you could easily end up with a Marine who has no character image! Lastly, you cannot currently sell items in the stores.

All of these bugs, plus a few more are currently being worked on, but as I decided they are not fatal, you should (hopefully) be able to survive even with them. There are quite a few more features in the game I haven't told you about, so you'll have to explore it for yourself, but you should know the basics now.

[*]Additional Information

As you might have noticed, the game is not as large as it could be, and this is simply because it takes time to create new areas. Well, all ideas and additions you could think of, or even implent by sending me a 640x480 image of a new area, would make me really happy. While I have already tried to put my soul into this project, zajako, the author of the RPG System is the one to be thanked for his hard work. He has spent over a year working on the PHP code to get this truly spectacular hack to work, and while it is not completely finished yet, I sincerely hope you will enjoy it. Lastly, if you run into any bugs, please report them to me right away, preferably via PM.

Thanks, and happy dueling. Remember that no matter how nice we are, none of the admins will donate you any money to keep the game fair. [/list=1]