Learning.

[Gleeok]

I don't feel like it's ignoring... but events in the sense I'm using them pretty much *is* the game.

Add character X to party Y? - that's an event (command)
Load map X? - that's and event too
Add X HP to character Y? - still an event...
Launch battle with troop X? - event
Walk X steps right, face down? -- quasi-event, subsystem movement
Set event bit 1234 (indicating you just killed Garland)? clearly that's an event too.

Will the actual event commands be something that can be built later, or is it, as I suspect, that we will have to make them good enough, and flexible enough, that they can handle whatever situation a game-creator should want or need to throw at them? (I picture the event engine as the glue that sticks the good stuff together).

What I picture events as is a complex system where each event is a block of data that holds the info for what the event does and can hold conditions, child events, scripts, or whatever else, and an interpreter that can process events.
What I picture scripts as is something that can do anything an event system can do plus anything else you can think of without any editor tools or long development processes.
Playing a sfx, killing the player, or fading a screen to black I don't think of as events, but an event would be able to do any of those... Make sense? O_o

FF1 is great because it requires no events, just some game switches such as garland_dead?, orb3 aquired, chest 3 in Marsh Cave B1?, etc.. which would probably come in two flavors: map switches, and global switches. ..or states... though state implies that there can be more than 0 or 1.

I'm curious about how all of this can work generically. Maybe I'm not seeing the forest for the trees here.

I thought that's what you were talking about earlier?
----:
"I don't think we can discuss this without further noting that spells/skills/etc. always "belong" to a certain super-set, which determines the command and menu that the are called from.
To use a FFVI example, Pummel belongs to the Blitz category. Quadra Slice belongs to the SwdTech category. Pummel can't appear in SwdTech's list--it just can't happen.
Sure, it's my favorite, but this is not limited to that game. Several games have separate Black and White lists. It's the same idea essentially. "
:---
Or did I misunderstand?

What if we want to have an accessory that teaches slowly, and a shop that lets you learn it instantly (at an insane price, mind you!) It might be better to build everything with the assumption that it requires AP (or an equivalent), and just let people override the slow learning with 'Jump to 100%' items/shops/equipment.

This is not at all related to my fiendish plan to make the spells the player purchases only have 20% power and effectiveness, thus forcing them to grind them up to full strength. Not at all.
<_<

I had this idea too. Basically we treat spells/skills and such as western-rpg type games. For example, look at something like elder scrolls. Items are entities and can switch between being a map-item-entity, or an inventory-item-entity etc... they can have a location or be upgraded or whatever, but there is some kind of instance of them. So I can just do that without too much hassle I think. What it will do is allow something like FF6 learned spells, or spells that can lv up, or even spells that upgrade themselves or similar.

What else does it need?
SpellInstance{
spell_id
lv
exp
flags
} //this should be the bare minimum for all FF-type games.