Shaddap, Prop. I'm excited, that's all -- and I was just kidding about the titles.

I am indeed enjoying it, JACOB. It's a sign that our hard work is starting to pay off. But let's not get carried away, okay? I'd rather stick to my internet alias in forums.

Guys, Michael was right -- the site IS running slow, in that it takes much longer than usual to transition from page to page. I guess it's a side-effect of the site being dynamic and having to load information for each page from text files or whatever.

Y'know, Jake, you could cut off that last part of "Predetermination" to lessen loading times on the site. I can spot one obvious place (right after the third part of the Chrono Trigger theme song) where the music basically stops and then starts again. You should stop it there, so we could have nothing but the CT theme song. Then viewers won't be agonizing so much over a long wait while the site loads on their first visit, and we'll be able to make more room for To Far Away Times.

I was thinking we could just provide ways to turn the signatures into hotlinks, like with my Chrono Symphonic sig. We could, for example, place a tag line somewhere on the site that says [ url=https://www.vizzed.com/ctremake ] [ IMG ] *insert sig url here* [ /img ] [ /url ]. Then people could copy and paste it.

Jake, I can't open your sig files. My computer doesn't recognize the format.

Stoney: Mine doesn't recognize it either. That's from Nate. They seem to be PhotoShop files. Don't worry about it; just look for images on the net that show the same image as what's on those thumbnails.

About Predetermination: I'll look into it.

Site running slow: The text is only loaded once, when the site itself loads. If you refresh your screen, the text should load again. The only thing that "reloads" between pages is the images...and even then, only the dynamic ones. There are only about 5 dynamic images in the whole site, so I highly doubt that's the problem.

Prop: About the signatures, I still don't know what you're talking about. I'm not asking people to handwrite their signature into the digital petition... I'm talking about just printing out the petition (in HTML or PDF or Word), which is a simple task of click-the-icon-for-the-petition, then click-the-printer-in-your-program. Then you sign the paper. No PhotoShop required. Just a web browser (for the HTML version).

Ok, I see where the confusion lies. We're talking about two different things. I'm talking about the signature images, for the forums. Mine, for example, is a picture of Janus in Zeal, which is evident below. In the Chrono Trigger Sigs of the Downloads page, there are signatures that say "Insert Name Here Supports Chrono Trigger." I'm worried that we'll have a lot of fans who wont know how to insert their name.

It's not running slow now. I guess it's back to normal.

See, I can't even open those PSD files, Prop. So I don't know what they have. Would you do me a favor please and change the text in them, then post them in JPG format? Maybe just have "I Support The Chrono Trigger Remake Petition" or something like that...where a name isn't required.

I'd love to, but there's a certain level of authenticity in the first paragraph of my critique. I don't have photoshop... and I don't know how to remove the text without removing the background picture. I was able to export them into jpeg form though. Perhaps one of you can do something with it. Still interested?

Yes please. And if you can save them in .PSP format for Paint Shop Pro, that'd be an added bonus.

I can't save the pictures in pro format, only in regular photoshop format, which they exist in on the site. I can give them to you in jpeg format though. Is it cool if I just host them here on imageshack, or you want me to email them to you?

Hey, hey, hey! Check it out! New reply from Claado Shou:



Since we're not in so much of a hurry now, I was planning on taking several days after the songs are mastered to get things ready, so YES, I can send Jake a few of the final pieces. Actually, I'll send him them all, and then he can choose which ones to use. I'll also let him know the actual date of release, as well as any other pertinent information.

Also, if you're going to use any of the songs, I would appreciate it if you asked the individual artists their permission. I know Jake asked several when the Flash series was still going on, but I just want to keep every base covered. I appreciate it.

~.C.S.~



So Jake, it looks like you'll be able to look through ALL of Chrono Symphonic's music and pick the best of the bunch. It's quite possible there are some pieces in there that would go well with the site (such as Track 13, "Confronting the Mystic" -- I managed to download it way back when before Claado started requesting that nobody show any of the music to anyone else. The track is very very awesome -- it includes both "Battle with Magus" and "Lavos Theme" and is quite fast-paced/exciting. I tried it with the site and it worked pretty well).

And you'd better ask Reuben Kee and Pixietricks for permission to use To Far Away Times...Reuben is hard to get ahold of, but you should be able to ask Pixietricks by posting at the official OCR thread.

Or, if you want, I can ask them permission for you.

Just thought it was worth mentioning. I DO have photoshop, and I do not see how it would be possible to remove the text you put in without damaging the picture itself. Of course, I'm an ameatur, so it might not be as impossible as I claim. For simplicity though, it may be best to seek out the orginal image... without that put in it. Then again... if you knew where that was... we wouldn't be having this predicament. Drats...

I'm with Apoc. Let's seek out the original images.

Stoney, about Claado: I contacted every member of Symphonic for the Flash series I was working on, including Reuben and Pixie. Haven't talked to any of them since, but I get the sense they would all be fine with it. Still, I suppose if Claado wants me to go through PMing all the Symphonic members again, I guess that's what I'll have to do. I haven't seen Pixie on AIM in months, but I don't see any reason why she wouldn't be fine with TFAT on our site.

EDIT: And I can't wait to get that email with the whole album on it!

I found the first two pictures on this site. They're a bit scaled down, but the resolution looks high, so we might be able to make them work. Tell me, why is it again that we don't have the originals used to make the sigs?

http://www.icybrian.com/games/chronotrigger/remake.php

One word: Nate.

OK, so we've got the first two...



And here's the last.

Also, now that we're doing them ourselves, are we sure that we want to use those specific images to make the sigs? There are a lot on that site I gave, we may want to consider deciding for ourselves which ones to use, rather than using the ones Nate picked out.

I'd actually prefer having some sigs available that contain the petition's logo and nothing else. In fact, it would be easy to just use the logo image as a sig.

Jake, we've got a problem. Even though you say the Downloads page is hard-coded and can't be changed, you've still written a message on it saying "we have many upcoming downloads" and to "please check back often to see if there's anything new". But we don't have any upcoming downloads, and there won't be anything new, because the page isn't dynamic and we can't put anything new on it! The only way to fix the text at this point would require making the page dynamic, after which we'll be able to update it anyway and this all becomes a moot point. The alternative is leaving the page as-is and getting very many frustrated viewers who will be angered by our "lack of updates".

It's quite a pickle.

Guys, this is unrelated, but I just had an idea. I was looking through Gamespy for any coverage on the game tournament they had about a year and a half ago. I don't know if you guys were involved, but Chrono Trigger was in it and had a huge following against FFVII. I was thinking, if we could think of some way to make Gamespy to see it as worth their while to inform those thousands of fans of our petition, we'd get a rapid surge of signatures. Then I remembered that when you set up an account for a gaming site, oftentimes they ask you about your gaming interests. So if we then make other gaming sites see it as worth their while to inform all users interested in RPGs of the petition, we'll have an even larger surge. The only issue is getting the sites to cooperate.

Any ideas?

Interesting idea, Prop. Let me get back to that after answering the question about Downloads.

Stoney, we can do that with the logo-only sigs...but how 'bout just for us, eh? It'll spread that way. People can just save the image if they see it in a forum and use it themselves.

Surprise, surprise -- Nate created the message about many upcoming Downloads, so that was his oversight. I'm simply going to have the text changed, as he hasn't uploaded his corrections yet. That'll have to remain non-dynamic. Make it dynamic and we'll be looking at another waiting period. I'm not going down that road. Agreed?

Prop, because of the page being non-dynamic, I can't change the icons for the sigs on the page itself. This means whatever is linked to from those icons HAS to contain those icons' images somewhere in it.

Now, back to the GameSpy idea. I like it. In fact, I really like it. I'm not so sure GameSpy would send out an email to all members whose interests include RPGs (I could be wrong though, as I'm not a member), but I do find it more likely for them to make a mention of the petition in an article on their site. Now of course, it wouldn't work simply asking for them to mention it...even with Square standing behind us. I think if we have some signatures already under our belt, though, that could become a possibility. What do you think?

My thoughts are, since our goal is 25,000 signatures, we could contact them when we have a little over 6,000 (6,250 is 1/4 of the way there) to say "Hey, this is what we're doing and we're doing really well, but could you lend a hand?" When there are numbers behind it (and maybe we need it to be more than 1/4 of the way there), then I think those places will be more interested because it's like, "Wow, these fans are making waves and making news! Let's cover it and see where it takes them!" Or something like that. Thoughts?

That's actually crazy enough to work Jake. (on the whole waiting til we get more signatures.) But there in lies the problem, we might need major advertising to get to that point.

I suggest we wait until we have a good idea of how quickly we have signatures coming in. Then we'll have an idea of when we'll get to the 25% completion mark. Once we've got that idea, we can decide when to contact the gaming sites.

Sounds like a plan. I guess we'll just sorta wait it out for now. I'm guessing the site should be done pretty soon Jake?