What should I try to sprite next?

I like the idea. Have you tried to add more sprite and use the ones you added past the limit on PC/NPC ? I though there was more things to change such as harcoded offsets in the different banks because in this case moving all the data and expanding it is a better option than having sprites in two places in the ROM. Having the sprite data separated would require a lot of change in the ASM code.

But you're right in a way: When I expanded the monster data it wasn't that difficult to do but a relocalization is require to keep things simple.

I haven't done extensive testing, but I expanded the number of battle characters with full sprite sheets to almost double. The battle sprite pointers are absolute so they can point anywhere you want, you just need to make sure you move the list somewhere with enough space and update the code in C1. Same goes for the battle palette assignments. One thing I noticed was that characters higher than Kefka don't do the victory pose. I'm assuming this is fixable, but I didn't explore it further. I was only doing proof of concept testing.

I didn't do any testing for overworld sprites, but this is probably doable, there are huge gaps further down the pointer list where you could put a large number of sprites. My thought was to put a transformation function in C1 that maps those higher overworld numbers to their much lower battle ID numbers.

The only hangup I see right now I'm pretty sure is overcomable I just need to do more research, and thats in the area of extra-menu palettes such as for the save screen, shops, etc... Those seem to work quite a bit differently than the normal ones and I need to take a closer look at the code to see how much work would be involved to expand it. I'm sure its doable tho.

There would still be limitations like a maximum of 16 usable characters at any given point, and we couldn't expand the number of usable menu palettes without a major overhaul of the VRAM (way beyond me), so there may be a few sacrifices that would need to be made in the area of quality... but all-in-all, very doable.

That would be a nice project. The problem is, from what I've seen on the site, all the team projects here eventually died before seeing the light of the day. The thing I hate the most is participating in something that will not be finished. If it's your own project it's ok, but if it involves others you need to finish what you begin.

I feel the exact same way. But to be totally truthful, I am more dedicated to my personal project than I would be to this. And I'm sure most people would fit into that category. The idea is to set realistic goals and to have clear planning in place... a way to allow a project manager the ability to coordinate and reassign tasks as needed.

Another thing is that I've have always been for optimization (as much as possible) and full documentation in events and ASM coding, a way to proceed that not everyone shares. It's a longer process but it makes the debugging and understanding of work of others easier. If I ever join such a project, we need to have general guidelines regarding this. And a good pre-production (planning) on many levels would also be a good thing, not just deciding to change everything as we go.

Exactly. The more effort that goes into planning, the less difficult it will be to follow through. Documentation will be a huge deal. I could go on and on about this, but maybe that's better saved for later.

I really like the idea though and I would join as long as what I mentionned is relatively accepted by everyone. It could be a way to involve many people on the site like you say and most likely increase team spirit and cooperation. I'm willing to participate in creating events, data relocalization and other ASM task. I can also do music. Some spriters could do tilesets, I'm sure if they can draw nice sprites they can do tilesets also. Other editor stuff can be done by everyone so there's no rush for that.

I'm a battle mechanics nut, I would definitely be willing to put a lot into C1 and C2 editing. I'm not great with the graphical, but I get by, and I'm learning more. I really shine on the logic side of both banks tho, I've easily spent way more time there (over 100 hours in just a few months) than anywhere else in my hack so far. And I'm only 3 abilities deep +some custom spell effects.

I'm also decent on spriting, but there are way better spriters on the site. I plan to learn at least a little bit of everything for my hack though, so I would be happy to help anywhere it's needed.

I also think I could take 2nd seat to the project manager. I don't have the time to dedicate to being the main coordinator, but I would definitely want to be in the loop and would be willing to pick up the reigns if it became needed.

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Could we get this part of the discussion moved to its own thread somewhere? I feel like we should put some serious discussion into this.