A Few Questions

[Sean]

After watching the kickstarter video I couldn't help but have a few questions about features and gameplay, it would be great to hear back for someone who knows a lot about this project. It should also be made aware that I realize the game is still in development.

Will there be a ranged combat system?
Will there be a stealth system?
What will the AI look like, will enemies work together or can your recruit companions?

I really hope the game doesn't end up being empty, the technical side made my mouth water but I really fear that I'll be running into tiny towns with nothing in them, nothing to do and then spend several minutes fighting some random person and then realize that there's very little to do besides kill stuff and find stuff. But, I am confident in the developers that they will offer lots of variety and that the game will deliver on its enjoyment.

 

[Brendan]

Hi Sean,

In short; yes, yes, awesome, yes and yes, respectively

Towns will be large and packed, there will be loads to do, and fights won't last that long.

Don't let our sweet tech fool you into thinking it's the focus, it's just what makes our vision possible.

 

[Sean]

Hi Sean,

In short; yes, yes, awesome, yes and yes, respectively

Towns will be large and packed, there will be loads to do, and fights won't last that long.

Don't let our sweet tech fool you into thinking it's the focus, it's just what makes our vision possible.

Glad to hear from a developer! That sets me at ease a lot, I honestly hope the kickstarter makes it. If you get kick-started, will the next step be Steam Greenlight if you haven't already?

 

[Brendan]

Glad to hear it, so do I!

We have already submitted the game as a concept on Steam, which seems most appropriate given its very early state of development. We'll probably submit it for Greenlight once it reaches alpha phase.

 

[the0thMonkey]

My question concerns how time is handled in the game.

Will performing actions like rearranging your inventory or eating and drinking pause the game or will time continue at its normal speed?

I think it is very much more in the character of the game to have time continue regardless of what the player is doing, but I wanted to know what the official position on this is.

 

[Madoc]

We'll allow pausing when in single player but you won't be able to do anything at all within the game while paused. Doing anything with your inventory or talking to people etc. will certainly not pause the game or prevent normal controls from working.

 

[Komuflage]

Ah perfect, just what I wanted to hear.
I loved the feeling in Demon's souls during your first play through, where I was a bit scared to open my inventory; didn't want a skeleton to jump me

However, being forced to go to the main menu every time I needed to go to the bathroom was quite annoying.

So your solution seems perfect.

 

[MNONE]

We'll allow pausing when in single player but you won't be able to do anything at all within the game while paused. Doing anything with your inventory or talking to people etc. will certainly not pause the game or prevent normal controls from working.

Regarding that, will the inventory stay roughly similar to how it's been demonstrated thus far? I.e. smallish and offset from the centre of the screen? Otherwise it could be a little annoying to be equipping something only to be attacked by something you never saw coming. That's the only thing that bothers me with non-pausing inventories: they keep the action going, but proceed to obscure it from you for no real reason (plus I think if I were digging around in my pack, I'd still be sufficiently aware of my surroundings to stop doing that for a second so that I could grab my sword and defend myself).

 

[Komuflage]

Regarding that, will the inventory stay roughly similar to how it's been demonstrated thus far? I.e. smallish and offset from the centre of the screen? Otherwise it could be a little annoying to be equipping something only to be attacked by something you never saw coming. That's the only thing that bothers me with non-pausing inventories: they keep the action going, but proceed to obscure it from you for no real reason (plus I think if I were digging around in my pack, I'd still be sufficiently aware of my surroundings to stop doing that for a second so that I could grab my sword and defend myself).

Think of it like this, if you would stand in a open field, you would see roughly 180degres in a cone in front of you, and you would hear things going on behind you, however, if you were to sit down and go through your backpack, you wouldn't be able to see that much around you, (since you're probably looking down towards the ground)
So the inventory blocking part of the screen (your view) would actually be kind of realistic

 

[Rob]

@Bare Mettle

Despite being completely different games, I'd highly recommend looking at Sacred 2 and Torchlight 2 when thinking about the non-paused inventory/skill/quest system. They have both tried to do non-paused systems. I'd look at these, the good and the bad, when designing your UI.

 

[Sean]

If we're talking about UI, they should be minimalism and should present no learning curve. We don't have time to fiddle around with learning how the inventory works, it should work as expect!

 

[Rob]

@Bare Mettle

Despite being completely different games, I'd highly recommend looking at Sacred 2 and Torchlight 2 when thinking about the non-paused inventory/skill/quest system. They have both tried to do non-paused systems. I'd look at these, the good and the bad, when designing your UI.

Just to clarify, I'm referring to the fact that the pop-up is smooth and dynamic, not boolean on/off, and also each UI "page" fills just half the screen, not smack-bang in the middle. This allows you to have multiple pages (e.g. inventory, log, skills, etc.) open and displayed on screen simultaneously. Also, you can operate (e.g. move and fight) whilst the investory/skills pages are open. Perhaps an additional feature would be for users to be able to scale the UIDs independently and on the fly (e.g. drag an icon in the bottom corner of the window), so as to fill up more or less space on the screen.

 

[MNONE]

Just to clarify, I'm referring to the fact that the pop-up is smooth and dynamic, not boolean on/off, and also each UI "page" fills just half the screen, not smack-bang in the middle. This allows you to have multiple pages (e.g. inventory, log, skills, etc.) open and displayed on screen simultaneously. Also, you can operate (e.g. move and fight) whilst the investory/skills pages are open. Perhaps an additional feature would be for users to be able to scale the UIDs independently and on the fly (e.g. drag an icon in the bottom corner of the window), so as to fill up more or less space on the screen.

I'm fine with windows just poping in, but the smooth animation would be pretty cool.
Being able to see the world alongside the inventory, and act at the same time (which seems to be how it works in the early examples we've seen thus far) is definately a good idea. Out in the field, you'd still have a good deal of situational awareness afterall.

 

[Madoc]

The inventory you see in the video is representative of what we have in mind. Currently it's a floating window that you can move to wherever you want on the screen, when you next open it it would be in the same place again (this is how UO worked and we liked it). Other windows such as the skill sheet would likely be of the same size and work in the same way. Thaumaturgy might be trickier because we have a sort of cloud diagram in mind for it.

Our UI system does allow fade ins and scroll ins etc. we just don't currently have them enabled for that window.

We'll probably get plenty of feedback from you lot on all things UI.