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[Malus]

Backed as well! Alpha access is incredibly tempting so I'll probably be upping my pledge before the campaign is over.

[frightlever]

Watched the Kickstarter video and I find your determination to set the game in the middle distance to be both incredibly bold, and something which I can't, ultimately, back.

Did anyone look over your pitch before you posted it? It doesn't bode well for the quality of the writing in the game, unless you're bringing on a writer.

Has to be said, I am still pretty pissed off about Sol Trader but I'm sure I'll talk the feelings away eventually.

Also, procedurally generated but you start every game as a young commoner who comes of age to discovers that their past is not what they thought it was and that their true... dear lord...why not a procedurally generated past as well, because you just described most CRPGs from ten years ago. I see no logic in wanting to procedurally generate NPC characters' backstory (because it worked out so well in Sol Trader when that was your focus)(that was sarcasm, by the way) while the heart of the story is one of the laziest tropes possible.

[Neonivek]

There is a certain extent where I must ask WHY is this procedurally generated?

And you might be going "Well, it is just one way to do it" and indeed, though it is touted as a feature.

The issue I am having is I see nothing dynamic about the generation system. Hopefully I am wrong.

[Cruxador]

Gotta say, I'm pretty much agreeing with the above two posters. There are some decent ideas but it feels like everything beyond the basic concept is just sort of shoved in there. There's not much to it besides "it's a fantasy game... And it's procedural like my space game. And it has things that fantasy games have". There needs to be compelling gameplay elements to it – a nice damage system doesn't cut it if there's not also a great combat system for it to supplement. And learning stuff about your gear is cool, but that's not enough to carry a game either. Learning stuff about your own background, on the other hand, seems liable to hobble playability of the early game, and players ability to invest in a character compared to building the character up yourself.

Ultimately, the standards for fantasy/medieval games are higher than sci-fi, and the story elements are also utterly lacking. Even a blank slate (like Mount and Blade) would be better, as long as there was a more enjoyable slate to play on. For a story, there should be set-piece events within the procedural framework, things that may or may not occur that use scripted content spice up a core gameplay loop that (as described so far) will otherwise either be very short or (more likely) bland and repetitive.

[Retropunch]

There is a certain extent where I must ask WHY is this procedurally generated?

And you might be going "Well, it is just one way to do it" and indeed, though it is touted as a feature.

The issue I am having is I see nothing dynamic about the generation system. Hopefully I am wrong.

I'm a bit dubious about 'procedural for the sake of procedural' games, but there does seem to be some method behind this. Items seem to get stronger the longer they've persisted, so having a 'history' could make for some really cool moments (picking up a sword, realising it was used in the massacre of x in the year n and that because of that it adds bleeding damage because of that or something). As long as it ties in and isn't just a way of filling out NPCs and locations then I'm all for it.

I also understand the 'common' starting role - it's difficult to tell a story if you don't have a similar thread to start from.

My only issue with this is that it looks a bit...generic medieval RPG. They're great if done well (everyone loves swords and sorcery), but I honestly feel that this could benefit from going a bit different in terms of theme and setting. From what I've seen, nothing seems to carry it enough to make up for generic setting and story. Even if it just went to a sort of Morrowind level of weird, that'd be enough - just this looks like Super-European Generic Fantasy.
 

[chrismdp]

I'm a bit dubious about 'procedural for the sake of procedural' games, but there does seem to be some method behind this. Items seem to get stronger the longer they've persisted, so having a 'history' could make for some really cool moments (picking up a sword, realising it was used in the massacre of x in the year n and that because of that it adds bleeding damage because of that or something). As long as it ties in and isn't just a way of filling out NPCs and locations then I'm all for it.

That's exactly what I'm going for.

I also understand the 'common' starting role - it's difficult to tell a story if you don't have a similar thread to start from.

One of the hardest things to wrestle with in the design of this game is to figure out how to make a compelling story work within a procedural world. Sol Trader has a go at it with the quest structure, but I want to go much deeper in this game with layered quests that make sense. The hard bit will be making the beginning, middle and end fit well together as a story, using set-piece quest lines to help the player advance.

My only issue with this is that it looks a bit...generic medieval RPG.

There's some interesting world building ideas that I've not fully fleshed out to do with identity that the items stuff above hints at. The aim is an RPG world that people can relate to and feel comfortable with, which then twists reality slightly based on your knowledge of the past.

Hope that gives a bit more insight into where I'm going!

Chris

[chrismdp]

Learning stuff about your own background, on the other hand, seems liable to hobble playability of the early game, and players ability to invest in a character compared to building the character up yourself.

I'm going for both. You are learning about your real parents and ancestry, rather than your own personal background. When you start a game you get to generate a character and make your life choices all the way through to early adulthood just like in Sol Trader, with the exception that they'll get to choose things like hair colour and their appearance. This should allow players to invest in their character, whilst preserving the progression mechanics.

I'm now painfully aware this isn't really mentioned in the Kickstarter, so I'll fix that

[chrismdp]

A quick update to say that I did a livestream preview of some of the combat last Friday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQTBf-xZ2Aw

There are more previews coming this week!

[chrismdp]

So we now have a playable combat demo! There's a download link, along with plenty more information about how the combat works on this update:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrismdp/ealdorlight/posts/1920007

Let me know what you think!

[Mephansteras]

Downloaded it, but probably won't have a chance to try it out until the weekend. Looking forward to checking it out, though!

[Mephansteras]

Ok, got to play with it for a few minutes.

A few comments:

The system seems interesting, and I can tell there is a lot going on. I like the complexity of the options.

The bad thing is, I don't know what is going on. There is this neat black box saying the last thing that happened to my opponent, but it doesn't always update. And it doesn't say what happens to me. I died without realizing that I was badly injured. Lots of white text flashed by, but it was hard to tell what meant what before it was gone, especially since the black box was more descriptive and I often paid more attention to it.

Also, the demo doesn't really say anything about the numbers for the characters. I see there are three bars in at the top of each character's stats, but no info on what each means. Also, no real descriptions in the demo of what to do or what causes what.

What causes an attack to be unopposed?

How far can I move and still attack?

What is the general probability of a given attack hitting? It tells me the damage I'm likely to do, I think, although one of my punch options was at -6.5 so...no idea if that means it'd do no damage or just a little. And no information to tell me if going for, say, a counter is more likely to be a good move over a basic stab to the torso.

[chrismdp]

If you press ESC and click help, then there's some text which might give you some insight into the system... any follow up details you need let me know!

[Mephansteras]

Ah, I missed that the first time.

Still don't know what pn, bl (bleed?), and fr (fright?) are. Could use some info on that in the Help screen.

Second test went better overall, although the game froze on me after a turn or two of my opponent running away and me chasing him. Had to kill it in the task manager.

As a general improvement, I'd like to see some parries/blocks/dodges in place. That'd make it visually more interesting and more obvious when you hit or miss. Different color text on miss/hit/severity of hit could also be good. I managed to poke the guy's eye out, but the game didn't give any satisfying reaction to such an event. Just some more white text. Not a criticism of the combat demo, more a suggestion for the future.

[chrismdp]

Yes there's stacks to do to improve it. I never planned to release a demo and had to work very hard to get it anything near ready to show so there are lots of rough edges.

Thanks for the feedback! Will add some more help text for Pain, Blood Loss and Fear.

[Mephansteras]

No worries. System certainly has good potential!