Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[forsaken1111]

though I don't think having ill defined objectives in this case is a bad thing being an exploration oriented game.

I agree, to a point. It should be made obvious to the player why he is doing certain things. The big stone guardian crystal thing (wtf is it?) says you should go kill the lieutenants before killing the bosses but never explains why we are going on a homicidal journey to kill these people to begin with. They're not attacking our 'village' after all. Are we the aggressors then? I don't mind that, I just want to know some of the story. Why do we have massive crystal stones talking to us while we live in crappy stick shacks? Who is my character and why is he killing people for the village?

You don't want to explain everything, obviously. Some things should be discovered and/or withheld from the player so they can find it out on their own. You should still get some simple overall goals, like "Secure the nearby lands so our people can grow!" and then (Conquer the strategic tiles surrounding our village to allow our civilization to grow) or something similar. Maybe I'm off base but you're given no preamble at all and dropped into a village with a few huts and a wall and told "good luck!". Even roguelikes give you more of an idea what to do than this. At least with Nethack you know you need to go down and get some amulet somewhere.

As for the graphics they can't do too much about them, though.

Sure they can, they are developing the game. The graphic mismatch is a nitpick though... I play DF after all. If the game is good I don't care about the graphics.

[cupogoodness]

I hear you on all these points, many of which are echoed on our forums. The feedback is a big part of what will make this game get better and better, so thanks as always for providing! I'm guessing the people of v1.0 will also be thanking their beta predecessors for suffering through for a better tomorrow.

[forsaken1111]

I hear you on all these points, many of which are echoed on our forums. The feedback is a big part of what will make this game get better and better, so thanks as always for providing! I'm guessing the people of v1.0 will also be thanking their beta predecessors for suffering through for a better tomorrow.

As I said, I mean no offense at all when I'm saying these things. It does look like it will shape up to be a very fun and interesting game and I have nothing but respect for developers.

[Aklyon]

the ability to smash monster spawners.

Yes.

Whats up with the permadeath, though? Theres not really any point to it if I just come back as a new person with all of my previous stuff already back with me.

[Keiseth]

the ability to smash monster spawners.

Yes.

Whats up with the permadeath, though? Theres not really any point to it if I just come back as a new person with all of my previous stuff already back with me.

Yeah, right now the only real drawback is some morale or happiness penalty.

I think I'd like to see individual NPCs diversified more so that the one you're playing as means more than a couple of good stats or drawback ones. Not sure how that'd actually work, but it would be cool to see!

The problem is one of my favorite things about the game; that everyone advances together with Civ level, so it really feels like it's Humanity vs The Apocalypse.

And the track "IndoorQuiet.ogg" is amazing.

Anyway, it's shaping up very nicely! Two updates in two days so far is pretty amazing for any developer.

[freeformschooler]

As for the graphics they can't do too much about them, though.

Sure they can, they are developing the game. The graphic mismatch is a nitpick though... I play DF after all. If the game is good I don't care about the graphics.

No, I don't think you understand - they're developing the game, but buying the individual graphics. So if they're missing stop frames, and the graphics they buy don't have them, they can't add them, for example. That's part of why everything looks mismatched - it's harder to get a distinct style without your own artist or at least a single artist you buy from. Basically all they can do is buy more graphics to fit a certain style. I agree with you about most everything though, the graphics don't really match up.

I actually like a lot of the music in this game, too. Why? I don't know. It feels so cheery when it's cheery music, and haunting when it's supposed to be haunting.

The spell system is neat, sort of like Order of Ecclesia. There needs to be more spells, and a way to get books easier, but that can come in time.

I'm going ahead and buying the game now. Wanna support these guys wholeheartedly.

And just how the F do they have all this time? The devs have been releasing and fixing stuff at such a fast rate and still manage to answer basically all their forum topics. Support at its finest!

[Tilla]

I hope at some point Arcen just hires some artists to do some original work just for them instead of contracting out. It looks terrible.

[burningpet]

I am pretty sure all the characters are poser models, all the background are heavily photoshop filtered 3d models, and the texture are really some random texture they applied heavy filters and thought that they fit their role.

i am very skeptic they bought any of those graphics as finished graphics. they might bought the base models, but not the sprites themselves.

and i really think that they should take that distanced perspective at their game and try to look at it in a fresh eye, because in the state it is now, i am positive it will prevent a lot of potential sales.

[freeformschooler]

That's what I thought they did, too, until they say that stopping animation was currently "not possible" or something due to the manner they got their graphics in on a comment thread in RPS.

[burningpet]

I dont get it. stopping animation? you mean stop motion? or actual character stopping animation, like the one absent in the world map?

[Aklyon]

Move the character on a side-scrolling area. As soon as you let go, they stop. Its missing the frame or two at the end which shows them actually stopping, not just flicking back to standing as soon as you let go of the key.
The world map one is fine, always moving doesn't give it a chance to show the flaw in the animtion.

[burningpet]

oh, gotcha. i just think they know it is a lot of work (unless all the characters share the same animation skeleton) so they pass it as not important enough. i really dont think it is a case of not having the models themselves.

[freeformschooler]

Still... even with that, I don't think the graphics are distinctly BAD. In fact, they've sort of grown on me (except the trees and background objects - I'm not sure why I'm not a fan of those)

[cupogoodness]

As far as perma-death is concerned, right now it creates the vengeful ghost (and eventually ghost groups that attack your settlement if you die a lot) of your dead characters, but since we're going with leveling on a civilization level, that stays the same. Where we want to add some more meat to it is how one individual character can make an impact on the land and the people living in it. Still a lot of stuff in the works, but something along the lines of your settlement feeling the loss of a friend/hero should a character that has put some time into helping them pass. Individual NPCs mourning a loss (I've even pitched an optional funeral or wake ceremony at Chris and Keith, but that would be fairly elaborate at this stage.) Too early to say for sure, but lots of ideas on how to make this more meaningful.

[Aklyon]

How does the kept inventory work with that, then?