Regenshire

A new stretchgoal is up

Because Kerfuffles is almost a meme of the PE kickstarter campaign, it is a fun inside joke for super fans that supported and followed the project. It’s not from a large corporate entity, it’s from another Kickstarter project that was going around the same time. It’s about having fun during kickstarter and supporting other kickstarter projects.

There are always assets that aren't used for one reason or another. I think it is a good idea to include them in the files for modding support unless they plan to hold the asset back for inclusion in the planned expansion(s) as a surprise.

I think something like Kerfuffles is more then fine, and has more to do with community then with some sort of mentality to squeeze every dollar out of the game by including advertising. I think this is a non-issue for this game. On the broader topic though, I think we are starting seeing more advertising in the large production games from major producers. I am of the opinion that since Kickstarter campaigns potentially allow developers to internally produce titles outside of the traditional producer-developer model, it will actually reduce in game advertising on smaller titles.

I upped my pledge to a new tier and added the $8 on. Can I please be the 'Knight Bailli of the Obsidian Order'?

I just upped my pledge from $165 to the $250 tier. Between the Hardcover Collectors Book, Blue-Ray/DVD, and signed collectors copy that I wont open I figure it might just be worth the increase. Plus, I want to contribute to the last day surge. Gives me warm fuzzy feelings inside.

I am happy to see that raise dead is not in the game as a standard mechanic. I have never liked raise dead from a purely flavor perspective, outside of extremely rare circumstances such as intervention by gods in a story line. I think having every mid level priest being able to bring people back to life cheapens it and makes death meaningless in the storyline and really detracts from the world. I am also happy to see perma-death as an option to enable, makes it a much more hardcore experience. That coupled with the mode they mentioned where you can't reload after a party wipe... *swoons*

Looking at how often you update this and other threads, I am curious when you find time to sleep, let alone work!

I think it can be safely assumed they will have editorial control, besides, the price barrier probably weeded out most people that would put in something like that. I am betting most of the NPC designs will be based off of memorable characters that have been rolled up, versions of themselves, and other things that mean something to them. $1000 is a high barrier for immature naming jokes, though I do expect we will see some humor and potentially odd easter eggs come from it.

This is the kind of assumption I don't get. They haven't said that there will be less sidequests, or that they don't like sidequests or exploration. They haven't said that they will not give you XP. The only information we do have is that the critical path will be slightly level-scaled, while sidequests will not be level-scaled, and that they are looking at XP given when you complete a quest or part of a quest. (Whether kill XP is given is not clarified.) In other words, everything points to a typical RPG world with plenty of sidequests with their own XP and gear rewards (e.g. the mega-dungeon). I think people quickly read through a small selection of sentences and then balloon it up into huge hopes or fears about the game, sometimes not in context of what the devs were talking about, or simply imagining a single sentence to imply an ocean when they mentioned a drop of water. Who was talking about the amount of sidequests? I was referring to what J.E. Sawyer said: "We plan to grant XP for exploration-based quests and objectives, so if there's something like the mega-dungeon that's focused on moving from level to level toward a goal, we will award portions of XP for achieving those goals. Most players will likely use combat to get to that point, but that doesn't need to be the only solution." My point was that I like to just wander about and hopefully encounter interesting foes not necessarily tied to a quest/objective. There seems little point to do that unless it is tied to a quest/objective. Since the question was directly asking about XP kills and that's the answer we got, I'm not 'reading' anything into what he said. If you interpret differently, fine. I'm sure you'll be happy with the game. For what it's worth, I did not 'quickly' read anything. I've been watching and reading these forums since the beginning and feel I'm fairly well informed. I personally think objective is a pretty subjective word. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is a quest based goal given to you by an NPC, it could simply be getting to the end of a maze, exploring the zone, getting past a group of zombies, ect. I agree that a system that only awards XP for quests penalizes exploration based gameplay, so I hope they make it so that quests are not the only avenue of character growth, but I also think it does not need to be linked to kill counts, and instead to accomplishments.

To validate playstyles equally. BBBAAARRRRPPPPP. Wrong answer. Why validate something with little risk and involves a win-button skill dump versus a massive battle? Because someone doesn’t want to play the game the same way you do and if they received a lot less xp for that play style they would in essence be forced to play a pure combat build. If a player wants to create a crack team of assassins and have them attempt to sneak past all of the guards to get to the main boss combat, they should be able to do that with feeling like they are gimping their characters by taking that approach. As long as XP is awarded on a per encounter (as opposed to only for quests) basis it should works for both combat and more skill based play through, imo. For example, if you enter a hall and there is a group of monsters, getting past them (via combat, dialogue, sneaking, ect), give the party xp for accomplishing that feat. I just hope they don’t make it based on only completing quests, but I don’t get that impression from what has been said, instead they seem to be implying awarding xp for encounters/exploration. This means you still get xp for doing stuff outside of quests.

2. Side character wrap-ups at the end of the game. Add endings for interesting side characters that appear after the credits roll based on how certain quests go. If you had a quest to heal Kerfulffleupogus by feeding him Paldins, then show me how Kerfulffleupogus turns out at the end of the campaign based on my actions. Maybe as a result of feeding him Paladin’s his outlook on life improves, he meets a Mrs Kerfulffleupogus, and goes on to form a whole family of Kerfulffleupogus’s as a result. Tell me about it at the very end! The more story wrap-ups they throw in, the more satisfying beating the game will be.

For the first five custom adventures you recuit I would really like to see quests instead of fees. As an example of what one of these quests might look like: You stumble upon the adventure’s Hall for the first time. Everyone is in an uproar over a job that has gone bad, and they offer you a quest to “rescue a member in distress”, an optional side quest. This side quest takes you into a location to rescue an unnamed member of the hall. Fighting your way through house/cave/dungeon/whatever, you come to the cell where the member is kept. Approaching, you here a voice “… Hello… Is someone there?” and immediately go into the adventures character creation screen where you design this new character. If they make 5 such quests, with varied situations, each locked into how many characters you should have at that point in the storyline, then they can bake in some actual roleplay to these characters and make it more interesting. Also, they should tie in a mechanic I would refer to as character swap slots to these quests. So when you complete the first quest you can swap out one character in your party with this custom character (not add on the custom character). So if at that point in the story you have have a party of three, yourself and two story NPCs, you can’t add on a forth, instead you can swap out one slot with either a story NPC or a custom NPC. As you complete each quest you add one slot until you have all five slots free to swap as you see fit. After all five quests are complete the adventure’s hall is back to business as usual and is opened up to create custom characters at your discretion, charging decent sums of money to create more adventures.

I think the reason why they are considering a currency based hiring system is that it is more then just making custom PCs for your party, its also creating extra PCs that you can swap in and out to maximize your advantage. It’s a roster of NPCs that you can create, a virtual stable. Think about a game like Final Fantasy Tactics where you could have 30 NPCs, most of which are sidelined, that you could swap in and out of your party from the Adventuring Hall at any time. There can be huge strategic advantages to doing this if you know what to expect in a certain area. Because of that, it might make sense to have some sort of cost or limiting factor to constantly swapping out characters. I think you should have a few free, very low cost, or quest based slots that you can recruit from the hall, enough to have a single full party of customs, and then maybe start charging a higher fee to recruit more custom characters to add on to your adventuring stable. Don’t penalize a player for having a base party, but still put monetary cost to having 30 options to swap in and out.

I went into this thread thinking it would be a discussion about including a new stretch goal titled "Love and Happiness" in PE... Ah well, maybe I can change into that! How about a $3.6 stretch goal where you add in secret "Love and Happiness" quests for special/random side characters like Kerfluffleupogus that if you complete them they roll after the end credits of the game? I always like hearing about what happens to other characters after you beat the game.

Just support a decent windowed mode that can be at non-standard resolutions along with free movable windows in the game (ie, most menus and windows can be unlocked and moved by the end user). For example, I have triple 1920x1080 monitors, and I might want to have the game spanning two monitors in a window, or possibly all three. If they allow for the user to enter a custom resolution and then move their UI elements around, then the user can match it to what ever configuration they want. In theory it wouldn't be all that difficult as long as they didn't have too many elements that try to stretch and fill the entire screen.

Cloaks, Capes, and Sheaths that actually sheath weapons and don't look like they are floating 6 inches from the characters bodies.

It sounds cool, but I think weather affects should be kept to a minimum and should normally be hard coded to match the conditions of the region/storyline. Standard stuff like it being cloudy, sunny, or drizzling now and then is fine and has been done before in many previous titles, but random extreme weather affects should not be added. Seasons should only be added if it is important to the campaign story-line, ie if winter is important for some reason. If you have random dramatic weather affects, then that requires the NPCs to react to that weather for there to be a feeling of realism. That would require a lot more work to implement then I think would be warranted by the enjoyment it would bring to the players. How much of an impact would random weather really have on your enjoyment of the game and how difficult would it be to implement properly for the development team?

I don’t think there should be any truly unwinnable encounters, but I think it is fun to have near unwinnable optional encounters in the game that are designed only to be beat by the highest level & best equipped parties that are using good tactics and lore dug up in the game world. As a player I want optional content that is going to challenge me outside of the normal difficulty of the campaign, it adds something new to strive towards in additional play throughs.

I personally find secret collection quests to be a fun aspect of some rpgs, it adds a challenge for those individuals who like to be completionists. These types of things tend to be more common in Japanese rpgs like Final Fantasy from what I have seen. I think an interesting idea might be to have some sort of collection quests associated with certain upgrades / traits of the Player Fortress. For example, finding a certain percent of unused books and scrolls would allow the building/upgrade of a library. The library would then confer certain benefits on the player (a unique spell) and the community near the fortress (loremasters and other learned NPCs start appearing in the community). Something similar could be done with weapons for an armory, food items for a larder, wine for a wine cellar (a must!), ect. This would also be a more interesting method for storing items then the old party chest. It would be incredibly cool if there would also be a graphic representation of each type of item in the room (ie, a book on the shelf, or a weapon hanging from the wall).