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AoD - brand new screens

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Link

Not much to say. Take a look and see for yourself. There should be 4 screens there: a full screen view and 3 dialogue screens in sequence. Hopefully you like the new graphics better.
 

Spazmo

Erudite
Joined
Nov 9, 2002
Messages
5,752
Location
Monkey Island
Looks great, but I'd love to see it in motion to see what kind of animations you have and complain about those. When will there be a demo, BTW?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Not sure. We've changed the graphics after the last bitchfest. It would take awhile to update and replace everything. Also, we're planning to add a lot more models then was previously planned and pay more attention to visuals in general.

So, a demo would be available when the game is ready. We apologize for the inconvinience, and hope that you can complain about something else for now. For the record, animations look very decent.
 

Sheriff05

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 24, 2003
Messages
618
Location
Chicago
VD, I am totally looking forward to your game. It's really looking great
Question why the low resolution? and is/ will it be possible to adjust.
I still have several older CRT's but was just wondering about the technical limitations.
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
The dialogue looks great and I know I should bitch about something else, but I think the floor and grass tiles could be more varied.
Great work nonetheless.
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
Looks good to me, as long as it's clean and usable, I'm not overly concerned about graphic quality. It can look like a game from the 80's as long as I don't have to type in 4 characters to cast a spell. :)

I'd second questions about the resolution. Ideally the bar at the bottom would do some scaling based on resolution, and you'd just show more or less of the world. I know this isn't an easy thing to shoehorn in if it's wasn't in the initial design.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it.
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
They look great. I have been reading everything I can about this game and a lot of it (well, everything except timed quests) has been music to my ears. I feared the graphics would turn me off, but thankfully that doesn't seem to be the case.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
Thanks for the support, folks. What's wrong with timed quests, Jora?
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
I can't speak for Jora, but I dislike timed quests because I tend to meander through games and hate to miss things. I rarely re-play games from the start so I like to do everything I can with the character I build.

Also many games don't make it clear if a time limit will be enforced or not. And since there are so many different ways that time is handled in games it's often hard to figure when the actual last moment to address the problem is. Often games themselves are inconsistent, one quest may seem urgent but have no hard limit, while another does. Also, they are easy to forget about, especially when time is arbitrary through most of the game, only to matter at some random point.

Actually a listing of all timed open quests at the top of the game screen with a countdown, and any travel time from your current location included would be nice.

It's more realistic to have consequences for dawdling, but realistic in the way requiring food and lantern fuel is. My personal taste is to abstract it out in most circumstances.
 

MichiK

Novice
Patron
Joined
Apr 5, 2004
Messages
27
Hi,

Just chiming in for the first time... game looks awesome. I love eye-candy as much as the next guy, but right now I am playing Avernum 3 and having a great time... and we all know what those graphics are like ;)

Question - about how big is the game? Avernum 3 size? Fallout? Baldur's gate? Or something more modest like Prelude to Darkness?
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
Vault Dweller said:
What's wrong with timed quests, Jora?
When playing RPGs, I want to relax, take my time exploring the world and do things in the order I want to. I want to decide the amount of time I spend in each location and not be told: "Look, I [the game] know that you want to go to Blackbone Hills to explore the countryside and hunt some badits before getting back to politics, but first you must take care of these quests in the harbour district, overthrow the local government and blah blah. Otherwise the time set by the maker of the game will run out and you'll never be able to complete those quests.

"And why would you want to go to Blackbone anyway? You wouldn't have time to hunt bandits because you have to save the daughter of the local mayor from getting sacrificed by the cultists. If you don't do that soon she'll be killed and the mayor will refuse to talk to to you, which makes it impossible to complete the 'Aunt Mary wants you to make many friends' quest with persuasion and diplomacy, which in turn blah blah..."

Basically timed quests prevent me from getting immersed to the world and force me to play the game in a way I don't want to.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
In regard to timed quests, the reason they are in is that I hate those quests where a granny asks you to help her cross the street, you say sure, go 'xploring, and 6 months later the granny is still there, waiting for you patiently. That just sucks and kills the immersion for me.

So, a few things worth mentioning:

1) Main quests aren't timed. Only certain side quests are timed, and only where it makes sense.

2) Timing is always realistic. It's not a race. If you receive a quest and decide to do it, you would be given enough time to complete it. If you receive a quest, and decide to take care of something in a galaxy far, far away, then you probably won't have enough time, but then again, that means that you didn't care about the timed quest anyway.

3) Example of a timed quest. One of the dialogue lines above mentions the kidnapping. There are many ways to handle it, as you can see, and one of them involves the guards. They give you 24 hours to scout the location and get back with the info, before they attack. Obviously, they won't wait for you forever. With or without the info, they attack, but your info (what you can learn depends on your many skills) will affect the outcome of the attack.

While there is no flashing lights telling you OMG! ONLY 10 HOURS LEFT!! WHAT R U GONNA DO??!!!, the urgency is clear.

Comments?
 

Jed

Cipher
Joined
Nov 3, 2002
Messages
3,287
Location
Tech Bro Hell
The game's really shaping up, VD. Although some of the color pallete is not so great (the grass), I think the graphics look excellent overall. The dialogue looks cleaned up from previous versions you've shown me, and the interface looks much more well-designed now.

All I have left to say is, "Can't wait!"
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
Vault Dweller said:
Comments?
Sounds reasonable. Just make it so that you don't have to accept the quests immediately after being told about them. And as obediah said, it would be good to know if the quest has a time limit or not and what the limit approximately is.
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
Vault Dweller said:
....

Comments?

Sounds reasonable. But I still don't think it's as fun as letting the player pick at the questlog in their own manner.

You mention being more realistic and immersive as justifications, I've wondered how far you've gone with this. By only giving the character 10 minutes to help the lady across the street, you've only fixed half the problem. She's still had to sit inside next to the street for god knows how long, waiting for me to make it to this screen so she can waddle out to the street and get ready to hand me the quest. What if I don't talk to her? Does she go back inside after I leave and wait until the next time I come to this screen?

In the example of the kidnapping, does it always happen at the same time, and if you're elsewhere for 24 hours, you completely miss out on the quest?

Since main quests aren't timed, does that mean none of them are urgent? I think deciding on where to draw the "time abstraction line" is pretty subjective and open to debate, but being consistent is preferable. If I go through 5 quests that seem urgent but don't have time limits, and then encounter one that does have a time limit, it had better be very clear that there is a time limit this time around, to not do this is bad design in absolute terms. If time isn't important for most of the game, players won't pay attention to it enough to learn the intricacies, and then they hit a timed quest, and that's when they learn that it eats up 30 minutes when you change areas - fuck! ;) Again, I would consider that bad design.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
MichiK said:
Just chiming in for the first time... game looks awesome.
Thanks

Question - about how big is the game? Avernum 3 size? Fallout? Baldur's gate? Or something more modest like Prelude to Darkness?
Fallout. I used it as a template in many ways.
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
I still have to say that the biggest reason I'm very eagerly looking forward to this game is that after reading comments from game designers and ordinary posters alike about how having different ways (besides the juxtapositioning of good and evil that has come to fashion with the success of KotOR and Fable) to complete quests isn't always realistic, I have really become desperate to play a 'proper' (Volourn, don't kill me) role-playing game. So just remember not to let me down! :D
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Sheriff05 said:
Vault Dweller said:
Comments?

::::cough::::: Resolution?
My apologies. The resolution is fixed at 800x600 to lower system req.

Jora said:
Just make it so that you don't have to accept the quests immediately after being told about them.
Sure

And as obediah said, it would be good to know if the quest has a time limit or not and what the limit approximately is.
You will be told what the time limit is, i.e. "you have a day" or "we'll wait for a week". It's very easy to see if there is some sense of urgency there. If you fail to complete such a quest though, I can personally guarantee that the Sun won't explode killing everything on Earth. It's ok to fail, nobody likes overachievers. :lol:
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
obediah said:
What if I don't talk to her? Does she go back inside after I leave and wait until the next time I come to this screen?
Yes. In the example of the kidnapping, the quest is active for as long as you are in the town area. After you leave the town, it's assumed that the kidnapping has been dealt with, and the triggers are pulled. Literally.

In the example of the kidnapping, does it always happen at the same time, and if you're elsewhere for 24 hours, you completely miss out on the quest?
It had already happened. The only question is whether or not you get involved and how.

Since main quests aren't timed, does that mean none of them are urgent?
No. You find a map, and decide to follow it. Some people/factions get involved. You make choices and deal with consequences biting you in the ass.
 

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