KickStarter Kingdom Come: Deliverance Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Paul_cz]

Warhorse have super advanced AI

Confused, are you laughing because of the way it is worded, or because you don't think the AI your guys developed is not advanced?

 

[Smejki]

I like the hype-y wording of it.
Yes, we're developing an AI tech of its own kind. And as it usually happens it comes with many challenges.
It makes some things way smarter or it allows us to do things easier. I wouldn't be surprised if our AI acted dumber in some aspect than some other game's seem (the Gothic 3 example here is a good one, although we're fixing that issue). For instance, unlike others, we are really spreading the information about crime throughout the system. Moreover information about crime and information about perpetrator are separate. And yet we've run into so many super stupid scenarios with the guards and eacting civilians. Beth-radiantAI-esda went with magic-switch "whoop, everybody knows now" and was done with it. And it felt stupid. Predictable but stupid. Compared to that, we are superadvanced. Yet, when unpolished it also often felt stupid.

I'd call it superadvanced if, for example, every NPC could make real sense of it's surroundings (wouldn't require navmesh and other helpers) and could generate their own animations or dialogues. For start, there's not enough computational power to do that for a single NPC, let alone hundreds.

 

[Prime Junta]

I'd call it superadvanced if, for example, every NPC could make real sense of it's surroundings (wouldn't require navmesh and other helpers) and could generate their own animations or dialogues. For start, there's not enough computational power to do that for a single NPC, let alone hundreds.

Of course it all depends on your definition of "make real sense of," but for reasonable values it wouldn't be all that computationally expensive, certainly not compared to the graphical, sound, and physics magic that we take for granted these days.

Example: Dwarf Fortress. Its NPCs have highly sophisticated emergent behaviours, including dialogue, based entirely on making sense of their surroundings, history, relationships, preferences, moods, and motivations.

(Sometimes this leads to highly amusing bugs. One famous one early on involved fire. If a dwarf caught fire for whatever reason, it would take burn damage and realise that it's hurt. Hurt dwarves know that they have to rest to get better, so the dwarf would find the nearest bed and lie down on it. The bed was most likely wood, so it too would catch fire. Eventually the dwarf would die and its body be consumed, which would leave the bed -- still on fire -- vacant. Whereupon another tired dwarf would use it to rest, and catch fire. While he was resting, the bed would burn down, leaving the tired and burning dwarf without a bed, so he would move to the next one. Which would catch on fire. And so on.)

 

[Smejki]

yeah, grid-based games have much simpler definition of "surroundings"

 

[Prime Junta]

yeah, grid-based games have much simpler definition of "surroundings"

How would, say, "if hurt, then find nearest free bed, move to it, and rest" be any more computationally expensive in a full 3D world than a grid-based one? (Assuming here that the "bed" object has been correctly flagged as such. Of course if you're thinking of the AI parsing out a "bed" from any untagged model that a human would recognise as a bed, that's a whole 'nuther ball game, but why would you do that since you can just tag everything you've put into the world?)

Edit: /me re-reads

You did specify "without a navmesh or other helpers." Yeah that would be super-advanced, but from where I'm at, also pointless. The hard problem is having your NPC parse out the objects it can interact with from its surroundings, while the part that the player would actually notice is how it chooses to interact with them, and you can entirely bypass the hard part, so why bother? It'd make as much sense as having NPCs use speech-to-text to parse what other NPCs are saying, when the lines they're speaking are already available as text. I mean, you could, but why would you?

If KCD has AI comparable to Dwarf Fortress's, colour me impressed -- and that's not technologically exotic at all, it just has lots of clauses and lots of data, something that few games bother even attempting.

 

[Haba]

2) Vavra talked about saving through "charges" you'd find in the world - shots of brandy iirc - so you can't save every two seconds plus saving makes you less effective in combat so you have to think twice before you save before every fight. Is that still a thing? I personally like the sound of it but I remember people were bitching about it. Muh quick saves and so on.

Still in place. It's a potion and repeated usage indeed makes you dizzy.

You should steal a feature from My Summer Car, "saving" the game too much should teleport your character to a random location where you wake up after some time has passed.

Probably naked and covered in manure.

 

[Smejki]

uhm... getting drunk (save potion is a strong alcohol) too much indeed does that. Or it was a proposed feature. I'm not sure if we implemented it. :D

 

[Iznaliu]

Yes, we're developing an AI tech of its own kind

I've been seeing a lot of fancy AIs being advertised over the last while.

 

[AwesomeButton]

-Schedules
-Propagation of player reputation
-Reactions to player activity - stealing, unsheathing weapon, violence
-Reactions to player gear/clothing - I suppose this doesn't apply to every nameless villager though?

Am I missing anything?

 

[Quillon]

Am I missing anything?

Reactions to player's decisions in narrative

 

[ERYFKRAD]

-Schedules
-Propagation of player reputation
-Reactions to player activity - stealing, unsheathing weapon, violence
-Reactions to player gear/clothing - I suppose this doesn't apply to every nameless villager though?

Am I missing anything?

Getting drunk if you save too much

 

[Alienman]

I hope they react too if you walk around naked.

 

[Smejki]

You cannot strip yourself completely naked and our basic clothing is nothing to bark about. However it does affect greetings and perceived reputation when you talk to them.
Being "naked" is not a big deal in medieval society, after all. Being in shiny armor or expensive Adidas jacket though? Yeah, they do react to that, even outside dialogs. Except for your equals of course.

 

[cvv]

expensive Adidas jacket

Please make it an easter egg.

Also curious....did you guys find it hard to balance the economy? I don't think I can recall an RPG that got the economy right and I've been playing RPGs since the early 1990s. Usually from mid-game on you're so rich you could buy all the land on the world map with half your gold.

 

[Alienman]

That and squatting.

 

[The Wall]

You cannot strip yourself completely naked and our basic clothing is nothing to bark about. However it does affect greetings and perceived reputation when you talk to them.
Being "naked" is not a big deal in medieval society, after all. Being in shiny armor or expensive Adidas jacket though? Yeah, they do react to that, even outside dialogs. Except for your equals of course.

If you can answer these 3 questions I'd appreciate it much and if you can't I'll understand.

1. Some time ago (also during Kickstarter - seems like eternity ago now) there was talk, by Vavra among others, that your original scope for the game was so big that it simply couldn't be fited into single game and thus you split the game into 3 acts. This was supposed to be act 1. Allegedly you could play any of the acts separately or if you own all 3 of them then combined they would make one huge game and would be interconnected. Also every act would be in different location and cover different part of Hussite wars, introduce new features etc. Best comparison would be new Total war: Warhammer titles which more or less function in exact same manner. What happend with that format, were there any changes to it? Will there be dlcs for Kingdom Come and what size we could expect? I know it's still too early to talk about these things and that it depends on customers' reaction aka how well it sells but what insight you could give us for now...

2. How you personally and how Vavra sees the importance of rpg mechanics in your games? Is your ultimate goal to move to General gaming subforum and join Bethesda (soon), Rockstar, Ubisoft and like when it comes to their games (though Ubishit strangely enough wants to label their games now as 'rpgs' and migrate here, NO! back to General gaming) or are you more comfortable providing us with amount of stats and rpg mechanics present in I dunno perhaps Oblivion or Morrowind but surely better used and displayed then in Oblivion. Is your team's goal to eventually join the numberless, geometric cult Tim Cain seems to be founding or you're happy with some compromise and keeping numbers? I think that there is enough space and room for mainstream (2-7 million units) 1st person or/and eventually 3ed person rpgs with more rpg mechanics than Skyrim and less then I dunno Daggerfall in the market and you could fill it.

3. Would you ever like to pursue in the future Morrowind or Daggerfall kind of rpg game? What I mean by it is rpgs in new and weird settings. Or 1st/3ed person Arcanum like. Or rpg set in some other historical era with or without any fantastical twist to it (Wild West or Weird Wild West etc.)? I know this is even more uncertain then dlc plans for Kingdom Come let alone anything else but at least could you tell us what you personally (no obligations, just your opinion) would like to make in the future? What kind of game setting and mechanics (this is rpg site, how much rpg elements would it have) would you prefer or perhaps Vavra likes to talk about in hallways, meetings or in dreams perhaps?

To summarize it all, would you call yourself RPG company like Bethesda nowadays calls itself (Todd, nobody believes it, not even casuals, only Pete Hines and that's cause he has to convince himself into lie before lying other like any other good liar PR) or RPG company like Troika or Obsidian calls itself or something in between. If you understand me. Sorry for the wall of text. I like to build walls, text ones is only one kind of them. So, not really sorry then.

 

[AwesomeButton]

So I'm not missing anything too significant. The reaction to clothing/gear is a great addition, hopefully it will have enough depth and will be used in quests often enough. It's not something that hasn't been done in other RPGs but it's more of an exception.

This reminded me about the demo with the infiltration of the Kuman camp. Which takes me to the stealth mechanics and AI. Why are you (Warhorse) not making more use of this for marketing? Your stealth mechanics use hearing, the player makes a varying amount of noise depending on surface (I think?) and armor equipped? These two alone make your stealth mechanics better than those of that Dishonored misunderstanding. Based on the Kuman camp demo, I'm much more excited about these parts of the gameplay.

 

[Smejki]

expensive Adidas jacket

Please make it an easter egg.

Also curious....did you guys find it hard to balance the economy? I don't think I can recall an RPG that got the economy right and I've been playing RPGs since the early 1990s. Usually from mid-game on you're so rich you could buy all the land on the world map with half your gold.

Yes, it's extremely hard but I can't say where we are for 2 reasons. (a) I honestly don't know because my focus is elsewhere and (b) game economy is being balanced until the last minute so it's a subject to change. And since the complexity is almost impossible to model you usually have to use more random approaches which in turn eliminate any stronger sensation of convergence with any "ideal".
The other big trouble is with open-world games which feature any kind of perpetual respawn because it means there's a constant inflow of new valuables, be it XPs (for kills) or items to sell. These games allow for farming to completely fuck up any balance in the economy. So what counts as a game with well balanced economy in such cases? Usually the player rarely has to spend any money except when there's a useful but costly money sink.

I can recall 2 games with sorta well tuned economy
Gothic 2
Fallout: New Vegas
Gothic 2 held well enough for about 70% of the playtime even when you tried to minmax the game. Gothic 2 was so well balanced for the very fact it had no respawn. All the amount of money and XP in the world was finite and they balanced the economy around that fact. It's also one o the rare cases of games where I've ever bought a weapon from a vendor.
FNV isn't nearly as good but it worked well if you didn't minmax because it had a big money sink in the form of repairing (the rarer the weapon the more you had to use the expensive NPC services). I remember struggling with resources even considerably late in the game. Balance of the survival mode was a joke though. And RPG balance was all over the place.

 

[cvv]

Yes, I remember Gothic 2 economy, meaning it was probably good.

I think one of the mistakes developers usually commit is they make vendor inventory crappy. You hinted on it. If you can earn money but can't really buy anything worth a damn you get gold obese, that's a no brainer. One money sink can be levelling (I think in MM 6-8 various trainers charged you for levelling up, altho way too little to matter). Obviously Dark Souls does that brilliant thing where the "currency" is mainly there to pay for level ups, with ever increasing prices (tho not sure if it can really be called "an economy"). One of many, many reasons it's the best game ever made in my book.

 

[Smejki]

If you can answer these 3 questions I'd appreciate it much and if you can't I'll understand.

1. Some time ago (also during Kickstarter - seems like eternity ago now) there was talk, by Vavra among others, that your original scope for the game was so big that it simply couldn't be fited into single game and thus you split the game into 3 acts. This was supposed to be act 1. Allegedly you could play any of the acts separately or if you own all 3 of them then combined they would make one huge game and would be interconnected. Also every act would be in different location and cover different part of Hussite wars, introduce new features etc. Best comparison would be new Total war: Warhammer titles which more or less function in exact same manner. What happend with that format, were there any changes to it? Will there be dlcs for Kingdom Come and what size we could expect? I know it's still too early to talk about these things and that it depends on customers' reaction aka how well it sells but what insight you could give us for now...

I can only clarify and reiterate on the original statements.
The game on paper, when the plan was still to have a publisher driven development, was originally bigger and was meant to be a 3-act story. Each act would be defined by a new major goal a new additional map and so on but it would still be a continuation of the same story with the same characters. The budget was planned much bigger and the team size as well of course.
But Kickstarter happened and we had go smaller. With the more limited budget and team we decided to develop Act I only. But! We made the Act 1 bigger. For example the monastery was originally planned to be accessible in Act 2 but we decided to incorporate it in Act 1. We also enlarged the map and the scope of the story was adjusted to be a bigger more conclusive one.
The original plans for the content of Act 2 and 3 were not scrapped. If KCD succeeds rest assured we will develop them. But what form they takes I'm not allowed to disclose.

2. How you personally and how Vavra sees the importance of rpg mechanics in your games? Is your ultimate goal to move to General gaming subforum and join Bethesda (soon), Rockstar, Ubisoft and like when it comes to their games (though Ubishit strangely enough wants to label their games now as 'rpgs' and migrate here, NO! back to General gaming) or are you more comfortable providing us with amount of stats and rpg mechanics present in I dunno perhaps Oblivion or Morrowind but surely better used and displayed then in Oblivion. Is your team's goal to eventually join the numberless, geometric cult Tim Cain seems to be founding or you're happy with some compromise and keeping numbers? I think that there is enough space and room for mainstream (2-7 million units) 1st person or/and eventually 3ed person rpgs with more rpg mechanics than Skyrim and less then I dunno Daggerfall in the market and you could fill it.

I'm a traditionalist with an itch for experimentation who hates half-assed world building and weak writing. Stats'n'loot does not define an RPG in my book. Choices and divergent playthroughs do. So while I loved Witcher 3, I know very well thats design-wise it's just a glorified Telltale game with combat.
I can't speak for Dan. Or where he wants to lead the team. He dislikes following trends, that's for sure. I only know I disagree with him on many subjects.

3. Would you ever like to pursue in the future Morrowind or Daggerfall kind of rpg game? What I mean by it is rpgs in new and weird settings. Or 1st/3ed person Arcanum like. Or rpg set in some other historical era with or without any fantastical twist to it (Wild West or Weird Wild West etc.)? I know this is even more uncertain then dlc plans for Kingdom Come let alone anything else but at least could you tell us what you personally (no obligations, just your opinion) would like to make in the future? What kind of game setting and mechanics (this is rpg site, how much rpg elements would it have) would you prefer or perhaps Vavra likes to talk about in hallways, meetings or in dreams perhaps?

Again, I can't speak for Dan but he certainly has set plans for many years to come.
Me? I loved Morrowind, mainly for the otherworldly setting. I really don't like reusing the same old ideas again and again. Massive iterations and interesting mashups (Arcanum)? Sure!

To summarize it all, would you call yourself RPG company like Bethesda nowadays calls itself (Todd, nobody believes it, not even casuals, only Pete Hines and that's cause he has to convince himself into lie before lying other like any other good liar PR) or RPG company like Troika or Obsidian calls itself or something in between. If you understand me. Sorry for the wall of text. I like to build walls, text ones is only one kind of them. So, not really sorry then.

You decide once we release something.

 

[Smejki]

Why are you (Warhorse) not making more use of this for marketing? Your stealth mechanics use hearing, the player makes a varying amount of noise depending on surface (I think?) and armor equipped? These two alone make your stealth mechanics better than those of that Dishonored misunderstanding. Based on the Kuman camp demo, I'm much more excited about these parts of the gameplay.

That's a question for someone else.

 

[Iznaliu]

This reminded me about the demo with the infiltration of the Kuman camp. Which takes me to the stealth mechanics and AI. Why are you (Warhorse) not making more use of this for marketing? Your stealth mechanics use hearing, the player makes a varying amount of noise depending on surface (I think?) and armor equipped? These two alone make your stealth mechanics better than those of that Dishonored misunderstanding. Based on the Kuman camp demo, I'm much more excited about these parts of the gameplay.

People want to feel stealthy, not actually have to bother sneaking around.

 

[The Wall]

Smejki Thanks for your responses. I hope you'll find a lot of success with Kingdom Come and keep making awesome, fresh, new games. This kind of communication with devs (from Obsidian to Warhorse to Styg to Iron Tower to Archmage Rises and we cant forget Cleve over to Kickstarters like Demiurgos or Iron Oath etc.) in free and honest fashion is exact reason why I was drawn to RPG Codex in the first place few years ago (and shit hurling humour too) and decided to make profile recently. It's really unique and one of the kind on entire internetz. Try to convince Vavra to come here more often, he has a profile but rarely posts. He is like a long lost son to us. Oh, let's not forget all the rpg stats RPG Codex has in form of amount of butthurt, shit, retadred, incline, brofist etc. ratings you can farm. Sometimes it's like playing an rpg. RPG Codex - best rpg in making, never to be released!

 

[cvv]

Try to convince Vavra to come here more often, he has a profile but rarely posts.

He used to post more often but couldn't handle the mob. Codex is just not a suitable environment for these type A personalities, especially if they actually have a life.

 

[The Wall]

Try to convince Vavra to come here more often, he has a profile but rarely posts.

He used to post more often but couldn't handle the mob. Codex is just not a suitable environment for these type A personalities, especially if they actually have a life.

Now I remember, he got into some heated argument with some gentlemen whether his game is or is not rpg (such arguments are here quite rare :D) and about too action nature of Kingdom Come for some gentlemen's taste. Still he's more than welcome and shouldn't be discouraged from talking here if when he wants and when he can. Especially now when he can be showered with all kinds of positive ratings (brofist him gently, lads) type A personalities get here (like Tim Cain) and can hurl all kinds of prosperous things from butthurt to retadred back at them.

It's essentially food fight. He should bring his whole family along for the weekend with RPG Codex!