Editorial RPG Codex Report: Gamescom 2016 - Pathologic, Shock Tactics, End State, Demons Age and more

[SausageInYourFace]

..but what if that one other person was Todd Howard?

?

 

[Azrael the cat]

I'm happy enough about getting locational damage back, that i can overlook not factoring in arteries and blood loss.

 

[ArchAngel]

I think the point is it is not going to kill your right there and then. The guy will still be able to use the other hand to kill you unless you put a few into his torso or his head.

Without medical attention, one can die within minutes of blood loss.

Yes, in a realistic game. But unless there are shock rolls for each hit by any bullet (including hitting their body armor) and other realistic simulation aspects holding on to just one of them while calling for realism is dishonest at best.
It is a design choice, it makes somewhat sense. The guy can still shoot you within those few minutes, the battle will not last longer and if you die it still does not matter if he bled out or not.
And if you run away and leave the map and come back later new enemies will spawn anyways, again it does not matter if the guy bled to death or not.

EDIT: But what can be done is that if a body part suffers enough damage, you start losing abdomen health per round and must use one whole round to bandage yourself to stop that.

 

[MicoSelva]

The Great Whale Road is a game inspired by King of Dragon Pass and set in the Viking Age, and it has been previewed by Bubbles himself. [you could put a link to the old preview here] At Gamescom, we got a little hands-on action with a more advanced version of the game that fixed some of the problems Bubbles had with the older preview version.

I think you've forgotten to remove the part in square brackets.

Thanks for the previews, btw. I have not heard of End State before, and it looks very promising.

 

[MicoSelva]

I posted too early. There's more.

First, a typo:

Of course, I was a huge Jagged Alliance fan because it's such a great ame.

Second, this:

Say, you're going down into a crypt filled with undead and you have a guy in your party who is deathly afraid of skellingtons, one guy who loves skellingtons so much he could cuddle them all day long, and a girl who hates men but more than half of your party is men.

"skellington" is not an actual word.

Overall, this is one of the worst-written articles on The Codex. Whoever proofread this should be ashamed. Most of the text that is not quotes from interviews I would classify as 'rambling', often with the same points repeated in subsequent paragraphs. You can do better, staff.

 

[JarlFrank]

Second, this:

Say, you're going down into a crypt filled with undead and you have a guy in your party who is deathly afraid of skellingtons, one guy who loves skellingtons so much he could cuddle them all day long, and a girl who hates men but more than half of your party is men.

"skellington" is not an actual word.

That is not a valid point of criticism.

 

[MicoSelva]

That is not a valid point of criticism.

Ok, cool. I just assumed, you meant 'skeleton' and wrote 'skellington' by accident.

 

[JarlFrank]

It was obviously on purpose, because bad jokes improve a sloppily written article! :D

 

[Cowboy Moment]

alphyna Mentioning The Last Express as a source of inspiration merits a real brofist:

 

[Barbarian]

I didn't know Pathologic was being remade. I couldn't finish the original back in the day because of the atrocious translation, but I could see it was a great game in the making.

With a good translation and better production values it could be a masterpiece.

 

[alphyna]

[laughs]

[LAUGHS]

[L A U G H S]
​

Holy crap, I laugh a lot.

I just want to say that it "Didn't Scale to Their Level", you know?

...And also know a thing or two about lame pandering, huh?

Nevertheless, the interview ended up being brilliant—thank you! I don't think I've ever laughed so hard reading an interview of ours.

Nikolay: Pathologic is a role playing game because your avatar is not yourself. It is actually a role you must… [long silence]
Alexandra: … play.

 

[Canus]

Delighted to see some activity from Ice-Pick Lodge. Any chance we'll be seeing more interviews with them, particularly about The Void? I've got questions about that game. Many, many question.

 

[Lucky]

I've been waiting for this.

B: Do you have a vision of an "ideal" game that you're building towards? Because you've made the original Pathologic, then Pathologic HD, now the Pathologic remake.... are you building towards some "ideal game" in your studio, and is that game the one you're currently making? [forums question]

Alexandra: I think the answer would be different for every member of our studio. But for me personally, Pathologic is the ultimate Ice Pick game in many ways. First of all, it's an experienced version of the first game made by this studio. It was the game that defined Ice Pick Lodge as an entity. Now IPL has been existing for 15 years, and we're going back to the source basically.

Then again, I don't believe that Nikolay – who's the creative lead, and the creator of the setting and so on –I don't know if he even notices the fact that this version of Pathologic features some themes from other Ice Pick games, like The Void, for example. And even Knock-Kock. Which is kind of surprising, because Knock-Knock was a smaller, arcade-ish game that was released on mobile...

B: Do you ever think about reimagining your other games, like Knock-Knock or The Void? [forums question]

Alexandra: Knock-Knock was only released in 2014, so it's a little early to be feeling nostalgic for it. As for The Void, the international version is already a kind of semi-remake. It was originally released in Russia, and it was super hardcore, no one could get through it. So the studio was kindly encouraged to make it a bit easier and add a more coherent storyline to it. And it would be weird to remake a remake… so no. Not at the moment at least.

B: But it's an open option?

Alexandra: Noo… I mean, “never say never”, but as far as I know, most people are strongly against remaking other games.

B: The stretch goals that weren't achieved in the Kickstarter, like the Termitary and Abbatoir, is there any chance that we'll see anything like them in the game, as DLC maybe? [forums question]

Alexandra: Pfft… I think there was some talk about the Prequel story… I think it's a thing that could be doable because we could use most of the same assets for it… but as for the Termitary and Abbatoir, it sounds unlikely. And we are just no DLC people, you know. It's not the mindset that we're going into gaming with.

And my questions got answered! Especially happy to see that there'll be no DLC, even if I asked whether they were planning on doing it. I prefer getting the definite instead of an patchwork GOTY edition that never knows what it wants to be.

I also agree with Nikolay that releasing it partially would be impossible without diminishing the game, so I'm pleased to see that they chose to delay the game. A major strength of Pathologic is how all three perspectives are present concurrently, which separating the game into episodes would ruin. The opening performance for one would take on a completely different meaning if only the Bachelor was playable in the initial release.