Interview Kult Q&A at WithinGames

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: 3D People; Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

<a href=http://www.withingames.net>Within Games</a> posted an <a href=http://www.withingames.net/index.php?show=articles&type=showspecial&id=70>interview</a> with <b>Jan Turan</b> und <b>Chris Bateman</b> about <a href=http://www.cult.3dpeople.de>Kult: Heretic Kingdoms</a>, an upcoming fantasy RPG that promises to have more role-playing then just playing with stats.
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<blockquote><i>As far as I know Kult: Heretic Kingdoms is the first project of 3D People and it's an ambitious rpg. But nowadays there are so many games in this genre. What features will make Kult: Heretic Kingdoms better than the rest?</i>
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...Also, the dialogue system is quite different, as most of the quests unfold in multiple different ways. The player has a lot of choice as to how they interact with the world - they can choose to be trustworthy and loyal, or a selfish betrayer. Although you can choose the outcomes, you still have to live with the consequences. If you betray someone, don´t be surprised if they refuse to deal with you anymore, or perhaps even try to have you killed. And even if that happens, you may be able to find a way around it...
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<i>Speaking of quests - can you give an example how the quests in Kult: Heretic Kingdoms will look like? </i>
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Okay, but I´m reluctant to say too much because the quests relate to one another, and there are a lot of surprises and twists imbedded in the quest structure. However, at a certain point the player will be pursuing a particular goal for the Inquisition, during the course of which they will end up escorting a thief as a means to an end. The player can respond to this situation in a number of different ways - including being rather negligent in their duties! Ultimately, you don´t have to continue to protect this thief - in fact, you may end up betraying him completely. This illustrates the sort of freedom within the narrative space the quest system provides.
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Although there is an overall framework, there is freedom of choice within the quests, and continuity between them - the outcome of one quest affects the nature of other quests (and the world at large).</blockquote> That doesn't sound too bad, does it? In fact, it sounds great, assuming that they can deliver all that.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPG Dot</A>

 

[EEVIAC]

It sounds like fairly rudimentary cause and effect, its just a shame that more games aren't "causality compliant." One of the areas that KOTOR failed in was that although there were often multiple paths through situations, all solutions were cock-eyed visions of the same perspective. Your perspective in the game from character to character never really changed, you were always the same person.

This could have been remedied by giving the player the opportunity to make a few more choices early on (rather than bottle-necking it right before the last map loads.) If you were able to betray the republic right from the start, there could have been a lot of options for divergent missions that could have expanded game/role-play, like sending location co-ordinates of Bastilla's location to the Sith fleet to try and get her killed while stealing the Ebon Hawk, or "saving" Juhani from the grove by promising to take down the Jedi. It would have also allowed for a deeper experience when corrupting Manaan and assuming controll of the Sith Academy.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is having frameworks for this sort of gameplay is fine, but making them satisfying is another skill entirely. KOTOR had the framework, it provided some of those options, they just weren't fleshed out very well. Maybe Bioware thought that they'd covered a lot of options of what they thought players would want to do, even though I thought there were some glaring, obvious exceptions. Then again, if those people that are saying they played KOTOR 12 times and never got bored are serious, maybe Bioware did a good job after all.

By the by, hasn't this game been in development for 4 + years? Doesn't really inspire me with confidence. This does though :

Although that said, this is still a game that can be played as an adventure. Although there is a lot of fighting because of the combat mechanics, players who want to follow the story will find that they can progress through the game without feeling obligated to kill everything that moves.

And they didn't bad-mouth turn-based combat as an excuse for a RT hack and slash system either.

 

[DIPthong]

It sounds like fairly rudimentary cause and effect, its just a shame that more games aren't "causality compliant." One of the areas that KOTOR failed in was that although there were often multiple paths through situations, all solutions were cock-eyed visions of the same perspective. Your perspective in the game from character to character never really changed, you were always the same person.

Don't you know ANYTHING? Dynamic gameplay like that SCARES and CONFUSES the player. Giving REAL options for REALLY different outcomes also requires, I dunno, like 8 million hours to code the game and offers NOTHING but confusion and besides, everyone plays a goodguy anyways.

(Bioware logic is confusing at first, but once you accept it, all is clear) :wink: