Interview Kult interview @ Idle Thumbs

[Ausir]

Tags: 3D People; Kult: Heretic Kingdoms

There's a new <a target=_blank href=http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=32>interview</a> at <a target=_blank href=http://www.idlethumbs.net/>Idle Thumbs</a> with Chris Bateman, one of the developers of the Slovakian cRPG <i><a target=_blank href=http://www.cult.3dpeople.de/>Kult: Heretic Kingdoms</a></i>. Here's a bit about moral choices in the game:
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<ul>What does it mean to say that morality is a central gameplay feature? Usually when people say this, they mean the game expresses a simple Zoroastrian philosophy where there is "good" and "evil" and you can just pick which stereotype you want to be. Now I realise this five thousand year philosophy is embedded in our culture, having influenced Judaism, Christianity and so forth, and I do believe that some stories benefit from having these clear cut lines.
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However, the world of fantasy writing moved beyond this simplistic approach in the fifties, sixties and seventies with the work of Fritz Leiber and Mike Moorcock, the latter of whom has been a big influence on my work. Mike has said that he believes in tangible good and evil, but he writes from a more complex moral stance because real life situations are never as simple as space opera. The result is fantasy stories which challenge the reader, rather than light fluffy adventures.
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Unfortunately, most game writing is not as advanced — often for very sound commercial reasons. Trying to do anything fancy with a first-person shooter story is largely a waste of time (although, there is potential...). But fantasy RPG fans love a good tale, and most players are literate and intelligent people. With this in mind, we wanted to create a story with a genuine moral dimension.
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What this means is that there is not a 'good' or 'evil' way of doing things, and there are no 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. There are merely people and situations and you are in the middle of it. You can choose how to react – and you must live with the consequences. I suppose I could make a parallel with Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke which is a classic fantasy story, but with genuinely human characters – not just fantasy stereotypes.</ul>
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You can read the rest of the interview <a target=_blank href=http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=32>here</a>.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Damn, that sounds tasty.

 

[Amerestatistic]

Doesn't sound too bad. The "dreamworld" idea sounds neat, and the emphasis on narrative might distract me from the hack and slash real-time combat...

 

[Reklar]

Wow, when does this one ship and is there a demo to tide me over until it's available?

-Reklar

 

[DrattedTin]

The only thing that bothers me is he admittedly was called in AFTER the fact. Sounds like the refitting might not be that convincing.

But... who knows... I'm definitely interested.

Not like we get RPGs except at goddamn christmas anymore, anyway.

 

[Sisay]

While most that sounds great and I certainly wouldn't mind playing another PS:T, there are a few things that worry me. As Bateman said himself, it's a hack and slash game. Sure not all hack and slash games suck but very few action rpgs besides Diablo actually have fun combat. And fun combat is kind of a necessarity when 95% of the game consists of combat.

In order to keep the story tight, character based skills have been omitted. This is not to say that diplomacy isn’t important, however – players will have many choices to make throughout the game, as to which allies they side with and which enemies they make. We prefer to put the player in control of the diplomacy aspects, rather than have a skills system make certain routes impossible under arbitrary circumstances.

I think a speech skill would have added depth to the speech system but if the choices actually affect the discussions beyond not being able to speak with people in opposing factions it could turn out fine. I found a screenshot of the speech system but it seems to be two years old so I hope it has been improved since.

http://www.kult.3dpeople.de/galery/galery/images/large/DiscussionWithMayor.jpg

We redesigned the game in one month, and scripted the game in another month — I believe this to be the fastest that a computer RPG game has ever been designed. That’s not to say that we rushed the task, it’s just a measure of the efficiency and experience of the team that we were able to complete the task quickly. It had to be done fast, because the game needed to be out on quite a tight schedule.

That's not an awful lot of development time for the story. It seems to be the only selling point of this game, but it does sound good. I love the premise, I can't wait to rid the world of all the evil that is religion =)