Game News ATOM Team's next game is Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy, a fantasy RPG inspired by Baldur's Gate 1

[Stormcrowfleet]

What?! It's exactly like the DM/GM/referee etc. describing stuff in real life tabletop games. How is this bad?

I've been DMing for 20 years and I've never once describe a character like this.

 

[Diggfinger]

Looks awesome!

Engine is Unity again?

 

[Kruyurk]

What?! It's exactly like the DM/GM/referee etc. describing stuff in real life tabletop games. How is this bad?

Because it is not a tabletop game but a computer game. A lot can be communicated by character models, portraits, the environment, sounds, etc. Mundane stuff should not be in the dialogue box.

 

[Bester]

What?! It's exactly like the DM/GM/referee etc. describing stuff in real life tabletop games. How is this bad?

The DM describes things that are in the theater of your imagination, otherwise you wouldn't know what's happening.
In case of a graphical video game, it's on the screen.
Imagine playing doom and then stopping and having to read that a cacodemon appeared from around the corner. "Muh DM tells this stuff to me, so that's how I want it in my games." KYS.

 

[Bester]

Bester did you just got butthurt because a noble had the gall to class consciously insult a peasant?

The question of identification at the town gates is so trivial and normal, that if someone started flipping out like that, it'd be an indication of a mental disease, not of an insult.

The idiocy of this line is just painful.

For a society super into social hierarchies and ranks, asking for status and giving your status, showing seals and letters of introduction is the most natural thing in the world. It's like a thousand years from now someone makes a video game about the 21 century. You board a plane. A stewardess asks for your passport. One of your dialogue replies is "HOW DARE YOU ASK FOR MY PERSONAL PRIVATE INFORMATION, INSOLENT WOMAN." If this response is not immediately followed by cops showing up and dragging you off like a sack of stupid, this option shouldn't be there.

Not to mention, to call someone a peasant - why? Was his peasant status hinted at by the description? There's not a word of his clothes there and he didn't mispronouncing anything.
Employing caution and respect was the standard. Imagine calling someone a peasant and that's not one. Depending on whom you insulted and your own status, in an honor-centric system you might find yourself in various troubles, from being required to issue an apology to being physically punished or even facing legal repercussions.

Also, depending on how troubled the times are, 6 guys armed to the gills show up at the town gates, refuse the identification challenge. May very well just get shot for that.

 

[santino27]

What?! It's exactly like the DM/GM/referee etc. describing stuff in real life tabletop games. How is this bad?

Because it is not a tabletop game but a computer game. A lot can be communicated by character models, portraits, the environment, sounds, etc. Mundane stuff should not be in the dialogue box.

If this was Bloodlines or nu-Doom or maybe even BG 3, sure, but it's an isometric-ish computer game with small models on the screen. Chances are there's details that can't be conveyed/captured by the graphics alone (especially with budgetary constrains on animations), and the 'gm description' text allows those details to be shared.

 

[rojay]

Holy shit you morons are actually flipping out over a single dialog in a game that's still in development and you didn't know existed last week. What the holy fuck is wrong with you? You boys go outside and play in the grass or something.

 

[Stavrophore]

Holy shit you morons are actually flipping out over a single dialog in a game that's still in development and you didn't know existed last week. What the holy fuck is wrong with you? You boys go outside and play in the grass or something.

What? You see a post of russian communist, and you think he don't want the game to cater to his specific type of niche soviet nostalgia, despite the game taking place in high fantasy medieval world? You are nuts my boy.

 

[jungl]

This new game looks like black gaysore. Black geyser had cool things about like the visually pretty and large maps the player transverses and the party level system. The actual content however was bad. The world felt empty, few npcs here and there with something interesting to say. Enemies were not memorable mostly souless critters here and there. The best equipment was gained from killing neutral npcs was a laugh.

 

[Stavrophore]

Black geyser looked like BG2 but was ultimately very mediocre game that fail to captivate player. I havent played BG games so i cant comment how close or distant it was and were these issues also endemic to BG. In my opinion in the time when everyone is doing remakes, making yet another copycat of old game seems incredibly boring.

 

[Gandalf]

Black geyser looked like BG2 but was ultimately very mediocre game that fail to captivate player. I havent played BG games so i cant comment how close or distant it was and were these issues also endemic to BG. In my opinion in the time when everyone is doing remakes, making yet another copycat of old game seems incredibly boring.

This one is not 1:1 copycat of the old BG games, because of turn based combat. I must agree that the dialogue ui would look more interesting if it does not looked like in most of the BG clones out there. That desing became too common, making it stale. It would be good to have some kind of breath of fresh air in that matter.

 

[Gandalf]

I mean, even such a trivial, minor change to the default font colour will make the game look more original:

 

[Stavrophore]

Make the color align with your moral alignment[chaotic evil - red, lawful good - blue] and release it as DLC.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Looks worse than BG2 Enhanced edition

 

[Justinian]

Great, another Baldur's Gate clone. Just what the world needed

BG2 was the last BG clone ever made.

 

[Atomboy]

Looks awesome!

Engine is Unity again?

It sure is!

Make the color align with your moral alignment[chaotic evil - red, lawful good - blue] and release it as DLC.

We won't have an alignment system though! It's gonna be open in this regard

What?! It's exactly like the DM/GM/referee etc. describing stuff in real life tabletop games. How is this bad?

Because it is not a tabletop game but a computer game. A lot can be communicated by character models, portraits, the environment, sounds, etc. Mundane stuff should not be in the dialogue box.

We aren't using high poly models and most players will play in isometric mode so things like body language will only be described. Even if we had animations for things like scratching your nose or something minor like that, they wouldn't be spotted by most.

I mean, even such a trivial, minor change to the default font colour will make the game look more original:

A text color picker could be a nice option to add, thanks!

 

[Tweed]

Are you guys gonna have bears? Or are you exploring other options?

 

[Cohesion]

Are you guys gonna have bears? Or are you exploring other options?

Wolves featuring Chad Obolon master hunter.

Did you try to hire him btw Atomboy ?

 

[Atomboy]

Are you guys gonna have bears? Or are you exploring other options?

The rough script of main events in the game doesn't include actual bestiality that happens on screen, but it might have jokes about alleged bestiality. Enemy bears will also probably be in the game but they will just maul and since I still hope to make the game pig-centric they might be pig-bears, not actual bears, but time will tell.

 

[Atomboy]

Are you guys gonna have bears? Or are you exploring other options?

Wolves featuring Chad Obolon master hunter.

Did you try to hire him btw Atomboy ?

Сan't really hire anyone at the moment, so we haven't tried!

 

[Ryzer]

One recommendation I could give though, improve the portraits because they look very amateurish. Baldur's Gate 1 had much better portraits.

 

[Stavrophore]

We won't have an alignment system though! It's gonna be open in this regard

You still need some tresholds under the hood to guide the resolution of dialogs/scripts/whatever you have there. The fact that you gonna obfuscate that from player changes nothing, well it actually changes it worse for the player. Unless you are implementing a system where dialogs lead to respective choices no matter your alignment/past and you can choose freely every dialog choice, but thats pretty hard to pull off - how will characters approach you who only heard about you if your choices are inconsequential? Are you trustworthy or treated like psycho?

 

[Cohesion]

Are you guys gonna have bears? Or are you exploring other options?

Wolves featuring Chad Obolon master hunter.

Did you try to hire him btw Atomboy ?

Сan't really hire anyone at the moment, so we haven't tried!

You should try. Avellone helped make Kingmaker (he made some editing passes) and writing there is better than in WoTR. Surely he would like to participate in making BG1 spiritual successor.
Anyway, looking forward to your game, godspeed!

 

[frajaq]

maybe it has potential, wish-listed it

bought ATOM RPG back in 2019 but couldnt get into it

 

[santino27]

Black geyser looked like BG2 but was ultimately very mediocre game that fail to captivate player. I havent played BG games so i cant comment how close or distant it was and were these issues also endemic to BG. In my opinion in the time when everyone is doing remakes, making yet another copycat of old game seems incredibly boring.

This one is not 1:1 copycat of the old BG games, because of turn based combat. I must agree that the dialogue ui would look more interesting if it does not looked like in most of the BG clones out there. That desing became too common, making it stale. It would be good to have some kind of breath of fresh air in that matter.

I agree being able to change the font color is a good idea, but I like the general dialogue UI/style... it's a hell of a lot better than most of what came after (dialogue wheel, attitude of response instead of verbatim text, etc.).