Expeditions: Viking - historical Viking RPG from Logic Artists

[spectre]

I think the Argonauts would be a perfect fit for the Expeditions formula. Alas, I don't think it has enough presence in pop-culture for people to take notice.

XVI century Portugese in Nagasaki would be nice. Shooting wapanese with muskets and cannons, skewering them with rapiers and breaking their puny katanas...
oh god it's heavan.

 

[Barbarian]

I think the Argonauts would be a perfect fit for the Expeditions formula. Alas, I don't think it has enough presence in pop-culture for people to take notice.

I think they should keep the idea of having historical settings. Jason and the Argonauts is actual mythology with little historical resources to draw from.

 

[spectre]

I think the Argonauts would be a perfect fit for the Expeditions formula. Alas, I don't think it has enough presence in pop-culture for people to take notice.

I think they should keep the idea of having historical settings. Jason and the Argonauts is actual mythology with little historical resources to draw from.

I thought the myth is now believed to have been based on actual Greek expeditions to the Black Sea. Obviously, the biggest challenge would be to refine some kind of plausible narrative out of the various versions of the myth, toning down the supernatural.
I agree that most of this would be speculation and fiction; still, I think bronze age as a setting gives enough concrete material to work with, the storyteller's job would be to present the mythological content as the way people at that time made sense of the world.
I think that Viking made quite a few precedents to accommodate this. You fought deformed men in the swamp, but still had the option to tell the story as an epic battle with giants.
Similarly when you went to raid the tomb and got high from the fumes, or when you woke up from a dream to find a "magical" spear.

 

[hivemind]

Crusades is a perfect theme and the period after the first crusade, with several groups travelling separately to Palestine by crossing Anatolia - with varying degrees of success and involvement in the politics of the crusader states- is perfect. The way those factions played themselves(Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, Byzantines, Tripoli, Armenia, Fatimids, Seljuks)... just fucking think about it. Perfect setting for an expeditions game. They could really up their game with a setting like that, the possibilities are limitless. It is also a very popular theme, even more popular than vikings(and very underserved by mainstream media).

IIRC between the first and second crusades you also have a political feud within the KoJ between the Queen(daughter of previous King) and her Husband(imported Frankish stock), something like that would work very well for a kind of "choose your faction" style q that RPGs tend to be full of.

 

[hivemind]

I think that Viking made quite a few precedents to accommodate this. You fought deformed men in the swamp, but still had the option to tell the story as an epic battle with giants.

ogrecels can never find peace

 

[Ivan]

Playing this and having a great time. Some thoughts:

-severely triggered by all of these interactive boxes and crates in the big cities

-it annoys me that while you can delegate your crew to take certain actions in your stead in scripted interactions, this isn't always an option during exploration

-I really dig the itemization, particularly the little descriptions

-there are only 3 loading screens images lol

 

[daveyd]

It is a great game, but yes, we must never let Logic Artists forget how fucking tedious looting all those containers is.

Perhaps the next expeditions game should take place before crates were a thing. Expeditions: Paleolithic?

 

[Ivan]

Suggestion:

I would love love love love for there to be "unknown" locations that you could find when navigating in the world map. I loved it in Fallout and Wasteland 2. It's cool to have starting spots (e.g. Vault x) but stumbling into unknown places gets me super excited.

Also, I am finding Hard to be totally doable without chugging potions or deploying traps. I enjoy the game enough that I see myself doing a 2nd playthrough on Insane. All that said, I wish there was a greater element of discovery when exploring. Wouldn't it be awesome to find locations that are clearly beyond your level? That would be so cool and give the player an incentive to either smarten up their tactics or return with a stronger a party.

 

[Barbarian]

Always play on insane from start up. All other difficulties are too easy and they have not fixed that.

You can give yourself artificial difficulty(no crafting, use only light armor for your party), but otherwise even on insane the challenge is not that remarkable. Specially compared to Conquistador.

Also, I must admit: even though the production values are much better in Vikings, Conquistador was the better game.

 

[Ivan]

Sales are extremely prevalent now, you won't have to wait long

 

[Feyd Rautha]

as I mentioned there are at least as many crates and barrels in PoE and Baldur's Gate. for some odd reason it's just more tedious in this one

e: and buy it at full price! it's worth it

 

[Ivan]

I must vehemently disagree with you there. I haven't had my ocd triggered my loot boxes since...I don't know when, I typically don't play loot heavy games. Again, I know it isn't necessary for the game, as it's easy enough, but still I find it pretty comical. I thought people here were just being hyperbolic, but nah it's pretty ridiculous (in a funny way).

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I challenge you. Go to Beregost in Baldur's Gate and count the crates and Barrels, then go to a town of equal size in Viking and count. It will probably be the same amount

 

[Cadmus]

So what's the consensus?
Is the patching finished by now?
I remember being disappointed from the beta test, is this the time to start it up for the first time?

 

[daveyd]

So what's the consensus?
Is the patching finished by now?
I remember being disappointed from the beta test, is this the time to start it up for the first time?

Well, last update was posted to GOG version on March 8th (was mid February on Steam) so I doubt there will be another. Game is good as it's going to get. IMO, it's a great game.

Haven't done a full playthrough since the difficulty tweaks, but my main complaint was combat became too easy even on the highest difficulty setting. Not sure if that's changed, but now there is an iron man mode that limits you to one save slot. Additionally if you want you could make the game more challenging by not crafting weapons / armor and or not min-maxing your characters.. I think making your main character a smart (high sense) character that focuses on the buffs / diplomacy would make it more challenging as well, but I've only played fighters so far.

 

[Fredward]

I wanna see the 4th Crusade, keeping the Byzzies from collapsing is my gender identity.

I do hope they haven't moved on to something entirely new. They mentioned that E:V wasn't profitable for them.

 

[Barbarian]

They mentioned that E:V wasn't profitable for them.

They have? Where? If so most alarming news for me. I am really looking forward for another expeditions game.

It is not like the industry is swarming with the developers making historical TB rpgs(jokes aside, for some reason they are the only devs that bothered to do this instead of the boring fantasy/d&d cloning bullshit we get 50 times a year).

 

[daveyd]

They mentioned that E:V wasn't profitable for them.

They have? Where? If so most alarming news for me. I am really looking forward for another expeditions game.

It is not like the industry is swarming with the developers making historical TB rpgs(jokes aside, for some reason they are the only devs that bothered to do this instead of the boring fantasy/d&d cloning bullshit we get 50 times a year).

Here's a post on Steam forums (from Sept. 2017) where Jonas said it hasn't "made them any money yet" and in fact have yet to break even. Of course, that is nearly a year ago so hopefully things have changed. I imagine this game was pretty expensive to develop by indie standards... it was in development for how many years? And even limited voice acting can be rather expensive from what I hear.

If Logic Artists decides to develop another Expeditions RPG, they could use the Viking engine so that should cut down on the development time / cost. I'm still trying to do what I can to get people to buy this game. Alas, I don't know many people who even play CRPGs; I've got one friend who I think I'll eventually persuade to buy it.. So I'm pretty much limited to posting about it on forums and reddit when someone asks for recommendations.

Good news is they've apparently found investors for their next game project.. I just hope they don't decide to make yet another high fantasy RPG because it is deemed more marketable.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

It's so unfortunate because this is a great game! In the latest update in the "Sales of Incline"-thread (April 2018) E:V is only at 54,574 owners on Steam. I really encourage people to buy this at full price since Logic Artists is a developer worth supporting.

 

[daveyd]

It's so unfortunate because this is a great game! In the latest update in the "Sales of Incline"-thread (April 2018) E:V is only at 54,574 owners on Steam. I really encourage people to buy this at full price since Logic Artists is a developer worth supporting.

I'm rather confused as to how they arrive at those numbers because the Jan 2018 said 61,816... Unless there were thousands who requested refunds?

Either way it's far too low. I'd argue it's far better than most of the top selling RPGs. I need to submit a user review on some sites like Neoseeker or Giantbomb. Probably not a lot of CRPG fans even visit those sites but who knows maybe it will help make a few potential fans aware of it.

 

[Infinitron]

People have accused us of hurting this game's popularity by relegating discussion to this forum, but actually we had a bunch of newsposts, a preview and a review and for the most part people just weren't that interested. The concept just doesn't seem to excite people, I dunno.

 

[Jack Dandy]

I still think these dev-specific forums are a completely stupid idea- not just for this game, but all of 'em.
Is there really, truly, a reason for these? There a shitload of other threads, and it's not like a game comes out every other day.

 

[Barbarian]

If that number is true that is fucked up. Battle Brothers for instance is said to have sold over 125k copies, and it is a much inferior game.

Anyway, they were hiring people a few months ago for their new project, so the company is certainly still afloat and working on a game. It will be a real shame if they drop the expeditions formula though. It is a winner idea.

People have accused us of hurting this game's popularity by relegating discussion to this forum, but actually we had a bunch of newsposts, a preview and a review and for the most part people just weren't that interested. The concept just doesn't seem to excite people, I dunno.

I seriously don't understand why people would be more interested in a game like Tyranny or Pillars of Eternity than this. Sure, those are obsidian games with former bioware devs at the helm, but this game is immensely superior even with an indie budget. And I mean superior in every single way: writing, design, combat, you name it. Immense amounts of C&C too, an rpg game more reactive than anything Obsidian has done except New Vegas.

I guess people don't know what they want. Most regulars here would love the game after a few hours try.

 

[Quillon]

If that number is true that is fucked up. Battle Brothers for instance is said to have sold over 125k copies, and it is a much inferior game.

Anyway, they were hiring people a few months ago for their new project, so the company is certainly still afloat and working on a game. It will be a real shame if they drop the expeditions formula though. It is a winner idea.

If you are not just referring to real world history settings as expeditions formula; they changed the formula to be more in line with the trad. RPGs, I thought it was the right decision but in hindsight it was wrong; "everything except combat happening on world map" was what made it unique & more appealing cos it made it shine by its difference in the saturated market. By making individual maps for "exploration" they took on an additional set of expectations and ultimately it wasn't up to par & probably was the worst part of the experience.

Also according to recent steam leak; viking has 81,722 steam users compared to conquistador's 130,612.

 

[Alienman]

I think Conquistador have been part of one of those 1 dollar deals.