Feedback / Specific Suggestions / Criticism

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi,
if you've played the Demo and would like to suggest specific improvements, please post here.
e.g.:
- inventory: bag window ought to be bigger in order to facilitate sorting of the stuff I'm carrying
- it took me far too long to find the section of the documentation descibing keyboard shortcuts
- why can't I weave or use an anvil?
- gaining strength ought to be easier; you shouldn't be overloaded when carrying chain mail, helmet, sword, spear, shield, cloak and a pickaxe.
etc
Thank you! Regards,
Wolf

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

A windowed mode would be nice, especially if it had the x2 graphics option so you could play it in a window and still make out the detail.

- why can't I weave or use an anvil?

This would be great. It'd be wonderful to have some trade skills that you could use to earn a little cash on the side.

- gaining strength ought to be easier; you shouldn't be overloaded when carrying chain mail, helmet, sword, spear, shield, cloak and a pickaxe.

Agreed, but not too much faster. Maybe make the first few levels of strength easier, then it taper back.

Another thing that might make this more handy is that if more people out there had coins. That way you could barter with them and exchange for coins rather than having to carry around a bunch of things just to barter for something else.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Another thing that might make this more handy is that if more people out there had coins. That way you could barter with them and exchange for coins rather than having to carry around a bunch of things just to barter for something else.

You have to understand that's the way things were done back then though. Only the extremely rich or true merchants carried any good amount of coin on them and then not all the time. It fits with the historical feel of the game really. Reminds me of the barter system from Divine Divinity and the Fallout series. Sure, it would be nice if more people carried coin, but it would take away from the historical feel he is conveying with the game.

Edit: I do agree with the other things though. More interactivity is always a good thing and the recommendation for strength would work out too and actually be more realistic. It's always easier to get strength built up fast to a point and then it becomes harder and harder the stronger you get.

 

[snoek]

true,it was a bartering society back then.

You can't believe how glad i was when i found 5 damn gold pieces!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, I understand the barter economy thing, but the problem is that I'm encumbered because I'm packing around a bunch of heavier items because I can't exchange them for lighter coins. It really doesn't have to be coins, it could be spices like salt or some other thing that's lighter that I can trade my axes for to lighten my load. That way, you wouldn't muck up the character system by making players too strong.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

True. That would make sense. Wonder if he has a pack mule system in the game somewhere? Like a horse and cart you can use to carry goods. That would definitely help for making a merchant character, or even a farmer to take his goods to market and sell.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Or perhaps having a slave around that could haul stuff, since you start the game with one. MMMmmmm.. Slaves.

EDIT: There are guys called "Trader" in Cattan that you can barter with for gold and silver coins instead of just swapping heavy item for heavy item. That freed up a lot of my encumbrance right there.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Cool. Thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna have to play some more later. Had to crash earlier though and now I'm off to see Return Of The King. Then I can come back and begin my reign of terror on bandits everywhere. Mwahahaha!

 

[Wolf Mittag]

I'm encumbered because I'm packing around a bunch of heavier items because I can't exchange them for lighter coins

when you sell weapons or other stuff to the merchant in Cattanford, he'll re-sell them in your absence; i.e., the more you trade with him, the more gold, silver and jewelries he'll eventually have to offer.

in order not to be overloaded, try to barter for golden bracelets and neck rings - these are valuable yet weigh very little.

sacrifice stuff you don't need to the gods.

However, I agree: When you're persistantly slaying robbers, you tend to accumulate more booty than you can conveniently handle. I may have to do some balancing there...

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Wonder if he has a pack mule system in the game somewhere? Like a horse and cart you can use to carry goods. That would definitely help for making a merchant character, or even a farmer to take his goods to market and sell.

no; game depth in these subplots is rather limited. You can make a good living as a merchant, especially when you're selling people things they care for (women have different tastes than warriors etc, it pays to exploit this), but that's essentially all there is - you can't set up an own shop or employ people etc. (at least, not yet)

Your life as a farmer is admittedly even more limited: you can't sow or harvest anything (after all, the game's plot goes over a time period of just a couple of months), so the only thing you can really do is to sell the things your slaves produce, or use your fishing line and spend your days fishing, or travel around and hunt etc.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Thanks for all your suggestions!
Please give me more. There must be some things that really bother you, aspects you find really boring or tedious etc. Anything about the game controls, the character system etc? Anything you'd really like to do but can't?
Thank you! Regards,
Wolf
(I'll be away Friday and over the weekend, so I can't reply before Monday.)

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Miniscule bug report: In the options menu whenever you are presented with a +/- option, the - does not work and you can only go up. For some of the things this is not a bother as they wrap around and go back to the lowest denominator once they've reached peak, the exception is for the volume levels. I can't turn music or sound down.

As much as I love Wagner's Ring stuff, I just cannot bear to hear it get ass raped in midi format. Luckily I was able to turn the music off, but I thought I should report the above bug anyways.

 

[ecliptic]

I've done a couple hours worth of the demo and am quite enjoying it, here's what I've thought of so far:

If this already exists, I apologize, but make a quicker way to pick things up even if they are usable, such as making a shift left-click move the item from wherever it is into your bag. I greatly dislike dragging and dropping things, particularly when looting from other bags or containers. Perhaps that same key combination could cause you to automatically drop stuff nearby when you click on items already in your bag.

Very minor possible typo: In the barter screens No. and Agreed. are often enclosed in ' 's (i.e. 'No.') or in Agreeed.'s case parenthesis too. No major issue here, just thought I'd point it out if it were easy to fix.

Great work!

 

[dipdipdip]

All right, I have one.

When speaking to Alfhilda on the subject of "history lesson," she makes the statement that the Romans have been victorious for more than "seven times hundred years." I'm not entirely sure what's meant by this.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you all!

Otaku_Hanzo, '-' key: thanks! (damn; this works fine on German keyboards.)

ecliptic: shortcut for picking up / dropping: right; I'll implement this (shift+leftclick). (currently you can only doubleclick/use/put-on things). Thanks!

dipdipdip, history: well, Rome was founded 753 B.C., that is about 700 years before Teudogar's plot, and the Romans had never lost a single war over all these centuries. The weird "seven times hundred" phrase was supposed to indicate the Teutons' inability to deal with large numbers (finding it difficult to imagine 700, they'd think of it as 100+100+100 etc).

 

[Wolf Mittag]

forgot to log in - I just posted as "guest"...

 

[Peacedog]

If this already exists, I apologize, but make a quicker way to pick things up even if they are usable, such as making a shift left-click move the item from wherever it is into your bag

I personally would make it ctrl-click.

And I'd use shift click to be able to "split" piles. One of my problems with merchants ( even the guy who sells gold/silver), is that you can have trouble getting a good amount back for your stuff. You should be able to "split off" part of a pile to get an amount that is closer to the value of what you sell (taking into account the charisma effect of course). I don't waste alot of silver as it is, but I do sometimes waste more than I like (or, I have to put silver back in to make things even out, which is silly).

Yeah, I understand the barter economy thing, but the problem is that I'm encumbered because I'm packing around a bunch of heavier items because I can't exchange them for lighter coins.

I rarely am able to sell to anyone but the coin guy. I know how barter economies work as well, but annoyance should never get in the way of gameplay.

If we could split coin piles, it would be far less of a problem IMO.

And here's one I forgot to mention earlier. How about a display sumarizing the total value of things you are trying to trade (in silver)? One for the stuff you are trading for would be nice as well.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi Peacedog,

sorry it took me so long to reply.

splitting piles: I'll improve the auto-splitting of your trading partner's gold: Currently, if your trading partner has a large pile of gold, it will only be split in smaller amounts if there are enough free slots on his bartering table. I'll add some code checking the value of these smaller piles: If these are still too valuable for convenient trading, I'll remove some use- and worthless things such as mugs or torches (can always get these from slaves) from his bartering table in order to make room for more and smaller split piles of gold. That should fix or at least ease the problem without making the system more complicated.

ctrl-key: can't use this; it's already used for "detail-viewing"; so it'll be shift+click for "quick-get/drop".

display summarizing the total value of bartering goods: I used to have this (and it still is available in cheat mode), but it didn't feel right (felt too technical and modern, more Walmart-like than ancient barbarian bartering). That's why I replaced it with the thumbs-up/down symbol that's now used to tell you if you're getting an even deal.

Otherwise I agree: I'll add more valuable bartering goods, especially jewelry and the like.

Thanks for your suggestions!

 

[Peacedog]

display summarizing the total value of bartering goods: I used to have this (and it still is available in cheat mode), but it didn't feel right (felt too technical and modern, more Walmart-like than ancient barbarian bartering). That's why I replaced it with the thumbs-up/down symbol that's now used to tell you if you're getting an even deal.

Having to sit there mentally sum up the value of what I've put in my trade pile every time I'm selling loot (not to mention *re* summing it if I forget) sucks. I understand (and dig) your wanting to make the game atmospheric. But frankly, I don't think the effort is worthwile here. Let me get in and out of shops quicker and easier (shoping is slightly tedious as is), so I can get to the meat of the game.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Something that listed how much gold you're offering versus the value of what they're offering would be a nice touch. Like if you were trying to trade for a Sword worth 100 gold and a helmet worth 37 gold, somewhere on the screen, it would display 137 gold. Every time you added something to what you'd trade for this, it would also tally up the value of your offering as well, like if you were offering five pairs of pants worth 12 gold each, it would list 60 gold.

 

[Peacedog]

That's what I was just talking about.

Also, I'm not clear on the autosplitting. I've never seen anyone have multiple piles of gold except the gold/silver merchant. But I've seen people with a pile that had free slots on the barter table.

Could you make shift-click have different functionality on this screen? Or some other key/key combination to do it, so we could manually do this?

 

[Paolo]

Suggestions for the variety:
all those "warrior" and "maid" they're so unknown, it will be usefull to ask by name like in ultima7;
the "surrender equipment" talk it's equal for everyone, i think a servant talks different than a thief;
for batering i'll find a total amount in silver and gold useful and faster, but in a rpg you don't need to run, sit and have fun playing it cause much more hours it resists much more enjoyment you get (also some girls say it)

 

[Anonymous]

Hello Peacedog, SaintP, Paolo:

Ok, I'll re-introduce the displays of the total value for each bartering table.

Peacedog: Autosplitting: I've rewritten this in a way that piles of gold coins or piles with more than 20 silver coins are automatically split if there are free slots left. If there are none left, I'll remove some valueless items from your trading partner's bartering table in order to make room.
With a function to let you manually split piles, I've got to experiment how it feels within the game.

Paolo: ask names: if someone's got a name, you automatically get to know it when you talk to them the first time (it's then displayed below the portrait). Of course, most people don't have any name (was a bit lazy there...)
Surrender equipment talk: I'll vary this. (Currently, there's variation of this talk only between men and women.)

in a rpg you don't need to run, sit and have fun playing it cause much more hours it resists much more enjoyment you get (also some girls say it)

in general, I agree; but I think a game ought to behave more like a whore - adapt to your wishes, and give quick and easy satisfaction if that's what you want. So I'll better make the user interface as convenient as possible...

Thank you all!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

One of these days, I'll have to show you the "Remember me" option, Wolf.

 

[Paolo]