KickStarter Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Bocian]

You might not like it but this is how peak performing dev body looks like.

 

[Thonius]

As much as I respect Sawyer he looks like (is) hipster. Does not look like nerd, probably has free time to tinker with bike. Wears Tshirts.
While prestigious Mishulin has no visible tats no time for this shit. Wears shirt with front pocket - too keep pen and paper ( to keep track of bugs, features schedule) and he wears a clocks, so he is always on time( helps him manage the schedule). Also please notice mustaches - hight T. He wears glases - highly utilitarian piece (not a problem glasses). That's an image of a MAN who's consumed by his work and not by "problems".

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

As much as I respect Sawyer he looks like (is) hipster. Does not look like nerd, probably has free time to tinker with bike. Wears Tshirts.
While prestigious Mishulin has no visible tats no time for this shit. Wears shirt with front pocket - too keep pen and paper ( to keep track of bugs, features schedule) and he wears a clocks, so he is always on time( helps him manage the schedule). Also please notice mustaches - hight T. He wears glases - highly utilitarian piece (not a problem glasses). That's an image of a MAN who's consumed by his work and not by "problems".

Exactly, while josh looks like he is getting ready for transition surgery.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh hey, speaking of Mishulin:

 

[imweasel]

Just thinking about all the jobs these white cis-het terrorists have taken away from more suitable PoC... ugh!

We wuz kangz.

KANGZ CONFIRMED

 

[vonAchdorf]

Oh hey, speaking of Mishulin:

So the whole game is a time management game like Atelier?

 

[Infinitron]

Epic shirt man:

 

[Mikeal]

Epic shirt man:

When you ask babushka to make a shirt for you.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Epic shirt man:

What I saw from the Kingdom mode was underwhelming, so maybe he should have been the designer for that.

 

[ArchAngel]

Epic shirt man:

What I saw from the Kingdom mode was underwhelming, so maybe he should have been the designer for that.

I don't think we seen anything real from kingdome mode. Act 2 stuff only I think where you are not even a King/Queen yet.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Epic shirt man:

What I saw from the Kingdom mode was underwhelming, so maybe he should have been the designer for that.

I don't think we seen anything real from kingdome mode. Act 2 stuff only I think where you are not even a King/Queen yet.

They announced that kingdom mode would be revealed at Gamescom and in the live stream linked above, Mishulin showed (17:30' ish) that you can place buildings on a map (shop next to the inn = profit) and hire NPCs you meet during your travels. I have no idea which act it was, because I try to reduce spoiler intake a bit more now that the release is not that far off.

 

[Citizen]

Epic shirt man:

Orange Pants!

 

[ArchAngel]

Epic shirt man:

What I saw from the Kingdom mode was underwhelming, so maybe he should have been the designer for that.

I don't think we seen anything real from kingdome mode. Act 2 stuff only I think where you are not even a King/Queen yet.

They announced that kingdom mode would be revealed at Gamescom and in the live stream linked above, Mishulin showed (17:30' ish) that you can place buildings on a map (shop next to the inn = profit) and hire NPCs you meet during your travels. I have no idea which act it was, because I try to reduce spoiler intake a bit more now that the release is not that far off.

Yes but 1 minute before that he says this is just end of Act 2.

 

[santino27]

I just now realized every single q&a slide they've released has had a typo in one of their questions.

"How would your describe Pathfinder: Kingmaker for our readers?"

I hope they spend a little more time going over the text in the game itself.

 

[Infinitron]

Lead world designer:

 

[Haba]

"My title is "Lead World Designer". For a game with a pre-established world and pre-made campaign. Life is a joke."

 

[Infinitron]

I think that's just an alternate term for "Lead Area Designer".

 

[Infinitron]

What the...how'd I miss this?

https://www.pcgamer.com/pathfinder-kingmaker-feels-like-feels-like-pc-rpgs-of-old-warts-and-all/

Pathfinder: Kingmaker feels like the PC RPGs of old, warts and all
The first videogame based on the Pathfinder tabletop game is a faithful emulation, for good and bad.

Some of my fondest memories come from sitting in a musky living room with five of my closest friends playing Dungeons & Dragons. We're years in, with many adventures long behind us, and we still meet every week to adventure together. During my short time with Pathfinder: Kingmaker, I felt like I was right back in that living room pondering all the different ways I could solve a problem, and more importantly, what my character would do in that situation. PC RPGs have always been about accommodating many play styles, but few have gone as far in channeling the tabletop experience as Kingmaker.

Kingmaker is the very first video game based on the Pathfinder tabletop game—an offshoot of D&D based on the 3.5 edition rules, released in 2009. The team behind it is a group of RPG veterans called Owlcat Games, who worked together on Heroes of Might & Magic 5. But the biggest name involved is narrative designer Chris Avellone of Planescape: Torment fame. Kingmaker is based on an existing module of the same name that takes a party of new characters all the way from level one to 20 over six chapters. The videogame was built using the same broad narrative threads, dropping players into the role of king of a fledgling kingdom in the Stolen Lands, a mostly uninhabited part of the River Kingdoms, a region known for its constant power struggles.

True neutral

Instead of following a main story thread, I was dropped into an area with a full party of six to wander around and get a feel for traversal and combat. My earliest encounter demonstrated the various ways a situation can play out. Two warring factions of Mites, goblin-like creatures pitied by even the lowest social classes in Pathfinder, were squaring off in a field getting ready to brawl as I happened upon them. Both sides itching for my aid, they shared the details of their petty squabble. My dialogue options gave me a lot of leeway—I could inquire further about the situation, decide to side with one of the factions, or insist that it wasn’t my fight. Not knowing enough about either faction, I chose neutrality.

Later on, when exploring the caves inhabited by the Mite victors, I met up with a few of them that had caged up a helpless prisoner from the enemy side. Since I’m not a complete monster, I was able to turn this into a teaching moment for the Mites about cruelty towards their enemy. The lowest of the low have to stick together, after all.

Character alignment plays a big role in the dialogue options you’ll have. As a lawful neutral person, I mostly only had access to neutral options, with some that skewed good or evil. Repeatedly making those choices will slowly move the needle on my alignment over time. It’s neat to see such a faithful representation of alignment that doesn’t feel black and white. There’s a level of nuance and opportunity for neutrality that isn’t often represented in RPGs. I don’t have to be a grand hero or a villain, just someone trying to make it in the world. It’s also appropriate for the premise of building your own kingdom, where a certain level of neutrality could be what your people need to survive.

Combat is a familiar combination of real-time with the ability to pause and issue commands. By default, your party will fight controlled by an AI, but you can seize control and tell them what to do. They seem smart enough to handle low level threats without my input, but when a more significant threat comes around, combat starts to feel more obtuse. Since enemies are constantly attacking just as quickly as you are, pausing the fight doesn’t provide as much insight into how the fight is going as I'd like. Mousing over party members does reveal who they’re currently targeting, but trying to establish the overall narrative of a battle takes more work than it should. This creates some awkward situations: In one fight, my wizard was channeling spells while also being gutted by a sword.

When battle is happening in real time, it feels too fast to micromanage. Pausing helps, but in the end I was doing what a proper turn-based initiative system could be doing better: pacing the combat along in a way that’s tactical but also dynamic. Playing, I recalled the same disjointed feeling in our D&D campaigns, when everyone was trying to do something cool at the same time and we weren’t working together. When a fight started and we rolled initiative, we'd finally slow down and talk through a strategy.

Pathfinding

Still, the real-time messiness doesn't take too much away from what overall seems to be a deep combat system. Since Kingmaker pulls straight from the foundation of the Pathfinder tabletop game, it has more than 1000 spells, feats, and skills to mold your party however you like. I’ve always found spellcasting more interesting than melee combat, so I focused on magic. I found plenty of the classics like fire bolt and mage armor, but I was especially delighted when my party entered a dark cave and we needed to light our way.

Someone in my party probably had a torch I could light, but I dove into my wizard companion's spellbook and found Light, a cantrip I had cast a hundred times before on tabletop. Light simply illuminates any object you cast it on. I cast it on my own body to see if that would work and became a walking flashlight.

I love that Kingmaker allowed me to play with the logic of the spell to solve a problem, but I’m skeptical of how deep those kinds of options will go. My party could loot nearby campsites and have full-fledged conversations with any passerby, but I couldn’t just pick up a box and move it somewhere else in the same way traditional roleplay would allow. It’s a small gripe, no doubt, but deep interactivity with objects and the environment, like in Divinity: Original Sin 2, really helps elevate my immersion in the world.

In the pantheon of CRPGs, Pathfinder: Kingmaker feels like a throwback to the classics more than a modern reinvention like Divinity: Original Sin.

Kingmaker has 10 pre-made companions that you can assign to your party of six. Each has a fully written backstory, unique dialogue, and personal questlines. My party included chaotic-evil half orc Regongar, human fighter Valerie, and dwarven cleric Harrim. It was a bit disappointing that Harrim and Regongar play into the class/race stereotypes established by decades of fantasy fiction. Does the half orc really have to be evil, and does the dwarf really have to be a stocky cleric? I’m interested to see how these characters’ stories evolve, and hopefully they challenge the assumptions of their appearance. But since companion alignments are apparently set, it’s unlikely Regongar to become less chaotic over time. In Kingmaker, once an evil orc, always an evil orc, apparently.

Your own character's alignment and the choices you make will have an impact on the relationships with your companions. It’s even possible for a companion to leave you behind, according to creative director Alexander Mishulin. And if one of the written companions doesn’t fulfill your ideal party balance, you can always create a new one.

I didn’t get a chance to try the kingdom building portion of the game that plays a big role in the story, but Mishulin touched on how deep it can go. Players will be working to expand the territory around their piece of the Stolen Lands to make more room for building settlements and establishing trade routes with other nations. Alignment has a lot to do with the outside world's perception of your kingdom. Mishulin described a scenario where playing an evil character would make it a lot harder to form trade relations with a settlement of pious paladins.

In the pantheon of CRPGs, Pathfinder: Kingmaker feels like a throwback to the classics more than a modern reinvention like Divinity: Original Sin. Mishulin estimates that the main story will take at least 40 hours to complete, and an additional 80 hours for all the side content and kingdom building. My time with Kingmaker reminded me of the wonder and unknowing potential of a good tabletop campaign, but I’m also left unsure if its stories will be enough to deal with its muddy combat for dozens of hours. You can check out the game for yourself when it releases on September 25th on Steam and GOG.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamesradar.com/pathfinder-kingmaker-evokes-old-school-rpgs-with-a-empire-building-twist/

Pathfinder: Kingmaker evokes old-school RPGs with an empire-building twist
You won't just save the kingdom - you need to rule it

If crowdfunding success stories have shown us anything, it's that there's still plenty of demand for old-school, isometric RPGs. Modern classics like Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2, and Torment: Tides of Numenera all found their footing via hugely popular Kickstarters - and now Pathfinder: Kingmaker is joining the ranks of old-school PC adventures with contemporary designs. I got the chance to sit down with creative director Alexander Mishulin of Owlcat Games and narrative director Chris Avellone - a living legend of the genre - to see how Pathfinder: Kingmaker will please fans of the tabletop game while pulling in roleplaying newcomers.

It's difficult to get a complete sense of such a massive RPG in a mere hour, considering Pathfinder: Kingmaker's main campaign is estimated at around 40 hours long, and it'll take you double that to see everything the world has to offer. If you're not familiar with Pathfinder, it's a tabletop game from Paizo Publishing that uses Dungeons & Dragons' 3.5 edition ruleset as a base, with plenty of Adventure Paths to conquer. This digital take on Pathfinder: Kingmaker (one of the aforementioned Adventure Paths) has you fulfilling two roles: courageous hero leading a party as you brave the vast Stolen Lands, and ruler of a fledgling kingdom that you'll slowly build up over the course of five in-game years.

Having never played the original tabletop game myself, I asked Mishulin to explain what makes it stand out from other fantasy RPGs. "It's a world filled with very interesting subsettings that somehow connect together," he says. "It allows you to transition from being in standard medieval fantasy, to go to France in the Renaissance period, then go fight some mummies, then explore a spaceship. It's very crazy. The [video] game is focused on one Adventure Path that's more contained and just references some of this stuff - but when you're playing on the table, you can experience a lot of different things in one fantasy."

Even in my short time with the Kingmaker demo, it was immediately clear that it'll please anyone who's enjoying the recent Western RPG renaissance. The isometric view gives you a good sense of the action, as you position your custom hero and AI companions during the real-time combat, which can be paused at any time so you can plot out your preferred tactics. Dice rolls happen behind the scenes to determine your prowess in a fight, or when performing actions in the world like defusing traps (something I failed to do during one attempt, resulting in a mist of poison gas enveloping my poor party). It instantly evokes classic PC RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment - all of which just so happen to be part of Avellone's prolific body of narrative and design work.

Avellone also worked on more recent hits like Pillars of Eternity, Into the Breach, and Arkane Studios' Prey, along with the upcoming Dying Light 2 - but Pathfinder: Kingmaker presented a chance to expand the story of a tabletop game he knows and loves. "We did want to include some of the classic Pathfinder characters, so Amiri can actually join your party, and you can have a storyline quest arc with her," he says. "We didn't have to do any of that, but we thought it'd be a cool way to integrate both the pen-and-paper version and the computer game version. Players familiar with Pathfinder can say 'Oh wow, we recognize Amiri from the books! Now we can journey with her in the party.'"

But this isn't a one-to-one recreation of the original Adventure Path, and Kingmaker explores plenty that goes beyond the book. "Any changes or alterations - 'Hey, we'd like to add this, or we're thinking about taking this character in this direction' - we just talked it over with Paizo, and they were pretty cool," says Avellone. "I think it just helped knowing a lot about Pathfinder in the first place, because that meant that a lot of our suggestions [garnered a response like] 'Oh, we see where you're going with that, and because you understand the universe, that proposal makes a lot of sense to us.'" If you're a Pathfinder veteran, you'll be pleased to know that Kingmaker includes extensive character customization (complete with classic alignment matrix of Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic and Good/Neutral/Evil), 145 locations, 100 monster types, and all the races from the core game (plus the Aasimar for good measure).

In one small sidequest, I attempted to resolve a dispute between a group of cantankerous kobolds and curmudgeonly mites. I tried and failed to solve the conflict peacefully, but you can choose a side, stay out of the feud entirely, or investigate further to find out what started the hostilities. All the while, your companions (with 11 available in all) chime in with suggestions that you can heed or ignore. "Companions really like to insert themselves into dialogue and provide their own opinion on what's happening," says Mishulin. As you grow more and more attached to your companions, you can adjust the incredibly detailed difficulty settings to determine how much peril they might be in. There's the option to have fallen companions pop back up after combat, or those who want a challenge can set it so that they're sent back to heal at home base if they're defeated a second time.

Speaking of home base, your kingdom in Kingmaker is as much a part of your roleplaying as the whole 'explore dungeons, kill monsters, and chat with NPCs' part. You start as the leader of a small barony, but over time will make choices that expand your territory until you're calling the shots in an expansive empire. You can build structures that'll affect your kingdom's stats, or just go into automation mode if you're not a fan of city management and just want to focus on the story. No matter how you choose to rule your domain, there will be constant threats from the outside world - like invading hordes of fireproof trolls, for instance - that you'll need to deal with, lest your 'Unrest' meter tip from stable, to riots, to crumbling. "If you go beyond crumbling, [those forces] will destroy your kingdom, and the story will be over - because your story is really tied to the story of the kingdom," explains Mishulin. "Some [threats] are more time-pressing, some less, but you're always get several warnings, like 'In two months, they will swarm us - do something, please!'"

Executive decisions regarding politics and infrastructure are also a big part of how you rule. You'll have the chance to negotiate with other baronies or vie for territory in the Stolen Lands, all of which come with tradeoffs for economic stability or diplomatic relations. None of it is colored by explicit morality: "There is no good or bad... it's up to you to decide what is really needed at the moment," says Mishulin.

You'll also have to make some hard calls along the way. "You can't do everything by yourself," says Avellone. "Where do you deploy the guards? Do you secure trade routes, or villages? Those are choices that you make, and then the results of those have different consequences for the economy, for unrest... It's not all just 'I'm going to go find the main dungeon and kill them all.' There are other things you have to manage as well."

For anyone who enjoys roleplaying as a virtuous champion or malicious evildoer, benevolent ruler or militaristic tyrant, Pathfinder: Kingmaker should provide dozens of hours full of adventure and consequential decision-making. I'm mainly excited to just take my sweet time reading all the enchanting dialogue as I chat with my companions, and trying to make everyone in my kingdom like me. Your personal story can begin when Pathfinder: Kingmaker launches for PC on September 25.

 

[Alpan]

That sounds surprisingly hefty. Could be the surprise hit of the year if the combat is well-executed (always a risk with RTwP schemes).

 

[Thonius]

Well, I see game journos received paychecks. Good good.

 

[santino27]

What the...how'd I miss this?

https://www.pcgamer.com/pathfinder-kingmaker-feels-like-feels-like-pc-rpgs-of-old-warts-and-all/

I love that Kingmaker allowed me to play with the logic of the spell to solve a problem, but I’m skeptical of how deep those kinds of options will go. My party could loot nearby campsites and have full-fledged conversations with any passerby, but I couldn’t just pick up a box and move it somewhere else in the same way traditional roleplay would allow. It’s a small gripe, no doubt, but deep interactivity with objects and the environment, like in Divinity: Original Sin 2, really helps elevate my immersion in the world.

Gaming media needs to stop with the nonsense that DOS2 was the end-all of quality RPGs.

That PCGamer writer seems like a fool. "I couldn't do what I could do in a P&P session!" No shit. It's a computer game.

 

[Tigranes]

"DM, I'd like to move that box to the other side of the room and maybe throw it out the window."
"DM, I'd like to pick up that apple, drop it, and see if it behaves with realistic physics."
"DM, is the soil we are walking on sufficiently eroded?"

 

[Neanderthal]

Original Sin breaking ground with environment and item interaction? He does know that games were doing this a quarter century past, and that they're Svens inspiration surely?

 

[aweigh]

I actually thought he was referencing Oblivion/Skyrim as the 'standard' of being able to move boxes... equally absolutely haram in any case.