Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Zombra]

For completeness, here's the email detailing the bug report and feedback system.

The Bard's Tale IV

Letter from Chris Keenan, VP of Development, to our Alpha Backers

Greetings Citizens of Caith,

inXile entertainment is happy to be launching our Bard's Tale alpha test! As a backer whose Kickstarter rewards included access to the alpha, the email from CrowdOx you received prior to this message should also contain your Steam alpha key. Thank you again for your support of both inXile and The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep!

Consider our alpha test a small demonstration of some of the core features of The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep. You are getting an early chance to playtest many aspects of the game, such as combat, party management, puzzle weapons, puzzles & traps, Songs of Exploration, and more.

While I am truly excited about you all playing this small early look at the game, we want to make sure we keep our eyes on the prize - utilizing this demo to make the game better as a whole. Our PR & Community Manager Paul Marzagalli has already done an amazing job of communicating your feedback, suggestions, and ideas from the forums to our team. We hear you guys! Without a doubt, I believe we have some of the most passionate backers since you all take the time to make images, gifs, etc. to demonstrate your points. Please keep it coming.

We're very proud of the work that's been done up to this point, but there's still more to go. Daniel Dean, our internal QA Lead, would love it if you can provide the same level of feedback, and drop bugs and suggestions through our survey form [link redacted]. There you'll see our preferred bug format, which will help our team assess and address all the reported bugs in a timely manner.

In the meantime, work on the game continues! Development is moving along nicely and the game is getting more polished every day. With your help and feedback, we'll be able to produce an even better beta version for both you and other backers to enjoy.

Again, the team is happy to provide this backer alpha to you, and have you assist in bringing The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep to life!

Cheers,

Chris Keenan - VP of Development

Bug Reporting Notes from QA Lead Daniel Dean

Greetings Early Alpha Backers!

Daniel Dean here. I'm the QA Lead on The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep, and I am happy to have you all providing your input on the game. As Chris Keenan mentioned in our most recent Kickstarter update, the early alpha test is a small demonstration of the core features of the game. I am excited about you all play testing the game, and communicating your feedback and dropping bugs.

One known bug to be aware of going in: grid movement is disabled for this backer alpha. Pressing the Ctrl+N shortcut to enable it will glitch the alpha. However, pressing Ctrl+N again will toggle the mode back off and you should be able to complete play.

To make this process easier, I've created a google doc [link redacted] for all of you to report any issues you find or any feedback or suggestions that you would like to make. I've set it up to be very user friendly and I'm going to give a super brief rundown right now on how to use it.

Upon opening it you will see 2 options: Problem and Suggestion

When you select the problem field on the doc there will be several fields to choose from. Please choose the field that most relates to what you're seeing. Next, please describe the issue as best you can in about a sentence. It's a QA maxim: short, sweet, and to the point. After that, there will be a field asking for reproduction steps. Please fill this out if you can reproduce the issue. That's a huge help for us in quickly identifying the problem on our end. If you can't reproduce it, please try and describe everything you were doing leading up to the issue. Lastly, if you can get footage or a screenshot of the issue, please send it to us. All of this is valuable for the debugging process, as we continue to fix issues before the final product is shipped. Here's the link one more time [redacted].

EX:
Whenever I use the Chug ability, it has no effect on my bard.
Go into combat
Use the chug ability and see the bard gets nothing from it

The suggestion field works similarly. Select the item you'd like to give a suggestion on and then tell us what you'd like to see.

So!

With all of that out the way...I and everyone at inXile want to reiterate how much we appreciate your participation in this early alpha test, and assisting in making Barrows Deep an amazing experience.

If you have any questions, reply to this email or contact us
the-bards-tale-iv@support.crowdox.com

 

[Zeriel]

Absolution for pirating the original trilogy in the 1980s. It was a Kickstarter joke.

Yes, I agree. InXile was indeed a kickstarter joke.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The song I sing
Will tell the tale
Of a cold and wintery day;
Of castle walls
and torchlit halls
And a price men had to pay.
When evil fled
and brave men bled
The Dark one came to stay,
Till men of old
For blood and gold
Had rescued Skara Brae.


Beyond the Bard's Tale, as was told,
An epic quest will now unfold
And in the quest, before thy sight,
A mortal man becomes the Knight.
Of wounds this many can never die;
His lips will never voice the cry
Which doomed another, ages gone
Who is now trapped as evil's pawn.
Of puissant might and matchless brawn
The Knight's fierce fate is plainly drawn
Upon the tome of life, in fact
And in this power lies the pact.
So seek the wand, and face the snare
Yet in no way can you prepare
Zanta's wrath and endless guile-
Now try the quest, friend...for a while.


Come hear the tale of Skara Brae—
a god returned to have his way.
Creatures of darkness, spawn of night,
The Mad One’s kin destroyed the site.
Defenders fell, their bane come true,
Garth, Roscoe, Kylearan, too!
As doom approached, the helpless fled.
It did no good, the streets ran red.
Survivors few, they sit and mope,
with but one final ray of hope:
’Cross time and space, the legends say,
Heroes at last! To steal the day!

 

[Infinitron]

First video on YouTube:

 

[Viata]

Holy fucking shit, I started the video at 20 minutes and that was the worst thing I saw in my life. No, I'm not talking about the game, I'm talking about the guy playing it. It makes me wonder if he is retarded.
As for the game,

Edit: Watch him doing the puzzle at 14 minutes.

 

[Dorateen]

Might & Magic XI

 

[Jimmious]

Game looks decent but indeed, the video with that guy is unbearable

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page:

Over one hundred years later, the terrible events of Skara Brae’s violent destruction are nearly forgotten. In dark ruins below, an evil has waited patiently. Until now. Fanatics are gathering control, the famous Adventurers Guild has been outlawed, and you must rise up in defiance to become the hero that the realm needs.

Craft Your Characters
Create your own characters and play as a Bard, Fighter, Practitioner or Rogue. Specialize your choice in 4-6 different subclasses. Choose one of seven cultures to build an array of characters which make each playthrough an unique experience.

Choose Your Companions
Start your party with a single adventurer. Recruit new heroes to bolster your ranks. Level up and customize their skills and gear. Build a party that suits your unique play style!

Outsmart Evil
Battle your enemies in challenging turn-based tactical combat that rewards clever thinking. Use superior strategies, thoughtful positioning, and deadly combos to bring down your foes.

Unlock the Secrets of the Past
Explore mysteries that challenge the sharpest minds. Solve over 200 demanding puzzles. Claim advantageous rewards hidden for those bold enough to seek them out!

Recover Powerful Artifacts
Retrieve varied kinds of ancient weapons which inherit mystical powers from a long-forgotten past. Unlock their true potential step-by-step by solving their unique mysteries, with thousands of potential combinations providing you with deadly advantages in the battles that lie ahead.

Wonders & Curiosities
Dive deep into the enthralling mysteries of the cryptic city of Skara Brae and all of Caith in this classic-style dungeon crawler, brought to life by the power of the Unreal 4 Engine. Use class skills, uncovered lore, and clues in the environment to uncover new paths and lost treasure!

No Techland at least on Steam.

Developer: inXile Entertainment
Publisher: inXile Entertainment

 

[Infinitron]

Twitch streams:

 

[BlackGoat]

That butt wiggling the cultists do........

 

[Zombra]

Streaming now, if you want to see anything specific, come hassle me in chat.

 

[aweigh]

cautiously hopeful i am

 

[aweigh]

watching Zombra stream right now

goddamn fiddling around with weapons by doing dumb crossword puzzles to unlock +2 bonuses is gonna get old real fucking fast

why cant they just list possible item upgrades in a simple list menu

sigh

 

[Zeriel]

why cant they just list possible item upgrades in a simple list menu

Because Fargo is a genius and a renaissance man who will go down in gaming history as the first to recognize the naturally complementary gameplay styles of Hearthstone and 1980's dungeon crawlers.

 

[aweigh]

- fiddling around with items doing dumb puzzles to unlock simple upgrades is a terrible idea

- action icons during combat are not mapped to buttons so you have to click on every single bullshit thing

other than that game looks decent.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I've had very little interest in this--I don't think I've played a blobber since the '90s--but the demo actually looked pretty solid. I'm surprised and mildly impressed.

My suspicion is that it will be inXile's best game by far, not because I have much faith in Fargo, but because it would be a cruel cosmic irony for their highest quality product to be the one I care about the least. Of course inXile's best game will be the one that the fewest people give a fuck about.

I agree on puzzle weapons being dumb. presumably they're trying to appeal to the fabled puzzle demographic.

 

[Zombra]

OK, I just tried the demo/'alpha'. I guess you've pretty much seen everything in the other streams, not going to bother posting mine to Youtube as it's mostly me staring at walls and taking too long to read item descriptions. [EDIT: Fuck it, I'll post it anyway. LINK SHOULD BE ACTIVE IN AN HOUR OR SO] Thanks to everyone who watched and chatted.

Random impressions in no particular order:

• Keyboard controls definitely need to be more robust.
• Combat does feel very 'Hearthstone' even though I've never played Hearthstone.
• I felt very limited with only three characters, since you have four actions per turn among all your guys, and lots of abilities have cooldowns. Even so, it was more interesting than AAADDD With a full party there will be a lot more decision-making.
• Character portraits flying around like dancing postcards has been toned way down. THANK GOD.
• Party voice acting was nice.
• A lot of attacks and abilities are expressed by "FLASH OF COLORED LIGHT!!" Didn't make me feel particularly engaged with the action, but you know, the original BTs just had text description, so, fine.
• The engine is smoother than butter. Textures aren't super dense but I love how responsive the mouse is.
• Looks like there's not much of a conversation engine, maybe a few dialogue choices but if the one conversation here is any example, NPCs pretty much say their say and then you walk on.
• The puzzle sword was a letdown. I've been playing The Witness so maybe my standards have been raised pretty high, but here I just spun a bunch of cylinders until they clicked. Oh and the cylinders only spin one way which is fucking annoying. There was no reasonable way to expect I'd actually trace those lines out to build the maze when brute forcing the puzzle was easier (but dully time-consuming). I liked the first door puzzle much better, it took me a minute but visual attention allowed me to solve it.
• Character system isn't classically crunchy at all. You have two innate stats! Strength and Intelligence. Then there's Armor rating, hit points, and mana pool.
• Instead you have skills and abilities, which looks like they'll offer plenty of choice in party building, so that's fine, just different from the old way. But I didn't see any of that here, couldn't access the skill menu or see what levelling up is like.
• Treasure chests leap pulsating into the air and explode in a nimbus of golden radiance after you loot them. I don't like this.
• Combats say Ambushed! when they begin, even when you start them by charging at the enemy.
  
• The joke at the end was FUCKING HILARIOUS. This has been a huge pet issue for the BT grognards on the official board for the last couple years. I just about cried with laughter.

Overall I am more excited about playing the full game than I was yesterday.

 

[Lady_Error]

Might & Magic XI

Stonekeep 2.0

 

[Infinitron]

Zombra's video:

 

[Cross]

So everything is on a cooldown or some other free resource, you can't miss, only two damage types (physical and mental), a maximum of 5 abilities per character, dead characters auto-revive at the end of an encounter, almost no abilities that go beyond dealing damage and many more mechanics that can only charitably be described as 'streamlining'.

I can see they've really remained faithful to the blobbers of old.

And what do you know, my prediction that the grid system they went with would place contraints on the encounter design turned out to be accurate:

None of those GIFs show the player ever facing more than two enemies at once, which doesn't exactly bode well for the encounter design either (and from the looks of it, there's very limited room to fit more enemies onto the grid).

 

[Zombra]

So everything is on a cooldown or some other free resource, you can't miss, only two damage types (physical and mental), a maximum of 5 abilities per character, dead characters auto-revive at the end of an encounter, almost no abilities that go beyond dealing damage and many more mechanics that can only charitably be described as 'streamlining'.

Ehhh. "Streamlining" isn't accurate. To be sure, this isn't BT1-3 ... but it's not a dumbed down version of BT1-3 either. This is something else, with tactical positioning, three different damage types, time-based ("focus") abilities, special maneuvers for all classes and no "basic" maneuvers to lean on ... the original games didn't have any of this. We agree it doesn't qualify as a real sequel. Characterizing it as straight up less than the old games is dishonest.

And what do you know, "my" prediction that the grid system they went with would place contraints on the encounter design turned out to be accurate

lol. Nice foretelling, Nostradamus. You were only over a year behind the rest of us.

 

[theSavant]

Hmm... my thoughts from watching these videos:

- Party characters look like meh cartoon (WoW) - the paperdolls in the inventory look better (kinda "realistic" like chars in HOMM4)
- Attack abilities description look like from a trading card game (Hearthstone)
- Dialogue options look like Skyrim
- Inventory looks like Might & Magic X
- Jumping treasure chests look like floating chests in jRPGs (i.e. Wizardry Laybrinth of Lost Souls)
- Environment looks like still life pictures from rennaissance (or old point & click adventures)
The whole things feels like a patchwork. No consistency. Aesthetic breaks all over it. I know it's alpha... but...



The combat & tactical positioning system looks decent though. Puzzle weapons seem OK too.

I perceive however some of the attack and particle effects too excessive when they fill up the whole screen... so much movement and animated things. Almost too much for me...

 

[Hobo Elf]

I know it's alpha... but...

That's what people said about the Wasteland 2 and Numanuma alphas as well. Beware.

 

[Infinitron]

Nekot the Brave's video:

 

[V_K]

it's not a dumbed down version of BT1-3

Let's face it, that's only because that would be outright impossible to do.