Game News Warhorse's RPG Unveiled as Kingdom Come: Deliverance

[cherry blossom]

Video games do abstract a lot of things out, but when you do that, you have to first see if abstracting something out will lead to good or bad gameplay. In the case of Thief games, the absensce of high precision controls over footwork has no negative impact on the gameplay. In order to sneak around, you just move your feet in some direction, or stop, or move slower. Precise control of your feet has no effect on any of these, as you would still do the exact same thing as they do now, put one foot in front of the other, and so on.

In melee combat, on the other hand, precise footwork has a huge impact. We are not just talking about moving your feet in some direction, but footwork in that context refers to how your feet are individually positioned, how your weight is distributed, how you move each one for any particular strike or defense, and so on. If you don't have that kind of precision in your controls, and abstract it out to just general keyboard/mouse movements in some direction, that takes all the interesting things out of footwork.

I don't see the difference from Thief. You underestimate one while exalt the other for no valid reason. Weight balancing, how you walk and run through various surfaces etc. similar arguments apply to sneaking. It is never "just move in some direction". Footwork in fencing is part of learned motor skills that come with learning overall moves, ie. integral to every strike or counter strike. You don't need to split hair over it as some individual form of conscious action. There is absolutely no point to worrying over footwork if you aren't taking it in proper context ie. as part of other moves. You can easily simulate complexities of tactical footwork down to "just move in some direction".

What you are left with is exactly what most melee combat games have right now, which is the player just runs around like a headless chicken, strafing around the other guy, or moving at high speeds forward and back, to land a blow and then run out of the other guy's range. To me, this is not fun at all, so my point was, if you are not gonna do interesting footwork, don't do it at all (or do it in a very limited way), and just concentrate on the other aspects of melee combat (strikes, parries, etc) which you can actually implement in a more interesting and fun way.

See Thief example again as opposed to countless games with shitty stealth experience. What you are arguing is piss-poor implementations of melee combat as opposed to any actual limitations of the input.

I think you suffer from a particular lack of perspective on game design and maybe also imagination.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Well, aren't you a friendly little guy.

The difference is, in Thief, you can implement very coarse, imprecise footwork (the WSAD movement) as part of the gameplay and get away with it, because it's good enough to do things like move into a shaded area, move behind a stationary or slowly moving guard, and so on. In a melee combat game, you can still use this kind of coarse movement for certain things (general movement, coarsely maneuvering around multiple opponents to keep them in front, etc), but if you think about using it for the actual combat itself, it's much harder to imagine a good system like that. Not saying it's impossible, but I've played and watched tons of melee combat games, and all them that ended up using WSAD movement as an integral part of combat ended up degenerating into chaotic WoW type gameplay, as opposed to elegant sword-fighting. But hey, I am sure you can design something better.

 

[cherry blossom]

Off the top of my head, a well done dynamic combat locking (I normally hate this as very few games have done this right, it worked wonderfully well in those few) with toned down movement distance in combat and behaviour triggers based on distance would serve to solve most of the problem. Movement need not be chaotically coarse and without consequence as it is in 99% of games. Now that I think about it, even Assassin's Creed series has it better than majority of games. In fact, were it not for the ridiculous ease with which you can pull combo-links, make killing moves and line up dead bodies, it would have been one of the more convincing models in my opinion and while it's a third person game, it could easily be done in first person as the specific implementation doesn't have much to do with the camera. Otherwise, I don't find anything wrong with WASD. "Freedom of movement" trope is the main culprit here.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Off the top of my head, a well done dynamic combat locking (I normally hate this as very few games have done this right, it worked wonderfully well in those few) with toned down movement distance in combat and behaviour triggers based on distance would serve to solve most of the problem. Movement need not be chaotically coarse and without consequence as it is in 99% of games. Now that I think about it, even Assassin's Creed series has it better than majority of games. In fact, were it not for the ridiculous ease with which you can pull combo-links, make killing moves and line up dead bodies, it would have been one of the more convincing models in my opinion and while it's a third person game, it could easily be done in first person as the specific implementation doesn't have much to do with the camera. Otherwise, I don't find anything wrong with WASD. "Freedom of movement" trope is the main culprit here.

Haven't played Assassin's Creed, so I watched a youtube video of combat from the third game. From that video, seems like most times movement doesn't play much of a role, as the guy just does his predetermined combo movements (like grab the enemy's rifle and use it against him, etc) while at the same time just doing basic movement to approach the enemy/back up. The few times where movement did play a role, it seemed very gamey, with him rolling around the enemy's attack and things like that, which I am not a big fan off, and plus that was also probably just part of some predetermined combo. I'd personally prefer a more organic system where there is no lockdown, and your behavior doesn't change based on the context of enemy's distance or their behavior, but instead consists of some pool of specific actions (strikes/parries/dodges/blocks/etc) and you yourself choose the right one to counter what the enemy is doing, instead of the computer deciding it for you.

 

[Smejki]

Aaaand a pic...

Is it based on any real fortess?

It is. Carefully reconstructed for the game with the aid of archeologists.

 

[Smejki]

Teasing part for the next week episode of one Czech videogame TV show cotaining Kingdom Come footage


and some claimed-to-be-exclusive papermag tease too
https://twitter.com/levelcz/status/424228425469943808

Both coming out after the Kingdom Come homepage timer ticks to zero so I guess we'll get the ~same from developers but good to see something new.

 

[SophosTheWise]

Wow, they really failed with that one. Countdown is over:

New info coming soon. Please watch this space.

 

[Smejki]

Divinity: Original Sin campaign: Warhorse edition

 

[cvv]

 

[SophosTheWise]

So, apparently it's because they crashed their server.

 

[evdk]

So, apparently it's because they crashed their server.

A likely story...

 

[SophosTheWise]

According to NeoGAF:

First real info from CZ magazine
-> no publisher found - kickstarter (500 000,-) - if they hit it rest of the devlopment pays investor(czech millionare), if not development ends
-> thx to no publisher - game will be cut to 3 episodes with 30h of gameplay each
-> main character is young blacksmith
-> equip will be realistic - layers of clothes+armor inc. underpants
-> every hit will be calculated in real time, so if you hit someone with the sword on helmet first will be evaluated damage to the helmet, further will be calulated transfer of force to the head of the enemy and other possible injuries and at the same moment will be also calculated the trajectory of the sword that slides from the on the shoulder and collarbone ...

- more info on KS with new trailer at evening

And:

Warhorse Studios ‏@WarhorseStudios14m
Sorry guys for leting you wait for so long. Everything is fixed, prepared and ready to launch, but one unexpected... http://fb.me/QAwuvnpL

With a new screenshot:

 

[Smejki]

Sorry guys for leting you wait for so long. Everything is fixed, prepared and ready to launch, but one unexpected obstacle appeared, so we will be able to press the LAUNCH button in a few hours. We are doing averything to make it happen ASAP. An I think, that you will not be dissapointed Here is a little apology to ease the long wait...

Dan adding

Sorry. The server wasnt the biggest problem. This is really something beyond our control and only thing we could do is wait till it happens

 

[evdk]

if they hit it rest of the devlopment pays investor(czech millionare)

I guess that acting as a front for bankrupting the mining company is a lucrative gig.

 

[Metro]

Episodic? Will wait until Early Access on Steam to get at Russian pricing.