Party Creation and role-playing

[Dorateen]

First of all, let me say, you rock! I heard about this game recently and have read all I could about it. Played the demo, and shall be purchasing the full game shortly. I have a question in anticipation of creating our party.

I'd like to recreate the party I had from the Dark Sun games. That would consist of 2 humans (one will be a knight, the other a mage) and a dwarf and a halfling.

I'll play the dwarf as a Mul (don't tell anybody, I'm 100% all dwarf!) and I'll make the halfling into a half-elf (so he says).

Now the thing is, I'd like to have 4 different sprites to represent the characters. The halfling (eh, half-elf) is going to be a knight, but dex based and archery focused. He's ususally a thief, you see. Now in odrer to make it so he doesn't look like the human knight, I am considering choosing Female as gender.

Will this have any effect in-game? Is there any time the game will try to recognize the character as a female? If it's just a word on the charatcer sheet, then it's no problem. If gender is purely for cosmetic purposes, that is exactly what I'm looking for. The sprite itself will do just fine. He's wearing his long blonde hair in a ponytail, no big deal.

One more question, in the demo, when we rescued stout-hearted Pietzo, the dwarf, he fought along side us in the fight with the lizardmen. Is there any chance you might one day add the dwarf sprite as selectable for the Player? In fact, I would rather see characters represented by race than class. I hope with the success of this game, you will be able to expand the selection of both. That will ne necessary if we are eventually going to get to a classic 6 person party.

Thanks, and good job!

[screeg]

On a related topic, I don't get why if you (Blue Sal) wanted to go with three races only (understandable), you didn't choose human, dwarf, elf. You have sprites for dwarves and elves, so it would have been just a matter of using different optional colors to differentiate enemy sprites from PC sprites, right? If you have time, could you say a few words on your reasoning?

Next question: once the furor of KotC's popularity finally plateaus, do you have any intention to add an expansion or more content, or are you satisfied to leave this game as it is and move on to a sequel?

[BlueSalamander]

Thank you for your post, Dorateen. Gender affects the sprite and character sheet but nothing else.

It's unlikely that I would add the other races and classes to KOTC. In another game, yes.

On a related topic, I don't get why if you (Blue Sal) wanted to go with three races only (understandable), you didn't choose human, dwarf, elf. You have sprites for dwarves and elves, so it would have been just a matter of using different optional colors to differentiate enemy sprites from PC sprites, right?

No, unless I use the same dwarf picture for a male dwarf wizard, female dwarf knight and male dwarf cleric for example. I have pictures for a generic dwarf and generic elf but not for the combinations of gender and class. In another game with more races, I would probably discard class and use a picture based on gender and race only (as Dark Sun did).

Next question: once the furor of KotC's popularity finally plateaus, do you have any intention to add an expansion or more content, or are you satisfied to leave this game as it is and move on to a sequel?

I would rather do a sequel, I think.