HI guys questions and Praise

[Crowleyhammer]

First of all im really looking forward to playing this game! it really looks like its going to be a lot of fun!

I have perused your website and found a lot to like, the way information is presented is easy to find and most informative. Having read all the information im really excited about the combat and the game in general, now having read everything on the site i have a few questions, i think youll agree you give a lot of info on the game and it is quite a lot to take in in one go lol, so if ive missed anything or if ive overlooked it please just point me to the place its at.

1)How many NPC's and Quests are you aiming to have in the game?

2)How is magic handled in the game? is it a system like D&D i.e spell memorization or is it mana based or something completely different?

3)With the absence of a thief or rogue class does this mean there are no traps in the game world? or are traps handled by any class or just one of the three?

4)Will the game have a big dungeon crawl? i dont mean the whole game but a big dungeon somewhere or a lots of smaller ones?

5)Will players be able to make their own modules and content?

6)Can you raise the dead without a cleric)

7)How will Difficulty be handled? few who tried to take on the wolf in BG1 after gorion died did so again lol, what i mean by this is will you have fights early on that are best avoided? i dont mean areas you shouldnt be in at an early level i just mean in generl.

8)Does the player create his background or is it already chosen?

9)How much in percentage would you say is completed?

10)When is the Demo going to released?

11)DO enemys respawn?

Keep up the good work! i will be keeping a close eye on this!

[BlueSalamander]

Hello and thanks for the praise. Let me jump directly to the questions:

1- Quite a lot. There are many locations in the game, including three villages, two cities and a few towers, caves and castles. In each location there are a few important NPCs for you to talk to, it's easy to find them. You won't be drowning in NPC dialogue, every dialogue goes to the point.

2- Each "day" you get the number of spellcastings that is specified by the 3.5 ruleset (depends on your character level and on your intelligence or wisdom modifier). You recover all your castings when resting. The party can rest only at campfires, so you must find them. Spellcasters do not need to memorize, at any time you can cast any of the spells that the character knows.
I've done it this way for two reasons:
-You get more choice during combat, you're allowed to choose the right spell for each situation
-In games with memorization you would just change your spell selection then immediately make the party rest, so there's not much difference.
Most of the spells, though, can be cast only during combat.

3- There are no traps in the sense of "if you walk on this pressure plate, an arrow will hit you" - no direct damage traps. This is a design decision intended to make programming simpler. As a result there is no rogue class. However, there are plenty of ambushes. You might step on a pressure plate and the way back will be closed, that kind of thing. Only, you would not need a rogue to resolve this kind of situation.
Also, there are many locked metal doors. For each lock there is a key (or secret combination) that you need to find. You can't bypass that by having a rogue pick the lock.

4- No, there are a variety of dungeon-crawl areas. Each of these areas is quite big. Many of them roughly follow the map design in the classic D&D modules Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slave Lords.

5- Not in this game, maybe in the next. Right now I have lots of small editors (one for maps, one for scripts, one for weapons, etc) - one thing I'd like to do is to combine them all into an integrated editor that's simple to use.

6- You can't raise the dead without a cleric.

7- Good question. D&D games are hard at the early levels then it gets easier - excepted when you face formidable foes. In Knights of the Chalice it's like that too. The beginning levels are rather difficult.
Yes, there are fights early on that should be avoided. Say you tried to take the left corridor, and got the party repeatedly killed by an iron golem. You should backtrack and try the right corridor. Following the right corridor, you may, or may not, find something that will help you defeat the golem. Or, you could go back to the surface, find some random encounters and level up. It's up to you.

8- After creating your characters a random background is assigned to them which you can read in their character sheet. You can edit that background. It does not affect what happens in the game.

9- Probably 80%. The other 20% are mostly missing graphic and sound assets, this can take a long time to make.

10- Possibly around the end of 2008.

11- It depends. Some areas are inhospitable and monsters will not go there. In other areas, random monster groups (of a certain challenge rating) will start appearing once you've cleared the area of its initial occupants. In other words, there's no restriction on experience points - fights are plenty.

Feel free to ask more stuff if needed!

[Crowleyhammer]

Thanks for replying! ill give some feedback on the questions and may think of more!

1)Sounds good, the game world sounds big, how open will it be? will areas be closed off at the start or will you be able to visit anywhere no matter how ill advised?

2)Like the sound of this a lot, when i play PnP we do a system similar to this otherwise a person playing a wizard can have a boring time with one spell and one chance to cast it, much better to give the player a choice of spells even if they can only cast 1!

3)Sounds good!

4)Cool thats what attracted me to TOEE a game that follows the modules is a good thing.

5)Fair enough

6)I thought as much,by raise dead do you mean Necromancy as well as raising PC's?

7)Good i think this is a great decision,getting slaughtered in a game early on by something you are stupid enough to attack when it is clearly more powerfull is a good lesson not taught enough in games these days!

8)Cool i dont normally bother with it but i know some people do

9)Cool

10)Look forward to it! any chance of a video of gameplay or similar?

11)Another plus point for this game.

I will have other questions but ill post them tomorrow.

[BlueSalamander]

1)Sounds good, the game world sounds big, how open will it be? will areas be closed off at the start or will you be able to visit anywhere no matter how ill advised?

Most areas can be visited from the start. Some areas, though, are out of reach at the start due to geographic reasons (need to cross the mountain range), a few others are guarded by powerful creatures, and lastly, a few are blocked off to preserve the storyline.

when i play PnP we do a system similar to this otherwise a person playing a wizard can have a boring time with one spell and one chance to cast it, much better to give the player a choice of spells even if they can only cast 1!

Yes, that makes the wizard more flexible, especially at the beginning levels. It's also like that in the Dark Sun Shattered Lands cRPG.

6)I thought as much,by raise dead do you mean Necromancy as well as raising PC's?

You can only bring back the dead PCs. Otherwise, you can always cast one of the Summon Elemental spells to get extra help. Each elemental (fire, water, earth and air) has different abilities. Air is super fast and can fly over web and entangle squares, earth is tough and strong, fire does fire damage and burns any Web strands it walks upon, water can make enemies bleed and it extinguishes any wall of fire square it walks upon. They have the same level as the caster. You can summon only one at a time.

10)Look forward to it! any chance of a video of gameplay or similar?

Sure, a bit later on.

[Crowleyhammer]

All sounds great, will there be some kind of reputation system for the party?

Apart from the wizard example what other major rule changes have you made from 3.5?

Will there be a day night cycle?

What has been the hardest thing to implement?

Will you have encounters in the game like for the BG series where you virtually have to know about an upcoming encounter so you could buff your part etc in order to even stand a chance?

Cheers for your replys so far!

[BlueSalamander]

will there be some kind of reputation system for the party?

No, but NPCs will react to your deeds through dialogue. I think a reputation system makes more sense in a game where:
- you're allowed to do evil things like stealing or killing innocents, and
- the game tracks all you do and gives you labels or alignment shifts.
In Knights of the Chalice, you're simply not allowed to do these things so there's no need to track them. You're not given labels but if you are chivalrous and heroic the NPCs will acknowledge that. At least, those who are not hostile to the party.

Apart from the wizard example what other major rule changes have you made from 3.5?

All the changes are decribed in this page.

Will there be a day night cycle?

Yes, for cosmetic purposes only.

What has been the hardest thing to implement?

Mmmm, there are two kinds of hard: work can be hard because it's tedious and work can be hard because it's difficult and challenging.
For the tediousness I'd say creating all the maps, encounters and NPC scripts. That's in part because my editors are not very user-friendly, and in part because an adventure that goes from level 1 to 20 has to be really long.
As for challenging, I'd say that the two most complicated things to implement are the calculation of attack rolls and the AI. Attack rolls are modified by so many things and creating the AI requires a lot of testing and debugging.

Will you have encounters in the game like for the BG series where you virtually have to know about an upcoming encounter so you could buff your part etc in order to even stand a chance?

Yes, there are many difficult encounters which you will have to go through several times in order to find the right tactic. Especially if you play with random ability scores rather than everything at the maximum.

Unlike Baldur's Gate, you can't buff your characters in anticipation of a fight. If you must cast a buff, you cast it after combat has started. That way everyone is equal. Oh, there's one exception, Mage Armor.

Anyway, what I mean to say is that casting stoneskin, greater invisibility, and barkskin on all your characters just before a fight takes the challenge away. In PnP you would probably not be allowed to do that, unless you had ample warning. Likewise, the enemies you face will not be protected by all these spells at the start of combat.

[Crowleyhammer]

Thanks for the answers! ive seen screenshots of a tavern does that mean we can get drunk?

what part of the game are you most proud of?

Thats all the questions ive got for now, really looking foward to it!

You might want to post in the forums at www.sorcerers.net to try and get some interest going, my experience on working with indie games is people wont get too excited about a game until there is demo of some sort,especially if the game is a fair way off! The reason for this is people are impatient they browse the website add it to favourites and then forget bout it.

Ill post on the few forums i visit bout your game to try and drum up some interest as well.

Good luck mate!

[BlueSalamander]

ive seen screenshots of a tavern does that mean we can get drunk?

No you can't, but you can talk to the NPCs. I remember there was a drinking contest in TOEE.

what part of the game are you most proud of?

The combat engine, that was the number 1 priority.

You might want to post in the forums at http://www.sorcerers.net. Ill post on the few forums i visit bout your game to try and drum up some interest as well.

Thank you for your interest and help, I appreciate it.

[getter77]

-Any chance, perhaps eventually, of incorporating a bonus dungeon of sorts that would have many levels to it and a Roguelike flair? I should think such a dungeon would add an interesting replay component in terms of not only character mastery along the crafted dungeons, but also of improvisation and to test just how far one could take a favored party in a long, or endless, rush of pure combat and such. Perhaps as an Epilogue of sorts for parties that are essentially "retired" since they've cleared out the main crux of the game and thus would see no use otherwise since a played would then, in theory, try the core game again with a different part config?

-In term of purchasing the game, will there be support on any major DDL services or just this by itself? Credit cards accepted securely? Etc? My main hope is that this isn't some Paypal only styled thing since I just don't want to get into that quagmire.

-For some reason I quite like the...odd...camera angle present in the gameplay video that the game operates under. It will surely take some getting used to, but it seems nifty.

[BlueSalamander]

Hello, by roguelike flair I assume you mean a dungeon with totally randomized rooms, corridors and encounters, and an increasing Challenge Rating as you go down, like the infinite dungeon in ADOM? That's a very interesting idea but I think it will be a lot more work and could be the basis for a new game.
Currently, random groups already appear in many areas once you've cleared them. Their average challenge rating depends on the place and goes up to 20. Some of the set encounters have a much higher CR.

Regarding payment I was planning to go with Paypal only since that seems to be the easiest way. What's wrong with Paypal? I might look into the download services.

The view angle is the same as in Ultima VI and VII, I like it because for the computer it's the same as straight top-down, which is used for pen & paper D&D. With a traditional 45 degree isometric view, like in Spiderweb's games, squares become lozenges.