Final Wipe and Lot Selection

No

 

Guys, reminder to keep the personal attacks at bay and be respectful in your comments. I've had to do more cleaning here.

 

i love that acronym.. BAD Data. made my best friend (a DBA) spew wine out of her nose one night with that one.

i'm only 'close' to that, because i melted down enough to get the next tier lol - twice in the last year.

Hello, My name is Thuri, and I'm an Addict.

 

Not for the lot selection, but I guess they should be counted to calculate what the 1% of the user base has provided as total money collected - which was the original focus of the 1%/30% request.

This might as well become a recovery group.

 

I think the Ultimas reached their peak with Companions in Ultima 7:SI. This is the game where the companions became more than travelling comrades who fought beside you, chipped in to conversations and chided you for touching Lord British's fork; they became a part of the plot itself and Serpent Isle exploited it to dramatic effect.

Companions that have meaningful quests associated with them, and quests that tie in to the plot at that, are also the norm in modern RPGs. Much as I liked the Ultimas prior to SI, it's safe to say I'd feel like something was missing if the companions in SotA went back to being little more than henchmen who occasionally have something interesting to say.

I don't know what they are currently like in SotA, but I'd be interested to hear.

 

I have a feeling they won't have much interaction in the story, you would have to design the stories around that. Seems late in the game to be adding them and adjusting the story.

Well hope you come back.

 

Yes.. I know you talk largely about the offline game, but I'd like to see camping also in online, like I pointed out in my thread on that.

I think it would become a popular to do during the night for a lot of reasons. Just because players would want to avoid travelling the roads in the dark, or because they wanted to wait until daytime when they could talk to NPCs.

In the mean time, at camp, people could use their camp to do all sorts of field crafting while they're waiting for night to finish. Do cooking, tanning, alchemy, etc. They could eat, to deal with hunger. They could dress their wounds -- which could help heal injuries. Even lying down on a bedroll could do something, like speed up the effects of bandages and food, or even deal with something like a fatigue debuff. Then, music could also be played, which could also provide some effect.

Then, people could also use camps for all sorts of multiplayer purposes. To gather parties, by attracting people with the campfire. To meet with parties. To attract PvPers if you're flagged.

Etc.

 

But by the same token, the bottom 99% funded 60%, so are just as valuable

Anyway, I don't think the idea was good, and it would even punish people who weren't the top backers. Lets say you only have a village lot deed, but by the time you get into the land rush, all the backers above you take all the village lots and the only thing left are row lots. Then, you'd have to decide whether to take a row lot and sacrifice your access to a village lot, or wait for a village lot.

Yea, so I think its a bad idea.

 

People have said it was by design. I guess we will see.

 

*shrug* Who says they haven't already been added? They said a while ago that, for MP, the companions would only appear for specific story scenes.

As for the rest of the world and it's story, that's something else. I have my doubts that Biolo, Shanima and Duprell will have a remark for every single NPC conversation in SP mode, for instance. We'll probably revert to U5 silent companions for that part of the game.

 

Then there wouldn't be much of a difference between companions and hirelings, and they suggested hirelings would exist at some point, too. I don't know that we'll have SI level participation (who knows?), but U6 or U7 level participation won't be bad.

 

I agree completely and also we could get a buff from sleeping and camping, which would make it even more interesting.
Camping should be complex and we should be able to do all of the things you mentioned. Maybe we could even be attacked during camping...

I wonder how companions would talk to us in certain situations. With text above their head? This could be easily missed in the game. Voice-Overs are not planned right now and if they would start a conversation in an awkward situation this could also be strange.

But I agree, companions should be a part of the game and not just human pets.

I think I read that companions will play a part in the story and even appear as NPCs in online mode.

But I really hope for a solid companion system, similar to the old Ultimas. In Ultima VII we could manage their inventory, we could give them armor and weapons and other gear and we could train their skills. This was awesome!

 

That's a point I was driving to, yes

Well, 2 things to that:

1. U6 and U7 participation wouldn't be bad, true, but only in the sense that it'd be better than nothing at all. Dialogue and interjections are only a step up from being combat puppets. U7:SI took it a step further with companions being a part of the plot. Modern RPGs have full-blown companion quests, time-triggered dialogue with the PC, even romances. Even Pillars of Eternity, another Kickstarted RPG, had all of this except the romances.
2. The U6 and U7 participation will be virtually impossible to achieve considering the number of NPCs in the game, and the number of scenes that do not appear to be relevant to the plot. I highly doubt the dev writers are going to go through every non-dev written NPC to insert enough companion responses throughout the game that it will feel entirely natural. Hence, for much of the game (read: outside the main plot) I anticipate the companions being silent and hireling-esque.

Good point. I can imagine how it could work, considering U8 had several scripted multi-NPC conversations involving no more than text above NPC heads and it worked fine in that game, but I'm no programmer.

Mm. There's playing a part in the story, and being significant. Time will tell.

I confess I do miss the inventories and paperdolls of U7/SI. The training was pretty sucky though >.>

 

I think a very rough experimental attempt at companions are the spirit-talkers.

And if my spider senses are tickling in the right way, entire side quest lines involving them (once refined and not just teleporting copies of themselves) may become... Interesting.

No spoilers, but whoever sat listening to Thanatos random chattering, and then checking out the never-spoken keywords will know what I mean.

 

What I meant was if it wouldn't be easy to miss what they say. If they are walking outside of our field of view or behind us. How do we "see" what they are saying?

 

Oh! You mean if you were playing from a first person perspective?

I can think of a few solutions they might try, some elegant some not, some dependent on whether the player will always retain control of the camera. It might even be as simple as temporarily forcing the camera out of FP mode. Point is, they have options there. Hopefully they pick a good one.

 

Even in third person mode the companions could be outside of the Screen - depending on how much you zoom in.

Voice-overs would be the best solution imho

 

The Ultimas managed without VOs.

Really, if what a companion says is absolutely necessary for the PC to read, the devs will have to do a minimum of two fairly standard flag checks:

1. The companion is close enough for their dialogue to be seen
2. The companion is physically able to talk (ie. not dead, unconscious, etc)

If either one of these is FALSE, they'll either have to figure out a way to get the companion into the scene, even if it's via insta-teleport, OR have the NPC say something like "Come back when Blahface is with you!"

 

So much this. I also would love the banter like the Dragon Age/Mass Effect style when out and about

 

Wouldn't the companion be too far to hear if off the screen?