Text Recap: Dev Chat 4/18/13 (PVE focus)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Portalarium?v=k2Vbf5DDz2w

I missed a couple questions, but don't believe they were anything vital. Please note I am human and it's possible I misheard something, but I try my best!

Watch the video just to see LB's "Super Dad" shirt.


- Open world is PVP, but open world is not open PVP. You can engage in PVP but only with other PVP players. They will try to give PVPers a way to only see PVPers. Those who do not want to be killed, will not be killed. They will get their story telling experience without grief.

- There will be companions for single player online and offline, they already fleshed out a few and will be working on more. (they will not be the same ultima characters). They will be available in multiplayer mode (or so they think - chris says will confirm with Tracy later) They will have their own agendas/advice/sometimes contradictory to others.

- They are going to release a backstory (prequel) soon but they are keeping the game story hidden for now.

- There was mention there will be non-human companions or NPCs (but player character will prob be human)

- Enemies will be a mixture of human/nonhuman

- They are setting rules as to how long an instance is active with players before they stop allowing more players to enter (eg. if an instance has been active 5 min they probably won't let new players just pop into that one)

- There will be ways to deal with high level areas both solo if you are strong enough, and perhaps at a lower level if you take friends or companions. You will be able to do *MOST* of the game solo if you are good enough. There may be a few side missions or easter eggs there you need help, but they may be NPC companions, not just live players.

- Will there be benefits to taverns/inns, like rest bonuses? "Yes." lol

- Will companions have trade skills? Companions will not be able to harvest/craft/etc, at least not in the beginning. They are discussing possibly letting them do tedious work (like "take this back to town" but that might not be in the first release)

- Can we design an NPC to be ourselves? And when we come online, the NPC will be removed and it will come back when we log off? - Lord Brit will be doing this for himself but probably not for players.

- Offline mode will have a separate character from online. They are going to support temporary offline play for your online character. Not for days, but for some number of hours (like a plane trip) You will not be able to buy or sell things like house deeds or do anything to the persistent world. They will be taking steps to prevent cheating/exploits by monitoring XP and other things - they may set a 'reserve', like they'll allow you to earn up to [x] experience points while you are offline, and you can't go above that, so even if you exploit and gain 10,000 experience and get past their security checks, if the reserve is 500, then 500 is all you will be allowed.


- Is high-risk reward content only available to PVP OPO? If you are a complete PVE player, you will get the full game, but there are times when you will get some rewards like money or other treasures for doing a PVP quest. Those treasures will be available in other ways in PVE.


- Will dungeons require groups? can we complete solo? Some will be very hard for solo. You may need to take companions for some.

- You will be able to mix and match your skills as you see fit. Hirelings and companions will be more skill specific (like a healer)- which can help compliment what you can't yet do.

- will loot be realistic, like no gold on wolves (but they will have meat and fur)? Right, you're not going to find a magic dagger on a bear in a cave, but there might be a corpse in the cave that has one (and it might be damaged). They are also looking to giving pieces you will need to craft gear, like bear claws to make gloves later.


- Why include achievements? Will they have meaning? Its a way to give expert players something to work towards... helps replayability. They may be flags that open up side quests.


- What you are wearing will need to be reflected in your appearance (eg. you can't look like youre in clothes when you actually have plate mail on) but it may be able to be switched in town so you can wear your 'town clothes'

 

Great answers and thanks for the recap ?Dame Lori? MGT470 Virtuous Vamp!

Especially the PvP- and companion-answers are great to hear!

 

Yeah, they skipped around on companions in the past and indicated there would not be party members, good to hear there will be! I don't really understand how that works in multiplayer, but I guess we'll see!

 

I hope if they have two buttons to stand on to get into the dungeon then there will be two buttons to stand on to get out.
That way someone could let people in, while him staying out the guy going in gets killed cause there is no one else to get the door open.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130303012251/elderscrolls/images/7/7a/Wolf_Queen_Awaken_-_Dead_Bodies.png

Maybe you could go in later and loot some bodies.

 

Very good Recap Virtous Vamp

 

LOL Jon thats evil. Made me think of Temple Of Doom -esque rooms, find the switch in time or squuuish....

 

These are things I have been waiting to hear, outstanding.

 

Thanks so much for the recap, Lori! Makes it so much easier to catch up while traveling.

 

Thanks a lot Lori. The non american speaking people like me (or slowwwwwwwly, veeerrryy sloooowwwwllly) are all happy to read what the devs say.
Now, i know everything, thanks to you.

 

Thanks a lot Lori. I loved it, when Lord British forwarded my question and Chris tried to pronounce my name (is even difficult in Germany, since it's a old bavarian name)

 

Once again, excellent ! Thanks, Dame Lori !

 

AT LAST! Thank you Thank you thank you! love you

 

Thank you for the recap of this and the previous few dev chats. I just haven't had the time to watch them all myself. I appreciate you doing this!

 

Thanks alot for the written recap. Well done.

 

And what about the "companions"? Can be interesting, but in Guild Wars 1, for example, they killed the sociability between players. But I guess that they will only be a help.

 

Maybe could they be better in single player?

 

Companions were an important part to the old ultima games...so it is good.

 

@Eriador:

Players can drop to single player more or less at will, so it actually doesn't make much sense restricting companions for single player, or making them better if the player is in single player mode.

It might even have the opposite effect compared to what you seem to want: instead of making players rely on each other, making companions either unavailable or less powerful in the open play mode might make players drop out of open play mode and switch to solo play for the companions, thus removing players from the multiplayer aspect of the game.

 

@Silent Strider I mean in the true solo game, not in the online one. I only have the experiencie of the Guild Wars 1 and was a little bit terrible... NCSoft used a different formula in the GW2, and now is much more social. In the end GW1 was a solo game mostly (skipping the pvp).

And yes, they were important in the old Ultima games, and can be important also here, but I think that a lot of player are looking here for a game closest to Ultima Online. And here "making players rely on each other" can be important. Thats why people dont like the idea of an Auction House, for example.

By the way, excuse my english.

 

I've transcribed a couple of the key sections from Richard pretty much verbatim below. Please don't take bits of this out of context and then jump to a conclusion in a direction opposite to the thrust of the content, life gets 1% more boring when you do that. Thank you kindly.

36:15 to 39:45:

?I know people are catching me and Chris describing the game starting at a different point, but I think they're both completely valid. I think it is completely valid to describe some of the features of the game saying, in your mind's eye start with a pvp game, and then modify in the following way to get what we think we're doing. It is just as valid to say, start with a pve game, and modify in the following way to try to get to how we're describing what we're doing. Both are valid approaches because again we're creating a game where I think it is playable as a complete game in a full, no holds barred, don't worry that you're not going to be delivered all the content, in either category.

But if you are a complete pver, which by the way I think a significant fraction probably half of our players, I don't actually know the exact mix, it'd be an interesting poll to find out, but I?m gonna assume it's 50/50. for the 50% of pve players, fear not it is a complete full solo player style pve game, beginning to end, although I hope that even if you are solo player pve, I believe you will want to play it online, because I think that the enrichening of the world that will be done by other people building shops, and other people decorating their homes, and other things that you'll get a chance to walk through and see, even as a pve player I think that's a huge advantage, it'll make the world that much richer.

Also, I think that for people sort of in the middle, I said earlier 50/50, I actually think there's some people that are on the cusp, I think there are some people who're pvers, who would be willing to take on a little danger, at certain times, under certain conditions, when it's not going to be somebody going into their roleplaying community and burning down their tavern and stomping on their crops. I believe there is a time where if I say, hey, by the way there's a diamond in the mountains over here, and by the way that diamond's in a place where there is a risk of someone attacking you, or here is a questline, if you want to take this contraband from point a to point b then we're gonna tell other people about it and open you up to be attacked or stopped by those other people.

So if you use that mission as a case study, and both of those are just hypothetical examples, none of this has been written yet, they're hypothetical, but the hypothetical case that says, I?ll pay you 10,000gp if you carry this from point a to point b, well if you don't want that just don't do it. and it doesn't mean you can't earn that same amount of money elsewhere, it doesn't mean we're not gonna put big treasures for you to find elsewhere, we're just gonna put some big treasures in places that include danger, as an enticement, because I think it's an appropriate enticement, but we're not going to make it so suddenly there's a whole swathe of the game which is inaccessible to you, a whole type of gameplay or a whole type of value that now you're kind of blocked from reaching those high levels, or those high level experiences because you're not willing to cross the line. But, I am gonna try to get you to cross the line.'

44:15 to 46:35

'And just like we want to make sure that the full game is playable, you can play 90% of the content however you want to play it, I don't personally have a problem with saying there's 10% that we, that the only way to experience it is to try the variety of ways we want you to experience the game, just like it's valid to say look, we're gonna make one adventure where, you know, you want to go on that adventure, it's pvp, it just is, it's not like it's a big swathe of the game, there just is one that's that way, that mission I talked about. I think it's also just as valid to say, hey by the way here's a dungeon entrance that the only way to even open the door is to have one real person stand on that pressure plate, and one real person stand on that pressure plate, and otherwise you cannot go in the front door, and that kind of guarantees you have to go in with multiple people. And that's fine, but we won't do it all the time, it's not like we're gonna take a third of the continent and make it inaccessible to you, I just think it's interesting to put a few moments in the game that say, hey, today I need to stand on someone's shoulders to reach into the cave that's above there it's at least two people, an Easter egg even somewhere along one of those missions, where you find it and go, oh man I finally found the place where that easter egg is on this one particular mission, but it takes two people so now I?m gonna at least have to call a friend sometime if I wanna get that one particular easter egg.?