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The biggest problem people had with combat was that we didn't explain it. I don't mean tutorials, I mean we didn't tell the player anything about strategy: turn advantage, maiming vs killing, positioning, smart ability use, etc. We just kind of expected people to figure it out because that's the fun part (or so I thought). We'll be rectifying a lot of complaints we got for the second game, especially lack of diversity, but I'll admit the combat is different on purpose and that's always risky. Btw, thanks for LPing the game, ProfessorProf! Chewbot fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Apr 27, 2014 |
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Apr 27, 2014 04:50
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ProfessorProf posted:Are you one of the devs? Thanks so much for making a great game, and please do continue to drop by and offer your inside insights if you can! Thanks and you're welcome! Stoic only has three developers, I did all the writing and design. Anyone wondering why I haven't written any LPs for the last three years can blame The Banner Saga.
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Apr 27, 2014 07:17
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A couple things about this battle! At one point it was the hardest fight in the entire game due to a weird way the difficulty increased. We fixed that. I did a short video Let's Play for PAX a looong time ago, in which I did this exact fight, but without Tryggvi. You can see a lot of the strategies Professor was talking about, but I also point out stuff that (it turns out) are pretty hard to master. This fight could have been done a lot more efficiently but I wanted to show us some of the major concepts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E0rhoN1Eog. Positioning is so important in combat. We keep saying it's like chess but nobody believes us  The point about Gil dying is also one that I feel wasn't as arbitrary as some of the complaints I've heard. I think it comes down to players just assuming that, like other games, what the characters say doesn't matter. We constantly drop contextual clues that you can act on if you're paying attention. For example, you could have sent Alette and Gil to the great hall instead of bringing them to the fight: Iver tells you it's too dangerous for inexperienced kids. This would have prevented Gil from dying. Also, Egil distinctly says he won't let anything happen to Alette- he's watching out for her, he's got a bit of a crush. He proves his point when he takes the killing blow in her place. Lastly, about knowing what Rook is supposed to do from the available options, it's mentioned that he's the huntmaster of Skogr, his daughter and others look up to his skills. If the player trusts him to take the shot, they get the job done. I can see how some people think that it's still too random. I can respect that, but we always set out to make a game where you can't control everything around you, just roll with the punches. One thing we plan to change in the sequel, however, is that if you lose a character you get your renown refunded. Losing a character plus all their renown investment definitely stings, probably to the point of rage-quitting for some players. What I like about the character classes is that if you know what you're doing, they can ALL seem overpowered, even Alette. She's special because whittling down damage (instead of dumping it all on one enemy) is a key strategy, and she's one of the few who can hit multiple units per turn. In the above video I show a bit about setting her up to be effective. My favorite character is Oddleif because even though her skill is "risky" you can learn how to make it happen every time, and then she's locking down enemies left and right. And believe it or not, Egil is one of the best combat characters in the entire game, in my opinion. And yeah, Egil was our redshirt. It was kind of a running joke that he can die in so many ways, but people ended up getting really attached to him. He throws himself under the bus at every chance because he's so desperate to be helpful. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Apr 29, 2014 |
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Apr 29, 2014 05:54
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Green means a positive effect, as in his health went up. Technically that should be impossible, sounds like a bug to me. Prof, you'll be glad to know there will be a badass shieldmaiden in TBS2. She's an important melee character. All the women in TBS1 are archers purely because of the cost of development. We just didn't have the bandwidth for more variety. Also, Oddleif (at least in my mind) doesn't have any male genetics, it's simply what she said: her father named her before he even knew it was a girl, then he took off cause he was a deadbeat. I think it's fair to say that the player can think whatever they want about race/gender/sexuality. In fact, one of the characters in this game is gay. Try to guess who.
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May 13, 2014 08:15
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ProfessorProf posted:I suspect it's none of the varl, for reasons I'll touch on in a later chapter. Leaving out characters who have some evidence to the contrary (married, etc, although that's far from conclusive), I'm looking at a most likely list of Mogun, Tryggvi, Ekkill, Onef, Alette, Eirik, or Juno. Just because you can't have babies doesn't mean you can't be gay  Besides, I'm not entirely serious. One time during production the question came up about whether we would have any gay characters. In my head there's one character who immediately came to mind that I thought would be cool, but it's completely irrelevant to the game.
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May 13, 2014 09:58
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This choice is interesting and different from most everything else in the game. I'll be curious to know if anyone did/does figure out exactly what it does.
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May 14, 2014 05:55
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Yup, we always envisioned Warhawks as paper tigers. Keep em in the back and then let em swoop in when the time is right. That certainly explains why a certain future character comes pre-equipped with a certain unique item.
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May 21, 2014 05:33
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Teledahn posted:So the Dredge, they're metal/rock men? They eat, but are they constructs of sorts or living beings? They apparently can feel fear, but presumably do not communicate or negotiate (E: Much, or possibly not at all) with other races? Also not terribly formidable individually, and organized enough to form into armies? Technically, according to the legends, just as varl were made by a god by combining man and yox, the dredge were formed by merging man with stone. Whether that means they're partially made of rock or they just have an affinity to earth and a talent for using it (like the norse dwarves) is up to you (and maybe future clarification in the sequels). One theory I've seen that is definitely wrong is that they're robots or clockwork golems. They're definitely organic.
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May 21, 2014 07:20
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Gunnulf's (potential) death here is one of the most frequently referenced parts of the game in discussion threads or reviews. It made Malukah cry. We even had one journalist tell us he thought it sucked that we railroaded Gunnulf into dying. When we told him he didn't have to die the guy was shocked. I even edited this event after getting negative playtest feedback, just to give you TWO chances to make the right call. It's interesting to me because that event had a very specific goal. We removed money from the game completely, but when confronted with a choice in which you might lose something completely meaningless to gameplay, people still chose to try to have their cake and eat it too. Interesting, don't you think?
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May 30, 2014 07:17
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Fat Samurai posted:I think that's a little unfair, because even if the gold is meaningless to gameplay, there's no way to know it's meaningless for the story. Trying to save the cart was my first impulse but it wasn't because I wanted the gold, but because Gunnulf wanted to. At least you can feel good knowing that you gave Gunnulf what he wanted I guess that's kind of what I mean by having cake and eating it too: in this exact scenario all you know is two things are in danger, the cart and Gunnulf. Most people think they should definitely be able to save both. Games have taught us that there's always one option where you win all the prizes! Still, I know people really, really hate this event and think it's unfair. I'm not going to convince anyone otherwise, but I still think it's an interesting bit of psychology.
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May 30, 2014 08:31
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Xander77 posted:A Believe it or not, this wasn't made to gently caress with the player while I giggle just out of sight, my hand over my mouth. We had so many characters to try to build up in a short time that everything is done with the intent of character development. You learn a hell of a lot about Gunnulf from this one dumb event, and if he survives you learn a lot more about him later. This event is about Gunnulf, not the cart. How many games have characters who act on their own beliefs and don't instantly do what the players wants just because they're the "hero"? Now stop being a twat.
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May 30, 2014 21:21
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FairGame posted:Chewbot, as a general rule, does the AI prioritization go something like this? Thanks! Our tech director actually laid out the whole thing in a forum post recently: here. Captain Oblivious posted:Shitjarls is an excellent phrase that deserves to move into the real world. That is a nice phrase! I might have to work "shitjarl" into TBS2, which we are currently working (already stressing) on. Making your own game is so weird. People come out of the woodwork just to poo poo on you, like now that you've made a game it's open season to be a giant cock (see, gender equality). It's absolutely bizarre. We had one guy email us un-ironically to say he hated the game so much he hoped our children got AIDS and died. Another would comment on any article we were in telling everyone we're "con artists" because we also released Factions for free (in case anyone is wondering, Factions barely pays for its own server costs). Of course, they're the minority but wow, video games are serious business. We get plenty of really lovely comments, too, I really appreciate that. Hermetian posted:If this were any other videogame, I'd say return the necklace. But no. The only reason I'd want to return it is 'cause my gamer sense says that you'll get a commensurate reward for "being good." gently caress that. Keep the necklace "Choice in games" has always been a really interesting subject to me. I worked on BioWare games for a decade and learned a lot of what to do and not do. I wrote a lot of CYOA-type stuff on this subforum. I wrote some text adventures that I never released. TBS was my attempt to make a game based on choice with decisions that really matter. I think I did as good as I possibly could have hoped, but it could still be done better. Probably a lot better. Something that became very clear after we released though, was that despite what most people tell you, they don't *really* want choices. This isn't universally true, I think a lot of people really appreciate what we tried to do- but the majority... the vast majority of players subconsciously don't want choice, they want to feel like they're infallible badasses. Look at the success of Telltale's "The Walking Dead", or Mass Effect (very few real choices at any point in the trilogy, even before people figured it out at the end of the third game). I know people will disagree with this theory- hell, I would have before I made TBS, but I currently think it's true. Except for a niche population, gamers want to be heroes and save the day without working too hard. Games are just for fun, and I can't really argue with that. I mention it in regard to this comment because it brings a tear to my eye to hear your thought process (and you're absolutely right). Can't wait to start throwing down about a certain event we're all waiting for near the end of the game! Chewbot fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jun 1, 2014 |
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Jun 1, 2014 07:23
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Night10194 posted:Return the necklace because it seems like it might be valuable to be known as honorable and it's a small thing amidst the apocalypse. If nothing good comes of it, nothing good comes of it, but it seems worth that risk for such a small thing. I like that stuff, too. King of Dragon Pass is one of my all-time favorites, for example (I even own some of the original artwork). But we are definitely the minority. People don't like to make the wrong decision, and if they do it's always the game's fault. The interesting exception is Russia. Russians freaking love us.
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Jun 1, 2014 07:34
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Coolguye posted:The anti-choice compulsion in gaming is something with a long as hell history. When I was in college I actually did a semester project on this, and I went as far back as the Alter Ego games. That is very interesting. I guess I've come at it from a personal perspective in which I was unsatisfied with the degree of choice in game story and wanted to make something that put choice in the spotlight. I mean after all, books, tv and movie have got the "linear story" thing covered and it seems like an interactive medium is a great place to start giving options. I've got no followup to that, except... huh. I'm just glad that enough people like the game to keep working on em. Btw Coolguye, who is the green-haired anime girl that keeps reappearing in your sig? It kept changing in the Transformers thread, which was pretty much my favorite LP in the last 8 months or so, but I never got the reference.
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Jun 1, 2014 08:24
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ProfessorProf posted:The reason I lost Gunnulf on my first playthrough was that I had this idea that a loss of treasure might also mean a loss of Renown. Hmm, that's interesting. We never take away Renown, but I guess the player doesn't know that. Coolguye posted:e: Also, Chewbot, I believe we are past the point where the initial orders to the army at the beginning of this chapter are meaningful. Could you comment on the effects of each of those? I'm eager to know if my observations were at all accurate. Well, in light of the recent discussions about story I'm afraid this will be terribly anti-climactic, but the effect of your decision on your approach to Schlid (kill every slag, be careful, etc) is: absolutely nothing. It's the only time I made what looks like a major choice do nothing. The reason was that in playtesting, players didn't understand who Hakon was, and sometimes had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. Character confusion was originally a very big problem. Some players (like John Walker from Rock Paper Shotgun) didn't even know they had jumped to a different caravan. We found that the confusion cleared up when the player was forced to "choose" what they were doing, even if all it does it make them identify how they intend to play the game. Scribbleykins posted:If I could make a suggestion to Chewbot, though, is that when you lose heroes in TBS2, especially in cases where heroics are involved, you might consider instead, or in addition, of simply refunding all the renown you've spent on them, you could reward a fixed amount. That means if the hero isn't part of a regular lineup, or in addition to the refund, you might gain renown, or if they are, and there is no refund, losing them still has an impact in wasted renown depending on how much you'd invested in them. It would still be bad, their death would just feel a little less wasted. We are absolutely doing this in the sequel. It's too much a kick in the teeth to lose a character AND their investment. Most likely, the caravan will sing a dearth for the dead and honor their sacrifice, regaining the Renown they spent. We've taken a ton of criticisms into account for the sequel, hopefully people are pleasantly surprised  Rigged Death Trap posted:Chewbot, what was the thought process for the dredge being styled along the lines of Maya/Aztec/related peoples? Our artist (Arnie Jorgensen) didn't believe me that they look Aztec/Mayan. But more importantly, we really wanted them to feel unique. You'd be surprised how hard it is to come up with races in a fantasy game that haven't been done to death. Or, maybe you wouldn't be surprised. It's very hard, I'm happy with how the varl, dredge and horseborn have turned out. edit: He also tells me Walt Simonson was a major influence. Arnie used to be a pro comic artist. Re: Gunnulf and the Death That Stole Christmas posted:Choice in story Well, as I've said many times before, I know people hate this event. I'm not denying that for a lot of people it's bullshit and it sucks. For one, it's too late to change. For two, though, we're an indie studio, and we intentionally took some risks. We give you two warhawks (to replace Gunnulf), we give you an additional varl to fill your roster, we (I believed, maybe incorrectly) that we telegraph the situation, I reworked it more than once based on player feedback and lastly yeah, I wanted people to feel something if they lost Gunnulf. It should feel like a real waste. Should games never do this because it's not fun and makes the player feel cheated? I dunno. We just made the game we wanted to make. We were actually a little surprised how brutal people think it is. It's also cultural and personal preference: like I said earlier, Europeans (and Russians in particular) wanted us to push even harder. edit: Also, the gay character I was talking about earlier? It's Gunnulf. Only partially joking, the varl don't have sex but I always envisioned him being gay, at least in his feelings. SHOCKING. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 17:43
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Coolguye posted:The only time the enemy doesn't get a turn at the start of Pillage is when it starts on the enemy turn - which is possible with stuff like Impale's bleed effect, Ysra's coals, etc. Yup, Coolguye has it. Otherwise the dredge could get two turns in a row. All Pillage does is lock down the current turn order. Well played battle, btw. That was a tough one. Also, note the consequences of your actions with the cart. If you had left varl behind to clean it up, the event with people going back to scoop up the gold would have never occurred. At one point I was very tempted to turn the AWOL event into a throw-down option, letting the player straight up fight Ludin here, but the variables that implies would have made Ridgehorn a hell of a lot more complex, and it's already pretty complex. Also, as much of an rear end as Ludin is, I'm not sure Hakon would go that far. It was always a tough call balancing the story choices. Determined to avoid the bi-polar, psychopathic flip-flopping players could exhibit in games like Mass Effect, I try to make the choices only things that character would actually do, while still giving the player the options they would want.
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Jun 2, 2014 23:24
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yokaiy posted:I kind of like Ludin, in spite of his terrible mustache. Yes!! That is excellent! Ludin is actually one of my favorite characters. A lot of the story is told in subtext, but if it wasn't clear, the situation is this: for most of history, leaders have been made by their deeds, all part of the deal with writing on the banner. Much like real vikings, it had up to now been largely democratic, and clans would attach their names to their leader's banner. With the major wars finally settled down, both men and varl are trying to pass power down to their friends and family. This is the first generation to try and establish a monarchy. Both men and varl are wary of this change, but the human and varl "kings" are working hard to make it an established practice. This diplomacy journey is part of that effort, even though it's obvious neither Vognir nor Ludin wants to be involved. With Vognir dying unexpectedly, it throws a serious wrench into what should have been a simple visit of the capitals. For his part, Ludin is torn between getting involved with the uprising of dredge and saving his own skin. If he calls it off or shows weakness it won't speak very highly of his worthiness. That and his pride is on the line. To be fair, Ludin's a legitimately courageous leader, a good fighter and he usually has a good point, even if he goes about it in an unbearable fashion. Hakon at this point could not care less about the mission or Ludin's needs, he just wants to deal with the dredge before it spirals out of control and protect his people, especially as the freshly minted next in line. Varl have always appointed "next of kin" called Kendr to handle their needs in case of death, the varl king is trying to turn this into a king-making mechanism. As for varl history, when Ludin accuses Hakon of starting another great war, and killing dredge for fun, he strikes a nerve. This was exactly the cause of the second great war which killed off half the population. Not sure if this is considered a spoiler atm or not. I realize this was a massive amount of information to try to convey to the player, but y'know... it was worth a shot. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 00:06
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yokaiy posted:Follow-up, did you have any trouble writing for any of the characters or plot points? If you can't answer that one yet, that's fine, I don't want any spoilers. I'm following along with the thread (you are doing a great job, Prof!) with the aim to buy the game and play through it myself once this is finished. Holy crap, I love this artwork. There were a lot of things that were hard to write for, but Ludin wasn't really one of them. The hidden difficulty the player never sees is that you can't give the player a main character who knows more than they do, and this is one of the biggest problems with story in games. All hero/protagonists simply MUST be (relatively) clueless blank slates, driven by external factors, and that is very limiting. In a movie, if the main character has an idea or takes an action on their own, the audience is free to go "huh, I wonder where this is going?". Give 10 players the same game and they're going to do 10 different things with it. That limits you to characters that are completely reactive instead of proactive. Thus, often, the complexity of the story must be lowered to baby-like levels so that the player can still function even if he doesn't know what's going on. In a lot of games the "story" may as well be a series of instructional tooltips. This isn't me on my high horse, I don't have any answers for this. Smarter people than me have struggled with the same limitations. And so help me if anyone mutters Dark Souls I will flip my poo poo! That said, in the original story, the player was Vognir during this part of the game. It wasn't working at all. I briefly considered making Ludin the playable character here. Hakon was actually invented just to take over for Vognir, and it became a much more compelling story with Hakon in the lead, his general cluelessness and fish-out-of-water nature matching that of the player better. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Jun 6, 2014 |
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Jun 6, 2014 09:55
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Saitorr posted:I'm very wary when anyone speaks in absolutes like this. Just because you can't think of an example or solution doesn't mean there isn't one. No, that's fair. I'm speaking in general terms based on my experience. That's just what it feels like when I'm trying to make the story work. But I will say that the first rule of writing when I was working at BioWare was "The character can not know things that the player doesn't". That makes it hard to come up with creative plots. By all means, if you guys have some good counter-examples let me know (affording, of course, it's ok with Prof Prof). I actually thought Alpha Protocol made a valiant attempt. I really liked that game, despite its problems.
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Jun 6, 2014 18:07
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Crane Fist posted:What I want to know is does it make a big difference to the fight you get? Like does it change the number and composition of enemies? Or is it just a way of getting Mogr killed and everything else works out a lot the same? Every choice makes a significant change to the difficulty of the result, and there are actually two outcomes for each choice based on how many varl you have with you. I got a little carried away with this section.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:11
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Captain Oblivious posted:Really? That's way less awful than I remember. This is something that has confused a lot of people. Time doesn't stop in this game, so while you were running up to Ridgehorn with Hakon, Rook and crew have been trying to survive in Frostvellr the last two weeks. Hence, you don't have quite as many supplies as you used to... in the sequel we'll try to make stuff like this more obvious. Lots of angry people complaining that their supplies disappeared.
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Jun 13, 2014 04:17
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JT Jag posted:Eh, we only did one pass on their supply depot. It's not like we burned it. It could be they were run out of town. Even if you don't take all of the supplies the idea is that you screwed Ekkill in the long haul. Granted, in retrospect I should have had Ekkill bring some supplies with them if you didn't grab them all or burn them in Frostvellr. But I will say there is another reason as well. I'm rather surprised the thread voted to take Ekkill AND Onef. This is probably the most interesting outcome and there's a lot of different ways it could have gone down. Also, about Egil, I think he could have died 3 different ways by this point. Some of them are very uncommon- for example, you'd have to make an unpopular choice and then lose a fight on top of that. Can't remember if ProfProf mentioned it yet, but losing a fight doesn't give you a game over (aside from a couple boss fights), but it does result in some worst-case scenarios that you can't run into any other way. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 08:18
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Thanks to everybody buying the game due to this LP. Not to shoot myself in the foot here, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we'll be featured in the Steam Summer Sale, which started today. Not sure exactly which day we're on sale, though. edit: ^^^^ Very early on we had to decide whether to make everybody symmetrical or not and just decided eh... gently caress it.
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Jun 20, 2014 09:17
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It is being worked on. It's a hell of a big task. I believe TBS1 has a little over 300 unique conversations. The total word count came out equivalent to a long novel.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:40
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Captain Oblivious posted:LOW MORALE More accurate than you know :/
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Jun 27, 2014 19:56
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Just dug up a slightly clearer version of the earthquake, for those who haven't played before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cNn9nkKCR8&t=1208s (I recommend not watching ahead!) And Prof, I just noticed your version was missing a part in comparison. Craaaap, wonder how many people got that bug. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 06:21
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yokaiy posted:So, I have come to the conclusion that Eyvind and the Stonesinger are incredibly cool. As someone who usually opts for a healing class in games, I really appreciate them being healers who are also capable of pulling lighting out of the ground and ruining your day respectively. This is freaking wonderful! Never expected to Stonesinger fanart, I'll share with the guys. Btw, it was never supposed to be implied that you would leave Iver behind if you depart from Einartoft.
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Jul 5, 2014 23:11
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tomanton posted:
OH my gosh, this is just the best.
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Jul 6, 2014 21:54
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Gunnulf has always had a Russian accent in my head.
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Jul 11, 2014 05:06
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Nid went in the game literally 1 week before content lockdown because we didn't have a character that let you unlock the Bowmaster achievement. It was actually easier at that point to write in her story (admittedly, not much content) than it would have been to rework the achievements.
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Jul 17, 2014 07:14
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Space Bat posted:Weren't dredge created by a god specifically to give humans and varls an eternal enemy to stop the two from fighting all the time? I don't think peace will ever be an option. The cliff notes version is this: All of the gods existed in the tapestry (the universe visualized as a mobius strip of fabric of intersecting threads made from raw elements) as equals, amusing themselves with making lights and clay and so forth. The Loom-mother (as the first humans called her) stumbled upon creating life. She practiced a long time before inevitably other gods found out, and they all wanted in. She offered to teach them, but most were not as skilled or as patient. Some took her creations and started mashing them together, making varl, horseborn and other creatures. Some roamed the world or interacted with her creations for the novelty of it. Meanwhile, this created a schism in the hierarchy of the gods- whereas before you had relative equals, now you had some who could create life and others who could not, splintering them into cliques. The creations, of course, have no idea why they exist (the real reason basically being 'because the gods were bored'- but nobody wants to believe that), and would often fight each other for survival. One of the gods (called the Jealous God) saw this, took mankind and made the dredge, hiding them deep within the world. He built an entire army over time, specifically to gently caress with the Loom-mother, whom he hated. When they were unleashed upon the Loom-mother's creations, she turned on the jealous god, accidentally killing him- as she had learned to create life, she had also learned to unmake it. This was a new concept which terrified the gods and, inevitably, led to an arms-race in which paranoia caused them all to kill each other. Down on the planet, the creations watched what must have looked like stars exploding, and then silence. The gods are completely dead, but their creations survived. As for their creations, the first people were called "Valka", and they were taught by the Loom-mother herself. They were terribly powerful, but their potency has been diminishing with each generation. Juno is one of the modern Valka. Seeing the death of the gods and fearing their own mortality (and little hope for an afterlife), the Valka devised a way to "live on". During their heydey, they created the Long Banner, which was a physical banner the head mender sewed into the tapestry itself. The idea is that as long as the tapestry exists, so will some record of mankind's existence. It's a historical document that writes itself, impartially recording the most important events as they occur and many people have gotten it into their head that they must do something worthy enough to appear on the Long Banner. It resides in the capital at Arberrang and there's a whole order of menders tasked with taking care of it and trying to interpret what it writes. A strand of thread from the Long Banner was given to each clan and sewn into their banners so that these banners would also survive the ravishes of time, though these lesser banners were left to be written by their owners. It thus became that sewing your own history into your clan's banner became vitally important as a record of your existence. Clans could add or remove their banner from other clans as they pleased, making it a symbol of power and an important part of the political process. In game terms, there will be a lot more about the Long Banner in the next game but it's referenced a couple of times in the first. Also worth noting, out of sheer necessity and coincidence, Rook's small town of Strand has happened to amass quite a following sewn to his Banner. We haven't explicitly stated a lot of this in-game (trying to parcel it out to avoid fiction overload) but it's not really a spoiler, and it's relatively common knowledge in the world itself. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 21:41
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ProfessorProf posted:Has this exposition been revealed in any official works, or did my LP just become viral marketing for Banner Saga 2? Pretty sure you're the first! Night10194 posted:The chieftain of Strand said that his grandfather watched the Gods die, so that was about 80-100 years ago? It's been awhile since there were Gods, yes? It's only been about one generation, and any varl who are alive (obviously) was around when the gods died since they were made before that happened. Been a little while, but not that long. The actual numbers get a bit fuzzy. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 22:00
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The speculation about this part of the game is very interesting
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Jul 26, 2014 00:46
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Two controversial scenes. In Sigrholm, Juno just never shows up. I had never played a game before that let you dig yourself in a hole waiting for something that wasn't going to happen, and I was interested to see how long people would wait just because an NPC asks them to. Most people got out when your clansmen threaten to leave (which is obviously the thing to do), but the players who waited it out were frequently annoyed that the game lets them. There's some hints that Onef is going to betray you aside from the rantings of Tryggvi, but they're not as clear as I would have liked. Reading some of this dialogue back now is kind of *ugh*, there are lots of things I could have done a lot better. There's so much writing content in the game that not only did most of it ship with the first pass, but I was scrambling to finish even that. I really wanted one of the characters to call you out for accepting all kinds of insane bullshit that only gets a pass because it's a video game, and then actually act on it instead of proving that it doesn't matter. This is pretty much the most impactful scene in the game (that we've gotten the most comments about), even if I do agree it comes off a bit unfair. Still, the idea that your party doesn't blindly follow your lead is something I wanted to see in an RPG. I actually pulled back just how devastating this could have been because I didn't want people to rage quit. (As for Egil, he's supposed to die somewhere, trying to be helpful. That's his story. If not here, than in any of the other ten or so places. In the canon version of the story, that boy is dead). Chewbot fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 02:11
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Coolguye posted:I am not sure how the game could have been more clear that Sigrholm is a bust. Literally every event from the first narration card makes it obvious that this is a bad place to be. The only other spot where you have a chance to wait around and do stuff is Einartoft, and that is completely different on pretty much every conceivable level, even the fact that the 'wait' button is 'fight on bridge' and not 'rest'. The only 'not reading the developers mind' decision I would agree with in this game really is Onef and his behavior, since it comes out of left field and there is really no other viable choice presented to you, at least if you stay in Frostvellr. Like I said, we were trying lots of different things in a game story. At Sigrholm, I had two goals: make it very clear that you should leave. Give you the option to stay. The bottom line from pretty much every review or source I've read about the game is that if the player doesn't have control of a situation they are unhappy. That's generalizing but don't take it personal, it's true. It's a corner stone of story-writing, but not FUN in a game when things happen to you beyond your control. I learned a hell of a lot about the industry from TBS. I was tired of every game giving me false choices where I won no matter what. You're literally an immortal god who cannot make mistakes in nearly every game out there, including BioWare games. My intention was to make a story that I'd enjoy, where you can't always win, you own your mistakes, you might not even be able to come out of this alive, but you keep going (this is the driving theme of the entire story, btw). There are lots of people who liked it, and I really appreciate that they're out there. However, the majority of players prefer a game where they're the hero, there's always a winning option, and it's basically a power fantasy. I'm not down on that, I just feel like there's a million of those already out there. I'm more bummed about this, than bitter. For the record, although I do think Onef's bit was, like I said, too heavy-handed, the choice he presents to you in Frostvellr is VERY suspicious and sounds, in my opinion, like a trap. I mean, c'mon, this random guy in Ekkill's army survives the fight and happens to know where the food is and already has a gang of men ready and willing to betray Ekkill and run off with you? If you tell Iver to shut him up, that's all it takes. No Onef in the party. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 21:44
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Night10194 posted:The one problem I see isn't so much with the timing, or the event (It's well timed. He's obviously seen everything's going crazy as hell here and unlike at the Bridge he's got the chance to get the hell out if he wins) but more with the fact that you really, badly needed the supplies at Frostvellr, because a timeskip of indeterminate length (You might not know, as Hakon, that you're losing time as Rook) hit. Like, without those supplies, we'd have starved already by now. We've been winning the battles, buying supplies instead of items, and pushing our caravan to the brink on morale, and we're still running out. You might think Onef is untrustworthy, but the gameplay stuff pushes you to really really need the food you can get by helping him, and as others have said you never really see much of him or get any chance to suss out his treachery. Yup, I get it. I wish I had more time to clean up the whole scenario with Ekkill/Onef.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:00
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Arcturas posted:What was your vision for the Renown economy? Should we be getting more renown than we are with optimal play? Are there hidden supply sources that we've passed up? With renown, you can't do everything so you have to choose level ups/items vs. keeping everyone fed. Again, wish I were able to balance it more. It's too tight. Interesting counterpoint, though, playtesters from Europe (esp Russia) kept telling us the game was too easy. Still not sure whether Americans are whiny babies or Europeans are hardcore masochists (that's a joke). Different people just have radically different ideas of what is fun. Europe tends to enjoy the challenge of a game more than Americans, in general. Coolguye posted:Yeah, Onef's original offer I think was handled pretty well. The issue I had with it is just that there were not any subsequent events to follow up on his obviously suspicious behavior. Considering the balance of the game, though, I don't think your characterization of 'just have Iver punch him' is entirely fair, though. I went all Yes, agreed. It's not intentionally so difficult. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 22:10
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about it in a previous post, but the critical point is that there's no 'second way' to get out of Frostvellr without rolling a good 7-10 days of starvation. The supply buying situation changes from 1 renown for 3 supplies to 1 renown for 1 supply between the end of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 4. To just survive the wastes you must drop in the ballpark of 30 renown, and that still leaves you without food when you reach Wyrmtoe, and the 20 units of supplies you get from the village as you leave doesn't feed a caravan of even 400 long enough for them to link up with Fasolt.
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ArchWizard posted:Did European players feel differently about "bad" outcomes? I can understand if a player sees Onef's betrayal as the price of bringing Onef and his supplies along, no point in crying about it, it's better to lose a few party members late in the game than to lose to starvation early. They wanted the fights to be much harder (we addressed with hard difficulty) and I think they do just feel differently about bad outcomes. If you've played many Russian games you know they're way into being miserable and dealing with horrible situations. Compared to Pathologic or The Void, TBS is a skip through the tulips. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 22:25
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letgomyAgo posted:I think it was absolutely brilliant that the game hands you such a lovely, hopeless event. The entire game so far seems situated in a hopeless, forlorn, end of times setting; that they had the guts to really drive that home with deaths that had impact is great. It really brings the emotional investment in the story up a notch for me. The stakes are high and not everyone is going to make it. Thanks, I appreciate that! Some people like it, some don't. I take all criticisms to heart, and I doubt there's anyone out there more critical of the game than I am. Any assertion or design choice I make will be terribly wrong to somebody, including this one. So anyway, I think I'll back off the thread for a while, LPs kind of where I come to relax.
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Jul 31, 2014 07:32
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JT Jag posted:Chewbot, as a central developer of this game, I can't help but wonder as you're reading this LP if you're just sitting back and enjoying it or if every time the thread makes an important decision, you mentally check which event flag it corresponds to and automatically think "well, that's happening now." It's funny and at the same time very concerning to me: I've written a few LPs and other works, they've usually got some surprises. Everyone's having a fun time, I love working on them. The story in TBS is not at all out of character for me, but every time we come to any major event I'm cringing like I'm about to get beat up. It's a little hard to enjoy. You know what the weirdest part of making a game is? I'm speaking more about in general than this thread in particular. Imagine this: you're DM'ing a D&D game you spent 3 years laboring over. After a 15-hour play session you say "What'd you think?" One guy hates it and he has no problem shouting that you wasted his loving time, slamming the door on the way out. One guy says it was "pretty good, but", he writes you a long list of ways it could have been way better. One guy says he loved it, thanks, see ya. So, great success, right? Everybody goes home, they never say hi or talk to you ever again. You're sitting there the next day, feeling kinda like maybe you should have just broken out Cards Against Humanity instead. Man, I've been making games for 13 years and the most fun I've ever had dealing with games has been writing LPs on this subforum. Making games often just feels like a brutal, thankless, lonely black hole. Pardon my real talk, I don't want to detract from the excellent job Prof is doing with the LP, and I am genuinely proud of what I did with the game. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 08:24
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