Commissar Draco
Codexia Comrade Colonel Commissar
They added Moshinka with scope and not to their new game but ATOM what a mad men!
Not anymore!!! Cutscenes are fixed! But the fake gun will always be there! :DFor anyone who plays with their camera distance maxed out, the isometric mode has some interesting moments in cut scenes :D
edit: so restarted a game and tried something in the beginning fight -- stashed the AK into the tent, curious to see if it would remain (I know the items in there get looted but I thought maybe stashed items you put in manually might stay).
Fucking a toy AK was in there when I checked it.
Touche you potato bastards, hahaha.
Just like the dead city it was supposed to be like this. A small location you need to travel to for the main quest. But then we decided to make more content because a lot of players were asking, and to not just make a third map, we poured all that content into dead city. it won the additional content lottery! While the Pass is doomed to be barren forever, most probably.Why is mountain pass so... ass?
It really feels half-arsed and barebones.
To me the highlight of the game was dead city, which was added later apparently? Really hope trudograd's gonna be more of the same
is the power armor and combat stances in with this update?
EDIT: at least that big ass backpack at the end of the game?
Atomboy
Fixed!Atomboy sorry if this was mentioned, but I tried out the new iso-model last night but sadly all the weapon-impact sound effects were missing? Music and other sounds were fine, but no sound when I hit the enemies with my melee weapons.
Is that something you've come across?
We're posting smaller changelogs into our Steam patchnotes thread!BTW, new patch released (1.091). Can't seem to find patch notes, so not sure what the changes are, but mayhapse fixed some issues with isometric view.
We have different approaches to the material. I like Underrail for exploration, cruel difficulty, the fact my brain hurts when I'm trying to make a good character, and aesthetic reasons, and I like Atom because of dialogue and because I made it somewhat and aesthetic reasons.Tl;dr is it good or not? Should I play Underrail first?
Hi! That's really cool that you even return to the game! A week ago I sent your thoughts to the combat design dood. He has some sort of reason not to make crits higher with fatality expert (i didn't understand the explanation, just zoned out) and we can't have both Dragon Kick and Falcon Punch due to technical reasons. The game, like it was first built, can only hold a certain number of attacks for each weapon. Including the fist. Changing that, will mess up other things built upon the fact the system can only have 4 or I guess 5 attacks for one weapon. Like, all weapons will glitch out. We'll make the new attack better than the one it replaces in some patch in the future. Sorry! I'll hug myself, because I make up the names based on stuff I like, but I won't hug the game code that limits combat moves.So I'm doing a new playthrough and this time I'm playing solo as a martial arts Grandmaster and total dick with focus on stealth and pick pocketing. And I must admit, I'm having a blast - increased difficulty you get for not using guns is something I've been really missing and the game kind of stopped being fun for me, cause combat encounters after level 10 are just not challenging.
Speaking of, I've encountered a few things that could/should be improved;
1) When you play unarmed, on skill level 150 you unlock some cool flashy moves with special bonuses (very high chance of a knockdown, critical hit, etc.), such as my favorite - a dragon kick \m/. Problem is, if you pick "Falcon punch" perk, it replaces your "Dragon kick" and it's actually worse in every way (less damage, weaker additional effects). This needs some revamping methinks... falcon punch should be combined with martial arts skill level somehow to give you "Dragon superkick" or some other silly anime shit :>
2) Pickpocket and timed explosive... so I have pickpocket level 150 and I can plant explosive on people relatively easy. But what's the point when after detonation everyone turns hostile even though I did the plant unnoticed? The only explanation I have would be balance purposes, but I can already kill anyone with cigarettes and on a much lower level than I need to be as pickpocket expert or to have access to timed explosives in the first place. Atomboy, fix please? ...I even unlocked "It's a Classic" steam achievement for planting the bomb, but then I needed to reload cause whole city wants me dead
Besides this, I have few lesser complaints/ideas;
3) Unarmed skill level 199 unlocks "Fatality expert" IE "Bloody mess with kicks and punches" and that's nice, but I think it should also increase critical chance, or knockdown chance or some other useful combat effect
4) When you aim your kick at someone's legs (aimed attack) it looks a bit silly cause your character does double kick to the head. Animations used for small animals (low kick/stomp) would look much better. Speaking of kicks and martial arts, it would also be cool to have some special move / kick that does no damage, but has almost 100% trip chance for some nice tactical combos
Anyway, keep it up comrades! And give that dude (or gal) who decided to put a dragon kick in the game a big hug! The Wasteland needs more of Chuck Norris!
Thank you! The mushroom quest is pretty random, you sometimes get more than other times, I think. Though it wasn't planned this way. Best way is to skip it with a speech check! It's pretty bad. We raised the dog's HP and stuff, so the dog problem shouldn't happen, a shame that it did, we'll look into it.So, i re-installed ATOM and got past the starting room, it's way better and no more animated grass nor performance issues.
Actually, it's quite good, i didn't get very far though, just got out of the first village after doing the early quests.
Some minor complaints :
- The mushroom quest : either you should drop the number to four or add 1-2 more on the map, i spent too much time searching for the last two shrooms, found the mushroom struggle quite unnecessary.
- The dog and his master surrounded by four goons : they both died, i'm guessing the master is supposed to die and then you save the dog and have him as a follower, well, not sure how to do that other than having a sniper rifle, hoping they can shoot that far, i just own a zip gun and the rusty quest reward other than CC weapons ... So they both died ... :sad:
- The skin worm quest : difficult to tell who's compromised other than the guard because you obviously never met them before, maybe the location they talk about can be visited so you'd know if the pet is a cat or a dog, i feel like either the guide or the "disco" guy are compromised too but i have no clue so i picked the guard only ...
It's nit-picking mostly, but i feel like the two first points are valid.
Very good game so far.
Yes, it now works much better, has a ton of content, and our editor did things to most of the text. However, there's a thing I noticed in the player reviews. Some believe that even the dialogues which our editor who is an actual writer and a native speaker edited, are still badly translated. I think that might be because "russificated" sentence structure and bizarre words like comrade, as well as some cultural differences in speech might be seen as actual errors instead of being seen as stylized speech, so there's that.I played this game for a little bit when it first came out and couldn't be bothered to get out of the tutorial. How has the game improved since then? Are the bugs and translation issues fixed, is isometric mode bug-free and worth playing?
Thank you!Isometric mode is fantastic! Thank you, Atomboy !
Does it still happen? Can you send a screenshot to support@atomrpg.com ? Never had this issue even before the fix.Trying out isometric mode right now. The screen goes completely white every time a dialogue starts.
Yess! We like that hyperrealistic yet low poly approach of our modeller a lot. Plenty of folks hate it but it's a keeper!A few thoughts on graphics (stylistically).
After seeing some of the indie games of equal or bigger budget in recent times, and ones on the horizon that look like they have promising gameplay... I'm so glad you guys didn't go for an over stylized cartoony look.
I know the current look probably fed at least 20-50% of the mouthbreathers on steam forums and elsewhere complaining about how "dated" it looks, but the clean graphical style is so much more palatable than a bright cell-shaded mess that some other games are clinging to in order to mask the technical limitations or low poly count.
Thank you! I agree!It seriously looks even better in the new "isometric mode" too.
So sick of all the cartoony shit coming out these days, particularly all the flat "minimalist" styles you see everywhere. It just feels soulless. Much prefer what we got with ATOM, and again, even more so from this new angle.
Are you sure you did everything?? Most folks get down right bored before finally getting to the final encounter! Yeah... And we made the scorpion even better in the patch! You'll get all the same stuff in the beginning of Trudograd most probably. Inventory won't be transfered entirely, but you'll get good vendors in the second place you visit.the game ends right when you get the fun guns, damn give us 10 more hours after the final encounter, or let us have those guns mid game
also everyone in my party died, so I had a feeling me and atom would just take shit over, but alas, the game ends
also skorpion is op as fuck, 3 bursts a turn compared to every other smg/burst weapon
We'll make it even better in the next game!They added Moshinka with scope and not to their new game but ATOM what a mad men!
GOG gets the update a bit later most of the time, I think because the upload speed is slower or something like that.Huh, my GOG version hasn't updated to 1.092 yet. Hopefully it's released for it soon.
It's all good. My parents are from former-USSR, so they both often speak Russian around the house. I've gotten used to this "russification", as you called it. Excited to enjoy the fruits of your hard labor!Yes, it now works much better, has a ton of content, and our editor did things to most of the text. However, there's a thing I noticed in the player reviews. Some believe that even the dialogues which our editor who is an actual writer and a native speaker edited, are still badly translated. I think that might be because "russificated" sentence structure and bizarre words like comrade, as well as some cultural differences in speech might be seen as actual errors instead of being seen as stylized speech, so there's that.
Then it's gonna be pretty familiar for you, dude. I'm almost sure.It's all good. My parents are from former-USSR, so they both often speak Russian around the house. I've gotten used to this "russification", as you called it. Excited to enjoy the fruits of your hard labor!Yes, it now works much better, has a ton of content, and our editor did things to most of the text. However, there's a thing I noticed in the player reviews. Some believe that even the dialogues which our editor who is an actual writer and a native speaker edited, are still badly translated. I think that might be because "russificated" sentence structure and bizarre words like comrade, as well as some cultural differences in speech might be seen as actual errors instead of being seen as stylized speech, so there's that.
Hi guys. Would've reported back sooner, but I was afraid to post anything because everyone was named CXitizen and had Infinitron's userpic and then I gotten busy again. What was up with that anyway? Was it the guy's birthday or something? I'll lurk some after posting. Happy b-day, Infinitron! Or not! I'm just guessing over here.
Hey, thank you for the reply! Yeah, that makes sense. What about explosives tho?Hi! That's really cool that you even return to the game! A week ago I sent your thoughts to the combat design dood. He has some sort of reason not to make crits higher with fatality expert (i didn't understand the explanation, just zoned out) and we can't have both Dragon Kick and Falcon Punch due to technical reasons. The game, like it was first built, can only hold a certain number of attacks for each weapon. Including the fist. Changing that, will mess up other things built upon the fact the system can only have 4 or I guess 5 attacks for one weapon. Like, all weapons will glitch out. We'll make the new attack better than the one it replaces in some patch in the future. Sorry! I'll hug myself, because I make up the names based on stuff I like, but I won't hug the game code that limits combat moves.
2) Pickpocket and timed explosive... so I have pickpocket level 150 and I can plant explosive on people relatively easy. But what's the point when after detonation everyone turns hostile even though I did the plant unnoticed? The only explanation I have would be balance purposes, but I can already kill anyone with cigarettes and on a much lower level than I need to be as pickpocket expert or to have access to timed explosives in the first place. @Atomboy, fix please? ...I even unlocked "It's a Classic" steam achievement for planting the bomb, but then I needed to reload cause whole city wants me dead
What exactly is Truodograd? I'd describe Krasnoznamenny as a corrupt bureaucratic city practising aggressive expansion, yet for all the hypocritical politicians and outrageous prices, its one of the few places in the wastes that offers some semblance of normality (apartments powered by electricity, movie nights, etc). Is Truodograd a den of vice, the dying gasp of a once great civilisation, a prosperous trade hub, or something else? How do its people make their day to day living? What natural resources does Truodograd have to sustain itself?You guys got any questions about Trudograd? Especially lore based? I can't think of anything more to tell.
No, it's been fixed now. Thanks.Does it still happen? Can you send a screenshot to support@atomrpg.com ? Never had this issue even before the fix.Trying out isometric mode right now. The screen goes completely white every time a dialogue starts.
Thank you! The mushroom quest is pretty random, you sometimes get more than other times, I think. Though it wasn't planned this way. Best way is to skip it with a speech check! It's pretty bad. We raised the dog's HP and stuff, so the dog problem shouldn't happen, a shame that it did, we'll look into it.
Well I'm 50% of the idea men for the game and I can tell my part of the story - the city was probably going to be the fabled Trudograd (or Labor City in English) a huge dystopian hive city of sadness and industry, much like what they have in those Warhammer games - a city that on one hand got bombed (although not as strongly as was probably planned, since the place was the local heart of industry) and irradiated, but on the other hand still had functioning factories, crucial for the whole region. There'd be slave work, broken lives, alcoholism, corruption, some especially vile bandits, ultraviolent gangs. I had several quests in mind, including a worker that cannot get drunk because his alcoholism was separated from him by a local psychiatrist in a hypnotism session, and now it lives on as the Indulging One or Выпивающий. There was also a mentally ill kid that could talk to large machinery, but all it told him was "kill yourself", a plot line concerning the Hesperus star, a Machine Prophet who taught people a way of life that was not seen as appropriate by the authorities, an investigation into the life of the city's founding father the hero of labor (who turned out to be a nazi supporter and a jailbird just like that one episode of the Simpsons), etc.
The activities included dating, more kinds of gambling, and some stuff my buddy made up that I can't remember.
All of it is going to get into the finished game, either as rumor, a reference, or even a real quest e.g. the Hesperus star thing.
Whew! That was a god damn long journey since the first time I appeared on the Codex. And now this baby is finally done! Seriously, thanks guys, the codex really helped us out. I'll be making a Trudograd post when we have a demo. And of course I'll be continuing to chat in this thread whenever I can!
...Lockpicking minigames blow
Also, I was thinking about what can I show yall from Trudograd that's more or less complete, and I found this leaflet available very early in game. Although the author of it terribly exaggerates the social climate of the city, it displays the main cultural and social conflict as well as the architectural principles and flood \ smog problem of the game and lore rather clearly. Here it is!
To all those whom it may concern...
Saved from the atomic blaze by the illustrious grace of merciful fate, and the might of Soviet weaponry, Trudograd lived on... And gloriously so! It is now a provincial Babylon, that challenges the sky itself, by growing not in width, but in height with it's shanty towns and fabulous districts built upon the cold, tin plated flat roofs of it's mass-produced, utilitarian apartment buildings. Hidden behind it's pre-war walls, fortified with sand and steel, protected by it's mighty guardians, and saved in most part from the yearly rages of river floods that came with the bombs falling far beyond the horizon, Trudograd decisively survives through what was thought to be the end days...
But in it's growth and strength, Trudograd forgot of the terrible ailment, caused by it's own prosperity. It forgot about the terrible, cannibalistic, disgusting mold, which originated in the barren and hostile Northern lands, and quickly flooded this amazing city's poorest and dampest corners.
There is no need to lie to ourselves, for we all heard the furtive whispers of those unfortunate enough to be Trudograd's locals but still live on the smog filled, damnable ground levels of the glorious spire-city... Whispers that tell of loathsome flats occupied by whole packs of the watery eyed, disturbingly fair-haired and milky-skinned mongrel migrants from the abominable North. Rumors of the terrible, ungodly, heretical rituals that go on at times when the stars are right, in their unclean, disease-ridden kitchens and stairwells, gifted to them out of pity by our vacuous city authorities.
How naive our elected officials were, when they decided to let these ragged, uneducated savages into our midst! Did they not know, that their beliefs and traditions will come with them as well? Now, Trudograd is home for all manner of vile heresy, from the secretive love-slaves of Krishtapas, the many-handed giant, whose slimy offerings make even the most pious of people curse the name of the Lord; to the unholy Witnesses of the sand and death demon Tsathoggua; and surely the unspeakable followers of the Black Goat of the Woods, a terrible, churning flesh-tree that births monstrosities in pale moonlight.
Stay vigilant, fellow locals! For the enemy is among us, spreading it's ungodly culture and wishing our pure blood to flow on it's decrepit altars!
- Concerned citizen
Ha! You got the reason behind it!In ATOM RPG, Kholodets eats you.
No! We decided to cut out all romance. Like, we had his huge txt with planned romantic encounters, but then we just made everyone cuckolds, alcoholics and erectile dysfunction victims to avoid straying from the original game.Is Claudette romanceable?
Ohhhh... And I thought it was his birthday.Hi guys. Would've reported back sooner, but I was afraid to post anything because everyone was named CXitizen and had Infinitron's userpic and then I gotten busy again. What was up with that anyway? Was it the guy's birthday or something? I'll lurk some after posting. Happy b-day, Infinitron! Or not! I'm just guessing over here.
Not quite sure, TBH.
My educated guess is that he was living out a long-suppressed sexual fantasy of having a an army of clones at his disposal for his personal shit-posting pleasure.
But then again, I could be wrong...
Dang, sorry, I have this reading habit where I read something and I only remember parts of it when I reply! We made the explosives work like in Fallout to appease the Fallout gods, but then doing stealth kills with dynamite made everything too easy, so we made everyone aggro. Now it's in the game as a way to cause a distraction and make fights easier, not to stealth kill people. It's not the first time we ruined a more or less sound stealth mechanic because it ruined the game!Hey, thank you for the reply! Yeah, that makes sense. What about explosives tho?Hi! That's really cool that you even return to the game! A week ago I sent your thoughts to the combat design dood. He has some sort of reason not to make crits higher with fatality expert (i didn't understand the explanation, just zoned out) and we can't have both Dragon Kick and Falcon Punch due to technical reasons. The game, like it was first built, can only hold a certain number of attacks for each weapon. Including the fist. Changing that, will mess up other things built upon the fact the system can only have 4 or I guess 5 attacks for one weapon. Like, all weapons will glitch out. We'll make the new attack better than the one it replaces in some patch in the future. Sorry! I'll hug myself, because I make up the names based on stuff I like, but I won't hug the game code that limits combat moves.
2) Pickpocket and timed explosive... so I have pickpocket level 150 and I can plant explosive on people relatively easy. But what's the point when after detonation everyone turns hostile even though I did the plant unnoticed? The only explanation I have would be balance purposes, but I can already kill anyone with cigarettes and on a much lower level than I need to be as pickpocket expert or to have access to timed explosives in the first place. @Atomboy, fix please? ...I even unlocked "It's a Classic" steam achievement for planting the bomb, but then I needed to reload cause whole city wants me dead
I guess it resembles Krasnoznamenny a little bit, only Krasnoznamenny is a town, and Trudograd is a big city. Even if we cut out all the optional stuff and keep only plot related locations, it will have 8 of them, with several underground facilities, while Krasnoznamenny had 2 above ground maps and them bunkers. Also, we're exploring different topics with Trudograd. It was a very secretive closed city in an undeveloped distant region of USSR with tons of military research facilities, factories, a dam, science labs. It was this hidden heart of Soviet industry, and it's reflected in the name. Trudograd basically means "Labor city" and while no place was named like that irl, it sounds very Soviet in Russian. Anyway, for reasons unknown (probably because the enemy didn't know how important the city was) only a few nukes were launched it's way, and all of them were stopped by the anti-air contraptions Trudograd scientists invented. So there's no radiation in Trudograd to this day. It's a huge city, hidden behind mighty walls, protected by soldiers and cool weaponry. However, there's a problem. Trudograd is a wealthy city of trade, and accepts migrants, so it needs to grow. But outside of Trudograd, every other city of importance in the region, especially to the north, was nuked. So now there are these hordes of poor, sick, angry northern barbarians that reverted to tribalism, and these people, along with hideous mutants, and crazy tribes led by warlords like Syoma Voronok and Cohen the orthodox Barbarian assault everything! So Trudograd can't really outgrow it's walls for safety reasons, and instead grows up, to the sky! It now has three tiers. First one is the ground, where hobos, old people, sick people, cheap labor and northern migrants live. It's a dank, smelly place, ruined by annual floods. Second one is based on the roofs of 5 story buildings, it features houses built upon houses. There the middle class lives and life is more or less to the standards of the old world. There is also tier three, we internally call it Sky District, because you don't go there very often.. Its like cloud district from morrowind get it. That's where the richest, the brightest and the most powerful live. The faction dynamics are like these:What exactly is Truodograd? I'd describe Krasnoznamenny as a corrupt bureaucratic city practising aggressive expansion, yet for all the hypocritical politicians and outrageous prices, its one of the few places in the wastes that offers some semblance of normality (apartments powered by electricity, movie nights, etc). Is Truodograd a den of vice, the dying gasp of a once great civilisation, a prosperous trade hub, or something else? How do its people make their day to day living? What natural resources does Truodograd have to sustain itself?You guys got any questions about Trudograd? Especially lore based? I can't think of anything more to tell.
I guess what I'm asking for is the tourist brochure.
Thanks again man! We'll probably have a mutant sidekick in Trudograd. There's a silver lining in the game, and it's that mutants are pretty much always mentally disabled or slow. So Atom's mutants wouldn't be great party members. There's a mutant-human hybrid you can recruit though later in the game. Combat will be updated but it's hard to tell how much in Trudograd, but Atom will only see very small quality of life updates, small fun thingies and bug fixes, as well as soundscaping. Sound blows, but we're working on it. Nothing huge though!Thank you! The mushroom quest is pretty random, you sometimes get more than other times, I think. Though it wasn't planned this way. Best way is to skip it with a speech check! It's pretty bad. We raised the dog's HP and stuff, so the dog problem shouldn't happen, a shame that it did, we'll look into it.
It's probably me and a string of bad luck, was there alone, not max AP/Dex, short range low grade gun.
Restarted the game and chose a different path and it's alright.
Is there going to be more updates ?
I'm not sure i want to finish the game right away if there's some cool stuff coming.
About your sequel, if you want to add some big battles like the mutant fortress assault, could you try to do something like ToEE, having groups of enemies attacking together if it's not too much of a hassle ?
Or maybe it's just the fortress being too big for the combat system.
And about the combat system, i enjoy the game a lot, still, some full cover, average cover, low cover stuff like Wasteland 2 would be amazing, hiding behind trees is alright but having tactical battles instead of Fallout basic system would be amazing, probably means a lot of mapping work though, some wasteland maps in the red scorpions area or the bandit stronghold (first half) were really amazing.
Two other things :
- For some reason, i found Fallout sound effects + fatality/gore thing made the battles way more fun.
- Mutants everywhere and yet, we don't get to recruit some mutants with cool unique features, looks like it's a missed opportunity.
Still love your game, combat system aside, you did what wasteland 2 couldn't do, factions feels right, i like the old soviet union thing too, gives a certain atmosphere.
Great work.
We have one already! She's a looker! And there's a sleazy pickup artist for all the lady characters out there!any new chicks you can smash in trudograd
Well I'm 50% of the idea men for the game and I can tell my part of the story - the city was probably going to be the fabled Trudograd (or Labor City in English) a huge dystopian hive city of sadness and industry, much like what they have in those Warhammer games - a city that on one hand got bombed (although not as strongly as was probably planned, since the place was the local heart of industry) and irradiated, but on the other hand still had functioning factories, crucial for the whole region. There'd be slave work, broken lives, alcoholism, corruption, some especially vile bandits, ultraviolent gangs. I had several quests in mind, including a worker that cannot get drunk because his alcoholism was separated from him by a local psychiatrist in a hypnotism session, and now it lives on as the Indulging One or Выпивающий. There was also a mentally ill kid that could talk to large machinery, but all it told him was "kill yourself", a plot line concerning the Hesperus star, a Machine Prophet who taught people a way of life that was not seen as appropriate by the authorities, an investigation into the life of the city's founding father the hero of labor (who turned out to be a nazi supporter and a jailbird just like that one episode of the Simpsons), etc.
The activities included dating, more kinds of gambling, and some stuff my buddy made up that I can't remember.
All of it is going to get into the finished game, either as rumor, a reference, or even a real quest e.g. the Hesperus star thing.
Whew! That was a god damn long journey since the first time I appeared on the Codex. And now this baby is finally done! Seriously, thanks guys, the codex really helped us out. I'll be making a Trudograd post when we have a demo. And of course I'll be continuing to chat in this thread whenever I can!
...Lockpicking minigames blow
Also, I was thinking about what can I show yall from Trudograd that's more or less complete, and I found this leaflet available very early in game. Although the author of it terribly exaggerates the social climate of the city, it displays the main cultural and social conflict as well as the architectural principles and flood \ smog problem of the game and lore rather clearly. Here it is!
To all those whom it may concern...
Saved from the atomic blaze by the illustrious grace of merciful fate, and the might of Soviet weaponry, Trudograd lived on... And gloriously so! It is now a provincial Babylon, that challenges the sky itself, by growing not in width, but in height with it's shanty towns and fabulous districts built upon the cold, tin plated flat roofs of it's mass-produced, utilitarian apartment buildings. Hidden behind it's pre-war walls, fortified with sand and steel, protected by it's mighty guardians, and saved in most part from the yearly rages of river floods that came with the bombs falling far beyond the horizon, Trudograd decisively survives through what was thought to be the end days...
But in it's growth and strength, Trudograd forgot of the terrible ailment, caused by it's own prosperity. It forgot about the terrible, cannibalistic, disgusting mold, which originated in the barren and hostile Northern lands, and quickly flooded this amazing city's poorest and dampest corners.
There is no need to lie to ourselves, for we all heard the furtive whispers of those unfortunate enough to be Trudograd's locals but still live on the smog filled, damnable ground levels of the glorious spire-city... Whispers that tell of loathsome flats occupied by whole packs of the watery eyed, disturbingly fair-haired and milky-skinned mongrel migrants from the abominable North. Rumors of the terrible, ungodly, heretical rituals that go on at times when the stars are right, in their unclean, disease-ridden kitchens and stairwells, gifted to them out of pity by our vacuous city authorities.
How naive our elected officials were, when they decided to let these ragged, uneducated savages into our midst! Did they not know, that their beliefs and traditions will come with them as well? Now, Trudograd is home for all manner of vile heresy, from the secretive love-slaves of Krishtapas, the many-handed giant, whose slimy offerings make even the most pious of people curse the name of the Lord; to the unholy Witnesses of the sand and death demon Tsathoggua; and surely the unspeakable followers of the Black Goat of the Woods, a terrible, churning flesh-tree that births monstrosities in pale moonlight.
Stay vigilant, fellow locals! For the enemy is among us, spreading it's ungodly culture and wishing our pure blood to flow on it's decrepit altars!
- Concerned citizen
Sounds like a huge and important place and i look forward to seeing it but since it sounds more vast than KRZ, will there be a number of factions within Trudograd competing for control of varius parts of city and suroundings? Would you even try to pull that of seeing as in base game quests and conflicts where straightforward?
In another post somewhere once there was mention of concealed carry places or zones, will these be in some parts of the game?
Is Demo still planed and is it within reason to ask when this might be?
Hope that in Trudograd, unlike real life where bayonets are used to open cans -we get to mount it on a rifle and use it in anger!
Atom doesn't even have fanboys. Dude, the NPCs tell you stories and nod and wink to quests or happenings in the game as much as they are for flavor. You never spot an NPC that looks like it does not belong in this world (unless it's a time traveller from the circus or the Warhammer parody thing). NPCs build this world, and ofc you can ignore most of them, there's no problem.
I've never played a game that does NPCs the way ATOM does. I believe there is a reason for that, it should tell you something. The documentary film crew interview approach is boring and conditions the player to ignore the NPCs. If people are ignoring the NPCs, or any content in the game, that's a problem. Saying that people can just ignore NPCs It isn't a good answer to the criticism. It isn't good design. Players shouldn't want to ignore things, they should be excited to interact with them. Imagine if I identified a problem with pistols in the game, and you said, well you can just ignore pistols! It's true, I could just pick a different weapon, but that doesn't fix the problem with pistols. If you were writing a book, and included background stories for every person on the street unrelated to the plot, the book would be bloated, plodding, meandering and tiresome. Any editor would tell you, hey you should cut some of this. It's the same with the game and the NPC dialogue. It should be efficient, interesting and as spare as possible. I'm a person who really likes to read, and I feel like a lot of the writing in this game wastes my time. No one likes to have their time wasted.
Consider the containers in ATOM. You acknowledge a problem:
Also, I recently figured out that containers can just be made to look broken or opened and empty to lessen the amount of containers.
Not every container shown on screen needs to be interactive, it's exhausting and bad design - some can be broken or already opened. I agree! Otherwise, I just start ignoring the containers. It's the same deal with the NPCs. Not every NPC needs a full backstory, some can just give simple barks and that's fine. It keeps the game going at a brisk pace.
Atom doesn't even have fanboys. Dude, the NPCs tell you stories and nod and wink to quests or happenings in the game as much as they are for flavor. You never spot an NPC that looks like it does not belong in this world (unless it's a time traveller from the circus or the Warhammer parody thing). NPCs build this world, and ofc you can ignore most of them, there's no problem.
I've never played a game that does NPCs the way ATOM does. I believe there is a reason for that, it should tell you something. The documentary film crew interview approach is boring and conditions the player to ignore the NPCs. If people are ignoring the NPCs, or any content in the game, that's a problem. Saying that people can just ignore NPCs It isn't a good answer to the criticism. It isn't good design. Players shouldn't want to ignore things, they should be excited to interact with them. Imagine if I identified a problem with pistols in the game, and you said, well you can just ignore pistols! It's true, I could just pick a different weapon, but that doesn't fix the problem with pistols. If you were writing a book, and included background stories for every person on the street unrelated to the plot, the book would be bloated, plodding, meandering and tiresome. Any editor would tell you, hey you should cut some of this. It's the same with the game and the NPC dialogue. It should be efficient, interesting and as spare as possible. I'm a person who really likes to read, and I feel like a lot of the writing in this game wastes my time. No one likes to have their time wasted.
Consider the containers in ATOM. You acknowledge a problem:
Also, I recently figured out that containers can just be made to look broken or opened and empty to lessen the amount of containers.
Not every container shown on screen needs to be interactive, it's exhausting and bad design - some can be broken or already opened. I agree! Otherwise, I just start ignoring the containers. It's the same deal with the NPCs. Not every NPC needs a full backstory, some can just give simple barks and that's fine. It keeps the game going at a brisk pace.
This x100. The game needs to be trimmed down from all the small talk bullshit. There is absolutely no need to have every single person tell me about how much they enjoy watching grass grow. Trimming is an essential part of polish.