Better yet: going nuts over the promise of a game from people who delivered Jagged Alliance: Back in Action.
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Vapourware Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen - Chaos Chronicles reborn and dead again
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Better yet: going nuts over the promise of a game from people who delivered Jagged Alliance: Back in Action.
The companions that we do have planned are entirely optional and not required to progress in the game (you can play through the entire thing just with your own party), and our story will be as non-linear and decentralized as we can make it.
The focus is on player-driven exploration, dungeon crawling, and interesting quests with multiple approaches and solutions - most of which are optional. We want to avoid having a linear sequence of main quests to follow, going for more of a "here's your goal, now try to achieve it in any way you please" approach.
Last edited:
2D.
Early versions of our portraits, but the art style is still under development:
Humans:
Dwarves:
Elves:
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
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- 99,662
https://www.realms-beyond.com/storytelling-1/
Storytelling #1: Bringing your party to life
February 15, 2018
At this time, we had planned to post more details regarding the game’s combat system, but lately, we were also busy adding a large number of story elements to Realms Beyond and while doing that, we decided to switch tack and share with you instead our thoughts about storytelling in a party-based CRPG. Needless to say, we will deliver the promised info about the combat system next week.
You may recall that somewhere in our initial blog posts we raised the subject that most modern RPGs these days tend to tell the journey of a single character. The player is the hero, the central figure around everything else revolves, etc. This approach oftentimes leads to pre-determined companions being added to the party over time, who typically bring with them their own personalities. Since Planescape: Torment made having sidekicks with real personalities a must-have feature 20 years ago, it has literally become a genre trope.
However, in many ways, this trend resulted in roleplaying games often feeling more like adventure games where part of the story is to meet these additional characters and get them to join you. On the one hand, that is a great way to create immersion, of course, and pull players into both the game’s world as well as its storyline. It also creates an emotional attachment to these characters because of their unique personalities. I mean, what would Planescape: Torment have been without Morte, the floating and taunting skull?
On the other hand, however, it also results in a very linear way of telling a story in most cases, that resembles the way stories are told in other media, such as books or film. It is ultimately, a very different kind of experience you got from playing some of those old-school RPGs we have been recounting among our key influences.
It may be debatable whether there is one definite or perfect way of telling a story in a game, or if there are several viable approaches to it. That is not what we want to highlight here, however. Instead, we’d rather have you understand why we thought it might be interesting to choose one way of telling the game’s story over another.
To start off, let’s flip that coin back to the other side. Let’s not look at the Ultima, Baldur’s Gate or Dragon Age way of telling a story, where you, the hero make friends, but rather turn to the Phantasie and Pool of Radiance way of storytelling, in which your party is making the journey.
Playing these kids as a kid with a wild and overactive imagination, it was hard not to bring the world and creations of those games to life in your mind while playing. Even though every character was not much more than a listing of its attributes that you attached a name to—and in the case of Pool of Radiance, a head and torso also—the beauty of these games was that your imagination would fill in all the blanks for you. It is an incredibly powerful tool that many writers, and filmmakers, incidentally, rely upon. Many things become much more effective when you don’t see them. It gave your imagination room to fill in whatever it thought worked best—the prettiest girl, the most terrifying monster… you name it.
The more sophisticated the technology behind computer games became over the last decades, the more they began to drift away from this kind of approach and that experience from you entirely. Everything was staged and plastered across the screen in high resolution! Have you ever played the original Fallout? Have you ever tried to create a character with very low intelligence? Imagine the planning and work the developers must have put into that game to make all of that work out the way it did, and provide such a unique experience.
Or what about all the banter going on in a game like Baldur’s Gate 2 where characters are constantly commenting on the current situation? It took over 1 million words to create all the necessary text for the game! While these are definitely cool things to have, it would also have been very cool to imagine these same things going in your own fantasy. Maybe all the pen&paper roleplaying as a kid got to our heads, but back then, you could literally smell the sewers you were exploring when the elf in your party began complaining about it. These are the small things we are so fond of.
The entire experience got even more dramatic, knowing that any of your characters could die at any moment and sometimes had to be replaced. Overall, the experience that formed in your head was much more similar to reading a book than imagining yourself playing a role in a game. It is the kind of experience we want to bring back with Realms Beyond. It does not mean that the game will be overly laconic, but we will also try not to become too verbose either. Our idea of a solid computer roleplaying experience is to get your own imagination engaged every bit as much as the visual presentation we will contribute. We want the journey to become YOURS and not something we spoonfeed. We want your imagination to fill in the best parts and for that to work, sometimes, saying or showing less, is more.
Dorateen
Arcane
This is admirable. I would have only added that the hobby of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing is constructed around the concept of a party of Player Characters. And the design approach that uses a single character joined by the developer's companions is an abomination.
Dorateen
Arcane
Post from the Hobgoblin on official forums:
Our approach to fit straight walls with 90° corners into the hexgrid when it comes to a combat. I quickly colored the blocked regions red to demonstrate the system.
Note: that's not the actual ingame combat grid visualization but the info display directly taken from our Map Editor.
In other news, I'm designing some quests right now so you guys will actually have something to do in the game. Lots of interesting, varied shit.
Realms Beyond is gonna be quite a diverse game. The kind of diversity that actually counts: diverse locations, diverse quests, diverse encounters.
Realms Beyond is gonna be quite a diverse game. The kind of diversity that actually counts: diverse locations, diverse quests, diverse encounters.
Jack Dandy
Arcane
Uncle Frank, Uncle Frank!
Will the game have a big, scary megadungeon?
Speaking of, it would be cool if the fellas at Ceres made a blog post about dungeon design.
Will the game have a big, scary megadungeon?
Speaking of, it would be cool if the fellas at Ceres made a blog post about dungeon design.
In other news, I'm designing some quests right now so you guys will actually have something to do in the game. Lots of interesting, varied shit.
Realms Beyond is gonna be quite a diverse game. The kind of diversity that actually counts: diverse locations, diverse quests, diverse encounters.
cancelled preorder
It is likely.
Speaking of, it would be cool if the fellas at Ceres made a blog post about dungeon design.
Sure. You can expect a lot of design-related updates in the near future, and dungeon design will be talked about too.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
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- 99,662
Ooh, cool: https://www.realms-beyond.com/combat-turn-based-battle-crowds/
Combat System #3: Battle Crowds
March 5, 2018
In an earlier post (Combat System #1) that discussed the combat system of Realms Beyond, we wrote that from the beginning, our aim was to make a turn-based game. However, we also mentioned that we carefully evaluated other variants, such as the Real-time-with-Pause (RtwP) combat system of Baldur’s Gate in particular. We are grown-ups that make games in an industry that still focuses mostly on kids as their key demographic and most of us were still teenagers when turn-based RPGs vanished and made room for the new era of real-time games.
Even if the pros and cons of different systems sometimes come down purely to personal taste, we believe that no one would argue that turn-based games tend to be less “action-packed.” It is the nature of the beast. Occasionally, combat can become a drag, as you are forced to wait until every goblin, kobold, and what-not-minion has finished its turn. In large crowds, this can become particularly aggravating. Watching opponents move around the battlefield is kinda boring and it is the reason why some turn-based games have sped up movement, or rather the respective movement animations, to the brink of sheer ugliness.
Players are eager to see their characters’ turns and they are also excited to see whether the main opponent will kill their party during his next turn. And while there is something intensely gratifying in wiping out 12 goblins with a single fireball, no one really cares to watch each of them move and attack, one after the other. In fact, frequently, some of us were tempted to reload and see whether their wizard has a higher initiative this time around, just so he could get rid of the masses of little annoyances in one swoop before combat starts in earnest. So, what to do? It was this particular problem that made us sit down and think about possible solutions to handle crowd movement in combat for less relevant opponents.
The Temple of Elemental Evil attempted to tackle the problem with a menu option that, once activated, allowed enemies within the same initiative group to move simultaneously. It turned out to create cool packs of hobbling and wobbling goblins but, as mentioned above, did not always help. In a battle with a small number of semi-bosses that happened to be in the same initiative group, say, a giant, a werewolf and a demon, you DO want to anticipate their attacks separately. Not to mention that it looks somewhat awkward, if not to say, nonepic, when these individuals go through their moves all at the same time like synchronized swimmers.
Our approach was to properly categorize opponents. Boring minions go in one group, more epic enemies are treated separately. We decided unilaterally, that our level designers would be responsible for choosing which opponents should be grouped together and which ones shouldn’t. Thus, the concept of ‘minion crowds’ was born and we found the idea to provide several, additional advantages.
Rather than rolling the initiative individually for each opponent and then grouping them up accordingly, we reversed the approach and instead group them up beforehand and then roll their initiative only once, as a group. This prevents a group of minions to ‘spread out’ over the initiative list and act individually—a case that the The Temple of Elemental Evil approach didn’t prevent.
Further, we are adding some additional ‘identity’ to the members of such a group that goes beyond the simple fact that they act simultaneously. This means that we are tweaking their AI to make sure they stay together and all attack the same target whenever possible. Not only does this seem more natural, but we also think that it might add to the strategic depth of our combat system—and even if it won’t, it will still be a great deal more atmospheric. As an additional side effect, it will give the player the opportunity to predict a mob’s behavior to some extent. As far as we’ve implemented this, (grouping and movement already look good, but the accompanying AI is still very basic) our idea feels great and we hope we’re well on our way to make turn-based combat a little more appealing.
Initial evaluation of the basic idea to group minions originally took place in a non-digital environment
I have just designed an ITZ-mace a few days ago!
Also, we got a pretty large selection of melee weapons. Swords, maces, axes, spears, halberds, glaives... yes, even the much neglected polearm receives some love from us.
Also, we got a pretty large selection of melee weapons. Swords, maces, axes, spears, halberds, glaives... yes, even the much neglected polearm receives some love from us.
Sacred82
Self-Ejected
you can give some love to my pole
Brancaleone
Prophet
Best of luck with everything, JarlFrank.
ArchAngel
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2015
- Messages
- 21,331
How can this go wrong.. A swarm of Orcs attack one guy and murder him in one round...Ooh, cool: https://www.realms-beyond.com/combat-turn-based-battle-crowds/
Combat System #3: Battle Crowds
March 5, 2018
In an earlier post (Combat System #1) that discussed the combat system of Realms Beyond, we wrote that from the beginning, our aim was to make a turn-based game. However, we also mentioned that we carefully evaluated other variants, such as the Real-time-with-Pause (RtwP) combat system of Baldur’s Gate in particular. We are grown-ups that make games in an industry that still focuses mostly on kids as their key demographic and most of us were still teenagers when turn-based RPGs vanished and made room for the new era of real-time games.
Even if the pros and cons of different systems sometimes come down purely to personal taste, we believe that no one would argue that turn-based games tend to be less “action-packed.” It is the nature of the beast. Occasionally, combat can become a drag, as you are forced to wait until every goblin, kobold, and what-not-minion has finished its turn. In large crowds, this can become particularly aggravating. Watching opponents move around the battlefield is kinda boring and it is the reason why some turn-based games have sped up movement, or rather the respective movement animations, to the brink of sheer ugliness.
Players are eager to see their characters’ turns and they are also excited to see whether the main opponent will kill their party during his next turn. And while there is something intensely gratifying in wiping out 12 goblins with a single fireball, no one really cares to watch each of them move and attack, one after the other. In fact, frequently, some of us were tempted to reload and see whether their wizard has a higher initiative this time around, just so he could get rid of the masses of little annoyances in one swoop before combat starts in earnest. So, what to do? It was this particular problem that made us sit down and think about possible solutions to handle crowd movement in combat for less relevant opponents.
The Temple of Elemental Evil attempted to tackle the problem with a menu option that, once activated, allowed enemies within the same initiative group to move simultaneously. It turned out to create cool packs of hobbling and wobbling goblins but, as mentioned above, did not always help. In a battle with a small number of semi-bosses that happened to be in the same initiative group, say, a giant, a werewolf and a demon, you DO want to anticipate their attacks separately. Not to mention that it looks somewhat awkward, if not to say, nonepic, when these individuals go through their moves all at the same time like synchronized swimmers.
Our approach was to properly categorize opponents. Boring minions go in one group, more epic enemies are treated separately. We decided unilaterally, that our level designers would be responsible for choosing which opponents should be grouped together and which ones shouldn’t. Thus, the concept of ‘minion crowds’ was born and we found the idea to provide several, additional advantages.
Rather than rolling the initiative individually for each opponent and then grouping them up accordingly, we reversed the approach and instead group them up beforehand and then roll their initiative only once, as a group. This prevents a group of minions to ‘spread out’ over the initiative list and act individually—a case that the The Temple of Elemental Evil approach didn’t prevent.
Further, we are adding some additional ‘identity’ to the members of such a group that goes beyond the simple fact that they act simultaneously. This means that we are tweaking their AI to make sure they stay together and all attack the same target whenever possible. Not only does this seem more natural, but we also think that it might add to the strategic depth of our combat system—and even if it won’t, it will still be a great deal more atmospheric. As an additional side effect, it will give the player the opportunity to predict a mob’s behavior to some extent. As far as we’ve implemented this, (grouping and movement already look good, but the accompanying AI is still very basic) our idea feels great and we hope we’re well on our way to make turn-based combat a little more appealing.
Initial evaluation of the basic idea to group minions originally took place in a non-digital environment
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2012
- Messages
- 29,881
Is there any actual tactical difference to the weapons or are they all just 1dx and you use what you like?
Valky
Arcane
Will this be a gameplay focused rpg like ToEE? It looks beautiful by the way, very nice that it's turn based.
Good idea. Done so!
We're pretty much using the D&D 3.5 rules as they are in the books/the OGL rules. Which means there are different damage types - bludgeoning, piercing, slashing - and some creatures are resistant against one type (so skellingtons are better fought against with bludgeoning than piercing weapons).
Longer weapons, such as two-handed spears, will also have reach, just as in the D&D rules.
So while you don't get as much of a difference in special attacks like in Age of Decadence, each weapon type has its use depending on the situation.
Yes, ToEE is one of the major inspirations for this game. The ultimate goal is to create a game with the combat of ToEE and the reactivity of Arcanum, so you get quite a few quests with C&C, as well as challenging hand-crafted encounters.
We're using the OGL D&D 3.5 rules with some minor homebrew adjustments (such as using hexes rather than squares), so ToEE is a pretty good comparison when it comes to the gameplay. Except we'll have better quests than what you had in Hommlett.
Sitra Achara
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2003
- Messages
- 1,860
Don't forget trip weapons and such.
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