KickStarter Serpent in the Staglands Pre-Release Thread

[Infinitron]

Serpent at this point could do with a codex preview.

100% agree

tuluse ?

It's on my to-do list.

I actually just got done moving so I should be able to work on it for real now.

Don't burn yourself out, we need a review too and the game isn't that far off.

 

[GrainWetski]

Angry Joe seems to be pretty hyped for PoE, he might take on SitS as well. (I know, his audience are all graphics whores...)

Much like Jesse Cox, he only pretends to like games when he gets paid.

I would stay away.

 

[dukeofwhales]

As much as I dislike the guy, Total Biscuit does give quite a few indies a massive audience, and doesn't seem to be quite as needy in terms of "press button -> awesome happens" as Jesse Cox and Angry Joe. Definitely wouldn't hurt to throw him a steam code.

 

[Shadowfang]

Whalenought_Joe, besides the main menu, i have no music in game.
This silence is drilling a hole in my soul.

 

[Inquisition]

Whalenought_Joe, besides the main menu, i have no music in game.
This silence is drilling a hole in my soul.

That's a known bug apparently. I have exactly the same problem. Will be adressed in the next patch, though

 

[Menacer]

Sensuki

The Serpent in the Staglands beta boards miss you. You had such great and detailed bug reports.

Menacer

 

[Korron]

Mainstream gaming journalism should be covering exciting games like SitS more. Unfortunately they're too embroiled in the war of clickbaity he said she said content generation that makes you want to fucking cringe.

Being an indie darling on the dex must have some weight to it though.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

I wonder if it's possible to get Sven and Fargo to tweet about or somesuch. Sure d be a nice boost. I'll also push for coverage on a couple of fairly large .ru sites, though they are probably on it already.

Larian has done more than we could have asked for. The lion's share of funding in our Kickstarter campaign came directly following them mentioning us in one of their updates with some kind words, this wouldn't have been successful without them. Though we haven't had much time to play, we had to buy copies of Original Sin. Constructing barrel death-forts to be detonated around town is amazing for morale when we get breaks.

Whalenought_Joe, besides the main menu, i have no music in game.
This silence is drilling a hole in my soul.

Have you upgraded to 2.1? We played around with what could have been happening to the player-prefs or user settings for sounds in that patch.

Thanks tuluse! 2.1 has some big changes from prior builds, and 2.1.1 hopefully later today will have tons of hammered fixes for a lot of encounter related issues that have come up.

Thanks for all the commentary and marketing ideas folks — I've been relaying them to Hannah and we've gotten a kick out of it. We are working on finishing a pretty massive bug fix patch today and rounding out the old beta areas with more content seen in later districts. We have some youtube previewers and journalists prepped to send things to in the short term, but none of the big personalities. We'll do that closer to release when they have more they can play and see who bites, they'll at least have a more thorough manual by then. Going to try to get GAMEHORDER too, he was a backer and would certainly have an entertaining preview if he obliged.

 

[Ninjerk]

When will the streaming begin?

 

[tuluse]

Don't burn yourself out, we need a review too and the game isn't that far off.

Hmm, good point. I kind of conflated preview and review in my head.

Sorry to everyone if it's disappointing, but I think I'd rather focus on just a review then.

 

[Haba]

Mainstream gaming journalism should be covering exciting games like SitS more. Unfortunately they're too embroiled in the war of clickbaity he said she said content generation that makes you want to fucking cringe.

Do not think for a moment that mainstream popularity would bring happiness.

 

[Sensuki]

Sensuki

The Serpent in the Staglands beta boards miss you. You had such great and detailed bug reports.

Menacer

I'm working hard on Pillars of Eternity at the moment as that comes out very soon. I feel bad though that I have not spent more time helping out with Staglands. There's still two months to go though so I'll definitely spend some time on it reporting UI / general issues.

 

[Shadowfang]

Have you upgraded to 2.1? We played around with what could have been happening to the player-prefs or user settings for sounds in that patch.

I have, yes.

Sensuki

The Serpent in the Staglands beta boards miss you. You had such great and detailed bug reports.

Menacer

I'm working hard on Pillars of Eternity at the moment as that comes out very soon. I feel bad though that I have not spent more time helping out with Staglands. There's still two months to go though so I'll definitely spend some time on it reporting UI / general issues.

Sensuki i bet you get more positive reactions on the sits forums.

 

[Apexeon]

These types of projects and small teams is what fuels my drive out of my garage to have a crack.

If "quest grinding" is an issue that exists, then it exists in every RPG that offers XP for quests, regardless of whether quests are the only way of getting XP. Luckily, it doesn't.

The idea of 'quest grinding' could be interpreted in different ways and I can share where we were going with that. Something we avoided in the game’s design is the type of quest system where a player talks to everyone or are hopping between key quest givers and getting some banal or monumental task from them, and the design faulting them in some way if not completed (viable or not). We’re certainly not saying this is wrong, but we wanted to explore a system where there isn’t formalized quest hopping, and the adventure plays out more like an adventure game where a player has to decipher what to do (a hands off GM). That and role-playing a profession that the world would react to with a cautious neutrality.

A common approach we took to this is giving the player ideas of events and happenings without instilling an obligation to do or see them in any specific way. Leaving it up to the player what to write down and how they interpret letters and events makes the adventure more personal. So for example, hearing “Lev is razed” by a town crier doesn’t give the player an immediate mission, but implies that Lev could have some issues and it could be interesting to go visit or safe to stay away. By putting the player in the middle of happenings but not being at the center of them, the idea of quests take a background to just conducting your adventure.

Somewhat similar to how in BG1 (the objectively superior infinity engine title) you constantly hear about various issues that you seek out throughout the game (political issues in the city, war with Amn, iron shortage), but not really doing anything about it until you get there. A much more grounded experience. We enjoy that sense of exploration, it makes it seem more like a good table top session rather than a checklist.

Certainly not everyone’s preference, but we think it will be an interesting and rewarding system.

That post gets back to back sales from me.
Getting another copy on GOG to put on my digital shelf with the other gems.

 

[polo]

I really fucked up by not pledging to this incline.

I felt the same, then i bought 2 copies

Been playing it for a little while and found some minor bugs. Game is lots of fun, even gettin fucked up by goblins and lizards was fun actually.
Im thinking a solo playtrough is almost impossible right? Game seems pretty punishing if you don't have a decent def+healing at the start.

One of the bugs (i think) is with the mouse scrolling. I don't think i had this problem before last version (2.1), i use arrows to move the view because mouse is not locked in the game window, maximized or not. When maximized the windows start bar screws it.

 

[polo]

So just tried a new playthrough because i was curious. Prob. it is just me being an idiot, but what are you suposed to do if you don't make a PC with a healing skill? You go out, get almost fucked up by a wolf, and thats it, gg.
As i said, its probably just me being an idiot, but otherwise maybe the game should supply a healing PC at the start?

 

[Mysterious Stranger]

There is a healing NPC at the graveyard in Lumen Targ at night you can recruit. Just pick up both NPCs at the temple and the courtyard and proceed to town. First thing you do there on arrival is to go to the Inn and rest and afterwards look for said NPC at the graveyard. She doesn't have any points invested in the healing spell if I remember correctly but she should be able to cast the level 0 nonetheless.

 

[polo]

Oh, so game is punishing me for being ocd about exploring everything lol. Thanks

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Shadowfang
We'll have a new patch up today. If you could give that a shot and let me know if you're getting sound that would be great — the new default should be at 10 for music and sound settings, but your already saved player settings may save from whatever you had before, so just crank those up to 10 if they don't automatically. Thanks!

So just tried a new playthrough because i was curious. Prob. it is just me being an idiot, but what are you suposed to do if you don't make a PC with a healing skill? You go out, get almost fucked up by a wolf, and thats it, gg.
As i said, its probably just me being an idiot, but otherwise maybe the game should supply a healing PC at the start?

Healing early game is essential, level 1 characters are extremely squishy and you don't have good odds of fighting the rng and coming out of a battle unscathed. You just need a character with 1 pnt in OCC or INT to use the grade 1 spells though, so if you're creating >1 avatar at the start that would be advised. The game isn't intended to be balanced for lone wolf, definitely pick up folks as you can (they'll be more powerful than your avatars can be), or create more >1 or fodder at the start — more the merrier.

There is also a super short difficulty wall at the very start of the game of exploring without armor/weapons. You've probably already figured that out, which we thought was a fun learning experience for a player, but by the time you leave the courtyard a full party can acquire armor and weapons for everyone.

2.2 Will be out today, and we did do a rebalance sweep for all the early game content — I'd be curious your thoughts on that if you started a new party of >1. This patch also has the Bridge map, a few other Orfs Bridge areas, and has all the Aptitude content in the library, rats, and a few other finalized features. Acolytes drop awls now too, which I think is my favorite weapon.

Mysterious Stranger — We debated giving Vilhelm a point in OCC for this exact reason, and are going to implement that into 2.2 to see how folks fare with that for the starting areas.

Apexeon Thanks! Talking with them next month.

 

[polo]

Shadowfang
We'll have a new patch up today. If you could give that a shot and let me know if you're getting sound that would be great — the new default should be at 10 for music and sound settings, but your already saved player settings may save from whatever you had before, so just crank those up to 10 if they don't automatically. Thanks!

So just tried a new playthrough because i was curious. Prob. it is just me being an idiot, but what are you suposed to do if you don't make a PC with a healing skill? You go out, get almost fucked up by a wolf, and thats it, gg.
As i said, its probably just me being an idiot, but otherwise maybe the game should supply a healing PC at the start?

Healing early game is essential, level 1 characters are extremely squishy and you don't have good odds of fighting the rng and coming out of a battle unscathed. You just need a character with 1 pnt in OCC or INT to use the grade 1 spells though, so if you're creating >1 avatar at the start that would be advised. The game isn't intended to be balanced for lone wolf, definitely pick up folks as you can (they'll be more powerful than your avatars can be), or create more >1 or fodder at the start — more the merrier.

There is also a super short difficulty wall at the very start of the game of exploring without armor/weapons. You've probably already figured that out, which we thought was a fun learning experience for a player, but by the time you leave the courtyard a full party can acquire armor and weapons for everyone.

2.2 Will be out today, and we did do a rebalance sweep for all the early game content — I'd be curious your thoughts on that if you started a new party of >1. This patch also has the Bridge map, a few other Orfs Bridge areas, and has all the Aptitude content in the library, rats, and a few other finalized features. Acolytes drop awls now too, which I think is my favorite weapon.

Mysterious Stranger — We debated giving Vilhelm a point in OCC for this exact reason, and are going to implement that into 2.2 to see how folks fare with that for the starting areas.

Apexeon Thanks! Talking with them next month.

Great! i actually made 3 different very short playthtoughs of the first areas, just to try different parties, and character types! Will try 2.2 when it comes out.

 

[Shadowfang]

Thanks Whalenought_Joe, its working now.
I will keep the rest of my feedback on your forums.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Thanks Whalenought_Joe, its working now.
I will keep the rest of my feedback on your forums.

Good to hear that's working — 2.1 must have done the job, we're justing putting 2.2 on our server now. Thanks!

 

[polo]

Hey Whalenought_Joe game is crashing when trying to update 2.2
Game closes and i get a msjwindow with the "updater cannot run directly" message.

 

[Inquisition]

Hey Whalenought_Joe game is crashing when trying to update 2.2
Game closes and i get a msjwindow with the "updater cannot run directly" message.

Same here.

 

[tuluse]

Hey Whalenought_Joe game is crashing when trying to update 2.2
Game closes and i get a msjwindow with the "updater cannot run directly" message.

Go on their forums, it's a known problem with the work around being a fresh download.

http://serpentinthestaglands.com/community/forums/topic/version-2-2/