Suggestions thread.

[reachrishikh]

As Chris mentioned, they are open to suggestions, and I'm sure everyone is bursting with their own.

My first suggestion -

I am not completely comfortable with the six-hour time limit, since I tend to take my own leisure time to build. Although I agree that it is a good idea to put a time limit since most cities do peak out, and you always need some sort of 'goals' to complete a scenario.
So instead of a flat-out six hour time limit, could we have a little flexibility please, so that we can select a specific time limit that we're comfortable with (say from a range - 6 hours, 7 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours, 15 hours, till a max limit figure of hours beyond which you cannot play)?
I'm just saying I figure 6 is too low a number for those of us who like to soak in the experience of the cities.

[Pat D.]

I wholeheartedly agree that six hours is WAY to little time...but I think Chris was referring to goals being met in normal play at that time...my thing would be to allow us to taylor our goals AND to have the ability to 'play on' instead of just ending the game. But yes, six hours...way too little time!

pat!

[Reed]

Wish granted!

There is no time limit. But it's designed so that you can complete a game in less than 6 hrs. Then replay and experience something different due to the randomization.

Also, we're not talking cities... you're building a village in the woods.

[reachrishikh]

I was just about to edit my post to say villages instead of cities, but you beat me to it.

[soldyne]

this reminds me of the game Majesty. in that game you build up a small village and sent out adventurers to do quests. but in that one there was a campaign with no sandbox. this sounds like a sandbox where each game is its own campaign.

I prefer the sandbox approach as it lets me choose my own direction while at the same time reacting to the stimulus of random events.

I too don't like time limits but as was said it is time limit free and only designed to last about 6 hours. this is actually the same amount of time I play through a game of Civ III so that is very cool.

as far as a suggestion goes, well, its too early really for me to ask for something since I don't know what you already have.

will there be dragons? barbarian invaders? things to research? will the buildings work like SCS where we can plop down where ever we want or will our buildings grow and develop like CoTN or Ceasar IV?

will there be modding? I can think of all kinds of nifty little adventures to send people on. if you go with the XML file style from SCS it would be quite nice.

will there be any fantasy races with different building styles. playing as a human village would be nice for a while but what about elf, dwarf, gnomes, halflings, orcs, goblins, etc. they can have different kinds of buildings for example the elves would have larger farms to compensate for being vegetarian but might have an innate skill with bows and magic. the goblins might have fungus farms and raise wolves as gaurds and pets.

how big are the maps going to be? it might get rather boring to go an adventures all the time if all the adventures are within 1 mile of the village, not exactly epic fantasy there.

how big can the village grow? can we build castles, mages towers, large fantasy cities (Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter, etc)

You guys do great work so I am sure whatever you come up with will be awsome. keep us informed!

[dreamsoftwilight]

I would like a dungeon master like mod/expansion for it. So that the humans come and attack my peaceful goblin mining town... or the orcs that just want to hunt and gather and fued with neighbouring clans, but have to deal with human raiders because orcs are "evil barbarians". hehe

[thegrad]

Will there ever be a hard copy of the game, or another download site? Please!!!!

[reachrishikh]

^^ Yup, I am with thegrad on this one.

[sakasiru]

If I understand correctly, we will have villagers that can level up? That sounds awesome, but I don´t like the idea that my adventure will be over in 6 hours and then I have to start a new. Can´t there be some kind of campaign, where I can keep my people and my village and let it grow even bigger? paleeeeeze? :o

[Bugsy]

I have several smaller thoughts/concerns about what I've read so far.

With the limited size of the village, aside from randomization of the creatures and RPG aspect, how will building each village be different? I'm worried that once we get the concept of how to successfully create one village, the same concept will be applied to each to where each one is a routine, and not new and exciting each time.

Will there be randomization of materials available, similar to your earlier CBers were we may have grapes on a map, or we might not...How will the building of the village itself change from game to game? Will it always be the same buildings, the same trades, the same choices? I never used the loop and bean counter systems from the old cbers, but many did. You could easily figure out a 'formula for success' and build the same basic city on every map to win. I don't use those, it gets boring after three cities or so, because while the map changed, the layout you would need didn't, you were trapped into building it all much the same. You'd plonk down 8-12 houses in a row, loop them by the market, etc. Was routine.

I am also worried a tiny bit about the limit on the size of the village. 20 people may sound like a lot, if you can choose to control any one of them at a time, but once you've played several games, you may want something larger, more like a town rather than a village. That would make for a grand expansion, if that is the plan, as it was hinted at.

Will the village always be in the same place on the 'main' map, or will you have many different villages on the same map, or is the main map sort of a moot point? A suggestion would be to have the ability to create a settler colony of sorts once a town has maxed out, and move smoothly into the next gaming session, leaving your first village behind, and facing more dangers in a new location. Allowing for trade between the them would be logical as well, but thinking of how this may be going to work as far as resources, might lessen the challenge of getting the village running and stable to begin with if trade between previous villages were allowed.

The rpg aspect has my mind teeming with the possibilities. It doesn't sound like the (forgive the pun lmao) 'run of the MILL' rpg, but one based loosely on what it would have really been like as a village without a knight in full plate armor with a +5 Scimitar of ogre slicing and plenty of health potions to swig. "Giving a farmer a rusty sword"...sounds awesomely basic in terms of how life would have been for them, and like no rpg I've ever seen. The deaths of the ones sent on a rpg mission affecting the whole of the town is an aspect never really covered in any games I've ever played either. JoWood has some strategy/rpg combo games, but none anything like what Hinterland appears to be.

I'm with Dreamsoftwilight too though...I'd love to see you guys do a dungeon keeper style game, with your as usual unique twist on things. Whether that's an expansion for this one, or a new IP all together.

[Jeff Fiske]

I have several smaller thoughts/concerns about what I've read so far.

With the limited size of the village, aside from randomization of the creatures and RPG aspect, how will building each village be different? I'm worried that once we get the concept of how to successfully create one village, the same concept will be applied to each to where each one is a routine, and not new and exciting each time.

Will there be randomization of materials available, similar to your earlier CBers were we may have grapes on a map, or we might not...How will the building of the village itself change from game to game? Will it always be the same buildings, the same trades, the same choices? I never used the loop and bean counter systems from the old cbers, but many did. You could easily figure out a 'formula for success' and build the same basic city on every map to win. I don't use those, it gets boring after three cities or so, because while the map changed, the layout you would need didn't, you were trapped into building it all much the same. You'd plonk down 8-12 houses in a row, loop them by the market, etc. Was routine.

I am also worried a tiny bit about the limit on the size of the village. 20 people may sound like a lot, if you can choose to control any one of them at a time, but once you've played several games, you may want something larger, more like a town rather than a village. That would make for a grand expansion, if that is the plan, as it was hinted at.

Will the village always be in the same place on the 'main' map, or will you have many different villages on the same map, or is the main map sort of a moot point? A suggestion would be to have the ability to create a settler colony of sorts once a town has maxed out, and move smoothly into the next gaming session, leaving your first village behind, and facing more dangers in a new location. Allowing for trade between the them would be logical as well, but thinking of how this may be going to work as far as resources, might lessen the challenge of getting the village running and stable to begin with if trade between previous villages were allowed.

The rpg aspect has my mind teeming with the possibilities. It doesn't sound like the (forgive the pun lmao) 'run of the MILL' rpg, but one based loosely on what it would have really been like as a village without a knight in full plate armor with a +5 Scimitar of ogre slicing and plenty of health potions to swig. "Giving a farmer a rusty sword"...sounds awesomely basic in terms of how life would have been for them, and like no rpg I've ever seen. The deaths of the ones sent on a rpg mission affecting the whole of the town is an aspect never really covered in any games I've ever played either. JoWood has some strategy/rpg combo games, but none anything like what Hinterland appears to be.

I'm with Dreamsoftwilight too though...I'd love to see you guys do a dungeon keeper style game, with your as usual unique twist on things. Whether that's an expansion for this one, or a new IP all together.

Great questions. Look forward to answering them sometime soon!!

I will expound a bit on the randomness of the game. The randomness extends to alot of aspects of play, particularly all aspects of world generation- resources, creatures, locations relative to one-another all have less of a 'heavy designer' hand than we have done in previous systems like this. Ideally the game will have a fresh feeling to it every time you play, so the mystery of what you are facing and what you can use to face them with is unknown.

But you are dead on when you talk about that feeling of improvement when you hand a farmer a sword. It is a big deal at that place and time to that village.

[Bugsy]

Thanks for the reply Jeff, I will eagerly look forward to when you guys can answer the others too! :)

I think I have my new favorite phrase for the summer though...COMPLETE RANDOMIZATION! W00t! :D That's been my largest desire in games since I began playing them. Randomized dungeons so I could replay them forever and not be repeating the same scenarios or campaigns and quests, solving the same puzzles.

[tyjenks]

I read the 6 hours as more of a general guide as to how long an average game could take to reach various goals in a complete game. Sometimes with sandbox games, it is so wide open that you can meander around and stretch things out for an eternity. You never really know if you are doing well or not. I imagine with a very general target of 6 hours there will be various performance indicators in some fashion that will alow you to gauge your progress. As someone without unlimited gaming time, I appreciate this attempt at a bit more focus in a city builder/simulation type game.

Or I am just full of poop.

[dreamsoftwilight]

I have questions!

Can I play a female character? Or am I relegated to male-ish characters? Are the characters going to be like cotn, or like pharaoh and the old CB games (3d or isometric)?

[Bugsy]

From the sounds of it Dream, we'll be picking a townsperson to go off questing, and pray that they return alive, else the town will be down by one person, and each person's role to the town's success will be vital. I'd guess the townspeople's genders will vary though, so you could likely pick a girl :D :D That's my guess on how it works from the dev diary though, where if the farmer you gave a rusty sword dies and your town has no harvest, that's disasterous, since they'll either starve, or have a very lean winter. So picking who to send will be a part of the strategy itself as well.

I am curious, that if you did send the farmer out, and he dies, is his role eventually filled, or must you reassign another townsperson to his role. I guess the more basic way to ask, is will someone else eventually move to town to take his place? Or is the number of people resources going to be part of the stragtegy of completing each game?

A few more questions popped into mind right after I hit send...

Will we be able to send more than one townsperson out questing (either at the same time, or at different times), depending on who we can spare at that time? Or will whoever we pick the first time develop into the town's hero/heroine?

Will we level the skills of the townspeople in jobs, for faster/increased production of their goods? Example, the farmer would gain a level and have the ability to grow more faster.

[dreamsoftwilight]

I think perhaps it will be somewhat like the Warcraft rts. If we just assign a person to go out and adventure, then theres not really any RPG there. And that pic of the guy in the dungeon is pointless.

So Im hoping theres a bit of RPG in there where you get to go out and adventure (as in youre the farmer/girl whatever), and then you have to switch back occaisionally and check on the town. Defend from brigands and ogres and stuff.

[Jeff Fiske]

I have questions!

Can I play a female character? Or am I relegated to male-ish characters? Are the characters going to be like cotn, or like pharaoh and the old CB games (3d or isometric)?

You can play as male or female.

[Nighteyes]

I hope that we can have the ablity to walk through our own village in the RPG mode so that we can see the fruits of our labours from ground level.
In CotN and C4 I was always trying to align my view to perfectly follow a road or somesuch, so as to view a boulivade(?) or pyrimid constuction for the view of a peon. I did get a few good views in CotN but it was always hard to do.
It would be nice to be able to choose a person and then wonder through your village seeing all that you have built, also to be able to interact with your fellow village members:rolleyes:*roll away to a quick dream of a game where you could do this and where it would relate to events in your town*.

Also I would like it if TM would perhaps look at a few other methods of digital downloads, I personally dislike having to download a third party's software just to be able to play a game, Also as reachrishikh and thegrad were asking a hard copy of the game or the ablity to burn your copy to a disk and be able to play it when ever you want and, as happens to me fairly often, if you have wiped your disk, gotten anew one, etc the chance to reinstall the game, without having to redownload the game form the net again, particuarly for all those with slow connections, dial-up springs instantly to mind. I'm just not the sort of person who would like to spend 3 days trying to D/L a game, which keeps on failing.:( grumble grumble.

[goonsquad]

Congratulations to TM for thinking outside the square on this one. I'm very happy to have been wrong in my guess on what the new game was. There will be a scenario editor? Please make it reasonably easy to use. This, more than any other factor, will ensure the longevity and replayability of this new game.

[goonsquad]

I like the idea of some sort of diplomacy model. The one in Emperor worked brilliantly. Not suggesting it be lifted wholesale, but something along those lines would greatly enhance the depth of the game.

I'm also wondering whether this game will be suitable for use by CBC for running contests. Not having a save/load function (if I understand correctly) might make it difficult.

[reachrishikh]

Heck no, I need that save/load option! I can't sit at a game for 6 or more hours at a stretch, I have things to do!

But I don't think that's what they meant, I think they were just saying that since it is too small, you don't have to save/load that often.

[pauld]

Hi,

Heck no, I need that save/load option! I can't sit at a game for 6 or more hours at a stretch, I have things to do!

But I don't think that's what they meant, I think they were just saying that since it is too small, you don't have to save/load that often.If they use the Roguelike game model of saving/loading you'll be able to save the game but it'll be removed each time you load. That way anything that happens is done for good and can't be reversed by going back to an earlier save game.

That model gives more meaning to each and every action you take as if Farmer Bob dies he's gone for good. With the randomness and short game play this won't be an issue, in fact it'll add to how special each game is!

Here's my suggestion - check out King of Dragon Pass (http://www.a-sharp.com/kodp/) for inspiration. It's very similar in concept to Hinterlands and a great game with excellent replayability.

One of the many aspects to take from it would be the random events and encounters that have unforeseeable ramifications later on in the game.

Looking forward to living & adventuring in the Hinterlands!

Cheers,
Paul

[Pat D.]

Will there be any campaign and/or a series of interconnected towns/maps? (Kind of like the CotN empire map I guess is what I'm thinking...)

pat!

[EmperorJay]

As others have said it's hard to make suggestions for a game one knows so little about, but here goes for at least two questions I've got!

Past RPGs I've played/am playing did have a certain focus of the main character's look. Usually incredible item statistics and awesome looks went hand in hand. I already understand Hinterland will not feature any "+100 strength and kill all monsters with a huge fireball in one hit" items, but I would assume there'll be statistics attached to the various items and the main and side characters will be able to increase their stats.

First question, do items carry stats with them or does one only increase stats through experience/talents/etc.?

Second question, I'm aware of the fact that the game will not feature cutting edge graphics and that's fine by me but still looking at an awesomely clothed character is more fun than looking at a farmer wearing rags. The awesome looks are sort of like a "visual reward" going hand in hand with "stats rewards" and "monetary rewards" etc. Are there any "visual rewards" in Hinterland or will achieving things and killing monsters mainly result in a larger, more efficient town?

[Jodet]

This is where most games screw the pooch. Games should have FIVE difficulty levles. 1=easy, 3=medium, 5=hard, etc.

There should only be one or two items that get adjusted on those levels. Like for Caesar IV difficulty 1 = 'Caesar asks for 20 lumber', difficulty 2 = 'Caesar asks for 40 lumber', etc. Level 1, 1/2 barbarian army attacks, level 2, 1 army attacks, etc. That's it. Only two things get adjusted.

The trick is to keep it simple. And no cheating. Do not make difficulty levels where the enemy starts out with 1000 more resource than you, can see the whole map, or similar esoteric things just to 'make it harder'.

Seriously, a game with a well-implemented set of difficulty levels is a rare and wondrous thing.

1. thru 5. And keep it simple.

[aramann]

I like the idea of some sort of diplomacy model. The one in Emperor worked brilliantly. Not suggesting it be lifted wholesale, but something along those lines would greatly enhance the depth of the game.

I'm also wondering whether this game will be suitable for use by CBC for running contests. Not having a save/load function (if I understand correctly) might make it difficult.

I'd love to see ANYTHING new that can be added to CBC! ;):D

[sakasiru]

This is where most games screw the pooch. Games should have FIVE difficulty levles. 1=easy, 3=medium, 5=hard, etc.



And by easy, please make it easy, not just "less hard than crazy". I always play on idiot modus :o

[JuliaSet]

I sure hope it has a save/load function, or I might not have 6 hours to sit and play. (at least not every night)

[Canticus]

I was wondering if this is just for Windows or being independent might allow you guys more freedom as what OS's you can program the game to work with. I'm thinking of another independent company, Basilisk Games that I recently purchased an RPG from. They had Windows, Mac, and Linux versions. Will TM be able to do this? I'd love a Mac version. Bootcamp is kinda touchy as to what games work well and which don't.

[Bortcow]

I'd love to see 3 things.

1. Personal hero. Some way to totally customize one hero to be kind of an avatar on your behalf. Maybe a have some equipment only appear once in a game.

2. Item swapping between characters. Though this I'm sure is likely.

3. Hoarding. Lemme have a huge pile of riches in my town like in stronghold, dungeon keeper etc. I love accumulating wealth and seeing it tangibly in the game. I don't care what I'm hoarding as long as i get to have a huge pile of it: gold, lumber, food, whatever.

[tyjenks]

Short of having persitent items or characters that you can carry over and use during a subsequent game (seems like that may be difficult, but what do I know), howzabout a high score table that shows most X killed, most gold collected, most princesses saved from evil, lecherous barons. Then, you can clickety-click a submit button which uploads them to Tilted Mill where we can all see how much better I am at Hinteralnds in contrast to the rest of you people.

[dreamsoftwilight]

I would like have a persistent character...but the way the game is setup (or seems to be), that could be a problem, or not possible.

[Azeem]

If there's no saving and loading, I'm presuming that the system is going to be similiar to "Virtual Villagers."

[tyjenks]

If there's no saving and loading, I'm presuming that the system is going to be similiar to "Virtual Villagers."

I think the no save/load thing has just been inferred due to reading between the lines of the vague description of the gameplay announced and the fact that it is likened to Rogue-likes. I cannot imagine there being absolutely no save feature.

[Pat D.]

If there's no saving and loading, I'm presuming that the system is going to be similiar to "Virtual Villagers."

Whoa...this would be a disaster....did someone from TM confirm this? This i do NOT like the sound of...:eek:

Or was this someone just making a guess I hope?

pat!

[tobing]

If there's no saving and loading...
On the site, it says

"To support this we ensure you can’t exploit load and saving, the games are fairly short (under 6 hours) but very, very random in terms of replayabilty."

It does not say that there's no save/load, only you can't use repeated loads to select much different random outcomes of your current games. Just to illustrate, in Sacred you can save before opening a chest and if you don't like what you find in there, you just load the save and open again, until you find something you like. To overcome this, you would just choose the contents of each chest much earlier, so loading the same savegame will always give the same content of a chest (sticking to that example). Or you do some programming magic with random number generators, which results in the same behaviour.

[Meghan]

If we don't have persistant characters, it'd still be fun to have 'heritage' items or 'heirlooms' - one item or advantage that can be passed on to the character in the next character.

Maybe allow passing on one thingie at first, and then if the player wins 12 games, they can pass on two thingies, and then at 24 games, they get three thingies and so on. Not with the number 12 necessarily but you get the idea.

Maybe a village recruit, rather than an item? Just a little something so it feels like each village is part of the larger growth.

Also, ideally, I'd like to see random quests with multiple endings (kill the bandits or hire the bandits?). Don't know if that's possible.

[Reed]

Whoa...this would be a disaster....did someone from TM confirm this? This i do NOT like the sound of...:eek:
No, I think someone was just making assumptions - of course there is save/loading. But it's going to function differently from our past games, which is what the dev diary is referring to.

[Pat D.]

oh thank goodness! I like the idea of NOT abusing it, too!

thanks reed!

later,
pat!

[EmperorJay]

One could argue that it's an unnecessary addition. The people who don't abuse save/load won't notice any developer implemented features that prevent abusing save/load. People who do abuse save/load will either be unhappy without the option to do so or convert to the non-abusers. In the end, some people might be turned off by such a feature, while no one would mind keeping it as it is.

Yes, I have been abusing save/load in games. 80-90% of the time I don't, but in some cases I just don't want to lose a certain battle or something and prefer to re-load the game and try again. Yes, I enjoy games less if I can't abuse this system. A game should first of all entertain me, I should not be hindered by developer imposed limitations.

Another major gripe, that falls into the same save/load-issues category, I have with some games is when killed mobs respawn upon loading a game. Titan Quest is a striking example of this. I played it for a second time a few weeks ago and whenever you load a game the entire world is repopulated. The two major negatives about this is that first of all it allows for the save/load abuse as a player can get a large amount of experience without actually progressing through the game by clearing the same area over and over. I did not need this, but then I wasn't playing at the highest difficulty yet. The second issue is that certain areas were too large for me to be cleared in one medium-time (1-2 hours) play session and because of the respawning after saving, I had to play for multiple hours (3-4) to clear some areas and dungeons, whereas I prefered to play less hours in one session.

[Laclongquan]

King of Dragon Pass has quite a few points like what you want to do in Hinterland. I would like to point out a few things and my personal grips with that.

1. Limited number of characters

KODP has a limited number of char that can be selected as councilors, or be sent around exploring/questing.And each char got his/her own unique points that we can recognise or desire. Very admirable in this matter

Limiting factor: a KODP tribe can be expanded to huge size (oh yes, I can do it) but the pool of chars is the same size which is very silly. A small tribe got 12 notable char but why when that tribe expand to 10 times its old size the pool is still just allowed only 12. SO: please allow that when the village is increased in size (double or triple the villagers) we can get more chars in the pool.

2. The direction of gameplay:

Can you play evil villagers? Can you play warmongering? If we can please introduce something related to gameplay: if you play evil good villagers may feel discontended or leave and evil people migrate to your village. If you play warmongering the original villagers may feel pissed off because of high casualties in battles but you can add more people from captured villagers or adventurers.

Gameplay is open or closed? that is the question. KODP is quite an open game despite what oldtimers or gamemakers intend. I could play an warmonger tribe to acquire more lands, get more peeps and become bigger, even though they repeatedly tell me playing like that is cheating or didnt follow the game/novel. As if I care. And it's annoying when people dictate what direction I may play without limiting my game strategies.

3. Length of each game:

You intend a 6 hour sessions but I guess we can prolong it to 10 or 20. No prob there. BUT You must build in game the capacity to adapt to our lengthened sessions.

For example: KODP gamemakers didnt count on the abilities of gamers to outplay the game. We can build the tribe into enormous size with quite a few effects on gameplay: when you exploring with escort of 50 thanes off course it's safer than escort of 5,. right? And attacking with huge army ensure victory (though itmay cost dearly if you apply wrong tactics). etc and etc. The gamemakers dont like it. They feel we must play according to the novel in that the tribe is small and dividable every 5 years. But what happen if we dont follow that way? Not nearly punishments enough. They dont account for it adequately.

If they dont want us to play big tribe why didnt they add some more limiting factors into game engine ( plague strike big tribe more often and stuffs...)?

So, its' the same deal with you guys. If you want to limit the way we play, design the game accordingly, please. And dont complain if we can outplay your design.