Impoverished Heroes

[Mr.Jaquel]

I was excited to read that one inspiration for the game was old school D&D campaigns where you were excited to get two copper pieces to rub together. For some reason I've always enjoyed having very limited resources in RPGs and builders. It is somehow more exciting to upgrade from the pitchfork to the sword than to go from the Sword+2 to the Sword+3.

I remember drawing maps of my own hinterlands on hex paper as a kid and imagining what it would have been like to settle them. Part of that was inspired by the old D&D rules for constructing strongholds. I loved the price lists for towers and walls and buildings and would design towns, castles, countries, etc. It sounds like I wasn't alone in this.

How exciting that digital downloads have made it possible for niches like this to get filled. With Stardock, Paradox, Tilted Mill, Taleworlds, and insane geniuses like Tarn Adams, PC gaming is getting exciting again.

I hope the early stages of the game provide that feeling of excitement when your farmer, blacksmith, and carpenter get their first taste of treasure. This image certainly suggests it:

http://www.tiltedmill.com/hinterland/images/art/spoils.jpg

[Sleet]

Totally with you, I had the best times in a low treasure/magic world.
Gaining some basic swag was awesome. Ahh yes.
After some tough adventuring, you fought that monster and picked up the blade it had been just using on you still covered in YOUR blood, AND it was a magical blade - a mere +1 weapon with some dandy history - a tremendous victory!

Reading that recent article on that will be how Hinterlands is, Two thumbs Up!

[EmperorJay]

It's Hinterland :p Don't want to sound annoying, but the thing is that if you'd be telling friends and they're going to Google it, they'll find it much easier if you tell them it's "Hinterland" instead of "Hinterlands".

But indeed, the first hours into most RPGs are most interesting. Going from wearing nothing, to simple shoulder pads is much more satisfying than going from +50 defense and +100 strength shoulder armour to +55 defense and +115 strength shoulder armour.

[Sleet]

I will keep that in mind. Don't want to annoy anyone around here.

As well, I always post a link to items I tell my friends about.
;)

[soldyne]

I also agree with the low magic/treasure idea. when I run a D&D game (yes I still game well into my 30's), I like to keep my world at most a medium magic world, but, the high level magic stuff is rare and very well gaurded so if it is discovered then it is well deserved.

I really hate how most Fantasy RPG video games sell magic items in stores. that pretty much says that magic is nothing to get all excited about since you can always just run down to the corner store and pick up a loaf of bread and a dagger +1 to slice it with!

[Rambutaan]

And that's the reason I found a lot of MMOs boring - EVERYONE can easily get access to some sort of magical item and armour, so what happens is that since everyone has got access to it, you don't feel so special anymore. Items should be rarer which makes you feel you've actually got something unique once you obtain a unique item (who'd've thunk it :P).

[tyjenks]

And that's the reason I found a lot of MMOs boring - EVERYONE can easily get access to some sort of magical item and armour, so what happens is that since everyone has got access to it, you don't feel so special anymore. Items should be rarer which makes you feel you've actually got something unique once you obtain a unique item (who'd've thunk it :P).


I have always thought those first 10-15 levels in an MMORPG are the most fun. You are scraping together funds and each little upgrade means something. You have to make choices with your funds. I wish there was more of that in games. I think Depths of Peril, while still loaded with drops, does not really leave you loaded with cash. Titan Quest was the worst. You were always loaded with money.

[omicron1]

Interestingly enough, those o-so-popular early hours are also often the lowest on the difficulty curve.

In a spot of developer-consumer communication failure, devs tend to make the part where you're the most powerful into the most difficult, and often the longest, portion of the game. Maybe what a difficulty curve should look like is a hump - an easy "beginner's portion" where you learn the controls; a medium-to-hard middle portion where you're growing in strength, yet fighting for your life; and a hard-to-easy progression near the end, where you turn into a real hero and can exact some holy vengeance on your opposition. Perhaps followed by the inevitable final boss fight that's as hard as the rest of the game put together - it depends on the developers.

[Snall]

I love the early game like that...but the LATER game can be good too, it just needs to be expanded..there always has to be some goal you can't reach. Once you're an immortal warrior mage who wields controls armies and cities...you need to become a God. Etc. Now a game where I could (EVER so slowly) go from some peasant to a God would be awesome. It would of course take 20 years and 100 people to make it correctly with enough choices to make me happy...but one can dream. Who's got a couple coppers for a beer?

[tyjenks]

I would like that, too. The problem is, the folks with endless amounts of time on there hand and no need for sleep are always going to find ways to get from peasant to God in a hurry (granted that hurry could be stretched further if it is made more gradual) and so an equal amount of focus has to be placed on that end-game from the evelopers standpoint.

That is why I really like a system with multiple skills that improve through use and degrade slowly otherwise. Now, that would be a perfect game for me, but, as evidenced by the crop of games that are popular, it is not the most profitable. Probably more difficult to develop as well.

For example, I loved WoW, but there is such a focus on squeezing one last point of "X" with every piece of equipment, armor and weapon. It becomes tedious and the improvements you work so hard to get are relatively meaningless as they are so incrementally small.

I fear I may have gone off track with this post and am not exactly sure it is on topic.:rolleyes:

[dsmith]

I fear I may have gone off track with this post and am not exactly sure it is on topic.:rolleyes:

Until we get this game, I am not sure that we have a track to be on. I actually am having a great time reading all of these to see other peoples thoughts.

As to the low resource thing - I like that idea. I am not sure anyone has ever heard of Alternate Reality. It is an old game; I played it on the Atari ST. But you were basically dumped into some alternate world, broke and naked. Through various ways you could gain money, exp. etc. I loved that game, esp. the start when you were just trying to get enough money to eat before you died or buy a wool hat before you froze to death. Very simple game, but I spent hours on that stupid thing.

Another parallel was the no save game thing. Your character was loaded off a disk and the only way it was saved was when you quit. So if you died in the game, your character was gone forever. While there were ways around this, it made the game even more challenging (and heartbreaking when you bite off more than you can chew.)

I am very excited to see what this game is truly like. The excerpts I've read here and there definitely make me feel like this is a game I could get into.

[tyjenks]

As to the low resource thing - I like that idea. I am not sure anyone has ever heard of Alternate Reality. It is an old game; I played it on the Atari ST. But you were basically dumped into some alternate world, broke and naked. Through various ways you could gain money, exp. etc. I loved that game, esp. the start when you were just trying to get enough money to eat before you died or buy a wool hat before you froze to death. Very simple game, but I spent hours on that stupid thing.

Oh man. I would be all over that. I wish there were game similar to that around today.

I have been playing around with UnReal World (http://www.jmp.fi/~smaarane/urw.html), which is a roguelike (crappy graphics and once you are dead, that's it) that is overland and is mostly about building survival skills and you start with nothing. It is not as deep as I would like, but I have still had a bit of fun with it.

[Malacheye]

I remember Alternate Reality. It was sooooo buggy...I remember spending hours trying to get it to work right.

The sequel "the Dungeon" was a vast improvement. I was so dissappointed that series didnt continue.

I'm 41 yrs old now and still love the medieval/fantasy gaming genre. I hope Hinterland is a vast improvement over Medieval Conquest which could have been so much better...

Keeping money hard to get and good items hard to find is definitely the way to go.

[tyjenks]

I'm 41 yrs old now and still love the medieval/fantasy gaming genre. I hope Hinterland is a vast improvement over Medieval Conquest which could have been so much better...

Amen brother. I think Cat Daddy games just added on stuff that was cool got it working and then ran out of money. Like an overly long novel, a good editor to tighten things up a bit could have done wonders for that game. A different building for equip. upgrades for each character class?!?!?! And different buildings within that for armor and weapons?!?! And upgrades had to be purchased by clicking on each building.....ugh, wasted potential.

[King Faticus]

the closest game I ever played to what your describing was alter ego
not quite the same though o_0

[dsmith]

I remember Alternate Reality. It was sooooo buggy...I remember spending hours trying to get it to work right.

The sequel "the Dungeon" was a vast improvement. I was so dissappointed that series didnt continue.


What were you playing it on? The Atari ST version was very stable with quite good graphics (for the time). Unfortunately, they never released the Dungeon for the ST and you were stuck in the city.

That game was meant to be huge, with tons of add-ons. I remember going to the city gates, the dungeon and other areas, that would pop up and tell you to put in another disk -- but no expansions ever came out.

A few years back I was pining for that game and I found an ST emulator for linux and I was able to play it again. It was still fun its own simplistic fight for survival way. I got so into it, I even started coding a game based on it and searching for a good game engine. However, like 99% of my projects it good put to the side.

I have always hoped that someone would pick up that game and go with it. With the graphics engines of today plus the ability to mod, it would be quite easy and once the core was written, mods would be so simple to make IMO.

Here is a link that shows a screen shot and a bit more about the game:
http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/ar-c.htm

The screen shot is from an 8-bit Atari (probably 800). The ST graphics were much better actually.

[Malacheye]

Hmmm,

I think it was Alternate Reality for the Commodore 64...everytime there was an encounter, the game would flash about 16 different colors, load something from the disk and often times crash.

Sometimes when it was reloaded, I remember a name change to "Mondo Awesome" where your stats were increased and you felt you could fight anything..

Too bad you had no food or (I remember learning what 'Pemmican' was for the first time) or weapons (fighting a merchant which would turn your alignment evil just for the chance of getting a long dagger) or money (You were always poor, which was great), so even if you did get the next good encounter you wanted and it didnt crash, you would eventually starve or bleed to death.

I wish there was a way to play this game on my 'puter now, but Vista would probably screw it up anyhow.