Reply To: Some questions & ideas (I guess)
Thanks, man!
Will the game have a lot of flavor content? You know extra content like nice background stories for characters, areas, special weapons, stats for diffrent things (like kills on specific characters), you know stuff like that? To me, stuff like this makes a game go from good to great. Having small tidbits of information to discover really broadens the lore of the world.
Yes! We’re big fans of all those little details that come together to give a game that extra bit of atmosphere, sense of wonder and exploration. It’s one of the reasons I personally liked both the original X-Com and Jagged Alliance 2 that much. We’ve talked about handing out short randomized backstories to every Battle Brother, but it’s still undecided for now. We’ll definately have special named weapons to find that come with a paragraph or so of backstory (similar to how it is in Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate), and we’ll keep a healthy amount of statistics (like the number of kills, battles, injuries, special foes vanquished, and such) for every Battle Brother in the history tab (that can already be seen in the demo but is empty for now). Every Battle Brother also has some character traits of his own and may earn additional ones based on what he experiences – you can read more about them here.
I’m also wondering if the game will allow you to take prisoners instead of just having to kill everyone? I understand that you will have to kill undeads and other foul creatures like that, but from what I understand you will also be able to fight other humans. So, will you be able to take some of the alive? Maybe convert them to your side, or maybe if you are evil enough torture them to reveal special locations? Jagged Alliance 2 had this great thing – actually you couldn’t take prisoners yourself, but if a battle went sour some times the enemy would offer you the option to surrender, and if you took that option your men was imprisoned. The coolest thing about this was that you could rescue them later on. The world had a actual prison that you could raid and from a gameplay perspective this was really awesome. Because instead of you loosing all your men in that particular battle that went to hell, you would be given a chance to see them all again if you could survive the challenge of rescuing them. Idea and question combined into one I guess
Good question. I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer yet. We’re still in the process of designing the strategy/worldmap part of the game as we implement it, and we’ll see where it takes us. I really like the idea of being able to rescue your captured Battle Brothers, though, assuming the enemy you’re fighting is taking any prisoners at all. It’s something we may want to consider once we’re further along with the strategy part and see if it would fit well with everything else.
3. So when I played a skeleton destroyed a shield of mine. I’m wondering, will that shield be permantly destroyed, or can I repair it later on after the battle? Personally I hope that it gets destroyed. It gives you a incentive to gather shields and other items, instead of all that loot just becomes… vendor trash. But that is just what I think, I want to hear what you have planned for this
Yeah, that skeleton destroyed the shield using the “Split Shield” skill of his axe. It’s permanently destroyed and will have to be replaced. Looking at it this way, shields are a kind of consumable. However, a shield that is merely damaged and not completely destroyed can be repaired outside of battle and won’t have to be replaced.
Last question. Will I be able to set up ambushes with archers and other ranged troops using some kind of overwatch system? Like, if I save my AP will they be able to shoot at a enemy that comes into range?
You’ll definately be able to set up ambushes – both on the worldmap and on the tactical map. The AI plays by the same rules of limited vision, line of sight and fog of war as the player (safe for perhaps a few special enemies that have an in-lore justification not to). However, we won’t have an overwatch system like in X-Com; it wouldn’t work well with the initiative-based turn system we use. You’ll have to let loose those arrows once it is actually your turn (;