Saturday, October 20, 2012

Update on demand

OK, I think I have a fever; I had a bad day with my totally pissed off brother, so I opened my email to whine to someone, when I discovered the messages about new (and first) comments on my blog.

And new votes about the romances? I wanted to delete the poll because potential players don't know the characters yet, but this is interesting. Syn got few votes, as expected at this point. He's a good guy after all. Too mainstream. I'm glad for the demonspawn, though. You people are in for some. Umm... I mean, some sex animations with goat-legs. Nothing else, I promise. He's not evil at all. ^.^

I was on a break from my module and just started playing Fallout New Vegas again. (I'm still confused. The woman-hating Legion sucks, but so does the NCR. And I'm too much of a goon to be the boss.)

This is the latest thing I've worked on (still unfinished), connecting the quests in Chapter 2, which are pretty much all works in progress. This is where you're supposed to begin the Cult of Ravage questline.

Your demonspawn sweetheart/stalker giving you uncalled for advice.

Looking at my last post, I just realized that I never mentioned something I did in between. Well, I mentioned that I was about to do it. I beautified the forest in Chapter 2 and made the amulet talk and an NPC's appearance work. It was one of my "unpleasant tasks". Not the forest, though - the huge talk.

Now answering readers' questions... At least some of them.

Since I am a one-woman-team, I can't develop a world history to match that of Faerun, so I'm not trying to. You will discover bits of information about everything within the module. If your character has enough Lore, she will "spoil" some little things for you by getting a knowledgeable dialog response. It's difficult to give all the needed information without dumping it on the player's head, especially the info on the demons and demonspawn, but the protagonist's ignorance is, in a way, a plot point. I hope this becomes clear later in the module (by that  I mean part 2 or 3).

Put in simple words, you have these types of creatures of importance:

Higher Demons - they live only in Inferno, except when somehow lured to the human world through a portal. Witches sometimes lure them out for mating, but this is rare, as any woman carrying a demon child is doomed to death upon its birth. When humans, dogs or some other animals eat a significant amount of (higher) demon meat, a handful or more, they become demonhearts. Higher Demons can't survive long in the Outside World, except in deep caves and ruins. They have super regenerative powers (that work best in Inferno) and are usually incredibly tough.

Lower Demons - mostly useless pests. They look like plants, mushrooms, insects... Not humanoid.

The Demonspawn - half humans, half higher demons. They are somewhat of a mystery - especially to the player character - but they are pretty much indestructible and eternal. They can be enslaved, tortured and physically and emotionally brainwashed for centuries, though. Some of them are imprisoned by humans, most of them by other demonspawn (because they are emotionally messed up by default). They also have a sort of a mother fixation. Eating a demonspawn is completely useless to a human. :)

Demonhearts - humans or animals who have eaten enough higher demon meat or another demonheart's heart. The more meat or hearts, the more powerful the demonheart person (stronger regeneration + strength, dexterity or constitution bonus). Demonhearts can die of old age (and become undead in some cases, but they can be destroyed) or when enough of their body is destroyed (primarily, the heart and head). Wounds that don't regenerate are rare, but they can happen. Fire and acid usually leave permanent effects, but that's of no consequence in the gameplay for now. To defeat a demonheart in game, you will just need to kill him or her and any other enemies to get to the heart (same goes for you, it's game over if your team is defeated when fighting an enemy who knows how to kill you).

As for religion, there is an official church, at least in the kingdom of Shermyr. It was probably inspired by GRRM's gods, but he definitely wasn't the first to invent that kind... They are named Mother, Time and Hunter, and there's the Fallen Goddess, Virgo. And a demon orgy. More about it in the module's Bible.

Then there are different cults. Some of them believe in the same Holy Book, but interpret it slightly differently (the details of the demon orgy seems to be where they all disagree, though I'm not sure if this information will be available in part 1 or later).

The playable classes are still being revised (by me). I'm afraid that I messed up the game balance, or that something won't work as intended, but the idea for now is:
  • Fighter pretty much stays the same.
  • Bard loses spellcasting, but gains more Rogue abilities to be more useful.*
  • Rogue gains some Assassin abilities.
  • Not sure what I'm going to do about Ranger or Barbarian or whether they will be allowed (I already did something, but perhaps Ranger isn't as awesome as Rogue now).
  • All classes get Persuade, Bluff and Intimidate as class skills.
* I may yet allow spellcasting. The player character is friends with a witch, and that is a plot point. But the player is not supposed to know everything that an average witch's apprentice would know about the world, which is also a plot point. With that made clear, there's no reason to forbid spellcasting, but it might not be very useful to sacrifice fighting skills for it, as the intended max level for the entire story is very low. (Maybe, but unlikely, up to 5 in part 1 and maybe, hardly, if you kill everyone, 15 in the end.)

7 comments:

  1. This isn't reducing my excitement at all.
    You've failed in making me lose interest.

    I wish I could give criticism, but everything you've described so far sounds fantastic, and I can't glean how it's been implemented from screenshots alone. I suspect that's why Rayne likes previews.

    Anyway, I appreciate your work.
    Keep it up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So far I love what I have read and can't wait to try it out, well I am going to have to, but I'll just have to stick to this site like glue so I can read up on it lol :)

    So far the lore and what little we learned of the NPC's sounds very interesting, Syn we don't know so much about yet and doesn't pull so much at the "bad" NPC's but am looking forward to learning more about him, and just reading a little about Demonspawn has me sold on him, I admit I gave him my vote lol

    Keep up the great work :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. If possible, I will work to improve the first module after getting criticism. Until then, I will do my best to make it logical and problem-free.

    Having beta testers and constructive criticism is awesome. I will think about pre-releasing something, but people will have to have in mind that it's only a small part and the story won't be entirely established.

    Goat-legs is supposed to be pretty cool, though opinions on any character might change for the better or worse after getting to know them. There will be a way for each of the companions to end really badly (sooner or later). >:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't think I've ever played a module or anything where demons featured a prominent role, and you've clearly put a lot of thought into the story. I must say, I am looking forward to this. I'm pretty pessimistic, so I try not to get too excited unless this game doesn't live up to the hype, or that game doesn't get released etc... but regardless, still getting excited. :)

    Changing the classes around is interesting. Interesting bad or interesting good, you ask? Neither. As you say, there are game balance concerns, and from Neverwinter Nights to the expansion packs to custom modules to NWN2, I've rolled with similar versions of the same core build (Rogue/Shadow Dancer), so I just slightly worry that it'll upset my mojo. Still, stepping outside ones comfort zone can be good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should have worked quietly. I don't like people having too high expectations of this, either, not because I think my work is bad, but because I'm sure that I simply can't please everyone. It could have been just: release the module when it's done, no one "waited" for it, no one had wrong (or any) expectations. I'd love to make another Baldur's Gate 2 or ADWR, but that's hardly possible, so I just go with what's more important to me.

      Delete
    2. *shrug* I don't have high expectations, as I tried to explain. Nothing bad meant by it, just a defense mechanism against disapointment. I certainly think you can sell a module well, based on what I've seen on the blog, but I don't equate a nice blog with the quality of the final product. Hope that's not offensive, but I just don't want you to feel like you have to stress just because me, some random dude on the internet, would like to give your module a go.

      And while there will certainly be some pressure now, the community isn't a bad one. If you were to announce tomorrow that you couldn't finish the modules, for whatever reason, you'd get nothing worse than people expressing their understanding, albeit coupled with some disappointment. Just try to be encouraged by the interest in your work without allowing it to really pile on the pressure, if you can. If not... well, as I said, at least the community isn't a bad one! :p

      Delete
    3. I understand. I tend to look at some things that way (like my exam results). Then my mother accuses me of "attracting bad things with negative thinking". Apparently, I'm supposed to be a jumpy happy idiot to attract good things. :P

      Delete