Indie RPG Driftmoon: Give us your input, please!

The camera angle is fine.

The relatively light atmosphere is refreshing compared to most CRPGs these days. I've just started the demo so I'll wait to say anything else, but I like what I've seen so far.
 
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I'm waiting for 30-50 hours of content before I look at it. I like to invest in my crpgs and I always feel cheated with short games. However, the camera angle doesn't bother me at all :D
 
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"I don't see what the fuss is about camera angles, play it for like 2 minutes and you'll adjust. -Carn"
Thanks Carn!

I enjoyed the demo a lot, but the thing that I felt was most unpolished was the character advancement, particularly the skill tree. I'd love to know if you have anything planned for it…

Thanks for the feedback and the detailed ideas, Skittles! We are planning to do some refinement to the skill tree, so your comments arrived at a pretty good time. We haven't decided yet exactly how we'll change the current skill tree (we want to give it a little thought first), so it's actually quite useful to hear our players' impressions and ideas on it.

Basically, I'm pretty sure we're not gonna go down the road of adding a hundred new skills (or even 47, for that matter ;)), but some additions are already planned. We also want to keep the skill tree quite simple, and easily approachable, so that you don't necessarily have to be an amazingly accomplished RPG veteran to be able to play the game. I've got nothing against RPG veterans, obviously, but everyone's got to start somewhere to become one, right? :)

Onto some questions:
1) You already gave a lot of good food for thought, Skittles, but how about anyone else? Do you have ideas about refining the skill tree currently used in Driftmoon (alpha 8 to 8.3)?

2) Might any of you happen to have any great ideas for improving the poison resistance skill, so that it's better balanced with the others? I have to point out, though, that some other areas after the demo will actually give you more use for the skill.

"It feels like the prerequisite skills aren't entirely logical"
I agree. It should please you to hear were already working on that. :)

…"force you to take a pretty generalist, jack of all trades approach…"
After our current plans to refine the skill tree, this should become a much smaller issue. But keep in mind, as the game progresses, you'll get to meet more enemy types, and you'll benefit from a wide range of skills to efficiently cope with them, and their different tactiques. Also, the vanilla Driftmoon is not meant to be a heavily combat oriented game - but there'll most probably be some mods that put more emphasis on combat (or at least add more battles into the game).

"…could you make it so that we can hoard skill points?"
That might be a pretty good idea we hadn't thought of so far. Thanks!

Looking forward to the game's eventual full release!
Thanks! Me too, would you believe it. :) Although, in reality, it'll probably also be a bit difficult to let go of our third child (yes, I'm still talking about Driftmoon) when it's done.

…The relatively light atmosphere is refreshing compared to most CRPGs these days…
Nice to hear that, Elisstar! That's one of the things we're aiming for.

I'm waiting for 30-50 hours of content before I look at it. I like to invest in my crpgs and I always feel cheated with short games. However, the camera angle doesn't bother me at all :D
I'm almost a hundred percent sure, that if you play our mods, you'll eventually get that 30 to 50 hours of yours, possibly even much more. :p They are very easily playable through the game, only a click away!
 
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Yep, I figure it'll get there eventually. I'm in no hurry :)
 
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I played the demo and I quite enjoyed it. Some things I liked were, the liveliness of the followers, who will comment on things and converse with you, instead of just being quite and boring like in many other RPG's. I found the combat fun as well, and I also like how the mods are integrated.
 
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I played the demo and I quite enjoyed it…

That's nice to hear, thanks for letting us know! :)

BTW, we just upgraded to Alpha 8.34, which adds some pretty convenient features, like the text size slider, volume control, and the possibility for a more zoomed-out view (the list goes on and on again, if you want to check the rest).

As of yet, we haven't really gotten onto the subject of upgrading our skill tree. That means my questions from above are still valid. I'll rephrase them here:

1) Do you have ideas about refining the skill tree currently used in Driftmoon (alpha 8 to 8.4)?

2) Any specific ideas for fine-tuning a certain skill, like the poison resistance skill? (I have to point out, though, that some other areas after the demo will actually give you more use for the skill.)

3) You are also welcome to share possible ideas for new skills to add in the tree, (though we already have a fair share of those in our back pocket). We're planning to expand the current skill tree a bit.
 
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Changelog said:
You are no longer forced to spend your skill and talent points in the level up screen.

You can zoom the view out much more now.

Caps Lock key now toggles the permanent item highlighting. If you're the person who previously held down CTRL constantly, you now have one more finger!

Whirlwind is now a requirement for Flurry.

brofist.png


Some good tweaks, there. Thanks for the update.
 
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You should totally add a fast forward button for those who want to enjoy the story but don't like playing video games.
 
brofist.png

Some good tweaks, there. Thanks for the update.
You're welcome. :)

You should totally add a fast forward button for those who want to enjoy the story but don't like playing video games.
I take it you enjoyed the story, then? Good. :) If you want to focus on just the story (and not worry about the battles, etc.), I suggest you play Driftmoon on the easiest difficulty setting, "adventurer". That should get you pretty close to playing an adventure game (with RPG-elements), and doing it with ease!
 
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I take it you enjoyed the story, then? Good. :) If you want to focus on just the story (and not worry about the battles, etc.), I suggest you play Driftmoon on the easiest difficulty setting, "adventurer". That should get you pretty close to playing an adventure game (with RPG-elements), and doing it with ease!

Skipping the fight scenes would make the game so much shorter, but to me, that's the biggest perk. If you're a woman, especially a mother, with dinner to prepare, kids' homework to help with, and a lot of other demands on your time, you don't need a game to be 100 hours long to hold your interest — especially if those 100 hours are primarily doing things you don't enjoy. A fast forward button would give all players — not just women — the same options that we have with books or DVDs — to skim past the parts we don't like and savor the ones we do.
 
The easy mode in Driftmoon is of course intended for people who don't find the combat easy enough, there could be a million reasons for that - maybe you don't have working hands and need to control your mouse with your mouth, or maybe you play roleplaying games mainly for the adventure. But it doesn't make the game considerably faster to play though. I still recommend the normal setting for 70% of players out there, and the harder settings if you're an RPG veteran.

Fast forward button, I love that idea! But I guarantee if Driftmoon had such a button, you wouldn't need to use it, because we've crammed the game full of the good stuff that you really don't want to miss. But I'd love to see the fast forward button in some of the especially boring flying sims where you have to wait an hour in real time before you need to touch the controls again. :)

I almost forgot - we do have something of the like: quick travel. If you've already explored an area, you don't have to walk through it again. You can just use the quick travel locations marked on the minimap.

Actually I recall some version of Heroes of Might and Magic had a button to fast forward the combat scenes. I think that was a bit of a letdown, they should just have made the fights more interesting. At least that's what we've done, and I do believe we've succeeded quite well. As your character progresses, the combat sequences can get pretty strategic. If you haven't done so yet, you might want to try our long, free demo. ;)
 
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The easy mode in Driftmoon is of course intended for people who don't find the combat easy enough, there could be a million reasons for that - maybe you don't have working hands and need to control your mouse with your mouth, or maybe you play roleplaying games mainly for the adventure.

This is probably a terrible thing to admit, but playing games has definitely been the single most difficult thing for me. I'm really terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly — I have awful hand-eye coordination, I don't like tactics, I don't like fighting, I don't like keeping track of inventory, and I can't read a game map to save my life.
 
Pay no attention to kasp, he/she is just being a jackass. He's just parroting the story about a female writer from Bioware that said she doesn't like fighting in games. She said- "I don't like fighting, I don't like keeping track of inventory, and I can't read a game map to save my life." The story has created quite a bit of buzz on the internet. There is a thread here on the Watch about it.

So please take this completely worthless trolls posts with a grain (ton) of salt.
 
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I wanted to say that the demo made me a customer. I really like the way this is turning out. The story, atmosphere, and characters are unique. I like dialogue in my RPGs, and this has plenty. That the game is modifiable is a bonus, because that could potentially keep it alive for years.

I know is very general feedback, but I think you're doing a great job. Also, I only have good use of one of my hands, so playing more action oriented game can be hard for me. I think it's cool that you're considering disabled people in your design.

Ville and Anne, keep up the good work!
 
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Yeah, I was going to post something, but you beat me to it, Dean. It's pretty obnoxious and idiotic to pester the nice indie devs with such BS.

On topic, I'm looking forward to playing the game when it is released. Best of luck to you two!!
 
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Just broke this out again this morning for another hour, and what's been a really enjoyable rpg continues to be a great game with the latest batch of enhancements. I paid for the full version a bit ago now and I couldn't be more pleased with what I've gotten for my money.

With regards to the skill tree -- I think Poison Resistance is a bit weak, even if it is useful. Passive resistance type stuff always feels boring to me, because there's no button to push and no real way to compare your prior weakness to your current slightly-less-weakness, so any feel of progression is missing. Active resistance bubble-type stuff (temporary immunity to effect) or cleanse effects (whether instacast or over time) seem more interesting -- they can always be balanced by long cooldowns or big mana costs.

Just thinking out loud, and really just a minor consideration for a game I'm really enjoying. Keep up the good work!
 
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Dean and Gozioso, thank you for sticking up to us. It's very nice of you, and we appreciate it! :)

Elisstar and morduun, thank you for the comments! We're always happy to hear people have had fun with Driftmoon. It's also very motivating, naturally - so it keeps us working hard. :)

"…I couldn't be more pleased with what I've gotten for my money.
With regards to the skill tree — I think Poison Resistance is a bit weak, even if it is useful…"

Thanks for the ideas! We'll certainly keep them in mind when we get to the subject of the skill tree. It's on our list of things to do, but we're still not quite there yet.

That said, any other comments and ideas for the Skill tree are still warmly welcomed!

Ps. We just released another minor update. It also includes a new character at the beginning stage of the game, so you'll be able to spot her (or rather, Belinda the wolf mother, and her petrified little pup) even if you're only playing the demo. When you start the game, just accept the automatic update when the game suggests it.

(Funny, this is one of the rare times I've been faster than Dhruin, when posting you news about our own game. That guy is just amazingly fast! ;))
 
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I wrote the last update ages ago, so it's about time for something new:

annieportrait.jpg


The screenie above features the brand new portrait for Annie. It's one of the first portraits made by our new graphics talent Johanna Sundström (She's really nice to work with, here's her portfolio). See if you can spot the other new portraits in the game! There's one that's visible already in the beginning of the demo. Another new feature in the current version is the possibility to toggle the reading speed of the ingame texts through the ingame options. The default has been increased from 100 words per minute to 125.

Based on the playtimes our players have sent us, I should also tune the playtime estimate of the current alpha up a little. The playtime varies considerably from player to player, but for most of them, it's been between about 6 and 11 hours (but there's also been some people who've spent around 20 hours on the current adventure, wow). Naturally, that doesn't include the playtime for the rest of the Driftmoon adventure, nor for any of the mods.

We've made some really cool plans for the end-plot of the game, but obviously I can't reveal too much about them… Right now we're working hard on thinking up all the conversations for Nomon Docks, the area following the monastery, which means it should be finished soon! There are a few more areas left to complete after that, but not too many now - and we're apparently picking up speed. We've also started making more detailed plans for the enhanced skill tree. AND should you want to save some money, do remember to order your own discount code by starting the demo! ;)

Oh yeah, those of you new to Driftmoon might be happy to get the link to our trailer from January. It doesn't have all the newest features, but it should give you a relatively good idea of Driftmoon anyway.

And here are the links to all the previews written about Driftmoon so far - the ones that we know of anyway:
The one by lazyassgamer is from February. Fanboydestroy and indiegamereviewer wrote theirs in March. We're very happy they've had such fun with Driftmoon. Hope you enjoy it too! :) Your feedback and ideas are warmly welcomed, as always.
 
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I already have the pc version and really like the way the game is progressing.
I was wondering if you guys are going to release an iPad version?
I think it would suit that format perfectly.
 
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I already have the pc version and really like the way the game is progressing.
I was wondering if you guys are going to release an iPad version?
I think it would suit that format perfectly.

Hi everybody!

Thanks Stubbie, nice to hear you've liked what you've played! I definitely agree with you: iPad would be a good fit for Driftmoon. If the game does well (and it has started out very nicely), and we get the chance to focus on porting full time, there's a very good possibility of us porting Driftmoon to some other platforms. We're definitely hoping we get to do that.

I wonder if you noticed that we just added another two more talents in the talent tree yesterday evening (in addition to the other four additions we made before Christmas)? ;)

We've been focusing wholeheartedly on getting everything ready for release, so I haven't updated this thread in ages. But now that (after a few months of family-related delays) the whole adventure is finally in place, and the only thing we have left before release is fixing a few bugs, I think it's about time I give you a few new screenshots. Here you go:

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driftmoontheheartofthef.jpg


driftmoongiantfootprint.jpg


driftmoonsubmarineandsa.jpg


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Driftmoon is almost there, finally - and it's fully playable from start to finish! If you try the demo (or get the whole game), please don't hesitate to send us any feedback you may have. You're naturally welcome to reply here, but you can also use our in-game feedback function, by pressing the letter "F" while playing.

As before, our long demo, powerful editor, and all mods are freely available to everyone, and accessible directly through the game. Now would also be one of your last chances to pick up the never-expiring discount code. ;) Have fun playing!
 
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