Antharion - Indie, TB, party-based Kickstarter

Thank you for the answers!

Currently you can rest in safe areas (though your rest can potentially be interrupted by monsters etc.). I've been toying with the idea of having to use inns for resting but haven't made the decision to switch just yet. Resting won't require consumable, no. A night's rest will heal you fully (the actual resting interface works similarly to the elder scrolls resting.

OK, that sounds good. Hopefully you'll make it so, that even if you can rest anywhere safe without a "cost in food", you cannot just spam it and take a quick rest after every battle, even in a corridor, behind a corner from the next enemies (like it was in e.g. NWN2 where "resting" was basically a quick, 10 second breather).

Amor essentially mitigates incoming physical damage (so yeah, point protection). Anyone can use armor but there will be penalties for casting spells and (possibly) for using bows.

Excellent, sounds really good! This is what I really prefer, I don't much care for the D&D armor system.

Let me stress that our current skills are not set in stone and it's very likely that some will be added/modified. I personally love non-combat skill, it's just that we only wanted to demo what was fully functional on KS. A persuasion or persuasion/mercantile skill would be cool and could definitely be used to extend dialog branching (something I'm all for personally). We'll also probably add alchemy and possibly even a crafting system.

Ah, good to know there is still hope for a non-combat skill or two. Also, alchemy would be quite nice. However, be careful that you don't end up adding in so much new stuff/features, that you'll run the risk of adding too much stuff, making the game take considerably longer to finish. Feature creep is a serious problem, especially on first games. Better to complete a game with most of the features you wanted to have, than to end up running out of steam and money with all the features you wanted.

A quick follow-up question (hey, you said you were happy to answer them ;) ). About the skill system and advancement. I take it you're using a system, where on every level up the character receives a given amount of Skill Points (or whatever you want to call 'em) with which to improve his/her attributes and abilities. Will you scale the improvement costs with ability level, that is, low levels cost less than high levels, or will the costs be static (e.g. 1 point per level, any level)? The former will generally make characters who either specialize on few skills or become pretty low proficiency generalists, the latter will generally make every character a generalist with high levels of proficiency on several skills (depending on the amount of points you receive, naturally). To put it in another way, and less theoretical (kinda), will you make the advancement system so that a single character cannot be good at (nearly) everything and so encourage character specialization? SOme newer CRPGs essentially allow you to become good at everything, which I don't that much like.

And one more for the road. What sort of stance will you take on loot and magic items? Will you shover the characters with ample loot and numerous magic items (as in e.g. Diablo and many other ARPGs) or will loot be more, eh, sensible and magic items rare? I highly prefer the latter "more sensible" option, BTW. I like the loot to be meaningful and magic items to be a big deal not vendor trash.
 
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I actually find this pretty interesting. I think the monsters look fantastic. Though definitely could use a few head shrinks, as already mentioned, and the party characters do seem a tad cartoony. Still, I'll gladly back this.

Not sure how many of you have been to the updates page, but you can find them there (update 3) and toward the bottom of their homepage.
 
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Feature creep is a serious problem, luckily though my team has managed so far to entirely avoid it. I'd much rather deliver a an imperfect game than not deliver a perfect one.

Right now we're using scaled improvements. Getting good at everything breaks the game and that's not what we want.

Loot and special items will be used sparingly, I assure you. Antharion will be no Diablo in that way.
 
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I especially like this part (being a huge Ultima7 fan).

"It's important to us that Antharion feels alive. NPCs don't just mindlessly sit there all day waiting like cardboard cutouts for you to enter their shops, they have lives of their own: going to their jobs during the day and then home at night. Steal in front of someone and you may be in for a fight, or they may just flee to find the nearest guard depending on their individual temperament. Get reported for committing a crime and you'll have a bounty on your head - if a guard spots you he'll throw you in the nearest prison (probably taking a bit of your coin for himself)."

Extremely rare to see this in games, hope you get that part implemented. Would love to see weather cycles too, well at least rain. Imo it's something that also adds a lot to the immersion :)
 
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I especially like this part (being a huge Ultima7 fan).

"It's important to us that Antharion feels alive. NPCs don't just mindlessly sit there all day waiting like cardboard cutouts for you to enter their shops, they have lives of their own: going to their jobs during the day and then home at night. Steal in front of someone and you may be in for a fight, or they may just flee to find the nearest guard depending on their individual temperament. Get reported for committing a crime and you'll have a bounty on your head - if a guard spots you he'll throw you in the nearest prison (probably taking a bit of your coin for himself)."

Extremely rare to see this in games, hope you get that part implemented. Would love to see weather cycles too, well at least rain. Imo it's something that also adds a lot to the immersion :)

Good news. All of the NPC AI mentioned above already works. Weather cycles work too: rain, snow, and fog so far. May add dust for the desert areas but not sure.
 
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Interesting!

I have to say, I was turned off by the character art at first but everything else seems neat.

I'll be watching this!
 
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Good news. All of the NPC AI mentioned above already works. Weather cycles work too: rain, snow, and fog so far. May add dust for the desert areas but not sure.

Oh, even fog, that's pretty awesome indeed. Make sure you promote this on your KS page, because i'm absolutely not alone thinking this is very important for a more various mood in RPG's.

Best of luck to you.

Edit: ah, i see you actually do write it has weather cycles, maybe you added it now or i missed it before :)
 
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Hmm they have reached 6000 but s till a long ways off for getting funded. Anyone have any ideas I could pass on to get more noticed? To bad brother none couldn't do a thing for game banshee;)
 
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