KoA: Reckoning - Answers from the Team

Despite the holiday time of the year, there's a new batch of Answers from the Reckoning Team on the official forums. A bit on the bounty system:

Q: How is the bounty system handled? Let's say I steal some cheese, and I resist arrest and return after a few in-game days, will the guards of had completely forgotten or would they open a dialogue with me or attack on site? Does the severity of the crime affect this? – By Artificer

A: When you commit any crime, if you get out of town without going to jail and manage to avoid anyone associated with that group for a few in-game days, then when you return the guards will no longer be actively looking for you. They won’t have entirely forgotten though, you will still have the same bounty – meaning that if you commit a second crime and are caught for it, you’ll have to answer for both the first crime and the second. So depending on what crimes you’ve committed that could really add up! (Stealing a piece of cheese would result in a much lower bounty than murdering an innkeeper.)

Keep in mind that crime is tracked by what we call "factions." Sometimes this may be a story-based faction (like the Warsworn or House of Ballads), but other times it can be simply the people of a particular village. This means that if you commit crime against people of a world-wide faction, you'd best watch out where you go next! – By Andrew "Andre" Frederiksen, Producer

More information.

I'm shocked that it might actually be possible for a player to kill an innkeeper.

Hmm, it could be interesting… But the problem is: after I kill him, will there be another bartender that replaces the murdered one, as it has happened nothing at all?

Sounds pretty good, though such things tend to break apart very easily.

"steal some cheese"?! It would be great if they actually made the punishment (or NPC reaction!) fit the crime… Stealing cheese should not turn the entire town against you. Something that …erm…'cheeses' me off… about ES games for example is the instant hyper-response if you 'steal' even a wooden spoon. Seriously, that's just wrong. And in some cases you click on the damn wooden spoon by mistake while shopping and the shopkeeper goes ballistic and that's that. What they should do is have a cooling down period e.g. "Hey, put that back!" < n sec> "I'm warning you! I'll call the guards…"… < n sec> "You asked for it!" *smack* AND if it is a really minmor item, it should be very, very low consequence theft. A wooden spoon should not cause you to be threatened with jail time….

Originally Posted by booboo
"steal some cheese"?! It would be great if they actually made the punishment (or NPC reaction!) fit the crime… Stealing cheese should not turn the entire town against you. Something that …erm…'cheeses' me off… about ES games for example is the instant hyper-response if you 'steal' even a wooden spoon. Seriously, that's just wrong. And in some cases you click on the damn wooden spoon by mistake while shopping and the shopkeeper goes ballistic and that's that. What they should do is have a cooling down period e.g. "Hey, put that back!" < n sec> "I'm warning you! I'll call the guards…"… < n sec> "You asked for it!" *smack* AND if it is a really minmor item, it should be very, very low consequence theft. A wooden spoon should not cause you to be threatened with jail time….

Actually, in Skyrim there's something like that, but unfortunately just for sneaking inside houses…
How much I want to see an RPG where you could just rob everything, "regular" merchants would remember your face if they spot you and trying to catch you or report to the guards, and you can only rely on black market for selling your "hot stuff"; plus, I'd like to see something like Gothic where if you sheathe your weapon or try to sneak guards would adivce you to stop.

Originally Posted by Ball_Breaker
Hmm, it could be interesting… But the problem is: after I kill him, will there be another bartender that replaces the murdered one, as it has happened nothing at all?

I expect some people to like playing this game as "evul" - killing EVERYTHING and leaving behind an empty world … Abnd THEN they feel mighty … Oops, this suddenly reminds me of the London riots and the connected "shoplifting" from the last year …

It's funny, when i just read about the game, i get excited for it. It sounds great. But, then i see the combat videos and the art style, and i get less excited about it. I have no idea what to expect.

Originally Posted by Ball_Breaker
Actually, in Skyrim there's something like that, but unfortunately just for sneaking inside houses…
How much I want to see an RPG where you could just rob everything, "regular" merchants would remember your face if they spot you and trying to catch you or report to the guards, and you can only rely on black market for selling your "hot stuff"; plus, I'd like to see something like Gothic where if you sheathe your weapon or try to sneak guards would adivce you to stop.

I've taken things in Skyrim and the person told me to drop it and I did and didn't get a bounty or anything. You also haven't been able to sell your stolen stuff to anyone but a fence since Oblivion.