RPGWatch Forums - Malevolence - Interview @ RPG Codex

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Malevolence - Interview @ RPG Codex

RPG Codex caught up with Alex Norton to talk about Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox, which you may remember from its recent Kickstarter campaign:

Quote:

You claim that MALEVOLENCE is almost entirely procedurally generated -- weapons, items, dungeons, cities, creature stats and even dialogue. Is the procedurally generated content based on the player character's level, on current quest objectives… or something else? How do you balance the game's challenge and how do you implement plot goals in a procedurally generated world? Are all quests going to be procedurally generated as well?
Yes indeed. All quests are generated by the game, and yes, they are somewhat based around the characters level. That being said, the game most certainly does not spoon-feed you. Many modern RPGs make it so that the game levels with the player. MALEVOLENCE does this, too, however it does so in a much more harsh way. At any point, no matter what level you are, you will be able to find things that are much too easy or much too difficult for you. That way, the player can choose their pace of gameplay and follow the path that is right for them.
One thing about procedural generation is that it seems to be in danger of making the game too generic, both in its looks and its gameplay. How do you introduce enough variety in it?
Well the short answer is that in an infinite game, there's always going to be eventual repetition of 3D assets, voices, textures, etc. It's just the nature of it. However, we have a large variety of biomes, environments, buildings, dungeons, etc to keep the player occupied. Think of it like the DIABLO series. They would re-use the same assets, but rearranged in a different order and it had great replayability. Most people assume that we're making an infinite game so that people can play it forever, but that's not actually the case. We're making an infinite game so that people can play it for as long or as short a time as they'd like, rather than have to have it end. There's nothing worse than reaching the end of a game that you love and wanting more!

More information.

yeah this seems like something i can sink many hours into.

what i dont get is how narrow minded those boys over at the codex seem to be.
sad bunch hating on indie devs trying to make something new inspired by the good old days.

"At any point, no matter what level you are, you will be able to find things that are much too easy or much too difficult for you. That way, the player can choose their pace of gameplay and follow the path that is right for them."

Won't this be like Oblivion, maybe even more so? Giant rats will always be a challenge and you''ll never beat guards easily no matter how high level you are. Might take the point out of character progression if so

No, with Oblivion everything leveled up with you so it didn't matter what your level was everything would be the same. What they are saying would be like if they varied that in Oblivion where you may go into an area and the giant rats will be weak or maybe way to powerful for you to beat. (I may be wrong and it is actually like they added far more content so that rather then fighting the same thing but at a different level you would fight something else that would usually be your level with a chance that you will fight something else of a lower or higher level then you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SonOfCapiz (Post 1061155532)

Quite the opposite imo. What you're describing in Oblivion is level scaling so that no matter what you do you face more or less the same challenge. What they're talking about is no level scaling but you have to explore, take risks and deal with the world as it is.

My vote goes for the second. Level scaling puts a real dent in exploration.

People from Codex hating on this game will likely drive up sales, imo. Alex's response to the hate was quite amusing =p

-Carn