RPGWatch Feature: Eschalon - Book II Interview
 

We were lucky enough to grab Thomas Riegsecker from Basilisk Games for the first interview on Eschalon: Book II. Here's a sample:
Read it all here.
More information.

Sounds good all round.

Very true and one of the more interesting aspects of Eschalon especially in contrast to some recent RPGs where the difference in character builds is often merely cosmetic.

Yeah! Book II is back on my "must buy" list. I'm not denigrating Basilisk Games design ability but I can't recall a single game where food 'n' water requirements was a fun feature.

I didn't really like the idea of making several balance-changing options available for the player, like turning food requirements off or choice between reload abuse or some option. Being an indie means being limited in manpower for testing and balancing, and adding each choice like this might increase the effort required up to double. This cheap way of pleasing every part of the crowd is not really that cheap after all.

Lots of information. This really looks like that rarity, a developer with a clear game vision but the ability to listen to the players. To me it just makes sense to reasonably accommodate different expectations over controversial options like food and water, especially when the game is designed with several difficulty tiers to begin with. Obviously you can't cater to every player's whim, but there was a lot of negative reaction to the food thing. This way he can give that experience to those who want a more old school approach and find it fun, and those who think it's tedious don't have a reason not to buy the game. :)
I like the idea of starting with a level one character also, especially since there are new skillsets to explore. And this is probably my favorite line:

Although I'm no real fan of "dungeon crawls", I acknowledge that they want to bring the feeling back that I - for example - encountered myself when beginning the first Eye of the Beholder games.

Great interview as usual Dhruin. Thanks Tom, this sounds like a sure buy for me. I loved Book 1 and Book 2 will be a welcome addition to my collection. Now, when is it scheduled for release!! :)

Yes! Gameplay configuration options! One of the things that has baffled me about vid games for the longest time is the sparcity of gameplay configuration options. Give the people choice, I say! Thank you, Thom! :biggrin:

<quote>I can't recall a single game where food 'n' water requirements was a fun feature.</quote>
I remember starving in Dungeon Master the first time I played it! Taught me a thing or two about resource management and was great fun. It was a great moment when I found my third waterskin. Much more precious than yet another weapon. I still remember that weird 'gulp' sound when you swallowed.

I like the idea of scores awarded according to various difficulty settings, especially if they would go beyond numerical and, ideally, would also be reflected in the game ending in some sort of (minor) way.

I bought book 1 and loved it! I will definetely buy book 2 as well, no question about it.

In reply to the difficulty tweaking making the game much more complicated. It does not have to be. For example food, just make the game with food in mind, and if the player turns this option off, two extra code words is all that is needed

IF( foodRequirement )
code to make player affected by hunger or eating food
else
keep on running other rules

As far as random goes, I always thought the best way is to make a set of seeds in the beggining of the game. This way reloading will not affect any loot but each game will be different. I also think each chest / trap / door etc should have the possiblity to add an option modifier. For example a class 5 chest would get a higher chance of having good loot, than a normal chest.

Bigger dungeons, and a big city, more NPC interaction, and more choices in quest all sounds fantastic! Cannot wait for the game.

Will there be such a fantastic place as the vault again???! It was such a great experiance to discover and explore that place very exciting!!! So exciting that some players hacked the game just to get into all the locked places to see if there would be anything there LOL. Great work on that.

I am also woundering if there were any changes made to the AI to make the characters, and enemies smarter? and will there be more enemies with many different kinds of attacks, or magic user enemies with many spells? etc etc etc?

I'm sure it's far more critical for the indie developers, but I'm seriously impressed over and over with the way Basilisk (and others like Age of Decadence) keeps the wishes of the gamers in front of them. Sure, creative integrity is going to force a few decisions, but these guys are asking what the gamers think and then coding that into the game. It's a nice counterpoint to most of the bigger developers and publishers that couldn't pick a gamer out of lineup with a rock and hula hoop, let alone listen to one.

I dont usually play indie games at all but Eschalon is an exception (and AoD too it seems). I bought the first game instantly after playing the demo only few minutes. The game looks and plays great and rekindles memories from old rpgs. I think the biggest bonus is the turn-based gameplay. It wouldnt be even half as fun if it were realtime. In a way eschalon reminds me of modern ultima if the series had kept its TB gameplay.

Sounds very interesting, like the sound of big infamous dungeon(s!) to tackle.

Being able to turn off an option or two I don't think will hurt their development cycle that much. Food & Drink are just statistical elements after all.

It all depends - if the game is well designed, then it is a matter of putting exposed variables in a dialog … if it is like DL or G3 it means 6 months of work and a 1GB patch :D

I really appreciate the effort and can't wait to play it on Mac & PC like the last one!

Your argument is that gameplay options are a "bad thing" because they make development/QA more difficult. Development issues are irrelevant to the end user; it's the features provided that matter. As a business it's Basilisks Games' job to please as wide a crowd as feasibly possible. If anything a small indie developer with a very discerning niche market needs to be even more accommodating to its customers than a mainstream developer.

There are surely many easy ways to turn off food. If nothing else they could just put a "cheat" into the game which keeps food at max level at all times (and hides the food-meter). You could still hunt etc but you dont need to eat the food get from it.

Just bought and started playing Book I - my first time with an indie game :blush: (lights a cigarette) So far it's quite fun - I can think of a few nice features they could add for turn based combat - especially an indication of how far you/enemy can move in a turn (a la AoD) - shading of battle grid squares (simple to do in OpenGL). Perhaps this will make its way into Book 2? I must say that the purchase and download were remarkably painless - one of the things I always fretted about when considering doing this before - and at 100MB it was a nice size to for those of us with paltry caps.

Do someone know if the developers are happy with there sellings of the game?
It surprised me, that they dont have any publisher or sell the game @ steam.
Perhaps they are new examples for other small developers.

Yes and no, apparently. Actually that was in the answer to the first question Dhruin asked:

I believe the moverate is the same for everyone, one square per turn. You escape from critters by virtue of them not following you on that particular turn (plus there's a bug, so if you just hold the mouse, you'll get away sooner or later).

You can see the grid by pressing tab (IIRC), I assume that's what you want?

Or by a Haste spell/potion, of course.

Well, I really don't feel there is any value AT ALL in adding a female character! I mean, what makes it female? breasts? You mean redo all that artwork for a lumpy chest? are they mad!? What a waste of resources.

My problem with the game was 100% the walking speed. I enjoyed the game a lot until id cleared a lot of the map and then one day just couldn't be bothered exploring because of how tedious the walking was. Teleport to anywhere you've been (passing game time) would really make this game better. Walking a character around is boring.

Well, he said that there should be some differences in the role-playing for gender as well … and that can definitely make it a nice addition. And in general, your perspective is very male-centric (i.e. sexist) - why *not* have a choice? Perhaps women playing are sick of 99% of the time being forced to play a male?

Exactly. I don't mind playing a male with a specific story like TNO or Geralt, because it pulls you into the game. However wandering around as a generic male is not nearly as interesting for me.

He has already said the movement speed is +20%, so that's been addressed (at least to Thomas' mind). I don't think that took too many resources and I doubt adding a couple of female avatars is that big a deal when planned from the beginning.

@SirJames: You know it's a "role-playing" game, right? :rolleyes:

I found the walking about refreshing, actually. I liked the sense of space it gave me as a player. I think some developers get caught up in the modern malady of feeling pressure to keep getting in the player's face non-stop as if they're afraid of losing your attention any second. Very juvenile. With Eschalon, I felt like I was really adventuring around a world. Not playing a pinball machine.

Food
 

Exactly what I was going to say. Dungeon Master was the only game that I can recall where food was as valuable as other treasure. It worked well in that game, probably because of the 'puzzle' feel that game had. I don't see it working well in Eschalon Book I, at least. If it is just a mindless must do, then it is tedious. To limit camping abuse? Not going to happen, it just means I have carry more food. The camping, save/reload tactics are basic strategies of old-school CRPGs.

Ah - didn't realise everything moved at the same rate - some monsters seemed to move rather slowly? Not sure why they wouldn't pursue you…if they are pursuing you. Yes, I used Tab but not really in any tactical sense (just when things were a bit unclear - seems to illuminate monster nicely too ;-) )
I also found the ability to run across an area transition and not have monsters follow a life saver…they really just make them follow you (not sure what technical changes that would entail tho).

That's disappointing. I feel importing characters is a great feature not used often enough. Especially in CRPGs, I'd much rather play many different adventures with the same characters like in Pen&Paper RPGs than have a new character and new rules and features in every game.
Now in Eschalon especially it would make sense to play the same character in all games. It's not like the option to import a character from the first game precludes starting a new character from scratch.
I don't see a big issue with "version adjusting" either. I mean, what's the difference? You don't have the new skills? Big deal, make a new character if you want those. Old skills are abandoned? Give the player his skillpoints back.
Heck, even with far-reaching changes to the character development it shouldn't be a a big challenge to "recalculate" the character. Just let the player import his character and make any changes that can't be easily automated on the character creation screen.

I guess the main issue is that this wasn't planned from the start, and many skills are only useful within a limited range, so a high-level character could easily master all skills.
It wouldn't be anathema imo to take an imported character down a few levels - it's certainly not less convincing than the "all the character's abilities have deteriorated to the point where he starts back at level one" excuse.