Realms Beyond - An Adventurer’s Tools

A new update for Realms Beyond: Ashes of the Fallen focuses on the journal and the map but the most interesting bit talks about the interactive environment.

…
As an example, let’s look at the simple quest of finding a buried treasure. A citizen of Vedwyd has found an old diary and treasure map when he cleaned out his basement. They belonged to his great-grandfather, a pirate who, when he was older, settled down to live an honest life on behest of his worried wife. But before he settled down, he buried some of his treasure at a location only he knew: a chest containing jewelry that could easily have been identified as loot from a recently plundered merchant ship.

The diary contains a short description of the location, and the treasure map is a crude drawing of what it looked like. "Berried jewls at renner grov", says the diary. "Start at nearby cave entrans. East 6 steps. North 4 steps. Luk at pointy rok bitween 2 trees. Pik it up an dig belo." Clear enough instructions to find the treasure, one might think. But the man doesn’t know what his great-grandfather meant by Renner Grove. There is no grove with such a name nearby. Maybe there had been, once – his great-grandfather had lived long before the Cataclysm, and in the turbulent times that followed, the name may simply have been forgotten. There is a clue, though: there was a cave entrance in the grove’s immediate vicinity.

[…]

Interacting with the Environment: yes, you can touch that!

Talking about the treasure hunt – as you may have noticed, it involves picking up a rock and digging beneath it. Many items in the game, and even some pieces of the environment (wall niches, inscriptions, a broken wall that looks climbable…) can be selected and interacted with. Every object can be scripted to be interactable and behave in different ways when interacted with.

Interactable elements will be outlined when you hover your mouse over them. But beware: not every interactable item is beneficial. Some might be devious traps: a magical trigger that unleashes a storm of fire when touched, a lever that locks the only exit behind you, a valuable artifact that makes arrows shoot out of the wall when you pick it up. But they can also open new ways: a heap of boulders that can be cleared by a character of high strength, a magical barrier that dissipates when touched by an enchanted weapon, a tree that can be hacked down to create a makeshift bridge over a narrow ravine.

The many pretty objects that clutter our world are not mere decoration, they are fully interactable and often serve a gameplay purpose. Always be observant, and you will find many things to play around with in Realms Beyond. And since every object you can interact with is highlighted when your mouse passes over it, it means that there’s no annoying pixel hunting. You will see at a glance whether you can do something with an object or not.

This allows us to add elaborate puzzles to the game, as well as alternate quest solutions and plain fun environmental interactions. A statue that requires an item to be placed in its opened hands in order to unlock a secret door. A merchant’s cart that can be toppled over to create a distraction. Or a magic stone that hops away whenever you try to touch it.

The interactable objects in our environments follow the three golden rules of our game design: interactivity, reactivity, and player choice.

Stay tuned for the next update where we will talk about the world of Realms Beyond a little!

More information.

This update has convinced me to back. Involved questing and elaborate interactivity has been on my 'why don't developers do this' list for awhile.

Indeed, what a great update! Being able to write your own notes in your journal, and also even better, putting your own markers on the mini-map, with your own text descriptions as well, and in a purple color text so you can actually read it, these are things other rpgs should have had as standard a long time ago, and are very cool innovations for a game of this type.

They are getting close to the halfway mark already of the main goal, so this is good stuff all around. (despite any naysayers complaining about the lack of voice acting )

This game shapes up really nicely, I love the atmosphere and all the small details they put in. Lets hope guys will learn and don't repeat mistake Pathfinder did by releasing game in alpha stage, thus burying their own creation!
So far (by what i saw on few videos) I'm only worried about too prolonged battles and stiff and repeating animations.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
(despite any naysayers complaining about the lack of voice acting )

At least few voiced lines like in BG series, when you click on character ("me axe be bloody ready!"), would be really great - it gives character to pixels and adds to atmosphere.

Originally Posted by Silver
Involved questing and elaborate interactivity has been on my 'why don't developers do this' list for awhile.

Because it's easier said than done

Originally Posted by Copper Coin
Because it's easier said than done

True, but the lack of ambition to even try is more troubling.

Many developers have attempted the 'everything can be interacted with' concept and failed. I believe that was one of the original design goals of Divinity: Original Sin.

I'm hoping for the best, but with how much this game is promising, you can bet the developers are going to get their fair share of reality checks.

"Every object can be scripted to be interactable and behave in different ways when interacted with."

It's just an explanation how our engine works and it doesn't mean that we actually make every object interactable (that would be insane).

For our level designer (and for future modder) it just says that they can use any object for their quest mechanism. Not only trigger objects but everything, even small mushrooms or flowers.

Wouldn't it be nice if special elite weapons actually rejected players if they behave inappropriately (for the weapon). Ok Ok. Maybe that would fit in some games but perhaps not this one.

Originally Posted by you
Wouldn't it be nice if special elite weapons actually rejected players if they behave inappropriately (for the weapon). Ok Ok. Maybe that would fit in some games but perhaps not this one.

That's already in the zone where we don't want to leave the path of SRD3.5e.

Fantastic news! The more I can do within a game, the more I tend to play and enjoy it. Keep the good news coming.

Originally Posted by Copper Coin
Many developers have attempted the 'everything can be interacted with' concept and failed. I believe that was one of the original design goals of Divinity: Original Sin.

They kind of succeeded with it in Divine Divinity … Ever made real honey yourself in an RPG ? I really loved that part. Or dishwashing as a quest ?

Originally Posted by HobGoblin42
For our level designer (and for future modder) it just says that they can use any object for their quest mechanism. Not only trigger objects but everything, even small mushrooms or flowers.

Will you eventually do an update about the modding?

Besides the capabilities, I'm curious how much you will support distribution of mods and whether players will be allowed to earn money from their creations.

I like the gritty, old-world look to everything. It feels right -- not the slightly cartoonish look of NWN or D:OS, but more realistic as in the PoE series.

Originally Posted by Copper Coin
Will you eventually do an update about the modding?

Besides the capabilities, I'm curious how much you will support distribution of mods and whether players will be allowed to earn money from their creations.

Mods are fine but I will not support paid mods, and never will. Bethesda tried to do this and failed miserably, but brought it back as the creation club for cash.

So it's either steam workshop or Nexus Mods.

Originally Posted by rjshae
I like the gritty, old-world look to everything. It feels right -- not the slightly cartoonish look of NWN or D:OS, but more realistic as in the PoE series.

Agree somewhat with you but hey it's all about different tastes.

If someone creates a mod the size of a full game or expansion then I don't mind it having a pricetag. As long as the sales support the creator.

Never understood the outrage with Creation Club, as it's practically the same thing Bioware did with Neverwinter Nights back in the day.

Originally Posted by Copper Coin
If someone creates a mod the size of a full game or expansion then I don't mind it having a pricetag. As long as the sales support the creator.

Well that's your opinion as the experiment failed and showed many wont pay. Also the percentage given to the games developer, and steam was not fair to mod makers.

Never understood the outrage with Creation Club, as it's practically the same thing Bioware did with Neverwinter Nights back in the day

No Bioware offered full mods not housing, armor, weapon, and other cosmetic items. Well one correction it wasn't BioWare but Atari, and they messed up the whole program.

I never used creation club and am not going to argue the specific details of its value.

For a creator to put time and effort into a mod, and be able to sell it for a price - there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not only does it incentivize the creation of higher quality mods, but it would lead to less projects being stuck in development hell.

Originally Posted by Copper Coin
I never used creation club and am not going to argue the specific details of its value.

For a creator to put time and effort into a mod, and be able to sell it for a price - there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not only does it incentivize the creation of higher quality mods, but it would lead to less projects being stuck in development hell.

And once again it wont happen as I said the experiment failed.

Most people downloading mods wont pay.

The better option is the Nexus were you get paid for downloads.

Lets go in circles by all means.