Realms Beyond - Interview @ Enklawa

Myrthos

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Mrozie informed us that they have a two part interview up at Enklawa for Realms Beyond. The first part can be found here and the second part here.

EN: Let's talk a bit about main character from narrative perspective. Who is he/she? What does drive him/her through the story of Realms Beyond?

PO: Actually, we don't have a main character. There is no single hero - in our game - the whole party is the protagonist.

The player will enter a world that has been plagued by a global catastrophe about fifty years ago. This so-called cataclysm is of unknown origin and devastated many parts of the world. The player needs to find out what actually happened and to achieve that, he or she needs to travel the whole world.

...

EN: Speaking of factions, how many of them can we encounter/join? Is it possible to become a master of all factions or joining one of them can shut the door of the other(s)?

PO: There will be plenty of factions in the game, some of which are mutually exclusive. Becoming the master of a faction is very rare, while some factions will allow you to rise high in the ranks, it's a bit unrealistic for someone who just joined the guild to become its leader in just a few months time! You might become the right hand of the faction leader, but not the leader himself. In most regions of our world there will also be political factions with opposing goals, for example the Wildlands where three pretender kings are fighting over who gets to rule. Of course you can only help one of them to become king, so there is plenty of replay value in the game with mutually exclusive paths.
More information.
 
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Nice interview.
While I regret that there isn't a main character and companions don't have a lot of background and quests (the game world this way always seems a little dull to me), I can fully understand why Ceres doesn't want go go this way right now.

Perhaps they'll reconsider for a sequel when they have a much bigger budget due to the immense finacial succes of Realms Beyond. ;)

I'm happy btw. that there finally is a studio making classical RPGs in Germany. Actually they aren't far from my hometown. :)
 
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I second Morrandir it's a good interview. Thanks for posting Myrthos.:thumbsup:
 
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I'm just the opposite Morrandir. I love that there is no main character and you make your own party. But I'm old and cut my teeth on Wizardry and Might and Magic.
 
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Unlocked their first stretch goal.

Revealed their 3rd stretch goal, and it is ..... three music tracks from Kai Rosenkranz (of the Gothics). Excellent stretch goal and hope they/we get it.
 
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Nice subtle shot at Elder Scrolls there.
 
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This was a splendid read!! The more I hear and read on this project, the more I anticipate actually playing it. Nice interview, thanks for sharing it with us.
 
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Only other RPG that I remember that has a fair amount of non combat content and no main characters was Temple of Elemental Evil.
It will be nice for a change to again play just another meddling adventuring party.
 
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At least ToEE had some recruitable party members who had personas. The IceWind Dale series lacked any, and it was telling. I enjoy well-written intra-party banter, so that will be missed.
 
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Guess you didn't read the interview? ;)
We'll get some of that:
Our pre-made companions will mostly be at the level of*Baldur's Gate 1*rather than*Baldur's Gate 2: characters with a certain class and skillset that you recruit for their abilities, not personality. There will be a few companions with companion quests, but it's not as big of a focus as in, say, Bioware games. The companions will sometimes comment on things and have some minor banter.
 
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They are only $3000 away from getting the Battle Brothers writers. I hope they make this goal. We all know how much I love Battle Brothers :)

Just having Ceres Games give a shout out to Battle Brothers will cause me to increase my donation.
 
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I'm just glad they made the extravagant drawn map goal. That looks very awesome with the artist involved, she seems really talented.

I must say I'm not very impressed by these other stretch goals. "Battle Brothers" game - never heard of it. That said, I guess they are considered good writers so more good writing added to a game has to be a positive.

The "legendary bard" goal is very meh. I loved Gothic I + II, but getting the composer to add a grand total of only 3 theme songs - gimme a break. Not very exciting. Also, I love the music they have showcased already in the game.

Finally, the last goal, the monk class is not good. Yes, I know some (or many) probably feel differently, but I always thought the monk class is misplaced and shouldn't have been in D&D in the first place.

It takes away realism and is just pretty silly, that some Shaolin-like monk is doing karate chops on Orcs and other monsters or on other enemies wearing full plate armor - gimme a break. It's like, one night the D&D creators were drunk and had just seen a Bruce Lee film, and said to each other, "Oh man, wouldn't it be awesome to put a bad-ass fighting monk into D&D?" Other guy (slurring his words) "Hell yea, great idea!"

No, just no. :p
 
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When playing with a monk in the party, they always seemed to take the most HP damage and were a constant drain on the party healing resources. That high cost-benefit ratio is the main reason I don't play them. A well-armored fighter just works so much better as a tank.
 
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When playing with a monk in the party, they always seemed to take the most HP damage and were a constant drain on the party healing resources. That high cost-benefit ratio is the main reason I don't play them. A well-armored fighter just works so much better as a tank.

It depends how you build the monk, what level they are and what items are available. Since monks gain AC from dex, wis, and things like bracers of armour they can get a pretty insane AC if dex boosting, wis boosting equipment, and things like bracers of armour are available. If not I agree that they are generally weaker than fighters. Their high movement makes them good to go after back line spellcasters and archers. They get evasion as well, so if they have a high reflex save you can charge them into enemy opponents and throw fireballs on top of them. Those are things you can't do effectively with a fighter.

In Baldur's Gate 2 my most OP character was a monk. In that rule set monks get magic resistance, and my monk was more or less immune to all spells at the end of the game.


With a day left, it looks very likely they will get the writers and composer, since that's 7.5 k away. The monk at 27.5k may well be out of reach.
 
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When playing with a monk in the party, they always seemed to take the most HP damage and were a constant drain on the party healing resources. That high cost-benefit ratio is the main reason I don't play them. A well-armored fighter just works so much better as a tank.
In PnP there is a very nice feat that lets you move, attack and move again. Works nice with high movement characters like monks that are also good at Tumbling if needed.
They can also stun weak Fort save enemies and are good enough at grappling.

They were never supposed to be tanks, they are more like Rogues that provide CC instead of high damage.
 
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With a day left, it looks very likely they will get the writers and composer, since that's 7.5 k away. The monk at 27.5k may well be out of reach.

There will be after-campaign funding via their homepage. So the stretch goals can still be reached later.
 
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Oh, what the heck... I'm increasing my pledge for the Good Old Box edition with the cotton map using the money I saved by avoiding the Fallout 76 fiasco.
 
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Hand placed encounters and loot, no scaling, sounds great. I don't mind there would be no main character and lack of party members interactions, game focus seems to be somewhere else. Not a backer, but if its good, as it sounds, I will support game with my purchase upon release.
 
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