Black Geyser - Update and Roadmap

Redglyph spotted the latest update and roadmap for Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness:

Latest Update & Future Roadmap

Here's what's on the horizon for Black Geyser

Ho there, adventurers!

In March, after a hugely positive Early Access period, we launched Black Geyser into 1.0. We were incredibly proud to have addressed many of the issues that players raised and our small team did our best to identify and fix key concerns. While the game wasn't perfect and there remains plenty to accomplish, we're glad to see that our continued efforts have seen our recent raft of reviews vastly improve player perceptions.

We've still a long way to go to get the game where we want it to be and have been working hard on not only our next update but also our future roadmap. In last week's update, we added the Pass Time feature alongside other improvements. Where today's update is concerned, there's quite a lot of improvements that many of you have requested (full changelog here):

• You can now use the worldmap to travel to reachable areas without the need to visit area border
• Multiclassing is more worthwhile: previously, XP requirements of chosen classes were summed for multiclassing. These XP sums are now reduced by 20% for using two classes, and 40% for using three classes, making multiclassing more fun.
• Magical bags for additional item storage: Bottomless Bag of Bulguras and Superabundant Sack of Swinishness
• Rebalanced final battle and the ability to pre-buff before most key battles

Besides this and before the end of the month we'll also be adding the following (with more to come):

• 37 brand-new Steam achievements
• Dozens of new banters for party members
• Finished (extended) companion quests for Bjalla, Jade and Hamlin
• Dozens of side quests fixes

As far as our mid-term plans are concerned - and some of these may arrive before the end of the month - we're wanting to further expand on our quest journal and travel system. These changes will include:

• Quest journal mentions the quest giver name and location
• Quest journal offers a button to travel directly to quest giver (allows a single loading screen instead of multiple loading screens across outdoor and indoor areas)
• Customize the shortcut for ingame highlights (currently, it's hardcoded to the TAB key)
• Compare a weapon item to both equipped weapon sets (three-tooltip comparison)
• Potion Case, Ingredient Pouch and Parchment Satchel item to hold potions, ingredients, scrolls and recipes

Finally, our long term plans are very much in the works and while we don't yet have a firm date on when they'll arrive, we'll have them to you as soon as possible.

• Finished (extended) companion quest for Arvex
• Customizable ability bar by player
• Item descriptions will list the classes that can use the item
• Pets
• Strongholds
• More spells
• More love for unarmed combat (such as items giving a bonus)
• Two-handed weapon style
• Flails
• Deluxe Edition
• Game OST as an independent asset
• Revising many fetch quests to make them more complex and interesting
• Additional, complex side quests
• Create a full party during character creation
• Savegame file compression to reduce disk space usage
• Modding support (including the possibility to lift class restrictions of races)
• Additional localizations (translations) of the game

For everyone who has joined us on this journey and continues to support Black Geyser we're incredibly grateful and we look forward to you diving into these latest updates.

/Black Geyser Team

More information.

Can't say they don't support the game, but the amount of small patches are worrying. It sounds like the game was released half-baked. Now put down those pitch-forks.

Quest journal offers a button to travel directly to quest giver (allows a single loading screen instead of multiple loading screens across outdoor and indoor areas)

Hah, wtf.

Originally Posted by Stingray
Hah, wtf.

I'm assuming that's just for the return trip once a quest has been completed. Still…

Fast travel is rarely explained in terms of the actual world the game is set in. It's usually just a convenience, so I don't consider that any more artificial than teleporting to city gates or whatever. It's not a bad idea, imo. It just removes busywork. Hopefully it's not an excuse not to work on reducing their load times though, haha.

Is it another game with bad loading times?

It's possible to ignore the button, at least, so nothing is forced upon us. I'd rather have that than big exclamation marks on NPCs giving quests.

In Knights of the Old Republic (2003) you can press a button, even after battle, and be instantly teleported to your rest room right at the start of the level then, once rested, press a button and be immediately teleported back to where you were. And as for Morrowind's fast travel options, well then.

I'm personally fine with a button that returns you to the quest giver, especially if the loading times are atrocious.

I'm more surprised by the fact that a lot of those changes are something that you'd expect from a game in Alpha phase, like finishing companion quests (companion quests were not finished but they just released the game anyway?), or adding two-handed weapon style. Some of which aren't even patched in yet, and rather as something they still have to do in some future.

Common scam for gullible people, to cash in for an unfinished product and then pretend they are so responsive and attentive with patching and post-launch support when the only thing they are doing is finishing in a rush the incomplete, bug-ridden mess they already fully charged you for. (Hi PF: Wrath of the Righteous).

Originally Posted by lackblogger
And as for Morrowind's fast travel options, well then.

Well then what? Morrowind is one of the few games that does offer in game explanations for your fast traveling.

IIRC, Morrowind was doing it just right. It wasn't so much fast travel than transport hubs, the transport part was simply not implemented (flying mount, boat, …). And if you had to make more than one hop, you had to know the route to your destination.

Skyrim was something else.

Meh easy fast travel like Fallout 4 and Skyrim is my preferred way. You either hired a cart or just clicked the location to jump to if you already discovered it. I don't need realism.

I still don't understand when some people post "Ah, these are alpha/beta/early access features, why did the devs release the game without these features".

Maybe because (just like 99% of studios) ran out of money and had to launch the game? Do you think developers are happy and content to release unfinished and buggy games?

Darkness is not in Black Geyser Couriers. It is among some RPG people.

One of my favourite teleportation mechanics was in Divine Divinity with the two pyramids.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Skyrim was something else.

It started with Oblivion.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Meh easy fast travel like Fallout 4 and Skyrim is my preferred way. You either hired a cart or just clicked the location to jump to if you already discovered it. I don't need realism.

You're right, ultimately, to each their own and it's up to the player to decide whether to use or ignore the feature.

I'm more annoyed with mini-maps and compasses showing where to go and whom to speak to. It also started in Oblivion (in that series) and it couldn't be ignored, there's no hiding it, and the NPCs don't give enough information to do without it. How's Black Geyser doing it?

Originally Posted by Redglyph
I'm more annoyed with mini-maps and compasses showing where to go and whom to speak to. It also started in Oblivion (in that series) and it couldn't be ignored, there's no hiding it, and the NPCs don't give enough information to do without it. How's Black Geyser doing it?

I talked about that in another thread can't remember which game it was before JDR popped up with an insult. I'm used to quest and map markers nowadays I need them.

I blame Ubisoft and casualization of RPGs.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I blame Ubisoft and casualization of RPGs.

Somebody should definitely start a trend of making RPGs (or AAA games in general) immersive simulations. I know CDPR has been trying but we know how that has been going so far…Related to my comment in the UE5 thread: developers need a similar focus on tools making it easier to keep all the threads in their hands than is put in graphics engines. That would benefit isometric games too. Development times of games having flexible choice-and-consequence are almost as long as for third-person games focussing on the visuals (BG3 as an example). These games tend to be unplayable mess when released. I am sure it is possible to help the situation with right kind of smart tools.

Weaker gamers, and especially those that get easily butthurt, tend to need quest markers.

Speak of the troll and he appears. Now don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Anyway stop talking about my ass you freak.