Sorry for the slight delay of this latest blog release, but I was tied up fixing code for my wife's first alpha play-through... well, I guess that gives you a slight heads up on how things went. However, the overall first testing was not as bad as this introduction may imply. Read on to learn how things went... I have tried to avoid giving away any spoilers, but keen-eyed readers may pick up on one or two titbits.
The First Feedback
My wife is the first person to play the second module as a player, albeit, as an alpha tester. Before she actually started, I gave her the heads up that she was likely to encounter a number of issues, as not everything was still fully "complete" with respect to all potential paths and final details. However, as it turned out, I had also not anticipated the path that she would end up taking ... interesting results, to say the least.
To help present this feedback in an unbiased way as possible, I asked my wife to give some feedback in her own words, which I then comment on. (Her comments are presented in italic and blue text.) I made slight alterations to their presentation below, so that they read more clearly in the current context of this blog. For neutrality, in my comments, I will refer to the comments as coming from the "Tester".
Tester Comments
First Impressions
"In contrast to the first module, this one feels more expansive with the
various locations popping up on the overland map creating a
sense of a larger scale."
"I have been to a series of locations already and you can take different paths and have different outcomes based on choices that you make, which allows player agency and a less linear approach to the game."
Having finally escaped New Edgeton and let free to explore, I was quite surprised to find the tester immediately going off the beaten track to explore regions of the overland map that I thought they would have left to later. As they had a cleric in the party that could provide food and water via a prayer, then long distance travel was no obstruction to them, and they took full advantage of it.
This was not strictly a problem, as I do anticipate some exploration like this, but it did start to open up paths that had had less logical testing right from the get-go. Thankfully, all overland encounters worked fine, and even the first areas to be reached all worked as expected. I accidentally managed to introduce one glitch when trying to fix something else, which prevented the encounters going hostile, but this was quickly remedied and the encounters provided their threatening hostilities once more.
"There is a nice mix of serious and more light-hearted tasks depending upon which NPCs you are dealing with. There has also been a lot of detail put into NPCs and the interaction that you have with them..."
The number of tasks I could write for each stage of the module was one of my biggest concerns to get right. Too few and the world would feel empty and without meaning. Too many, and it might start to feel like every man and his dog wanted help in some way. I was also trying to cut-down on Fed-Ex tasks (those go fetch and return with an item type), which, if overdone, can make a game lose impetus. To this end, my aim is to try to ensure that any such tasks which do fall into this category are simply small additional tasks that can be completed while carrying out a main or side mission.
As the tester points out, I also try to mix the style of quests, not only to work together, but differ in style, with respect to their nature of importance... from what may appear trivial or humorous, to the essential ones. No matter who the player ends up receiving a task from, I hope that character remains memorable in some way.
"The conversations are in the same style with lots of different options. This time, however, also with the addition of different responses based on a person's background i.e troublemaker, leader, flirt etc. This makes for more interesting conversations, which again, can affect alignment and/or whether you gain or lose influence with the person you are conversing with."
Role-playing conversations is one of the biggest differences that players will come across when playing Predestinated Days. The PC Background system I ended up developing for deeper conversations came out too late to be fully employed in the first module, but I have taken as much opportunity to include its usage as possible in this module... and hope to continue to do so moving forward. Therefore, be sure to choose different background types for your party of PCs to be ready to take advantage of this when the time comes. It is an area where I can introduce potential humorous responses based on PC background choice, as well as maintain the normal character behavioural responses.
Gaming Mechanics
"If you bring characters through from mod. 1 they retain all of their items, levels, abilities and feats which is good so you can benefit from this and continue to build and advance your party skills further."
If you have been following my blog, then you will know that I have gone to great pains to try to ensure the party you know and love can continue their adventures from where they left off at the end of the first module. This is the way the tester started their first run through, straight from an end game save of the first module, transitioning into the second. However, when released, the game will also support starting afresh at the start of the second module, and makes assumptions of the items you would have recovered and kept as if played the first module. In this second option, you can import any PCs that you have previously exported from any other play through.
"There has been a whole variety of different creatures that you can encounter with some new and some familiar creatures."
Indeed, I have tried to up the number of creature types the heroes can encounter, from standard Monster Manual types not yet encountered in the first module, to one or two more unusual. Where I believe improved AI code will help, I have added it. I won't go into details as that would be a spoiler... suffice to say, however, I try to make good use of any potential special attacks if I can.
One aspect regarding creatures that has come to light is the difficulty of a challenge. As the heroes are now around level ten, finding a worthy opponent can be difficult to balance, and this is one of those area that is undergoing some close inspection at this stage of testing. Currently, some encounters are easier than I would have liked, and one has turned out far more challenging than I thought it would be. I am learning quite a bit about what properties affect a party than I have previously.
"The overland map also has opportunities to find treasure and items for alchemy that are always useful."
I have tried to retain as much flavour as people will be used to with respect to the overland map. That said, I have also added many new features that offer greater feedback on the current travel, such as skill and time feedback. This tester has not yet experienced the overland map in the official campaign, and so would not be able to make any clear distinction on what is new or not.
Other Information
IN GAME FEEDBACK: I have also been trying to provide more feedback on various new systems along the way, so that players have a full understanding of what is happening in the game. This can be simple chat comments, notice texts, or even a full blown GUI update if required. During testing, I did note that one or two of these styles of feedback was not quite giving enough detail (like a specific PC name missing) and so have rectified this now.
WALKMESH: There were a couple of areas where the walkmesh had broken. One was easier to fix than the other. Something that I discovered that was rather frustrating was even a backup of the area in question did not retain the old walkmesh that had worked. i.e. Even though I replaced all five area files from a backup that had once worked, when opened again in the toolset, the area still showed a broken walkmesh. I have no idea why this was the case. Bottom line, I had to redo the walkmesh, and it has finally been fixed. I also learned that you should not replace certain files (as a patch) or they break objects in the saved game area.
GAMEPLAY DURATION: The current first alpha testing is still being played, as I have been "patching" any difficulties encountered along the way. This has included such things as the bad walkmesh (as mentioned above), items with the wrong tag, etc. Simple, but important fixes that I knew may well come to light. So far, the gameplay recorded by the built-in timer records just over 15 hours gameplay. In this time, the tester has finished a couple of smaller side quests and is making headway into the main quest. There are still a number of quests that have been started and can still be finished.
WORST CASE SCENARIOS: I am breaking tradition and saving the worst to last. Now, bear in mind that these were not all entirely unexpected, but the odd one was. (a) There was a conversation that was unfinished that the tester found. (I had not expected them to take that path at this stage.) (b) There was a complete quest path broken due to two missing NPCs. (I did not realise I had not finished this quest.)
Campaign Update
The campaign has recently been updated to v1.5 after I addressed a few conversation issues related to excessive skill checks. The function causing the problem has now been fixed and related conversations no longer suffer from its potentially bad results. The update also addressed one or two AI adjustments and overall core efficiency.
And here is a screenshot from the latest alpha testing ....
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| Nathan Helps Out The Heroes! |
