A Valley Without Wind: Economies And Crafting Q&A

[x4000]

Original: http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2011/05/valley-without-wind-economies-and.html

Thanks to some excellent questions by Flatfingers in our forum, I'm reminded to talk a bit about the economy in AVWW, as well as crafting.

Q: What will the process of crafting something feel like? Will it be a  simple one-step action, or can it be a sequence of steps that benefit  from knowledge and planning?

To craft something, you just open up the crafting menu for that type of  profession (say, Weaponsmith), and then you have a list of the materials  that you currently have in your inventory.  So if you have, say, Bronze  and Silver, that's all you see in the list there.  When you select  Bronze, you see a list of all the recipes that include bronze.  Any of  them that you have all the components for show up as active, the rest  are grayed out.  You can see what will be produced as you scroll past  each one, and when you see one that you like and that you have all the  materials for, you can simply press the Confirm key on that item, and it  gets created -- that's it.

So there's not any sort of skill or dexterity to the crafting; it's not a minigame or a puzzle.  However, what there IS,  in great abundance, is choice.  A hunk of bronze could be useful for traps, for weapons, armor,  crests, and so on.  A ruby gemstone could be useful for crafting spell  gems that cast a fireball, or it could be used as part of a trap,  weapon, or crest to give it some sort of fire-related properties.  It  can also be combined with certain other gemstones to create some things  that are only tangentially fire-related (such as some of the stuff that  has both properties of fire and light, and so uses ruby and quartz).

Q: Will source resources have different properties, and if so will the  resource properties affect to some amount the characteristics of the  crafted item?

Yes, many of the resources are basically tied to an ability.  Rubies  have fire-related effects.  Quartz is related to light.  Other materials  would lead to homing spells when combined with spells that don't  normally have homing, and things of that nature.

Q: Will crafted items be unique, or will most items of the same type be identical?

Well... it depends on what you mean, really.  An iron rapier is an iron  rapier and that's pretty much it.  However, that would be just the most  basic recipe.  There would also be recipes for an iron rapier with  slots, or possibly with something like a fire gem inside it or  something.  And when you put crests or spell gems into slots, then you  get other combinatorial effects such as a rapier with a speed crest to  swing faster, or a fire gem to have fireballs shoot out when you swing  it.  Or both, if there are multiple slots in there.

Given the  same recipe and the same stuff put in your slots, you'll always get  exactly the same result.  There's not any sort of random rolling of  stats or something.  But our goal is to make it so that there are so  many recipes that you have a real buffet of choice with any given  thing.  Early in the game there are no slots at all, and so things tend  to be more generic then while you're still just getting used to  everything.Then you start getting one slot on items, then two slots  per item, and maybe more than that much later on (not sure yet on  that).  And that's where you can get into some interesting  stats-augmenting, which is basically what the slots are all about.  But  unlike the core crafting system, the slots aren't currently planned to  be irreversible (so you can make a speed-fireball iron rapier, and later  change it to something like a strength-strength iron rapier or  whatever)

Q: [Will AVWW] have a money economy anywhere or pure barter everywhere?

At present we plan to have no money whatsoever.  Mostly it's not even  barter, either -- other characters won't have stuff that you can get  from them, and you won't have anything they want most of the time,  either.  In specific cases where somebody needs some of X resource, you  might happen to have it or you might need to go get it, but that's more  of a favor than a barter, because you won't get anything back from them  in any direct sort of sense.  Instead, you've just helped them on to  their own goals, and you may have improved their attitude toward you in  the meantime.

Both of which CAN benefit you in very direct ways.   If they are sufficiently happy with you, then they are more likely to  do YOU favors (like crafting stuff, etc), and they're more likely to  listen to things like your suggestions that they come to X settlement or  whatever.  For people that already like you fine, helping them further  their goals quite possibly also helps you: making the settlement more  protected might have uses of its own; helping a guy become a better  weaponsmith means that he can make better weapons for you as well as  anyone else he's making weapons for.  And so on.

This is a  post-disaster situation.  I don't know if you've ever been through one  of those, but I've been through several -- mainly hurricane and tornado  aftermaths, though this has more in common with hurricane aftermaths  because those affect everyone.  I've observed that in those  situations there's a lot of neighborly help going on.  You have a  chainsaw and I don't, so you come over and cut the logs off my driveway  so that I can get my car out.  This isn't in exchange for anything, and  I'm not obligated to you in any way after that.  You just were helping  out because you had a chainsaw and I didn't.  And the power is out  inside for everyone, so it's not like any of us have anything else to  do, anyway.  Heh.   But later, it's perfectly natural for me to help me lug tree remains  down to the woods if you lost a ton of trees and I didn't.  And so on.

So  it's one of those situations like that, where we all have individual  interests but are also willing to help one another out.  I wouldn't even  call it altruism, it's just how everyone tends to come together in the  wake of a disaster.  I'm walking down the street and see somebody I  don't know struggling to get debris off their car, and I stop to help  because I happen to be there and I have the time.  They'd do the same  for me, unless they actively disliked me, were way too busy, were hurt  or disabled, or were unusually selfish or whatever.

More or  less... this is what we're modeling.  But it's something that is growing  and changing, so three months from now that answer might not really be  correct or all-encompassing.  I really doubt we'll move to having money,  though, because it's simply not that sort of game.  There's not a shop  that you can go to to buy... anything.  You have to go out and scavenge  or discover everything, but those are also all just raw materials  -- you aren't finding guns and swords like in Diablo or Borderlands.  So  what we actually have is an expertise trade, where you give me the  resources and I give you back a finished good because I'm able to and  it's not that much work for me.  Assuming I don't hate you or mistrust  you, and I'm not lazy or selfish.

Q: It's pretty refreshing to see a game that really wants players to focus  on the post-disaster experience rather than on conventional gameplay.  I'm just thinking that the economy-free approach could be a shock to a  lot of today's gamers, who've come to think that games without certain  features are somehow "broken."

Well, and I appreciate that.  Thing to remember is, we really don't want  to do what other games have done.  And I really don't think that, once  things are to a certain point development-wise, people will see the  things we omit as a flaw -- because we're including so much else that's  never been seen before. 

It's kind of like with AI War, where  there are no civs -- basically unlike every other strategy game out there --  but I've literally never had anyone complain about that fact because the  way we made it was basically "build your own civ" and works just as  well or better.  In terms of not having any PvP in that game, despite  the fact that's the RTS mainstay mode, there have been some folks that  looked, didn't see that feature, and avoided the game I'm sure.  But  that's a pretty easy decision to make when you're evaluating games; I've  self-sorted out many games without co-op, when I'm looking for new  games to play.

The other thing to bear in mind is that in a fairly literal sense there is an  economy, in the same sense that AI War has civs without having them.   We just streamlined it.  Having an in-game economy is all about power,  and options.  What are you able to do, and how can you become able to do  the things you currently are not able to do. 

Having a currency  is the least possible imaginative way I can think of to do that,  because then the answer to any question is almost always the same: get  more money.  Grind monsters, collect their money and loot drops, sell  the loot you don't like, and buy the thing you want.  I used to really  enjoy that in RPGs, but that's been done so many times since the NES  days that now I'm really sick of it.

Here you're not bartering with other folks or buying things from shops -- that whole survivor mentality and all that -- but you are bartering  your time against the types of activities you undertake.  You want a  level III fire spell?  You can't just go grind monsters and then build  it.  You'd better go find a level III ruby, which requires figuring out  where level III rubies might be, and then going there and essentially  going through the "dungeon" (to use the Zelda term) to find one or  more.  Then once you have that level III ruby, suddenly you realize you  can build a lot more than just a fire spell -- but you can only choose  one of the available options per ruby you have, so that creates an  economy of choice.

You could just grind away getting level III  rubies to build everything, of course, but by the time you finish that  you'll be leveled up enough that you might want level IV rubies to  really keep up with the monsters that are appropriate to your level.  So  just trying to grind is futile, you have to actually make choices.  And  those choices have permanent effects either great or small, but they  aren't irreversible -- if you make a level III fireball spell and find  it not to your taste, at level IV (or even if you find another level III  ruby) you might use your rubies for something you like better.

Anyway,  the reason we don't have shops or money is because every other game  does it, it's played out to us, and we have a more interesting and  strategic way of handling things.  Even though I don't want to be  labeled a "strategy game developer," both Keith and I do think along  those lines when it comes to game design, and we're always looking for  ways to add in interesting decisions rather than the time taxes that are  common to RPGs.  I really can't imagine that someone will come and see  this system and then be mad they bought the game because they thought  there was going to be shops and money.

Q: At any rate, "it's not a sim."

Though the game is a "sim of a sim," if that distinction makes sense.  This is  a game of Zelda or Crystalis in terms of most of its gameplay, but one  thing those games have in common with each other but not AVWW is that  their worlds are static and unchanging, and you can't really interact  with NPCs except in really scripted, limited ways.  Here that's not the  case, because you can interact with each NPC, and the  overall world,  in various substantial ways.

The game is not a sim, in the sense that the  simulation isn't deterministic or high-fidelity, but we will have lots  of "approximation algorithms" during the "fast aging" step that simulate  what a sim might have done during the time you were away.  So if you've  been away from some NPCs for two game hours, and you come back, then  during the fast aging step it does two hours worth of stuff.  It looks  and thinks "what were the NPC's goals, and what would they have had time  to do during the time," and then approximates those things.

Thus  you wind up in a world that feels alive and which is ever-changing, but  it's incredibly light on the CPU and it's also easier to program in the  sense that we don't have to be super-specific in detailed simulations  of characters walking around, chopping wood, re-growing trees, and so  on.  All of that stuff is off-screen and not related to you-the-player  and how you play, anyway, you only care about the result.  It's much the  same reason that with AI War I shortcutted the AI from having an  economy.  As some players have put it, "the AI is playing Risk while you  play AI War," and that's really true.  The combat AI is the real deal,  but the AI economy in AI War is just a simulation of a simulation  because it's stuff that happens offscreen and that you-the-player only  care about the result of.

Put another way, my focus is  always on the player experience.  What is fun, what is new and  interesting, what twists your brain a bit?  To me, having a detailed  simulation usually has nothing to do with any of those things: at the  level that most games do it, it's simply a programming parlor trick.   "Look how clever I am," says the programmer, "that I could simulate an entire [whatever] to this depth!"  I like being a clever programmer as  much as the next person, but I take that in small doses -- I like  shipping games that are huge and fun and made by incredibly too-small  teams even more.  So my attempts at cleverness manifest as ways in which  to "simulate simulations" and thus cut out the boring behind the scenes  work that nobody sees, anyway.

Conclusion

Thanks very much to Flatfingers for his insightful comments and questions!  He's also got a pretty cool blog about game design and other things, as well.

With anything like AVWW that is trying to break new ground all over the place, the proof is always in the pudding.  It's easy to talk about AI War because the game is out and people can play it and offer their own opinions; with AVWW, there's only half a dozen people in the world who have even seen it in person at the moment, let alone played it.  It's also still very much in a gestational stage, so some things are incomplete and others are so far missing entirely (like fast aging).

This is very much why we chose not to do a public alpha, because we wanted people's first hands-on experiences with the game to be with a more mature version that represents all of what I've said above more closely.  We're still looking at "sometime this summer" for the beta, and we're really looking forward to sharing the actual game itself with folks.  In the meantime we'll continue doing videos, blog posts, and so forth!

[x4000]

I dunno. Personally I would like some form of cross-town economy (I'm liberating these towns and saving people, why not have them make supplies and trade between each other?) but I'll of course have to play it first before passing judgement.

Well, I'm also not going to say we'd never do something like that.  But that still doesn't require money or an actual, literal economy.  All it requires is a "these two settlements are connected by trade, and so certain materials or resources now get created, or created in greater abundance."  That's the part where it actually opens up new avenues for you as a player to make more decisions and do new stuff. 

That's a good deal of what I mean by a "sim of a sim."  We might well simulate the results of trade, and say "they are trading," and in a game design standpoint that could be interesting to do in terms of making new and interesting decisions for you-the-player.  But there's no need to spend weeks or months trying to work out some sort of trade sim model that nobody sees just because we can.  I'd rather spend that time on something else that directly impacts the player experience.

Anyway, doing cross-town trade isn't presently in the plans for the game, but it's certainly intriguing and quite possible as something we might expand to down the line.

[Echo35]

Anyway, doing cross-town trade isn't presently in the plans for the game, but it's certainly intriguing and quite possible as something we might expand to down the line.

You could definitely make both work. Say, for example, Town A has a weapon shop, but you can only buy limited things in it. You liberate Town B and it has a mine that gathers some rare metal. Town A can now build a weapon using said rare metal. No need to make a simulation of an economy or transporting goods, but more opening up options like a traditional RPG would. I'm thinking a Final Fantasy Tactics or Etrian Odyssey crafting/collection type thing.

[x4000]

Oh yeah, I'm definitely down with that sort of thing.

[Echo35]

Oh yeah, I'm definitely down with that sort of thing.

Or a Monster Hunter style thing, but then again, I'm on of those weird people that actually likes grinding monster zones for rare crafting drops, so my opinion isn't terribly valid

[c4sc4]

How do the recipes work? Do you have to learn them or do you know them all from the start? As in, you said that when you have a material, you can look to see what you can make out of it, can I see all of the different weapons I can make out of it or is there something I have to do to be able to unlock different recipes?

Also, I think you have a typo in the last paragraph. You said not public beta, where I think you meant not public alpha.

[x4000]

Oh yeah, I'm definitely down with that sort of thing.

Or a Monster Hunter style thing, but then again, I'm on of those weird people that actually likes grinding monster zones for rare crafting drops, so my opinion isn't terribly valid

I've never played Monster Hunter, but looking for rare crafting items is definitely part of this game.  Not so much from killing enemies, though -- from exploring and scavenging new locales.

How do the recipes work? Do you have to learn them or do you know them all from the start? As in, you said that when you have a material, you can look to see what you can make out of it, can I see all of the different weapons I can make out of it or is there something I have to do to be able to unlock different recipes?

For the moment, you pretty much know them all from the start.  Finding the materials is challenge enough, there's not a real reason to gate the recipes themselves as that just adds some extra busywork.  That said, we are planning to have some legendary items that require a specially-trained crafter, and which also require some rare materials.  So those are considerably more involved, but we haven't gotten to them yet.

That said, I think that Keith is also having some crafting proficiencies for crafters, so that they don't have to learn recipes, but they do have to have a certain amount of skill to be able to work various materials.  So again, there's some focus on the skill of the crafter, and the level of the recipe, but not the actual recipe itself.

Also, I think you have a typo in the last paragraph. You said not public beta, where I think you meant not public alpha.

Oops, yeah, thanks.   Fixed that.

[Flatfingers]

Thanks for the kind words (and the blog reference). It's been a while since I've seen a game in the making that has excited me as much as A Valley Without Wind has, so I'm very pleased to be able to contribute to the conversation about it.

A couple of notes:

I talk about "world-y" games a fair amount because I personally find them more interesting than the other kind. What I mean by worldiness is that the game includes active and persistent elements beyond just the objects with which the player can interact.

Examples of features that increase worldiness are being a character-based game (because characters need places in which to interact with other characters), the persistence of places (and things in those places) beyond what the player can currently see, open movement (as opposed to linearity, sometimes described as being "on rails"), numerous physical/tangible objects which the PC (and NPCs) can manipulate, and some degree of simulation of processes. So by this standard, the Half-Life and Portal games are only moderately worldy; a kart-racing game is barely worldy; Tetris is not worldy at all; Oblivion and Fallout 3 are quite worldy; a MMORPG like the original Star Wars Galaxies is (was) extremely worldy; and Minecraft pegs the needle on the worldiness meter.

By that definition (which I came up with independently, but so have a lot of other people), AVWW so far sounds to me as though it will wind up being quite worldy. As I understand it, the world of AVWW -- including the people and things in it -- will be the source of much of the game's challenge, rather than artificial actions manipulating abstract objects. So I conclude that it's likely to feel like a very worldy game.

Whether anyone else finds that to be a useful distinction when thinking about game design is up to them, of course.

One last point: I'm a huge believer in maintaining a strategic focus on the elements of a game as it's being designed and implemented. Every piece needs to reinforce and be consistent with every other piece, and every piece needs to help the whole game realize the vision for the player experience. If it doesn't do that, then it doesn't matter how cool a feature it is; it has to go.

Everything I'm hearing here says that this philosophy is being followed all the way, that there's a clear vision and a strategy for achieving it. If so, then I believe this game has every chance of not just succeeding, but of being a breakout hit.

[x4000]

Thanks for the kind words (and the blog reference). It's been a while since I've seen a game in the making that has excited me as much as A Valley Without Wind has, so I'm very pleased to be able to contribute to the conversation about it.

My pleasure, and thanks in return.

As I understand it, the world of AVWW -- including the people and things in it -- will be the source of much of the game's challenge, rather than artificial actions manipulating abstract objects. So I conclude that it's likely to feel like a very worldy game.

I think that's an interesting distinction, and pretty true about AVWW.  To be honest, that sort of thing is kind of my bread and butter -- in strategy games it manifests as me wanting to have so many options that there is room for individual tactical or strategic ideas fr players to come up with that perhaps nobody else has ever thought of before.  With an adventure game, it comes with wanting to have a lot of bandwidth of ways to interact with the world.  If I feel like hanging around in a town, I should be able to do that and do more than just stare at the scenery.  If I want to go beat on some uber-strong foes, they should be available.  If I feel like smacking down trash foes, that should be around, too.

And more to the point, everything should have more than one purpose.  In Zelda, I go into the dungeon and it's great because it: 1) advances me toward the end of the game; 2) advances my inventory in a meaningful way (new tool or weapon in each one); 3) "levels up" Link in terms of a heart container; 4) is interesting to do in and of itself, being full of puzzles and exploratory elements.  I think that's one reason that Zelda resonates so strongly with so many people.  A lot of imitator adventure games don't really get that, and they have fewer purposes per dungeon/quest/whatever.

In the case of AVWW, I'm not really looking to be one of those Zelda imitators.  Nobody can touch the master there, and it's also something that has to be meticulously hand-designed to work; procedural Zelda games would fail to live remotely up to the hand-crafted ones, in my opinion.  So what can AVWW offer that Zelda doesn't care to?  Freedom of choice.  If there's always multiple meaningful activities you can be pursuing, and there are unexpected side benefits to pursuing each one, then that's really interesting to me.  I need a ruby and so I go looking for one, but what other activities do I complete, what other treasures do I find, on the way?

In some ways, I felt like Zelda 2 gave a hint of that sort of feeling, because there were so many side nooks and crannies that had interesting things in them.  It was the first taste of that sort of idea for me when I was a kid, anyway, and I've wanted to make a game that really followed through on that promise ever since.  AVWW is intended to be that game.

Whether anyone else finds that to be a useful distinction when thinking about game design is up to them, of course.

One last point: I'm a huge believer in maintaining a strategic focus on the elements of a game as it's being designed and implemented. Every piece needs to reinforce and be consistent with every other piece, and every piece needs to help the whole game realize the vision for the player experience. If it doesn't do that, then it doesn't matter how cool a feature it is; it has to go.

Yes, this is true.  In terms of you shouldn't just make something that is blanket-useless because it's so clearly superceded by something else.  However, what I will say is that I also very much like for players to be able to specialize -- you see this in AI War quite a bit.  There are some units that some people think are useless, but which others use to great effect.  And a few that are very difficult to use, and which only certain folks ever use (cloaker starships, etc).  So our focus is always larger-than-one-player in terms of the grand milieu of balance, while at the same time trying to keep things balanced in the important senses.

Here I think the biggest balance points are actually on rewards, not on challenge.  Challenge can be variable and that's interesting to players and gives them something else to evaluate.  But when the rewards are disproportionate to the action, that's when you get into players "farming" or "grinding" certain activities like a slot machine.  As soon as the kids realize that one of the games in the Arcade gives out more tickets, some of them will just grind that game for tickets instead of actually playing the games they find fun.  To me, that's where RPGs and action-adventure games are able to falter; you don't need a per-enemy balance like you do in the strategy genres; instead it's all about the reward balance.

That's something we've hardly gotten into yet, as we aren't even seeding the really useful materials in the world yet, but I imagine it will be an ongoing focus for us.

Everything I'm hearing here says that this philosophy is being followed all the way, that there's a clear vision and a strategy for achieving it. If so, then I believe this game has every chance of not just succeeding, but of being a breakout hit.

We do have a very clear vision of the feel of the game, but new gameplay elements are occurring to us and being added all the time.  It's very much the same sort of process as AI War.  I really believe that most things that are all that notable and new can't be thought of in advance (otherwise everyone would be thinking of it).  And that's really because we need not just some broadly new things, but also a lot of detailed new ideas for this to really gel.  I'm pleased with where it's heading, anyway, and this process has worked well for us before (AI War was certainly a breakout hit within its tiny, tiny niche).  Here's hoping this one does as well in a slightly wider market; a future without so much financial pressure would certainly be nice for everyone on staff.

[Teal_Blue]

Just a few questions that occur to me in regards to crafting and the start of the game, and a little about bartering or economy.

1.   Will it be necessary to build and maintain a certain level in our starting settlements? The reason i ask is, in AI War, my starting planet is necessary to my survival in the game, with raids coming in from the AI. Will my starting settlements also be under attack in AVWW and will i need to build up a certain defense to protect them?

I am guessing at this point, because you said you want to focus on player experience and choice, which leads me to think that perhaps i could forgo building up my first settlement when i first appear in the game and just explore, going from tile to tile in the overworld until i find a place to settle, or continuing on with exploration until i either am killed by monsters of a higher level than i, or taking it incrementally and leveling and continuing to explore without setting up settlements for a long period of time.

If my settlements offer me 'crafters' that i can go to, for things that i am not a crafter for, or if i am a mercenary or warrior instead of a crafter, then building settlements might offer benefits that just exploring doesn't.

But on the other hand, it might be possible, if you have implemented this, that explorers can 'come across' crafters in those other regions that i could interact with and get my crafted items that i can not craft myself.

Also will settlements be levelable? Say a level 3 crafting settlement, when all the crafters inside reach that point. Or perhaps it will be on a crafter by crafter basis and not have a separate settlement level at all?

2.   I am guessing at this point, but if i create a world in AVWW where several friends and i play, is it possible that one of us is an explorer, running out and collecting say, a certain bush, or a certain mineral, or looking for such minerals or crystals, or reeds or whatever while another player remains pretty much in the settlement crafting items for other people in the game? Or perhaps that is duplicating what the NPC's already do? Or bartering, i suppose, if one person has a great deal of mineral and wants to exchange it for crystals from another player.

In Guild Wars, there were those kinds of players, that went out and scavenged webs or wood or whatever and traded those for other things that other players had found.

But i'm not sure your game has the same intent, or if it would be possible, just by accident if players can give or receive things from other players. In that way there might be an 'informal' type of trading system in the game.

3.    Curious as to the overworld system. In watching the video's it appears the characters are traveling all over the place, but i am thinking especially if they are traveling North or South, that that is really not what the game will be like, what i mean is that the travel on the overworld map will probably be slower, perhaps even much slower, as players explore just slightly higher areas than their level, or explore for crafting items.

4.    Also i am assuming that certain minerals and or crystals may only be available in certain areas. Perhaps fire crystals appear most, or only in Lava areas, so if i want one of those, i don't have a choice but to try and get into one and see if i can find one.  Or ice crystals in only the arctic areas. This is just a guess at this point.

5.    I am guess that there may be 'levels' to craftable items? What i mean is that basic elementary items needed for immediate survival are probably only single or double item things that when brought together give us a workable crafted item. Say to build my first sword, perhaps all i need is iron by itself, for a level one sword, or perhaps iron and wood to produce a sword. Later i may need level two iron and level two wood as well as a crystal, to produce a level two fire sword. Or as you noted in your example and i am sort of expanding, or guessing upon, that maybe a level two iron ingot, a level two wood, a level two fire crystal and a level two quartz crystal is needed to produce a level two fast fire sword.

in this way, perhaps it will take not only higher level items to produce higher level crafts, but also with additions of more items, it can change whatever it is we are crafting?  Would it be possible to have a level two iron ingot, a level one wood, a level one fire crystal and produce something that sort of averages those levels to say a level 1.5 fire sword that is more powerful than a level one, but not as powerful as a level two of course? Or perhaps you will want it where only level two items can be used together? Meaning i have to continue to explore to find additional level two items before i am able to then craft the item?

6.    Question about 'sustainables', or what i am guessing may be items that characters are in 'constant' need of, say food, my character has to have xx food to continue, or my health drops? Or water, or sunshine?    Say i'm in a dungeon waaaayyyyy too long.  And have to get back out for some sunshine to keep my stamina, or part of my health up? Second part of this question might be if only  one thing is needed to keep my health, or none. Or if there are several items that are needed to keep my health at peak?


7. About poisons, if there are poisons in the environment, in bushes or plants or monsters, that i will have to have a certain medicine in order to counteract it, say 1 level of 'cure' for 1 level of poison, to bring me back to normal health and to continue on. Or say if i am poisoned by a level two thornbush, that my level 1 cure will only keep me alive xx amount of time, before i succumb to the poison and die, or if i am able to get back to a safe area or settlement, can i see a 'healer' that can cure that remaining 1 level of poison and save my life?

8.    This also brings up a question of if i am poisoned and my level is say 6, does my level slowly deteriorate? say 1 level of poison can reduce my level by 1, a level 2 poison would reduce my level, or health by 2. Perhaps level and health are the same, or perhaps you want them to be separate, say my level is 6, but my average health is always 1 or 2, or 3. Some percentage of my level, or you may prefer a constant health level regardless of my level. So that if i am poisoned in a far region, i only have so long in time to get to safety and or a hospital or healer. Or perhaps if the poison reduces my health by half, then that means my chances of getting back to safety are more difficult at my reduced health?

9.    This also brings up an idea that perhaps there are specific kinds of 'armor', say leather that is good against poison, say 1 level of leather armor absorbs or cancels out 1 level of poison. But level 1 of leather is not very good at protecting from swords, or level 2 of leather is good against poison and swords, but not good at rapiers due to the puncturing nature of the rapier, vs the slashing nature of the sword?

Apologize for all the questions, but just wanted to ask in case you already had an idea of how you want it all to play out when we start the game, or if that is not set yet. Looking forward to the beta, thanks for all the hard work, the game looks beautiful! 

-Teal


 

[x4000]

1.   Will it be necessary to build and maintain a certain level in our starting settlements? The reason i ask is, in AI War, my starting planet is necessary to my survival in the game, with raids coming in from the AI. Will my starting settlements also be under attack in AVWW and will i need to build up a certain defense to protect them?

You're not tied to any spatial location in the game.  You can murder everyone in every settlement, if you like.  Or you can run far, far away and settle somewhere completely new.  There's nothing that you have to protect, unlike in AI War.  In terms of defense of settlements and protecting them, at this time we are not planning that in a realtime sense, though we're keeping the option open to do that later.  Mostly it's a matter of nurturing settlements, or not, to get various effects for your purposes.

I am guessing at this point, because you said you want to focus on player experience and choice, which leads me to think that perhaps i could forgo building up my first settlement when i first appear in the game and just explore, going from tile to tile in the overworld until i find a place to settle, or continuing on with exploration until i either am killed by monsters of a higher level than i, or taking it incrementally and leveling and continuing to explore without setting up settlements for a long period of time.

Yes, that's all very true.  Additionally, we are now putting less emphasis on building settlements from scratch -- instead there will be more actual pre-existing settlements around that you can help, decimate, or whatever.  This is not something that we've talked about publicly yet (it's a fairly recent shift, and not something we're 100% sure we're going to go with).  But at any rate, the emphasis on how you grow settlements, and invite NPCs to them, etc, is still there. 

Additionally, you can set up your own settlement from scratch, but the thing we're not positive on is that we're thinking that's a pretty rare event, maybe once in 100 hours or something.  The rest of the time it would be cobbling together larger settlements based on the smaller kernels of pre-existing settlements that you find.  We'll see how it plays out, this is one of those things where early playtesting, even from Keith and I, is having an influence; we're drifting to what feels most fun and fluid, while keeping the depth.

If my settlements offer me 'crafters' that i can go to, for things that i am not a crafter for, or if i am a mercenary or warrior instead of a crafter, then building settlements might offer benefits that just exploring doesn't.

There's not such a thing as a mercenary or a warrior -- the only "class" in the game is the crafting jobs.  You either have one of those five jobs, or none of them.  The other things, such as proficiency in magic or weapons, etc, are based on unique character stats and not overall jobs.  But yes, you will need the NPCs for crafting things; but you can use any NPCs that you happen to meet, in settlements or outside of them, if the NPC is willing to help you. 

So that might mean you meet some weaponsmith hiding out in the middle of nowhere, and you help him out a bit and then he will build weapons for you without you having to go back to the last settlement you were at.  And eventually if you find a settlement closer to where you want to stay for a while, and you really value that guy, then you can invite him to the new settlement you found.  Having all your crafters and so on in one place (aka, settlements) is a big convenience factor.  And there will be other benefits to settlements as well, though some of those options we (meaning Keith) are still experimenting with.

But on the other hand, it might be possible, if you have implemented this, that explorers can 'come across' crafters in those other regions that i could interact with and get my crafted items that i can not craft myself.

Yup, there are lone NPCs, too.  Exactly.

Also will settlements be levelable? Say a level 3 crafting settlement, when all the crafters inside reach that point. Or perhaps it will be on a crafter by crafter basis and not have a separate settlement level at all?

Nope, settlements have no levels.  The crafters themselves will have various proficiencies.  But remember that in terms of characters, there is no "level" for them individually.  All NPCs and players share one "civ level."  So as you go about your business exploring and fighting and doing whatever else, you're also improving all the NPCs and other player's levels.

2.   I am guessing at this point, but if i create a world in AVWW where several friends and i play, is it possible that one of us is an explorer, running out and collecting say, a certain bush, or a certain mineral, or looking for such minerals or crystals, or reeds or whatever while another player remains pretty much in the settlement crafting items for other people in the game? Or perhaps that is duplicating what the NPC's already do? Or bartering, i suppose, if one person has a great deal of mineral and wants to exchange it for crystals from another player.

Yep, you can specialize as much as you like, that's no worry at all.  You can all journey around together, or you can split up the work, it doesn't matter.

In Guild Wars, there were those kinds of players, that went out and scavenged webs or wood or whatever and traded those for other things that other players had found.

There's nothing to prevent you from doing barter with other players, but bear in mind we're not likely to make a literal barter system.  This is a co-op game meant to be played with people you at least somewhat know; it's not a wide-open MMO with a thousand strangers.  So if I collected something and you want it, and I want something from you, then we each need to drop what we don't want, and pick up that thing we do want from each other, and then that's that.  You can already do that now, in the game, actually.

But i'm not sure your game has the same intent, or if it would be possible, just by accident if players can give or receive things from other players. In that way there might be an 'informal' type of trading system in the game.

Yep, exactly.

3.    Curious as to the overworld system. In watching the video's it appears the characters are traveling all over the place, but i am thinking especially if they are traveling North or South, that that is really not what the game will be like, what i mean is that the travel on the overworld map will probably be slower, perhaps even much slower, as players explore just slightly higher areas than their level, or explore for crafting items.

North and south don't particularly increase the difficulty, except by a little.  Going east makes the difficulty go up very fast.  Going west makes it go up very slowly, but with pockets of higher difficulty.  That actual design has been the intent from the start, but I just did get that sort of population in since the last video; you'll see that in the next video/screens/diary, though I've talked about it in past interviews.

The other thing I changed since the last video is to make the overworld have a more appropriate scale; slower transition between levels.  That way there is more for you to explore while you are still at your current level, without you being stuck to just five or six tiles at the start.  You are very correct that in most cases you're not going to want to go much higher than your current civ level. 

Also note that as your civ level goes up, the region levels all go up by 1/3 of your civ level.  So the starting region is level 1 always, but when you are level 21, then the starting region will be level 8 (1 + (21/3) ).  By the same token, if a region was level 21 when you started the game, then by the time you are level 21, it is level 28.  So you will catch it and pass it, but regions that are much higher-level than your character will tend to remain so for quite a long while, which is another reason it was important to make the gradation between regions slower.

4.    Also i am assuming that certain minerals and or crystals may only be available in certain areas. Perhaps fire crystals appear most, or only in Lava areas, so if i want one of those, i don't have a choice but to try and get into one and see if i can find one.  Or ice crystals in only the arctic areas. This is just a guess at this point.

Yes, exactly.  Although it's not fire and ice crystals, it's things like ruby and quartz, etc.  So most of those are found underground, but in particular regions.  And other materials can be found by region type, too.

5.    I am guess that there may be 'levels' to craftable items? What i mean is that basic elementary items needed for immediate survival are probably only single or double item things that when brought together give us a workable crafted item. Say to build my first sword, perhaps all i need is iron by itself, for a level one sword, or perhaps iron and wood to produce a sword. Later i may need level two iron and level two wood as well as a crystal, to produce a level two fire sword. Or as you noted in your example and i am sort of expanding, or guessing upon, that maybe a level two iron ingot, a level two wood, a level two fire crystal and a level two quartz crystal is needed to produce a level two fast fire sword.

Swords and such at this point are not planned to have levels.  Instead, materials like iron and copper stand in for the levels.  This was something Keith and I had a lot of discussion on.  Moving up a material type is like going up about 10 civ levels, so you'll have the iron stuff for a while, then on to the next, etc.  There will be enough metals that you can get into the hundreds of character levels before you start getting to things like Unobtanium + 1, +2, etc, which would stand in for the official names after that.

In terms of spell gems, those have a roman numeral but work pretty much like the metals.  So you start out with being able to find Ruby I and make Fireball I spell gems, and after 10 or so civ levels you're finding Ruby II uncut gems and using them to make more powerful spell gems, etc.

In terms of consumables like health items, etc, it will probably be like the spell gems, but we haven't fully figured out the model we want on that yet.  In practical terms it's all the same, really, but it's just a matter of how we're choosing to do the naming of the various types of item levels, for thematic reasons.

There are also "scrap" type materials that are used as catalysts in the various recipes, and these have no level.

in this way, perhaps it will take not only higher level items to produce higher level crafts, but also with additions of more items, it can change whatever it is we are crafting?

Yes, this is very much the case.

Would it be possible to have a level two iron ingot, a level one wood, a level one fire crystal and produce something that sort of averages those levels to say a level 1.5 fire sword that is more powerful than a level one, but not as powerful as a level two of course? Or perhaps you will want it where only level two items can be used together? Meaning i have to continue to explore to find additional level two items before i am able to then craft the item?

A "level two iron ingot" would be something like "steel" in game terms, but essentially yes.  In terms of level averaging, that is how it will work for spell gems, yes.  In terms of making a "fire sword," that's not quite possible to make in a literal sense.  You have to go to the slots system for that.  So if you make an iron sword, and you want fire magic on it, then you make a fire gem and put that in the slot of your iron sword.  Then you have an iron sword with a level whatever fire effect on it.  If you happen to have level 8 fire gems, then it could be a really weak iron sword with an awesome fire effect, that doesn't matter.

6.    Question about 'sustainables', or what i am guessing may be items that characters are in 'constant' need of, say food, my character has to have xx food to continue, or my health drops? Or water, or sunshine?    Say i'm in a dungeon waaaayyyyy too long.  And have to get back out for some sunshine to keep my stamina, or part of my health up? Second part of this question might be if only  one thing is needed to keep my health, or none. Or if there are several items that are needed to keep my health at peak?

There is no busywork of needing to eat food periodically to keep from getting hungry or whatever.  That tends to really annoy Keith and I in games, as it's just repetitive work for the player.  In terms of "consumables," there will be things like health potions and such.  The only thing that hurts your health is getting attacked by monsters, stepping in traps, or basically getting hurt by other hazards.

7. About poisons, if there are poisons in the environment, in bushes or plants or monsters, that i will have to have a certain medicine in order to counteract it, say 1 level of 'cure' for 1 level of poison, to bring me back to normal health and to continue on. Or say if i am poisoned by a level two thornbush, that my level 1 cure will only keep me alive xx amount of time, before i succumb to the poison and die, or if i am able to get back to a safe area or settlement, can i see a 'healer' that can cure that remaining 1 level of poison and save my life?

Right now the closest thing we have to being poisoned is being set on fire.  It just drains your health for a bit, and then wears off.  When it comes to literal poison, we'll have a different design for that, but we haven't talked about it yet.

8.    This also brings up a question of if i am poisoned and my level is say 6, does my level slowly deteriorate? say 1 level of poison can reduce my level by 1, a level 2 poison would reduce my level, or health by 2. Perhaps level and health are the same, or perhaps you want them to be separate, say my level is 6, but my average health is always 1 or 2, or 3. Some percentage of my level, or you may prefer a constant health level regardless of my level. So that if i am poisoned in a far region, i only have so long in time to get to safety and or a hospital or healer. Or perhaps if the poison reduces my health by half, then that means my chances of getting back to safety are more difficult at my reduced health?

There is NEVER anything that removes experience points from you, or reduces the civ level.  "You" don't have a level, it's all the civ level, anyway.  If your character dies, the civ level and exp are unaffected.

9.    This also brings up an idea that perhaps there are specific kinds of 'armor', say leather that is good against poison, say 1 level of leather armor absorbs or cancels out 1 level of poison. But level 1 of leather is not very good at protecting from swords, or level 2 of leather is good against poison and swords, but not good at rapiers due to the puncturing nature of the rapier, vs the slashing nature of the sword?

There's actually no armor in the game at all; instead we have a system of "augment gems."  You can wear these magic gems on various parts of your body, and you get various benefits from them.  Protection from kinds of melee, or from kinds of spells, or else buffs to various stats (stronger attack, etc) are all possible.  It serves basically the same function as armor.

Apologize for all the questions, but just wanted to ask in case you already had an idea of how you want it all to play out when we start the game, or if that is not set yet. Looking forward to the beta, thanks for all the hard work, the game looks beautiful! 

No worries, and glad you're excited!

[Echo35]

1.   Will it be necessary to build and maintain a certain level in our starting settlements? The reason i ask is, in AI War, my starting planet is necessary to my survival in the game, with raids coming in from the AI. Will my starting settlements also be under attack in AVWW and will i need to build up a certain defense to protect them?

You're not tied to any spatial location in the game.  You can murder everyone in every settlement, if you like.  Or you can run far, far away and settle somewhere completely new.  There's nothing that you have to protect, unlike in AI War.  In terms of defense of settlements and protecting them, at this time we are not planning that in a realtime sense, though we're keeping the option open to do that later.  Mostly it's a matter of nurturing settlements, or not, to get various effects for your purposes.

Epic post is epic! In regards to what you said about building up settlements, how complex are we talking? I'd personally love to see a Total War style thing, but I'm interested to see how this works.

[x4000]

To be frank, in terms of settlement buildup complexity, we're really not sure yet. It's something that I'm mostly leaving to Keith, and it depends on how much time he has and what seems like fun to both of us. My current main focus is on worldbuilding and the action/adventure parts, along with crafting and spells/enemies/etc, which has been a focus for both of us.

I think it is fair to say that, however complex settlements and related are at 1.0, those are going to be a prime point of growth going forward after that.

[Flatfingers]

I was hoping my questions and the responses might inspire Teal_Blue to comment -- we seem to have a lot of similar interests in these game things.

I also have a couple of follow-up questions/comments.

1. "There is no busywork of needing to eat food periodically to keep from getting hungry or whatever.  That tends to really annoy Keith and I in games, as it's just repetitive work for the player."

I have no objection to this personally. And I'll be near the front of the line to say that game designers should be able to make the games they enjoy.

That said, I recall Bethesda adding the "Hardcore" mode to Fallout 3 as an optional feature. This mode, where food and ammo have weight and where eating and drinking are required periodically, was added at the request of many commenters. In practice it seemed to be well-received, with the exception of the promise of some "very nice reward" for completing the entire game in that mode -- the only reward was an Achievement... and as far as I can tell, PC gamers like myself didn't even get that. Otherwise, however, Hardcore mode was generally seen as positive.

What are your thoughts on something like that for AVWW? Or is it already planned to be hardcore enough?

2. I found the combination of the Introduction and these comments to be remarkable:

"The rest of the time it would be cobbling together larger settlements based on the smaller kernels of pre-existing settlements that you find. ... All NPCs and players share one 'civ level.'  So as you go about your business exploring and fighting and doing whatever else, you're also improving all the NPCs and other player's levels."

Taken together, these almost seem to lead to a tagline for this game: "A Valley Without Wind is the epic struggle of you and your friends to restore civilization to the entire world."

Is that even close to your conception of the overall point of this game? Or is your goal something more small-scale and conventional, and I'm just reading too much into things?

[x4000]

1. "There is no busywork of needing to eat food periodically to keep from getting hungry or whatever.  That tends to really annoy Keith and I in games, as it's just repetitive work for the player."

I have no objection to this personally. And I'll be near the front of the line to say that game designers should be able to make the games they enjoy.

That said, I recall Bethesda adding the "Hardcore" mode to Fallout 3 as an optional feature. This mode, where food and ammo have weight and where eating and drinking are required periodically, was added at the request of many commenters. In practice it seemed to be well-received, with the exception of the promise of some "very nice reward" for completing the entire game in that mode -- the only reward was an Achievement... and as far as I can tell, PC gamers like myself didn't even get that. Otherwise, however, Hardcore mode was generally seen as positive.

What are your thoughts on something like that for AVWW? Or is it already planned to be hardcore enough?

That is an interesting anecdote, I'd not heard of that particular story with Fallout 3.  I played that game on the PS3, so maybe I missed that update.  Anyway, I think that the core of your question -- will we put in options for players with playstyles that don't match our own tastes, if it's not too big a thing -- is a big yes.  If you look at AI War, there are all sorts of lobby options and ai modifiers and such for modes that neither Keith nor I would ever play, but which somebody wanted.  That's my general answer.

Now, to any specific question of "can this be made an extra mode," there are two main considerations.  Firstly, how long does it take us to implement, and is that commensurate with the number of people who want it?  Secondly, does this increase the surface complexity of the game any, and if so is the benefit of that commensurate with the number of people who want it?

Right now I'm really not wanting to consider a mode that requires food in the short-term, because the game is still in such an evolutionary period that it's just not yet the time.  But sometime closer to 1.0, or even after, variants start making a lot more sense to explore, because the core premise is fully fleshed out and we know what we're varying from.  That's not yet fully the case.

I'd like to think that this game is going to be hardcore enough without that sort of thing, honestly.  To my mind, those two limitations you mentioned only serve a single goal, and that is to make it so that the player can't just infinitely roam around in the world without ever returning to some sort of civilization.  The reason I don't like that is because that means you're then tied to periodically backtracking to town and then backtracking again to the place you had been exploring, which seems like a waste of the player's time to me.  We made inventory infinite because there really shouldn't be a case where you have to go back because you've picked up too much scrap.

Torchlight obviously solved that same problem by having pet dogs that you could use to send your equipment back to town -- that was an elegant solution as a way to have a limited inventory without making the player backtrack, and Keith and I talked about that some.  Depending on how playtesting goes once more of the subsystems in place, we might migrate in a direction like that -- but I don't think we'll need to. 

My biggest inspiration for the way inventory is handled is actually Demon's Souls, which I wrote about at length here.  If that game had an inventory cap, it was high enough that I never came close to it.  And yet I wasn't a walking storehouse, either.  The reason was that death was real and frequent, and all my on-my-person stuff got dropped where I died.  This is more or less the case with AVWW, too, though death won't be nearly so frequent unless you're playing up levels.  In Demon's Souls, what this fostered was a sense of risk and reward.  If I chose to backtrack, it was because I was being a coward (or prudent) and stashing my inventory.  This led to an incredible sense of tension and caution when I was in new or dangerous areas, which I thought was really cool.

Now, Demon's Souls had a crushing difficulty, which was a big part of all that.  And unless you play up 10ish levels, the difficulty in AVWW won't be comparable.  But for those looking for a hardcore mode, that's not even another mode -- just go to the more dangerous areas, and you've got it.  If that's not tough enough, play 20 levels up, or whatever!  And the rewards are demonstrably better, as the scrap and loot you get is 10-20 levels higher, plus you get access to higher-level-only stuff faster.

AI War has a pretty crazy lobby, and that's really intimidating to new players, I think.  One of the things Keith and I have been wanting to do with AVWW is keep the start-of-game parameterless if we can.  Right now it's just a matter of clicking "Create World" and then choosing from one of five possible starting characters, and that's the extent of what you can do before the game begins.  That's something I really like, because it takes the emphasis off the interface and puts all the decision space into the actual gameplay.  If you want a higher or lower difficulty, that's based on where you choose to explore, not on some toggle setting somewhere in the game.

Obviously, for what essentially amount to "mods" like the food requirement idea, those would need to be interface toggles of some sort.  There's just not much of a way to expose that option through gameplay.  

The other thing that really makes me hesitant about the food requirement idea in particular is that it is yet a new factor to juggle.  In Fallout 3, after playing a while you really had very few factors to juggle.  Your ammo, your inventory space, and a few other things.  It wasn't very mentally taxing once you'd played it ten hours or so (I came to find the scavenging mind-numbing, even though it was my favorite part earlier in), and I can see why the hardcore mode spiced that up.  I think a better solution would have been to make another robust subsystem in the game proper, honestly -- some other sort of player-directed activity to undertake.  In the context of Fallout 3, I'm not sure what that would have been.  In the context of AVWW, you've already got: exploration, crafting, fighting, scavenging, settlement-building, wind-shelter-path-building, and the many various hopes of NPCs that you can help out with. 

Even just the crafting item off that list is something that has 5 sub-categories, and is constantly in a state of imbalance where you're trying to get "just one more thing" the way you want it, after which "just one more thing" pops up that you'd like to have a bit better.  In Fallout 3, there came a point where I had all the weapons I wanted were in my possession, and I could just roam around with them and that was mostly that.  In AVWW, by the time you have all the weapons you want, they are lower-level than you want, and you're finding new weapons and new modifiers through the slots system, and doing it all at a higher level with slightly different choices even if you're playing a conservative style.

So... long answer... but it's something I just don't think would be needed.  But we'll know it when we see it, and if it's something that players do feel like they want after they've had a good bit of time playing with a post-beta version of the game, then it's certainly something I'd consider.

2. I found the combination of the Introduction and these comments to be remarkable:

"The rest of the time it would be cobbling together larger settlements based on the smaller kernels of pre-existing settlements that you find. ... All NPCs and players share one 'civ level.'  So as you go about your business exploring and fighting and doing whatever else, you're also improving all the NPCs and other player's levels."

Taken together, these almost seem to lead to a tagline for this game: "A Valley Without Wind is the epic struggle of you and your friends to restore civilization to the entire world."

Is that even close to your conception of the overall point of this game? Or is your goal something more small-scale and conventional, and I'm just reading too much into things?

Oh yeah, that's exactly the idea.  The player(s) are rebuilding civilization after the disaster.  Or at least parts of it.  It's a job that's never done, globally, but you can make various super-regions into a state of relative contentment (not that any part of the game ever "goes static" -- there's always more hopes and thus stuff to do in each area).  Bear in mind that there's no way to win this game -- there's no end state -- but restoring civilization wherever you can is exactly what you're up to.