A Game of Dwarves - Development Diary #8

[unmerged(323382)]

Hello,
New week, new blog. I hope you enjoyed Daniels post about the lore last time. However now I'm back and I do believe that it's time for me to answer all those questions you've sent or posted. I might edit some of these questions since some of them are insanely long and some of the questions have been answered in prior posts.

The world :
- Size of the world (x,y,z) ?
- Random generator/map pre-created/Editor available ?
- The different stones/minerals

The size of the world varies during the campaign and the player will be able to select the size in while playing custom games, we are currently looking into how large we can make them without making the game lag.
While playing custom games the player will have the option to make changes to the parameters of the world generation.

Any plans for multiplayer?

Dwarf Princes facing off?
One player controlling all monsters?
Treasure hunt? (most gold on a set time/first to a certain limit)?
Coop?
Tower defence inspired gameplay (prevent monsters from reaching the throneroom)?

Right now we feel like a multilayer aspect would fit the game poorly. The game is best played single player, should we have some stroke of genius and find an awesome game mode this might change post release.

I'd like get a better grasp on the Dwarfs you command.

Will there be unique "Heroes" aside from the main character?
In what way will I be able to command the units?
Is there an experience system for the units?
I expect there to be successive stages once in a while, so I'm asking will I be able to take units to the next stage after finishing one?

No, while we toyed with the idea of heroes we felt that the time spent on them where better spent on the Prince character, so we've made him even more hero-like than we first intended.
Your task is not to micromanage each individual unit, but to make sure that they are well trained and versatile enough to deal with any kind of trouble. That being said there are still ways for you to directly control your units in one way or another.
Yes, dwarves gain experience and levels while preforming tasks relevant to their class, so the digger gain xp from digging and the warriors from fighting, and so on.
Your Prince will travel with you to the next level and on some levels the status of your army will help decide what you start with on the next level.

I'm pretty sure you guys are bringing this to PSN, which I'm stoked about*. Maybe you could do a topic about the challenges of developing for multiple platforms? Also interested in the things the good folk above have posted, so point listing them again. Good luck with developing the game, looking forward to playing it*.

This will have to be an entire topic on its own, look forward to this when we start submitting release candidates to Sony ^^

What strains are there on expanding your "dungeon" (or whatever its called), will there be things you can't dig through, that you have to dig around?
Are there factors that keep you from expanding too much?

Stuff like that.

When you expand your settlement you will eventually start running into enemies, these enemies will get harder and harder as you progress. This will beckon a player to take things slow and build up his settlement before continuing. And yes there are also some sorts of stone that you can't dig through.

How will you command your dwarves? For example will they go about doing all the things they need to do and you can generally summon them to areas and they attack enemies automaticall OR will it be more micro management and you select and click a job for each dwarf.

We've worked tons with streamlining the micro management aspects of the game, since you control so many dwarves, individual control would be chaotic if not impossible. So most actions will be carried out by the dwarves themselves, such at eating and sleeping. While the player gives orders such as build that there or defend this area.

Will dwarves be classed into specific roles and not be able to take care of other tasks (ex: a miner dwarf that will never be able to farm like a farmer dwarf)? Or will each dwarf have a set of skills that are developed by completing various tasks (à la Dwarf Fortress) and he will complete the tasks set out in priority of his most developed skills?

I guess what I'm getting at is each dwarf going to have its own story/set of skills and it'll be up to the player to decide what each dwarf should do (regardless of how the orders are given), or will the dwarves be nameless and only be identified by their specific and unique skill?

A dwarf may only preform action that belong to its particular class. As earlier mentioned we've worked hard at streamlining the micromanagement aspect of the game, having to manage the individual skills of each dorf may be rewarding, but not in the way we are aiming for in this game.
Sorry guys but that is all for now, look for a part 2 or maybe I'll answer the rest in the Questions Thread, but that will have to wait a day or two.

//Thorwaldsson

 

[unmerged(174602)]

Some nice information there, keep it coming! :happy:

 

[rujikin]

Don't worry about making the world too big to where the game lags. In a couple years your current computers will be outdated and new computers will have 50%+ more power. Just give a warning for an "ultra" size.

 

[Zarine]

Maybe rujikin is right...
Find the good spot where there won't be problem (maybe a value depending on the computer specification, no clue if you can check that). But still allow the player to put value over this in case of custom game but with a warning.

 

[Xerkis]

I personally don’t agree (totally) on the “don’t worry about the too big” comments.

Processer speed and memory isn’t unusually an issue for me – but graphics always are. I only every play (or do anything) on my laptop and it’s not known for its graphics ability.
But there is an easy solution. Just make sure you have in the option menu some nice check boxes to turn off (or down) a lot of the graphics “stuff” and all is well.