Piercing the Veil #6

Dearest Dudes and Dudettes,

Welcome to our next Piercing™ the Veil! This has been a crazy busy year so far for our studio, yet we still want to pause and answer some questions from our awesome community. Enjoy!

 

Calignos asked: If a player built house is destroyed/ransacked by the enemy realm, do you envision all contents being destroyed? Or will it be more of a money sink to have to rebuild the house, but items contained within are somehow saved?

We don’t want folks to feel like they hit a quit point each time they lose a house to their ravenous and ever-present enemies. Blueprints will help with this, yet if someone lost all of their valuables each time their house was raised, that could produce a defeatist attitude. A system where part of a players vault is safe in the Capital city (you must journey there to access it) and part of their storage is in their home and is vulnerable, could work. Even when storing items, choices matter!

Koby asked: If none of my friends or guildmates were online and I wanted to run around solo in RVR territory looking for Pick-up Groups, would I stand a chance at surviving or would that just be a death wish?

Mark himself often favors solo play, so I would be pretty darn surprised if we didn’t have some classes that were viable and even dangerous on their own, when played skillfully.

Valdi asked: Can we get some more detail on what aging does to our characters?

<Mark bravely walks into the lion’s den.> “Back in the WAR development days I thought that having our characters age and show the effects of aging would be a great thing. I had a feature like that in one of my MUDs and I believed it was time for that to happen in one of my MMOs. Unfortunately, even though that was a planned feature for the game, when it came time to implement it, I was told that we couldn’t do it for a variety of reasons, both technical and production-wise. When I told this story to Andrew a few weeks ago, his reaction was ‘Why didn’t anyone ask me? We can so do that!’ Now, even though that pissed me off a lot (because obviously NOBODY had bothered to ask Andrew before telling me we couldn’t do it and therefore yours truly had more than a little egg on his face with the players), I still like the idea and I asked him whether we could do this for Camelot Unchained. I laid out what I thought was a reasonable way to do this and he said that was a good plan and even easier to implement than what we planned for WAR. So, I’m happy to say that yes, certain races (I won’t commit to all of them yet) will have meaningful changes happen to them; both cosmetic and gameplay. For example, our Dvergr might have more stone covering their body and their beards will grow. Other examples could be with our HelBound’s faces, Hamadryad’s tails, etc.”

Tic asked: Just about everyone likes rare items, has any thought been put into adding them as hard to get housing decorations or perhaps POI’s for well-established player towns?

Yes! We love rarity as it adds that uber exciting element of ‘zomgs, I found one!!!’ We plan to have rare and hard-to-obtain items to keep players excited, striving and guessing.

Guinness asked: Which Dev can hold their Breath the longest?

I held a contest. It’s Cory!

mightygerm asked: Is the RvR open world planned to be broken down into zones, or will it be a seamless world?

We want to go for as seamless as possible. In general Mark is not a fan of instances, and the rest of us here agree. However, if the world map evolves in a way that makes it more interesting to have zones, not instances, we won’t hesitate to use zones.

Perrin asked: How easily do you envision it to be to jump into the action? If I only have 1 hour per day to play the game what percentage of the content will I be able to enjoy? What sort of content will likely be reserved to those sinking 4+ hours per day?

Ideally any time you hop in, whether it’s for 30 mins or 4 hours, you will be able to accomplish something. Perhaps you hop in and craft something for a short while, or you take an hour to go throw sand in your enemy’s eye and smash their favorite toys. We are aware that some people don’t have as much time to game as they’d like to, and we shall endeavor to provide access to that feeling of accomplishment for these folks too. Heck, you can be of service to your realm even if you just pop on for half an hour and craft potions for them, or scout a bit. Of course the longer you are on, the more noobs you can kill 😉

Nazon_Katts asked: If the BSC magic system in general and illusion in particular work out as currently planned, could I / we put a spell on my house / our town, so it appears as if it was just a tree / hill or something else that just blends in with the environment to enemy realms?

Potentially, but boy, would that cost ya!

Revelry asked: Will there be any looting from killed players?  Maybe not everything they were wearing/carrying, but say one random item/money amount?

Mark has been clear that this is not a FFA looting game yet he wants death to have some sting. The exact mechanisms for player looting is something that we will work with the players on, after Mark presents his BSC idea for certain aspects of the looting, experience gain, etc. systems.

Revelry also asked: Will there be any looting and/or salvaging of destroyed structures?

During our Kickstarter Mark talked about how players will have a choice in how they approach the destruction of structures. If you go down the ‘burn, baby, burn’ route, there isn’t likely to be very much left for salvage. However, if you choose to try and salvage the house right from the start, picking it apart piece by piece, you will be able to get some materials from it. It’s rather likely that taking the place down stone by stone will take longer, so watch for arrows in the back!

CorvusKerst asked: Are there any plans or ideas to include the concepts of supply and attrition in siege warfare (limited supplies for armies on both sides, cutting off supply lines, providing economic or logistical ways to take down an enemy structure, etc.)?

All kinds of plans for supply lines and siege warfare are being talked about, none cooked enough yet to serve up though.

JaironKalach asked: How do you envision customers with very stringent requirements effectively communicating those requirements to crafters/builders?

Just like they did in the olden days, by talking to one another 🙂 Crazy, I know…but then look who we have leading us :p /duck! In all sincerity, we are super interested in fostering community and as part of that, we seek to encourage relationships between Crafters and their patrons. We want you to remember that kick ass sword Sir Soandso made for you and the timely manner in which he delivered it to your door so that you were able to plunge it deep into the belly of the beast that slew your comrade in The Depths™ last eve.

JaironKalach also asked:

Will crafters be able to architect and build (perhaps as a group) their own walled cities?

Of effing course!

Nanulak asked: Once a dye is applied to an item, will it fade over time and have to be re-applied later?

It’s possible that dyes will fade with time and use though that hasn’t been decided yet. There may also be permanent and non-permanent dying processes that the Crafters can master.

LucasT asked: Ranches/farms for producing realm support items (food as a necessary component to build structures?? Need to feed the builders…), leathers, wood??? Can I make my own property with a blacksmith shop on it…. Ahhh the possibilities… How much can I expect to do as a crafter, I am fine not being a direct part of the battles if I can contribute to the overall war.

Yessity, yes, yes and let me just say…yes. We absolutely want our Crafters making their own special places to craft and being able to generate basic items from their land. As a Crafter you will be contributing majorly to the battle. In, fact battle would hardly be possible without you. Well, it would be, but it would resemble LARPing without even cardboard gear. Lightning bolt, lightning bolt!

Boradir asked: Are rams , trebs , and other siege equipment gonna be movable or stationary?

Depends. How much can you carry? J Is the equipment already constructed? Are you Schmendrick the spindly-armed caster, or Brutus McTankyPants? You are a hero of your realm and this is a world where magic is alive and thriving, so your limits will be beyond real life limits, yet not so far beyond them that it’s just easy mode.

Michael (AdorianBlade) asked: What is your target for time to kill, while I know this varies by class comparisons as you are going for hard counters I was wondering if you had a ballpark figure. Personally I would like to see something longer as opposed to shorter.

This is a rather loaded question and a lot factors into this. For instance, clearly some characters will be far more vulnerable (lower HP and resists) than others. I can at least say this, we are not over fond of insta-gibbing. We want battles to be hard fought, with plenty of give and take. We will seek that sweet spot somewhere between ‘omg die already!’ and POOF insta-dead.

aylwynn asked: Will Camelot Unchained feature hooded cloaks?

Yes. You are going to sleep like a babe now, aren’t you Aylwynn?!

Meddyck asked: Will we encounter NPC versions of characters from the lore such as John, Miach, and Nimue?

Wouldn’t that be cool? I hear tell that it’s possible… 😉

 

Thanks for reading folks, see you on the forums!

Renée Machyousky, Community Manager, City State Entertainment