@Markof
That's a great question - one that I had whole-heartedly agree with.
I love the depth of the knowledge system, but I worry about how unwieldy it might become over time.
- Snipehunter
Hail Elyrians!
It is, once more, that most shiny of days! As usual, I figured I'd talk a little about what I was doing today and how that relates to some aspects of the game. But for that to work, I've got to have some shiny image or video to share, so let's start with an image:
That, my friends, is the conference room. It is the place where Caspian, Vye, myself, and the rest of the team gather for meetings or, for the purpose of this post, review what's been worked on lately.
Generally, when we implement something, we implement it first in a very rough prototype form. That's usually with little or no graphics or -- where graphics are necessary -- with what the industry affectionately calls "programmer art." Which basically means we use placeholder art put there by the person who implemented the feature. Here at SBS, programmers aren't the only folks who implement features, so it's a little unfair to still call what you see at this stage programmer art, honestly. But, it is what the industry calls it.
Anyway, when you get lucky, even the programmer art looks OK, but it's almost always nowhere near shipping quality. For example, one of the things I was looking at today was the basics of the knowledge system, which are in the game now. It's all programmer art, but some of it doesn't even look that bad:
There comes a point, even in a test client, where programmer art isn't going to cut it. Either it's because the programmer art is just so clunky you can't get a sense of what the feature really feels like, or because you're beginning to transition away from your game client being a testbed and more towards it becoming something you're actually going to show to someone. At this point, the real artists take over. In some cases you get the real final art, in others you get what amounts to "better placeholders" -- art built at the level of fidelity you need for your game client's purposes and no more.
In our case, we're more the latter than the former -- we don't want to bog down the art team building UI for features that are still in flux. However, the art still needs love, so we ask them to implement placeholder art in question at the same fidelity level of the game client. (In our case, that means UI art that fits the same minimalist aesthetic that the 3D assets use in our alpha client)
A good example of this is the character creation screen. I believe we've shared the "programmer art" version of this in the past, but here's what it looks like with "Alpha art:"
That same sort of look and feel applies to the inventory and other character management screens as well. Though, in the next example, you'll see instances where we both have alpha art and where we still have some programmer art in view.
I'm not really a huge fan of the dev time lost to reviewing, but it's a necessary use of time, all the same. Especially as the lead designer; review time for me is a chance to make sure everything is moving in the right direction, and a chance to see that features are doing what we expect them to. And, honestly, it's a time for the team to S H I N E, which makes a day like today a perfect day for reviewing, don't you think?
Stay shiny my friends!
@Markof
That's a great question - one that I had whole-heartedly agree with.
I love the depth of the knowledge system, but I worry about how unwieldy it might become over time.
You have talked to Ralph a lot of times. You notice that he always wears a red scarf. Will it add that to the knowledge list for Ralph?
@markof - I am pretty sure, or really hope, they will sort the name list into something like settlements. These are the people you have met in Cheesewheel Port, and these are the people you have met in Cheesemonger Valley. Having a long list of everyone you have ever met would be horrible. Just keep in mind that people may leave that settlement and show up elsewhere, but your notes wouldn't change until you met them again, and hopefully may even take note of that and leave something in the notes saying the moved here from there.
Edit: Since I didn't say it at the start Awesome videos. Thank you for sharing with us. Me likey new Shiny.
I have a Rocket Launcher. Your Argument is Invalid.
Just wait until NPC / Players start dying. Keeping up with those notes is going to be even more fun. Then the question also becomes what "Person" knowledge transfer from life to life? Sure you might know Billy the Stable Hand like a brother, but how much will your next life know about him?
I have a Rocket Launcher. Your Argument is Invalid.
Am I the only one who noticed the DEVIANT in the video?
Nice shiney!!!
My name is Loki Lak, Doctor by degree but Tavern manager by trade Working with the wonderful Cozy Cavern Tavern!
@Markof
If they don't answer this one here it might be a good Q&A question
NA-W, Governor of Ogralyn
Posted By markof at 11:51 PM - Thu Jun 20 2019
It looks really good and as Wolfguard i love the conversation UI.
I noticed that the available choices of conversation subject increase with each people we introduce to. our knowledge of those new people getting added to our knowledge base, we can now tap into to further discuss with others, or so i think, and that's awsome. But i also noticed that in the conversation UI under the sub-window where you have the list of characters name you know, there is nothing more than the name.
The overall intention is that your knowledge base is sort of like a "wiki" - it will be sortable in a number of ways (geographically, socially, tribally, politically, and professionally, for people) and fully searchable, once all the UI is created for it.
We haven't implemented the feature yet, but you will also be able to select something from your knowledge base and put it into chat as a token so that you can share knowledge with anyone who can hear you.
There is also a "certainty" factor involved in knowledge. Knowledge that you've received from sources you don't know or trust, or that you explicitly flag as "suspect" will get tagged as such and sorted differently from knowledge you discovered yourself, otherwise verified, or received from sources you trust, so you can keep separate "facts" and "hearsay."
Hope that helps! :)
That is a very nice job i have to say... Have a question tough ... Will it be possible to get in a range of a group (for example) and say out laugh if someone knows this person or this location ? So instead talking individually to one talk to a group asking stuff
Thanks in advance and nice shine weeeee
See you in the next life...
To expand on the questions about organizations and UI above, will it be possible to receive a description of someone and it give a possible identification of that person as you walk by them? For example the say bounty posters have been put up to help catch a thief. I read the bounty poster which has a description and (i assume) i gain a knowledge token about what this person looks like and is wearing. With that information, I am now walking down the street and see them come out of a building. Would i get a possible pop up name depending how closely they matched the description or would that be up to me as a player to recognize them?
A secondary question I have is regarding the ability to make notes display next to names as I walk near people I know. The first example of this is last night i come into a new town and head to the inn. The next day I go to the market and see the innkeeper in the street. Would it be possible to see not only his name but also what I know him as (such as innkeeper). This would also make sense as when entering a new town you might not remember everyone name but instead you remember them by their professions. (oh that's the blue bridge smith or that's rose creek tailor)
Finally I have a question about the UI used in speaking to others. In this shiny there were boxes that you choose to speak in but in other past images shown there were chat systems that took into account area and surroundings allowing everyone to talk at once (if they were in range). While I definitly understand the direct box method for OPC and NPC characters will the chat version still be available for player to player interactions or will it only be the box version for everyone? If so how would we express things that cannot be conveyed in the box form? Or if there is a chat, how will NPC's and OPC monitor it for information that they would gain? Both of these could be solved by using both systems but only allowing knowledge tokens to be passed through the box method but still that raises the question about how it will be handled in groups or with eavesdropping on box conversations.
Posted By markof at 01:51 AM - Fri Jun 21 2019
It looks really good and as Wolfguard i love the conversation UI.
I noticed that the available choices of conversation subject increase with each people we introduce to. our knowledge of those new people getting added to our knowledge base, we can now tap into to further discuss with others, or so i think, and that's awsome. But i also noticed that in the conversation UI under the sub-window where you have the list of characters name you know, there is nothing more than the name.
In the demo, that does not seem to be a problem because our knowledge is limited and we end up with only a handfull of names in the list, but what if we actually introduce ourself to each character in the village ? that name list will grow quite a bit and at some point it might be just a long list of names that mean nothing to us and from which we are unable to find usefull ones.
So i was wondering do you have plans to add some contextual extra info on that list or different sorting/search options.
Say we have been playing for some time now, our character is sort of a traveling smith student always looking for more things to learn in his craft from new smith he learns about during his travels. So his knowledge list of persons is quite huge. he arrives in a new town and he start searching for a particular smith lady he heard about in the previous town he was visiting. The best way to find someone is probably to ask about that person, just like we saw in the demo. So our character approach a character from the town, introduce himself, and proceed to ask if that character knows about.... and then when it opens the people sub list, we have a very long list of names, but for the sake of it our player can not remember the name of the lady smith he's searching , only that it is a smith, a lady and that she live in that town.....
With a list of names only, it will get quite problematic to find the right one, maybe will need to ask about each and every one of them..... but with a little contextual help or ways to sort/trim the list with the desiered criteria it start to be way more manageable.
Is this something you have planned to adress in a way or an other or on the contrary it is by design, to have us players pay more attention to the conversations we have and the info we gather ?
maybe after a certain amount of time, old names on that list would disappear as if your character had just forgot. if you wanted to make note of specific things you could write it down in in-game books that re-add that name or information to dialogue. more familiar people or things that your character sees more often could be added to a more permanent list, but this system might be good to filter out all the irreverent details like passer-byes.
"your friend here is only mostly dead. there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. mostly dead is slightly alive."
AHHHHHH! The shinies are blinding! It's beginnin' to look a lot like Elaria...mas...
Family Ahlström - Wealth in the rivers and vast seas.
Thanks for sharing. Love the art style for prelyria. Alpha this year?
One other thing that i noted is the items he has... You said at some point that characters will have on them what you see (not in this words but...). So where does this character of yours have the 3 swords, the mace, the shield and the torch ? Some of them are in the body and not in the inventory and some other's are in the inventory but not in body. I guess the shirts and the rest can be on the backpack he has so... Or this mechanic is not yet implemented ?
Have fun and have a good job
See you in the next life...
I know this week's SHINY is about something else but in the video we see a lot of shiny lanterns...! Like last week with the candles in the tunneling shiny I would like to know if the lanterns have to be lit? Could this be a (daily) quest/contract from either NPCs or PCs to light lanterns in a village?
