New QotW - May 28, 2008

nAAtimus

I’m still digging through Taelanna’s sheet looking at questions. I was out of town most of the week last week, so I didn’t get to dig into as much as I would have otherwise. This week we’re working on Boneclaw, Terance, Kingman Prison, South Burb, raids, clearing out old items, and lots of bookkeeping. We’ve also set up a regular testing time each week, where the whole company plays for a few hours.





1.Was the video made before or after the art revamp?



Before.





2.Are you using or do you plan to use the "in-game video" features of your tools in Fallen Earth ?



Not a lot of it. There aren’t enough functioning video screens after the Apocalypse for us to use it a lot. It is a really neat feature, though.





3.Since you guys have said before that you've changed the skills around a bit, could we get an update on the skills each faction favors (such as Enforcers being good at pistols, rifles, etc)?



How about we make that the topic for next week’s QotW?





4.How is aggroing mobs handled?



Each critter has a visible arc that is about ninety degrees in front of the creature. If the creature is hostile to the player (which may be caused by the creature being hostile to everything, your faction standing, active effects on your character like creeper musk, and so forth) and the player enters the visible arc within a range set on the creature (usually from 5-30 meters), the creature aggros on the character.



If the player is behind a creature, it checks how much noise the player makes against the creature’s Perception attribute. If the player makes enough noise for the creature to hear something, it aggros on the player. Noise level is determined by a combination of the player’s Stealth skill, the noise their weapons and armor make, and how recently they moved or attacked.





5.Are all skills usuable in both PvP/PvE or are some for PvP/PvE only?



We try to make all the skills useable in both PvP and PvE, but testing will be the final determiner of how successful we have been.





6.Will the game developers be playing the game itself?



They'd better be! It’s the best way to see what’s wrong with your game.





7.What can be seen on the mini-map of the GUI (friendly players, grouped players, enemies, monsters...)?



At this point, the mini-map shows hostile creatures, mission givers, harvest nodes, corpses, other players, and merchants. We’re working on adding more detail to this list