qotw aug.7

1. How will you go about names?



Right now players can have I believe 32 characters but no numbers, symbols, or articles. This may change as players find new ways to abuse and annoy us, but for now it’s the plan.



2. Is there a huge cliff with a skull on it in the game?



Not yet. I’m not saying there never will be, but not yet.



3. I have seen the forum titles… so… Any HP Lovecraft or mythos in the game?



There are some homages to the works of Lovecraft (there is a town that is a direct homage to Innsmouth) but you won’t be fighting deep ones or visiting the lost city of R’lyeh.



4. Will there be a Candy Mountain in the game?



No, but we do shun the unbelievers.



5. What’s Kingman Prison like?



Game Flavor Perspective



Kingman Prison is a heavily-fortified structure, currently serving as the headquarters for Casta Gaunt and his ever-expanding army of bandits, murderers, and thieves. Most of the prison is in fairly good condition despite the time that has passed, and this is solely due to regular maintenance; Gaunt is not the first individual to use the prominent, defensible hilltop location as a fortress, and certainly won't be the last. Before the Fall, the prison was equipped to house about one hundred and eighty inmates between the numerous cell blocks, and also possessed the only capital punishment facility in the region in the form of an electric chair.



The prison actually consists of two large incarceration buildings within a two-layer fortified wall. Pens outside of the first wall were used as kennels for guard animals. It is said that there is a subterranean level to the prison complex as well, though none in recent years have had the opportunity to confirm this. Nevertheless, no one has been known to have escaped the prison before or after the Fall.



Dev Explanation Perspective



Kingman Prison was created with a 4 to 5 player team in mind, allowing them to fight their way into the very heart of Casta Gaunt's stronghold and kill the man behind the raider band whose mooks are wreaking havoc throughout the center of the Plateau area. Instead of just fighting wave after wave of human opponents, however, players do battle with mixed groups of Casta's minions, which consist of your usual scrap-weapon-wielding thugs, horrific deformed clones that are the result of Casta's experiments with the LifeNet cloning technology, and a number of specially-scripted instance bosses which utilize tactics and combat mechanics outside of the scope of typical encounters.



Players are able to enter the instance one of two ways; bypass the gauntlet of guard animals and raiders between the front gates of the prison and its interior entrance, or complete an indepth mission chain where they utilize the LifeNet technology that Casta Gaunt has been exploiting as a weapon against him and arrive deep within the prison complex without having to fight their way through the guards outside. Nothing prevents more combat-oriented players from foregoing this option and just hacking a path into the prison, though. Unless they run out of ammo.



6. How long will it take to fill personal inventory? Scenario: Log into game. Head out to middle of nowhere. Kill everything you see. Scavenge everything you have skills for. How long will it take before you are force to head back to a town to unload?



Huh, never thought about it that way. Without doing some hard testing I’d say about an hour to an hour and a half or so. It really depends on what you’re doing; do you need ammo, how many mission items items you’re lugging around, etc., but generally an hour or so is a good guideline.



7. If you logout in the middle of nowhere and you login again will you be at the same spot or will you be in a nearby city?



You come back where you last were, be that in the middle of Oilville or the middle of a raider den.



8. Enviroment damage? Like walk into a fire and get burned or walk into a fairly large sparking electric conduct and get shocked?



On some areas. We don’t have damage on every campfire in the game as that’s a lot of effort for minimal return, but we do have radiation zones, plague areas, etc. It’s one of the major reasons for using different types of armor, like Hazmat suits.



9. How will melee weapons come into play? Will it hold the same mechanic as most, if not all typical fps games- stab/whack for a good 1-5 times before the enemy is dead? I know there are armor bonuses that decreases the amount of damage taken etc., but is this the basic idea around it?



You’ve got the basic idea, but add in special attacks that can be keyed in and delivered on your next swing. Special attacks can increase damage, introduce status effects like knockdown, debuff opponents, etc. Also, whacking people in different areas of the body can produce different results.



Funny story on that: I didn’t realize head shots were active until a few weeks ago Colin headshotted something in the tutorial for enough damage to kill a 200th level character in one hit. At the time, headshot multipliers and critical hit multipliers were both multiplying each other. It created some stupid-high damage spikes that have been toned down, but it was funny while it lasted.



10. In the last QotW you said that once the game was released that there would be a team only working on bugs and low- to mid-level content, so what are your plans for higher-level content? Is higher-level content something you're only looking into for expansions, or will there be small amounts of high-level content added?



High-level content will be added through a mixture of free and premium (meaning you pay for it) expansions.



11. Tell us more about Neutrals .



No.



Oh, okay.



12. If I choose to be Neutral, will Enforcers, Travelers and others be better in something than me?



Not necessarily, but they will have an easier time learning advanced abilities in some things than you.



13. Will they have access to some skills that I won't be able to learn?



Neutral players can learn the same skills as faction players, but faction players will have access to some special abilities that neutral players will not. Most special abilities can be learned by anyone, but they are more easily available if your faction favors the skill it is related to. In short, an Enforcer will learn Rifle Smash faster and more easily than a neutral player, and will have some special Rifle abilities that the neutral can’t learn, but the neutral player can raise his Rifle skill just as high.



14. If yes, will Neutrals get some special abilities that only they can learn ?



Unlikely. The neutral factions (Franklin’s Riders, Bankers) will have some special gear that players can earn, though.



15. What will be a bad side of being Neutral and what will be good side?





The bad side is you miss out on a lot of the cool high-end faction content, gear, special abilities, etc. The good side is you can go to any town without being attacked. As said previously, the neutral player’s experience will be a wider play experience, but not as deep as a faction player’s experience.



16. Is there any difference for Neutrals playing on PvE or PvP server ?



Nope.



17. Will I get faction points for killing people from other Factions ?



Faction point awards for killing players are based on the faction ratings of that player, so if you kill someone with a lot of Lightbearer faction you’ll lose some Lightbearer faction, and you’ll lose more than if you killed a low-ranking member of the Lightbearers. So if you are neutral and you kill someone who is allied to a faction, you will gain negative faction points, which makes you non-neutral pretty quick.



18. What if I kill other Neutral players?



If you kill someone who's completely neutral you’ll get no faction points for the kill.



19. How will players obtain fuel?



Some towns will sell it, but players can also make it.



20. Will there be any kinds of fuel that can only be found by one method?



Not really. The really high-end stuff will probably only be available through crafting, but that’s about it.



21. Are you guys planning on having guild invites for beta?



They’re already up and running (but, admittedly, not running perfectly).



22. Will you be choosing any Europeans at all for Alpha, or is it 100% American?



There will be Europeans playing on the Alpha test servers.



23. Why are the new characters not wearing any cloning collars ?



Uhhhh, because we forgot?