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Thema: Runemaster

  1. #1
    I'M NOT A BIRD, YOU KNOW! Avatar von noxx-0
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    Runemaster

    Zitat Zitat von StevenW Beitrag anzeigen
    Hello forum friends!

    I bring you the announcement teaser trailer for the project formerly known as "Project Nero" and now known as "Runemaster." Hooray for new IP's!!!

    Check it out on the Youtubes!


    Enjoy and feel free to to offer feedback here!

    -Steven
    Quelle

    Infos bisher: Ein Rundenbasiertes RPG mit 6 Völkern (Zwerge, Menschen, Trolle, Riesen, Lichtelfen, Dunkelelfen) sowie 3 Klassen (Skalde, Berserker, Runenmeister)

  2. #2
    Beyond Mars Avatar von [VK]
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    Wenns ähnlich zu Heroes wird, wird das wohl brauchbar sein...

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  4. #4
    I'M NOT A BIRD, YOU KNOW! Avatar von noxx-0
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    Bisherige DevDiarys: 1-6

    Zitat Zitat von Johan Beitrag anzeigen
    Welcome to our first development diary for our upcoming RPG Runemaster. My name is Johan Andersson, studio manager at Paradox Development Studio and I am very happy and proud to present this game and give you weekly information during our development!

    Why create an RPG?
    As a kid, I kept making my own games on the C64. I made lots of different types of games, games me and my friends had great fun playing together. My dream has always been that I wanted to create grand strategy games and a great RPG. Now, after twenty years of making games for a living, I think I can say that I’ve made a few decent strategy games
    However I still haven’t made an attempt at a good RPG, and I truly believe Runemaster will be that game!

    As some of you might know, Paradox Development Studio started as the computer games development wing of Target Games, a company that was built on making pen & paper roleplaying games. And we’re still some people old enough to still be around from that age.

    We at PDS don´t just love strategy games passionate. We also deeply love playing RPG’s. (We had great fun with our World of Warcraft guild for several years, and whenever there is a new Bioware or Bethesda RPG out, there is quite a lot of lunch conversation about them.) Our team is so excited about putting their vast experience of making games into making their dream come true!

    Our Vision & Goal!
    So what do we want with Runemaster?
    - We want to make a truly repayable RPG with tactical elements, where every single play through is a unique saga.
    - We want you to be able to weave your own Viking Saga and explore the beautifully rendered six Norse worlds.
    - We want to make you a enjoyable game out of the expected from Paradox Development Studio.

    What will make Runemaster unique?
    We aim to have the game stand on three pillars:
    First of all, the exploration of six worlds rich on Norse Mythology. With procedural generated worlds this will add on uniqueness to each game you start.
    Secondly, our tactical combat system. With terrain & elevation, multiple unit types and depth of options will make for an awesome experience.
    Finally, we are building on the truly unique attributes of emergent storytelling. Your decisions will have direct impact on the journeys you embark on.

    Next week, we’ll talk more about the art and mythology of Runemaster!

    ps. In case you missed it, view the Runemaster Teaser trailer here:
    Zitat Zitat von Johan Beitrag anzeigen
    Hello everyone, and welcome back.

    We’ll start our Runemaster dev diaries from an artistic point of view. This group of diaries will discuss things like scenery and character design, and and explain our thinking behind the races, worlds, heroes etc. in the game, as well as relevant lore for each of these. Our Lead Artist, Fredrik Toll, and Senior Lore Developer, Sara Wendel-Örtqvist, will be co-writing these dev diaries. Most of these will appear later, but for the moment I want to focus on the general artistic thoughts about the game, and some of the challenges we have faced in conceiving the project.

    From an artistic standpoint, Runemaster is a whole new level of challenge for Paradox Development Studio. We need to create much more content than we have for any other game we have ever made. The amount of and level of 3D-modeling and animation is breathtakingly large for us. With Runemaster we have no historical reference to rely on, and, therefore, we have had to create lots of concept art in order to create a world from our own imagination. The game writing is a challenge of its own, as a role-playing game demands a lot more writing and a much different kind of writing than our previous titles.


    One of the first and most obvious challenges we set for ourselves is staying true to Norse mythology. Many of our players will, no doubt, be somewhat knowledgeable in this lore, and will not fail to mention when we make mistakes. But sometimes you have to make choices that are consistent with the lore, but still deviate in places, and we will try to explain these where we can.

    Despite its familiarity to many people, historic sources for Norse mythology are not numerous. The existing texts, legends and myths have been interpreted and speculated about for a long time but we have nowhere near the number or variety of sources and materials available for, say, document-rich Greek or temple-rich Egyptian myth. The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, written in Iceland during the 13th century (after the Christianization of many Viking leaders and communities), are the main sources of medieval skaldic tradition in Iceland and Norse mythology. So our approach is to always start out on what we can find out about Norse myth from these texts and try to fill the gaps as best we can with what makes sense in the world we imagine, consistent with what we understand about Viking lore. One advantage of few text sources is that at least there are fewer chances for contradictions!

    Norse mythology and the Vikings are tightly bound together, and Runemaster is set in a very Nordic environment. Runemaster, however, is not a game about Vikings. It’s an RPG set in Norse mythology, and is equally a game about Humans, Trolls and Giants. With six races and six worlds, we want to give each their due. The Humans in this world are Vikings in many ways, but do not expect them to adhere to the roaming and pillaging way of life. These are mythical humans in mythical setting.

    When designing anything there is also the challenge of being original. We want things to look new and unique, because everyone want something fresh. But there’s always a limit when you are dealing with terms and worlds that people already know. If you have Elves of any kind, and refer to them as Elves, you need to make sure people recognize them and not make them too different from what people are familiar with.

    This is the challenge when designing anything which people are already acquainted with.; you need to balance familiar settings with original ideas. If it’s too familiar, it’s unoriginal; make your world too unique and it’s just weird.

    Obviously for our historical Grand Strategy games, references are not an issue. All you need to do is Google a bit (though that is not always as easy as it sounds). In Runemaster, we have to come up with most things on our own. That gives us lots of freedom, but also presents some interesting challenges. There are tons of fantasy realms, games, books and other media that have been inspired by Norse mythology, so we can take a look at them and see how they did things. At the same time we wish to make something new and not draw too much inspiration from other games, especially. So we set our reference point from what approaches authors of similar settings have taken and then see where we can push - always aided by the historical texts and artifacts we have come to rely on at PDS.

    One of the primary artistic inspirations for the Runemaster artstyle is John Bauer, a Swedish artist from the turn of the last century. Over his very short life, he became famous for drawing and painting mystical forests, fairies and trolls in a unique style. We like the feeling John Bauer manages to convey in his paintings, that of a deep, dark forest full of mystery. It also captures the feel of the Nordic landscape.

    We are no strangers to game writing, since our other titles containing massive amounts of text. But our other games have demanded less of us than Runemaster will. Instead of events and decisions, Runemaster has quests and a narrative and the quests have to make sense in the context of that larger ongoing story.

    Every single playthrough of one of our grand strategy game creates a story, but it is one the players create themselves. In Runemaster, the writing is on a whole different level, with greater authorial direction. Instead of using the historical background and setting to build a stage for your own personal story of conquest, it is up to the game writers to deliver a compelling adventure that we hope you will want to play over and over. Runemaster, as a fantasy RPG, is expected to have a main story, quests, NPCs with personality and a believable world.

    The events in most of our grand strategy games are based on historical events and happenings, they are there to provide a little more flavor to the game. Runemaster’s quests and main story, however, are the gameplay in many ways, making the writing a large part of the game experience. One of the great challenges of Runemaster is to provide the player with a game that is replayable, since this is a core value of all of our games. So we have to create an overarching narrative with a feeling of consistency from several races’ point of view and quests that change with every decision the player makes.

    In future dev diaries we will go into greater details about each of the playable races, their units and Heroes, their culture and character designs. We will also discuss other topics related to art and lore.

    Next week, we’ll talk about the main story of the game.
    Zitat Zitat von Johan Beitrag anzeigen
    What is a story?
    RPGs or role-playing games rely heavily on stories to create a compelling and immersive world. Runemaster is no different but as we are making the game, we are focusing on creating quests and a world that changes with the player’s choices and actions. We take much inspiration from Crusader Kings II’s narrative and storytelling, in that it is the player, not the game, that should create and tell a story. We will make sure that the worlds we create are inhabited by interesting people who you can interact with, do quests for or maybe fight. There is a greater limitation in making a story for a RPG than a grand strategy game, and we need to rely more on the imagination of the game- and quest writers than we have previously done. Quests differ a lot from events and are both more complex to make and to write. Those of you who have played CKII and has come upon the event serie Gate of Hell, imagine that but several times longer, more complicated and perhaps even more interesting. Then you’ll get one of Runemaster’s quests.

    Even a game as purely random like Nethack has a story. It has a goal of obtaining the Amulet of Yendor, but nothing else. The story is in your mind as the mechanics fit together to form a story of unexpected encounters.

    The Witcher 2, on the other hand, has several minor quests that you might not even think is a quest when you take action. In one region of the game you are able to either aid a couple of guards who are looking for elves or help the elves escape. Your choice of action will affect the game in a small way; if you save the elves you will be approached by someone later on in the game who will thank you and give you a small reward. The Witcher 2 is filled with things like that. It also has a great story with several different paths through it, and depending on which you choose you’ll experience a whole other story. We intend to take it a step further and make sure your every choice will impact the game in some way.

    The Start
    Each race has its own place in the six worlds of Runemaster. If you are a Human or a Troll, you will start in Midgard. Lightelfs have their home in Alfheim, while Dwarfs and Giants dwell in Jotunheim and Darkelfs reside in Svartalfheim. No matter which race you begin as, you’ll work your way through the game to learn about yourself, the worlds and the threat that lurks at the horizon. Your choice is quite simple, and depending on which race you choose to start as, you will try to free Loki, unleash Ragnarök, see the old world drown and a new world dawn or fight Loki, prevent Ragnarök from happen and be the Hero who saves the world. You will perhaps change your mind, and as a Troll try to gain favor with Thor and prevent Ragnarök. That’s up to you. What will you do?


    Side Quests vs Main Quests
    There are no sidequests in Runemaster, every quest counts toward the goal at the end and even if you might not know it or realise it, the game mechanics will make sure that no quest is made in vain. Each quest is stored in a database and your choices and actions will trigger different ones. Some are more exclusive ones, perhaps designed based on your class or race, others will change marginally and offer up new options or path through depending on your traits or quests you have completed before. One example is the dragon Fafnir, who once was a Dwarf whose greed turned him into a black dragon. Multiple quests will bring you to him, but you will only see one per playthrough.

    The main quest has a quite simple goal: Either defeat Loki, prevent Ragnarök or free Loki and unleash Ragnarök. Each quest you do in Runemaster will bring you one step closer to the end. How you travel through it is up to you. Though the main questline will have anchor points, certain quests that are important for the storyline, they will differ depending on your choices. Are you a Dwarf, friendly with the Giants but hated by your own kind? Then the game will take notice, and make sure your quests will reflect that.

    We are working hard at weaving each quest into each other dynamically, and it will be a great challenge for us but a challenge we welcome and look forward to. Our team is growing and many talented people will work hard at making Runemaster compelling, immersive and fun.

    The End
    There’s always a goal with a story, an end that will bind together all the threads the writer threw out during the storytelling. Sometimes that end has a morality lesson, sometimes it is a great joke, and sometimes it is just an end to put an end to the story. Runemaster’s goal is quite simple, to entertain, to educate, and to be a great game. Our goal is to make a game with great replayability, where the story matters, where each quest matters, and depending on your choices and your path, it will split up into different outcomes. You already know what will happen at the end of Runemaster, but you do not know how to get there, not until you have played through the game.
    Zitat Zitat von Birken Beitrag anzeigen
    Hi everyone!
    Welcome to the 4th developer diary for Runemaster. Today we will delve deep in the trait system, since you can’t have a role-playing game without traits and attributes. RPGs can take a number of different approaches to defining what kind of person the main character is. In some games, there is little choice in how your character acts, in others you can be either good or bad, and in some you have to decide on personality yourself and then make sure you act it out because the game light let you switch at any given moment. In Runemaster, however, we want the personality of your character to be formed by the decisions you make throughout the game.

    Your choices have a direct impact on your quests
    Runemaster is an RPG with an element of emergent storytelling, so our goal is to have the choices you make directly impact the quests you can embark on. The game’s procedural quest system will take note of your deeds and challenge you accordingly. The way you act determines not only what type of person you are, but also what personality traits you develop and what quests you get in future. (Would you hire a bloodthirsty murderer to save a wagonload of orphans?) One of the cornerstones of every Paradox Development Studio game is replayability, and the personality traits combined with the quest system will play a huge part in making every playthrough different.

    You gain traits by your choices
    Are you always giving others the version of the truth that is most beneficial to you or are you telling them what really happened? Are you helping people for nothing beyond their gratitude, or does your assistance always come with a price tag? Do you walk bravely headstrong into any challenge, or do you make sure that the odds are heavily in your favor before attempting something dangerous?
    In Runemaster, we track your choices and map them onto a scale of different attributes, where each attribute has a personality trait at its extremes. This is an idea we've borrowed from Crusader Kings II, where characters can gain a multitude of different traits, each of which can dramatically change the entire game experience.
    In Runemaster we've cut the number of traits to eight and those eight traits are based on four different attributes. Each time you decide to lie, act bravely or spend all your savings on a big feast for the whole village, we add or subtract a value from the corresponding attribute. When an attribute’s score gets really high or really low, your character gets assigned a trait.
    Getting an attribute back to a normal range will remove the trait and your character might very well start off as an honest do-gooder and end up as a lying sell-sword after becoming disillusioned with the world. Changing from one trait to its opposite will take time though and could be compared to changing sliders in Europa Universalis III; it is a gradual process that might not pay off for you for quite a while.

    The attributes and traits:
    EDITED by SolSara 2014-04-03
    Fortunemaker: Provident - Extravagant
    Wordsmith: Illusive - Honest
    Silvertongue: Manipulative - Intimidating
    Pathfinder: Cautious - Brave

    NOTE: We have done some changes to the trait names as we have read what the forum had to say and discussed it among ourselves. I feel confident that the new names are an improvement to the old ones. /SolSara

    Why limited to eight traits?
    Traits will greatly influence the quests you get, the solutions available to you, and the type of options you get in dialogs with other characters in the world. We felt that too many traits would lessen the importance of each trait and that it would be better to have fewer distinct traits so we can work into making each of them affect the way you get to play the game. A thrifty and deceitful character will do anything the reach a goal and sometimes the goal justifies the means, so we have built the quest system to make these traits stand out more starkly than they otherwise would in a more crowded system.

    Traits are viewed differently by different races
    Since they are distinct cultures with distinct values, the different races in Runemaster view traits differently. As a human most people will respect you for being brave and honest, but Dark Elf society is different as being deceitful isn't necessarily something bad. Putting your friends and family in jeopardy by telling the truth when you shouldn't have is instead something that quickly could make you an outcast in many societies, where in others honesty is always the best policy.
    The trait system also makes it possible for you to shape the story you’re about to play. Perhaps your first game is as a craven Dwarf who spends all her coin on getting a host of Darkelfs and Trolls to follow her, and then lies her way back into a Dwarf keep only to sack and plunder it. Maybe you’re playing as a thrifty and charming Troll Berserker who aims to make the current world a better place instead of gambling on the next?

    Every quests you undertake, challenge you face and choice you make will affect how your hero is perceived, what traits you will gain and what further adventures you will encounter. We at Paradox Development Studio have always believed in games that allow you to set your own goals and decide which tools you will use to reach them. All of you out there who have played our strategy games, especially Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV, know that we want you create your own story, and recognize that there are always choices and everything you do has consequences. With our tactical RPG Runemaster, we want every single playthrough to be a new saga where you as a player have the freedom to choose your path.

    So, now you have some insight in the trait system! We´ll be back to tell you more about Runemaster next week

    As a bonus, a portrait of the human berserker!



    Wanna follow Runemaster?
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/runemastergame
    Twitter: http://twitter.com/RunemasterGame

    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Welcome to developer diary 5 for Runemaster where we focus on combat attributes! As you should know by now, Runemaster will focus on your hero in the quests and on the main map - but when the battle starts, your hero will be moved from the world map and into a battlefield when you encounter enemies. The battles of Runemaster will be turn-based, tactical battles based on a hex grid system. There your Hero joins his/her army and take active part in combat as a unit on the battlefield. And there are several combat attributes that govern how well the character performs during combat.

    There will absolutely be more dev diaries describing the combat system later, but for now we’ll give you a quick overview of the combat attributes that all units have:
    • Health
    • Armor
    • Melee damage
    • Melee piercing
    • Ranged damage
    • Ranged piercing
    • Range
    • Magic damage
    • Magic resistance
    • Terror
    • Discipline
    • Movement speed

    Health controls how much damage a unit can take before being removed from the combat.
    Armor is used to prevent damage and piercing removes armor. Ranged units are usually weak in melee.
    Magic damage is used to control the effects of a lot of aggressive magical abilities and magic resistance protects against magic damage. Discipline makes units hold their ground longer before breaking and falling back on the battlefield and terror makes units break faster.

    The system is built such that we can create different rock-paper-scissor scenarios where some units (such as units with high armor) are best countered with other types of units (units with high piercing).

    Modders should be happy to know that traits and attributes are fully scriptable and there’s no limitation in the number and types of attributes. There are triggers and effects that manipulate attributes and traits that can be used to control quests and dialog.

    So, that was a teaser on the combat attributes for your hero and units. We will definitely delve more in this subject further along the development, rest assure! Talk more next week



    Bonus teaser: Concept art for the Human city

    Bonus reading: Runemaster – The Stories of Women from Norse Mythology
    http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...orse-Mythology
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hi everyone!

    Welcome to the 6th developer diary for Runemaster. Today we’re going to tell you more about exploring the worlds in the game. Details on each of the different worlds will come in future dev diaries, so today we’ll just focus on how the world is generated and how you explore it within the game.

    Procedural Worlds
    We’ve said before that our worlds are procedurally generated, but what does that mean?
    Initially, we made a procedural landscape made of mountains, plains, highlands and ocean, and we simulated rainfall and placed rivers, swamps forests and arid areas accordingly. Cities, bandit camps, iron mines, farms and other locations were placed based on factors like the availability of fresh water, proximity to the ocean, presence of mountain passes and more. The result was cool, and it could have looked good if it wasn’t done with programmer art and random assets from CK2, but didn't work for the game we wanted to make. We’re making a role-playing game, not a grand strategy game, and while we had some control over the gameplay aspects of this world, we didn't have enough.

    It wasn't an easy decision, but, as the saying goes, sometimes you have to kill your darlings, be it in writing literature or making software.

    Back to the drawing board
    So making a “realistic” world wouldn't give us the world we thought we needed, but what did we really need? What are the design goals of a Runemaster world? First of all, we needed a world that would support our quests, especially our main quest line. This means one that is plausible, that works with the quest arcs and that has the right sizes and distances to have the quests make sense. Secondly we wanted to be able to create memorable locations that allowed for exploration - we want the worlds to vary because that’s important for replayability but each playthrough has to create something meaningful in regards to the setting. And thirdly, we wanted to be able to control the flow of the game in some way. The world generation needed to be consistent in creating the worlds we wanted. Every player needs to get a world that gives a great gaming experience!

    The current system starts out with a graph of different regions. That graph is scripted and selected specifically for each world depending on what race you play. A Human and a Troll starting in Midgard will find different versions of Midgard. The graph contains a lot of variations that can differ for each play-through so you won’t get the same regions in every game, but race selection will be a major variable in what is generated.

    Once the graph is set, we place the regions generated by the graph into the world and make sure they’re connected to each other. This process has a high level of randomness, so the world will be different even starting from the same graph. Then, each region lays out its content, such as cities, NPCs, guard units, Runestones or large glowing crystals. A region can create a natural harbor and build a fishing village inside it or raise a mountain and place an hermit Troll on top of it.

    Exploration
    At the start, the world is unknown to you and there’s only one way to unveil its secrets. You have to travel the lands and meet its inhabitants, see its monuments and plunder its riches (if your character fancies riches, that is). Some places are connected by roads and others you have to reach by moving through forests, spiky rocks or along the shore of a poisoned lake. Every player will have to do some exploring, even if it just means going wherever the quests tell you to go, but if you find exploration interesting, there will be areas that are more hidden and off the beaten path of the main quest. Here you will find side quests, lore, loot or just an unexpected encounter. This will be especially true for the worlds in which you didn't start your journey and you’ll choose which you’ll delve deeper into.

    As an explorer you have to be on your watch, though, as areas have different levels of difficulty. If you walk too deep into the forest, the hostiles you encounter might be too difficult for you. We feel that this is an important part of exploring as it gives you choice. If you run into a band of high level Lightelfs, do you turn back, find a way around or are you good enough of a tactician to take them on even if the odds are stacked against you? It also means that you can come back later to fight your way through something that felt like an impassable wall when you and your army were weaker.

    Modding
    The region graph and the individual regions are all scripted and moddable. As a modder you’ll be able to control most parts of the world generation and configure how the different regions look and function.


    Now you have a brief introduction to how we build our world! Stay tuned for more Runemaster information next week.


    Bonus teaser: An early concept of a Troll in his prime years.

  5. #5
    I'M NOT A BIRD, YOU KNOW! Avatar von noxx-0
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    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Welcome to the 7th developer diary for Runemaster where we will talk about Loki and Thor and the struggle between Change and Stability! The main plot in Runemaster revolves around where you as a player try to decide whether to trigger the end of the world as you know it or postpone it for as long as possible. You will choose who to side with - Thor or Loki.

    The myth
    When mighty Thor’s brother Balder died by the machinations of the trickster god Loki, Thor swore he would do all he could to make sure Loki would not be able to escape his punishment. Loki was fettered to a stone slab with the entrails of his son Narfi, and a venomous snake was placed above him whose teeth drips poison onto the fettered god. Loki’s wife Sigyn is the only one who stays at his side, with a bowl in her hands which she uses to collect the drops of poison. When the bowl is filled and she leaves to empty it, the pain when the droplets eat into his skin makes Loki howl in pain and writhe upon his stone slabs, making the earth shake with each of his tremblings.

    Thor
    Thor, the Thunder god, son of Odin and wielder of Mjölnir stands for Stability and wishes to avoid Ragnarök. The worlds his father Odin created from the flesh of Ymir together with Vili and Ve are not to be changed in any way, for better or for worse. Ragnarök will bring destruction and death upon all the worlds, and only a few will be left alive to mend the worlds again. It is better if the current order is kept. Keep Loki fettered forever and there will be no Ragnarök, no change, no pain and no destruction. The gods will remain as the rulers and protectors of the worlds.

    Loki
    Loki, the Trickster, the Chaos god, Odin's blood brother, is bound to stone slabs with the entrails of his son Narfi and he must be released in order for Ragnarök to happen. The Norse mythology paints Loki as a troublemaker, a trickster, the chaos god that can both help the gods but also put them in difficult positions. Loki stands for Change and sees the truth of the worlds - that the gods favor some races and ignores the plight of the rest. The new world is a chance to change the current order and shape it so that every being is equal, in both gods’ and other’s eyes. Ragnarök is necessary, and inevitable. All you can do is accept Change, for better and for worse. The death of many gods during Ragnarök will leave the races able to determine their fate without the gods meddling.

    Change & Stability
    Runemaster is not about the struggle between Good and Evil, it is the struggle between Stability and Change. If Ragnarök occurs, the old world will be destroyed but a new world will arise. Change is not evil; it is only change which can be both bad and good. Same with Stability. Stability is accepting the old world and doing nothing to change it. Stability is set in its current ways and have no desire to change, no matter how bad the current tracks are. Change might not always be good, but it will always take you forward and you decide whether Change is good or bad. In the end, you will reach the choice where to fight Thor, free Loki and make sure Ragnarök happens in order for a new world to take the old ones' place or fight Loki, bind him firmly to his stone slabs and make sure Ragnarök will not happen.


    Bonus teaser: A Hero outside a small farm in Midgard (WIP).
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Welcome to developer diary 8 for our upcoming role playing-game Runemaster, where we will talk about Quests and Basic Mechanics! With Runemaster, we really want every single playthrough to be a unique saga, but how are we working to make that happen?

    We have previously told you that we are building the RPG on the attributes of emergent storytelling, so that the game’s procedural quest system will take note of your deeds and challenge you accordingly. Every quest counts toward the goal at the end and the game mechanics will make sure that no quest is made in vain. But how will these quests work? With triggers, configurators, stages and dialogue - among other things Welcome behind the scene for a sneak peak.

    DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES
    If you compare scripting quests in Runemaster to scripting events in either of our PDS strategy games, you’ll notice some similarities such as triggers and effects - but mostly differences such as configurators, stages, objectives, chance and dialog.
    Speaking as someone who has scripted events for almost every game and expansion from Paradox Development Studio since Hearts of Iron 3: Semper Fi; scripting quests for Runemaster is both different and much more challenging. It is fun, of course, but it gets complicated fast.

    TRIGGERS
    The first you'll notice when you start scripting a quest is that we have kept Triggers, which are conditions that are required to be met in order for something to happen, in this case a quest to be shown and to be available to the Hero. We have too many triggers for me to go through them all today, you will find out more later on, but I will mention a few basic ones:
    • The race of the Hero, if s/he is a Troll, Human, Darkelf, Lightelf, Dwarf or Giant, so that we can make quests just for a certain race.
    • The class of a Hero, if s/he is a Berserker, Runemaster, Skald, so we can create class-specific quests.
    • The level of a Hero, so we can base the difficulty and length of a quest on the Hero's level.

    CONFIGURATORS
    The next thing is Configurators. Configurators decide where this quest will happen, where NPCs of different kinds will show up and also create a random value that can be used for various things. The Configurators will also help us find things such as the name of a city or a Den, as these things are randomized. As with Triggers, it is a long list indeed, so for now I'll just talk about the configurators that locate stuff for us.
    These configurators that find certain locations in the worlds, for example dens, cities, treasures, boats or runestones, pinpoint the various locations. Through the configurator, we can put a tag on the location, so we can refer to that tag in our dialog and get the real name of the city, den, boat or whatever it is. Each of these configurators have small triggers that gives us the possibility to either make the location random, or allows us to specify what exactly we are looking for. For a city, that would be the race of the city, for a den, it would be whether it would be inhabited by Trolls or Humans, for example.

    STAGES
    When the conditions of a quest's triggers are fulfilled, and the player has accepted the quest, then comes the fun part! Stages. This part of the quest is what the player should do in order to complete the quest, and this is where it starts to become complicated.
    Stages can have Objectives, which are similar to triggers in that way that they are conditions that are required to be met in order for the quest to progress. In short, Objectives specify what we can ask the player to do before progressing to the next part of a quest. It can be many things, and I'll mention a few.
    • Clear a Den mean that the player will have to go to a certain location, battle its inhabitants and emerge victorious from the battlefield. Then you need to use the Find Den-configurator so the game knows what you are looking for.
    • Quest Flag is a certain flag that can be set almost anywhere, most often in dialog, and they work in the same way as character flags in CKII, for example. They are placed on the Hero and, unless they are removed by script, will stick around until the end of the game. Quest flags can also be set as a result of combat with an NPC or even from certain events happening during a combat.
    • Stages can also spawn NPCs - non-playable characters - that the Hero can interact with in different ways. Talk or attack are the two most common interactions.

    The last stage is the Reward stage - and depending on the choices the player made through the quest, what that reward is can change - which will grant the Hero Experience, Gold, Reputation with a Faction or a unique object of some sort.
    Each stage also contains a trigger that can be used to create branching within a quest and provide certain objectives/rewards when some conditions are met.

    DIALOG
    A RPG is not a RPG without NPCs, quests and massive amounts of texts. In Runemaster, we script dialog in a way that allows us to go back and forth, and gives us plenty of opportunities to flesh out quests in a very nice way. Depending on the traits (which we talked about in an earlier dev diary), triggers and the player's own choices, the dialog can develop, change and progress, both in terms of text and quest. Those of you who has taken a look “behind the hood” of Crusader Kings II or Europa Universalis IV will recognize the scripted options, which are the text choices the player will be able to take.
    Options can also have triggers, requirements to be met in order for them to become available for the Hero, and those triggers are the same as the ones I talked about at the beginning of the Dev diary. As with the events and their options in our Strategy titles, options in Runemaster can have an effect that will be placed on the Hero or will make him/her do something. This can be accept a quest, attack a NPC, progress to a certain trait, decline the quest or keep talking to the NPC, to gain more information or find another way to solve a problem.

    THE END
    We have of course a lot more we can talk about in terms of Quests and the mechanics behind them. But even as I would want to write a full-length essay about this subject, I don't have the time for now, so you will have to wait for future developer diaries

    Come back next week for another developer diary from the PDS team behind Runemaster!

    P.S Here's a teaser for you - an early concept of a female Human! Doesn't she look badass? D.S
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Welcome to Developer Diary 9 for Runemaster and this week we will talk about Items and loot! What is a RPG without items and loot? Well… still a RPG but not as much fun!

    Runemaster divides items into three categories:
    Quest Items
    Random Items
    Unique Items

    QUEST ITEMS
    Quest Items, as I am sure you have already surmised, are items you gain as part of a quest. These can be anything from a long lost ring to a pyramid of dwarven skulls. These items cannot be equipped by the player, but may have many uses in the quests themselves. These are plot sensitive items and aren’t really of much use outside of their quest purpose - but could have immense power or value in the course of the quest. Quest items are necessary for the completion of some quests.

    RANDOM ITEMS
    We will have at least five different item types your Hero can equip: Belts, Weapons, Rings, Runes and Amulets. Each can be used, and all of them will have a bonus. Your Hero will only be able to wear one of each of these items at a time - so no stacking amulets for extra bling and/or lightning damage

    We are using a system of prefixes and suffixes for randomized items you can find. A low level weapon can be named “Feeble sword of…” while a high level weapon may be “Glorious sword of…”. This will be an easy shorthand to know whether you are carrying something of great value or just another minor blade.

    A random item will always give a bonus to one or two stats. The viable combinations are limited by the type of item and the item level. Firtt, the item generator chooses a major stat to modify and then a minor stat is selected depending on the major stat chose and level of the item.

    The suffixes appended to an item depend on what major and minor bonuses the item has. For the moment, we have more than ten different possible bonuses and a total combination of over 150. I won’t plague you with every suffix we have, but here’ arethe ones where Melee Damage has been combined with the other possible effects:

    Melee Damage + Melee Damage: "Destruction"
    Melee Damage + Terror: "Torment"
    Melee Damage + Health: "the Bane"
    Melee Damage + Melee Piercing: "Mutilation"
    Melee Damage + Discipline: "Havoc"
    Melee Damage + Range: "Carnage"
    Melee Damage + Armor: "Stoneskin"
    Melee Damage + Ranged Damage: "Slaughter"
    Melee Damage + Ranged Piercing: "Butchery"
    Melee Damage + Magic Damage: "Magic Destruction"
    Melee Damage + Magic Resistance: "Corruption"

    A mid-level weapon with double Melee Damage bonuses would then be called a “Fine Sword of Destruction”.

    UNIQUE ITEMS
    Not all items will be randomized loot that you stumble across. As is appropriate for a saga, we will have a lot of unique items you can get through quests as well that aren’t necessarily quest related. Think of these as major rewards for a job well done.

    You may recognize some of these unique items from the myths, legends and sagas of Norse Mythology, since Norse folklore is rich with signature weapons and jewelry of great value and power. Unique items have set effects that will not vary from game to game. We have Laevateinn, rumored to be Frey’s own sword, and Hofud, Heimdall’s sword, to list a couple of examples. Unique items are often tied to epic quests that will take you to Helheim and back.


    BONUS: An early concept of the Darkelfs.
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hey everyone!

    Another week, another Monday, and a new Developer Diary! Welcome to Dev Diary 10 for our upcoming RPG Runemaster. This week it is all about Skill Trees and Abilities for your hero.
    When you begin your adventure, you start with basic abilities and each time you level up you will be able to add perks, increase your stats or improve on your existing abilities for your hero. What perks you choose depends on your hero’s level and the perks previously chosen. To shape your hero and make him/her sharper and stronger in the areas of how you play is of course vital to the gameplay.

    So, let's take the basics first! When you begin your saga, every class have two skill trees, one for defense and one for offense. I am more of an offensive player and tend to focus more on damaging abilities and boni when I play RPGs, but I can't argue against having more armor or an ability that gives more protection, both for my troops and for my hero. When your hero levels up, you will get a skill point that you can use to upgrade him or her. A skill point can be spent once to unlock a perk from one of the skill trees. Each perk gives your hero either a stat bonus, a new ability or upgrades an existing ability. It is possible to mod this and it is possible to make a perk give the Hero both a stat bonus and an ability.
    There are several tiers in each skill tree, and you need to invest a certain amount of skill points in order to get to the next tier.

    All the three classes you can choose from - Berserker, Skald and Runemaster - start with three unique abilities. As your character levels up, you get to choose whether you wish to upgrade the starting abilities or gain new ones. Therefore you will be able to customize and choose what direction you want to take your hero. You will be able to upgrade both new and old abilities should you wish to, to make sure your hero is a perfect match for your playstyle, but naturally some abilities might be better than others…

    We are still in the beginning of making abilities, and we have a lot of work to do before they are done and balanced, therefore I'm keeping it a bit brief here. There are a couple already made, but their names and their boni or abilities might get changed. We will talk about a couple of perks we have, so be aware that these aren't the final design nor the final names of them.

    Some abilities can affect your enemy, some affect only your Hero and some affect your Hero’s squad. As we talked about in Development Diary 5 - The Combat Attributes, we have several different attributes that all units have:
    • Health
    • Armor
    • Melee damage
    • Melee piercing
    • Ranged damage
    • Ranged piercing
    • Range
    • Magic damage
    • Magic resistance
    • Terror
    • Discipline
    • Movement speed

    Each of these attributes can be increased or decreased by abilities. We can make abilities that increases an attribute for the Hero only, a friendly unit only, the Hero's whole squad, one enemy unit or on one of the enemy’s squads.

    At the moment, as an example, the three starting abilities for the Berserker are:

    Protective Presence increases the Armor of squad members by +25%, which lasts three turns.

    Break Armor is a carefully placed strike that deals 80% of Melee Damage, but increases your Melee Piercing by +50%.

    Powerful Strike is a powerful strike that deals 125% of Melee Damage, but reduces your Armor by 25% the next turn.

    I hope you enjoyed this week's dev diary and will come back for a new one on the Monday after next. We will be on vacation next Monday, celebrating Easter by eating huge amounts of candy, eggs and pastries!

    Anhang 105862

    Bonus! Alpha screenshot of the Berserker's two Skill Trees.
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hello everyone and welcome to Dev diary 11!

    I hope your Easter holiday was as great for you as it was for us! After having eaten a ton of candy and eggs, and candy eggs, we have regained our strength enough to write another Dev diary for our upcoming RPG Runemaster. This week we will talk about the hero class Skald.

    The Skald rely on the magic of their songs to inspire their troops, augment their skills, heal the wounded and strike terror into the heart of the enemy. Their songs are as old as the worlds, their poetry both beautiful and deadly at once. Music so powerful it can enslave the enemy or reinforce the strength of their allies.

    The Human Skald wields a bow and is thus vulnerable to close combat. Preferring to hold a defensive position and support its troops from behind, the Human Skald concentrates on augmenting its own troops’ strengths and abilities.

    The Darkelf Skald with its crossbow inspires its troops to greater feats, heals them when they are wounded and has a terrifying voice which brings darkness and despair into the enemies' hearts.

    The Giant Skald is an ax-throwing defensive hero whose great strength makes them able to throw an ax faster and longer than most can shoot an arrow. A Giant’s terrible strength makes every bow or crossbow crumble in their hands, and so they have resorted to throwing axes instead.

    The Lightelf Skald's greatest strength is their voice, and the songs can enrage the enemy, strengthen their own troops and make the enemy flee in terror. Wielding a bow, the Lightelf Skald supports its troops from behind and holds a defensive position on the battlefield.

    We end this dev diary with three of the Skald's unique abilities:
    Heroic Song - Increases the Damage of all squad members by 10%. Lasts 10 turns.
    Eagle Eye - Deals damage equal to 100% of your Ranged Damage. Can attack any enemy on the battlefield.
    Healing Song - Heals all squad members for 5 Health.

    And a teaser picture of the Human Skald:


    Come back next week for another Dev diary about Runemaster!
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    We are back with another Dev diary, this time we’ll talk about the ones that go mad in battle - the Berserkers! This is Dev diary 12 for our upcoming RPG Runemaster, and the hero class in focus this week is - The Berserker.

    The Berserker goes mad with rage in battle, a rage that quenches any pain and might block the memory of the battle afterwards. The sting of blades or the burn of fire cannot stop the Berserker. Some legends tell of Berserkers who in their battle rage could not differentiate between friends or foes, and had to be physically restrained at the end of a battle until it was safe to release them, when the battle rage had left them exhausted to the brink of death.

    The first sign of a Troll Berserker is the biting of his shield while he froths at the mouth. The howl that erupts from his throat is beastly, and then he attacks without feeling the blades that tear at his flesh. Though he runs mad with rage, he knows the difference between allies and foes.

    In the heat of battle, the Dwarf Berserker is gripped by fury and howls like a wild animal, bite the edge of her shield and goes mad with blood rage. She can smell fear like a rabid wolf and pounce upon those of her enemies that fear her the most.

    The Human berserker is a warrior who during battle enters into a deadly rage. They feel no pain from wounds inflicted upon their body, they keep attacking until the last enemy lies dead and often do not remember the battle afterwards. Their enemies are not safe in battle, though their allies can fight safely by their side.

    Beware the Giant Berserker, her madness comes from her thirst for battle and her ferocity is gargantuan. Enemies scatter before her, and in her rage she targets them with a frenzy unknown to most.

    We end this dev diary with three of the Berserker’s unique abilities:
    Protective Presence - Increases the Armor of all squad members by 2. Lasts 3 turns.
    Break Armor - Deals damage equal to 80% of your Melee Damage and 150% of your Melee Pierce.
    Powerful Strike - Deals damage equal to 125% of your Melee Damage. Reduces your Armor by 25% for 1 turn.

    And a teaser picture of the Giant Berserker:


    I hope you have enjoyed this Dev diary about the mighty Berserker, and come back next week for more!

  6. #6
    I'M NOT A BIRD, YOU KNOW! Avatar von noxx-0
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    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    This is developer diary 13 for our upcoming RPG Runemaster, and the hero class in focus this week is the one who has given its name to the game - The Runemaster.

    Odin, the Allfather, hanged himself from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, pierced by his spear Gungnir. During these days and nights Odin learned the wisdom of the runes, which gave him power in the nine worlds. Each day he learned two magical songs, and each night he learned two magical runes. Odin survived this sacrifice to himself, the highest of the gods, and learnt the secret of the seidr, the magic that imbues every creature and being in the nine worlds. Odin has been known to be munificent with his knowledge and thus, slowly and surely, a few select individuals called Runemasters gained power over the runes. The runes wielded by the Runemaster may protect the troops and conjure damaging Fireballs or Thunderbolts. The Runemaster can coax and change the nature of the battle, weaken the enemy side, strengthen their own or lay devastating damage on the enemy with the help of the runes.

    With the use of certain runes, the Dwarf Runemaster can increase the discipline of his squad, decrease the enemy squad's discipline or cast a fire rune upon a target that injures both the target and the surrounding troops.

    The Troll Runemaster can put a protection on her troops, coax and change the nature of the battle, weaken the enemy side, strengthen the own or lay devastating damage on the enemy with the help of the runes.

    The control over runes gives the Lightelf Runemaster the power to protect her troops, damage her enemies and put terror into their hearts.

    The Darkelf Runemaster can use the carved runes as he desires. One word shields his troops, another kills with fire, while the third breaks the enemy and sends them crying into the darkness.

    We end this dev diary with three of the Runemaster's unique abilities:
    Rune of Courage - Increases the Discipline of all squad members by 25%. Lasts 4 turns.
    Rune of Fire - Deals damage equal to 100% of your Spell Power.
    Rune of Fear -Reduces the Discipline of an enemy unit by 25%. Lasts 5 turns.

    And a teaser picture of the Lightelf Runemaster:


    I hope you have enjoyed this developer diary about the powerful Runemaster, and come back next week for more!
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hi everyone!
    We know many of you have been waiting for more information about the combat system in Runemaster and this week we'll share some of that information with you.

    To start off, let's talk about how armies are structured.

    As you already know, combat in Runemaster is turn based tactical combat. You move your character freely in the world until a combat is initiated, for example from a guard blocking your path. You're then taken to a hex based battlefield where your individual units each occupy a single hex. Hexes can have different height and terrain and your units benefit from having high ground when fighting the enemy. Your hero takes active part in the combat fighting side by side with your other units (and in some cases alone).

    Old news.
    Now onto something new!

    SQUADS
    The units in an army are divided into squads and squads are used, among other things, to decide what units can be activated at any given time. If two armies fighting each other have the same number of squads, the armies will take turns activating one squad at a time (in an order decided when the battle starts). Should one army have more squads than the other, those extra squads will activate at the end of an activation cycle. When a squad is activated, its units can be act in any order. It's also possible to start moving one unit, then switching to a squad mate, move that unit and then continue with the first unit. This allows for more flexibility and cooperation between units from the same squad and also opens up for more complex maneuvers. Units from the same squad will also set up next to each other at the start of a combat.

    BANNERS
    Banner items are a certain category of items that can be equipped by a squad. Banner items give similar benefits that items used by the player character gives, but to all units of that squad. To maximize the effects of a banner you might need to restructure your army.
    Some units have abilities that benefit all members of a squad which further impacts what units to place in the same squad. Non-player armies are free to organize their squads in whatever fashion they (usually a scripter or an AI) choose but the player has some restrictions:
    • A maximum of five squads.
    • No more than three ordinary units in a squad
    • Either the main character or a banner item
    This means that the largest army a player can field will be 16 units strong.
    The main character is not considered a standard unit and can attach itself to any squad prior to the battle, extending the maximum size of that squad to four. Not only will this make that squad 33% larger than the others, but each class also have one or more abilities that will boost all members of the own squad. Not having the main character in a squad allows that squad to equip a banner which can be better at enhancing stats used by certain units or make up for weaknesses of certain units.

    The screenshot for today shows your army management screen where banners are equipped and units placed in squads. The formations shown are the formations that units will be placed in when entering the battlefield. Remember that this is still pre alpha and all numbers graphics are subject to change.



    Ps. Read all the devdiaries here:
    http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...-Diary-Archive
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hi everyone!
    Last week's Dev Diary we presented some info on how armies are structured and used. Today, we'll tell you how to raise those armies. And we'll go into the reputation system, as well.

    Units are recruited in two ways. You can either go to a barracks structure or you can broker a deal with a NPC.

    Barracks
    The barracks are the primary location for recruiting new units. Each city has a barracks where units of the same race as the city can be recruited. There may be hidden barracks in more uncharted areas of the map, though, so keep your eyes open. There’s a limit to how many units of each type can be recruited from barracks. Some quests can unlock new unit types and increase the number of units of an existing type that you can recruit from a certain barracks.

    Not all barracks will offer you troops, however. Each barracks is tied to a faction in the game and only barracks of the factions that have reason to like you will open their doors for your character. So if you complete quests for characters from a hostile or neutral faction, one possible ancillary reward is that the barracks of that faction will open their services to you.

    NPC
    Some NPCs are just sellswords and will offer their services for a price. Others will join you as a quest reward or they might give you an exotic unit of some kind if you help them. Units gained from NPCs are standard units but can start at a higher level than those units recruited from barracks. Some units can only be acquired from NPCs.

    Reputation
    In Runemaster, it's important to manage your actions so you can keep your reputation high with those factions that are important for you. Where you stand between Change and Stability can be considered a special faction, since that decides which side you’re helping during your journey towards Ragnarök. If you go too far towards Change, you're considered a collaborator of Loki and you'll have a hard time being allowed to help Thor at the end of the game. If you tend too much towards Stability, then you're considered an ally of Thor and it will be difficult to set Loki free when the time comes. If you balance it right, even the gods won't know which side you're on until the final moments.

    Besides this struggle between Change and Stability, there's one faction for each race and every race also has three sub-factions that can become important when deciding which side to support in the internal power struggles and politics within a specific race.

    The Troll faction for example, has the following three sub-factions, representing the changes that are already happening within Troll society:
    Settlers who want to settle down in villages and have a peaceful relationship with the humans and are curious of their ways.
    Wanderers who want to keep the old nomadic traditions and stay away from humans as long as humans don’t threaten them.
    Maneaters who see mankind as prey and will eat humans if given the chance.

    So you can have generally a good reputation with Trolls, but even within the Trolls you may have made powerful enemies.

    Factions have relationships to each other which will cause your reputation to change with other factions if it changes with one. Trolls and Humans are considered hostile to each other, for example, so if you gain reputation with the Trolls, you may lose reputation with the Humans. And if the Trolls don't like you, then the Humans probably think you're doing something right; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This means that it can be really difficult to be a friend of both Humans and Trolls at the same time, you'll have to make choices. Strong friendships with both sides of opposing factions will be impossible, but you might be able to make each side tolerate you.

    To give you a little taste, here's the Reputation screen as it looks now (Alpha):


    Keep your axe sharp, but your wits sharper!

    And make sure to read all the previous devdiaries here:
    http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...-Diary-Archive
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hi everyone!

    So will you choose to seek out change for those that crave it or will you aim to keep status quo - for good or bad? For this developer diary for for our upcoming RPG Runemaster, you don't have to choose. Because no matter what side you choose, you will have to fight. In order to win battles, you will have to recruit and customize your units and direct them in combat to make your army an invincible force.

    As you probably know by now, in battles your hero will be moved from the world map and into a battlefield when you encounter enemies. The battles of Runemaster will be turn-based, tactical battles based on a hex grid system made up of different terrains and contains height differences such as hills where your troops gain bonuses for high ground. Your hero will join the army and take active part in combat as a unit on the battlefield and the battles you fight will be tied to quests and their outcome will matter to your story. In this developer diary, I'll explain some of the basics of the combat system. Remember that we're still in an Alpha stage of the game and much of what you learn here can still change until release.

    Move and action
    Units move first and can then perform an action. Performing an action will end the activation for the unit. Attacks and abilities are considered actions. As a result you cannot engage in combat and then move away from the enemy.

    Line of Sight
    Attacks and many abilities requires line of sight to the target. Friendly units do not block line of sight, but hostile units do. This means that your spear throwers can stay back and fire at the enemy while being protected by your melee units, but they cannot fire at the enemy's spear throwers hiding behind their melee units. Most battlefields also have hexes that are blocked from movement and line of sight, such as large rocks, tents or larger structures like towers. Some abilities such as the Runemaster's Blocking Rune, can add temporary blockers to the battlefield to create choke points or to shield armies from line of sight from certain positions.

    Zone of Control
    Units consider all adjacent hexes as their zone of control. If a unit enters the zone of control of a hostile unit, their move will automatically end regardless of how many movement points they still have left. It's still possible to move through another unit’s zone of control, but only one hex each turn. This makes it easier to protect second line units from melee attacks by spreading out a couple of front line units. Some abilities such as the human cavalry unit's charge can ignore the zone of control and penetrate deeper behind the enemy's lines.

    Armor and Health
    The basic stat for a unit's survival is health. When health goes to zero or below the unit is removed from the battlefield. Many units also have armor. All attacks deal both health damage and piercing damage. Health damage damages health and piercing damage damages armor. A unit that has armor will not take any health damage until all armor has been removed. The attack that removes the last armor will deal 50% health damage as well. Some units are specialized in dealing either health or piercing damage making it important to combine different unit types to maximize performance of your army.

    Terror and Discipline
    Apart from dealing damage, most attacks also deal terror. Terror accumulates in a unit and each time new terror is added, the total terror + a die roll is tested against the unit's discipline to see if the unit panics. Panicking units will use one turn to move away from the closest enemy and the next turn to rally at the new position. Units recover some of their accumulated terror each turn. Armored units do not take any terror until they actually take health damage from attacks, but some abilities deal terror only damage and ignore the armor of the defending unit.

    High Ground
    Using height differences is one important tactical feature in Runemaster. Attacking a unit at a higher height gives the defending unit a defensive bonus, reducing all damage by 25% (this number has not been balanced yet) making it stupid to try to trade punches with a unit that has high ground. Attacking a unit at a lower height will give the attacking unit a terror bonus making it more probably that the defending units panic and flee.

    That's it for this weeks developer diary, hope you liked it. I'll be back in a later Dev diary to explain the more advanced combat features and the details that make units from different races act differently!

    And enjoy! Humans vs Trolls on a battlefield:
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hi everyone!

    As you know, a war is coming and no one knows what the outcome will be. Every soul will have to choose side before the end and when the Gods are going to war, you don't want to be the ones caught in the middle – rather be a strong force on the side you choose to support. So how do you make yourself an invincible force? You make sure the men and women in your army are the best that can be found. If they are scrawny and weak when you recruit them, then you need to make sure they become experienced and skilled before Ragnarök.

    Therefore, this week I'll talk some about how unit upgrades work in Runemaster. Some of the details of what I tell you may change before the release, since this is still very much a work in progress, but I can at least give you the gist of the basic design

    All of the units in your army have a level, from one to eight. Most units are recruited at level one and will then gain experience from taking actions in combat. When enough experience has been accumulated, it gains a level and will be ready for upgrading. The unit can then be taken to a "training ground" location where you pay gold to upgrade the unit to the next level. For each level gained, the unit will gain some basic stats depending on the unit and you get to choose between two different bonuses. These bonuses can either be an additional stat increase, a new ability, an upgrade to an existing ability or an increase of sub-unit count.

    This gives you the opportunity to tailor your units to match your play style, while still keeping the micromanagement under control. If you never replace units and get 15 units up to level eight you'll have made 105 upgrade choices which is a lot, but still manageable over the course of a long game.

    Pay the Cost to be the Boss
    Since you have to pay gold to upgrade your units and you also pay gold to recruit new units, a lot of your early game economy will revolve around deciding if you want fewer elite units or more, less effective troops. High level units also cost more to get back in the field if they're wounded or decimated, so it's important to plan ahead and think about how you will use your gold to get the most out of your army. Getting the extra bonuses from higher level units is supposed to make a real difference, and experienced units can do wonders in some situations. But you also don’t want to be so outnumbered on a battlefield that your best warriors go down before they can do any real damage.

    If you pay attention to how the battles are shaping up and changing as you move through the game, your army will go through a range of compositions. A fair sized army of scrubs may work in some situations, a crack troop of elite soldiers in another and later you may find that you need some cannon fodder to give you time to put your hero and best soldiers into position.

    Abilities
    All units in the game start with either an active or passive ability. Active abilities include stuff like calling down a fireball upon your foes or making a cavalry charge to target the enemy’s ranged units. Examples of passive abilities are inflicting bonus damage from flanking attacks, defensive bonuses to neighboring friendly units and damage each turn to neighboring enemy units.

    Most units can also gain one or two abilities from upgrades which will further specialize that unit to serve a special purpose. Perhaps your archers gain the ability to fire flaming arrows or your armored units can form a shield wall. Other upgrades will improve a unit’s base ability or reduce the focus cost for using it, so that you can use it more often.

    Sub-unit count
    Units start with a set number of sub-units - a Shieldmaiden unit may be composed of three Shieldmaidens, for example. Each sub-unit is displayed on the battlefield with a 3D-model. Some of the stats of a unit are multiplied by the number of sub-units; losses will make a unit weaker, in other words. Sub-units that fall in battle need to be "revived" or replaced at a cost if you want to get the unit back to full strength.

    Units of different races start out with a different number of sub-units. It takes fewer Giants to make a battle worthy unit than it does Dwarfs, for example. Choosing between adding sub-units to a unit or buying something else as an upgrade is another important spending decision - a small elite unit with a special ability or a stronger basic unit. Some stat upgrades will add an extra sub-unit to a unit.

    So there's another combat focused developer diary. Let us know what you think and feel free to ask about anything that’s unclear!

    PS. Don´t miss the "Let's talk about Runemaster" - livestream this Thursday at 15:15cest
    http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...y-at-15-15cest

    Here's a screenshot of a group of Raiders and their "training ground":
    Zitat Zitat von SolSara Beitrag anzeigen
    Hello everyone!

    Summer is here and that means vacation time! Parts of our team are leaving the worlds of Runemaster to search for sun and warmth in the Swedish summer. Some have already found it, while others are awaiting their turn. To keep you in suspense over the summer, we will post dev diaries every other week up until August 25th and then we'll return to our usual weekly schedule. Now, enough about the beautiful weather that is trying to lure us out of our development caves. This dev diary will talk about one of Runemaster’s six worlds: Midgard.

    The Races of Midgard
    Each of the worlds in Runemaster is shared by two races, and in Midgard you will find the Trolls and the Humans. They share the world grudgingly, and are not fond of each other. Though the Humans and Trolls share a common language, their cultures and traditions - including their beliefs and ruling systems - differ greatly.
    The hardships of Midgard have made the Humans grow hardy and strong. They till and hunt for food, toil to build shelter and aspire to simply make the world a little bit better for their offspring. They are the dominant race of Midgard, beloved by the gods.

    The Trolls move freely from place to place, between Midgard and Alfheim, bringing only the most necessary things with them. They are a traditionally nomadic race and build no permanent shelter. Though they have cattle and other herd animals, they do not farm or grow crops. This wandering lifestyle naturally puts them at odds with their human neighbors who mark borders, build walls and improve the land.

    The Creation of the Worlds
    Before any world existed, there was only the gaping abyss of Ginnungagap, a place of silence and darkness that lay between Muspelheim, the region of fire, and Nifelheim, the region of ice. Frost and fire from the two regions met in the middle and created the being Ymir, whose sweat turned into Giants. He nursed from the cow Audhumbla, who licked the salt from the ground and uncovered Buri, grandfather of Odin.
    When Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve were old enough, they killed Ymir and constructed the worlds from the remains of his body. Ymir’s blood became the oceans, his skin and muscles the soil, his hair the vegetation, his brain the clouds and his skull the sky. When they were done, the gods took Asgard as their realm and had Midgard made from the great giant Ymir's eyebrows as a defense against the Giants that had taken residence in Jotunheim.

    A great ocean surrounds Midgard and underneath its surface lies the great Jormungandr, the World Serpent, whose body encircles Midgard. It is said that Odin threw the serpent into the ocean when Loki presented his three monstrous children, including Jormungandr to the gods.
    The world tree Yggdrasil unifies the nine worlds, with one root stretching down to Asgard, the realm of the Aesir; one to Jotunheim, realm of Giants; and the third to Nifelheim. Midgard lies in the middle, between Asgard and Jotunheim.

    Midgard was a very empty place, little more than a buffer zone, but the gods decided to create the first two humans from two tree trunks so they could fill it. The first humans were named Ask and Embla and given Midgard as their realm. The origin of the Trolls is more obscure. Most Trolls are convinced that they are related to the Giants, which is something the Giants deny and do not wish to talk about.

    The Climate and Creatures of Midgard
    Of all the worlds, Midgard resembles Scandinavia the most, with its thick pine forests, marshes, mountains and fields. Though being a bit harsh in climate, it pales in comparison to the other worlds. Midgard is a very fertile world, and only Alfheim and Asgard are more prosperous. Crops grow in abundance, although the soil might be salted with rocks and roots. It is a struggle to keep crops and animals, but few, if any, humans risk starvation. The forests and plains are plentiful with berries, nuts and edible roots, the rivers teem with salmon and other fish. Hunters can live off their trade, as they have few competitors over the elks, rabbits and deer that live in Midgard. Only wolves and bears threaten their livelihood.

    Midgard is home to your typical range of wildlife, from boars and wolves to stags and goats. Larger creatures of legends like dragons, wyrms and giant spiders are not an uncommon sight in Midgard, although they are more elusive than the ordinary animals.
    In Runemaster, you can choose to start in Midgard with either of the two local races. Humans are allied to Thor and will seek to maintain the balance in this world, a balance that has served them well since the blessing of the Aesir have helped them flourish for centuries. Trolls, on the other hand, are loyal to Loki, and, like him, seek to upend the status quo that see them pushed to the margins of Midgard. Your choice - and you will always be able to choose - is whether to fight Loki and stop him from bringing about Ragnarök, or go against Thor and stability, to help birth a new world for all.

    If you have any questions for us about Midgard, we will try to answer them whenever we can. As summer has finally come to Sweden, we might be affected by the Sun’s warmth and be a bit more sluggish than usual. We hope you will join us again on Monday in two weeks, to learn more about the Humans of Midgard.

    Here's a screenshot of Midgard:


    Bonus: Paradox Live 0008 - A first look at Runemaster

    Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zv22RlMMQ

  7. #7
    Ad Astra Avatar von Ronnar
    Registriert seit
    27.10.08
    Beiträge
    3.258
    Da die Information hier bisher fehlt: Die Entwicklung von Runemaster wurde bereits Anfang Dezember eingestellt.

    Der Paradox-Ausflug in die Welt der Rollenspiele ist damit vorerst verschoben.

  8. #8
    Registrierter Benutzer
    Registriert seit
    18.12.13
    Beiträge
    914
    Schade ... das Spiel, auf welches ich mich am meisten gefreut habe. Hätte Paradox wohl angestanden, es mal mit einem anderen Genre (RPG) zu versuchen.

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