Anyone else worry?

[Spaceman Spiff]

Either way, the cool thing about us is that we really listen to you people! If Book I is not what you wanted, let us know how we can improve the system for Book II.

One thing I am not sure I have see you comment on is the possibility of Patches and updates to Book I. I know you will be busy with getting the orders out for those people who got the CD, and the Mac and Linux versions.

But if I may share from my experience: nothing... No matter how much testing you do before launch, prepares you for the feedback and what will be discovered when your game actually goes on sales and thousands upon thousands of people are playing it. (the sales numbers may vary, but the song remains the same).

You will have a lot of feedback to sort through (in addition to technical support), and 96+% of it will be of little value, but that small percentage of valuable feedback and reporting will be there.

And when it comes to patches, bugs and the like, the best thing you can do is keep the community informed. I had the unfortunate experiences of having to sit on a patch to one of my games for over six months (despite multi-million sales) because of our publisher. I had discussed the patch online and word spread and players were expecting it.. and I got reprimanded for talking about it. So I couldn't explain why it was waiting limbo (publisher bitching about cost, localization) while our closest competitors kept releasing updates promptly as needed. Needless to say, our development studios' reputation took a hit.

(Spiff sighs when he thinks about that, and the unreleased mega patch to that game full of gameplay upgrades)

[quasimodo]

I'll buy the game on monday.
I followed the development for a long time and I think BW worked hard to build waht many of us expected: a good old school rpg.
And I want to encourage and support this independent game developer to continue to follow this line.
Perhaps Eschalon book will be better than Book I, with enhanced grphics, party based gameplay, more cinematics, deeper story, etc.
But we must support the efforts of independents if we want to play something better than console-ish pc games.

For what I've learned roaming this forum, I found many other real RPGs entusiasts and Thomas talked with everyone giving and taking hints, ideas,etc.

Thi is waht I call a professional approach. And this is what gives me some strong point to believe this game will be a good product.

Yes what he said. I will be buying this game monday, and if I like it I can think of a few people for whom I will buy it as an Xmas gift.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Yes, yes, of course we will follow up with support and patches as needed! There is not a lot of bureaucracy to Basilisk Games, so I can promise everyone lots of ongoing communication on what happening here in the studio.

[PhilosophiX]

Well not that it matters much but I just thought I'd give my own humble opinion, I'm not worried at all about Eschalon living up to my own expectations, I'm sure it will be a great game, just from everything I've read on the forum and from the screenshots and video.

I am worried about the fact that my internet connection at home suddenly has stopped working, but rest assured I'll be buying it the second it's released even if I have to come out to Starbucks to do so. hehe

[LTRPGER]

What, me worry?

Of course not. I've been unexpectedly disappointed and unexpectedly pleasantly surprised with so many CRPG's over the years that when I buy a new game I just automatically "hope for the best, but expect the worst." Finding the gems more than makes up for encountering the stinkers. Let's all hope that Book 1 is one of the gems!

It's worth mentioning that TOEE is the game that I am currently playing. For those of you who were disappointed with the original version, I suggest that you give it another try with the massive "patch" available from Circle of Eight. The word patch is in quotes because it not only fixes most of the problems with the game but also adds a lot of new content. And, as someone above said, TOEE's turn-based combat system is truly excellent.

The first two CRPG's I played were Might & Magic 1 and Ultima 5, both on an Apple 2e. What I liked most about those games is that they were hard. M&M 1 actually had a vital clue that was revealed only by sketching out the map of an area. I'm looking forward to the promise that Eschalon Book 1 will remind me of those and other early games.

[citizendragon]

I think we've made a very, very good RPG. Our strong points are a very deep character development system, turn-based combat, an openly explorable world and an interesting storyline that has surprised several of our testers. To put it bluntly, I made the type of RPG that always appealed to me.

Hi BW....Congrats on your soon-to-be released work!

If I may ask, are you happy with the final results of the game? Does it play like the RPG game that has always appealed to you...are you pleased with the gameplay?

Thanks and I look fwd to playing monday.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Good question, citizendragon. Yes, I really am happy with the way the game turned out.

The cool thing is that we actually did get in everything that we wanted to. There was nothing left on our "feature wish list" to add. Having said that, I do wish we had another year to expand the game world and add more creatures/NPCs/quests. I really wanted a huge game world, not just a big one.

Some people may ask "well, why not take another year and make it the best game possible?". The answer is: because of Book II. We could either spend one more year making Book I marginally better, or a whole year getting Book II closer to completion...and honestly, I have some really cool ideas for Book II that I can't wait to get started on!! [edit] And let me add, I really am looking at all three games as a single project. If Book I was all we were going to do, I would have definitely expanded the game more, at least to encompass more of the world of Eschalon.

[PhilosophiX]

I know I'm a pain, and Eschalon Book I isn't even out now... but how long are you planning to spend on Book II? From what I read above; at least a year... does that mean we might see the next installment in time for Christmas next year or would it be closer to summer 2009 (factoring in the work you might still be doing on Book I for Mac and Linux)? I know there's no way you can give us a figure since you've not got far enough into development, but I'm sure you'll have a rough plan?

[DemonWizard]

LTRPGER, what patch are you refering too cause theres a couple patches, and im not sure witch to get i downloaded patch 3 but theres patch 3.0.4 and mods im confused.

[BasiliskWrangler]

PhilosophiX:

You mention work on the Mac/Linux: I can tell you that the Mac version is basically done. We will get a few people to test the Mac version this next week and we should have it ready to go before Christmas (remember, the Mac version shares 99.9% the same code base, so any bugs fixed during the PC test were fixed on the Mac as well). The Linux demo will be out soon too.

Anyways, the rough plan for Book II is to just get working on it ASAP and give everyone updates as we go. Some of what was made for Book I will carry over, but not everything. We are not planning on recycling very much material from Book I...I hate sequels that feel more like an add-on pack rather than a new game. Book II will feel like a new game but in the same world. We will be using "version 2.0" of our rule system, adding numerous elements and rules that left out of Book I. Book II will be 2-3 times bigger than Book I.

I won't give any time estimates until we really start on it, but I promise to keep everyone as involved with the project as we did on Book I.

[PhilosophiX]

Thanks for taking the time to answer. That's a lot more information than I thought you'd be able to give us. Sounds brilliant!

[LTRPGER]

DemonWizard,

There are instructions on the Co8 forum, but here are the basic steps as of about a month ago. (I don't know if anything has been updated since then.)

1) Install the original TOEE
2) Install this patch from Atari: TOEE_USA_ANY_PATCH2.EXE. (Do not install any Atari patches beyond patch 2.)
3) Install Circle-of-Eight-Mod-Pack_5.0.0_Final.exe
4) Install Cumulative_Mods_5.0.4.rar

The names above are the file names that I downloaded. There is also a "front end loader" that allows you to select between standard TOEE and the Co8 version (or any other mods) as well as set several other useful options. I think that the front end loader is part of the Co8 mod pack, but if not, check on the Co8 forum for mention of TOEEFE.

Be sure to read the read-me files. One crucial thing that you must do is to turn off "automatic saves at map change."

Good luck,
LTRPGER

[Saxon1974]

PhilosophiX:

You mention work on the Mac/Linux: I can tell you that the Mac version is basically done. We will get a few people to test the Mac version this next week and we should have it ready to go before Christmas (remember, the Mac version shares 99.9% the same code base, so any bugs fixed during the PC test were fixed on the Mac as well). The Linux demo will be out soon too.

Anyways, the rough plan for Book II is to just get working on it ASAP and give everyone updates as we go. Some of what was made for Book I will carry over, but not everything. We are not planning on recycling very much material from Book I...I hate sequels that feel more like an add-on pack rather than a new game. Book II will feel like a new game but in the same world. We will be using "version 2.0" of our rule system, adding numerous elements and rules that left out of Book I. Book II will be 2-3 times bigger than Book I.

I won't give any time estimates until we really start on it, but I promise to keep everyone as involved with the project as we did on Book I.

Have you decided whether your going to re-write your game engine for book II? I hope you use the same engine on the sequel and just improve it and add lots of new features and focus more on game world content.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Well, even if we use this engine, it has to be overhauled in many ways to deal with our plans for Book II. We are working on several technologies right now and seeing what works best.

[Saxon1974]

Well, even if we use this engine, it has to be overhauled in many ways to deal with our plans for Book II. We are working on several technologies right now and seeing what works best.

Gotcha, thanks for the info.