Exploration sucks

[soggie]

I think I just have to get this off my chest. In all my years of playing RPGs, from Darksun to Fallout to Planescape: Torment to Arcanum and beyond, I've never had any problems with walking speed. Darksun occasionally frustrated me because the controls were a little clunky, but that was okay for me because most of the time it didn't break the game flow.

I'm surprised to be complaining about the walking speed in EB2 to be honest. I didn't know it could be so tiring just to walk from one corner of the map to another, and the movement speed has to be blamed for it.

I still believe that adding a speed slider is the end-to-all-problems compromise that doesn't change anything for those who enjoy the current walking speed while at the same time satisfying people like me who enjoys gameplay and plot more than taking a scenic walk in the virtual park.

[Rowanas]

It's the reason I've decided against ever playing a character without magic from now on. the portal spell is just too damn useful not to be used.

[Mod.]

I've never had any problems with speed, except while in heavily forested areas. Even though I get a 1 in performance (which is supposed to be very good), I lag like crazy if I go off the path in wolfenwood or while hunting goliath boreheads. That still didn't stop me though.

It also depends on a person's patience. I've noticed that there is a great variance in the amount of patience between people.

[soggie]

Which supports my call for a animation speed slider even more. Since the factor of "slowness tolerance" in people is a variable, it only makes sense to have a slider in the game for the player to configure the animation speed to their liking.

This is like playing an FPS without the capability to set the mouse look speed.

[KillingMoon]

The speed issue is not something that boils down to a simple 'some people like it slow, others like it speedy, and you can't please everyone' kind of thing.
That bridge idea I threw up a bit earlier was just an example of something that could be done, it wouldn't be a comprehensive solution, of course.

But let me also give another example of what I do not like to see:
In Book II, when I was playing it, after picking up the Crux of Fire, I had actually lost the plot, and didn't know what to do next. It was going through my head that it wouldn't be impossible to go all the way back to Korren, but that's the complete other end of the map, so I dismissed that. I tried several things, but when nothing worked, I posted on the forums to ask what I had to do.
Kreador Freeaxe - who else? - advised me to go back to - yep - Korren! I let a deep sigh, but okay, if it needs to be done...
And what did I walk all the way to Korren for, then? Well, Korren told me to go to the Lorewitch tower and ask for help, and then go to Port Edon for a ferry to Picaroon. That's another full package trip around the whole of Book II's map! Between picking up the Crux of Fire and arriving on Picaroon you're almost doing nothing else but walking. You're picking up a few lines of dialogue and an item, and that's it. Nothing more.

It doesn't need to be like that, games can be designed in a different way. I'm also thinking of how our character is always hopping to new towns and new people to meet for story advancement. Our hero slaughters some dragonels for a farmer, then moves on, farmer is out of the picture. Same with Ada, Travet and other npc's. Our character finishes a task for them and that's it, end of story. We don't get to learn more about those npc's, no depth gets created, and our character moves on to the next village for new encounters.
What we don't see is that our character is actually getting to know npc's, and learning more about them as he gets more involved with them. We don't get quests that, upon solving, unlock other quests that make us learn more about this world we are exploring.

I would like to see a bit more of that, and yes, I think this is related to the problem this thread is about, very much so. Villages like Eastwillow and Everdale are becoming a closed book early in the game, and they just become spaces that need to crossed, rather than places to engage with.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Kreador Freeaxe - who else? - advised me to go back to - yep - Korren! I let a deep sigh, but okay, if it needs to be done...
And what did I walk all the way to Korren for, then? Well, Korren told me to go to the Lorewitch tower and ask for help, and then go to Port Edon for a ferry to Picaroon. That's another full package trip around the whole of Book II's map! Between picking up the Crux of Fire and arriving on Picaroon you're almost doing nothing else but walking. You're picking up a few lines of dialogue and an item, and that's it. Nothing more.

But that is why there is a quick-travel feature. Get the Crux, QT to Raven's Gate, QT to Port Kuudad, then you have to walk only 1 screen north (which takes about 1 minute in real-time). Sure, getting to Lorewitch takes a bit of backtracking...QT to Broken Blade, then walk 3 screens Southeast.

There is walking involved to reach certain areas for the first time, but after QT points are found, nothing of importance is really more than a maximum of 1-3 screens away. The position of the QT points was specifically designed for players who don't want to walk.

I don't say these things to "justify" the design of the game- I actually enjoy the aspect of walking, exploring, and mapping. In Morrowind, despite the ability to QT between cities, I always walked. It's just what I like to do, and so that is the way we designed Eschalon.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

In the case of the Crux not giving you the Return to Korren quest, I think that's an issue that's been reported if you skip the Sparrow part of the quest.

As for the walking speed, watching that video JL linked is painfully slow. I've never experienced anything like that. On my machine the game runs easily 2-3 times faster than what's shown. If people are actually experiencing that kind of slow walking, I can understand the frustration, and I'd have to think it's an image driver or graphic RAM conflict somewhere.

As for Killing Moon's other issue, I agree with what someone else mentioned somewhere that there should be more places where there are fast exits like the one from Lorewitch. Certainly the Thieve's Arcadia should have a back door. I can't imagine Zeblin wanting to walk all that way every time he wants to slip out and stab somebody. Remember in Book I, there were other passages that became available through play, like the teleporters in Crakamir. Things that saved you from having to walk the whole distance every time, but that you could do without if you wanted to go exploring.

With the engine pretty stable and the great new features, I hope that it gives BW more time to do those sorts of things more in Book III.

[Painted Lady]

Regarding walking speed, I had the same problem when I first started playing Book II. I eventually figured out the problem was with my four year old Mac - it just didn't have the horsepower to properly do the job. The problem was especially severe in forests - the game slowed to a literal crawl.

I recently got a new Mac and all sorts of things I do are a whole lot zippier - especially Eschalon. Walking speed now is just fine.

[xolotl]

Remember in Book I, there were other passages that became available through play, like the teleporters in Crakamir.

Weren't those basically making up for the lack of QuickTravel inside Crakamir? If I recall properly, you're not allowed to QT from inside there...

[Painted Lady]

Remember in Book I, there were other passages that became available through play, like the teleporters in Crakamir.

Weren't those basically making up for the lack of QuickTravel inside Crakamir? If I recall properly, you're not allowed to QT from inside there...

Weren't the teleporters basically a Goblin invention? Since the goblins don't control land areas in Book II, it would make sense that their teleporters aren't there either. I always thought it was lots of fun to hop on one for the first time and wonder where I was going to wind up.

Ooops, guess I just remembered Erubor's teleporter in Shadowmirk

[KillingMoon]

In the case of the Crux not giving you the Return to Korren quest, I think that's an issue that's been reported if you skip the Sparrow part of the quest.

That was me who reported it. I didn't know yet the game was more informative when you had followed the Sparrow route.
When I gut stuck I actually killed Sparrow to see if that would perhaps unlock clues, but it didn't. Probably because I had already been in Hammerlorne. I found out I had missed out on two quests, Sparrow + entering Hammerlorne - when you pick the lock to get into Hammerlorne you're failing the Hammerlorne quest as well.
Anyway, when I found out I had to speak to Korren, I returned back to my save where I picked up the Crux, bacause I had always wanted to avoid killing Sparrow, so when I did I wasn't considering that 'real play'.

[IJBall]

In the case of the Crux not giving you the Return to Korren quest, I think that's an issue that's been reported if you skip the Sparrow part of the quest.

I can't remember - Has this issue been fixed? Or do I need to add it to the 'Bug Fixes for v1.05' list?

[Evnissyen]

I like my solution the best.

[Mod.]

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, GMA 950

For me, on the otherhand..a few trees on the screen and it takes roughly 5times longer to travel one screen length due to massive slowdown. I just completely avoid forested areas and exploring near/around them because it's not worth the frustration.

I have a very nice AMD Phenom Quad Core, and 8 gigs of DDR3 ram. The game gets terribly slow in forested areas, and I hate that so much. You need to get those trees optimized or something.

[CrazyBernie]

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, GMA 950

For me, on the otherhand..a few trees on the screen and it takes roughly 5times longer to travel one screen length due to massive slowdown. I just completely avoid forested areas and exploring near/around them because it's not worth the frustration.

I have a very nice AMD Phenom Quad Core, and 8 gigs of DDR3 ram. The game gets terribly slow in forested areas, and I hate that so much. You need to get those trees optimized or something.

All the cpu/ram in the world won't help if the video card can't keep up... try switching between OpenGL/DirectX video modes.