FAQ

[BasiliskWrangler]

Below is an official FAQ, generated from question in our behemoth Q&A thread. Nothing is actually sorted like a helpful FAQ should be, but this is much easier to read and search for your own answers. I will add to it based on future questions asked in the Q&A thread.

Our faithful follower Dragonlady gathered all the questions and I chopped them up to get rid of duplicates and trim the fat, so the Q&A thread is where you can go if you want to read the original question/answer/comments in their unedited form.

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Q: When will the game be in beta stage?
A: Beta testing will happen 6-8 weeks before the release date, which is "when it's done."

Q: What sort of combat system does the game use?
A: Combat is turn based point-and-click. When you click the mouse button on a hostile creature, an attack is assumed and all the rolls are made. The outcome of your turn and the enemy's response is calculated instantly and played out. There are many strategic factors that you need to remember: line of sight, visibility of enemy, and range for example. Increased skill in any weapon improves your chance for critical strikes as well as maximum damage, while increased skill in armor categories increases damage reduction when you are hit.

Q: Can you analyze objects? And can you interact with most of them? (like brake, take, smash and so on)
A: You don't manually analyze objects in the game. Clicking on an object tells you what it is and its apparent condition. If it is trapped, your "spot hidden" ability is checked to see if you actually see the trap or not. If you don't see a trap, your character will assume it's safe (sometimes incorrectly). Everything is as automated as possible while playing. Most of the important objects like doors, chests and barrels can be bashed, disarmed, picked, etc. You can't take chests or barrels with you.

Q: Opposite from combat, how will the game provide for and accommodate non-fighting resolutions to situations?
A: This is old-school RPGing, so combat is a big part of the gameplay. But it's not hack-n-slash. You can gain skills that will help you avoid combat (through stealth) and if you were careful you could get pretty far without fighting, but your character will advance much more slowly without that source of XP. There will be some situations where combat can be avoided through diplomacy, but that's not really a "feature" of the game.

Q: Can we expect a varied world that rewards exploration?
A: Definitely! Free exploration is a big part of the game. Some parts of the world even exists for "no reason"...meaning, no quest or part of the storyline requires you to visit there. Players will be rewarded for wandering off the beaten path. There are environments that exist beyond what has been shown in the screenshots, so yes, the world is as varied as most RPGs are.

Q: You've mentioned non-violent solutions to quests through diplomacy. Explain.
A: You can gain XP from many of your actions and sources within the game. In a few specific encounters, you can select a more diplomatic solution which is not anymore right or wrong than any other way.

Q: On the topic of XP, is it earned through successful use of skills, or is it predominantly earned through combat and quest completion?
A: Old-school- combat and quest completion.

Q: At the beginning of the game will there be very powerful creatures also? Or at least if you venture off the (main) path?
A: Yes, you can pretty much go anywhere in the world from the very start of the game...that means you can easily encounter creatures beyond your combat ability.

Q: I noticed on the first page discussion about archery. Will you have to carry arrows and when your out of them, tough luck? Or just have a bow and unlimited arrows? Will archery skill cover crossbows?
A: Yes, bows require arrows and when you're out, you're out! Arrows are non-recoverable when shot, but they are generally cheap and plentiful in stores so stock up when you have the funds. There are no crossbows in Book I...watch for those in Book II.

Q: The word "old-school" seems to be used a lot. What exactly does that mean in terms of your game?
A: "Old School" adj. - characteristic or evocative of an earlier or original style, manner, or form.

Old school to us means pretty much any RPG that is pre-Diablo. Diablo (which I do admit I enjoyed) really ushered in the modern action-RPG and power gaming era.

For example: Compare Ultima's open game model, where you are dropped onto a continent and can go in any direction from the very start of the game, to Dungeon Siege which has essentially a railroad, linear map design.

Compare Wizardy's attribute and skill system with most contemporary RPGs, which (for the most part) have significantly reduced the usefulness of character stats and skills. It is assumed that the casual gamer today doesn't want to micromanage their character, and perhaps they don’t, but back in the day you had to if you wanted to be successful. That was playing a RPG.

Oblivion has a system that levels the game with your character, which is such a horrible concept for an RPG that it wrecked the game right out of the box. People were patching this "feature" as if it were a game crashing bug. Might & Magic, on the other hand, had a world that was populated with all sorts of nasties right from the start. If you weren't careful about where you were going, you’d be balls deep in an area that was way above your skill level. Getting out alive was a challenge! But if you could handle it, there were sweet treasures to be looted.

Old school means focusing more on gameplay and less on graphics. It means focusing more on the story and less on power leveling. It means letting the player figure things out for themselves instead of altering the game to fit their play style. And in some ways, it actually means a simpler form of gameplay. That my sound contractive to what I was just talking about, but for those of you who have actually played these older games, you know what I mean.

Q: The ruleset of the game (stats, skills, advancement and XP) is similar to some pen and paper RPG?
A: Yes. Eschalon actually began its life as a PnP RPG system years ago, but it was never published. It was just something I worked on in my spare time.

Q: Are the people animated or are they still pictures like in the avernums?
A: Animated, with a smooth scrolling game window.

Q: Will we be able to make potions through alchemy?
A: Yes.

Q: Food & drink requirements for your character. What's the deal?
A: There is food and drink in the game. Eating does give you a tiny bump in your Hit Points, but there is no requirement for you to eat. Thirst and hunger are not tracked.

Q: What kind of manual are you guys planning?
A: The manual will probably be just a PDF file that is packed with the install file that you can print yourself.

Q: Is Eschalon going to be a PPC/Rosetta solution or a Universal Binary?
A: Yes, it'll be a Universal Binary.

Q: Regarding the world map, is travel going to be a moving dot between locations (like Fallout), or a bunch of defined areas, like Baldur's Gate?
A: Actually, it's more like Ultima. Book I takes place in a province of Eschalon called Thaermore and you can walk everywhere within that province...you don't travel via a "world map". However, in some towns you can purchase passage to another part of the province for that "instant travel" effect, and in at least example that I can think of you can purchase passage to an area outside of Thaermore.

Q: What about resolution of the game window?
A: Book I runs at a lowly 800x600 full screen, or you can run it in a 800x600 window on your desktop.

Q: How are saved-games handled?
A: You may save at any time or place within the game; there are no save-points or restrictions.

Q: How many hours approximately will the main quest take to complete?
A: We are working to make the main quest come in at around 20 hours and have another 20 hours in side quests, so there'll be at least 40 hours of play time in Book I.

Q: Will your character from the first game transfer to the next two games?
A: We are planning on allowing Character transfer into Book II, but we can't make any promises until we start on the next game.

Q: How much time you take to develop the game engine? and how long to make the game itself?
A: The game has been in development since early 2005, though some engine testing was done back in 2004.

Q: Will you be able to create a female character?
A: Unfortunately, that is the biggest drawback of this particular old-school romp...yes, you have to play a male human character. It is just part of the storyline which was written within a certain scope to introduce this gameworld. Book II, we promise, adds in party-play and alternate character races and genders as the storyline expands and grows.

Q: Are you planning to release a demo soon?
A: Same day as the full version.

Q: Will we be able to finish this game without having to resort to "uber" items, like big weapons and amour?
A: Yes.

Q: Will the books have text in them that you can read, or is it more of a "Your character finds a book and reads it and it increases his intelligence skill"
A: Yes, all books have text (some have more text that others).

Q: If we opt to buy the CD version, will we also be able to download a copy of the download version to play?
A: Yes, you can download it after you purchase it (if you want) and the CD will be shipped as soon as we get the first batch back from the duplicator.

Q: What happens to our character if we suddenly decide to go on a killing spree? Do we get sent to jail, have a bounty on our heads, or does the town just spawn an army of guards to slaughter us?
A: If no one sees you or hears you commit the crime, then you can get away with it. If someone hears or sees you commit a crime, they will become hostile towards you and attempt to "bring you to justice". If you kill a quest-critical NPC, the system will notify you of your error, but you can continue to play as long as you want. Crimes are tracked internally, so even if no one knows of your crime, the computer still remembers that you are the type of person that would kill an NPC in cold blood or steal gold from an old lady. This can have various effects on your character at different points of the game.

Q: Will the PC and Mac versions come out at the same time? I have a Mac but can run some game stuff on the PC side of the drive.
A: We have the Mac version running along side the PC version right now, but we will still need to release the Mac version a few weeks after the PC version just because we need to work out a few extra things with the Mac (universal binaries, install package, etc.)

Q: Are the creatures in Eschalon in fixed numbers so that you can hunt certain ones to extinction, or are they generated as needed? Can they reproduce?
A: There's a set number of creatures, but in a few rare cases new ones are generated (for example, random encounters while camping). Generally, a cleaned area stays clean.

Q: Are all your dungeons hand crafted, or does the game use a dungeon generator?
A: Yes, all hand-crafted...no randomly generated dungeons.

Q: Will there be any large scale purchases for those who attain huge amounts of cash, like a hideout?
A: There are some very expensive weapons and armor you can save up for, but no property to purchase. Within the game world there are several little abandoned "houses" that you could claim as your own if you so wanted.

Q: And lastly, will stealing items always give your character a negative alignment point, or only if your seen doing it?
A: The computer always tracks when you commit a crime even if no NPC see you do it, although you can never get caught unless an NPC sees you do it. Stealing does very little to change your alignment, but murder or assault does.

Q: I’m curious how long it takes to level up.
A: You gain levels fairly quickly early on, but then slow down as you get up there. We are aiming for somewhere around level 15 as the maximum a player will reach while playing Book I.

Q: Is there a level cap?
A: The cap for the rule system is level 21, but if you were to peak at the design documents, you'd see some notes for taking characters above this cap for some epic role-playing. Whether or not this makes it in to Book II or even Book III is yet to be seen.

Q: Will you have a hint booklet for the game?
A: Perhaps. No plans yet but that is something that could be assembled very quickly if we decide to produce it.

Q: What happens if your character gets killed?
A: Death = reload since there are no party members to resurrect you.

Q: Once the game is available for sale will Basilisk Games make use of the Newsletter to notify those of us subscribed immediately?
A: Of course!

Q: Any thoughts on also occasionally having checks for other attributes (for instance strength to intimidate someone, show you are capable of something)?
A: No, there is no strength check as to see if you can intimidate someone, but parts of the reputation system are still in there so if you play a more evil-aligned character (i.e. murderous), that reputation begins to follow you around. Some (not all) NPCs will respond to this reputation that you bring with you.

Q: How do you deal with the typical isometric view problem of walls blocking your viewpoint? Do you have fading walls? Do you like to hide things in those corners that we can't see from the overhead map unless we walk over there?
A: Your character can't quite get fully obstructed by walls; you can always see at least the top of your character's head, so you really can't "misplace" him.

Some smaller enemies can get hidden if they are against a wall, but pressing TAB gives a "tactical display" which highlights the location of all enemies/NPCs. This is handy when you can hear an enemy but not immediately see them because they are hidden by a wall. If your mouse touches an enemy/NPC they become highlighted through walls as well.

Also, when your mouse passes over a usable object (chest/door/switch), it is highlighted and will shine through a wall. That said, there are a few instances where we might have hid a chest into a corner that would require a mouse-over to discover its location, but we never put a quest item or important object in a place like that. That would be bad game design.

Q: Will we meet many people in towns?
A: In Eschalon, towns do contain enough NPCs to make them appear to be functional, but they're not as "filled out" as you would expect a real town to be. Shop owners are present, as are guards and other townspeople doing their business. In traditional RPG terms, the towns in Eschalon appear to be very similar in design to most other classic RPGs.

Q: How many different types of music do you have in the game? Does each town or major area have its on background music?
A: We are still adding music tracks so the final count is yet to be determined. Each map (zone) has two music tracks associated with it so you don't get sick listening to the same track repeated over and over. Some zones will share a music track with other zones, but I try to not put the same two music tracks with any two zones.

Q: Are you going to have area specific music? Like combat music, and dungeon music?
A: Yes, dungeons have their own tracks, as do some special locations. Combat doesn't yet, but we may have some soon.

Q: Are there any special items with magic powers that can only be found once?
A: Yes.

Q: Could you say anything how big the downloadable game file will be?
A: Probably around 100-120 MB for the full game, possibly around 50 MB for the demo.

Q: Are there animations on the map?
A: Animations: yes, there are numerous map animations to bring everything to life (fire, rippling water, rolling fog, etc.)

Q: Is the passage of time significant in the game (e.g., through timed quests, or missed opportunities/events that happen in the background while you're dawdling, a la Wizardry VII)?
A: No, mostly because I've never been a fan of timed quests. However, merchant's inventory refreshes every few days, so some game events are time-tracked.

Q: Is there day and night? If so, are there hours when things are open and hours when they're closed (stores, people's homes, city gates)?
A: Yep. Check the screenshots- there is a smooth day/night/day transition. No, we don't close stores at night because that tiny bit of realism tends to annoy most gamers. I have never read a post from a player who says that the added realism of daytime-only shop hours outweighs the convenience of being able to shop when they want.

Q: What is the role of sleep? Do you have to sleep if you're not wounded? Do you get fatigued? Can you sleep on the ground (or buy bedding) or do you have to sleep in an inn?
A: Sleep allows time to past more quickly, so that you heal faster and night can transition into day sooner for people who don't like the added challenge of adventuring in the dark. You never have to sleep if you don't want to, but it does almost become a necessity when you are heavily wounded and don't want to risk another step into an uncharted dungeon on 2 hit points. You can't camp in town (must rent a room at an inn) but you can camp anywhere else as long as you don't hear a creature nearby.

Q: So if you camp in a dungeon, do you set a watch, or is there a chance of being attacked while sleeping in a dungeon? If you sleep in town do the guards just tell you that you can’t, or do they arrest you? Is it possible to get thrown in jail in the game?
A: No, you just start camping and then game rounds start passing at 60 per second. Your HP and MP regenerate at whatever rate per round your body is capable of. You can end camping at any point by pressing any key. Yes, you can get awoken by enemies (random encounters). If you try to camp in town the game just says "it's not a good idea to camp here". As for jail: no comment.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Keeping topic locked, but unsticky-ing it. Most of these questions and answers deal with the game from before it was released.