A Beta Tester's Observations

Ask questions, share hints or chat in general about Eschalon: Book I.
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Fleisch
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Post by Fleisch »

I can't wait for the game to come out!!! Did you do any lockpicking? If so, what was that like? Is there pickpocketing? How much of the environment can you interact with (can you search furniture, etc.?)
Rune_74
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Post by Rune_74 »

Cool observations:)

Any news on the magic system...did your character use spells?
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Fleisch
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Post by Fleisch »

Very grateful for your observations, Gallifrey, and based on your posts here, you were a great choice to do beta testing (I say that because I agree with practically all of your opinions - snicker).

Another couple of questions that occur to me -- did you encounter many magic items in the demo or were they relatively rare? (My preference is that they be relatively rare, at least in early stages of a game, but I'm willing to go with "Diablo-style" too.)

How is the mapping? Can you make notes on the map (about quests, etc., or is there some other quest tracking system)?
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Fleisch
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Post by Fleisch »

Another couple of questions that occur to me -- did you encounter many magic items in the demo or were they relatively rare? (My preference is that they be relatively rare, at least in early stages of a game, but I'm willing to go with "Diablo-style" too.)
Oops, I see you already answered that. Somehow I skipped a post. Never mind. . .
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Gallifrey
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Post by Gallifrey »

Fleisch wrote:I can't wait for the game to come out!!! Did you do any lockpicking? If so, what was that like? Is there pickpocketing? How much of the environment can you interact with (can you search furniture, etc.?)
Lockpicking is of course dependent on the Pick Locks skill, and you need to have Lockpicks in your inventory. When you "activate" an Locked item a window opens up that gives your your percentage chance of picking the lock and if you want to try or not. If you select Yes a nifty graphic pops up of the lock tumblers being manipulated along with a mechanical sound. Picks can break if you fail.
Trap disarming works in basically the same way but you don't need a tool.

There is no pickpocketing, but you can steal from NPCs chests and drawers if you want.
There are things to search, but you can't search *everything*, but most, if not all container type items I saw are searchable.
Rune_74 wrote: Any news on the magic system...did your character use spells?
Magic is gained as a skill, there's Divnation and Elemental, and you learn spells via scrolls. Spells can be cast at different levels of potency, for which you need certain skill ranks. So it's not purely a level-based system.
Spells can be quick-keyed to the number keys. Spellcasting is pretty solid from what I saw of it, complete with some nifty exploding monsters.
There are two spell-casting classes, Magick User and Healer, but any class can pick up spells if they wish to spend the skill points.
Fleisch wrote: Another couple of questions that occur to me -- did you encounter many magic items in the demo or were they relatively rare? (My preference is that they be relatively rare, at least in early stages of a game, but I'm willing to go with "Diablo-style" too.)

How is the mapping? Can you make notes on the map (about quests, etc., or is there some other quest tracking system)?
In the demo there are magic items. You can sometimes find them and a few can be purchased from the local magic shop. They're mostly amulets and rings, and the occasional piece of clothing. I didn't see any magic weapons or armour, those items tended to be graded more in quality than with magical properties.
The magic items provide small bonuses to things like hit points or to-hit modifiers.

Mapping is dependent on the Cartography skill. There's a map that fills in as you travel if you have at least one rank in Cartography, though it's a *very* crude map. The higher your skill the more details are included. There is a map of the area you can purchase but it doesn't show your location or routes or anything like that. It looks more like a map you'd see in an RPG book.

You cannot make notes on the map, but nothing is stopping you from having a pencil and paper beside your keyboard! There is a journal that tracks your quests, however.
Now, I don't know how detailed the automap gets based on your Cartography skill. That's a question for the devs.

As a side note, I'd have to say that pretty much any class or character build you like to play gets a very fair shake in Eschalon. I've played to various stages of completion a Ranger, a Rogue and a Magick User, and none of them felt lacking and with all I felt rewarded for my choice. Add in the ability to basically multi-class and there being no restrictions based on class or non-proficiency, and it's an extremely flexible and accomodating character system.
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. And the sea's asleep and the rivers dream … People made of smoke and cities made of song … Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold!
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Post by Rune_74 »

Thanks for the fast and great reply.
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Post by Ubbax »

Thanks for taking the time to post your insights and impressions Gallifrey it's very much appreciated.

I'm thrilled to see everything is coming together quite well for Basilisk Games and on course for release fairly soon; I would guess sometime within the next 4 weeks.

I'm waiting cash in hand :)

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Post by MarionDeputy »

Galifrey, great review, I have been to the Basilisk's lair a few times and seen the game in action a few times, your description was much better than anything I could have come up with. No one on here will be dissapointed by this game. The Wrangler is a pretty humble guy, he and his team have put a lot of effort into it's making and it shows!!
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Post by corwin »

Great to read something definitive. Now, when will the Demo be available to the rest of us!! :)
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Post by Gallifrey »

Thanks for the kind words over my little write-up! :D
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. And the sea's asleep and the rivers dream … People made of smoke and cities made of song … Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold!
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Post by GianMarco »

what about quest rewards? do they make them worth while?
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Post by gragnak »

Gallifrey.... you are damn lucky!!!!
I hope we can put our hand on the demo soon.
Anyway,
Here are some questions:

- Character detail: how much it changes when you equip new items (clothes, armor, weapons, etc)?
Sound/Video options: I know it's a demo but, how much can we customize the audio/video options in the game? Can you describe some options you found intresting?
- Sound otions: does game sound use 5.1 speaker system?
How does it work the enviromental sound? You hear different sounds if you are near a torch or a river?
- Have you tried to kill guards or npcs? What happens if you do something really bad? How does react the world around you?
- Items/treasure: you say treasure and loot are randomized. I thought some items (strong weapons, armors or other) were placed not randomly. I thought we could look for good old treasure pointed with a red x on the map. Your impression? Item randomization reminds me of nasty hack 'n slash games....
- Can you describe the level of animation of the character, monsters, npcs, environment effcts? Animations are good or tend to be a little repetitive?
- Can you give us your impressions about the level of difficulty related to finding quest objectives? Is it simple to get a quest and find the related target (npc, dungeon, object, etc)? I hope we have not the same Oblivion sys: get the quest --> point to the spot on the map....

Finished for now.

I hope Basilisk can give us the opportunity to test the demo.

Thanks in advance for you answers!
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Post by Gallifrey »

GianMarco wrote:what about quest rewards? do they make them worth while?
The quest rewards in the demo portion of the game are more the sort to just get you up and going than anything else. So yes, they're worthwhile.
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. And the sea's asleep and the rivers dream … People made of smoke and cities made of song … Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold!
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Post by Gallifrey »

gragnak wrote: - Character detail: how much it changes when you equip new items (clothes, armor, weapons, etc)?
The character model starts the same no matter your class, but it does show your equipped armour and weapons. The only thing I didn't notice on the model were helms. It's the primary equipped weapon that shows on the model (you have two weapon slots, primary and secondary, and a quick-switch button that swaps between them) as well as any shield.
Sound/Video options: I know it's a demo but, how much can we customize the audio/video options in the game? Can you describe some options you found intresting?
- Sound otions: does game sound use 5.1 speaker system?
How does it work the enviromental sound? You hear different sounds if you are near a torch or a river?
You can change your graphics renderer (DirectX, OpenGL), Colour Depth and whether you want full-screen or windowed mode. There were no other options that I noticed. Not a clue about 5.1, sorry.
Environmental audio is pretty good. You hear water sounds splashing if you walk through water and such. Mostly, atmospheric audio is handled by music from what I recall. I didn't get a lot of nature sounds and such. Basilisk Wrangler can probably fill you in better on sound specifics. Some of the monster sounds are great, and gave me a nice "old school" feel!
- Have you tried to kill guards or npcs? What happens if you do something really bad? How does react the world around you?
The worst I did was steal from NPCs and if they see you, you get a message saying "(NPC name) has caught you committing a crime!) and they chase you around, but you can lose them. Though they don't forget and will be hostile if you come near them again. I don't know if their hostility diminishes over time, as it's just a demo, so a small time frame.
- Items/treasure: you say treasure and loot are randomized. I thought some items (strong weapons, armors or other) were placed not randomly. I thought we could look for good old treasure pointed with a red x on the map. Your impression? Item randomization reminds me of nasty hack 'n slash games....
Quest items are always in the same spot. I would *guess* that any major artifacts would be static in their positioning, but the demo didn't extend so far as to be encountering things like that.
As for the map, that may be a feature of a higher Cartography skill. I only reached a 3 or 4 in the skill.
- Can you describe the level of animation of the character, monsters, npcs, environment effcts? Animations are good or tend to be a little repetitive?
Animations impressed me, particularly in environmental and "elemental" effects. Smoke, explosions, lights, all look fantastic.
Character and monster models move quite fluidly, they're not stiff or anything like that, and seem pretty realistic.
- Can you give us your impressions about the level of difficulty related to finding quest objectives? Is it simple to get a quest and find the related target (npc, dungeon, object, etc)? I hope we have not the same Oblivion sys: get the quest --> point to the spot on the map....
Well, the demo is four maps and two quests are finishable and it took me just over three hours to play through. So no, it's not simple but not mind-searingly hard.
I had to consult a purchased map as well as my own Cartography-made maps, and dungeons aren't straight-forward point A to point B endeavours. There's no compass or map markers showing you where to go, and so on. You can engage in a lot of "between quest" exploration too.
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning. And the sea's asleep and the rivers dream … People made of smoke and cities made of song … Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold!
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Post by BasiliskWrangler »

No 5.1 surround sound, but we do utilize stereo so that things on the left side of the screen are left-speaker dominate, and vice versa. Ambient sounds are localized (the chatter of the pub, chanting in the temple, etc.) and generalized (birds/crickets for outdoor maps, dungeon sounds for dungeons, coastal sounds near the sea, etc.)

Gallifrey points out two finishable quests in the demo, but there are 5-6 quests in all that you can get within the demo- you just can't finish all of them all because some of the solutions lay outside the boundaries of the demo and you must buy the full game to finish them. We'd like to throw in a third finishable quest in the demo if we have the time.
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