This is the reason why I didn't back it. For the money they asked they are promising too much and I fear even if they add this reactivity and it is truly good, graphics/animations or combat/character system will suffer.
I understand your concern but its (un)wishfull thinking to say that they will put too much effort into reactivity while neglecting combat/character system. In fact they hinted the opposite saying they want "something new" with character system (while using things from UU). So I would be more afraid about some "exaggerate" innovation. If they want some reactivity there its good that they design it right now from the start. Now they still can try things which will or wont work.
And combat system will be probably close to original UU. I would assume some diversity regarding different types of weapons (difference between sword and mace etc.).
Kordanor said:
Sounds like a nice idea but I also don't think that the full implementation of such a system is realistic.
What do you mean by "full implementation"? Of course there will be limitations. Sets of behaviour of NPCs will be always limited and number of solutions too. You can ask yourself how many solutions "destroyed bridge problem" can have in Underworld settings. I also doubt that important NPCs will be killable and will travel around the world. It would be very bad approach that would cause big problems to the game and have almost zero benefits - player can hardly see or notice that some NPC travel big distances and if he does, its usually in annoying situations like when player needs to find such NPC.
Regarding the videos I think they will play with several obvious approaches:
- hire NPC to do something for a quest or money or good reputation (several immortal NPCs for crucial things)
- usefull NPC behaviour - for example if you destroy important bridge and cut the village from outside world the people should repair it for their own good
- charm monsters or people (different effects on different beings, can be limited)
- levitate, big jump (limited usage or spell time)
- swimming (limited by design of rivers and lakes)
- simulation of water streams - they already said you could make dams from boulders so it could be tricky… but you cant create perfect dams from crude boulders so they can limit the effect
- special spells (melt the ice, walking on lava etc.)
- using special objects in game world (not many objects like this)
- using special items on objects in game world (how many such items? how many reactive objects? Again it will be limited but even in "limited state" it should allow more solutions and more diversity than most other RPGs)
In our possible future interview I asked about that (using hammer and chisel) so we should see the answer.
