Kingdom Come - Preview @ PC Gamer

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PC Gamer has previewed Kingdom Come: Deliverance:

How Kingdom Come: Deliverance handles choice differently from other RPGs

Choice is one of the most coveted yet elusive aspects of modern game design—no matter how contrived its inclusion. Player agency—or, at the very least, the illusion of player agency—is often reduced to clearly framed, story-defining moments where the player's morals are frequently called into question. Warhorse Studios, developer of first-person historical RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance, is approaching this design challenge from a different angle.

It works under the premise that within a 16 km² patch of sparsely populated 15th century Central European villages, countrysides and feudal keeps, your actions will inevitably have greater knock-on effects than they would in two cities on opposite sides of your typical open-world RPG continent. The compact map includes around 80 quests in total. By sacrificing the RPG sprawl focuses on offering a world where no action—whether it’s a casual haggle with a trader, a scrap with a pub patron, or sparing the lives of the men responsible for your father’s death—is without consequence.

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More information.

 

[booboo]

Hm. So it seems your quests are on a timer of sorts? That's always been something I hate - although it may be a better mirror of 'reality'. I play games to escape and and relax, not to feel rushed. One quest, perhaps, but if its a theme that repeats, that would be a big turn off. Depends how intrusive it is. I also do not like punitive save systems - so penalizing one for saving too often is not something I'd accept.

 

[joxer]

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Maybe I got it wrong, but it feels like you don't have to do something in some way, the game is scripted that some storyrelated things happen in that certain way regardless of your choice via NPC interactions.
For example the story around some blacksmith evolves around him being mugged. If you don't do it yourself, some other NPC will do it instead. You still get some XP or something because you did your "task" in some way, but the poor sod was destined to get robbed one way or another. Just as in real world, a bank is full of money, you decided not to rob it, someone else still will. Or even better example, India banned DA:I because of sex with a horned creature (holy cow insinuation reasoning), EA decided not to sell it through Origin on that market, pirates appeared and are distributing it there instead of a legal store. At least that's how I understood it.

 

[Gwendo]

I don't see this concept as quests with timers.

It's just the world doesn't revolve around you. The NPCs and quests won't be stopped in time waiting for you to appear and trigger them. This is actually cool. You won't feel pressured, because you're playing your story and don't know what would have happened if you had done things differently or appeared in a certain place at another time. Only on a second playthrough. This gives the game replayability. And it makes it a more living world, worth to explore.

I hope they can polish it and remove the thousands of bugs and graphical glitches.

 

[booboo]

I don't see this concept as quests with timers.

It's just the world doesn't revolve around you. The NPCs and quests won't be stopped in time waiting for you to appear and trigger them. This is actually cool. You won't feel pressured, because you're playing your story and don't know what would have happened if you had done things differently or appeared in a certain place at another time. Only on a second playthrough. This gives the game replayability. And it makes it a more living world, worth to explore.

I hope they can polish it and remove the thousands of bugs and graphical glitches.

To be honest I don't care about replayability - I have little enough time to play games and want to experience all I can in one play through. I am more interested in good RPG mechanics, strategic combat and, above all, story. It sounds like they have only really worked on a small number of their proposed complex quests…time will tell if they have bitten off more than they can chew.

 

[Zloth]

I expect the save thing is more about keeping you from abusing the system. If you're saving because you want to quit or because you just got done dealing with a lot of stuff that didn't trigger an autosave, fine.

I definitely like the sound of the world going on instead of waiting for me. It drives me nuts when a game tells me that The Horrible Evil is approaching the village and will soon be eating all the little puppies unless you stop it RIGHT NOW - then lets you go off and work on your sword skills for a couple of weeks while T.H.E. takes a break from puppy eating until you're ready.

JRPGs can be even worse as many of them actually provide loads of optional content *IF* you ignore the end game emergency and go poking around in the world. Sure there's a huge comet headed straight for the planet… but it will wait while you go breed some chocobos and use them to explore places even your airship can't reach.